Wolf Justice
Wolf Justice
Chapter 4
Drip. Drip. Teya covered her ears with her hands. The wizard schools had been so poorly maintained, for so many years. . . . Things were better than, say, two years ago, but—drip!—not as good as they could be.There was so much more to magic than people supposed, more than just memorizing gestures for different elements. Most people never felt those individual elements at all, but only the generalized hum they made when thrown together. But the students . . . they learned to isolate the elements, and then to associate gestures with each—over and over again, until invoking will and crooking a finger just so immediately drew forth a tendril of precisely defined power. Only then, after endless hours of drills and repetition, did they start recombining the elements into spells.
Some people felt the elements as touch, or tasted them, or even saw them in their mind as indescribable colors. Teya heard them in subliminal notes, and usually had no trouble blocking out the noise of the world—drip!—to concentrate.
A rumble of the season’s first thunder drowned out the noise of rainwater plinking into the old chamberpot Teya had appropriated. That’s what she got for being an interim student—the rooms in the top floor of the old stone and wood building. But how in the Hells was she supposed to study with that infernal drip mocking her in the background?
Aurgh. Teya pushed her notes away and left the austere little study desk to do stretches in the middle of the room, following the orders of the school’s healers. Her assorted bruises were nearly healed, but her dislocated shoulder was another thing altogether, and remained stiff and sore. At this rate, she’d never get back out on patrol. She wondered what Reandn was doing with his substitute wizard, and her mouth quirked into a wry little smile. Knowing how difficult he could be to work with when it came to magic, she could easily imagine Reandn stalking around like one of the thunderclouds now overhead, with the frustrated wizard grumbling loudly every time Reandn’s back was turned.
She wondered how long it would take the substitute to realize Reandn heard a lot more than it seemed he ought to, grumbles especially. My, how her own face had burned when she’d learned that lesson herself. But now, as she’d healed, and as she’d worried about her future in the Remote Patrol, she discovered she was at least used to Reandn’s ways, and that she wanted that position back. It was better, she thought, than starting all over with another patrol leader, someone who might not appreciate her strengths, and who might rag her endlessly about her weaknesses. Reandn, at least, did not do that, whatever his other faults.
Drip.
She was done with lessons for the day. Since her return here, she’d had several assignments on which to concentrate—a few pointedly effective offensive spells, a refined and more powerful scrying spell—but at her own request, the bulk of her time had been spent in schooling her reaction times. Her assigned tutor, Rainer, spent hours in verbal battle with her, throwing out situations and heckling her—"Hurry up, Teya, people are dying, Teya, you’ve got to be faster, Teya"—while Teya searched for the responding spell she wanted. At the same time, she spent far too many hours in this lonely room, drilling herself with cards of her own devising. Flip a card, read the spell, and quickly display the mnemonics for it, moving her fingers in the wizard’s language without actually calling the magic behind them.
She’d thought she was getting faster, that the spells were coming to mind more easily all the time, and that her response time to Rainer’s verbal battles had improved. Then, yesterday, he’d added the mnemonics to his exercises; now she had to come back with the name of a spell and finger-twist out the mnemonics just as quickly. Within moments she was stuttering with both words and fingers.
Maybe she just needed a break. A day or two when she didn’t think about it at all, but spent her time stretching and reading and exploring Solace.
Thunder rumbled at her; in a childish impulse she stuck her tongue out at it—and then jumped at the sudden knocking at her door, certain she’d somehow been seen.
"Stupid," she told herself. Kneading her aching shoulder, she opened the door.
The woman standing there was no one she knew. A tall and slender—or maybe downright thin—woman, dressed simply in a plain blue kirtle over a soft white shirt—and were those old, faded bloodstains on the sleeve? Her hair was thick and blonder than anyone’s ought to be, hanging damply below her shoulders with the crimped look of recently released braids.
It was when she met the woman’s eyes that Teya suddenly realized who she was. Someone Teya’d heard much about, and never seen, for she’d always come to Solace when Reandn went to Little Wisdom. "Rethia," she said—no, admit it, she blurted the name more than anything.
Rethia turned her eyes away, hiding them beneath thick lashes. "I found the right door, then . . . Teya?"
