Frantically, he fought for control, barely aware of the pain when he fell to his knees. He had to stop it before it hurt Aralorn; he felt certain that if it touched—
Aralorn’s firm hands locked on his shoulder as the cloud whipped violently out of his control, sweeping around the room. Aralorn dodged, but it touched her anyway, ruffling her hair.
Wolf cried out hoarsely, but the magic left her unharmed and came for him.
Yes, he thought, let it be me.
The swirling mist slid aside as it touched a barrier spell that Wolf had not called, and it turned the destructive force without ever quite meeting it. Again, Wolf grappled with it, fighting to bring it under control before it had another chance at Aralorn.
Words drifted by his ears, Halven’s words. He ignored them.
“No, plague you, listen to me. Wolf.” Aralorn was less easily disregarded. “My uncle says let it go. Don’t hold it. Release it. It’s done what you asked; if you release it, it will go.”
Fear gnawed at his control, giving the magic more room to act, and the mist concentrated on the barrier the shapeshifter had set.
“I can’t!” He gritted out the words. The damaged vocal cords made speech more difficult than usual. “Aralorn.”
“It won’t hurt her.” Halven’s voice was low and soft, as if he were soothing a wild beast. “Let it go.”
At last, because he had no better plan, Wolf did as the shapeshifter suggested. For a long moment, he thought it had done no good. The magic continued to rage, pushing hard at a warding Halven had thrown up around them. Then it faded, until only a faint trace lingered in the air, evidence that magic had been worked there.
“Fluctuates,” muttered Halven in a voice of great disgust. “As the gods gave us life, your control fluctuates, she said.”
Wolf hung his head in exhaustion, sitting on the ground because he didn’t have the energy to stand. With a gesture, he dissolved the mask, letting the cool air touch his scarred face.
Aralorn knelt behind him, her hands still on his shoulders. “It was attacking you, Wolf. What happened?”
He didn’t reply to her question. Looking at him, she wasn’t sure he’d heard her. Eyes closed, he was breathing in great gulps of air like a racehorse after the meet of its life. Without the mask, his face was pale and covered in sweat.
Halven examined the massive burn scars that covered Wolf’s ruined face. Her uncle’s eyes widened a bit as he took in the extent of the damage. He shared a thoughtful look with Aralorn.
Her uncle waited until a little color had returned to Wolf’s face and his breathing had settled before he spoke. “Has anyone ever told you it’s unhealthy to work green magic when you have a death wish?”
Aralorn took in a breath so deep it hurt. Though Wolf’s self-destructive tendencies were nothing new to her, she’d thought he was getting better, thought she’d been helping him to heal.
“If I had been a tad less powerful,” Halven continued, “it would have killed you. If you don’t ask anything of the magic you gather, it strives to do what your inmost self desires—regardless of your awareness of those desires. I would have thought that even a human-trained mage would know better than that.”
“I didn’t gather it.” Wolf’s voice was hoarser than usual, but he opened his eyes and managed a respectable glare.
“I have to disagree,” replied Halven, not visibly intimidated, “though you certainly shouldn’t have been able to. Usually, green magic only responds to the call of a mage who is in tune with the world around him—and from the demonstration we’ve just had, I would say that you are not even in tune with yourself.”
Wolf reached up and gripped Aralorn’s hand hard with his own. “I almost killed you—again,” he said without taking his eyes from Halven. “The baneshade broke through the demon-imprisoning ring. I saw it come after you, and there was no time to do anything.”
“In your moment of need, you were served,” said Halven, sounding as if he were quoting something.
Aralorn glanced at her uncle and nodded. “I’ve heard of green magic doing that—but only in stories.”
“That’s because only an uneducated human mage wouldn’t know how to control his magic.”
Wolf came to his feet, swaying. Aralorn was hampered by his tight grip on her hand, but Halven grabbed his shoulder to steady him.
“Easy there,” he said. “Give yourself a minute.”
