“They want not to have the wizard breathing down their necks, and they want to be able to make romantic alliances and worship in the open. But leaving the valley might be too much. I know I was overwhelmed by Concord when I was sixteen. Maybe it’s not the same, but suppose they find the world too big a place for the Sassaven?”

  “You do not mean not to free them,” Kalanath said.

  “Of course not. I’m just saying maybe I should have thought past the goal of breaking the binding.”

  “I think it might be a little early for that,” Dianthe said. “Nobody’s going to hustle them out of the valley the minute Kyros is dead.”

  A shiver passed through Sienne at the sound of the wizard’s name. “Dianthe is right,” she said, ignoring her sense of unease. “With winter coming on, the Sassaven have months to decide what they’re going to do.”

  “But we only have a few hours,” Dianthe said. “I hate that we don’t have more of a plan than ‘sneak into the wizard’s tower.’ How big is it? What kind of defenses does he have? What if killing him doesn’t break the binding—have you thought about that?”

  “I have,” Alaric said. “I know I said killing him was just as good, but I’ve come to believe we can’t take the chance that the binding won’t persist past his death, however that will look. We need him paralyzed, which means shout—”

  “Which means we can’t do this quietly,” Sienne pointed out. She ducked under a low-hanging branch and added, “But I feel confident about reversing the unbinding after all the work we did on the way here. We just need a bound Sassaven to stand in symbolically for all Sassaven, perform the binding, and break the chain. And Genneva will be right there.”

  “We can’t use Gen,” Alaric said. “The wizard controls his host to defend him against would-be attackers. She will have to be subdued as well.”

  “Well, another of your relatives, then. We sneak into the tower, I cast shout on the wizard and Genneva, we do the unbinding, and then…” Sienne’s voice trailed off. “I don’t see how we can make him reverse what he did to Genneva if he’s paralyzed.”

  “Once the paralysis wears off, I’ll take care of that,” Alaric said grimly. “I’ll be at my most persuasive.”

  Sienne shivered again. Alaric sounded like someone relishing a challenge. She could hardly tell him not to save his sister, but she wished she didn’t feel so uncomfortable about his eagerness to threaten the wizard.

  “So it is a plan,” Kalanath said. “And I think it is a good plan that will collapse when we meet our enemy.”

  “Just like always,” Alaric said. “But it’s comforting to imagine it all working out our way, no?”

  13

  The heavy rains diminished to a light shower after forty-five minutes, long enough to leave them all thoroughly soaked despite the sheltering branches. Sienne trudged through the sodden masses of dead, mostly disintegrated leaves, grateful for the waterproofing on her trusty boots. The rain left behind a fresh, wet scent that mingled with the darker, loamy smell of the forest floor and made her think of late true summer storms and bonfires to drive away the chill in the air.

  As the rains dwindled, the wildlife emerged from hiding: tiny red squirrels and gray chipmunks skittering from one tree to another and kicking up wet leaves as they went, robins and jays and some black and white birds Sienne didn’t recognize fluttering through the branches and calling to each other with unfamiliar songs. If they hadn’t been walking toward a potentially deadly confrontation, it would have been a pleasant afternoon’s ramble, though an odd one, with three black dogs who didn’t chase the squirrels.

  She adjusted the silence wand strapped to her left thigh. It would be a powerful weapon against the wizard, making it impossible for him to cast spells, but if he also had artifacts at his command, it wouldn’t make him helpless. Still, she intended it to be her first attack. She had no idea what to expect from a five-hundred-year-old wizard who presumably didn’t need a spellbook. How many spells could you learn, how fast could you be, with half a millennium of practice? She refused to let it frighten her. People could only speak intelligibly so fast, and there was no reason to think Kyros could cast spells just by thinking them. He could be defeated. It was Genneva’s fate they had to worry about.