"Yes," Teya said, lost in the question of why in Ardrith’s name this woman was here. And then she realized she was still looking out from a mostly closed door, and that Rethia stood out in the drafty hallway with plenty of evidence of the rain on her clothes. Hastily, she opened the door. "Please, come in. They’re only temporary student’s quarters, but I did do a little warming spell a while ago."
Rethia smiled, and Teya thought it looked like a relieved expression. What did this woman have to worry about? she wondered. She was the one who’d brought back the magic!
Rethia appeared not even to notice the plinking drip into the chamber pot, or the austere little chair Teya gestured at by way of invitation. She fumbled at the side of her kirtle until she found the seam pocket, and withdrew a note. "From Reandn," she said. "Though I wrote it for him, so if it doesn’t quite sound like him, that’s why."
Teya took the note, absently remembering her surprise at the discovery that Reandn didn’t read, and didn’t write beyond scrawling his name. Most Wolves came from good solid trade families at the least, and entered pack training with both their numbers and letters learned. Teya herself was the daughter of a successful net merchant, and had once helped keep both the family’s books and their correspondence.
Even without the knowledge of his scholarly shortcomings, she’d have known right away that this hand wasn’t Reandn’s, not this precise and delicate script. Teya could all but see Rethia writing it.
But then she read the words, and forgot about the scribing altogether. Reandn, discharged? The patrol, all but disbanded? Then where was Dakina? How would she ever discover the fate of the three injured men? And how could she pass on Reandn’s regards and final goodbye, the request he made of her? She gaped at the letter a moment, and then gathered herself to send Rethia a sharp look. "What do you know of this?"
"All of it," Rethia said, seeming to understand perfectly well that Teya was asking about the unspoken details behind the brief note. "But he isn’t supposed to have told you any of it. Please don’t ask anyone else about it."
"I won’t," Teya assured her. "That is— I won’t, unless I don’t get any more answers from you."
She expected irritation, or hesitation, or even stubborn refusal. Rethia just looked at her, standing damply in the middle of the room with the chamberpot-echoed drip behind her, and said, "I told him."
Teya stared at her, and after a moment, shook her head as if to clear it. Rethia was striking, and once you were used to her eyes and hair, perhaps even beautiful, but . . . she was also quite strange.
But apparently willing to talk. "What happened?" Teya said. "Why did they kick him out of the Wolves?"
"Arval’s nose," Rethia told her.
"Arval’s—but he was only defending me!"
Rethia asked, "Does Danny make you angry?"
Teya was completely taken aback, and spent a few moments in confusion before she realized Rethia was referring to Reandn. Danny—of course. It had never occurred to her that he would ever be called by such a nickname. And even then, she had no idea what Rethia was getting at. In the end, she simply answered the question honestly. "Yes, sometimes. Or, I suppose . . . ofttimes."
Rethia said, "Ignoring the oughts? Not listening to your shoulds? Stepping all over your let’s do it this ways?"
"He makes his own rules when he wants to," Teya said, feeling the heat in her face for the implied—no, outright—disrespect in those words. But goddess damn, it was true!
Rethia looked . . . Teya wasn’t sure. Elsewhere, perhaps. "A few days ago," Rethia said, her gaze most definitely not taking in the chamber pot she looked at, "we had a little girl come in, so badly cut up that it was days before we knew we’d saved her, even if she won’t ever have the use of one hand again. She was so frightened, and in so much pain . . . we couldn’t even begin to treat her. Danny was the one who held her, and talked to her, and calmed her enough so we could save her life. We hadn’t even thought to do the things he did. I guess he broke our rules, too, in a way."
Teya waited a moment, and then frowned. Rethia had said that like it actually had something to do with this conversation. "Rethia . . ." she started, and then stopped short, horrified at the patronizing tone in her own voice.
Rethia’s little smile said she’d heard it too; she suddenly sounded more practical, as if some part of her had closed itself off to Teya. "The Prime kicked him out of the Wolves for attacking Minor Arval. He wasn’t allowed to tell you. Ethne wanted things to settle down first, Danny said. And even then he wasn’t sure what they might actually tell you, so he wanted to set things straight before he left." She answered Teya’s next question before Teya even had a chance to open her mouth. "They’ve offered him a deal, now—handle a special assignment for them, and they’ll give him back the Wolves. He left this morning."
"For where?"
