Down in the cellar, Brianda closed on her designated mark. She was thinking of making her descent to the ground behind him, when his hair lifted as though caught by a gentle breeze.

  Raomar stopped, cocking his head as though listening to someone speak, but Brianda heard nothing. Taking advantage of his preoccupation, she rose slowly into a crouch.

  A scuff to her left caught her attention, and she glanced toward it—Grunwol! Gods, how had the Northman found her so fast?

  It didn’t matter. He came diving out of the shadows of an intersecting column of casks, the racks shaking beneath them as he knocked her from her crouch. Brianda threw herself into a backward roll attempting to grab him and use his momentum to pitch him over her head and down into the aisle beyond.

  With any luck, he’d land on the kevarag.

  She didn’t stop to think of what the drop from the top of the casks to the floor would mean for him…or her, if she followed him over. She didn’t have time to think. As Grunwol slammed into her, her foot slipped between two casks and she fell.

  Instead of flipping into a roll that sent them both over the side, she ended up on her back, his weight crushing her to the top of the cask as her leg and knee flared with pain. She bit back a cry as he levered himself off her, not caring that he kept a good grip on her shoulder.

  “Gotcha,” he grunted.

  “Yield,” Brianda agreed, swallowing hard against the wave of pain that rolled up her leg.

  A stone skipped out of the darkness, bouncing across the flagstones to rest at Raomar’s feet. He shook his head, as though freeing it from the breeze, and glanced toward its origin.

  “Game over,” he called, as another stone came flicking out of the darkness to hit him in the chest.

  He glared at the shadows.

  “I said game over,” he repeated in a growl of frustration.

  Ghost’s giggle floated out of the dark, and she followed.

  “Gotcha.” She was still smiling as she slid from the space between two casks and scrambled to her feet.

  “Very good,” Raomar acknowledged, before directing his attention to the top of the casks. “I said the game was over.”

  Grunwol lifted himself clear of Brianda, kneeling carefully beside her, and watching as she carefully tried to pull her leg free. When he reached to help her, she flinched back, and he paused, turning his attention to her leg.

  “That’s going to hurt coming out,” he observed.

  Brianda nodded, pressing her lips together. She’d been injured like this, before—Gravarik!

  With Grunwol looming so close, the memories came flooding back, and she closed her eyes against them, reminding herself that this wasn’t the same barbarian, that this barbarian was on her side.

  Raomar sighed impatiently.

  “Zarine says there is danger,” Raomar stated. “We need to go.”

  Ignoring the urgency in his voice, Brianda gritted her teeth and nodded to Grunwol. She forced herself not to panic as he moved in front of her and lifted her to her feet.

  “You ready?” he asked, and she looped her arms around his neck, before pressing her face to his chest and nodding.

  Her “Ready,” came out muffled, but his arms tightened around her.

  “Brianda! Grunwol!” Raomar’s worried demand, almost drowned out Brianda’s cry of pain, as Grunwol pulled her free of the gap.

  Raomar misinterpreted the cry.

  “The game is over!”

  Neither of them answered as Grunwol helped Brianda swing herself over the edge of the rack, then let go so she could make a controlled drop to the floor below.

  Raomar watched them, his face set and angry.

  “I thought I told you…” he began, his anger dying as Brianda landed, then collapsed with another cry of pain. When next he spoke, his tone held resignation, “What did she do?”

  “I tripped,” Brianda replied.

  “Got her leg stuck between two casks,” Grunwol answered at the same time.

  “So, which is it?” Raomar demanded, looking from one to the other. “Did she trip or catch her leg?”

  “Both,” they replied.

  Raomar opened his mouth to say something, only to be interrupted by Ghost.

  “Zarine needs us,” she reminded them. “We should hurry.”

  Raomar nodded, hastening to kneel at Brianda’s side.

  “Here,” he began, reaching for where she grasped her knee between both hands. “Let me…”

  Brianda saw when he reached for his goddess…and when he realized she wouldn’t answer.

  His hand dropped, and he bowed his head.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her. “There’s nothing…”

  His voice cracked, and he rose abruptly to his feet.

  “I’ll send one of our hosts,” he told her. “Their god hasn’t abandoned them.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Brianda replied, trying to ease his pain, not only at losing the favor of his goddess, but also at losing the power to help those in his charge. “You three go ahead. I’ll be there as soon as help comes.”

  Raomar’s mouth opened, then closed again, as though he was torn on how to respond.