  Hours passed. They walked in silence, as much, Sienne thought, because the forest compelled it as because they were afraid of being overheard. The forest felt more ancient than any place Sienne had ever explored, older and more vast than anything she and her friends had ever seen. Only the twittering of the birds and the scampering of the woodland creatures kept it from feeling like an immense, alien being, tolerating their presence out of curiosity. Sienne twice tried to put up the hood of the cloak she wasn’t wearing to block out her sense of being watched. “We are alone here, aren’t we?” she said, then repeated it in Sorjic for the Pekkanen.

  We sense no one near, Gleam said.

  “The Sassaven don’t live in the forests,” Alaric said. “We like wide open spaces. We hunt in the forests, cut down trees, and plant new saplings. It’s as if the forests are a kind of domesticated animal, like a herd of goats. Though they aren’t all that domesticated. People get lost in the woods on occasion, and some of them never find their way out.”

  Sienne reflexively checked her sense of true north. “That’s frightening.”

  “That won’t happen to us.”

  “I know. I was thinking more of how it would feel to wander around this place in circles, getting farther and farther from home with every step. The forest isn’t small.”

  “I do not like that we cannot see the sky,” Kalanath said. He used his staff to push aside a low-hanging branch. “It will be very dark when the sun goes down.”

  “We’ll reach the river before then,” Alaric assured him. “Only an hour or so more, now.”

  Sienne dug in her belt pouch for her watch. Nearly five o’clock. It felt later, thanks to the dimness beneath the trees. She put her watch away and walked a little faster. Sunset came around eight-thirty to Esthold, but wouldn’t it be earlier in the mountains? She wanted to be out of this forest well before the sun set, even if it meant exposing themselves to sight.

  The trees grew too thickly to cast shadows, but the light dimmed gradually, prompting Sienne to speed up again until she was nearly jogging. A hand fell on her shoulder. “We’re not in that kind of hurry, sweetlove,” Alaric said.

  “I know. I’m sorry. This place has me on edge.” One of the black and white birds swooped past her head, making her cringe and then laugh unsteadily at herself. “Somebody tell a story or something. The silence is driving me mad.”

  “I’ve just forgotten every story I’ve ever known,” Dianthe said.

  “I know stories of the pictures in the stars,” Kalanath said. “They are what my mother teaches me when I am young.”

  “Are they the same as the stories we tell?” Sienne asked.

  “I do not know. But we see the same pictures—they are older than your civilization. So you will have to judge.”

  “What story do you tell of the Lovers?” Perrin said. “They are the brightest constellation in our skies.”

  “To us, they are the Twins. My mother called them Jugal and Jaiva,” Kalanath said. “She said they are two friends who grow up together, play together, fight together—always as one. Then Jugal is accused of a crime against the rakhyan, killing the rakhyan’s most beloved horse, and sentenced to death. Jaiva begs the rakhyan for his friend-brother’s life, saying Jugal is innocent. The rakhyan refuses to spare Jugal, but tells Jaiva he will give Jugal the chance to prove his innocence if Jaiva agrees to take his friend’s place and be executed if Jugal cannot return in one year. And Jaiva agrees.”

  “That’s brave,” Alaric said.

  “Jugal goes out into the world, looking for the one who killed the horse. He has many adventures—they are each a story themselves and I will not tell them now—and in the end he finds the killer and captures him. But he returns one day and one year after leaving, and the rakhyan has killed Jaiva.”

  Sienne gasped. “That’s terrible!”

  “The rakhyan is sorry, but not very sorry, and he executes the killer. But Jugal’s heart is broken, and he pleads with God to take him to Herself so he can be with Jaiva again. And God takes pity on the friends, and sets them both in the sky, where they can be together forever.” Kalanath shrugged. “I do not know why it is my favorite, because it is sad.”

  “I like it better than ours about the Lovers,” Sienne said. “That one is just boring. Two young people from feuding families fall in love secretly and come up with this overly complicated plan to flee together that ends up getting them both killed. I don’t think stupidity is romantic.”

  “That’s not the way we tell it,” Alaric said. “We call them the Lovers, yes, but the story goes that the two young people fell in love without ever seeing each other, speaking to each other through a gap in the wall between their houses. Harvalt, the young man, arranged to attend a dance where Audny, the young woman, was celebrating her union with another man—”

  “A wedding? I thought Sassaven don’t marry,” Dianthe said.

