As for Kacey...she guessed she was still Kacey. Not suddenly gifted with magic, not deprived of it...she even supposed she'd eventually use it, in one form or another. But right now, she felt a little too battered to care about it at all. Reandn was gone, sick and hurting. And her mare was gone, no doubt carried away by the excitement of it all; she hoped the horse had simply returned home, and wasn't off following any damn unicorns.
Rethia's hand squeezed closed on hers. "It's all right," she said. She wiped a fresh tear from her eye, smearing dirt on her face. Kacey couldn't take it; she unrolled her sleeve, pulled the cuff over her hand, and wiped away the dirt on Rethia's face as best she could. Rethia let her, even contributing another tear or too as she said, "Weren't they beautiful?"
"They were wild, and dangerous," Kacey said, fighting to keep the tremble out of her voice and her hands. She stepped back from her sister.
"That's part of their beauty," Rethia said. Her hair was in complete disarray, and she pulled the tie from her braid, shook it out, and retied it in a thick tail at the nape of her neck.
Kacey shook her head. "At least it's over."
Farren said, "I'm afraid it's just the beginning." He extended a hand to Ronsin and helped the man to his feet, relieving him of Reandn's belt knife and handing it over to Kacey.
Kacey looked numbly at the knife, thinking of all it represented. Reandn. Loss. Change. "What do you mean, just the beginning? You've got your magic back—isn't that what you were after?"
"Oh-h, yes," Farren said emphatically, almost endearingly so—although endearing wasn't a word Kacey would have thought to apply to the demanding wizard before now. "But there's a whole land of people who have never felt magic before, and never expected to."
"I don't feel it now," Kacey said, feeling stupid instead.
"Most people won't," Ronsin said miserably. He no longer seemed like the enemy, or like anyone important at all. He was an old man who needed to comb his hair and mend his expensive, torn tunic. "But there will be those who do...the ones with potential. It's going to hit them hard."
"All right," Kacey said, feeling snappish all of a sudden. "So it's not over. I don't much care." She looked around the clearing until she spotted her bridle, and scooped it up. "I'm going to find my horse, and then I'm going to find Reandn. Someone ought to make sure he's really all right." All this magic in the air, and even if she couldn't feel it, she knew he certainly was.
"Don't expect too much from him, Kacey," Farren said, his expression reserved. "We'll walk with you. Your mare's probably at home, anyway."
"Fine," Kacey said. "But I'm not wasting any time about it." With no more ado, she set off at a brisk pace, swinging the bridle by her side. Rethia ran a few steps to catch up with her and Farren was content to fall behind, his prisoner walking alongside and fettered only by his own defeat.
"I expect he hates me, now that I've brought back magic," Rethia said, her voice sad but holding no regrets. Her hair was already coming loose from the tie, and she tucked it behind her ear. "I wouldn't blame him."
"Rethia, no," Kacey said, and then reconsidered. In the end she said it again. "No. He'd have stopped you if he could, but...he understood. He knew that you could—and that you couldn't not."
Rethia said, "I didn't really understand, before. Not until I saw them together. And he came back for me, as much as anything—to do something about Ronsin, even though it meant the unicorns would come." She shook her head. "And then they saved Ronsin's life! It won't be easy for him to come to terms with all that."
Kacey just looked at her, deciding whether to ask saw who together?—and settling on later. She said, "The unicorns saved Sky, as well."
"And you saved him. I wonder if he knows it. He was there, but I don't know if he realizes."
Kacey offered her a patient but skeptical look. She wasn't used to hearing her sister talk about other people, and what they might or might not feel. "Of course he was there, but he was unconscious. He'll never know."
In response, Rethia's expression was surprised, and she opened her mouth—but didn't voice whatever thought she'd had. Instead, after a moment, she said, "He should know. You deserve that much." This time Kacey gave her a sharp look, but Rethia just shrugged. "It's true," she said. "You do. And more."
