A Wind in the Night

by Barb Hendee

  He slowly pushed himself up with his arms and sat staring at the shriveled husk of the young stag. He waited until his false fever subsided. Then he pulled a small bottle from the pack, poured in the remaining liquid from the cup, stoppered the bottle, and carefully packed everything away.

  Strong and sated, in control of his senses, he headed back for camp, leaving the carcass where it lay. He smelled—heard—the sizzling fish long before he arrived.

  Dawn was not far off.

  However, when the campfire came into sight through the trees, he saw only Wynn and Osha huddled by the fire in close and quiet conversation. Both Nikolas and possibly Shade must be asleep in one of the makeshift tents.

  Chane purposefully crushed a fallen branch under his boot heel.

  At the snap of wood, Wynn looked back and up. “Did you . . . ?”

  “I am fine.”

  He stepped fully out of the trees as Wynn turned her back to him to look at Osha. The elf merely stared into the fire. And as Chane passed by, he could not help noticing the sudden disappointment on Wynn’s oval face, as if he had interrupted something that she wanted back.

  Chapter Ten

  The next few nights proved awkward. Wynn had hoped that time together would push Osha and Chane into a grudging acceptance of each other, but if anything the tension between them increased, and, worse, the farther south they traveled, the more Nikolas withdrew from everyone.

  Wynn began to worry more about him than about Chane or Osha. Nikolas looked more disheveled and haunted each day. She often had to place food in his hands before he remembered to eat.

  When Nikolas had first arrived at the Numan branch of the guild, she’d been off with Domin Tilswith, trying to lay the foundation of a new guild branch on the eastern continent. And then she’d gotten tangled up with Chap, Magiere, and Leesil. Only when she returned to Calm Seatt a year ago did she meet Nikolas Columsarn for the first time, though she’d been too wrapped up in fighting with her superiors to learn much about him. What few comments he’d made had led her to believe he was an orphan—and perhaps he was—but it had surprised her to learn his adopted father was a master sage, let alone the counselor for a duchy in Witeny.

  Wynn sat on the bench as the wagon rolled along the rocky coastal road with Chane silent at the reins. Suddenly there was Nikolas climbing up on her other side to kneel on the bench’s end.

  “We’re getting closer,” he said. “I know this area well.”

  To make things more crowded, Shade shoved her head in on Wynn’s other side and jostled Chane’s elbow as she started sniffing the air.

  “How far?” Osha called from the wagon’s back.

  “We’ll reach Beáumie Keep tomorrow night,” Nikolas answered, his tone making it sound like a sentence after a trial.

  Wynn grew frustrated on the now-crowded bench and tilted back her head to look up at the fading stars. “Dawn isn’t far off. Perhaps we should make camp.”

  “I have been looking,” Chane answered.

  And then Osha was at Wynn’s back and pointing out over her head. “There.”

  Wynn grabbed Shade’s muzzle to shove the dog back. “Would you all please give me some room?”

  As Nikolas and Osha returned to the wagon’s back as well, Wynn saw the outline of a grove in an open space beside the road. Chane turned the horses before she said anything, and soon they were all busy setting camp—all except for Nikolas, who sat on a downed tree as he stared up the road.

  Wynn had had enough. She needed to know more about what they were heading into. Chane, tending to the horses, was a good distance off.

  “Osha, could you gather some firewood? I’ll get Nikolas to help me with the tents.”

  Osha raised an eyebrow, casting a doubtful glance at Nikolas, but he nodded and headed off into the woods. Wynn pulled a heavy folded canvas out of the wagon’s back.

  “Nikolas,” she called, “come grab these stakes and give me a hand.”

  He jumped slightly as if startled. By the one cold-lamp crystal she’d ignited and left on the wagon’s bench, his eyes looked a bit glassy. But, after gathering stakes and rope, he came to her. Shade leaped out the wagon’s back to follow them.

  “The ground looks most even here,” Wynn said, kneeling down.

  “What do I do?” he asked quietly, just standing there beside her.