  “I’ll be fine,” she insisted. “But Zarine and Alessia…”

  It was what Raomar needed to hear, and he turned abruptly away, his whispered apology lingering as his footsteps died.

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  “I’m sorry.”

  Grunwol followed his master, casting an anxious glance over his shoulder as he went.

  Brianda raised a hand to signal she would be all right, and he continued, moving around the end of the casks with Ghost and Raomar, and not looking back.

  Brianda waited until she heard the sound of the cellar door open and close, then slumped back against the casks. After a moment, she twisted, resting the full length of her leg against the floor and letting the cold of the flagstone ease some of the fiery pain burning through it.

  She didn’t dare move until the aching subsided, and only then did she pull herself slowly to her feet and make her slow and painful way down the aisle, leaning on the casks for support. Every step sent more pain jolting through her, but she kept on, hoping Raomar had found a priest and sent them to her aid.

  Every step hurt, but she persisted until the pain drover her to lay her leg against the flags, once more. Refusing to cry, she curled against the casks, waiting for the cold stone to work its magic.

  * * *

  Upstairs, in the wizards’ chamber, Sindra was still frowning, but she had returned to her seat, and the book that lay open on the table. Once again, she wrote sporadically on the parchment set beside the book, and once again, she kept a careful watch on those in the room around her.

  Zarine had relaxed enough to return to her sewing. Her stitches were slower, lacking the desperation they’d had earlier, and her shoulders had less tension. She no longer seemed to be trying to forget each stitch she sewed.

  If anything, Sindra thought, the girl seemed to be enjoying the company of the strange mage seated on the woven rug before her.

  And he seems to be enjoying her company, too, Sindra thought, a slight smile curling her lips.

  Sindra’s smile faded as he looked toward her mistress. Alessia had returned to her seat in the slowly moving sun, albeit now she listened as Zarine and the mage spoke. She listened, but she made no attempt to join the conversation.

  She still sat as tensely as she had been sitting before.

  Haunted, Sindra thought, looking at her, and knew the fears that stalked her own dreams, stalked her mistress’s, as well.

  Her gaze drifted back to the book, but the arcane script blurred to a meaningless scribble before her eyes. Sindra blinked, and rubbed her hand across her face.

  Her mistress wasn’t the only one who had to conquer her fears.

  Sindra sighed, lifting her gaze to the window at her mistress’s back. She tensed as movement flashed beyond it, rising from her seat to see something snaking its way toward the window’s edge. As she watched, it paused, half-raised and peered inside.

  Sindra gasped, her eyes widening with fear as she stared at the thing disguised in earth and leaves from the bushes outside the window.

  Alessia whirled to face it, and Varan grabbed the nearest chair swinging it at the thing beyond the window. The glass shattered and the creature beyond yelled in alarm and rolled to one side. The chair legs caught on the window frame, shattering as Varan drew it back and swung it, again.

  A second creature rose out of the leaves and seized the edges of the chair, extending surprisingly human hands from under its camouflage. Zarine caught sight of them, too, and sputtered into abrupt laughter.

  Sindra and Alessia gave her startled looks, and her laughter grew.

  “I’m…I’m so sorry,” she sputtered. “I fo…forgot.”

  “Forgot what?” Alessia asked in exasperation, but their visitor got it, first.

  “The message wind!” he exclaimed. “How could I have forgotten?”

  The figure holding the chair pushed the leaf-covered hood from his head and slowly lowered the broken seat. Sindra recognized Grunwol’s white hair and green eyes, and took a deeper breath. The other figure pulled the hood clear of his head, and Sindra saw Raomar’s familiar blue-streaked straw-colored hair.

  Grim amusement etched his green-brown face and Varan backed away from the broken window, letting the pair enter.

  Trio, Sindra corrected herself, as Ghost dropped down from an overhead branch.

  “Roamer!” Alessia cried, hurrying forward to help him through the window.

  She ignored the new mage’s indrawn hiss of surprise and fear, and Sindra got ready to intervene, but the mage only tensed, and then he waited to see what would happen next.

  As soon as she had him in the room, Alessia wrapped her arms around the kevarag, buried her face against his chest, and began to cry.

  Raomar’s skin darkened as though embarrassed, but he wrapped his arms around her, and stared defiantly at the mage, standing beside Zarine. When he spoke, he addressed the apprentice, and not the stranger.

  “This is what scared you?” he asked, waving a hand at the startled wizard.

  Zarine nodded, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment, but Raomar only cocked his head, studying the mage with appraising eyes.