Kacey suddenly wanted nothing more than to sit down and have a good, exhausting cry—as if she didn't feel exhausted enough already, and stuck walking this road in the late afternoon heat, sweat coming through her light tunic and dust and grime sticking to her face and hair—but she didn't give in to it. She swallowed hard and felt her stubborn look settling on her face, and the set of her jaw change to what Teayo had always called the mulie-face. The day wasn't over yet. When it was...well, then she could have that cry if she still wanted it.
She was the first to see Teayo's cart coming toward them, the horse at a brisk trot, Teayo up front and Tanager at his side—and the little mare tied behind. Hot and tired as she was, she broke into a run herself, nearly throwing herself at the cart so she could reach her father's legs. Teayo leaned down to put his solid strong arm around her, comforting her as only a father could. "And what have you children been up to?" he asked as Rethia reached them. His voice was light, but Kacey heard the concern in it. She leaned into his arm.
"Unicorns," Rethia answered happily.
"So the note said, but I didn't make much sense of it. You, Farren—don't you know you're supposed to keep my girls out of trouble? And who's this?" Teayo jutted his beard at Ronsin; his expression was not welcoming.
"Unicorns?" Tanager said, startled. "You mean you were after magic? And you left me behind?"
"You weren't there to leave behind," Kacey said irritably.
His comeback was instantaneous. "If you'd told me what you were going to do, I'd have stayed—"
"Not now," Farren and Teayo chorused at their respective charges. Kacey felt like sticking her tongue out, but refrained. She might as well pretend she had some dignity, no matter what she knew she looked like.
"It's a long story, Teayo," Farren said in the aftermath of obedient silence. "It suffices to say your daughter found her unicorns, and with them came all the magic we've been missing. For now, we're tired and just want to get home—although Kacey has it in mind to find Reandn, and I think it's a good idea. Did you see him?"
Teayo shook his head, a short, distinct movement; he glanced, concerned, down at Kacey. She hadn't realized until now just how keen those healer's eyes were.
Farren said, "He probably saw you first. In any event, I suspect he's gone south, at least until he can pick up the first road west."
"He can't—he shouldn't," Rethia said. "The magic will get to him."
Farren and Teayo exchanged a look that alarmed Kacey; it was grim agreement, and resignation. Farren said, "Soon enough, there'll be others who can help him—perhaps. But for now...I'm afraid she's right. We're lucky she can help him at all. I suspect it's because while I—and other wizards—need to invoke magic to protect him, Rethia—as far as I can tell—has somehow become magic. There is no gathering of magic when she works, aside from what she brings with her. The unicorn's touch—"
But Kacey had heard enough. She moved abruptly away from the cart and shrugged the bridle off her shoulder and down into her hand. "I'm not wasting any more time, then. I don't think he'll play Wolf on me." At least, she hoped not. She had a pretty sharp eye, but she had the feeling that she'd never come close to finding him if he didn't want to be found.
Mercifully, they made no more comment, but set about finding the right arrangement that would fit them all into the small cart. Teayo's voice rumbled behind her, a comfortingly normal sound, as she bridled the mare. "One more up front here—come, Rethia, you're nice and skinny—and you gentlemen may arrange yourselves behind."
The ado that went with loading the cart was just background noise as Kacey stepped from the hub of the cart wheel to the mare's back; she was riding away when Farren's call stopped her.
Kacey nodded without turning around. She understood. It had to be Reandn's decision—even if that decision was to ride away from the only people who could help him.
~~~~~
Reandn sat a dozen yards off the road, under the symmetrical, spreading branches of a maple. Sky stood tied to a low branch on the other side of the tree, his coat dully white-tipped from the sweat of the morning run, dried foam crusting his lips and ground-in dirt marring his hips. Frisky and cheerful, he was totally unconcerned with his body's failure and revival; instead, his attention was riveted on the leaves that were just out of his reach, and he was patiently, craftily exploring different angles at which to crane his neck so he might snare the foliage with his mobile lips.
