It did not take long before it was done as well as magic could make it. Only time would completely heal the rift. When he was finished, he waved his hand, and Nevyn’s eyelids fluttered.
Nevyn opened his eyes.
“Welcome back, sir,” said Halven, not unkindly. “I think we may have much to discuss.”
Nevyn rolled to a sitting position and buried his face in both hands. “It was me,” he said. “It was me all along.”
Aralorn held Wolf’s wrist tightly in one hand, sealing the wound, though she feared it was too late. With her free hand, she touched the artery in his neck. For a horrible moment, she thought that he had no pulse, but then she felt the faint beat beneath her fingertips.
He’d been holding to consciousness with magic, she thought. When she’d distracted him, he’d lost control of the power sustaining him and fainted.
They should both be dead. She’d broken the cardinal rule of magic and interrupted Wolf. His spell should have turned this corner of Lambshold into a melted slag like the tower in the ae’Magi’s castle.
It had not.
She was so weary. If she’d been a human mage, she would have had to watch Wolf die. But there was so much power in the room that the warmth of it strengthened her.
Most of the power was in the spell that awaited some missing component to act: Wolf’s death. Aralorn could feel the magic coerced and caged into some shape of Wolf’s devising, but it was human born, and she could not touch it. But flickering around the spell like a candle flame in the wind was other power, a latticework of green magic that held the spell at bay: Wolf’s magic protecting her still.
Someone came into the room, and a last vestige of caution made her look up for an instant and see Gerem stagger through the spell of darkness and silence that covered the curtain to the bier room. In that moment of inattention, when she strayed from her center, Ridane’s bond stretched tight.
Aralorn cried out at the pain and drove her fingers into Wolf’s shoulder and wounded wrist.
“Don’t you leave me, you bastard.” She gritted out the words, and called his green magic to her.
Even though she was careful to leave enough magic to hold Wolf’s spell, power flooded her, filling her veins with icy fire and making it difficult to breathe. She couldn’t tell where the pain was coming from now, from the too-great magic that had answered her call or from the death goddess’s binding that stretched taut and thin between them.
She had no idea what she was doing.
She bowed down and pressed her forehead against his too-cool flesh. She fed him magic at first, but it flowed through him and back into her without leaving any virtue behind. It was his magic, and he’d called it to save her, not himself.
She growled deep in her throat. “Not yet,” she said. “I’ll not lose you to your own stubbornness.”
She took the magic and twisted it until it was attached to her, then thrust it back into him like a needle pulling her life force through him.
“Wolf,” she murmured, touching his unresponsive lips, “don’t you die on me.”
She could feel that his pulse had steadied with the force she’d added, but she could feel, too, that it wasn’t going to be enough. Remembering how she had touched her father’s life, she began singing to aid her work. She hadn’t consciously chosen the song, and was almost amused when she realized it was a rather lewd drinking song—so be it. If anyone knew how to fight off the cold thought of death, it was a bunch of drunken mercenaries.
The music soon soothed her into a trance that allowed her to seep into the pattern of Wolf’s death. With more need than skill, she followed Wolf’s spirit where it lingered, held by thin traces of life.
Recklessly, she threw energy to his fading spirit, to anchor him to his body, using his own magic to do it. She found the bond the death goddess had drawn between them and gripped it like a rope to pull him to her, only to find it gripped in return as Wolf, free from reason and memory, helped her at last.
She came out of her trance slowly, gradually becoming aware of Wolf’s head in her lap, the unusual warmth of the stones beneath her, and the wild, surging magic that filled the room.
“Crap,” she said. She’d called upon too much magic and released the power that had been bound in Wolf’s spell.
She swung her gaze around to look for the reason that the walls were still standing. Kisrah stood before the darkness that was the entrance to the room. His feet were braced and his arms held wide. Gerem stood just behind him, gripping his shoulder with one hand in a position that even Aralorn recognized as “feeding.”
