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 herself 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.

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.

“Is it always this quiet?” Chane asked, looking around.

Nikolas was slow in answering. “Not that I remember.”

Wynn noticed a young man ahead dragging a small girl child along the roadside beyond the village’s far limits. They were perhaps hurrying toward the nearest dwelling. The man stalled, likely spotting the wagon, and he veered sharply, jerking the girl along as they ducked into a stand of trees. Neither of them made a sound.

Wynn pulled out her cold-lamp crystal and swiped it harshly across her thigh to ignite a pale light from it. It wasn’t until the wagon passed near the trees that she saw anything more.

The man peeked out at her from behind a tree.

He looked pale in the crystal’s dim light. His face was more heavily lined than she’d have guessed, as his quick movements moments before and his fully dark hair suggested a younger man. His right eye twitched at the sight of her, as if she frightened him.

“Shade?” Wynn whispered, and immediately memory-words rose in her head.

—Not—you— . . . —He—remembers—dark robe—but not like—your—blue one—

In a blink both man and child vanished deeper into the trees.

“Another sage?” Wynn asked. “Has he seen someone else like me?”

Shade rumbled but didn’t huff or raise memory-words in Wynn as an answer; that meant Shade didn’t know.

“Something is wrong here,” she said, feeling foolish for stating the obvious. Master Columsarn had alluded to that in his letters. But it was likely not a good idea to go poking about right now.

Once the village was too far behind to see, and Wynn was still lost in worry and thinking of the deformed hare, Osha tapped her on the shoulder.

She almost squeaked in fright.

“This place . . . land . . . sick . . . die,” Osha whispered.

He didn’t have to point at anything, for she saw the brush, bushes, and trees along the road. Too many appeared wilted or dying. Wynn closed her hand over the crystal to smother most of its light.

No one spoke for a long while, until they approached the outskirts of another village.

“Beáumie,” Nikolas whispered.

In size it was similar to Pérough, though this place appeared nearly deserted, with even fewer people visible as the wagon rolled through. They ran for doorways while holding hoods low over their heads to hide their faces.

“I don’t like this,” Nikolas said. “It’s nothing like I remember.”

As the wagon passed beyond the village, a cold drizzle began to fall. Shivering and pulling her cloak tighter, Wynn tried to clear her head to form a proper question for Nikolas about anything else that was different from in his youth. Then she heard him suck in a breath, and she glanced back.

He was crouched low, looking up ahead of the wagon.

“The keep,” Chane said, and Wynn turned forward again.

The road rose up a thinly forested slope, growing steeper near the top, and she heard the sea from somewhere beyond. But her gaze locked on what was visible at the crest far ahead. The first thing that caught her eye was the light of flames. In the deepening darkness, she spotted the keep’s outline first, constructed on the rise and likely with its back to the sea below it. Some form of gate in a surrounding wall faced the road’s far end. Whatever braziers burned there were on the inner side and set high upon the gate’s sides. She made out only one large square structure beyond the gate, rising to about twice its height. As they rolled up the incline, even closer, she spotted a single tower that rose above the keep’s left corner. The whole place looked so stark—so unwelcoming—against the starless skyline.

Chane suddenly pulled up the horses, and as the wagon halted, he sat there gazing upward. “Do we go on?”

Right then, instinct told Wynn to tell him to turn around. “We have to.”

Chane flicked the wagon’s reins, urging the horses up the road’s rise toward the gate in the darkness haloed by orange-red light.

• • •

As the wagon rolled up to the iron-lattice double gate, several things surprised Chane and several did not. He did not find it odd that the gates were closed and that two guards stood peering out at newcomers with unwelcoming suspicion. He was surprised to find no gatehouse or tunnel or portcullis.

Beáumie Keep was surrounded by a stone wall some four yards high, encompassing its inner dirt courtyard; the entrance was framed by two pillars rising barely higher than the wall. As Chane reined in the team of geldings, he looked through the gates’ iron lattice and straight to the keep’s double doors—which were up a rise of six broad stone steps. At a guess, the keep’s rear wall faced the cliff over the ocean shore. Likely it had been built here due to the solid stone of the knoll and cliff for a sound foundation.

A little more disconcerting were the astonished and angry faces of the two guards looking out at him. By the light of the braziers on the pillars’ inner tops, both men wore leather armor with riveted steel plates under gray tabards and cloaks. Chane could not make out the emblem on the tabards, but neither man wore a helmet beneath his cloak’s hood. Both began whispering to each other until . . .

“Stay where you are!” one called out.

Chane could not be certain in looking through the gate’s iron slats, but the second guard might have reached for a sword at his hip.