Rethia shook her head. "Nowhere near here."
Teya suppressed a flash of annoyance, sensing that where Rethia had spoken of other things readily enough, she would not be swayed when it came to this one. "What about his allergies?" she asked. "Nowhere near here means he won’t be able to come to you. And it means I won’t be around to shield him from magic. I may not be so good at some spells, but I’m not being prideful when I tell you I’ve never met anyone in my generation of wizards who can shield Reandn as well as I can."
"He trusts you," Rethia said in agreement, words that hit Teya like a little shock, though Rethia gave her no time to think about them. "I’m worried, too. I don’t usually . . ." She stopped, and looked straight at Teya with a self-deprecating smile. "Maybe you can tell. But people like you and Reandn, you see something you want, or something you think is important, and you fight for it. I see those things and I . . . well, I don’t. Fight, I mean. There are usually other ways. But this time . . . they just don’t understand, you know. They haven’t seen how sick magic can make Danny. You haven’t, either. So I made . . . a fuss."
Teya found that hard to imagine. Soft-spoken. Reserved. Even withdrawn. Those were the words she’d have used to describe this woman. She fought the impulse to ask, Did you actually shout? because she’d already been rude enough. "What," she asked instead, "what happened?"
Rethia reached beneath the gently scooped neckline of the kirtle and pulled out a small, asymmetrical disk. An amulet. "Danny has one just like mine. Farren made them for us yesterday. If Danny’s in trouble, all he has to do is break it; it’ll resonate in this one. I’ll be sent out on the Wizard’s Road and I’ll help him."
"Great swampmuck, woman, that’s no guarantee at all! What if you can’t find him in time?" Teya knew they’d send Rethia not straight to Reandn, but only to the nearest location that the sending wizard was familiar with. "Besides, if he’s in trouble with magic, chances are too damned good that there’s a whole lot else going on, too. You’re either going to walk straight into it, or you won’t even be able to get close to him!"
"You’re right," Rethia said, looking more sad than upset by Teya’s ire. "But it’s Danny’s choice to take the risks ahead of him. This is just the best I can do to make sure the magic doesn’t kill him while he’s at it."
For a long moment, Teya could only stare at her. Then she gathered herself together, took a deep breath, and offered Rethia a Wolf’s salute. "Goddess grace, Rethia. And my gratitude . . . for telling me what you could."
"You’re welcome," Rethia murmured. "I wish . . . it were more." And she ducked her head to give Teya one more look from beneath her bangs and lashes before she departed, leaving Teya with the notion that there were unspoken words ringing loudly around her.
Drip.
Teya snarled an oath at the chamberpot and snatched up her cloak. Bloody damned if she wasn’t going on that walk anyway.
The amulet felt strange and cool against Reandn’s skin, as though it were magic that hadn’t quite happened yet, but wasn’t far away. After a day or two of that, he left the thing hanging outside his shirt. Plenty of people wore amulets these days, though the fact that there was very little true use for them meant they were mostly fakes.
His clothes were as unfamiliar as the amulet. They’d already seen plenty of use by the time Saxe handed them to Reandn; they were sturdy and not disreputable, which was all he asked. This job was going to be difficult enough—a veteran, ranking Wolf slinking around in the guise of a remount wrangler—and he at least needed to look like someone the Keep trusted to handle horses for Resiore Highborn. The tunic was long, modestly embellished with embroidery, and belted over baggy pants.
When he stood still in them, if there was no breeze to make the roughly woven material brush his skin, he felt alarmingly close to being without pants at all. Thank Ardrith’s mercy he had a pair of half-chaps—plain ones, and battered, but perfectly serviceable—to hold the pants in tight against his lower legs, or after half a lifetime of riding, he’d be sporting blisters again.
At least he still had his boots. And he still had Sky. And the weather was finally fairing up for spring, still raining plenty but not quite as cold. Add the luxury of sleeping at inns and stabling Sky with plenty of feed and hay, and Reandn didn’t have much to complain about. The days on the way to Norposten, the small town just north of King’s Keep, were as good as a vacation. Sky didn’t even contrive to throw a shoe.
