Барб Хенди - The Night Voice

They had violently stripped him of gifted weapons and tools when he refused to give them up. They forced a sword of white metal on him among other items, and he was no longer Anmaglâhk. Osha reviled that blade so much that, to the best of Wynn’s knowledge, he had never opened the canvas wrap himself. Brot’an had taken the blade to be properly fitted with a hilt before they had left their people’s territory.

Wynn didn’t believe Wayfarer knew the sword’s whole story. Osha didn’t willingly speak of that terrible experience and had told Wynn only under duress.

Wayfarer reached toward the bundle.

“No!” Wynn whispered, even more shocked at this invasion of Osha’s privacy.

Without even pausing, Wayfarer ripped loose the twine to expose the sword. Chap pushed past Wynn to stare at the blade, and the plain sight of it hit Wynn with a sharp realization.

It looked exactly like the sword of the Shé’ith in the book’s illustration.

“I recognized it,” Wayfarer whispered. “Anmaglâhk do not carry swords, but Shé’ith do, and the Chein’âs gave this one to Osha.”

So the girl did know the story, at least in part. This bothered Wynn for some reason, as it meant Osha had shown Wayfarer the sword itself. That was the only way the girl could have made the connection.

“Do you see what this means?” Wayfarer asked. “The sword must be a link between Osha and the Shé’ith.”

Wynn didn’t know what to think. And why should it bother her that Osha shared more with Wayfarer than with her?

Pushing this last concern aside, Wynn wondered if she could perhaps use what Wayfarer had just related to progress the discussion toward what Chap had earlier requested ... no, commanded.

It appeared that Wayfarer could catch the conscious memories of the majay-hì with a touch. There was only one other person Wynn knew who could do this. And Wynn didn’t count herself, as her own ability to do so with just Shade was different.

So far, Wayfarer’s ability had been tested only with Chap and Shade. They were both more directly Fay-descended than any other majay-hì, possibly back to the first of their kind. This still left Wynn wondering about the girl’s name given by the an’Cróan ancestors.

Sheli’câlhad—“To a Lost Way.”

Poor Wayfarer had cringed from that second name, especially after the one given her at birth—Leanâlhâm, “Child of Sorrow.” Then Magiere—with Leesil and Chap’s help—had given the girl a third one: Wayfarer.

Perhaps “To a Lost Way” meant something other than what the girl and others thought. In the forests of the Lhoin’na, Wynn had met someone utterly unique, or so she’d thought back then.

Vreuvillä, “Leaf’s Heart,” who was the last of their ancient priestesses, was called the Foirfeahkan. She ran with the majay-hì who guarded the Lhoin’na lands. On Wynn’s visit there, she had more than once seen the priestess touch a member of her large pack and then know things she couldn’t have experienced herself.

Yes, what must be done might be easier now. So finish this.

Wynn wasn’t so certain as she dropped her gaze to meet Chap’s stare. The girl’s strange gift was too close to that of the wild woman of the Lhoin’na forests. “To a Lost Way” could apply to the calling of the last of the Foirfeahkan.

Wayfarer looked between the two of them in puzzlement. “Well?” she whispered. “Do you see where Osha needs to go?”

There was a hint of challenge in her question. Before facing Magiere and Leesil, Wynn had to get Wayfarer to understand another possible meaning for a reviled name.

Not long ago, the girl had suggested to Magiere that Osha and Wayfarer herself take the orb of Spirit into Lhoin’na lands while Magiere and Leesil dealt with the other orbs. Oh, yes, Wynn had heard about this from Chap.

Now everything had changed. The orbs were no longer to be hidden, and no doubt the girl assumed she would be going with Magiere and Leesil. Yet Wayfarer still had reasons to separate Osha from the others ... or rather from Wynn.

“Osha needs to meet the Shé’ith,” the girl said emphatically, “and perhaps learn why he was given a weapon like theirs. The Chein’âs are one of the five ancient races, possibly the oldest one, so there must be a reason.”

Wynn almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The girl’s own notion was halfway to what Chap wanted. For one, he did not want the girl traveling with Magiere in the desert, hunting possible groups of undeads. He wanted her safe, and she could not journey to a place of safety alone. But there was more ...

Chap’s eyes had narrowed on the girl. That Wayfarer still waited for a response meant that Chap also hadn’t given her one. Wynn grew angry, for obviously he was waiting for her to do it.

The coward!

Chap turned a sudden glare on Wynn.

Wynn glared back before turning to Wayfarer, and then she thought of something to make her point more clearly than words.

Stepping to the bedchamber door, she called, “Shade, come in here.”

Wynn turned back before Shade entered, but Shade stalled in the doorway at the sight of her father, Chap.

“In ... now,” Wynn whispered.

Shade’s jowls wrinkled at that, though she padded in three more steps before stopping again.

“I have something to show you,” Wynn said to Wayfarer, and then leaned down to touch Shade’s back as she closed her eyes.

There was one relevant past moment she shared in kind with Shade. Majay-hì, who used memory-speak among their own kind, had far more vivid powers of recollection. Wynn knew so from having shared in Shade’s memories of what they had experienced together. She opened her eyes to meet Shade’s crystalline, sky blue ones watching her without blinking.

“Show her,” Wynn said, cocking her head toward Wayfarer, “and be nice about it.”

Shade wrinkled her jowls again as she turned toward the girl.

Wayfarer backed up against the bedside. “What are you doing?”

“Something words can’t do as well,” Wynn answered. “Don’t be afraid. Shade has something I want you to see ... experience ... and it is nothing frightening, I swear.”

Shade crept in on Wayfarer and stood waiting. When the girl finally reached to touch the side of Shade’s face ...

Wynn couldn’t help but remember once more.

When she, Shade, and Chane, along with Ore-Locks, had gone to Vreuvillä’s home in the forest, the priestess had stopped and tensed for an instant. A circlet of braided raw shéot’a strips held back her silver-streaked hair. That hair was also too dark for a Lhoin’na, let alone an an’Cróan—just like Wayfarer. She was also deeply tanned from her life out in the wild. Standing there in her pants, high soft boots, and a thong-belted jerkin, all made of darkened hide, she was small for her people. She looked like some wild spirit embodied in the flesh of an elf, neither truly Lhoin’na nor an’Cróan.

Though there were faint lines in her face, she did not move or act like an old one, yet her very presence carried the weight of long years. One of the pack who flanked her drew near, and in the same instant, she looked down ... and touched that silver-gray female.

Vreuvillä’s large amber eyes lifted again, though her long fingers still combed lightly between the tall ears of the silver-gray majay-hì—and it followed her gaze. She stared beyond Wynn as her nostrils flared once, as if she were both seeing and smelling something that wasn’t there. Something had passed between the priestess and one of her pack.

Wayfarer cringed back against the bedside, staring at Shade. And those bright, fearful eyes turned on Wynn.

“What—what—,” the girl stuttered.