“Turn back and leave . . . now!” the first guard shouted.

Chane considered doing so, there and then, but Wynn’s hand closed on his forearm. Wynn had faced much in the past few years and would not be intimidated by a pair of guards—admirable but sometimes unwise.

“We have an invitation,” she called out.

Then one of the keep’s far double doors opened.

A tall figure emerged and stepped down the stone stairs to the dirt yard. Chane could not make out a face, but by the heavy folds of a full-length skirt below a long wool tunic and cloak, he could see that it must be a woman. As she came toward the gate, he realized why her face had been difficult to see in the night. She had dark skin—darker than anyone he had ever met, with brown-black, tightly curling hair all the way to her shoulders.

Taking in her large eyes over a flared nose and very full lips only slightly lighter than her skin, he wondered who she was. She was dressed like neither a servant nor a noble.

The dark-skinned woman paused halfway to the gates as both guards looked back. One guard left his post to go and meet her, saying something so low that Chane could not catch it. After looking out through the gates for an instant longer, the woman turned and vanished back into the keep. The guard who had gone to her went running off toward what appeared to be a barrack on the courtyard’s north side.

Chane was about to advise that they leave.

From out of the barrack came a short, muscular man with a nearly shaved head. He was dressed like the two guards—except that his hood was thrown back. The way the messenger guard followed two paces behind suggested that the short one had authority over the others.

“What is this about?” he barked before he even reached the gate.

“Nothing, sir,” the first guard answered, straightening stiffly. “We’re just turning a wagon away.”

As the short man—apparently in command—neared the gates, he peered out through the lattice, and his eyes roamed over all in the wagon.

“Captain Holland,” came a voice behind Chane, and he turned halfway on the wagon’s bench, as did Wynn.

Nikolas stood behind Wynn and between Osha and Shade in the wagon’s bed.

“It’s me,” Nikolas continued, pulling back the hood of his cloak. “My father sent for me.”

The short one squinted and then frowned. “Master Nikolas?”

“Yes, please let us in. We have come a long way.”

Chane heard a tremor in the young sage’s voice, but perhaps Nikolas’s speaking up might disarm the tension here.

“I’m sorry,” the captain said, polite but firm. “There’s been plague in the villages, and I have standing orders not to let anyone through.”

“Plague?” Wynn repeated. “We saw no signs of plague.”

Indeed, what Chane had seen in passing through two villages was strange but not indicative of disease.

The captain’s eyes narrowed as he fixed on Wynn, and a scowl rose again on his face. “Turn the wagon around and leave. I have my orders.”

“Captain Holland! Open those gates . . . now!”

At this new voice shouting from somewhere in the courtyard, the captain turned about, as did the two other guards. All three stiffened to attention as a small young woman walked brusquely toward the gate.

She was pale, though beautiful, with a narrow jaw, a heart-shaped mouth, and a high brow of perfect skin. A mass of shiny, straight blue-black hair fell over the shoulders of a velvet gown of dark emerald green. She wore no cloak and gave no regard to the rain. Behind her followed the much taller dark-skinned woman.

“My lady?” said the captain, with his back to Chane.

The small woman stopped and looked through the gate from about five paces off. Her eyes locked on someone other than Chane, and the harshness of her gaze faltered for a blink.

“Open the gates,” she repeated. “Master Columsarn has asked to see his son, and I doubt this small group stopped in either of the villages.”

Her dark eyes shifted focus, possibly to Wynn, and then slightly upward as she studied Chane.

He felt Wynn’s hand touch his arm.

“Duchess Sherie Beáumie . . . the duke’s sister,” she whispered.

Chane glanced at Wynn and wondered how she knew this, but she kept her eyes forward.

The woman—the duchess—approached the gate as the captain quickly stepped aside. But when the captain turned to follow her, he appeared worried and took a hesitant glance back toward the keep. The darker-skinned woman stopped three paces behind all the others.

Duchess Beáumie continued looking at Chane on the wagon’s bench. “Did you stop at either village along the road or speak to anyone?”

“No,” he answered.

If she found his near-voiceless rasp odd, she did not show it as she turned her head toward the captain. “As you see, they came in contact with no one.”

Chane, born into a minor barony with a mother fragile and weak in both body and mind, had met but a few noblewomen who gave orders as if they never expected to be questioned.

The captain nodded instantly to his duchess and then to his men, though he still looked troubled. One guard swung the rotating gate bar, and both men pushed the gate’s halves outward.

Chane flicked the reins, and the horses passed through as the duchess and her companion stepped aside. The guards closed the gate immediately once the wagon entered the courtyard.

“Everyone out,” Chane whispered, setting the brake as he reached back for his packs.

