Wolf Justice Read online

  “Why the Hells was he trying to keep track of me in the first place?” Reandn grumbled.

  Kacey made an indecipherable noise, and Reandn glanced at her to find an expression of mixed affection and exasperation. “Why do you think he wanted to keep track of you, oh Wolf-who-stalks-where-he-will? You frighten him!” She shook her head when he just looked at her. “You’ve got a reputation, Dan. You’ve earned it, too.”

  “For goddess’ sake, I’d never hurt that boy.”

  “You just almost did.”

  Reandn stared off toward the retreating apprentice. “I can’t not protect myself.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I just meant...” she trailed off, frowning. “I don’t know what I meant. Just try to understand sometimes, will you?” She climbed to her feet, brushing off her visibly damp posterior; her knees and shins bore soggy splotches as well. “Besides, if you pay attention, you’ll see it’s when you’re protecting someone else that you get yourself into so much trouble.”

  She left him then, walking back to the house as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Reandn stared at her back until she was nearly to the sickroom door, and then shouted after her, “I can’t not do that either!”

  “I know,” she said over her shoulder, far too airily to suit him. “That’s why we all love you anyway.” And then the door closed behind her.

  Reandn let his head fall back against the barn once more, groaning and glad there was no one to hear it. Women. What made it worse was that he was certain that the entire exchange had made sense to her.

  From inside the barn, Sky blasted a mighty whinny at him, demanding the mare, demanding to be outside, demanding something other than what he had. Reandn waved him away, as if the horse could see or care, and suddenly realized just how much of the damp ground had seeped through the seat of his pants.

  Might as well take a look at those other fence posts after all.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 3

  Kacey stood by the big windows of the sick room, looking out at Reandn as he bent over a fence rail to tamp new stones into the base of a listing post. The seat of his pants had dried, though there were mud-leeched edges tracing the damp spot, following Reandn’s form — as he’d been sitting — within the pants.

  Not a bad view at that.

  Rethia came up behind her, looking out the same window and seeing something else entirely. “If the sun holds, I’ll go looking for early greens tomorrow... cattail shoots are out... and wild oats.” The vagueness of her voice meant that in her mind, she was already out searching her favorite spots and taking time to stroke the unicorn or two that inevitably appeared.

  Anyone else from nearby Little Wisdom would be lucky to see the glint of a horn or the whisk of a tail. They were massive creatures, to move so quietly across wood and field, and hardly what one could call safe or tame — but Rethia never gave her unusual relationship with the unicorns a second thought.

  Now that the creatures were back — and now that the people understood their gift of magic — they were protected and honored. No more hunting, no more captures — none of the very human behaviors that had driven them to leave in the first place. The other lands had unicorns, but Keland was their home — the place in which they concentrated their numbers and their magic.

  It would be a good thing when the first generation of new wizards was fully trained, instead of fumbling around with half-learned spells. Tellan went to Solace every month to consult with his tutors, and in the meanwhile he was perfectly suited for easing pain and helping to clear infection and stop bleeding. But his other spells, like that spell this morning...

  Poor Reandn, sitting up against the barn, still pale from his brush with strong magic — and utterly befuddled at Tellan’s need to keep track of him. He obviously had no idea how much the lurking anger still showed on his face, and how intensely his eyes blazed when he felt it.

  Kacey liked his eyes, actually. She’d seen them laugh, and she knew what few others realized — his laughter could be just as intense as his anger.

  Rethia bumped up against Kacey, a deliberate touch. “He does care.”

  Kacey didn’t even turn to look at her sister, who often knew far more than she ought about who was thinking what, and when they were thinking it.

  “It’s more the way it happened than the fact that he lost her,” Rethia added. “Besides, the important thing is for you to be happy, and you don’t need to have a man at all for that. I don’t.”

  You could if you wanted to, Kacey thought. She didn’t say it out loud, and she didn’t know if Rethia somehow understood the unspoken words anyway. She glanced at her sister. Rethia had those eyes, as strikingly attractive as they were odd. And she had that thick hair, the fairest of blondes just tinged with strawberry. She was pretty and she laughed full and often — and judging by how she doted on the little ones who made their way to Teayo’s sickroom, she’d be happy with a family of her own; she simply found herself content with what she was.

