Teiriol frowned. “Isn’t she up with Eirys?”

“No.” Ismenia rose wearily from her seat and poured water from a heavy ewer into the sink. “She’ll be trailing after Aritane or skirting around the ne’er-do-wells in the workshops.”

“Mother!” objected Keisyl.

“Don’t raise your voice to me, Keisy.” She lifted a warning finger. “If she’s so keen to be considered grown, she can behave herself or face the consequences.”

“But what if—” Teiriol hesitated, reddening.

“What if she comes in with her petticoats soiled and swearing she found the bracelet?” The pair of them gaped at their mother’s coarseness.

“Then we’ll get another birth to the soke, and if Misaen wields any justice it’ll be a girl.” Ismenia set her lips in a bloodless line. “And if no man after will overlook her dishonor for the sake of fathering his own children, it’ll serve Theilyn right. You two will be assured of the diggings for as long as there’s ore to be dug, won’t you?”

“That’s hardly just—” began Keisyl with some heat.

“I told you not to raise your voice to me,” snapped Ismenia. “It’s no harder a truth than all the others I’ve faced since your father died. I’ve kept this soke safe for my children thus far and I’m not about to give up now.”

Teiriol looked uncertainly from his bitter-tongued mother to his grim-faced brother. “I’ll go and see if I can find Theilyn.”

Ismenia turned to the sink with a snort and began sluicing through green leaves. Keisyl rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “So do you want these chopped or stripped?”

Teiriol left the scullery hurriedly rather than see Keisyl doing woman’s work and then wondered where under the sun he should go.

“Ho, Teir, come over here.” Jeirran called him to the far side of the fire.

Teiriol reluctantly crossed the room. “Good day to you.” He studied Jeirran’s companions. The two older men, one graying, one bald, each had mining calluses on their hands, the bald one missing two fingers on one of his. Both were looking at Jeirran as if he could offer them a fresh-faced bride with her own gold seams. The younger men shifted in their seats, glancing from the door to Jeirran, restlessly shuffling boots on the flagstones. One had been richly dressed but was now travel-stained and ragged. When he reached for a cup, the sleeve of his shirt pulled back to reveal flogging scars on his arm. The other was neat enough but had a sly cast to his muddy gray eyes. Both were more sandy-haired than blond, faces soft.

“Take a seat, Teir.” Jeirran shoved a stool with a foot and proffered a beaker of mead, pewter dull with countless fingermarks. “Listen to what Ikarel has to tell us.”

The sly-faced man shrugged. “I can’t say if it’s truth or not but I heard the same tale in two different villages. There’s wizardry afoot in the Great Forest. Some great mage has been rallying the Folk, using sorcery to defeat any who stand against him and claiming the wildwood for his own.”

Teiriol felt distaste curl his lip.

“False magic,” spat the man with the missing fingers.

“Eresken should be told.” Jeirran frowned. “Where is he?”

“Find Aritane, you’ll find him,” sniggered the youth with the whip scars. He subsided at Jeirran’s glare.

“I’ll go.” Teiriol hastily set aside his untouched cup.

“No, wait, I want—”

He ignored Jeirran’s indignant words, cutting them off short with a slam of the door. Circling the rekin, pushing past a gang of strangers half-heartedly urging two yapping dogs into a full-blown fight, he saw his quarry. “Aritane, a moment.”

Aritane turned haughtily. She unbent a little when she recognized Teiriol. “I didn’t realize you were due back. You are welcome.”

“And good day to you.” What right had she to welcome him to his own home? “Theilyn.” He made his sister a curt bow and was pleased to see uncertainty at war with defiance in her smoky blue eyes. He was less impressed to see her hair curling loosely around her shoulders and the way her cross-tied shawl accentuated the curves of her developing figure.

“And I am Eresken.” The man between the two women offered his hand. Teiriol took a firm grip on the smooth palm unmarred by toil or injury. He closed his fingers tight, eyes expressionless as he looked for the other man’s reaction.

“I am very pleased to meet you.” Eresken’s smile remained unchanged and after a moment Teiriol dropped both the stranger’s hand and his own gaze. “Mother needs your help in the scullery, Theilyn,” he said without preamble. “Whatever else is going on—” he shot Aritane a hostile glance— “you should not forget your duties or your responsibilities.”

Theilyn colored, lifting her chin arrogantly. Aritane forestalled her reply. “He’s right, my dear. I am keeping you from your work.” She favored the girl with a private smile. “Run along and we can tell Teiriol just why we have filled his home with strangers. He’ll see how a little sacrifice now will lead to so much greater reward in the future.”

Teiriol folded his arms a touch defensively and studied Eresken critically. Who was this man of obviously mixed blood, for all his local clothing? “Jeirran wants you. Someone’s brought news about wizards in the lowlands.”

Aritane frowned. “What has that to do with us?”

“Jeirran keeps himself fully apprised of anything that might affect his plans.” Eresken rested his hand briefly on hers. He smiled at Teiriol. “It is something, is it not, that a man has finally emerged to voice all our dissatisfactions and urge us to stand up to the lowlanders?”

Teiriol felt uncomfortable as Eresken’s green eyes bored into him. Memories of past outrages, witnessed, reported and spoken of over long winter evenings down the years echoed in the back of his mind. Whatever he might think of Jeirran personally, it was true that the man was displaying a courage no one else had shown in recent times. Disloyal irritation with Keisyl’s aloofness pricked him.

“Come on, Theilyn.” Taking her hand, he hurried back to the shelter of the rekin.

“Do you think he will join us?” Aritane asked dubiously as she watched him go.

“I think so,” nodded Eresken. “There’s much anger inside him, and an outward-looking mind. As long as we can focus that where we want it, he’ll be unable to hold out for long.” Eresken pointed to Theilyn hanging on her brother’s arm and talking intently, half skipping in her urgency to match his pace. “Theilyn will convince him.” In the shelter of gathering shadow, he lifted Aritane’s hand to kiss it swiftly.

“I wish I could read people as well as you.” Aritane’s cold poise was melted now, humility mixed with a hint of envy.

“You will, one day,” Eresken promised her with warm affection. “When we have peace in the uplands, I can teach you everything I know. When you share that learning, you will raise the Sheltya to the honor rightfully theirs—and yours.”

Aritane’s mouth opened on an intake of breath. “Then you will be staying? Truly?” Hope strangled her words.

“I will need my father’s blessing, but I cannot see him refusing, not once he has met your mind in the honesty of true magic.” Eresken ran a self-conscious hand over his hair, dark against her fairness. “I cannot see him rebuking me for falling in love with a woman of Tren Ar’Dryen, just as he did.”

Aritane was at once distracted. “What did you say?”

“My mother was of the Plains to the east and south of here,” said Eresken with a shrug. “My father crossed the ocean long years since and where he made landfall her people took him and his voyagers in. They were of the ancient blood of the Plains; a few still hide from imperious Tormalin steel.” He smiled. “Not all have passed into lowland myth as Eldritch-men living in the shadows of the chimney corner. When the ship sailed in the spring, she was aboard and I within her.” His face fell a little. “I have heard some disparage my blood. I suppose I am a lowlander mongrel but—”