“Wolf?” she said, shaking him with her good arm. “Wolf, wake up.”
“Good idea,” muttered Kisrah, “We’re not going to be able to hold this back much longer.”
Aralorn took the hint and quit being so gentle. “Wolf,” she barked with force enough to please a drill sergeant. “You’ve got to wake up, love. We need you.”
He stirred this time and opened his eyes, frowning at her in puzzlement. He started to speak, and his eyes widened as his senses told him what was going on.
“Gods,” he growled, sitting up a little too abruptly.
She caught him before he could fall back and held him while he closed his eyes against the dizzying weakness of extreme blood loss. Since his weight hit her bad arm with a certain amount of force, she was feeling a bit dizzy herself.
“What did you think you were doing?” he rasped. “You know better than to interrupt a spell in progress.”
“Hmm,” she agreed. “Deathsgate and back, remember? You shouldn’t have tried this.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Kisrah politely, though his voice sounded a little strained. “Not to break in on a personal moment or anything, but do you suppose you could give me a little advice, Wolf?”
“Hmm,” said Wolf. “I suppose ‘run’ won’t work?”
Kisrah laughed, which was a mistake.
Power lit the room with a faint red haze, and the temperature went from warm to hot in an instant. Aralorn felt the surge in magic so strong that it hurt. The smell of scorching cloth filled the room, and the stones gave off an odd grumbling noise. Sweat gathered on Kisrah’s face, and Gerem was looking almost as drained as Kisrah.
“Your magic held it in check while you were unconscious,” said Aralorn urgently. “Green magic, Wolf. Can you call it again?”
In answer, green magic slid over her skin in a caress, then spilled over the imminent spell like oil over boiling water. Gently, it worked its way between the spell and Kisrah’s magic.
Wolf vibrated in her arms, shaking with the control that it took not to fight for domination over the green magic.
“What in the name of ...” murmured Kisrah, relaxing his stance. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Green magic,” replied Wolf in a strained voice. “It scares me, too. But I think it will work.”
“ ‘Think’?”
Wolf’s scarred lips writhed into a semblance of a smile. “Would you rather I said ‘hope’?”
As Wolf took up the reins of the magic, Kisrah relaxed and ran his hands through his hair, leaving it an untidy mess. Actually, thought Aralorn with exhaustion-born whimsy, he looked quite different from his usual self, his lemon-colored sleeping trousers setting off pale skin stretched over a swordsman’s muscles, his feet bare.
“Now what do we do?” he asked.
“Well,” said Wolf, “at this stage the spell can’t be banished, for it has already been given a taste of that which was promised. Can you feel the hunger? So what we do is bring it into completion.” He turned to Aralorn, who was already shaking her head, but she was too weak to do anything more. “I love you, dear heart. If you love me as well, you’ll allow me this. Someone must die tonight—I won’t allow my father to kill again and not do something about it.”
He held her gaze with his own until tears slid down her cheeks.
“Ridane said someone had to die,” said Aralorn. �
��This is what she meant, wasn’t it? The nature of the spell laid on Father is such that either he dies, or someone else does. I didn’t bring you back for this, Wolf.”
His eyes warmed, and he touched her face. “If you hadn’t brought me back, my love, Ridane’s bond would have taken you with me. I should have severed it before I started the spell—I waited too late. I didn’t want to lose you.”
He dropped his hands, leaving her cold and alone. “This was laid upon your father because of me; should he die for my sins?”
“Not your sins,” returned Aralorn heatedly. “Your father’s sins.”
“No,” said Nevyn from the doorway. “My sins.”
The darkness that had blocked the door was gone, banished by Nevyn, or perhaps her uncle, who stood behind him. Nevyn’s face was grim and pale.
“I have allowed myself to be used,” he said. “I allowed Geoffrey to twist my thoughts until I have become what my father thought I was.”
