Барб Хенди - A Wind in the Night

“There are no such mistakes,” lashed a soft voice.

Outside the memory, Wynn gasped. Within the memory, Osha turned his head to see Leesil’s beautiful mother, Cuirin’nên’a, standing in an archway while holding its curtain aside.

“You are summoned,” she said. “This is our caste’s way, and the way of our people’s elders, based on covenants with the Burning Ones, whom we protect along with the Windblown. This is part of our people’s ways as well. And in keeping them, this is part of what your jeóin died to uphold!”

Within the memory, Wynn felt Osha’s rush of pain as if it were hers. He was being torn from this place, from Gleannéohkân’thva and Leanâlhâm, and he did not want to go.

The image vanished.

Wynn saw only the stone walls and door of her little room.

“Shade!” she cried, gripping the dog’s face. “More! Did you see more?”

With a whine, Shade huffed twice for no , and Wynn sagged.

What did it all mean? Somehow, after returning to the an’Cróan territories, Osha had gone to the enclave of the Coilehkrotall. He had probably just delivered news of Sgäile’s death, for Leanâlhâm had been crying. And then, in some other moment, Brot’an had shown him the small polished stone from the Chein’âs. And Leesil’s mother had insisted that Osha obey Brot’an.

“Oh, Shade,” Wynn whispered, looking at the dog.

At least she had a place to start that she might subtly use to get Osha to tell her more. As to what Osha wanted from her, she didn’t dare think of that now.

Two evenings later, Wynn walked with Shade down a pier in Calm Seatt’s port. Nikolas, Chane, and then Osha followed behind her. Though it had taken some doing, Premin Hawes’s arrangements had put off the sailing of a cargo vessel until after sunset—for Chane’s benefit. Wynn had suggested her old excuse of Chane suffering from a skin malady that made him painfully susceptible to sunlight. Sometimes a partial truth was the best lie.

Preparations had been both rushed and trying. Chane resented Osha’s inclusion and made no secret of his feelings. Osha, still stoic and silent, expressed his revulsion for Chane in all ways but words. But at times Wynn had caught flashes of either pain or anger in Osha’s eyes.

Nikolas was perhaps the most and least of Wynn’s complications among her companions. He had accepted their company on this journey without argument; in fact, he’d barely reacted at all. What weighed upon him was a deep dread of returning home.

Wynn worried about this entire state of affairs, but all she could do was press onward.

Their supplies were minimal, and Chane carried the sealed stack of texts for Master Columsarn. Chane wore a heavy hooded cloak and both his swords: a long dwarven blade given to him by Ore-Locks, and a shorter one that had been broken and reground to a new point. Osha’s cloak was lighter, and once again he bore his bow, a quiver of black-feathered arrows, and the strangely narrow canvas-wrapped, twine-strapped object across his back. The only new thing Wynn had learned about that was that whatever was in it had some weight, by the way he’d picked it up and wrestled to strap it on before they left the guild grounds.

Wynn used her only weapon as a walking stick: the sun-crystal staff made for her by Ghassan il’Sänke, the domin of the guild’s Suman branch, to whom she had sent Magiere, Leesil, and Chap. The staff itself was taller than her head, and a leather sheath now covered the hand’s-length clear crystal at its top. With it she could emulate sunlight. Before leaving the guild, she’d also retrieved Chane’s scroll from Premin Hawes’s office and stowed it in her pack.

Nikolas carried nothing but his travel bag, and, as Wynn glanced back, his eyes were down, as if he followed her steps without looking where he was going.

Wynn finally stopped at a three-masted vessel with the label The Thorn painted on its bow’s side. She found that an odd name for a ship. Glancing down at her travel papers in hand, she headed for the boarding ramp without a word to the others. Shade fell behind her and started whining softly. The dog never enjoyed tight quarters or even being on an open deck with too many sailors ... strangers.

The impending sea voyage was not going to be pleasant for anyone.

Followed by the others, Wynn stepped on deck. All around, sailors were fiddling with this or that, though it was obvious the ship was ready and the crew was waiting for the last of their passengers.

A silver-haired and slender man in a long, heavy coat called out orders from the aftcastle to the crew as a younger man with a shaved head came trotting across the deck.

“You’re the passengers from the guild?” he asked without a greeting.

Wynn nodded, but he rushed on before she could speak.

“I’m First Mate Shearborn.” He looked over the small group, ending on Shade. “The request to take on three more passengers arrived only yesterday, but I managed to arrange an extra cabin. You’ll have two between the lot of you—and two bunks per cabin.”

Wynn frowned; of course Shade could stay with her and sleep on the floor with an extra blanket, but all three men couldn’t sleep in a cabin with only two bunks. And that wasn’t the only problem.

Nikolas had no idea what Chane was ... and could not be exposed to the sight of Chane lying dormant—as if dead—all day. Osha was a stranger to Nikolas, who was already under enough stress. And frankly Wynn wasn’t certain she wanted to share space with either Osha or Chane, with neither wanting the other anywhere near her.

“It is of no matter,” Chane rasped as he stepped forward to look down at her. “You and I will share, as we have done before.”

Wynn was more than acquainted with the tones of his damaged voice. He was not trying to be arrogant or overbearing, though he could be both at the same time. He simply stated the least complicated option. They had shared confined spaces in inns, elven tree dwellings, and excavated stone rooms in the bowels of a dwarven seatt, always living by night until Chane fell dormant at dawn.

Yes, his assumption was the best of poor options, but when Wynn looked back and up over Nikolas’s hanging head, Osha was watching her sternly. His large amber eyes shifted once toward Chane, and narrowed before looking to her again.

Wynn turned back to First Mate Shearborn. “Thank you for your efforts on such short notice. We’ll manage fine with two cabins.”

The first mate stepped off with a gesture toward the aftcastle door, and, without looking back at anyone, Wynn followed.

The next morning, far down the coast in Soráno, Magiere began to worry. Though her small group had adequate lodgings at a clean inn, they’d had no luck in finding passage south toward il’Dha’ab Najuum in the Suman Empire.

Part of the problem was Brot’an’s insistence that no one risk being seen in the open on the docks. Magiere hadn’t disagreed with him as yet. Leesil even thought it was “a fair bet” that they’d arrived ahead of any anmaglâhk still trailing them. But each passing day made it more likely that those assassins might have caught up and would be watching the entire port.

Magiere finally grew fed up with sitting, partly because Leesil had already had enough. It had taken hard arguments with both him and Brot’an to get them to see that she was the most normal-looking of all of them, if she covered herself up well enough. For the past few mornings she’d made furtive trips to the harbormaster’s office to ask about any possible ships headed south.

She’d had no better luck than Brot’an.

This morning, barely past dawn, she slipped back into their room at the inn and found both Leesil and Chap expectant and eager. Chap was stretched out across a bed—his silver-gray body long enough to cover its width—and Leesil sat beside him.