Wynn reached for her own pack and pulled her sheathed sun-crystal staff from beneath the bench before she hopped down. Osha and Nikolas gathered their belongings and got out the back as Shade leaped over the side to join Wynn.

In the cold, wet night, and under the red glare of the gate’s brazier, Nikolas appeared almost ill as he rounded the wagon’s back. Chane caught the duchess’s eyes on the young sage.

There might not have been hatred in her stare, but Chane recognized pain and resentment when he saw it.

“You came,” she said simply, looking away.

Nikolas said nothing, and the young woman glanced over the rest of the group while appearing to regain her composure. Her perfect brow wrinkled slightly at the sight of Osha and the overly large black wolf standing beside Wynn.

She addressed Nikolas again. “Your father and I did not expect an entourage.”

Her haughty tone appeared to catch Wynn off guard. Wynn might not be intimidated by a pair of guards, but she had little experience with arrogant nobles.

Chane understood them only too well—as he had been one of them. Drawing himself to full height, he stepped in next to Wynn.

“The guild sent this sage with some texts for Master Columsarn,” he returned with equal disregard for the duchess’s position. “Two sages could not travel such a distance without protection.” He lightly brushed back his cloak’s folds, exposing his longsword on one hip and his shorter sword on the other. Osha’s longbow was also in clear view.

“Please,” Chane said, “take us inside before one of them catches an illness in this rain.”

The young woman’s veneer was well practiced, not taken aback even in recognizing someone of her own kind—by his bearing and manner.

“Of course,” she said coldly. “Come. Someone will see to your horses.”

Turning, the duchess led the way toward the keep. The dark-skinned female lingered until all of them passed by, and then she followed behind.

Chane did not care for that, though when he glanced down, Wynn was looking up at him with an expression that clearly asked,

What have we gotten ourselves into now?

• • •

Shortly after, Wynn found herself in the keep’s central hall, with Shade pressed up against her leg. The open chamber was surprisingly bare, with no tapestries and only one long table and eight tall wooden chairs at the room’s far end. But the table was dusty, as if it hadn’t been used or tended in a while. At least a fire, providing warmth and light, burned in the great hearth to one side of the hall.

The duchess—Sherie—took a dry stalk from a bucket near the hearth and touched it to the flames. She lit a few candle lanterns and set them on the table.

“Rooms will be made ready immediately,” she said. “Dinner is past, but I will have the kitchen prepare food as well.”

She seemed different than she had in the courtyard: slightly less sure of herself and almost in a hurry to get them settled. Even before she set down the third lantern, she gestured with curling fingers toward the taller, dark-skinned woman. That one came close in long, firm strides and, after a whisper from the duchess, she left the hall.

Wynn wondered about the sudden subtle change in the duchess, though there was much she could guess as she glanced at her companions. Chane appeared almost cold and disinterested, though his gaze roamed over everything. Osha was clearly ill at ease as he looked over the bare stone walls. He hadn’t said a word since they reached the gates.

Nikolas’s face was pallid, and he wouldn’t raise his eyes.

Wynn found it hard to imagine how Nikolas and Sherie had ever taken to each other, considering the way they were now. Then again, lost love, betrayal, and perhaps even murder could change people drastically. After what Nikolas had told her and unknowingly showed Shade, Wynn couldn’t imagine how he must feel.

Sherie hardly appeared glad to see him.

“I want to see my father,” Nikolas said, and his voice sounded too loud in the hall after the moment of silence.

Sherie looked up from setting the third candle lantern on the table. Her pale skin was flawless, and Wynn had never seen anyone with such an abundance of shining hair. It was not hard to imagine a sixteen-year-old Nikolas being attracted to her, though it left Wynn wondering about what Nikolas had been like back then for her to want him.

“He is being checked on,” the duchess answered. “If he is well enough, you may see him.”

Nikolas took a hesitant step toward her. “Is he that ill? His letter suggested that . . .”

He never finished, as swift footsteps carried into the hall. Wynn turned the other way as a young man strode in from a side archway, and she recognized him immediately.

Although Sherie was small with soft curves, her brother, Karl, the current Duke Beáumie, was tall with hawkish features. Their coloring was identical, though he was dressed all in black, with silver fixtures and adornments from his tunic to his pants and high leather boots. The young duke wore vambraces on both forearms above heavy leather gloves on his hands. But in some details his appearance was different from the memories Shade had passed to Wynn.

His skin looked stretched over his face with a feverish shine. His blue-black hair lacked its previous luster from Nikolas’s stolen memories and hung flat, combed but perhaps in a hurry and not washed in a long while. And more . . .

