Dread closed Seraph’s throat. It was starting again, as if the mermori had been harbingers of things to come. Tier had died, and now Seraph would be forced to live as she had before she met him.

“I don’t know what I can do to help you,” she said at last, because, in the end, there was no choice. “I can take a message to the clans, though I don’t know where any are at present. I will give you what aid I can.”

“You don’t understand,” Hennea said. “I’ve come to help you.”

CHAPTER 6

“You are going to help me?” asked Seraph. “With what?”

Hennea smiled grimly. “Your new Sept travels with quite an entourage.”

“Including you and Volis,” Seraph said. “Is the Sept one of the… what did you call them, something stupid… the Secret Path?”

“The Sept?” she said. “No, not him, at least I don’t think so. He’s charismatic, the Emperor’s best if not only friend, and he’s very good at political games. No one is surprised at the number of people who follow him around. Volis said that someone called in a few debts and offered a favor or two so that the Sept would agree to build a Temple of the Five Gods here.”

Hennea stood up and began pacing in abrupt, quick steps. “The Secret Path decided to bring the religion out into the public. They don’t tell people that they get their five gods from the Travelers’ Orders, of course.”

“There are six Orders,” observed Rinnie.

“They don’t know about the Guardian,” said Jes. “Travelers don’t talk about their mistakes.”

“You are not a mistake,” said Seraph, though Jes was more right than wrong about the Travelers’ reasoning regarding the Guardians. “Travelers protect the Guardians’ secrets because your Order works better that way.” As if that settled the matter, Seraph turned back to Hennea, and sorted through her story for some way to change the subject. “Why did this Path of yours change and decide to bring their church to the masses?”

Hennea shook her head. “I don’t know. Volis thinks that it’s because the truth must be made known—but Volis wouldn’t know the truth if it tore his throat out. I don’t think that all of the wizards believe in their made-up gods, so there must be another reason.”

“Volis told me they chose to set his temple here because of Shadow’s Fall.”

“I’ve heard him say that, too,” agreed Hennea. “I don’t know what they want with Shadow’s Fall, but I suppose that whatever power still lurks there can defend itself more than adequately.”

“Indeed,” said Seraph. “My husband is proof of that.”

“No,” said Hennea. “I don’t think that he is.”

Seraph stiffened. “Oh?” she said softly.

“There were some wizards who traveled with us from Taela. They stayed with the Sept when Volis moved us into the new temple.” She stopped her pacing to frown down at Seraph. “Understand, please, that I’ve had to take a few facts and string them together. A few days ago, Volis got some correspondence from Taela. It wasn’t signed, but from the content I think that it was from one of the wizards who came here with us. The letter devoted an entire paragraph to your family—unless there is another family with a Raven, Falcon, and Cormorant?”

“No,” said Seraph softly.

Hennea nodded once and began to pace again. “Someone’s taken a Raven’s eye to your home—and a real Raven would know that you had a Guardian, too. So it must have been one of the Path’s wizards wearing one of their stones.”

Seraph nodded.

“I’d been listening to talk since we came here, and I heard of a Traveler mage married to a solsenti farmer. Since it was unlikely that any other Travelers had settled here, I could only suppose that you’d been blessed with two Ordered children, half-blood or not. I decided to warn you as soon as I could, though there seemed to be no particular urgency. Then, last night, a man came to tell Volis that your husband’s dead horse had been found with a few human bones. Tier’s dead, they said, and they mourned the loss of his music.”

Hennea stopped again, rubbing her wrist absently. “And I thought on that letter I’d read. The first line read, ‘we have the Owl safe here.’ ”

Seraph froze as her heart leapt to her throat. “By Lark and Raven,” she said, imbuing the words with compulsion, “do not mislead me on this.”

Hennea nodded to herself in satisfaction. “Your husband was Traveler and Owl and they took him to Taela to work their magic on him.”

“My husband was Rederni born and bred—but given to the Order of the Owl,” corrected Seraph absently to give herself time to regain control. Tier was alive? “If there was Traveler blood in his lineage it was a long time ago.”

“Ah,” said Hennea, revealing mild surprise. “I’ve never heard of something like that.” She rubbed her wrist again. “Anyway. I waited until Volis left on business this morning and set out to find the place where the huntsman found your husband’s horse. It wasn’t difficult to follow the huntsman’s trail.”

“What did you find?” asked Seraph, her voice so soft that Lehr shifted uncomfortably.

Hennea shook her head. “Not much.” She shivered and clenched her hand over her wrist where Volis’s geas band held her. “I have to get back soon.” She straightened slightly and continued, “The huntsman and his men buried both the horse and the skull, and I had no means to dig them up. I found hints of old magic, but nothing that would cause a person’s death. There were a few tracks—but I’m not a Falcon to be certain of anything the tracks could tell.”

“Lehr is,” said Rinnie.

“Yes,” said Hennea, “I know. I had hoped to prove my suspicions before I talked to you—but I’m unlikely to get a chance to come so far again. Take your Falcon and find out what they did. Then come and help me deal with Volis—and I’ll help you find your husband.”

“I don’t like leaving Rinnie alone,” said Lehr as he led Seraph through the partially plowed field.

“She’ll be safe with Gura,” Seraph said, though she wasn’t happy with it either. “And Jes will be back soon.”

She’d certainly be safer at home than investigating a place that might have been Shadow Blighted. If Seraph hadn’t needed Lehr’s help, she’d have found some way to leave him behind, too.

Jes, she’d found excuses to send off with Hennea. The forest king’s territory extended on either side of the trail to town, but Jes thought that as long as he was with her the forest king wouldn’t stop Hennea a second time. The geas had obviously been very painful by the time they’d left—Jes could get Hennea back to the temple sooner than if she had to find her way herself.

So now she only had to risk one of her children to find out if Hennea had been right. Tier was alive. Seraph was too much a Raven to allow herself to believe it without more proof, but even so, the thought thrummed through her. She would have the chance to save him, as she hadn’t been able to save Ushireh.

“There’s two places I could pick up the trail,” Lehr said. “But knowing Jes, I thought that it might be shorter to follow the path he took with the forest king than to try and follow the trail he made bringing Hennea back.”

“You’re the Hunter,” Seraph said. “I trust you.”

Lehr stopped where the field turned to forest. “The forest king came here,” he said, but he didn’t immediately start on the trail, just stared at the ground. “Are you certain that I’m a Hunter? Papa could… can track as well as I can.”

He didn’t look at her as he spoke.

Lehr, she thought, saw beyond the power to the cost of acknowledging his Traveler blood. He knew that a Falcon could never belong to Redern.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said gently. “We just need to track Jes to where he found the girl, then follow her trail to where… where the huntsman found whatever he found.”

“Right,” he said and started through the forest.