Wolf stepped away from the unaccustomed touch and looked at Aralorn. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “Not at all.” If she’d broken every bone she had, she would have said the same. But, as it happened, the thick flow of Wolf’s magic had been a caress rather than a strike.
“You weren’t attacking her,” said Halven impatiently. “The only one who had anything to worry about in this room was you.”
Wolf looked away from them both. He reached up to touch his mask, something he did when he was uncomfortable. But his mask wasn’t there, and when his fingers touched the scars, he flinched. Aralorn wasn’t the only one who saw it.
“When you want to be rid of that reminder,” said Halven, “come to me, and I’ll teach you how to heal yourself. You’ve the power, and I can teach you the skill.” He looked at the floor, where the baneshade had been. “It was best to destroy the baneshade anyway. It seemed to be focused on Aralorn, and the things can be dangerous in a place as old as this.”
“Plague it,” said Aralorn softly, as a sudden thought occurred to her. “Kisrah is coming here. We might have a problem.”
“What is it?” Wolf tightened like a predator scenting prey; even his body seemed to lose the fatigue that had made his moves less fluid than usual.
“The night your father died, when I came back after you, Lord Kisrah was there.”
“He would know you?” asked Wolf intently. “As the daughter of the Lyon?”
“Although I have absented myself as much as possible from human affairs,” broke in Halven mildly, “I do know that this has become a dangerous conversation. I wish to know nothing about Geoffrey ae’Magi’s death.” He hesitated. “If you survive all of this, Wolf . . . come to me, and we will talk about your recalcitrant magic. Good luck to you both.” He heaved up the bar on the door to the outside and left by that way.
Aralorn shut the door behind him and settled the bar back in place. “Kisrah saw me quite clearly, as a matter of fact—I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone at the time, so I was wearing my own face. I don’t think he connected me with my father—we would have heard something. Kisrah was caught well and good by the last ae’Magi’s spells. If he knew, he’d have come after me before this. But he can hardly miss me when he comes here.”
“I can handle Kisrah if he becomes a problem,” Wolf said mildly enough to frighten Aralorn.
“Thank you,” she said. “But I don’t think that we would survive killing a second ae’Magi.”
“We could do it every year on the anniversary of my father’s death,” suggested Wolf. “Though technically Kisrah would be our first, as my father was killed by the Uriah after you stole his magic.”
He was joking, she thought, though sometimes it was difficult to tell. He liked it that way.
“I saved Kisrah’s life,” she said, returning to the matter at hand. “The lady he was sleeping with had a tendency to eat her lovers. Sadly, he was unconscious, so he won’t know he owes me.” She ran her fingers over her father’s hand. It was cool to the touch. She continued thoughtfully. “You know, he obviously didn’t recognize me at the time, but he has the right contacts. If he wanted to find out badly enough who I was, he could. As ae’Magi, he would have access to all the knowledge of black magic he wished.”
“Especially with most of my father’s library at his disposal,” agreed Wolf as he took a step back and leaned against the wall. Not to relax, noticed Aralorn worriedly, but to keep himself upright. His consonants softened with fatigue, leaving his voice difficult to understand. “It is true that
he was very close to my father, certainly close enough to thirst for revenge. But I know Kisrah; he would never touch the black arts.”
“Neither would Nevyn,” said Aralorn somberly.
Wolf sighed. “I don’t want it to be him. I like him, Aralorn.” Wolf didn’t like many people. Aralorn suspected that he could count them on the fingers of one hand, with fingers left over. “Shortly before I left, when I was at my most vicious, he cornered me. He told me he was concerned about rumors he’d been hearing. Things that might get a man killed if the wrong person heard about them. He suggested that the rumors might die down without more sparks to fuel them.”
“What did you tell him?”
Wolf’s scarred lips quirked in an attempt at a smile. “I invited him to meet me at the next full moon and find out if they were true.”
“Not overly intelligent on your part, my love,” observed Aralorn dryly. “If he’d gone to the council, they’d have been able to pull you in for questioning.”