Perversely, Reandn found his thoughts lingering on his time at Teayo’s home, where he’d left before finishing his work on the fence, and where the well needed dredging. He didn’t think about Adela in her journey through Tenaebra’s Heavens. And he didn’t think about his surviving patrol members, or whether Teya would manage to convey his words to them. He didn’t wonder about Sophi’s recovery, and he definitely didn’t think about the way he’d just thrown his hands up at Kacey’s pinched annoyance at his departure. Or about the way her deep brown eyes had revealed the worry the rest of her had hidden.
Definitely not.
When he returned, he’d be a Wolf again, and that was the important thing. Everything else would pass. But he was relieved to reach Norposten all the same; from here on, he’d travel with more than his own thoughts and one eccentric horse for company.
In town, Reandn found the livery that was holding his remounts, and while he was looking them over, one of the Hounds found him, obvious enough in the browns of his boots, trousers, and marked and rank-laced vest. Unlike the Wolves, he had no half-chaps, and chose his own color of shirt—in this case, deep green to offset his violently red hair. "You’re either Dan," the man said, coming to rest beside Reandn at the livery corral, "or you’re his twin. From the description I got, anyway."
Dan. Just a tad too familiar for Reandn, who drew his lines deeply around him. But the Hounds had heard his name, even if they’d never seen him, and Saxe decided it would be best to avoid using it. "That would be me," he told the man. "Hired on special for this one."
"Ethne said you’ve worked with the Keep forces before."
Reandn nodded. "I’ve done some training for your Wolf mounts," he said, which was perfectly true.
"I’m Damen," the man said. "My partner—that’s Nican—is around here somewhere; we’ve been expecting you. And Elstan is at the inn."
"The wizard?" Reandn guessed.
Damen shrugged. Relaxed and confident, he struck Reandn as the kind of man who was good enough at what he did that he didn’t carry around a lot of worries. "The wizard, yes. Officially he’s our guide, and no one from the Resiore party is to know any different—I’m sure someone told you that." His eyes slid to the horses, and then back to Reandn, as if carefully and quietly gauging Reandn’s reaction to his words. "As it happens I’m the one with the map. Of course, this whole thing would have been a lot simpler if Resiore pride had let the Keep send a Wolf patrol to escort them. Wolves are better at slinking around the countryside."
Probably not the last of the subtle digs he’d hear about Wolves; there’d always been a friendly rivalry between the two closely related branches of Keep security. Reandn let the comment about Resiore pride pass as well—that one had surely been deliberate bait—and simply said, "I’ve been there myself. That’s better than any map."
Damen watched him a moment—Hounds were ever intent at sniffing things out from what people said—or what they didn’t. "It is, and I’d heard. I’d heard, too, that you’ve some problem with magic. Frankly, at first I didn’t much like the idea of having you along, given that. But the Prime requested you, and Elstan’s spells will be minimal. Communications, mostly, if our luck holds. Elstan knows your problem and I’m assured he can deal with it. Can you?"
"There’s magic around me whether or not I take this road," Reandn pointed out, unable to completely hide the bitterness. With effort, he lightened his tone. "No one can slip a spell over us unknown if I’m around, not even a spell quiet enough to sneak up on a wizard."
"Well, then," Damen said, offering him a smile. "Maybe the Prime knows what’s best after all."
Reandn wasn’t sure of that; he offered a noncommittal response. "I wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t asked for me."
Damen glanced askance at him. Damn Hounds—he ought to know better than to play word games with one. But this Hound let it go, and nodded at the corral. "These horses are all retired Wolf mounts—mustered out early because they didn’t have what the Wolves want in a horse. We shouldn’t have any trouble with them."
Didn’t have quite the fire, is what he meant. That meant well-trained, athletic horses with temperaments a child could handle. "Except that palomino," Reandn said. "That mare’s too fine for patrol work. She’s a gift for Meira Kalena, then?"
Damen raised a thick eyebrow at him. All of his hair was plentiful, red and wiry, and looked somewhat at odds with his easy composure, as did his profusion of freckles. "You have worked with Wolf horses before," he said, then grinned, the sort of apology he clearly expected would do the trick—and it probably always had. "Not that I doubted you. But there’s wranglers, and then there’s wranglers. You’ll know what I mean."
Reandn just nodded. This man was used to having things his way, but not to being heavy-handed about it. Good news for a Wolf who had most likely outranked this Hound not too long ago.