  But Kacey wanted that family. She looked out at Reandn — he was stretching, now, shaking out his shoulders and shrugging off the tension. In the midst of it, he stiffened, looking over his shoulder to the far end of the lane.

  “Visitors,” Rethia murmured. Something in her voice made Kacey look at her more closely, but she couldn’t read what she saw in her sister’s face. Resentment? That was unusual. She grabbed the jacket she’d flung over the stool behind her herb workbench and marched out of the house.

  Reandn met her at the hitching rail, mid-way between the house and barn; Kacey could still barely hear the hooves that had alerted him. Absently, she straightened the collar of his hastily donned jacket, and then did the same for herself. By then the horses were in sight, moving at an easy canter. Reandn’s expression closed down hard.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Saxe. The others, I don’t know.”

  She instantly wondered if Minor Arval had changed his mind about having Reandn jailed — and from the look on his face, he thought the same. As the riders pulled up before them, she did finally recognize Saxe — whom she’d met two years earlier.

  The man didn’t make any attempt at pleasantries. “Dan. Need to talk to you.” He pointed at the men in turn. “Raley and Paton,” he said. “King Hawley’s men.” Both looked it, too; their clothes were just a little too fine for extended riding, and their faces a little too pale from lack of sun.

  “Who don’t they trust?” Reandn asked. “You, or me?”

  Saxe grimaced; Kacey read his expression as either a plea or a warning, but she couldn’t tell which. “They have an interest in this conversation.”

  Kacey said, “Come inside. I hope you keep in mind that this is a healer’s house, and we have no need for the luxuries of a court.”

  Saxe grinned at her, a sudden and welcome change. “I like it better, myself, meira, unless you’ve changed it greatly since last I was here.”

  “No, it’s pretty much the same,” Kacey said, somewhat ruefully. “I can’t get my father to get rid of that old chair no matter what. Don’t worry, I’ll sit in that one.”

  Raley said, “Our conversation is for Reandn.”

  Reandn smiled at them. “Kacey is meira of this house.”

  Kacey gave him a surprised but grateful look. Saxe remained utterly unreadable in spite of Raley’s obvious irritation, and Kacey placed a silent bet with herself that he wasn’t all that happy to be saddled with these men.

  But they weren’t here after Reandn. Otherwise they surely wouldn’t bother to accommodate him.

  More cheerfully, she waited as the men hitched their horses and then led them straight to the great room. She dropped her coat on her father’s sagging, cushioned chair, and left them to sort out the other seating while she went for tea. Rethia poked her head out of the sickroom; Kacey shrugged at her, unable to offer any answers.

  When she returned with tea and mugs, she found Reandn leaning against the doorway with his arms cros
sed; he answered her unspoken question. “Saxe wants me to go on a little trip.”

  Paton’s lips tightened; he exchanged a glance with Raley, who tipped back in Kacey’s rocking chair and eyed her.

  She met their annoyance with cheer. “He’s only going to tell me anyway, so you might as well be in on it. Would you like some tea?”

  From the straightbacked chair by the fireplace, Saxe snorted. Raley cleared his throat. “Tea would be welcome, meira.”

  “Kacey,” she said, and poured it for them, setting the tea tray on the little footstool before her father’s listing chair and then sitting in the chair itself. “A trip to where?”

  “The pass.” Reandn watched Hawley’s men. “They need an escort for a Resioran Highborn.”

  Kacey’s stomach grew a small, hard knot. The pass. Where all the unrest was. Where Reandn would be too far away for Rethia’s healings. “Why?”

  Paton set his tea aside. “I really do draw the line here.”

  Reandn grinned at him, that grin he had where he showed his teeth and didn’t look the least amused. “For someone important,” he said to Kacey without looking away from the man. “That’s as far as we’ve gotten.”

