Sweat dripped from his forehead, though on the other side of his barrier, Seraph’s breath fogged in the cold. Evidently the barrier blocked the effects of Jes’s ire.

“Solsenti wizards,” said Seraph, slowly shaking her head, “always making things much more complicated than they really are. The Stalker is already here at your request.” She smiled at him. “You know I speak the truth.”

His eyes widened for an instant as his stolen Owl ring, once she’d called his attention to it, told him she was right. Then he narrowed his eyes accusingly. “You just think you speak the truth, that’s all it means. You are wrong.”

“I can’t give you proof of the Stalker,” agreed Seraph mildly. “You’d have to be Hunter to see what you have done in your stupidity.” He didn’t like to hear the word stupid, especially as he knew that she meant it. But he wasn’t going to lose his temper enough for her purposes; he was too buoyed up by his plans. She’d have to bring Jes into it.

“I can show you what Eagle is,” she said.

The whole time they’d spent talking, Seraph had been sorting through the intricate work of the spell holding the barrier together. If he’d just used solsenti magic, she might not have been able to break it, but he’d woven Raven and solsenti magic together and the result was unstable.

“Jes,” she said, “go get Rinnie and keep her safe. Lehr, when you can, take Bandor.”

Volis frowned at her words. “Jes? Isn’t that the name of your idiot son? He’s not here.” He shivered once.

“Yes,” said Seraph, “he is. You just aren’t looking. Jes, the priest wants to get a good look at you.”

The Guardian was nothing if not dramatic, coalescing out of candle smoke into the oversized wolf he favored over other forms. He stood not two paces from Volis, frost shading his coat and moving from his paws to the hem of Volis’s robes. Jes growled, a low rumbling sound. Seraph’s pulse picked up until she could hear the sound of her heartbeat in her ears.

Volis, who had no warning or understanding of what Jes was, cried out in terror. That fear did for Volis’s magic what anger had once done for Seraph’s. His control of Raven magic failed, and Seraph ripped the barrier into pieces with a sweep of power.

“This is my eldest son, Jes,” she said. “Who is Eagle and Guardian—and in no need of your summons.”

She kicked aside the carefully placed candles, breaking the circles and removing any temptation he might have had to kill Rinnie.

As she walked she continued speaking, quoting from the book of Orders. “ ‘Thus is it said that when the Elder Wizards took upon themselves the need to fight the Shadow-Stalker, that they created them the Orders. Six Orders created they them, after the six who slept forever. First, Raven Mage, second, Cormorant Weather Witch to aid their travels, and third created was Healer who is Lark that they might survive to continue the fight. They rested and then made fourth, the Bard and Owl to ease their way among strangers, fifth, Falcon the Hunter to feed them at need, last created they Eagle who is Guardian for all to fear.’ The Guardian, Volis, is an Order like any other, though, as you can see, more difficult to detect.”

Jes took back his human form and gathered Rinnie into his arms. “The priest is wrong,” he said, and the voice thundered in bass notes almost too deep to hear, as if he still held part-way to the wolfshape.

“He’s been shadowed,” agreed Seraph.

But Seraph had given the priest too long. He threw a blast of raw magic at her and she was forced to counter it—more than counter it, because she had to protect those around her. She held the magic for a moment then returned it to him. Because it was his magic, it did not harm him, just allowed him to reabsorb it. Not an ideal solution, because he retrieved the energy he’d sent at her, but no one else got hurt.

While she’d been trying to decide what to do with it, he’d had time to gather more power and he flung it at her, forcing her back several steps. She caught it and flung it back again, but it was more of an effort. She couldn’t keep doing it indefinitely because she continued to lose power and he didn’t.

He also learned quickly. The third shot was no less powerful, but he broadened his target to include everyone in the room. She had no choice but to absorb the full force of his hit, or let something escape where it might hurt one of her children.

Tears of pain slipped down her face as she staggered and swayed, then someone touched her and the pain lessened.

For a dazed instant, the voice and strong hands that pressed into her shoulders were Tier’s. Then, as the effects of the priest’s attack faded, she realized it was Hennea behind her, offering her support and power.

She needed a shield like the one Volis had set to encase them when they had entered the room, but she didn’t have time to throw a shield around everyone. Instead, she created a shield and set it around Volis. For a moment the whole area around Volis lit up, but then the shield fell apart, a victim of its hasty construction.

He laughed. “Try this,” he said and sketched a sigil in the air.

She blocked most of it, but the straining of her magic past her reserves almost blinded her with pain, and the remnants of his sorcery sent both Seraph and Hennea tumbling to the ground.

She wouldn’t be able to hold out against a second such blast.

“Hennea,” she whispered. “When I tell you, jump away, then get the others out of here.” If she could distract Volis long enough, maybe her children could escape.

“No,” said Hennea.

A breeze blew a stray lock of hair into Seraph’s eyes.

Wrath lighting his face, Volis drew back his hand in the manner of a man throwing a rock. Hennea took control of the remnants of Seraph’s shields and refined them as Volis’s hand released whatever it was he’d formed and the spell bounced off harmlessly.

Wind cooled the sweat on Seraph’s forehead—she had just enough time to realize that there shouldn’t be a wind when a sudden gust of it knocked her to her knees.

The wind picked up even more speed, turning Seraph’s hair into a vicious whip that stung her eyes and cheeks as her left knee made painful contact with the floor. The table Volis had been working on skidded across the floor, hit the wall, then flung itself at the priest’s head.

Temporarily occupied defending himself from his furnishings, Volis quit concentrating on Seraph; but any magic would draw his attention.

Seraph drew her knife and staggered to her feet, bracing herself against the wind.

“Hennea,” she said, her voice low. “Is there a cure for the shadowing that you know and I do not?”

Seraph thought for a moment that Hennea had fallen too far away to hear her, but then Hennea said, “No. There is no cure but death.”

Seraph crouched and used the motion of the wind and a feathering of magic to creep up behind Volis. When she was close enough she rushed forward, and stepped on the back of his knee, collapsing the joint so the wizard staggered backward, off balance. She threw her left arm around his chin to hold him steady and jerked her knife into his neck as Tier had once taught her. The sharp knife cut through Volis’s throat, severing skin and artery.

Seraph stumbled back, fighting the wind for her balance. Victory came so quickly, brought to her by the sharp blade of her knife. Her first kill. She wondered if she’d used magic to kill him, if it would seem more real to her.

The young man’s body fought for a while, but pain blocked his own magic and the extremity of his emotions kept Raven magic from coming to his aid—rings or no. Seraph watched because it seemed an act of cowardice to turn away from a death she had summoned.

When he was dead, Seraph turned away to survey the room. Lehr, bless him, had remembered what she told him. He had Bandor pinned face against the wall in some sort of wrestling hold. Hennea had gotten to her hands and knees and crawled against the wind toward Volis’s body. Jes, looking exhausted, sat on the floor near—