Edit April 2010: FFN decided to eat all the scene dividers so I'm having to go back and add them all in again. I'm also removing the review responses. NOTHING ELSE HAS BEEN ALTERED; if you've read this story before, you don't need to read it again (although you're more than welcome to).
Thanks again to everyone who reviewed. This chapter is longer; I'm splitting it wherever I think makes sense to stop.
That night and the following day passed quietly. Numair could see that Daine was still a little upset, and knew enough to let it well alone and pretend nothing had happened. If she hadn't told Onua the story yet, she certainly wasn't going to tell him, and that was all right because there were many things he had no intention of telling her either. He thought they were going to be friends eventually, but right now it was best for both of them to keep their own secrets.
Evening meant meditation again, since last night Onua had admitted to getting out of the habit of meditating every night. Truthfully, so had he until recently, which was a bad idea for him since it was important that he be able to concentrate and keep control of himself. To his mild surprise, Daine seemed interested in learning; certainly no harm in that, and it might well help her later if she chose to really begin learning her own magic. He said nothing about that, although later as they sat quietly he opened his eyes and looked at her aura; she blazed brighter than anyone he'd ever seen, strongly enough that she would definitely need training, and soon. Not yet, though; she didn't quite trust him yet, and knew nothing of the magic she possessed.
The following day they were overtaken on the road by the Own. He'd felt Alanna approaching from some distance away, her anger was so strong, and knew it was bad news even before he saw her face; she wore the expression that warned everyone who knew her to step very quietly and watch what they said. The Lioness' temper was the stuff of legends at times.
"He's gone," Alanna told them, looking mostly at him, and he winced at the news. "From the looks of it, he fled the minute he knew you were safe. Curse him! Those dungeons of his – "
"I know," he interrupted in a whisper, cutting her off. He'd been there. He knew. Feeling suddenly tired, he looked away; this mess was at least partly his fault. He should have been more careful. He listened to the rest of the conversation with half an ear; the Stormwings had helped Sinthya escape, and were apparently far more than simply monsters. Wonderful news. No doubt he would be researching them for weeks once they reached the palace again.
The Own left them behind, and the three humans and herd of ponies increased their pace; Numair needed to get to Corus quickly to report to Jon and find out what he was doing next, and Onua was working to her own deadline that his arrival had delayed.
Four days later they finally arrived back in Corus, by which time he was feeling tired and stressed once more, going over his report in his mind and trying to anticipate what questions Jon was likely to ask; mostly questions he had no answers for. He was touched to see that Daine was upset when they separated; she'd miss him, it seemed, even if he did seem to have a knack for saying the wrong thing. They'd become friends at some point on the trip here. No matter; he'd certainly see her again soon, and told her so without saying why, before saying goodbye to the pair of them and heading for the palace.
Numair wasn't sure what woke him. Possibly a bad dream; he didn't remember what he'd been dreaming about. Maybe something had caught his senses and woken him; maybe he'd simply heard the uproar from the grounds. However it had happened, it had, and he raced through the darkened corridors of the palace, nearly killing himself leaping blindly down the stairs to the ground floor and out of a side door, running across the grass in the darkness towards the sounds of screaming horses and baying dogs – and above that, the by now unpleasantly familiar sounds of Stormwings. Well, he wasn't drugged this time!
The animal sounds should have tipped him off, but he didn't realise until he was close enough to see clearly that Daine was involved. The unpleasant shock cleared his mind and focused him; the first Stormwing died explosively and he was relieved to discover that his Gift was returning rapidly. He wasn't at full strength yet, but he didn't need to be; others had heard the alarm. And the animals were fighting, too; even as his magic tracked more Stormwings, he watched the horses and dogs defending the girl crouched in their midst, grinning despite himself at the sight of the unarmed thirteen year old throwing rocks at the immortals and yelling defiance.
