Barb Hendee - Through Stone and Sea

"Well, then," Chuillyon said pointedly, and pushed past into the cavern.

Reine's frustration sharpened. She rushed after his swishing white robe as he headed straight at Cinder-Shard.

"If you will not lock it out, then what do you intend?" the counselor demanded. "Do something , and soon, or I will."

Reine didn't know how Chuillyon had held off the black mage's racing fire. She knew little about him—even less about his sect among the Lhoin'na sages. Exactly what did the elder of the Pras'an je Chârmuna—the Order of Chârmun—think that he or Cinder-Shard could do about this mage?

"I did not say I would do nothing!" Cinder-Shard retorted.

He glanced at Reine and then jerked the leather sheath off the staff's top.

Chuillyon cocked a feathery eyebrow as Reine too peered at the exposed crystal. Its perfect long prisms were as clear as polished glass. Cinder-Shard leaned it out toward her.

"What is this?" he demanded. "Obviously a made thing … likely from the sages' furnaces. I can sense all forms of stone and earth … but nothing of this."

Reine shook her head. "I don't know, and I hesitate to ask. We can't give that sage more opportunity for manipulation. Domin High-Tower and Premin Sykion both implied she's irrational."

"I saw no madness in her face," Bulwark said, folding his thick arms over his scaled hauberk.

"Nor I," Balsam added, "and that thing was afraid of her wolf."

Chuillyon still studied the staff's crystal, but he rolled his large eyes. "Could we delay discussion of canines and contrivances … and return to plans?"

"What would you suggest?" Cinder-Shard growled back. "Do share, you sanctimonious jester!"

Another Stonewalker, Amaranth, approached through the cavern's columns, and Reine turned to greet her. For all of Cinder-Shard's and Chuillyon's sharpness, they were friends of old. It was best to leave them to their crucible of bickering until they extracted a solution.

"How is Saln?" Reine asked.

Amaranth was wider than Balsam, with heavy creases surrounding her eyes and mouth, though no gray showed in her sandy hair. She finished wiping her hands on a muslin square and tucked it into her stout belt.

"His burns are not as deep as I first believed," she answered. "But more blistering will come. If he ignores my instructions—and proper treatment—scarring and disability may occur."

Tristan stepped closer. "Can he stand for his duty?"

"I just said… ." Amaranth scowled and shook her head. "It is his wish, though I warn against it."

Reine glanced up at the captain towering over everyone except Chuillyon. A flicker passed across his face. Was it remorse, sorrow, or misguided shame?

The Sentinels numbered twenty-seven, almost always working in threes. She didn't know if hers were friends as well as comrades. It seemed strange that Tristan was disturbed by Saln's loss of duty more than the man's injuries. But at times, she knew duty was more precious than life.

Chuillyon's too-sharp whisper pulled Reine's attention.

"She already saw how you got your stubby fingers into that shadow !"

Cinder-Shard didn't lash back. His eyes flicked once toward Reine, and he quickly looked away.

What were they arguing about now—and what did it have to do with her?

"What shadow?" Reine demanded.

Chuillyon's sarcastic annoyance faded. He appeared to study her—assess her—before turning an accusing glance upon Cinder-Shard.

"I heard you shout," he said. "Do you or do you not believe it was a servant of—"

Cinder-Shard's eyes widened, and Chuillyon never finished. The old elf had almost said something the master Stonewalker disapproved of, but Reine didn't know what or why.

"Was it Âthkyensmyotnes ?" Chuillyon demanded.

At that strange word, Reine closed on them. It sounded like something in Elvish.

"Who are you talking about?" she asked.

Bulwark shifted uncomfortably, exposing clenched teeth. Balsam glanced between her two elders, apparently as lost as Reine.

"It is old," Cinder-Shard answered grudgingly. "Very old."

"You did not deny my suspicion," Chuillyon challenged. "So, what else did you sense?"

Cinder-Shard grunted. "What did you sense, as you blocked its flames?"

"Nothing … and that frightens me."

"Someone answer me!" Reine demanded.

Cinder-Shard flexed his free hand, stared at it, then looked to the cavern wall near the main entrance. No one answered her.

"Apparently, I cannot entomb it," Cinder-Shard muttered. "What other way is there to kill what is already dead ?"

Reine stared at him in astonishment. Surely he didn't believe Wynn's insane notions.

"We need to bind it … in, not out," he said to Chuillyon. "And your ways, though effective against manipulations outside of itself, will not halt it from acting directly."

Reine grabbed Chuillyon's sleeve. "You cannot bring that murderer back here, not so near Frey!"

He looked down upon her, saddening for less than a blink before his mouth set in a hard line.

"We will not have to bring Âthkyensmyotnes ," he answered coldly. " It will come when ready."

Reine could don a regal air at a whim. She could match any monarch, noble, or commoner stare for stare with an outward ease of detachment. But she wavered under Chuillyon's icy gaze.

"Who are you talking about?" she asked again. "I don't know that name. Is that the man in the black robes?"

"Not who … but what ," Chuillyon corrected, "though it may have been a man … once."

"Enough dramatics," Cinder-Shard grumbled. "Needlessly frightening her accomplishes nothing."

"Yes, it does," Chuillyon countered. "If I—if we—are correct about what that thing is."

Again, "thing" and "it," as if the black mage were …

"You cannot believe the sage's prattle," Reine returned. "Walking dead … spirits … whatever?"

The sages believed an old enemy might rise again, one connected to the end of known history in a great forgotten war. Many people—most people—thought that war was only an overblown myth. Once, she had thought so herself—until she married Frey and became tangled in the secret of the Âreskynna bloodline. Only until she had spent too much time dealing with sages.

Like the premins, Reine's new family believed the world wasn't ready to know the truth about an Ancient Enemy—and a forgotten war. In silence, the Âreskynna and even her own uncle, King Jacqui Amornon Faunier, and all of their ancestors, had been waiting and watching through generations.

She'd never known … until Frey.

But this nonsense from Chuillyon, the family's oldest advisor, as well as from the master of the Stonewalkers, was too much. War was fought by the living, not the dead, whether it was one of the past or one yet to come.

Still Chuillyon watched her, as if waiting to see something in her face.

Amaranth rested her fists upon her hips. "Someone please tell me what has … will happen."

Balsam opened her mouth, but Bulwark cut in.

"Soon," he rumbled, and turned indignantly to Cinder-Shard. "You want to trap it here, among our honored dead?"

Reine's attention shifted from one to the next, her exasperation growing. Had Master Bulwark succumbed to the sage's nonsense as well? Chuillyon's eyes brightened as he looked away from her, but he shook his head.

"That would require permanence."

"No," Cinder-Shard countered, "only long enough to hold it … to finish it."

"Can you?"

Cinder Shard took a deep, slow breath full of doubt. "I was taught the way, as was my master before me. But I fear trapping this malignant thing may take time—and the focus of all my order. This will be … difficult."

Chuillyon frowned. "Very well, I can think of nothing better … for now."