out, or perhaps be made to wash pots with the scullions in recompense for illicit shelter.
But no such innocuous pretence might excuse the black-and-gold hawk’s quill she smoothed in the tremulous glow of the flame. Stone floor, for earth, the vessel of water, the taper for fire, and feather for air: she dedicated the ritual with a whispered cantrip. Then she palmed the emerald signet of Rathain, wrought of white gold and imbued with the live charge of Arithon’s past amid its layered tapestry of ancient history. Elaira passed the band over the flame, whisked it under the feather, then touched it to the surface of the brim-full bowl and asked earth to complete the connection.
Last, she cupped the set gemstone between her palms, invoked Arithon’s Name, and awaited the vision engaged by the energized construct. When the connection flowered, her sight of the candle melted away. The surface of the water darkened to night and unveiled the storm broken over the Storlains with unsated ferocity …
Wild gusts thrashed the tree limbs, while the deluge pelted the ground to frothed run-off. The huddled woman did not hear Arithon’s step through the crash of tossed branches. Forlorn stranger, to him, she could not know the silence of his movement, guided by his attuned sensitivity. Her first warning of his approach became the drummed punch of the rainfall, interrupted by the flick of spread cloth as he cast his hide jacket over her shivering frame.
She recoiled in terror. Sobbing from the after-shock of another man’s violence, she surged to her feet, a wary creature lent panicked strength to take flight.
Whatever Arithon said to disarm her drowned under the drum of the rainfall. But lightning revealed the trapper’s knife, reversed handle first, and extended toward her.
The traumatized woman snatched up the peace offering. She brandished the blade and lunged to fend him off, while he melted back, his palms raised. Although he remained armed, the black blade, Alithiel, stayed sheathed and secured at his shoulder. Small, chilled as she, and quite as miserable as his shirt soaked through, Arithon posed her no threat.
This, the woman before him would see: as initiate master, he knew how to infuse his presence with genuine calm …
Which emotional balm poured through the scryer’s construct intact. While Elaira suffered the wrench of separation, a close lightning stroke in the Storlain wilds hammered the crest of the ridge and excited the flux currents. Electromagnetic chaos unravelled her established connection to Arithon.
Shaken, the enchantress closed her fist over the emerald ring and fought welling tears. Closed in the dim cellar, plagued by formless anxiety, she waited for her wheeling senses to settle, while the rushed blood pulsed through her veins, and her quickened breaths stirred dust from the casks.
Fleeting as the contact had been, the flash-point awareness cut with aching clarity: Arithon was hungry and cold to the bone. Hunted by enemies for far too long, he was tired and altogether distraught, unexpectedly saddled with helpless company against his marked preference for solitude.
Blood bound to compassion, he could not turn away. Even for self-preservation he would not ignore an abused woman’s need for comfort and shelter.
Elaira had no cruelty in her nature. Her healer’s instinct understood trauma. The battered person just rescued from rape was too wretchedly hurt to be left to fend for herself. Whatever motive had prompted a town-bred female to brave the Storlain wilds alone, the victimized wound to her spirit was real.
Elaira swore softly. Too well, her dread measured the vulnerable entanglement. Arithon’s forthright ethic left no one in need, even when hounded by covert enemies. Though caution ought to question why such a forlorn innocent crossed his path, Rathain’s prince answered to empathy first. He would smother the cry of his heart and take the destitute creature in tow.
An hour passed, two, while the squall raged apace in the Storlains. Elaira sought to restore her smashed contact as serving-maids came and went on the stair, and the electromagnetic chaos of weather smote the reactive lane currents.
Through the hours, she netted glimpses of vision: of Arithon, working beyond his safe limits, picking a tenuous path through the turbulent elements. She felt his slipped steps on slicked rocks and roots, while the sodden trees thrashed in the wind, and the woman shivered in her ripped skirt and borrowed jacket, blinded by rain in the relentless dark and reliant upon his talent-based lead.
She followed, dependent, while his guidance led down a rock-cliff and through the ravine, infallibly drawn by the whisper of a love that tormented him for its absence. Guiding flame to his yearning, Elaira shared the piercing desire by which Arithon extended his overstrung faculties. He followed the remnant trace of herself, as lightning gashed the sky overhead, and the downpour sapped his vitality. The toll of exposure forgave no mistakes. Survival relied on the abandoned cabin tucked in the lee of the ridge.
Midnight came and went within the dry cellar. Elaira stayed wakeful in the musty gloom, while the drudges swept the tap-room overhead and the boy rousted out the stupefied drunks. The stout landlord made his final rounds and closed up. He extinguished the lamp at the stair-head, then shut and locked the strapped door to the wine-vault.
Secure from interruption at last, Elaira bundled up in her mantle and catnapped. Fitful Sight wracked her sleep: of Arithon’s spare words of encouragement, pitched to lift beaten morale when the woman’s strength faltered. Inched across a slippery deadfall, he saw her safely over the swollen spate, raced to froth in the sunken ravine.
The little cabin perched on the far side, up a steep path shored with cut logs, puddled under the forest canopy. Above dripping firs, the angry clouds shredded to patched indigo scattered with stars.
Wakeful in the calm aftermath, Elaira shared the intimate flare of anticipation as Arithon mounted the cabin’s plank stair. His thrill when he lifted the latch banished weariness, then dissolved into pain as he flung wide the door and discovered the place had been ransacked.
Nothing of value remained. The floor wore a mat of soaked leaves. Oiled-hide windows chewed through by mice had tattered from prolonged neglect.
Elaira suppressed the hot prickle of tears. Her beloved would find no meaningful trace of her. The possessions that mattered had long since gone with her, light enough to be carried. On departure, she had picked everything clean: scoured the cracks and swept all the crannies, then burned every last stick of furnishing. By such rigorous measures she had foiled the Koriathain, who would have seized the ruthless use of her leavings to anchor their divination.
“Come in,” Arithon urged the fraught woman, who shrank into the shadows behind. “If there are no comforts, the roof appears sound. I can kindle a fire, close up the shutters, and get ourselves warm and dry.”
Banal talk to steady the female stranger: but Elaira’s tender perception sensed his suppressed note of desolation. Unable to bear his forlorn disappointment, the enchantress flung off her mantle and paced the wine-vault like a caged beast. Her steps riffled the cobwebs in the cramped space, while the slow hours unreeled towards dawn, and the stutter of the Storlain flux patterns smoothed enough to refigure her scryer’s array …
… the bowl’s image cleared to show Arithon, seated on the floor, with his arms tucked over his drawn-up knees. His drenched hair, rinsed clean, was neatly tied back, and his damp shirt half-unlaced in the carmine fire-light. Belt and baldric had been stripped off to dry where the heat would not crack the leather. The black sword, unsheathed, leaned against the board wall beyond reach, a firm statement of neutral disarmament.
The woman huddled nearest the hearth, her dishevelled bodice still swathed in his jacket. The dead man’s blood stained the blouse underneath, and her muddied skirt clung to scraped ankles. Trapped in cramped quarters, shame and misery exposed, she feared to turn her back, even to mend her frayed laces. Her fixed regard blazed with distrust, while his gaze in turn read every nuance of her hostile rage and discomfort.
Arithon asked gently, patient enough to overlook her antagonism, “What is your name?”
Hoarsely, she answered. “Vivet.” A shudder raked through her. Eyes blue as a glaze on fine porcelain glinted back through tear-swollen lids. Then she