“Damn wytches,” the young knight said. “Always kidnapping little girls, turning them away from the Light and into more like themselves.”
“Marcus!”
Elene was suddenly relieved she’d told the truth to these men. If her story hadn’t lined up with the letter, things would have gone very differently. “No, it’s all right,” she said. “I’ll have to press on hard if I’ve hoping of finding Uly before she gets in their clutches.”
“Be careful,” the older knight said. “Not all of these villagers love the Light.”
“Thank you for your help,” Elene said. With that, she rode on toward Torras Bend, her mind awhirl.
46
Whenever Ariel saw something she thought was fascinating or puzzling, she had a curious talent for memorizing it. It had been an enormous benefit when studying, of course, because she was able to picture whole sections of scrolls and find whatever she needed.
She was lucky enough now to not be looking at the corpse. She was looking at Vi’s and Uly’s faces—and each face’s expression was locked in the vault of her memory. Vi’s was all exhilaration, a thrill that might just have come from seeing death. Ariel hoped that wasn’t it. She hoped there was more to it than that, that Vi had had some personal reason to want Kylar dead. If not, Vi might be less useful than she thought. For now, she disregarded Vi’s expression. She put it away to examine another time. It was Uly’s expression that truly intrigued her.
Kylar had been a father figure to the girl. Uly was a tenderhearted child. She hadn’t grown up in the Warrens or any other place where she had to see death on a daily basis. The sight of her adoptive father stripped to his underclothes and lying dead by the side of the road should have left her shocked. She should look distant or in denial— not curious. Had she just not recognized him yet? Then Uly’s expression shifted to something Ariel thought was elation. Elation? Surely that couldn’t be right. Why would the girl be happy?
Ariel was interrupted as she realized she was having her own emotions about seeing Kylar dead. She tried to label them as quickly as possible so she could file them away and get back to the task at hand. Disappointment, yes. She’d been planning something clever for Kylar and it wasn’t going to work now. A little bit of grief. Kylar had seemed like the kind of man she would like. Curiosity at how such a capable man had let himself be killed. Some sorrow for how it would affect Uly—good enough, that will do. Having labeled her emotions, she set them aside.
Uly looked up and saw Ariel staring at her. “He’s not dead,” Uly said. “He’s just hurt.”
“Girl,” Vi said. “I’ve seen lots of dead people. He’s dead.”
“He’ll get better.”
It sounded like denial, and Vi obviously took it as such, but it wasn’t.
Sister Ariel unrolled the mental scroll to examine the expression on Uly’s face and watch it change. Curiosity to elation. Curiosity to elation. Uly saw that he was dead—it was obvious from how pale he was that he’d been here for quite some time, maybe a day—but Uly wasn’t surprised and she wasn’t worried. Why? Did she really believe he’d get better?
Sister Ariel reached out with her Talent and touched Kylar and realization whooshed over her—no, it crashed over her like a ten-foot wave, leaving her breathless and sputtering. Her magic was sucked from the air into Kylar’s body, channeled a hundred different ways to join in the healing that was going on within him.
The magic would have baffled her. The magic combined with Uly’s expression that said she’d seen this before and was elated, that told her everything.
Kylar was a creature out of legend. A legend no Sister believed. Until now.
“You’re right, Uly,” Sister Ariel said gently, meeting Vi’s gaze as if to say “play along.” “How about we set up camp and you can start on our dinner while Vi and I tend to his wounds? She and I know more about healing, and you can make sure there’s dinner ready for him when he wakes up.”
Ariel dismounted and helped Uly down.
“I don’t want to go. I want to stay here,” Uly said.
“Uly,” Vi said. “The best way you can help is to get dinner ready. You’ll get in the way here.”
“Come on, child,” Ariel said. She led Uly away as Vi got off her horse and began pulling leaves away from Kylar’s body. Ariel turned and mouthed “start digging.” Vi nodded.
If she’d had time to think, Ariel wouldn’t have played such a desperate hand. A thousand factors were in play and playing too fast for her to calculate the odds.
She took Uly about twenty paces into the woods and bound her and gagged her with magic, setting her on the far side of a tree trunk. “I’m sorry, child. It’s for the best.”
“Mmm!” Uly said, her eyes wide, but the sound was barely a whisper.
Ariel came around the tree just in time to see Vi vault onto her horse’s back and gallop off into the woods. Ariel shouted and threw a ball of light whizzing past her, but didn’t put any heat into it. She wasn’t going to light the forest on fire just to scare the girl. Besides, she might have accidentally hit her.
In moments, even the sound of hoofbeats faded. Sister Ariel shook her head and made no attempt to follow.
So much for the obvious part of the gamble. What Vi did now was the real trick. Good luck, Vi. May you come back to us ready to heal.
She hoped that someday she might sit with Vi in her chambers at the Chantry and laugh about what they’d done today, but she didn’t think it would happen. Not after what she’d just done. Passionate women tended to hate women like Sister Ariel. Or at least they hated being coldly manipulated—but what choice did Ariel have?
“And now you,” she said, turning. “My undying warrior. How do you work?”
“I didn’t see you last time,” Kylar told the Wolf. “I thought maybe I was done with you.” The Wolf was sitting in his throne in the Antechamber of Mystery, his lambent yellow eyes weighing Kylar. The indistinct ghosts who populated the indistinct chamber murmured beyond Kylar’s hearing. The whole place still unnerved him.
He couldn’t feel the floor beneath his feet. He couldn’t see the ghosts when he looked directly at them. Couldn’t tell if the chamber actually had walls. His skin prickled, but he couldn’t have said if it was warm or cold here. He couldn’t smell. Aside from his voice, he heard nothing. He had a sense of noise, voices, the scuff of feet beyond his hearing, but that was only an intuition. He was disembodied and somehow he’d carried along some of his senses but not all of them, and none of them reliably. Only a few things were clear here: the Wolf, and the two doors. One was plain wood with an iron latch, the other gold with light leaking around the edges.
“I was too furious to bear the sight of you,” the Wolf said.
He didn’t look much happier now. Kylar couldn’t think of anything to say. Furious? Why?
“It took Acaelus fifty years to rack up three deaths. You’ve done it in less than six months. You took money for a death. Money. Wasn’t the price for that blasphemy enough? Will you never learn?” the Wolf asked.
“What are you talking about?” Kylar could sense that the ghosts or whatever the insubstantial people were who crowded the chamber had gotten very quiet.