Барб Хенди - A Wind in the Night

So it was when he opened the door. She slipped inside along with the black majay-hì, and Osha took in the sight of Wynn’s pretty oval face and olive-toned skin. There was worry, maybe even fright, there, though he did not know where it came from.

Had Chane done something?

“We’re leaving the day after tomorrow,” she blurted out in Elvish. “Premin Hawes is sending us with the young sage I mentioned, Nikolas. There is not much time to prepare, but his passage has already been arranged. The premin thinks she can get us on the same ship.”

“I could leave tonight if you asked,” he said, motioning around the room. “I have little to pack.”

Although Osha was uncertain this journey would lead to anything of use, his relief at the prospect of traveling outside this guild was profound. But even with Wynn’s excitement, there was still that strange concern on her face.

To his surprise, she appeared relieved by his reply.

“You do not mind?” she asked. “You will come with us to protect Nikolas and help me with what might be a wild-goose chase?”

He did not understand what geese had to do with any of this, but her words made him almost angry. Why did she think he had come here if not to help her?

Perhaps his own expression betrayed him.

She stepped closer, and it seemed that her concern, her worry, was suddenly focused on him. Then she glanced away at the long, canvas-wrapped bundle at the end of his bed.

“Before we leave,” she began, “could you tell me something of what happened to you since we parted on the docks of Bela? This might prove a dangerous journey, and I feel ... I feel like I do not know you anymore. You have changed.”

“And so have you,” he returned. It sounded bitter to his own ears, and he swallowed hard.

What if he was wrong? What if the chasm between them was due to how much he had changed and not her?

“What caused this change in you?” she asked, barely above a whisper, and she glanced at the wrapped bundle at the bed’s end.

The black majay-hì called Shade never blinked as she watched him. And Wynn looked back to him as well. Now there was as much expectation in her small, brown human eyes as there was frantic worry on her face.

Though she asked what had changed him, perhaps when would have been the better question.

Well over a year ago, he had still been an anmaglâhk in his homeland on the eastern continent, as he had tried to find some purpose to his life while in the main enclave of the Coilehkrotall clan and the dwelling of Leanâlhâm and the old healer Gleannéohkân’thva. He had come to bring them tragic tidings: the death of their loved one, the great Sgäilsheilleache, who had also been Osha’s jeóin, or mentor, for his final training.

Osha had been determined to stay and help them heal, if he could. In this way he could atone for having brought them such news. But also he needed to do so, for he could not face his own losses in all that had happened.

Only a few days after his arrival, the greimasg’äh—Brot’ân’duivé—had uprooted him by showing him a small, smooth stone sent by the Chein’âs—the Burning Ones. Brot’ân’duivé told him what was etched upon the stone in claw marks—“a sudden breeze.”

It was the meaning of the name “Osha” had taken when he had gone to the ancestors’ burial ground as a youth for his name-taking.

He was being summoned for a second time to the Chein’âs.

They lived in the lava-heated depths of the mountains bordering the an’Cróan’s southern territories. Once young initiates completed basic training and received approval by the caste’s elders to stand among the caste, word was sent to the Chein’âs via the Séyilf—the Windblown, winged people. When new weapons and tools were ready, the Chein’âs sent a stone—a summons—to a caste elder among the Anmaglâhk. One elder then guided the initiate on a journey to the fiery cavern to receive those precious gifts.

Like all newly approved Anmaglâhk, Osha had received his weapons and thereby was allowed to seek out an experienced member of the caste as a jeóin to finish his training. He had known even before then that he wanted no one but the great Sgäilsheilleache for his mentor.

But young anmaglâhk were never summoned a second time.

Something was very wrong, yet he dared not refuse ... even if he had known then what waited for him at the end of that second journey.

“Tell me,” Wynn pressed, inching closer. “Please ... What happened to you?”

Even at the sight of her eager, worried eyes, he could not answer, though he wanted to. To do so would only widen the chasm between them, and he needed to cross that before he could take such a risk. And he needed to know why she had changed so much in so many ways: another wayward majay-hì at her side, the strange robe she now wore, and ... that undead thing who went everywhere with her.

Osha turned away. “I will be ready to leave when you are.”

At her sudden intake of breath, he could not bear to look back at any disappointment on her face, though he almost did. Instead, in that quick flinch, he found the black majay-hì still watching him.

After delivering the news to Osha and then Chane concerning their impending departure, Wynn retreated to her room with Shade and sank onto her bed. She knew she had preparations to make, especially informing Nikolas of the change in plan. But somehow she didn’t think he would object to having her company foisted upon him on this journey. Even if he did, he certainly wouldn’t argue with Premin Hawes.

Wynn had what she needed: the freedom to seek out this messenger and the invader into the Stonewalkers’ realm. Though they were described in the same way, she doubted they could be the same person, due to the distance between their two closely timed appearances.

She tried not to think too much more on that ... or on all the implications connected to Nikolas’s father in the attempt to reach one of the orbs. No, in this moment, she couldn’t help the rising sadness when Osha had seemed on the brink of finally telling her about things that mattered.

She’d watched him close himself off before her eyes. She shouldn’t have asked so much of him in the middle of everything else.

Now that she, Chane, and Shade—and Osha—would embark on a journey where they had to depend on one another, she had no idea what scars or damage Osha was hiding. They could not afford any complications.

Shade whined and pressed herself against Wynn’s leg.

“What is it?” she asked, reaching out to stroke the dog’s head.

An image flashed in her mind.

She was inside a great tree dwelling, like those of the an’Cróan homes, and in the bottom of her view were knees—her knees in that moment—covered in forest gray pants of worn cloth. This wasn’t Shade’s memory, though Wynn recognized the home of Gleannéohkân’thva and Leanâlhâm.

Directly in front of her, Leanâlhâm was weeping. For an instant Wynn fought the strange memory passed to her by Shade.

—From ... Osha—

Shade was passing on something she’d seen in Osha, which meant Wynn was seeing through Osha’s eyes. Hoping to see more, she gripped the fur on Shade’s back.

The scene changed.

Wynn—Osha—stood before Brot’an, and the elder anmaglâhk’s face was visibly tense as he held out a small black polished stone.

Wynn—Osha—said to him, “I already made my journey to them years past to receive my weapons and tools. Why do you show me that?”

“Now they have called you back.”

“No!” Osha cried. “They call us once, when the elders of our caste approve an initiate to seek out a jeóin. That stone is a mistake!”