  Kacey gave Saxe the coldest look she could muster. “Have you forgotten that you dismissed Reandn from your Wolves, meir?”

  The honorific was a slap to someone she’d once received in her house as friend, and Saxe winced from it. Good.

  Saxe made an abrupt gesture. “This is stupid,” he said, glancing at the two men. “Let’s be blunt. I don’t want you out of the Wolves, and you don’t want to be out. If you take this assignment, I can restore you to Remote Leader. All of the current Remote postings are temporary.”

  Hope leaped in Kacey’s chest, tangled up with disappointment — the awareness that Reandn was born to lead his Wolves, that he would leave here again in a moment if given the chance to do so.

  Reandn surprised her. “And did you know about this when you sent me off without telling my patrol what was going on?”

  Saxe hesitated, and then shook his head, short and sharp. “Coming to you with this was the last thing Ethne wanted.”

  Reandn only grinned. “That’s more like it.”

  Kacey couldn’t stand it any longer. “What is it?” She asked. “This thing no one else can do or you wouldn’t be here?”

  Paton shifted, but Saxe’s look stilled him, and he answered her with matter-of-fact simplicity. “The Resiores infighting has solidified into two major factions. The magic-lovers, the Allegients, want to renew their ties to Keland. The others are going to use our high magic as the excuse to secede. That faction calls itself the Shining Knife.” His mouth flattened in grim anger. “They’re overly fond of burning warehouses and suspicious accidents.”

  Kacey stared at him, startled by the succinct update. There were plenty in the isolated Resiores who wanted to declare independence; there always had been. Those voices had once all said the same thing — that their region was being stripped of precious resources without enough in return. Now, with a zealous hatred of magic in the mix... no wonder the problems were mounting. “Why hasn’t King Hawley sent some Dragons to settle them?”

  “And risk alienating the Allegients?” Paton said, frowning at her as if either the answer were obvious, or the question highly inappropriate.

  Raley said, “We are readying the troops, meira. When necessary, they will be used.”

  “Kacey,” she said again. “So you want them to think it’s their idea.”

  Saxe took a casual stab into the fireplace with the poker beside it, sending sparks flying up the chimney. “You’ve got the gist of it,” he told Kacey. “And Geltria is sending their own ambassadors into the Resiores. Won’t that be something if the Resiores turn Geltrian, sitting so handy to King’s Keep as it is! Meanwhile, we’ve got something that needs to be done. Reandn can do it.”

  “Which brings us back to Kacey’s point,” Reandn said. “I’m no longer a Wolf.”

  Saxe grimaced. “Look, Dan, the pass is a dangerous place at the best of times, and you can be certain there’s at least one political faction strongly opposed to this visit. The Resiore party will be providing its own guards, and they want nothing from us but a token honor guard.” He snorted his opinion of that. “We’ve assigned a Hound pair, but what we need is half a patrol of Wolves.”

  “And you want me to take their place?” Reandn shifted against the doorframe, skepticism writ large on his face.

  Complacently, Saxe said, “I never said you weren’t one of the best Wolves we had. Just that you didn’t know how to deal with the Highborn.”

  Reandn snorted. “The best,” he said. “And I know how to deal with the Highborn.”

  “You’d better,” Saxe shot back at him, complacence vanished. “Because Kalena is nothing if not Highborn.”

  Kalena, Kacey thought. Resiorian Highborn. Wonderful.

  “I haven’t said I’ll do it.” Reandn shifted in the doorway, looking as inexorable as Kacey had seen him.

  “Reandn,” Paton said, as if he was just now trying out the shape of the word in his mouth, and it didn’t quite fit. “Kalena’s safety is paramount. We want to slip you in as the party’s remount wrangler — you know the dangers of patrol, but you won’t be recognized, not even by the Hound escort. And you know the pass. Everyone else we might consider for the assignment is well known around King’s Keep.”

  “I’ve worked with plenty of Hounds, and I’ve been gone only two years.”

  “Almost two and a half,” Saxe said. “Trust us to have picked Hounds who won’t know you.”