He stepped forward until he stood before Wolf, facing him. “I thought that it was you who was corrupt, who needed destroying—instead, I find that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for a man you barely know. Evil corrupted me; it has tempered you.”
He turned to Aralorn and crouched in front of her.
“Sister,” he said softly, so quietly that she knew that no one else in the room heard exactly what he said. “Story-Spinner, weave a good one for Freya when she wakes—that she will honor the father of the child she carries, for its sake.”
Exhaustion made Aralorn’s thoughts slow. She was preoccupied with keeping Wolf alive, and it made her slow.
When Nevyn surged to his feet, and told Wolf, “Use this,” she finally caught on. “Nevyn, wait.” But it was already too late.
Nevyn called upon his magic and was engulfed in flames so hot that his flesh melted from his bones like water.
“Wolf?” said Aralorn in a voice she hardly recognized, so thickened was it from grief. But there was a real possibility, given Wolf’s reluctance to use black magic, that he would refuse Nevyn’s sacrifice.
But it was Kisrah who said, “Don’t let him die in vain, Wolf.”
Wolf hesitated, torn between the horror of using yet another person’s death to fuel his magic and the desires of the man who had given his life for his convictions.
“Please,” whispered Aralorn, tears of grief sliding down her face.
He dropped his knife and lifted his arms, drawing the power of Nevyn’s death to him. He waited for the filth to settle on his soul, but the death magic rested quietly within his grasp, as if a dead man’s blessing had the ability to wipe clean the foul work to which Wolf had been put.
The respite was brief, for as he willed it, the hold that had kept the spell in abeyance began to fade slowly, allowing Wolf to take control of one part before releasing another. No benediction could wash away the evil of the black art that comprised the spell, and Wolf shook under the force of it even as he threaded death magic through it in completion.
The spell pulsed wildly for a moment before concentrating upon the still form of the Lyon, then, as swiftly as the flight of a hawk, it was gone, leaving the room reeking with the stench of evil.
Wolf dropped to his knees.
Aralorn slid across the floor to the small mess of charred bones, where Kisrah and Gerem already knelt.
“What is happening? Who is that man?”
Aralorn looked up to see Irrenna standing in the entranceway, clad only in her nightrobes. The lady’s gaze traveled around the room, pausing at the silent form of her husband before halting on Aralorn’s tear-streaked face.
“There is a dead howlaa by the stables,” Irrenna said. “We were trying to find out how it got there when there was a terrible noise, as if the stones of the keep were shifting.”
“Oh, Mother,” croaked Aralorn, as Correy and Falhart, who must have been drawn by the same sound, came into the room as well. “Irrenna,” she tried again. “Nevyn saved Father, but he died in the doing of it.”
“The Lyon’s waking now,” said Kisrah.
Gerem jumped up and ran to the bier. Kisrah lingered a moment. He murmured something that Aralorn couldn’t hear and conjured a white rose, which he set just inside the charred area. Then he, too, left the dead for the living.
Irrenna froze for an instant before she, Falhart, and Correy all ran to the Lyon’s side.
Bound by weakness and inclination, Aralorn stayed by Nevyn’s remains. She touched the blackened skull gently, as if a stronger touch would have hurt him. “Rest in peace, Nevyn.”
A cold nose touched her hand, and she turned to Wolf, who wore his wolf form once more.
His golden eyes were dim with sorrow, and Aralorn drew him close, pressing her face into Wolf’s shoulder. “I know,” she said. “I know.”
FINIS
Far to the east, the Dreamer stirred. It had been for naught—all the manipulation, all the work, and its own tool had betrayed it.
It had known the dreamwalker was not stable, but it had not expected him to choose to die so that the Lyon would live. By that choice, he had rendered the magic useless for the Dreamer to feed upon. Cain’s death would not have been useless, for the Archmage’s son had been used by the Dreamer before; not even the purity of Cain’s willing self-sacrifice would have stopped the Dreamer from feeding.