“I was young.” He shrugged.
“It amazes me,” she said thoughtfully, “how many people knew you were working black magic and never stopped to ask how you learned such things on your own—or wondered why the ae’Magi didn’t stop you.”
“Everyone knows that there are books if you know where to look for them.” He sighed softly and returned to the original topic. “It could be Kisrah, I suppose. Hatred and vengeance are corrupting emotions. Perhaps they could have caused him to use black magic. I would hate to see him caught in a web spun by my father.”
“It could be Nevyn,” she offered. “He might have found the connections between you and me, and between us and the ae’Magi’s death. He knows that I am a spy in Sianim, and he knows Kisrah. Kisrah could have told him about seeing me at the ae’Magi’s castle the night he died, described me well enough that Nevyn identified me. Nevyn loved your father—he used to tell me stories about him—and he certainly loves my father. Since he distrusts magic of any kind, black magic might not bother him as much as it would Kisrah.”
Wolf thought a moment—or else he dozed; Aralorn couldn’t tell which—then he shook his head. “The croft, perhaps, might have been possible for Nevyn. It wouldn’t have called for much skill, but the spell binding your father was done with both power and craft. Poor Nevyn had more teaching than he wanted, but he fought it. I heard Kisrah fussing over him to my father—all that talent and too scared of magic to use it.” He gave Aralorn a bleak look. “My father would pat him on the back and commiserate with him. Told him that a Darranian mage was bound to be a mess.” Geoffrey ae’Magi, Wolf’s father, had been Darranian. “They would laugh and then my father would tell his good friend how worried he was about me, about how I was fascinated by the darker magics.” He closed his eyes for a deep breath. When he opened them again, he said, “My father was afraid to teach me, I think, for fear that the monster he created would be too powerful for him to control. Kisrah tried his best with Nevyn, but I doubt that he knows much more than I do.”
He turned to her, a mockery of his usual graceful movements, and made a negating gesture. “He was given to Kisrah to apprentice partially because of Kisrah’s easy nature but also because Kisrah had the power to control a rogue sorcerer. When he was first apprenticed to Santik, Nevyn had the potential to become a master, maybe even ae’Magi. By the time he went to Kisrah, he was capable of little more than lighting candles. Santik was brought up on charges of abuse and neglect, his powers sealed away from him by the ae’Magi. Ironic isn’t it, that my father convicted another mage of abuse? Kisrah worked with Nevyn, but finally gave in to Nevyn’s own wishes once he was certain that Nevyn knew enough for safety. So Nevyn is much like me—a powerful mage who doesn’t know what he’s doing. Which is why I don’t think he’s our villain. He simply does not have the skill to create something like the spell that holds your father. He’s a good man, Aralorn. I don’t think he did this.”
Aralorn looked at Wolf, surprised at his long speech.
It made her suspicious.
She thought about what had happened that night and realized why Wolf was painting such a clear picture for her. Poor Nevyn indeed. A decade of spying and influencing the thoughts of others without attracting their attention had honed her instincts: She knew when someone was trying to manipulate her in return.
So Nevyn was a powerful mage, was he? Hurt by someone who should have protected him. A good man.
Wolf, on the other hand, was a devious man, her lover: She had a weakness for devious men.
“I am certain,” she said slowly, “that you believe Nevyn had nothing to do with this.” Or he wouldn’t have offered the man to her on a platter.
Sometimes, she thought, you had to tell someone that you loved them; sometimes you had to beat them over the head with it.