  Through the darkness she studied the white streaks in his hair.

  “Nikolas . . .” she began, ignoring the tent stakes. “Premin Hawes asked me to deliver some texts to your father, so we’ll probably be staying at the keep for a few nights before heading back. I’d like to know more about the place. Besides your father and the duke, who else lives there?”

  This seemed an innocent enough question with which to begin, but he winced as if she’d asked something painful. Wynn took one furtive glance at Shade and wondered if the dog caught any errant memories suddenly rising in the young sage. In spite of invading Nikolas’s privacy, Wynn rather hoped so.

  “Nikolas?” Wynn prompted.

  He hung his head, and his straight hair fell forward. “The duchess.”

  “The duchess? Then the Duke Beáumie—your friend—is married?”

  “No.”

  Wynn frowned. “His mother?”

  “His sister,” Nikolas whispered. “Sherie.”

  That last word, a name, came out almost too quiet to hear. Before Wynn could figure out how to ask for more about this new detail, Nikolas went on. “My father and Karl . . . they promised me . . . I would never have to come back.”

  Wynn put aside everything about her assignment, the orbs, or possible minions of the Ancient Enemy on the move. She grasped Nikolas’s forearm and pulled him down to kneel beside her.

  “What happened?” she whispered. “I won’t tell anyone else, but please tell me, whatever it is. I can see what it’s doing to you.”

  Shade slipped in close and sat down. Wynn carefully released her hold on Nikolas’s arm, and as she dropped her hand into her lap, she let it slide down to touch Shade’s paw.

  An image flashed into Wynn’s mind.

  She saw a beautiful girl, perhaps sixteen years old, with a serious expression. A mass of blue-black hair fell down her back and shoulders. Her dress was made of dark red velvet, which set off her pale skin and brown eyes.

  Inside that memory passed by Shade directly from Nikolas, Wynn glanced downward, seeing through Nikolas’s eyes into the past moment. Her—his—hand was tightly clasped with the girl’s.

  “Did something happen between you and . . . Sherie?” Wynn asked.

  Wordlessly Nikolas nodded, the white streaks in his hair shimmering under the moon. She waited quietly, hoping Chane would take his time with the horses.

  “We grew up together,” Nikolas whispered. “Me, Sherie, and Karl.”

  A different memory came, something further back than the first one.

  Two children, a boy and a girl, ran along a rocky beach on either side of Wynn—Nikolas—as they squealed and laughed without care. Both had blue-black hair and pale skin. And then the moment was gone.

  “I don’t know exactly when it happened,” Nikolas said. “Sherie and I became . . . more.”

  Wynn clenched her jaw against a gasp as Shade echoed another moment to her.

  She—Nikolas—was kissing the dark-haired girl, once again about sixteen or so. Wynn saw the girl’s eyes open too close to hers—to Nikolas’s—as she caught something of what he’d felt in that moment . . . or perhaps something from her own past told her more of what the young sage had felt.

  It was so intimate, so full of longing, and almost fearful of losing what was in that touch.

  Wynn’s mind spun suddenly as two moments tangled: that of Nikolas’s memory and . . .

  So long ago, believing she might never see him again, she had thrown hersel
f at Osha. She pushed that thought away to remain in control and not have to jerk her hand from Shade’s paw.

  “We were too young,” Nikolas went on, “and too foolish. I was nothing . . . the adopted son of a sage with no money and no title. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

  The memory of him kissing Sherie went on as his hands moved down Sherie’s sides to her hips, and the passion building in the moment stirred the pain of Wynn’s own memory again.

  A door opened—inside Nikolas’s memory—and shattered that reminiscence of Osha, almost to Wynn’s relief.

  Standing in the open door in a wall of masoned stone was a tall middle-aged man with black hair who was dressed in a fine, dark red velvet vestment. His eyes widened in shock, and then rage spread over his angular features.

  “We never thought . . .” Nikolas stammered. “Then one night her father, the elder duke, walked in on us. . . . He found us when . . .”