It would sleep now, but its sleep would not be as long, or as deep. It would not have to wait another millennium for a corrupt Archmage to awaken it. When Geoffrey ae’Magi had died, it had seen to it that the Master Spells would not be used again.
The Dreamer stirred, then settled beneath the weight of the ancient bindings. It would wait.
Aralorn examined the healing cut on Sheen’s side. It looked as if it had been healing a week rather than three days; she was going to have to talk to the stablemaster and find out what he used for ointment.
She wouldn’t need it for her shoulder. Halven had taken care of the cuts left by the howlaa’s claws, though it still ached a bit when she overworked her arm. She heard someone enter the stables and stuck her head over Sheen’s door.
“You’re leaving today.” Her father moved a little stiffly, but otherwise showed little sign of any aftereffects of the spell.
Aralorn smiled. “Yes, sir, as soon as Kisrah comes back with my wolf. They went hunting with the boys—I include Falhart in that category.”
He reached up and rubbed Sheen’s forehead. “I understand you’ve been making quite a reputation for yourself.”
“Me or the horse?”
He grinned. “You.”
She raised her eyebrows, and said, “Let’s just say that having a shapeshifter for a spy, whether they know it or not, hasn’t hurt Sianim any.”
“I’ve missed you,” he said softly.
“I’ve missed you, too. I’ll be back, though. If you let me know, I’ll come after Freya’s babe is born.”
The Lyon’s hand stilled on the horse’s forehead. “I wish Nevyn would be alive to see it. They waited so long for this child.”
She nodded. She’d told him the truth about Nevyn, knowing that he would not judge his son-in-law for it.
Freya deserved the truth as well, if she wanted it. Aralorn had left that for her father to decide. Freya hadn’t spoken to her since she’d awakened to the news that her husband was dead. Maybe she already knew at least part of what had been going on.
“This friend of yours, the one Nevyn was after when he set the spell on me. He is safe?”
“I think so,” she said. “With Geoffrey well and truly dead, no one but Kisrah and the family know that I was ever involved with him.”
Neither Gerem nor Kisrah had challenged the story she’d told Irrenna and repeated often since—that the last ae’Magi hadn’t been the man he’d appeared to be. He’d made an attempt on King Myr’s life, and, in response, she and his son had moved against him. They had thought he died, a victim of the Uriah—but he was a dreamwalker, and survived long enough to set
up his son’s death. It had been Nevyn, she explained, who had figured out how to break the spell, but in doing so, had brought about his own death. Nevyn deserved to be a hero—and Geoffrey, who had hurt Nevyn so badly, deserved whatever blame fell to him.
With Kisrah’s corroborating testimony regarding the character of the previous ae’Magi, almost everyone seemed to accept the tale. Aralorn suspected that Kisrah had done something to the hold the previous ae’Magi’s spells had continued to have—because no one challenged him or seemed unnaturally sure of Geoffrey’s goodness.
The Lyon rubbed his beard. “I knew Geoffrey, but I met Cain a time or two as well—when he was younger than Gerem by a few years.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Up until that point, I’d been favorably impressed by the ae’Magi. I was curious about his son though, mostly because of the stories that were circulating about him even then.”
“What did you think of him when you met him?” she asked, curious.
“He . . . Something that Correy said leads me to believe that the relationship that you have with Cain is somewhat more than friendship.”
She smiled slowly. “You might say that, yes.”
“Then bring him with you the next time you come down—tell him he doesn’t have to come and go mysteriously as he did this time. Irrenna and I would be pleased to have him as a guest.”
Her smile widened, and tears threatened as she slipped out the door, so she could give him a hug. “I love you, Da.”
No matter what her father said, it still wasn’t safe for too many people to know where the Archmage’s infamous son was, but she’d tell Wolf what her father said. It would matter to him.
He bent down, and whispered, “Especially if one of you teaches my cook how to make those little cakes that you had at the king’s coronation. I know you were playing cook, so the nasty-looking guard must have been Cain.”
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