"Your own horse settled?" Damen asked. At Reandn’s nod, he said, "You might as well come along to the inn, then. There’s good food, and a Tits-fine bard, and we’ll have an early start tomorrow."
Reandn watched the bard—a middle-aged woman with a schooled alto and a handful of children who scampered to catch the coins flung her way, cheering the loudest after her songs—who held her hand up to her throat and said, pitifully hoarse, "I’ll play more later, gentlefolk, but I’ve a thirsty voice to feed just now."
The crowd’s response was good-natured disappointment, for Damen had not exaggerated her skills. But she favored the sort of heartbreaking ballads Reandn did his best to avoid—Adela’s favorites, of course—and he barely hid his relief at her departure.
"Didn’t I tell you?" Nican—darkly resplendent in a red shirt beneath his Hound brown—crowed to Elstan. "Damn fine!" As partners, he and Damen were a study in contrasts. But Damen—tall, deep-voiced and easygoing—seemed completely adjusted to Nican, who was several inches shorter than Reandn but not the least bit smaller. He was, in fact, a burly man who looked like he’d somehow lost track of the height that had surely been allotted to him. But his words came fast, and his gestures were generous and frequent. Sitting at the same table in the busy tavern below the inn rooms, he was a little more than Reandn cared to deal with. Out on the road, it would be better.
He hoped.
Elstan merely shrugged; Reandn already had the impression that the cynical quirk of his lips was more or less permanent.
"Man, have you no heart?" Nican declared. "Have you ever heard ‘Ciara’s Ride’ sung with such feeling?"
"Some men put their feelings on rations," Damen suggested. "What say, Dan, sitting over there so quietly? You rationing along with Elstan?"
Reandn’s first impulse was low and growly and not meant for a remount wrangler to say to a Hound. After an instant’s hesitation, he managed a slow and somewhat wicked smile. "I’ve just been put to sleep. Give me a good randy sing-along anytime."
Not the least put off, Nican said, "Oh, she’ll do those when she comes back. Then we’ll see if Elstan sings as well as he drinks down that ale."
"Wine," said Elstan. "Maybe the last fine vintage I’ll have until we return from this journey, but wine nonetheless."
"Ah," Nican said. "A taste for the finer things. What brings you on this trip, then, if it’s the court life you prefer?"
If Elstan had any sense of humor, it didn’t show; he scooped his light brown hair out of his face and fixed his eyes—light brown to match his hair, and his stare without the impact he probably thought to inflict—on Nican. He might have thought his age gave him some advantage. Where Nican and Damen were more or less of Reandn’s thirty-two years, Elstan appeared older by at least another five.
But no one else appeared impressed, not by his seniority or his connections. He said, "Malik himself requested my presence."
"Ah," Nican said again. "Then no doubt you’re right to be here. Well, boyo, we won’t make faces at your wine, long as you leave us our ale."
Elstan said nothing; Reandn thought he saw some color flush the man’s neck, though in this poor light it was difficult to tell. But he had no doubt about the magic—it whispered against his ears and started to build, and he threw the wizard such a glare that Damen gave him a startled glance. Elstan never looked his way, but the magic fizzled away much less gracefully than Teya’s ever had, like boiling water suddenly without a pot.
Randy sing-alongs, that’s what they needed. The sooner the better, and then tomorrow they’d be out of these close quarters and on their way, bringing the hope of peace from the Resiores—and bringing Reandn back to the Wolves.
Teya stood at the top of the stairs and looked pensively down the hallway. She was on the second floor of the school, where the masters—the older wizards, who had learned their skills a generation earlier—did individual tutoring in their own dedicated rooms. Farren’s room was here.
Teya had never formally met the wizard, who’d been there when magic returned. Reandn had mentioned him only in terms of the wizard’s work with Saxe, and never commented about the man himself one way or the other. From the few encounters she’d had with Farren, Teya could well imagine the two men wouldn’t get along well, even if magic were no issue at all. Both had—and here Teya structured her thoughts to keep them reasonably respectful—unusually strong personalities. No doubt they’d spent a lot of their time together snarling at one another.