  Wynn jerked her hand away from Shade’s paw when the memory showed a quick flash in the corner of her sight . . . of a bed in that dim room. A young woman had risen in the dark, clutching a thick quilt, and that was all that covered her.

  It was another moment, another hard breath, before Wynn had enough control to speak.

  “Did he send you away?” she asked.

  But that didn’t make sense. If Nikolas had been sent away for only this, why did he dread returning now? Certainly after years away, and with Karl now in power at the duchy, the matter was long done with.

  “No.” Still looking at the ground, Nikolas shook his head. “The duke arranged a marriage for his daughter—for Sherie—to a wealthy local baron over twice her age.”

  “Marriage? How old was she?”

  “We were both sixteen, but among the nobles it’s normal to marry off female titled heirs at that age, to strengthen alliances and maintain . . . pure bloodlines.”

  Wynn felt the chill in the night sink into her. Witeny had long past given up rule by monarchy, but there were still nobles who clung to the old ways in this country.

  “She and I decided to run,” Nikolas went on. “Karl was two years older and had access to money, so he wrote us letters of travel. He didn’t want Sherie—or me—to be abused that way. He helped us slip out of the keep. He was going to get us to safety and then go back. But . . . somehow his father found out and came after us.”

  When Nikolas’s eyes flickered, Wynn clenched her jaw again and took hold of Shade’s leg.

  She—Nikolas—was running through the forest at night and holding Sherie’s hand tightly, as the younger man with blue-black hair to match his sister’s led the way. Wynn heard them—felt herself—panting with exertion. She didn’t have to imagine the fear of being caught, for she felt it.

  A horse charged out of the trees ahead.

  The young man in front skidded to a halt. Before Nikolas could change directions, the elder duke, with a long dagger in hand, slid from his stomping horse.

  “You ungrateful viper!” he shouted at Wynn—at Nikolas. “This is your thanks for a life in my household . . . to ruin my daughter’s life and bring scandal upon my family?”

  As he strode straight at them, Sherie pulled away, holding out both hands.

  In terror, Nikolas reached out to grab her, to try to get her behind himself. For an instant he lost sight of the old duke as he half turned his back. And then Nikolas saw Sherie’s eyes go wide as she screamed.

  “Karl! No!”

  Wynn—Nikolas—spun, still trying to keep Sherie back.

  Karl and his father were on the ground, thrashing and struggling. At a wet, gurgling sound, the younger man scrambled backward across the forest floor. He then jumped to his feet, and his father lay prone on the ground.

  “What have you done?” Sherie cried. “Karl! What have you done?”

  The old duke didn’t move; his eyes—and mouth—were open and slack. The younger one, Karl, stood staring as he shuddered . . . and the now-bloodied dagger was in his hand.

  Wynn had to let go of Shade again to remain in the present, and Nikolas had put his hands over his face.

  “When Sherie’s father caught us out there,” he whispered, “I think . . . I think he meant to kill me. Karl tried to stop him and . . .”

  “He killed his father?” Wynn asked.

  “No,” Nikolas said, shaking his head vehemently. “The old duke fell on his dagger. It was an accident.”

  Wynn’s eyes fixed hard on Nikolas. In his memories she had seen only Karl rise with the dagger in his hand. What had truly happened in that moment when Nikolas’s back was turned? Any story concerning the elder duke’s death that had been told to those back in the keep would have been at least half a lie.

  Nikolas appeared to truly believe it had been an accident when a son had tried to keep a father from murder.

  “Everything changed,” he whispered. “It was my fault, not Karl’s. I had tried to . . . would have . . . ruined Sherie’s life. Karl told me to run, though Sherie wouldn’t leave with me. Only after I reached the guild of my father—well after—did I learn what he and Karl had arranged for me there. I never heard a word from Sherie since I left.”

  Nikolas closed his eyes and slumped where he knelt.

  “How can I face her again . . . or Karl? How can I sleep in that place and eat at a table with them knowing I was the cause of it all?”

