A/N: Sorry about the long time between updates! I've been in MN for the last week and beforehand I didn't get a chance to put up another chapter... Anyway, my apologies. And super thanks to all my super dooper reviewers! And yeah, I was thinking when I wrote that chapter: Fao needs to see Raul again, in person. So there was a happy chapter but this one gets back into the tension stuff. XD.
After visiting with Raul, Faolan hiked back towards the makeshift village the werewolves resided in. By then it was dark, because Faolan had spent more time than she had planned doing some Gift work under the guidance of Raul. She didn't progress much, but it was enough to satisfy Fao and give her an idea of what to practice if she had the time. She'd also told Raul all about Ghost, the Valdemaren werewolf, which made Raul give a loud, :Hmmm: and settle into thinking for a while.
As she walked through the woods, only about two minutes away from Raul, thinking about turning into a werewolf for the way back, she heard a stick crack loudly somewhere in front of her. Faolan froze, her entire body on alert, listening and searching- but she could see no one. A chill running down her spine she opened herself to her werewolf self and let it out, drifting slowly into a furred form.
"Faolan?" a voice asked and she froze, sighing with relief and shivering with fear at the same time as a plain girl stepped into the view of Faolan's lantern like wolf seeing eyes. She reversed her change and straightened up, wondering with another chill if Taryn had been here all along.
"It's me," Fao said, wondering then if she had been followed after all, "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you," Taryn said and peered over Faolan's shoulder, "I thought I heard a horse back there so I got distracted from tracking you. Is there a horse?"
Faolan shook her head, "Why would a horse be here? It's like the middle of nowhere."
"I dunno- Karsites maybe?" Taryn shrugged, still peering about the woods.
"Are there Karsites around here?" Faolan asked, "Is there anything around here?"
"Dunno," Taryn shrugged, "This isn't the direction our trade goods usually come from but it's still into Karse." Then her eyes lit up, "Let's go find some Sun Priests!"
"Or not…" Faolan said, shaking her head, "Don't they like to roast foreigners?"
"We're werewolves. They wouldn't roast us. We're allies," Taryn said smugly, crossing her arms to stare pointedly at Faolan.
Faolan gave her a disgusted look, "Not all werewolves are. And they might roast us anyway, because they're like that. They're killing us because their Priests are using their god as an excuse to wage war on us for no reason at all!"
"Us?" Taryn inquired suspiciously and Faolan blushed.
"The Valdemarens," she quickly amended, looking away.
"You still think of yourself as one of them. After all they did to you," Taryn accused darkly, then asked, "Were you running away?"
"No!" Faolan retorted, "Why the hell would I run away?"
Taryn shrugged, "You're running, not me."
"I'm not running!" Faolan practically screeched, "I was taking a walk!"
"Long walk," Taryn said, then took one look at the way Faolan was bristling with rage and burst out laughing. Faolan couldn't help herself- despite feeling misunderstood and angry she laughed too- and the anger went away.
"Fine, fine!" Taryn said, still cackling, "Maybe you like taking walks."
"Let's go home," Faolan sighed, running a hand through her hair and thinking, I have got to stop this war, if for nothing else than to save her life. I can't just sit here and spy and let the werewolves keep doing what they're doing, knowing what I know. I've got to stop it.
"What about Karsite hunting?" Taryn asked, pausing in her laughter, "You still don't want to hunt Karsites?"
"Hunt them?" Faolan was practically back to screeching again, "You didn't say hunt them! We can't hunt other people! That's just wrong! And gross!"
Taryn sighed, but not without another giggle, "You know what I meant Faolan. Of course not hunt them hunt them. I meant look for them…"
"Sure," Faolan said suspiciously, glad the topic was away from her departure and the mysterious horse, which had to be Raul. Cautiously she poked at the Companion, :You far from here, Raul? One of my werewolf enemies caught up and thinks she heard a horse.:
:I'm gone: Raul assured her and Faolan mentally relaxed.
"Eh, whatever," Taryn shook her head, "Let's head back. We can go find them some other day. I can't believe you aren't curious about the Karsites. Well, I suppose you DID use to be Valdemaren so you would have an anti-Karse attitude…"
"With good reason," Faolan snorted.
"Well, hopefully by the time YOU reach fighting age this war will be over so you won't be forced to work with Karsites and fight the people you still like despite them having kicked you out."
But they didn't kick me out. They took me in, Faolan thought sadly as the two of them headed back over the hills and towards the Valley. Eventually, after sliding down a rocky hill, Taryn changed into werewolf form and Faolan copied her with relief. Now she could see, and move quicker and easier through the woods. The slunk into the village well past midnight and crawled into their respite sleeping huts, disturbing no one.
And the next day, no one commented on Faolan's absence, for which Faolan was happy. It was enough that she considered going to visit Raul again, perhaps in a week or so. Even though Taryn had followed her, she hadn't got close enough to catch them together, and Fao thought if she'd been any closer either she or Raul would have detected her, and split up quickly. So there wasn't any danger- and who else would follow her the next time, especially with Taryn spreading the news that Faolan liked to hike?