Saxe, however, seemed to get along fine with the old wizard. Maybe, Teya thought, because he’d been introduced along with his rank, which Farren respected. Reandn had met Farren while sickened by translocation and crazed with grief for his slain wife—and not as a Wolf at all. Just once, Teya had seen them together—the day she was posted to Reandn’s patrol—and even though she’d barely known either of them, she’d seen the difference in how Farren treated Reandn. Peremptorily, with an assumption that his own words were the final ones. Oh, yes, there was a lot of tension there.
She wasn’t comfortable with the thought of going to Farren for anything, never mind a favor.
Fortunately, Saxe was here as well; Teya was surprised at how often she’d seen the Wolf Leader in these halls recently. He and Farren were working hard to develop standards and policies for a new branch of the King’s Service—wizards, trained to keep vigil on other magic-users. Teya’s position as the first wizard in a Wolf patrol was the initial step in the process, but she had no illusions about making it into the new wizard patrol itself.
Not anymore.
She walked quietly down the quaintly detailed hallway—the entire building was a product of its time, a generation before the loss of magic itself, and at that point only one of many mage school buildings clustered in the center of Solace—and stopped beside the ornate curlicues that framed Farren’s door. Up until this moment she’d been half-resolved to knock on the door, but suddenly doing so seemed entirely inappropriate. Interrupt a meeting between the Wolf Leader and the school’s liaison to the Keep? Maybe on another, bolder day, but certainly not on this one. She’d just have to hope they came out for some fresh air before she had to run to the privy—for the moment she stepped away from this door, that’s when the two of them would emerge.
She was somewhat startled when, after only a few moments of abstract thought, she discovered that the door was open and Saxe was looking at her with amused patience.
"Quick eye and quiet foot, Wolf," he said. "Even here."
Teya blushed. Not a good start. "I don’t mean to interrupt," she said, rushing the words too much. "I—I just wanted to talk to you, and I figured here would be the best place to wait."
"Well, come in, then. I suspect I would benefit from a few minutes of not thinking about the ramifications of this particular project."
"In there? Me?" Silently, Teya groaned at herself. What an impression she must be making. But Saxe only nodded and opened the door wider.
The room was just as she remembered it—neat, organized, completely walled with bookshelves, uncluttered with the numerous and usually strange mementos the other masters tended to collect. She’d heard Farren ran a tailor shop in Maurant during the years between magic, and she could well imagine it, and imagine his precision with the details of such a business.
Farren sat behind a desktop strewn with notes, although even there, Teya thought she detected some semblance of order. He, too, was as she remembered—not a big man, old enough to be her grandfather but still straight and trim, with none of the thin-skinned frailties that would make her think of him as truly aged. He nodded to her, pleasantly enough, and leaned back in his chair, giving her tacit permission to carry on her conversation with Saxe.
"What can I do for you, Teya?" Saxe asked, seating himself beside the desk.
"I have some questions," she said. "About my patrol. Or what’s left of it, I suppose."
Saxe winced. He had honest, square-cut features around a nose that ought to have been a little smaller, and even with her knowledge of his part in Reandn’s current situation, she couldn’t help but trust him. No wonder he’d made it to Wolf Leader. "Dakina’s doing very well," he said. "And it looks like Dreyfen will heal well enough to stay on active duty. Maccus . . . that head wound of his . . ." Saxe shook his head. "He’s not back with us yet. Don’t get your hopes up for him, Teya. Without magic, he’d be dead now."
"Thank you," she said. "But that’s not what I wanted to ask about."
Saxe raised an eyebrow in invitation. "What is it, then?"
"I was just wondering . . ." How to put this so she didn’t reveal the information she already had? "I’m here, Dakina and Dreyfen are at the Keep, and the new Remote Patrols are forming out in Keland. No one’s said anything to me about returning to Reandn’s patrol, so I thought. . . . Will I be punished, Saxe? Is that why I haven’t heard anything about returning to the Remote? And what about Dakina? Her partner was killed, and we’d really like to be paired when we go active again."
There. It was a long speech, but it said what she wanted to. She’d left a clear opening for Saxe to admit Reandn had been kicked out of the Wolves—and for him to tell her she wouldn’t work with her patrol members again.
His expression was grave, and he swapped a glance with Farren, who said, "There are factors involved here that you know nothing about. It would be best if you didn’t concern yourself with anything but healing and learning for now. Rest assured, we intend to use your unique abilities to their fullest extent."