“I don’t love you for your powers, Wolf. Nor for the beauty of your body.” His hand twitched toward his scarred face. “I certainly don’t love you because you were abused by your father.” Her voice began to take on the bite of her anger, not all of which was feigned. “I certainly don’t love you because you are a powerful mage. Nevyn’s powers or lack of same may have made a half-grown child look at him twice, where one look at you would have sent her running—but I’m grown now and have been for some time. So tell me”—she was snarling at him now—“why are you trying to turn my attention to Nevyn with the skill of a village matchmaker?” She changed her voice, giving it an elderly quaver and a Lambshold crofter’s accent. “ ‘Look at this wonderful man, wounded, yet noble—a powerful mage in need of tender care. So he’s married to tha sister, so he hates shapeshifters—what’s a little challenge?’ ”
She needed him to talk about what was bothering him in order to address it. She needed to goad him; perhaps a shift to gentleness would work—he hadn’t experienced enough to be entirely comfortable with it. “I don’t need Nevyn, dear heart. I have you.”
“Of course,” he snapped. She was glad to see anger because sadness in his eyes tore her soul. “Oh, I am any maiden’s dream. A master wizard—except the only magic I know, other than a few basic spells, is black magic, and it will, at some future time, ensure my death at the hands of any mage who can back me into a corner. Without my conscious will, green magic randomly chooses to use me to call itself into being and do whatever the”—he paused and drew in a deep breath and deliberately relaxed his shoulders—“and do whatever seems fit at the time. You are better off without me.”
The prudent thing, Aralorn considered, would be to allow him to work it out on his own. She knew he’d never hurt her, not even with magic he couldn’t control; she was even fairly certain he wouldn’t hurt anyone else who didn’t deserve it—and she thought that when he had a chance to reason it through, he would come to the same conclusions.
What really bothered him was the nature of green magic. You coaxed it, you asked it, but you couldn’t always force it to do exactly what you wanted—but he’d dealt with much worse than that. She was confident he would again; she would just have to be patient until he worked it out.
The prudent thing, she told herself, would be to leave him alone. He had a nasty temper when he was pushed.
Since prudence wasn’t one of her attributes, she said, “Self-pity never accomplishes much, but sometimes it’s nice to wallow in it for a while. Do hurry up though—I’m getting hungry.” She tilted her head to indicate the sounds of people gathering on the other side of the curtain for their meal. “I’m tired of eating cold food.”
Wolf closed both eyes. He stretched his neck to the left, then to the right. Only then did he open his eyes. Baleful lights glittered in their amber depths as he closed his hands ever so gently around her neck and pulled her forward until she had to tilt her chin up to look at him.
“Someday,” he whispered, bending down until his lips were next to her ears, “you’re going to step into the fire and find out that it really is hot.”
“Burn me,” she said in equally soft tones, and
for a few moments he did—without a single spell.
When he released her, there was a measure of peace in his eyes. “Shall we go eat?”
She turned to go, and her eyes touched her father. Smile fading, Aralorn approached him and put her hand on his face.
“Got rid of the creepy crawly, but no luck yet, sir, on your entrapment,” she murmured. “But tomorrow’s another day.”
Wolf’s warm hand came down to rest on her shoulder. “Come.”
SEVEN
Wolf changed back into his four-footed form, then staggered. Aralorn put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, and he leaned against her with a sigh and an apologetic look.
“Sorry,” he said.
“You need food,” she replied, and pulled back the curtain, only to find that not only was the great hall filled with people dining, but every head was turned to her. By the intentness of their gazes, she figured that the guard told them all that she’d brought her uncle to look at the Lyon.
She bowed, and said, “We’ve made some progress, but the Lyon still sleeps.”
She closed the curtain and set her own wards against casual interlopers since Wolf was in no condition to be working magic. By the time she was through, most of the diners had turned their attention back to their plates.
Aralorn snagged a clean trencher from a passing kitchen servant and sat at the nearest table, Wolf collapsing at her feet. She took one of her knives and cut a bit of this and that from the platters arrayed on the table and tossed a large piece of roasted goose breast at Wolf, who caught it easily and ate it with more haste than manners.
She took a hunk of bread from her trencher and put a piece of sliced meat on top of it. This she kept, placing the plate and its remaining contents on the floor for Wolf.
“There she is! I see her.”
A loud voice drew her attention away from her meal as she saw two towheaded children running toward her.
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