His sister lost her composure, as if she was beyond surprised by his sudden arrival.

“Karl . . .” she started and didn’t go on.

Wynn noticed three men standing at attention outside the hall’s main entrance. Their presence didn’t surprise her, but their appearance did.

Most nobles employed as many armsmen as they could afford, but these three were dusky skinned with dark hair—not as dark as that of the duchess’s companion, but they were all obviously Suman. Instead of armor, they wore long silk tabards of deep yellow over white muslin shirts and loose pantaloons—and they had curved swords in hand, the blades resting against their shoulders. One was about the height of Nikolas but much more muscular in build. The other two were tall and slender.

Why would a duke of Witeny employ Suman guards?

“What is going on here?” the duke demanded. “Who gave permission to open the gates?”

“They were opened for me,” Nikolas said quietly.

The duke turned, looking past Wynn as he spotted Nikolas. In turn Nikolas hesitantly studied the friend of his youth.

The duke stood frozen in silence at the sight of the young sage.

A cascade of erratic shifts passed through Karl Beáumie’s expression: first shock and then confusion, followed by a shudder of panic. It ended in a sudden, possibly forced smile.

“Nik?” he said, and the smile turned to a manic grin as he strode over, grabbed and embraced Nikolas. “I had no idea. . . . Why didn’t you send word? I would have sent an escort to bring you through the villages.”

Nikolas tried clumsily to embrace him back, but Wynn could see he was troubled. Pulling a step away, he looked up at his old friend’s face. Though concerned, Nikolas also appeared somewhat relieved, and she could hardly blame him.

Karl’s welcome—forced or not—was far warmer than Sherie’s.

“My father sent for me, and I . . . I had protection,” Nikolas said, briefly gesturing to Chane and Osha. “The guild felt it best.”

Karl straightened, turning to inspect Nikolas’s companions one by one and finishing with Shade. His expression darkened.

“I had no idea the guild would employ hired swords and archers,” he said with an edge.

“They are with me as well,” Wynn added before Chane took offense. “I travel extensively and require guards. Master Jausiff Columsarn requested some rare texts. I was charged with delivering them.”

Karl looked her midnight blue robe up and down before turning to his sister. “So, Nikolas relates that his father ‘sent’ for him? How did that come about?”

His tone held such a coldly implied threat that Wynn half expected the duchess to falter, but Sherie was once more the commanding noble who had first appeared in the courtyard.

“I sent for him,” she replied. “Jausiff has not been well . . . as you would know, if you were more aware of your staff.”

The first statement was a lie; Wynn knew firsthand that Nikolas’s father had written both letters.

“And how?” Karl wavered. “The keep is on lockdown due to the plague . . . by my order. Who would deliver such a message?”

Wynn waited anxiously for the answer. Would she learn the messenger’s identity this easily?

Sherie showed no reaction at all. “I am duchess here, at least until—if—you marry. I communicate with whom I like and how I like. Or will you take it upon yourself now to read my private letters?” She paused, waiting, and though her brother became agitated, he didn’t answer. “An ailing father has a right to see his son. And you . . . have been unavailable of late.”

At the last of that, the duke’s mouth dropped partly open. He quickly closed it again.

Wynn pondered this odd situation. Young noblemen who inherited titles normally took wives as the titled lady of the household. Young noblewomen were married off elsewhere, often for land, wealth, political influence, and more. Here brother and sister both remained unmarried and possibly vied for control of a little-known duchy far from anywhere of note.

“If you hadn’t locked down the keep,” Sherie continued, “I would not have been forced to circumvent you.”

“I had no choice,” Karl returned. “Not after that fool of a counselor went into the local villages along with his outlander servant, once the plague was—”

“There is no plague, as neither Jausiff nor Aupsha has come down with it . . . even after secluding themselves for a quarter moon as a precaution.”

Wynn turned her head as little as possible in watching the exchange. Whatever was wrong with Jausiff, the counselor here, it was not this “plague” the duke continued to mention. And who was this “outlander” servant, considering the oddity of Suman guards under the duke’s command?

If possible, Karl’s expression darkened further. “Neither you, sister, nor the counselor are a trained physician, let alone a healer—”

“And how is any physician to come here when you let no one in?” Sherie challenged.

“Father?” Nikolas called out.

The unseemly argument between brother and sister halted as all eyes turned to Nikolas. An instant later Wynn followed the young sage’s gaze.