  “He doesn’t look so dangerous to me,” he remarked. “What made you think he was?”

  Sindra decided to intervene.

  “It was the manner of his arrival,” she stated, drawing Raomar’s attention.

  “And how did he arrive?”

  “As a squirrel through that window,” Sindra explained, indicating the smaller casement, the mage had used to enter the room. “He startled the mistress and frightened Zarine into summoning you when he shape-changed into a human.”

  The kevarag shrugged, absent-mindedly stroking Alessia’s hair with one hand. Looking beyond the apprentices, he looked back again at the mage, and saw the man’s fear fighting his curiosity in the windows of his eyes.

  He smiled, meaning to ease some of the mage’s worries, and shaking his head when he saw he’d failed.

  “Not all of us serve the powers of the dark,” he said.

  “Just as not all shapechangers use an evil power to affect their changes,” the mage replied.

  “Your name?” Raomar asked.

  “Rur-an-ith,” the mage told him, pronouncing each syllable carefully. “Ruranith Melkin al Runidah.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” Raomar replied. “I am Raomar. You need not call me anything else.”

  Glass crunched, and wood splintered as it was cleared away from the window. Grunwol hauled his large frame into the room, then reached back out to offer Ghost a helping hand.

  Hearing it, Alessia gave one last sniff, then pulled herself gently out of Raomar’s arms.

  “Thanks, Rao,” she said, moving to sit beside Sindra, and quietly dabbing at her eyes.

  Raomar didn’t attempt to hold her, merely watched as she retreated, concern showing in his eyes.

  “You’ve spent too much time underground,” he told her “I’ll speak to the priests of your need.”

  Alessia gave him a forced smile.

  “I’m a wizardess,” she told him. “We’re supposed to spend a lot of time indoors.”

  Raomar gave her a steady stare.

  “Nevertheless,” he told her, “I’ll speak with them.”

  “I…I’m s…” Alessia began, but Raomar waved her apology away.

  “It’s all right. The waiting…and the last few days…hasn’t been very good for any of us.”

  The door opened and they pivoted toward it, weapons raised, and spells prepared. A young priest holding a meal tray stood in the doorway. He gave them a puzzled look.

  “I’m sorry,” he began, noting the tension in their postures. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Raomar stepped forward, and he tensed, despite the kevarag’s next words.

  “It’s the wait. We’re all on edge,” he said, by way of explanation.

  Movement glimmered behind him, and the priest hurriedly stepped forward, looking awkward as he entered the room. A priestess in yellow robes, edged in pale blue, stepped into the room after him. Raomar thought she looked like a sunny bolt of lightning.

  “Then it’s a good thing the waiting is over,” the priestess announced. “The ceremony will occur, tonight. The gods have appointed it thus.”

  “The gods be praised,” Raomar replied not bother to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

  His tone earned him a reproving look.

  “If you have so little faith in the gods,” she challenged, “Why have you come?”

  Raomar lifted his chin, his voice hardening.

  “Because the gods ordered it, and I have no choice,” he answered.

  “Then you’d better find the faith,” she ordered sternly, before indicating the tray carried by the young priest. “The meals are for the wizardess and her charges. Your food has been delivered to your appointed quarters, and its remains will be removed in an hour.”

  It was as much of an order for them to return to their quarters as Sindra had ever heard, and she resented the priestess’s tones. Raomar, however, merely nodded.

  “Thank you, my lady,” he replied, and went to lead his companions past her.

  She ignored him, focusing on the mage.

  “And you, Master Ruranith, what brings you here?” she asked.

  “Mere curiosity, my lady,” the mage replied. “I was coming to see High Priest Ardor, when I chanced by this window and…”

  “And you couldn’t help but pry,” the priestess admonished, her words softened by the beginnings of a smile. “I trust you’ll be paying your respects, soon, then…”

  Again, Sindra recognized an order disguised as an observation, and the mage nodded.

  “That I will, my lady. I have need to speak with him.”

  “And he has need to speak with you,” the priestess reminded him tartly, before glancing at her assistant, and speaking sharply, “Titan, stop your gawking and deliver that tray.”

  The young priest jumped at her voice, the tray rattling in his hands. With an obvious effort, he took his gaze from the kevarag’s face, and looked for somewhere to put his tray.

  Sindra snapped her book closed to draw his attention, then indicated the clear space before her. By the time the tray had been delivered, Raomar had led Grunwol and Ghost from the room, and she realized the spymaster’s apprentice hadn’t been with them.