Reandn gave him an annoyed glance. Unlike Sky, he was overwhelmingly aware of his sharp aches, the blood still oozing down his fingers, and the sun in his eyes; he'd only ridden a short while before the disorientation from the magic overwhelmed him. A little rest, that's what he needed; time to get used to it, and to take back a little of what this day—these weeks—had taken from him.
Instead he sat here trying to shove the events of the morning to the back of his mind. But flashes of his struggle to live, kill, and die were hard to keep away, and he longed for Adela's warm touch.
He tried to turn his mind to the smooth coolness of the bark at his back, to the sounds of Sky's tail swishing angrily at flies, and to the quiet grinding of the gelding's jaws on the leaves he had reached, after all.
None of it kept him distracted from Ronsin's survival, or from the fact that Keland was now immersed in uncontrolled magic. And—the thought he veered away from, flinching outwardly as well as in his mind and heart—that Adela was well dead, and seemed to have accepted it completely. Accepted their separation, for however long it lasted. Maybe to her it wouldn't seem long. To him it was already an eternity.
Sky gave up on the leaves, nibbled a little tree bark, and subsided into a hip-shot stance, his tail the only remaining active part of his body. Magic dragged through Reandn's thoughts like a farrow through the soft spring ground, and he wondered, suddenly, if he fell asleep here, would he wake up again?
Not that it changed anything. He was far too tired, too worn from chasing Ronsin halfway to Solace and back, from dying—and from coming back to face what Rethia had wrought. Unicorns. He fell asleep on the damp ground, his face against the dirt.
~~~~~
"Reandn."
That was Kacey's voice. Soft, worried, and barely audible above the magic. Presumably, her hand on his back. He turned over—his first mistake, as stiff muscles assailed him. "Hunh," he said, propping himself back on his elbows. "Damn."
She crouched by his side, her face smirched with dirt, her soft curls tangled, and her expression worried. "Are you all right?"
"Goddess knows," Reandn said. It meant nothing, was pure evasion. She knew it, of course.
But to his surprise, she didn't push. Instead she reached out and brushed a small twig from the corner of his mouth. "You've got leaf prints on your face," she said. Then, hesitantly, she said, "Will you come back to the house with me?"
He didn't say anything. He didn't think anything, either; he seemed to finally have found that blankness of thought he'd sought earlier.
"I think you should," Kacey said, carefully, lowering herself to the ground. "I'm worried about you, and Rethia can help the allergy. Besides, I'd like to bind that hand." The last was a little bit of asperity, trying to come through with limited success.
Reandn looked at her a moment, and took in the extent of her worry, from where it hid behind her hazel eyes and put the slightest of furrows between her brows.
"You shouldn't care about me," he told her, words that came out without thought, and possibly some of the truest words he'd ever said to her.
Her worry fled, to be replaced by...irritation, he decided, but he wasn't sure at whom. "I do a lot of things other people think I shouldn't," she said, and looked away. "Don't worry about it."
"I guess I do," he told her. One more reason not to go back to Teayo's.
She glanced back at him, then shook her head. She pulled something out of her belt—his knife—and put it on the ground next to him. Then she climbed to her feet, cleared her throat, and said, "I was thinking about making gingerbread tonight."
He just looked at her, surprised that she was simply going to walk away when she so obviously wanted to argue him into returning. "Kacey..." he said, searching for some words that would help her understand how confused he was, how far he was from knowing what he really wanted to do.
"I happen to think you'll die out here, without someone to do something about the way magic hurts you. I don't want that to happen, but...I'm tired. I want to go home and sit in the shade of my own yard. You know you're welcome."
She stood, tugged her tunic back down into place, and reached for her mare's dragging rein. She just stood there for a moment, looking up and down the road, long enough for Reandn to finally realize she was looking for something to help her reach that bare back. She was tired, then. But she'd come looking for him anyway.