An aging man entered the hall with the assistance of the dark-skinned woman whom the duchess had sent off. He was in his late sixties at least, and leaning on a cane, though when he moved the cane, it struck the hall’s floor with solid certainty each time. Dressed in the gray robe of a cathologer, as he had once been in the guild, Master Columsarn’s shoulders were broad, his face was nearly unlined, and his silver-white hair was cropped evenly at his collar. His eyes were light blue, and they panned slowly through the hall and took in everything before stopping upon his adopted son.

“Nikolas!” he said with a smile.

In contrast, the woman at his side . . .

Wynn fixed on the woman she had first seen with the duchess, and studied this one more closely now. She had heard of people who lived south of the Suman Empire in the savannahs and jungles there. They were reported to be dark skinned, but Wynn had never imagined how dark, as she had never seen any of them. The woman’s hair was brown black and fell in tight, almost kinky curls to her shoulders. The long, heavy skirt and undyed wool tunic looked somehow awkward and improperly fit on her tall frame, as if they were borrowed and not entirely comfortable.

Nikolas hurried to his father. “Are you all right? What is ailing you?”

“I informed him that you were not well,” Sherie said quickly.

Wynn took note of this strange comment as Jausiff blinked and then nodded.

“Thank you, my lady,” he replied as he gripped Nikolas affectionately by the arm. “Nothing is wrong, my son, just old age catching up with me.” Then he lifted one eyebrow with a wry smile at the duchess. “She dotes on me too much. That is all.” Half turning, he handed his cane to the tall woman beside him. “Aupsha, take this for me, please. I have my son to lean on now.”

With a respectful half bow, the woman did so, and it was obvious to Wynn to whom the duke referred as the “outlander” servant. Everything here was getting more tangled by the moment between Nikolas’s past and the present.

“And were you expecting Nikolas to arrive in such . . . company?” Karl asked.

For an instant Jausiff’s fatherly joviality slipped as he took in all the newcomers, finishing with Wynn . . . and his gaze lingered on her, dropping and rising at the sight of her midnight blue robe. Suddenly Master Columsarn did not appear pleased.

“I brought the texts you requested from Premin Hawes,” Wynn explained.

“Yes, yes,” he said, instantly regaining his good nature as he looked to the duke. “My lord, I was expecting an emissary from the guild with some texts.” He smiled at Osha. “I did not expect Lhoin’na archers but am glad the guild sees to my son’s well-being.”

Wynn glanced up to her left. Osha nodded politely, and perhaps he followed the situation better than she realized—as she was barely following it herself.

“So my sister requested these texts for you?” Karl asked.

The number of interlaced lies and half-truths grew by the moment, and Wynn had trouble keeping up. But the young duke was being handled carefully in his sister’s efforts to protect the family’s counselor.

“Of course,” Sherie answered, much calmer now. “At his request, and while he and Aupsha were quarantined. Master Jausiff so rarely asks for anything, so I was glad to assist him . . . as you would be, brother.”

Karl’s mouth tightened at the barb. “Forgive all this fuss, my old friend,” he said to Nikolas. “The plague has caused such caution of late. But it is good to see you again.”

“Well, then . . .” Jausiff said, taking his hand from Nikolas’s arm and pressing his palms together. “We shall need to find you all rooms and arrange for a late supper. I am sure you are tired and hungry.”

“Rooms?” Karl repeated, glancing once at Chane and then at Osha. “For them all . . . in the keep?”

“Of course,” Sherie repeated. “They cannot stay in the villages, and, as lord here, I know you would never refuse hospitality to an old friend, an emissary from the guild, or their assigned guardians.”

Her tone was polite and matter-of-fact, as if no question was at stake and she simply spoke the obvious. Still, her brother eyed her for a moment.

“No . . . no, of course not,” he agreed. “Please see to their rooms, as I have other . . . business to attend.”

“Of course,” she answered, and that echoed phrase began to sound like mockery to Wynn.

“Nikolas,” the duke called out in striding off the way he had come. “You and I must catch up soon.”

“I fear I must rest a bit, son,” Jausiff said. “Perhaps you should go and get settled now.”

The young duchess recovered, drawing herself up.

“Come with me, please. Rooms were being prepared even as we were delayed.”

She said this with such clear distaste that Wynn felt somewhat embarrassed. She’d never enjoyed being an unwanted guest, and she and hers were certainly that, it seemed. Osha especially looked uncomfortable, though Chane simply cocked his head after the duchess to signal Wynn to follow. He didn’t care what anyone thought of him; it was one of his greatest strengths and weaknesses.

Wynn dropped her hand on Shade’s neck. “Come on.”

As they headed into a side archway, Wynn saw the three Suman guards fall in behind. Along the way, three Numan guards dressed like those outside joined the procession. For better or for worse, Wynn and her companions were now well-protected guests locked inside this keep.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 634