He had to focus; his strength was returning, but he hadn't been expecting a fight so soon, and there were a lot of Stormwings. Turning away, he paid more attention to the monsters, angry now that they had hounded him and Daine right to his home, worried that they'd dared attack right in the heart of the palace. Sarge and Onua had both appeared now, their respective quarters close to the horse meadow; a moment later he felt a familiar surge and the purple fire of Alanna's magic joined the fight.
Thunder all but deafened him, setting the animals to screaming, and he knew who had caused it even before the blue fire appeared. "Was that really necessary, Jon?" he shouted over the noise, turning to move closer to the other two mages, grinning wryly at the king before wearily hurling fire at another Stormwing. If Jon replied, he didn't hear it, the spell draining most of what he had left; luckily the remaining immortals elected to give up and fled the field.
Exhausted, shivering now the adrenaline began to wear off – he wasn't exactly dressed for this – he started wearily down the rise towards Daine, deciding to let Jon and Alanna look at Stormwing corpses. He'd seen as much as he cared to of these particular monsters for a while; even the fact that they could use magic failed to draw him. Reaching her, he smiled tiredly, leaning against the tree in the middle of the field. "I said I'd see you again."
She grinned, looking shaken but unhurt. "You timed it perfect."
He was late to the meeting the next evening; the fight had drained him, so he'd slept late, and once he'd woken he'd had work to do trying to make sense of what was happening to the world. He'd also forgotten to eat, and reached for the plate of cakes before he'd even sat down, taking a bite as he listened to Jon explaining to Daine what little they knew – not much. He was vaguely amused to see the half-stunned expression on her face; Jon tended to have that effect on women of all ages. Swallowing his mouthful, he listened to the talk.
"Our neighbours – Galla, Scanra, Tusaine – report unicorns, giant birds, even winged people as small as wrens. We are plagued by monsters, ogres and trolls." Jon's fingers drummed restlessly on the table. "It's interesting that a weak mage like Sinthya could send rare creatures like Stormwings after you," the king added to Numair. "Where did he get such power? As far as we know, he had only one secret worth protecting; he was dealing with Carthak."
"Carthak's another country?" Daine asked uncertainly.
"Across the Inland Sea," Numair replied as neutrally as he could. "They're desperate. Their crops failed two years in a row – not enough rain, and tornadoes that ripped up the fields. There were food riots in the capital last winter. The emperor needs good farmland, and we're the closest target."
Jon joined in. "Carthak has the university, its school for mages, and its library – the same library used by the mages who sealed the Divine Realms." The king looked at Numair. "I think the Carthaki mages found those spells."
He had come to the same conclusion. Appetite gone, he stared down at the remains of the cake he held, picking it apart and rolling the pieces into a ball. He'd looked for those spells himself when he was at the university, out of simple curiosity. If he'd stayed in Carthak, maybe he would have been one of the mages now tearing holes between realms and unleashing monsters on the northern countries. He changed the subject. "And spells to compel immortals to obey humans. How else could Sinthya get Stormwings to chase me?"
Jon turned back to Daine. "We have nothing like those spells. Sinthya's papers vanished. We're searching our own libraries, but it might take months. In the meantime, the warnings foretellers give us aren't enough. If we could send those with your ability to sense immortals to our villages and towns, we could better protect our people. If we can find your father – "
That jolted Numair out of his brooding. Jon hadn't mentioned this idea to him. Turning, he looked at Daine; she looked miserable, shaking her head, and he frowned in concern.
"Daine?" The gentle voice came from Onua. Daine looked down.
"I don't know who he is," the girl said in a small voice, staring at the table. "It's in my name. Sarrasri – Sarra's daughter. Only bastards are named for their mothers." That one word held a great deal of anger and pain, and he wanted to say something comforting, but he could tell she didn't want sympathy right now.
"Why don't you know?" Jon asked, apparently unwilling to let the subject drop. Well, it might prove to be important, Numair supposed; it was a shame that it was painful for her, though.
