THE MAGE SITS AT HIS TABLE, HIS BOOK IN FRONT OF HIM, HIS FINGER TRACING THE LINE HE READS, HIS LIPS FORMING THE WORDS.

HIS LIPS FORMING THE WORDS.

DHULYN MOVES CLOSER, UNTIL SHE CAN SEE THE WRITING ON THE PAGE IN FRONT OF HIM, BUT SHE CAN’T READ IT. SHE LOOKS AGAIN AT HIS LIPS.

ADELGARREMBIL, HIS LIPS SAY. ACUCHEEYAROB. FETENTABIL. DEBEREEYAROB. ESFUMARRENBIL.

THE MAGE REPEATS THE WORDS SEVERAL TIMES AND CLOSES THE BOOK.

WHEN HE STANDS, DHULYN SEES HIS SWORD HANGING BY ITS SCABBARD FROM THE BACK OF HIS CHAIR.

“Dhulyn?” Mar’s pupils were so wide in the candlelight they looked black.

“Go back to sleep, my Dove.”

“I thought I heard you call me.”

“You’re dreaming, Dove. Go back to sleep.”

Mar shut her eyes and Dhulyn began replacing the tiles back into their box.

This would be a good hour. The gold one has gone to stand his turn at watch. Why not slip in now? Their energies would be low; there might be no better time. He looked up, a bird flew overhead, showing its silhouette against the almost full moon. His lips smiled.

“Wolfshead.”

Dhulyn had heard the soft sounds of booted feet behind her for some time, and so wasn’t startled by Karlyn-Tan’s voice when he finally spoke. She stopped at the end of the narrow lane and waited for him to join her before walking beside him across the small square.

“It’s late for you to be out.”

“I followed Cullen,” Karlyn said. “But it seemed he was just giving his bird some hunting, and when I saw him safely back into his quarters, I suddenly felt the need of company.”

“A few minutes earlier, and you would have caught Parno still awake.”

“I did,” he said, looking away from her as if to examine the face of the moon. “I saw him return from his watch and waited for you.”

Dhulyn glanced at him, but he was still looking at the night sky. They reached the spot where she was to stand her watch, where a young Cloudwoman yawned, waiting for Dhulyn to relieve her. They exchanged hand signals and the Cloud left them, silently moving through the empty streets to her bed.

The northwestern end of the valley in which the village of Trevel lay was marked with a small orchard of apple trees. There was no wall as such, only a few large boulders placed to give those who took the herds beneath the trees a place to rest their legs. On the far side of the orchard was a stream, and the shallow pass that marked the village’s vulnerable point from this direction. It was that pass that accounted for Dhulyn’s presence here, as every weapons-wise adult in Trevel-even guests if they were trusted-was expected to take a turn at guard duty.

Telling Karlyn to wait for her by the rocks, Dhulyn scouted through the orchard, ears primed to catch every sound and nose prickling at the sharp, clean scent of trees newly and thickly leaved. She heard the foraging of small animals under the trees halt as she neared and continue as she moved farther away. When she was satisfied that there was nothing in the orchard more dangerous than herself, she rejoined Karlyn at the rocks.

“I have heard,” Karlyn said after they had been silent for many minutes. “That Partnered Brothers often have lovers.”

It took Dhulyn a moment to realize that her mouth was hanging open, and to shut it. She set her crossbow on the ground, and leaned forward, elbows on knees, chin propped on her hands. She’d had lovers, of course, as had Parno, but she was always surprised by the offer. She let her eyes drop to Karlyn’s hands, with their strong fingers, resting on his knees.

“The bond,” she said, “is not how you imagine it.” They sat so close, she could reach out and touch him with no effort at all. As if he read her thought he lifted his hand and reached toward the side of her face. The moon, shining through the screen of apple leaves, was bright and full enough to give a green cast to the light.

“Look up, my Wolfshead. Let me see your eyes.”

Dhulyn straightened until her hands rested on her knees. Without pause, she lifted her head, smiling, and felt the little fold at her upper lip that created her wolf’s smile. As her head rose, she took a deep, steadying breath, raised her hands, and-just before their eyes could meet-she struck.

She caught the unconscious man as he pitched forward, easing him to the ground and searching through the laces on her clothing for something long enough to tie him.

“What was taking you so long?” Cullen said, stepping out of the orchard just as Disha landed on his shoulder.

“I had to be certain,” Dhulyn said. “Look.” She turned one of Karlyn’s hands palm up in the moonlight and compared it to her own. Her hand was pale and white in the moonlight, his showed a faint but unmistakable green cast.

Twenty-seven

THE LOCKUP IN Trevel proved to be a disused horse stall in the back of the headman’s house. Like every other building in the village, the walls were thick stone covered with whitewashed plaster, but the window opening had an iron grille, Parno noted, not shutters, and the door was barred from the outside.

Gundaron, bent over the trussed Karlyn-Tan, looked up and nodded. “It’s here,” he said.

Sortera leaned on her staff, shaking her head. “Nothing wrong with him that I can sense,” she said. “Barring that he’s unconscious, see you.”

“We’ll want to keep him that way,” Dhulyn said. “Can we?”

The old woman’s face creased as she smiled. “ ’Course you can, there’s drugs to do it, as you well know. But we’ll have to watch him carefully if we don’t want to kill him.” She thought a moment, frowning heavily. “Let me talk to the village Knife. Between us, we can work out the dosages, see you.” She tilted her head, focused her sharp eyes on Dhulyn. “How long do you plan to keep him this way?”

Dhulyn drew her eyes away from Karlyn-Tan. “As long as we have to.”

“We’ll need to look to our supplies, then,” Sortera said. “We can’t have innocent people going without because we’re using all we have on this one.”

“Then we’ll have to find a more permanent solution,” Parno said. “Wait for us in the other room, Grandmother. We’ll come as soon as Gun’s finished.” He turned to Dhulyn and lowered his voice still further.

“Are you certain it’s trapped?”

Dhulyn shrugged. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do. From something Yaro told me, I hoped I could strike at the body fast enough to trap it in Karlyn, especially since it did not know I suspected it.”

Parno loosened the muscles in his jaw that kept getting too tight. “I’m surprised he let you get close enough for the Hooded Snake Shora.”

Dhulyn shrugged. “Even those who have seen a woman’s strength never really believe she’ll use it against them.”

Parno coughed. “And what about you, Cullen. Why didn’t you tell us?”

The Cloudman’s teeth gleamed white for an instant as he smiled. He was leaning against the wall next to the door. “What was I going to do, Lionsmane? Swear to you I wasn’t possessed?”

Dhulyn and Gun both laughed.

Parno rubbed his face with his hands. It seemed his own bond with Dhulyn helped him to sense the link that they had between them. The Marked. As potent and as real as the bond of Partnership. It was a good thing, he told himself, he was only uneasy because he hadn’t experienced it before. Before, it had only been Dhulyn and him, and he could almost forget her Mark.

Surely it was only this uneasiness, this new sensation of exclusion, that gave him the feeling things were getting out of hand?

Dhulyn walked down the long narrow lane that snaked its way through the quarter in which Sortera had her house, having volunteered to fetch water. The tension was beginning to tell on everyone. Even after being up all night, she felt completely unable to sleep. The morning sun was bright, the streets-really more like stone-laid paths slanted to allow the water to run off downhill-still showed the damp marks of dew in the shady corners.