  “It was one of those forced unions the wizard loves so much, but that’s how you can tell the story is older than the Sassaven, because we don’t throw parties or dances for that. Just listen. Harvalt sneaked in and claimed a dance with Audny, who didn’t know he was the one she fell in love with. He tested her with a series of questions that ultimately revealed the truth, and they decided to run away together. So that night, she sneaked away from her home and they met outside the village and headed south toward the mountains.”

  “I believe I know how this story ends,” Perrin said.

  “Probably not. It has two endings. The one we tell in public is that the two of them were pursued by the Niskanen until they reached the mountains, where they died trying to cross. But the version mothers whisper to their children has Harvalt and Audny finding a secret passage south and escaping the wizard’s grasp. That’s the one I always wanted to believe. It’s what gave me the idea to try to flee.”

  “So why are they a constellation?” Sienne asked.

  “The first version says it’s to serve as a warning never to try to escape. But my mother told me and Genneva it was God’s promise to the Sassaven that someday we’d all be free.”

  “I like that version,” Dianthe said. “But I still can’t think of any stories. Perrin? What about all those anecdotes of Averran you allude to?”

  “There are many, and as I believe I have said, it is likely not all of them actually happened to him,” Perrin said. “There is one, however, that has been on my mind these last days. I do not know if it has meaning, or if it is simply random whim on the part of my memory, but I will share it with you.”

  A wind blew across the tops of the trees, scattering raindrops that had clung to the leaves and spattering them all. Sienne, who was still damp, shivered. Perrin chuckled. “Wind features in this story. Perhaps it is a sign.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out. “One day Averran was walking along a road that ran near a stream. Tall rushes grew along the shore, and lone oak trees grew at intervals along the road’s far side.

  “Averran came to a place where the road passed near the stream and heard a deep voice call out to him. ‘Traveler,’ it said, ‘we seek a judgment.’

  “Averran looked all around and soon discovered that it was an oak tree that had spoken. ‘What judgment?’ he asked.

  “The oak tree said, ‘The rushes and I have been arguing over which of us is superior in strength. I say I am obviously stronger, because when the wind blows, I stand firm, but the rushes blow about with every gust because they are weak.’

  “The rushes cried out with their tiny voices, ‘We bow before the wind. That does not make us weak.’

  “Just then, a terrible storm came up, and Averran cast about for shelter. He considered what the oak and the rushes had said, and after a moment’s hesitation, he found a depression in the stream bank where he could settle, hidden by the rushes. The storm blew, and the rushes flew wildly with every gust, and the oak tree laughed. Then a tremendous, booming crack shattered the sky. When the storm passed, and Averran emerged, he found the oak tree split in two and lying on the ground.

  “ ‘It is as I thought,’ Averran said. ‘It is better to yield than to resist, when resistance would bring destruction.’ And he took a piece of the oak and carved it into the shape of a water drop, to remind him of the storm and what came of it.”

  Everyone was silent when Perrin came to the end of his story. Finally, Kalanath said, “It is a good story. Very wise.”

  Alaric said, “What I want to know is, how do you know when to bend and when to resist? Because lying down and being walked over isn’t how I want to live my life.”

  “That is the task of wisdom,” Perrin said. “Recognizing when the wind is too strong. And you have already done so. Did you not choose to leave your home rather than attempt to fight the wizard when he would force you to submit to the binding? That, to me, is quite rush-like.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” Alaric shrugged. “But we’re past the point where bending will get us what we want.”

  “I believe so, yes,” Perrin said, “but the story has been on my mind nevertheless. As I said, it is perhaps nothing but a whim.”

  “The wind’s picking up again. Maybe that’s why you thought of the story,” Sienne said.

  Dianthe took several steps ahead of her. “That’s not the wind. That’s the river.”