She kept her eyes fixed on the table. "Ma never told me. She never told anybody. She kept saying 'someday, someday'."
"Do you know anything?" Onua asked, resting a hand on the girl's shoulder.
"It was Beltane." That said it all, really, but Daine seemed determined to get the whole story out – such as it was – now it had started. "They light fires, and couples jump over the embers when they burn down."
"We do the same thing," Jon remarked, and Daine stared at him.
"You never jumped over no embers."
The room erupted into laughter, which Numair joined; she had no idea what sort of place she was living in now. He remembered his own first few weeks at court; most of them had been spent in a state of complete and utter bewilderment. She blushed and looked away.
"The ruler takes part in all great feasts, to show respect for the gods," Jon told her gravely, his eyes dancing. "Thayet and I do it every year."
"I didn't mean – I wasn't trying to be – disrespectful – " she stammered. Jon patted her knee.
"I didn't think you were. Go on."
After a moment she resumed her story. "Ma wasn't sweet on anybody, so she went walking in the woods alone. She met someone. I used to think it was a man that was already married, but when I asked last year, she said no. And I don't look like anyone from Snowsdale. Most of 'em are blond and blue-eyed, being's we're so near Scanra and all."
Jon sat back with a sigh, looking disappointed. "Well, it was an idea."
"I'll help if I can," Daine said, a little unexpectedly given how painful this discussion had obviously been. "I just don't know what I could do. And the warnings aren't that, exactly. I know something wrong's coming, but I knew that much about the rabid bear."
That made everyone in the room blink. "A rabid bear?" Jon asked in fascinated horror. "Mithros – that's not something I'd ever want to see!"
She smiled a little. "I didn't want to see him either, sir. I just got to."
Numair considered what she'd said. "Did you get the identical sensation from the bear as you got with the Stormwings or the spidrens?" he asked.
"Oh, no. It was different. Bad, but in a brown kind of way."
"In a what?" Onua asked, sounding confused.
"Well, animals – I think of 'em in colours, sometimes." She tapped her head. "To me, bears feel brown, only this one had red and black lights. Very sick, he was. I get the monsters as colours too, but they're gold with black and green lights in them. I never felt any real creature as gold."
He felt a surge of satisfaction at being proved right, and looked at Jon triumphantly. "I told you she has magic." The instant the words left him he realised it had been the wrong thing to say, and wasn't terribly surprised when Daine stood up abruptly.
"No! Didn't Ma test me and test me? Don't you think I'd've grabbed at magic, if I had it, just to please Ma?"
"Easy, little one," Jon said, taking her arm and easing her back into her chair, while Onua kicked Numair under the table. He hadn't needed the rebuke, really. "Numair believes – and I agree – you have magic. You may have no Gift, but there are other magics, 'wild magics'. The Bazhir tribes use one kind to unite their people. The Doi read the future with another. There are creatures we call 'elementals', whose very nature is composed of wild magic."
Daine seemed to have calmed down a little. She frowned, thinking. "Miri told me the sea people know about it. Some of them use it to talk to fish and dolphins."
Jon nodded. "Exactly. From what your friends say, your wild magic gives you a bond with animals. Your mother might not have recognised it. Only a few people know it even exists." As Numair knew only too well. He'd spent a long time in fruitless arguments on the subject.
Daine's frown deepened. "Can't you see it on someone, like them with the Gift can see it on other folk that have it?"
Numair felt it was time to rejoin the conversation. "I can. And you do." She stared at him.
"He's perhaps the only living expert on wild magic," Jon said helpfully.
Daine scowled. "You never mentioned this on the road."
He smiled, part apology and part amusement; she would have run if he had. "If you were trying to get a deer to come to you, would you make any sudden noises?" he asked, gently teasing.
Her scowl deepened. "That's different. I'm no deer."