  Wynn didn’t know how to answer. This tale was darker than she’d expected, even given how Nikolas reacted to being summoned home.

  “Does your father love you?” she asked.

  He looked up with visible shock on his face. “Of course.”

  “He’ll be there—I’ll be there,” she said. “I would guess no one who knows any of this has shared the full truth of the secret, and neither will I.”

  Nikolas didn’t say anything, but the tension in his shoulders appeared to ease. Then Shade whined and huffed once, and Wynn glanced aside.

  Chane came toward them, possibly to help with the tents, which hadn’t been set up yet. He looked down at the three of them just sitting there.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  Wynn noticed the sky lightening to the west above them. They needed to get a shelter up for Chane.

  She nodded at him and began unfolding the canvas.

  If it hadn’t been for Shade, she wouldn’t have learned the whole truth even from Nikolas. Something more might have happened on his last night near the duchy’s keep. And there was no telling what had happened since then at Nikolas’s lost home.

  • • •

  The following night Wynn got them back on the road as soon as possible once Chane awakened at dusk. If they were indeed going to reach the duchy tonight, she did not want to arrive too late.

  But the sky wasn’t even completely dark yet when Chane looked up ahead. “I can see the outskirts of a village.” As usual, he was driving the team.

  Wynn couldn’t make out anything that he might have seen.

  “That will be Pérough,” Nikolas said quietly from the wagon’s back. “It’s only the first along this road. We have another league before reaching Beáumie Village below the keep.”

  “The village was named after the family?” Wynn asked.

  “Yes, like the keep,” Nikolas answered, his voice strained. “It might have been called something else once, but the Beáumie line goes back more than two hundred years.”

  The wagon lurched, and Wynn gripped the bench’s edge. Chane pulled up the pair of horses, as the right-side horse had shied and lurched away, almost drawing the wagon off the road. Chane hissed at the team and jerked the reins with more strength to bring the wagon to a halt.

  Wynn lurched forward. She grabbed the bench with both hands as someone grasped the back of her cloak and pulled her upright.

  “What was that about?” she asked.
<
br />   When she looked to Chane, he was glowering over his shoulder and behind her. The grip on her robe released, and she already knew at whom that look had been aimed.

  “A hare,” Osha said from behind her and pointed ahead.

  Shade pushed in on Wynn’s other side, at the bench’s left end, and let out a low-throated growl. Before Wynn could even ask . . .

  “It not right,” Osha whispered in his broken Numanese. “Shade knows, too.”

  Wynn might have been pleased to find Shade more accepting of Osha’s presence, as the two stood close together behind her. But as Shade’s hackles rose, Wynn looked ahead. At first she didn’t see anything but the road in the dark.

  “To the left . . . near the road’s edge,” Chane whispered, and now he was staring as well.

  She followed his gaze . . . and something moved on the road’s packed earth.

  A small, furry creature half hopped, half dragged itself across the road. It didn’t appear wounded, though it favored a rear leg. Slowly Wynn made out that a good deal of its fur had fallen out. Its back looked malformed, twisted, as if it had been born with some deformity. The sight of it made her uneasy, and as it approached the road’s far side, she shuddered.

  When it hobbled into the brush, she spotted something worse protruding from its backside: not a tail, but a shriveled fifth leg.

  “What happening here?” Osha whispered.

  No one spoke, and Chane got the horses started again and drove them onward. In less than a hundred yards, Wynn saw the first huts, made from logs or planked wood with thatched roofs.

  When they rolled through the village of Pérough, only a few people were out and about. But those few seemed in a hurry, as if they did not wish to be outside any longer than necessary, though it wasn’t raining.

  There were several dozen structures, at a guess. One nearest the road had to be a smithy with an attached livery and stables, though Wynn didn’t see or hear any horses. The wagon soon passed a broad area that could have served as an open market when needed. However, Wynn didn’t see any stalls.

  And neither did she see nor hear any animals—no dogs, let alone mules, goats, or cattle brought in for the night.