Stiffly, he got to his feet, dragging himself against the tide of magic. Moving out to the mare's shoulder, he bent to offer his hands as a stirrup. "Can't miss out on the gingerbread," he told her. "Will you wait until I get Sky sorted out?"
She shifted on the mare as Reandn went to tighten the girth and remove the tie rope. "I'll wait," she said.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 21
Kacey brought him to a quiet house, and to the slate message that the rest of the inhabitants were in Little Wisdom—except for Tanager, who was on his way to Solace to fetch Faline. Reandn hoped Teayo and Farren came back from Little Wisdom without Ronsin; he knew he wouldn't simply let the man go a second time.
He sat on the edge of the clinic bed he'd come to think of as his, his elbows on his knees and his hands dangling between them, feeling drawn and worn and as thin as Adela had looked when Ronsin stripped her of her body's essence. Off the kitchen, Kacey was heating bathwater, and after a while she came and stood in the doorway, so he got up and followed her.
The water turned grubby and still Kacey took her turn after his, and then offered him a weak draught of bitter tea. Reandn stretched out on top of the bed, wearing his single pair of extra trousers while the rest of his clothes soaked in the tub. He fell asleep quickly, of course, with the magic coursing through his head and tightening his chest, while Kacey waited for Rethia to come home, hoping out loud—and fiercely, as was her way—that her sister could do something to ease the way the magic ate away at him.
He woke once, to find Kacey standing at the window and looking into the fading light of evening; she told him to go back to sleep, barely turning around to say it. So he did.
~~~~~
"Reandn."
The voice barely penetrated the depths of his exhaustion, and he ignored it. A light touch landed on both sides of his head; suddenly the weight on his chest floated away, and the noise in his head faded. He snapped his eyes open.
Rethia, of course.
It was daylight, which astonished him. Sun splashed over the worktable and left a warm rectangle of light across his lower legs. Another hot day—though that no longer surprised him.
Rethia pulled over the little stool that perpetually kicked around between that first bunk and the worktable, and sat. Her face was still smudged with dirt, although it did appear as though someone had tried to smear some of it away. Under her sleeveless kirtle, her light, loose tunic was torn where sleeve met shoulder; he thought he remembered that, too. She looked tired; it showed around her eyes more than anywhere else.
If he'd had to guess, he would have said those somber brown and blue eyes held regret, but that seemed unlikely, considering what she'd done. Help me bring back the magic, she'd said, then gon
e and done it on her own when he refused.
Slowly, Reandn sat up to face her. "Thank you," he said. "Care to make that permanent?"
She shook her head. "There's a lot I don't know about this new world we're in, for all the unicorns told me." She looked away, and dipped her head; when she turned back, her gaze was protected by thick blonde bangs. It took her a moment to frame her words, and Reandn could see her trying. "Ronsin," she said, stopping to start again. "I hope you understand...the unicorns exacted a much more severe price from him than you would have had him pay."
He didn't even have to think, and his words came out hard and low. "He hasn't really paid until he's dead."
"He'll die someday anyway," Rethia said. "Until then, he's isolated from the magic that's been his obsession—while everyone else revels in it."
Reandn remembered Adela's gentle lecture on that very subject. Try to understand him. Think what it would be to be taken from the Wolves. He smiled, an ironic quirk of mouth. He didn't think he'd have to imagine what that would be like, not any longer. His life with the Wolves gone, and Adela gone, and the slow torture of magic all around him...
He took a deep breath, latching on to sudden hope. "Will they stay this time?" he asked. "The unicorns?" After all, what was to keep them from leaving again?
"I think so. We know, now—we've had the chance to figure out what it's like without them. They'll have the respect—and the peace—they want. They missed it here, you know. They found another place, an in-between sort of place. But it wasn't like Keland."
Hope died as fast as it had risen. Unicorns, here to stay.
"I saw her, you know," Rethia said suddenly, and Reandn knew she was talking about Adela. "I saw you both. I know you didn't want to leave her, but I'm glad you did."
Touched By Magic (The King's Wolf Saga) Page 27