Jon broke the mood by reaching to take the girl's hands. "Will you let Numair help you study wild magic?" the king asked. "It may help expand your awareness of the immortals, for one thing," he added by way of incentive.
She didn't look convinced; Onua joined in the persuasion. "Wouldn't it be easier to tell creatures to obey you? All the way here you coaxed the ponies to mind you. You're dominant – you proved that on the stallion, the day you and I met. Why prove it to each pony in the herd, if you could do it just once and never again?"
That didn't seem to have done it either. She was scared, and they were making her magic seem a frightening thing. Numair's mind raced, piecing together what he knew about her and what he knew of what wild magic could do, and suddenly he had it. "Daine," he said softly, and waited until she looked at him. "I can teach you to heal."
The look on her face told him that he'd guessed right. An almost painful hope sparked in her eyes as she looked at him, and her voice was strained as she answered. "Animals? You mean – like Ma did humans? But how do you know if I can?" He could hear in her voice that she was afraid he was wrong, that this dream too would be taken away; it was a depressing tone from someone as young as she was. None of those he had taught wild magic had been strong enough to heal with it, but she was so much more powerful that there was no doubt in his mind that she could learn – especially with how desperately she wanted it.
Onua answered before he could. "Because I saw you do it once. At the marsh, after the fight. You were holding a bird, and you fainted, remember?" Daine nodded, and so did he; Onua had already told him about it. "I was looking right at an owl with his head cut almost off. The wound healed; he flew away. So did a lot of birds that shouldn't have been able to fly. I think it happened because their need just pulled the healing out of you." He almost smiled; this from Onua, who stubbornly insisted that she was no scholar? As far as it went, she was probably right, though. Now she nodded to him. "He can teach you to heal of your own will, without burning yourself up so you faint."
Ironic, considering he couldn't heal with his own magic. It certainly wasn't lack of knowledge; he simply had no affinity for healing magic, not to mention that he was too powerful to do so safely – he didn't want to know what his Gift might do to someone who was injured or sick. But wild magic worked differently; that, he could teach her. If she was willing to try. Now he turned and looked back at Daine patiently, watching the play of emotions over her face; fear, mainly, and sorrow that he didn't fully understand, and that desperate hope that almost hurt to see. She looked away from him in the end, as if seeing his understanding was too much, and looked back at Jonathan.
"I still think it sounds crazy, but I'll try."
Jon squeezed her hands. "You will?"
She nodded, looking a little overwhelmed, then paused. "Oh, wait, I hired on with Onua for the summer."
"That isn't a problem," Numair said quickly. "The trainees will be going to Pirate's Swoop. I live near there. Why don't I just go along?" Jon frowned, and he spoke again before the king could say no. "Hag's bones, Jon, there's nothing I can do here right now that you don't have a hundred other mages doing already." Inspiration struck, and he added, "If I work with Daine, maybe I can devise a spell to warn people that immortals are coming." He doubted it, but Jon didn't have to know that.
The king made a face, obviously not fooled. That was annoying; he was usually better at lying. "You just say that so I'll let you go."
Onua added her support to Numair. "You have too many mages eating their heads off around here as it is. It's not as if you can't contact him if something comes up." He smiled at his friend and looked back at Jon hopefully.
"Whose side are you on?" Jon's tone said clearly that he knew he was outmatched, and a moment later he sighed in defeat, looking back at Daine and letting go of her hands. "Thank you." He stood. "Onua, Numair, keep me posted?" They nodded. "I'd best go then. I have to dance with the Carthaki ambassador's wife."
He grinned at the thought. "Wear iron shoes, Your Majesty," he advised, only half joking.
"Excuse me – Your Majesty?" Daine said hesitantly, drawing everyone's attention back to her.
"Yes, my dear?"
That made her blush. "I'm sorry I can't help more. With the sensing, and my da, and all."
