“Listen to Jes,” Seraph told Lehr the next morning. “He’ll take care of Skew and see that he doesn’t overdo. Skew’s going to have to do the whole field and you’ll have to watch to see that he doesn’t hurt himself.”

“Yes, Mother,” said Lehr patiently. Seraph was pale, tired, and obviously dreading the trip into town—and he didn’t blame her.

“Rinnie, make sure to run water out to the boys a couple of times this morning. That’s more important than getting the garden done.”

“Yes, Mother,” said Rinnie in such a blatant imitation of Lehr’s tone that he had to turn aside so no one saw his grin.

“Right.” Seraph gave a quick nod. “I should be back in time to fix the midday meal—but if not, there is bread, honey, and cheese.” With that she turned on her heel and began walking briskly up the path toward town, leaving her children to begin their assigned tasks.

They rested Skew rather more often than Lehr would have, but he let Jes decide when to stop. After each rest, Lehr and Jes traded who held the plow. The soil was somewhat rocky, and the plow bucked and wallowed unexpectedly until they were as tired as the horse.

By midmorning Skew’s head was low, and sweat washed out from under his harness. They’d made some headway: five mostly straight furrows in and twenty-three more to go. Lehr walked beside Jes, whose turn it was to hold the handles. The long reins trailed though the metal hoops in the harness down Skew’s back and wrapped around Jes’s shoulders so when he stopped, so did Skew.

“He can’t be tired again,” protested Lehr. “We haven’t come fifty paces since the last rest.”

“Hush,” commanded Jes.

Lehr had quit looking for the stranger inside his brother about halfway up the first furrow, but he saw him now.

Abruptly Lehr realized how still the land was. Not a bird sang; not a cricket chirruped. Silently he unbuckled the sheath that held his long knife and rested his hand on its haft. The forest seemed somehow darker than it had been just a moment earlier.

Skew’s head came up and he tested the wind with fluttering nostrils. Tossing his mane uneasily, he wickered once.

Whatever it was that Lehr was watching for, it wasn’t the man who stepped out of the woods. He was slight and dark, but otherwise unremarkable—until Lehr met his gaze.

Fathomless black eyes examined him coolly, and the hair on the back of Lehr’s neck crawled.

“Hunter,” said the stranger.

Lehr’s eyes told him that the man in front of him was a nondescript man dressed, more or less, like any other man to be found wandering in the woods. But another sense was ringing like an alarm bell, warning him that he stood before a Power.

Skew shoved his nose against Lehr’s arm and breathed in little huffs, ears pinned forward as if he perceived some threat and readied himself to do battle.

Lehr glanced at Jes, who stood at his back, watching the stranger steadily but without tension.

Turning back to the man, Lehr half bowed, because it felt as if he should. “Sir. What can we do for you?”

The man smiled, but his too-knowing eyes stayed cold and clear like the river in winter. “I found a child wandering my forests alone. She smells like one of yours, so I thought I would offer her to you rather than the wolves.”

“Rinnie?” asked Jes, glancing toward their home, but when Lehr looked too, Rinnie was plainly visible planting the kitchen garden with Gura stretched out nearby.

“Go ahead, Jes,” said Lehr. “I’ll keep at the fields until you get back. She’s probably one of the villagers, so you might have to take her all the way to Redern.”

Jes ducked out of the reins and followed the dark man into the woods without a word. Lehr remained by Skew’s head until the gelding quit staring into the trees.

Rubbing under Skew’s browband where the sweat gathered, Lehr spoke quietly to the horse, “I believe you and I have just met the forest king. I always thought he was just a fancy of Jes’s.” So many strange things had happened in the past few days that the forest king rated no more than a shake of the head before Lehr turned to take up the plow again.

The Guardian paced beside the boar who was the forest king and tested the area for threat. Finding none, he allowed his ire full sway.

“You will leave my brother alone,” the Guardian said in a voice that held the winter winds.

The boar snorted, unimpressed. “Why would I do that? Your brother’s ties to the forest are closer than yours. Something has happened to him to make him aware of his power. If I had called you today as I usually do, he would have heard me. It was time to acknowledge the Hunter. I cannot say I welcome him, for it is my job to protect those within my realm. But your brother has long hunted these forests and he does not kill indiscriminately. Death is seldom a welcome guest, but it has a place in the life of the forest.”

“Just leave him alone—he takes on enough without you.”

The boar laughed, his hoarse voice squealing high in merriment. “Am I so chance a comrade then, Jes?”

“Who is being dragged through the forest at your whim?” returned the Guardian roundly. “I should be helping my brother coax Skew over the fields rather than chasing off after some child.”

“Not that kind of child,” grunted the boar, scrambling over a largish log in his path. “I believe that she’s older than you.” He seemed to find amusement in something, for he snorted a while before continuing. “Child of Travelers she is, though not exactly like you or your brother either. She passed me by as I was eating my breakfast this morning and the smell of her magic intrigued me, so I followed her.”

The Guardian waited until he was certain the boar wouldn’t continue without prompting. “Where did she go?”

“Through my lands,” said the forest king. “I almost stopped at the border, but by then I was curious. I followed her to a place where magic blackened the ground and a new rip in the earth contained the body of a horse—a grey mare who used to graze in your fields.”

“You know where my father was killed,” said the Guardian slowly.

“Your father is dead?” The boar considered it a moment. “I tell you what I saw: it is up to you to discover what you’ll take from it. But first you must deal with the child—or allow me to do so.”

The Guardian knew how the boar would deal with one he must have decided might be a threat. The Guardian recognized the same grim spirit lived inside of him as well—though he’d never killed anyone. Not yet. Never wanted to kill anyone—because he was afraid that by that act, something the daytime Jes could not comprehend, he would somehow sever the ties that held the two disparate parts of himself together.

“What did you find at my father’s grave?” asked the Guardian. “My mother thinks that there was more to his death than we have been told.”

“Your mother may be right,” said the forest king. “But that is not for my judgment.”

By this time, the Guardian was fairly confident he knew where the forest king was taking him. There weren’t actually all that many places to store a person safely in the woods without worrying what might happen to them—even for a spirit as powerful as the forest king.

The old building was so covered in vines and surrounded by trees that it was impossible to see from the outside. It was, as far as he knew, the only building he’d ever been in that had been built before the reign of the Shadowed. The only entrance required some undignified scrambling for anything larger than the boar.

Not knowing exactly what he would face, the Guardian chose to stay in human form and crawled under the foliage, through the crumbling tunnel that had once held water and still bore the mark of ancient algae.

Inside, the boar waited with bright red eyes that glittered in the dark interior, standing over a sleeping person who certainly was no child. Pale Traveler’s hair looked more silver than ash in the faint light that poured in through the leaves that guarded the barren rafters that must once have been thatched.