That afternoon Skylar stormed into the center of the village, where Faolan, Taryn, and a few other youngsters had been playing a game with rocks and sticks. He hadn't been seen all day, and Faolan had wondered where he was. And he was livid. Faolan had never seen him so angry before. His movements were stiff and his eyes seemed totally black, shadowed by his eyebrows. He stopped in the center- where other werewolves were sitting or talking and everything went quiet.
"They know," he hissed through tight teeth. Faolan thought he looked hairier than normal- was he starting to change into a werewolf? And who knew what?
"They KNOW!" he yelled and picked up one the rocks they'd been playing it with to hurtle it through the trees, "They know. They KNOW!"
"Who knows what?" Faolan whispered to Taryn, feeling a bit scared by this version of Skylar.
"Dunno," Taryn shrugged, "He'll probably say so soon."
"THE VALDEMARENS KNOW!" he said, glaring at everyone, "How the hell do they know? We NEVER have Changed where they could see- only using our Change to slip past lines, to hold the advantage…"
Ooh… thought Faolan, Yah. They do know. My fault, actually. It made her feel very insecure to know that if Skylar knew, she'd be his first pick of targets for that rage. In fact, it made her downright queasy.
"What the HELL is that?" Skylar suddenly yelled, pointed at Faolan. She jumped and stared at him, wondering if he'd read her mind. But he only moved over to her and grabbed the necklace around her throat- only by the leather, and ripped it off. He held it up and stared at it for a long time, as Faolan rubbed her neck, more trying to push her heart back down to where it belonged than because of the hurt.
"What are you?" he asked, his eyes dark and suspicious, then he shouted for everyone to hear, "This is silver! Her necklace is silver!"
Faolan wondered absently why he hadn't noticed before- well, she thought it was pewter but she supposed that particular charm Christopher Alaska had put on it only applied to her. Either way, Faolan thought she should have realized it'd get that sort of reaction. WHY didn't I take it off before? she moaned in her thoughts.
There were now suspicious grumbles moving through the werewolves gathered, all of them staring at Faolan. Damn. How do I explain this without telling them I'm a Herald? They believe I've been running around in the country all this time, not hanging out with Gifted Heralds…
Skylar was still staring at her with a mixture of horror and suspicion and then he asked softly, "Are you a Karsite spy? A demon- sent to watch us?"
Faolan quickly shook her head, trying to look as scared and innocent as possible, "N-no…"
"Then what!" he yelled and Faolan leaned backwards from him, her entire body shaking with fear that was all too real.
"I'm a werewolf," Faolan whispered, so softly Skylar almost couldn't make it out.
"No," he laughed derisively, "You are not. This is silver. Werewolves are allergic to silver. Silver kills us. If you were a werewolf, you'd be dead. An arrow through the heart of one of us might kill, if not taken out and treated quickly, but silver… Silver kills."
Faolan stared at him, a whole new set of possibilities for the war occurring to her. She'd been aware silver was dangerous- after all, the necklace had burned when she'd first put it on, but… it would kill them? Easily? Quickly? But Skylar was still staring at her, expecting explanation, so Faolan shoved those ideas away for the moment.
"I thought it was pewter," Faolan said, and looking at it, it did still look more like pewter to her than silver.
"It is not-!" Skylar started to exclaim and then he looked at the wolf pendant again and frowned. A long moment passed and then he reached up one finger to touch it carefully. Nothing happened.
"It is pewter…" he said, puzzled and confused at his 'mistake.' Faolan started at him, only just able to contain her glee. So Alaska's spell could be extended to others by the process of suggestion!
"Sorry Faolan," he said and dropped it back into her hands, "I guess… I just got so worked up about them knowing we're werewolves and thinking about what would happen if they all started using silver edged swords and arrow heads…"
Faolan felt a little bit guilty that she had just been thinking of the same thing, and intending it for the battlefront, but she pushed that away too and said, "It's okay," as she retied it around her neck.
"One more question," Skylar said with a sneaky smile, "Did you get that before or after you became a werewolf?"
Faolan reached a hand to touch the wolf that hung around her neck and blushed before saying, "After…"
"Thought so," he said, and with a brotherly smile ruffled her hair, before moving off to mutter angrily about the Valdemarens. Faolan watched him go, thinking sadly that she knew the cure for the allergy to silver, but could never give it to these people who had become her friends. Someday, she thought, Someday when the war is over and there's another way to true control. When that day comes, I will make sure silver is never a problem for any werewolf ever again. Then Faolan got lost in thought wondering why silver was a huge allergy for werewolves- did it have something to do with the complexity and general randomness of magic that the Mage Storms resulted in? Or was it tied to something else?
Faolan turned and moved off on her own, shrugging at Taryn's questioning look- she wanted to continue the game. But Fao left, to find a quiet corner, where she sadly proceeded to relay information by mindspeech to the Companion she'd just seen the day before.