With no little trepidation, Teya mustered her next words. "I say this with all respect possible, Meir Farren, but . . . this is a Wolf matter. I am asking, Wolf to Wolf."
Farren’s blue eyes sparked, and Teya braced herself for his response. But Saxe, quiet but firm, said, "Farren," and drew the wizard’s stern gaze. "That was a just statement. She was waiting for me; I was the one who invited her into your study. And," he added, raising a brow at the older man, "as I recall, it was to me she put the question."
Teya stood absolutely still, hoping that somehow neither of them would notice she was still in the room. Little chance of that, of course. As soon as Farren gave a short nod, Saxe turned back to her, and renewed their conversation as though it had never been interrupted.
"I didn’t realize you felt so strongly about pairing with Dakina," he said, with the kind of regret that told her it was already too late.
Panic of a sort edged her voice. It was true, what Reandn’s note implied was really true. "We figured we could handle it once we were reunited in the patrol. Reandn probably would have paired us up that way without even having to ask." That, she suddenly realized, was also true. As angry as Reandn made her, he was fully aware of the small social currents within the patrol, and considered them in his decisions.
Saxe shook his head, ever so slightly. "We can’t afford to have you all in the same patrol, never mind paired," he said. "You went through the same horrifying experience; it’s going to affect you no matter how you try to fight it."
"It’ll just make us stronger," Teya said, unable to say the words as loudly as she’d like.
"In some ways," Saxe agreed. But he shook his head again anyway. "It’s no punishment, Teya. But this is the way things have to be. You’ll all have separate assignments."
"Will I even be put back out with the Remote?" Teya didn’t dare to look at Saxe, but fastened her gaze on the indecipherable, upside-down scribbling on Farren’s papers. They seemed a little blurry, and she blinked quickly, struggling to find a more professional composure. Somehow, what they’d been through hadn’t seemed as bad when she thought she’d still have at least two of her patrol mates with her, and Reandn to lead them. That last notion was enough to startle her pressing grief away; she hadn’t realized she’d actually come to depend on him.
Saxe said, "We’re not sure yet. I . . . wish I could give you answers. The best I can do is tell you that we consider the experiment, the addition of a specialized wizard into a Wolf patrol, to be a successful one." He smiled at her; it didn’t even seem forced. "If it worked with Reandn, it’ll work with anybody."
Teya dutifully smiled back. She said carefully, "I hope, at least, that if you return me to the Wolves, you’ll consider assigning me in Reandn’s patrol. Right now I’m the only one you’ve got who’s trained to make absolutely certain my magic doesn’t affect him." She knew it wouldn’t happen; she no longer had the unmitigated trust she’d once put in her Wolf leadership. Saxe and the Prime might well be doing what they thought was best for all, but that didn’t mean they were doing what was best for everybody. The most her words could do would be to trickle through Saxe’s mind when he was trying to sleep at night, and considering the look on his face right this moment, that might even happen.
Teya cleared her throat, and gave Saxe a salute, waiting for his nod of dismissal before she turned to go. She gave Farren a salute as well, but before she’d reached the door, something else occurred to her, and she turned back to them both, at a loss. "If I’m not really a Wolf anymore, and I’m not fully a student, then am I in any service at all?" Goddess, what if they decided to channel her to the Hounds, where her swamp upbringing would be all the more obvious, or to the Foxes, whose clandestine ways appealed to her even less than the Hounds’ courtly domain?
Clearly, neither of them had considered the question at all. After a glance at Saxe, Farren said, "It would be unwise of the school to lose someone of your field experience at this point. Certainly, you should stay and learn what you can while you have the opportunity."
Slowly, Teya nodded. "I—yes, thank you, meir." Just as slowly, she left the room and returned to her own. Students came to this school of their own free will; they vied for the available slots, which as of yet were seriously limited. Some failed; some decided it wasn’t the life they wanted. But no one, not even the successes, was forced to stay.
When she’d signed on with the Wolves, she’d agreed to stay for the years of her training and three years beyond, to pay for that training. But they’d gladly released her to the school when she’d shown such obvious signs of wizardly talent. And she’d signed nothing upon return to them, although she drew Wolf’s pay like any other patrol member.