  Raley gave Reandn a swift look, one Kacey didn’t like at all — calculation and impatience wrapped up into a patronizing delivery. “Don’t forget the offer we’re making you. We could just as well be here to hand you back to Arval.”

  Reandn straightened in the doorway. It was a casual move, with nothing overt about it, and yet it made Kacey want to scoot back into a corner.

  Paton said uneasily, “I’m not sure this was a good idea.”

  Saxe just shrugged. “It’s the only one we’ve got.” And, at Raley’s outraged look, he said, “Damned right he gets to know that. I’m not letting you play games with my former partner.”

  Reandn grinned; it was one of the real ones, the ones Kacey generally savored. Generally. “Just how long would this assignment take?” she demanded. Raley gave her another one of those what’s she doing here looks, and she snapped, “Oh, just answer me!”

  Reandn knew well enough why she asked. “About three quarters to get to the pass, if I’ve got coin to provision along the way. Maybe four to get back, since we’ll be slowed by Highborn notions of travel.”

  “Sounds right to me,” Saxe agreed.

  “Without Teya? Without Rethia?” But she knew he wouldn’t want to hear it. None of them would.

  “We’d want a wizard on the team regardless of Dan’s need for protection,” Saxe said.

  “Teya?” Reandn said instantly.

  Saxe shook his head. “She’s not seasoned enough to hide her response to you as her patrol leader. No, the wizard we choose will be just like the Hounds — he’ll have no idea you’re a Wolf. And he won’t be identified to the Resiorans as a wizard, either.”

  Reandn looked askance at him. “Whoever it is will wonder why you chose me at all, considering my reaction to magic.”

  Raley said, “We’ll deal with that.” And then his face changed, shifting back into exasperation. Kacey glanced up behind Reandn to discover the object of his displeasure. Rethia.

  Rethia settled in beside Reandn. “That’s not good enough.”

  “Not good enough?” Raley repeated.

  “It isn’t enough protection.” She kept her head tilted down slightly, looking at him through the thick fringe of her bangs — hiding her eyes from a stranger, as she often did. “He’ll be too far away from me. If something happens —”

  “What could happen?” Raley said, his disdai
n just as evident toward Rethia as it had been toward Kacey. Country girls.

  “Listen to her,” Reandn said softly. “I am.”

  “What if something goes wrong, and they’re attacked by magic?” Rethia’s gentle voice turned firm; it very much held the tone of someone stating the obvious. “Will your wizard be able to respond to the magic and protect Danny?”

  Paton said reluctantly, “The wizard’s first priority will be to protect Kalena.”

  “The point,” Raley interrupted, “is that by including Reandn in the escort, we’re hoping to avoid or prevent that kind of trouble.”

  “Hoping isn’t doing,” Rethia said.

  “It’s a reasonable risk.”

  Rethia lost patience, lifting her head to lock gazes with Raley and using her startling eyes like a shout. “Do you people always make things so hard?” she asked. “All you have to do is give Danny a way to reach me. If I know he’s in trouble with magic, I’ll go to him.”

  “You’ll — what?” Paton asked, as taken aback by her eyes as Raley.

  Rethia looked at Kacey, a plea for help. Kacey said, “If Reandn is endangered by your wizard’s inability to protect him, we want to be able to reach him. I’m sure there are details to work out with the Wizard’s Road, but that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Work them out!”

  “It could be dangerous,” Saxe said. “We wouldn’t be sure what she’d be going into. We can’t ask that of her.”

  “No, you can’t,” Kacey said, not trying to hide the heat behind her words. “She’s offering. We’re healers, Saxe, and while we may not be in your precious Wolf Pack, we do protect our own.”

  “Danny is family,” Rethia said, her quiet voice a marked contrast to Kacey’s hot words.

  Kacey didn’t miss the quick look Saxe sent Reandn in the silence that followed — or the quiet hint of a smile on Reandn’s face. Her face warmed in a sudden, unaccountable flush; it took her a moment to understand why. Danny is family, Rethia had said.