  Sienne hurried to catch up. Ahead, the trees thinned, and now that Sienne knew what she was hearing, she could easily make out the sound of running water. A few more minutes’ walking brought them to the edge of the forest. They stood at the top of a rise that descended gently to the steep riverbank, which dropped away sharply to the surface of the river nearly two feet below the shore. Rushes just like the ones Sienne had imagined in Perrin’s story waved gently with the wide river’s flow, bobbing their heads in welcome. Sienne took a step toward the river and was arrested by Alaric’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Let Dianthe go first,” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, but let’s not take chances.”

  Sienne stood and watched Dianthe descend the hill in a few graceful catlike bounds, barely disturbing the short grasses that covered it. She knelt at the river’s edge and looked down at the water for a minute. Then she turned and beckoned to the others. Sienne followed Alaric to where Dianthe stood. “Nobody’s been here in the last few days,” Dianthe said. “That suggests we’re far from Barholt. Any idea how far?”

  “None,” Alaric said. “I’ve never been this far east along the river. We always took the road south of here.” He looked off down the watercourse eastward and shook his head. “I guess we walk.”

  Sienne glanced westward. The sun hung low in the sky, about a finger’s breadth above the distant peaks. “Coming into Barholt after sunset is good for us, right?”

  “Assuming Gleam or Ember knows where my parents’ house is,” Alaric said. “Does one of you know how to find my family?”

  I know, Ember said. We are somewhere west of Barholt. We will reach it before sunset.

  “Then let’s walk,” Alaric said, “and in half an hour, I want Perrin to invoke that blessing.”

  Sienne took up her accustomed place behind Alaric, grateful for his broad shoulders between her and whatever lay ahead. The fierce river flowed ahead of them, wide and fast enough that anyone swimming across would be swept several dozen yards downstream before reaching the other side, if they reached it at all. No trees encroached on the river’s far side; it was plains stretching southward as far as Sienne could see, though there were dots here and there at the limit of her vision that might be lone oaks or maples. Frogs hidden in the rushes croaked, their voices unexpectedly high and sweet. Sienne watched a couple of long-legged white birds stalk the shallows, one of them bobbing its head abruptly and coming up with a small lumpy shape it swiftly swallowed. Sienne wasn’t sure whether to be glad for the bird or sorry for its froggy meal.

  They walked for several minutes along the uneven ground of the riverbank while the intermittent gusts of wind dried what was left of the rain’s dampness. Sienne rubbed warmth into her arms. It definitely didn’t feel like true summer anymore. The sun’s final rays cast their long shadows ahead of them like gray fingers pointing the way to Barholt. Then the shadows were gone, and dim purple twilight filled the world. Sienne almost made light, but remembered in time that it would mark them as outsiders. Better to be careful, even if they were the only ones around.

  Just as she thought this, Alaric slowed to a halt and she almost bumped into him. “Gleam is coming, and she’s in a hurry.”

  The Pekkanen raced toward them, low and dark against the ground. Someone is coming, she said. A Niskanen patrol.

  “Can we hide?” Dianthe said.

  Alaric shielded his eyes. “They’ve seen us. Perrin?”

  “Let us hope this has no visible effect,” Perrin said, removing his riffle of blessings from within his vest. He tore one free and, cradling it in his hands, murmured an invocation. Rose-pink flames filled his hands, and one sharp pain stabbed through Sienne’s head before fading gradually. Nothing else happened. Well, it was likely Sienne wouldn’t notice a difference, since she already spoke Sorjic, even if it wasn’t the Sorjic the Sassaven spoke. Or would that matter?

  Alaric resumed walking. Sienne stepped to one side so she could see around him, almost tripping over Leaf as she did so. The three men approaching them, two of them enormous and therefore unicorns, wore red woolen vests. The Niskanen uniform, perhaps? She wiped her sweaty palms on her trousers and wished her spellbook would stop banging against her hip. Beside her, the stranger who was Perrin looked perfectly calm, but Sienne suspected it was a façade.

  “Hoy!” the Niskanen in the lead shouted when he was about ten yards away. “Where have you come from?” He spoke Sorjic without a trace of an accent, completely intelligible, and Sienne sent up a prayer of thanks that Averran had included her in the blessing.

 

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