Now they had terminated that position with the Wolves. And, she thought, they were making far too many assumptions about her willingness to let them guide her life.
The thought rocked her. Here she’d just been waiting to hear what would happen next, when in truth she was able to make some of her own choices.
The first thing that occurred to her also scared the wits out of her.
Teya paced the room, shoving the chamberpot under her bed with a foot when she reached it. But pacing got her nowhere, so she put herself cross-legged on the middle of her bed and closed her eyes. She was swamp bred. One thing she was good at was standing in front of a decision and looking it up and down.
She drew Rethia’s visit to mind; she’d thought about it for many days afterward, trying to understand some of the more obtuse things the woman had said. She was an odd one, all right, but Teya had the feeling that nothing she said or did was without purpose, no matter how obscure it might seem to someone else.
Does Danny make you angry? Rethia had asked. And of course the answer was yes, all too often. Because he was stubborn, and sometimes talking to him was like running face-first into a stone wall. Because sometimes he did things his own way, no matter what anyone else did to change his mind.
He’d handled Arval his own way, and look where it’d gotten him. Yes, and he did things his own way to help that little girl, Teya’s quiet inner voice told her, and she grew absolutely still on the bed. But hitting Arval hadn’t done anyone any good.
It stopped Arval from pushing you around.
Swiftly, she searched her memory, going past her sense of who and what her patrol leader was to the specific incidents that created that image. Her first patrol under his command, when he refused to let her use magic to subdue several ruffians the patrol had cornered. "Not yet," he’d said. "Not until I know you can do it." Humiliated, Teya instantly assumed he didn’t trust her, simply because he didn’t trust magic. Now she tried to look at the situation through his eyes. Untested fledgling wizard, a spell to take the fight out of two burly outlaws who were tightly hemmed in by the Wolves . . . Her eyes flew open. What if she’d misaimed that spell? She’d never even considered the possibility, but then, she knew the procedure behind it. He hadn’t.
And how many times have you used that spell since you proved your aim was precise?
Plenty.
She sorted through similar incidents—the ones she had seen, the ones she was part of, the times his notorious temper was quick to rise, and the times he’d dug his heels in against Highborn orders.
Not all because he was just plain hard to get along with, or recklessly unheeding of the consequences. But because he thought it was best for the patrol. Or whoever had come under their jurisdiction. "Let the burning Minor have the thief," she remembered muttering under her breath on one brittle-cold day that winter, as Reandn and the Minor argued authority. In the end, since the Wolves had the thief held in the midst of them, they’d also walked away with him. Teya had rolled her eyes while her teeth chattered, knowing the patrol would hear about it from the Keep, and all for Reandn’s willingness to take on a fight of any sort.
It suddenly occurred to her that since then, she’d heard bits and pieces about how harshly the Minor in question treated lawbreakers. And that the thief was young and cold and scared to death. Oh, he’d spent some time in jail, but in another Minor’s area, and under the King’s Justice. As far as Teya knew he still had all his fingers, and could still make an honest living if he cared to.
And after all of that, she recalled her own panicky thoughts during the bloodbath on the hill. Reandn wouldn’t have let this happen.
Teya got up from her bed and moved over to the window, trailing her fingers down the thick, wavy glass. Reandn made her angry, he kept a strict hand on her use of magic, he usually did things his own way no matter what anyone else said. That was all still true. But she had the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach—like she’d swallowed a cold, raw potato whole—that she’d been just as quick to judge Reandn as she’d thought he’d been to judge her. And of the two of them, she thought he was probably closer to the mark.
That’s where her impulse had come from, then. The scary one, the one she didn’t even really want to think about, but that kept nudging at her anyway. The need to make it right between them. And the obvious way to do it. The thing that had been behind Rethia’s last, veiled look, all its words unspoken.
She was no longer a Wolf—at least, not quite. She was no longer formally a student, either. She could make her own choices, though she doubted not that both Farren and Saxe had made certain assumptions about those choices. They wouldn’t be happy to know she was even considering this one.
To find Reandn, and join him, and protect him from the magic as no other wizard could do. To give him back some of the loyalty he’d been showing her all this time, and her unaware of it. And to be just as stubborn as he was about doing it.
After all, she’d been a key part of his dismissal from the Wolves. It seemed only fair that she play a part in getting him back in.