Jon smiled at her. "If I've learned anything as a king, it's been I never know when someone will be able to help me. I have a feeling you'll be most welcome in this realm, Veralidaine Sarrasri." Veralidaine? Ouch. No wonder she used the shortened form. Numair watched in some amusement as she stared after Jon as he left, looking poleaxed, and Onua patted her back.
"He has this effect on most of us, if it helps."
Trying not to laugh, he claimed the last cake on the plate and stood up. "No time like the present to begin. Daine, will you get Cloud, please? We'll meet you by the stables."
He enlisted Onua's help; the K'mir was curious to see what someone with real wild magic could do, since her own was barely there. They went slowly down to the meadow, giving Daine a little time to sort her mind out and adjust to what she had been told, and giving him time to think about what they could reasonably try first and start planning lessons.
"Daine?" he called softly as they drew nearer. "Good, you have her. If you can persuade her to come with me, I'd like to check your range with an animal you know well."
Both girl and pony looked suspicious. "What do you mean, my 'range'?" she asked warily.
"I've observed that when you say you 'hear' an animal, you actually mean hearing in your mind – not with your ears. I want to see how far I can walk with Cloud before you stop hearing her."
She thought about it. "But how will you know?" she asked reasonably. "Should I have her tell you when we lose touch or something?"
"No!" Onua said hastily, laughing. "Daine, knowing Cloud, she'd do it by kicking him. Numair will do a speech spell with me. You and I will sit here, and you tell me what you hear from Cloud, and when you stop hearing her."
"If Cloud will do it," he added; the pony didn't seem to like anyone very much, and he wasn't sure she'd forgiven him yet for upsetting Daine on the road.
"Of course she will," Daine answered, before glancing at the pony, who stared into the distance as if totally unaware of anything that was being said. Finally the mare turned and trotted off along the fence, and Daine grinned. "I think you're to follow her."
Numair sighed and trotted off after the pony, beginning to wonder just what he had let himself in for. "Only one of us can lead here, and that has to be me," he informed the mare as he drew alongside, earning himself an unimpressed snort. It took a few moments for him to set up the spell on the move, finding a pace that matched the pony's stride at the same time and choosing a route that would take them out from where Daine and Onua sat in an almost straight line.
The wolves howling in the distance were a surprise; he'd heard them before on the road, but never so close to a human settlement as large as Corus. Cloud's ears twitched, but oddly the pony seemed totally unafraid. That was curious, but he didn't have much time to think about it, since a moment later Onua's voice came from the sparkling fire in his hand, calling Daine repeatedly.
"Onua? What's wrong?" he asked sharply, stopping; Cloud stopped as well, turning to look at him. When there was no reply, he stared back towards the horse meadow. "Onua?"
"Wait a moment," her voice replied softly, and he frowned, left standing in the dark wondering what had happened. Cloud whickered uneasily, shifting her weight. After what seemed a long time his friend's voice spoke again. "I don't think this is a good idea. She's tired and I think something upset her."
"All right," he answered, breaking the spell and looking back at Cloud. "Come on, then," he told the pony. "I'll open the gate for you." Following the pony back through the night, he studied Daine's face as they drew near enough to see; she did look upset.
"Are you all right?" he asked softly, resting a hand on her shoulder for a moment. "I should have remembered you might be tired after this morning," he added apologetically. "I get carried away sometimes. I forget that not everyone has my academic enthusiasm."
She hesitated, and for a moment seemed about to say something when they were interrupted by the arrival of a man with a crossbow and two wolfhounds, or dogs he assumed were wolfhounds. After they had left and headed back towards her room, she didn't seem to want to talk, and he wished her goodnight quietly before climbing the hill back to the palace, lost in thought.
I'm trying to space out my updates so I have time to finish Wolf-Speaker; that way you won't have to wait too long between books. It's going slowly at the moment – of the four, it's always been my least favourite – but once the real action starts I'm more confident about what I'm doing, so it shouldn't be too long.
As always, please review and tell me what you think.
Loten.