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  He held her gaze with his own until tears slid down her cheeks.

  “Ridane said someone had to die,” said Aralorn. “This is what she meant, wasn’t it? The nature of the spell laid on Father is such that either he dies, or someone else does. I didn’t bring you back for this, Wolf.”

  His eyes warmed, and he touched her face. “If you hadn’t brought me back, my love, Ridane’s bond would have taken you with me. I should have severed it before I started the spell—I waited too late. I didn’t want to lose you.”

  He dropped his hands, leaving her cold and alone. “This was laid upon your father because of me; should he die for my sins?”

  “Not your sins,” returned Aralorn heatedly. “Your father’s sins.”

  “No,” said Nevyn from the doorway. “My sins.”

  The darkness that had blocked the door was gone, banished by Nevyn, or perhaps her uncle, who stood behind him. Nevyn’s face was grim and pale.

  “I have allowed myself to be used,” he said. “I allowed Geoffrey to twist my thoughts until I have become what my father thought I was.”

  He stepped forward until he stood before Wolf, facing him. “I thought that it was you who was corrupt, who needed destroying—instead, I find that you are willing to sacrifice yourself for a man you barely know. Evil corrupted me; it has tempered you.”

  He turned to Aralorn and crouched in front of her.

  “Sister,” he said softly, so quietly that she knew that no one else in the room heard exactly what he said. “Story-Spinner, weave a good one for Freya when she wakes—that she will honor the father of the child she carries, for its sake.”

  Exhaustion made Aralorn’s thoughts slow. She was preoccupied with keeping Wolf alive, and it made her slow.

  When Nevyn surged to his feet, and told Wolf, “Use this,” she finally caught on. “Nevyn, wait.” But it was already too late.

  Nevyn called upon his magic and was engulfed in flames so hot that his flesh melted from his bones like water.

  “Wolf?” said Aralorn in a voice she hardly recognized, so thickened was it from grief. But there was a real possibility, given Wolf’s reluctance to use black magic, that he would refuse Nevyn’s sacrifice.

  But it was Kisrah who said, “Don’t let him die in vain, Wolf.”

  * * *

  Wolf hesitated, torn between the horror of using yet another person’s death to fuel his magic and the desires of the man who had given his life for his convictions.

  “Please,” whispered Aralorn, tears of grief sliding down her face.

  He dropped his knife and lifted his arms, drawing the power of Nevyn’s death to him. He waited for the filth to settle on his soul, but the death magic rested quietly within his grasp, as if a dead man’s blessing had the ability to wipe clean the foul work to which Wolf had been put.

  The respite was brief, for as he willed it, the hold that had kept the spell in abeyance began to fade slowly, allowing Wolf to take control of one part before releasing another. No benediction could wash away the evil of the black art that comprised the spell, and Wolf shook under the force of it even as he threaded death magic through it in completion.

  The spell pulsed wildly for a moment before concentrating upon the still form of the Lyon, then, as swiftly as the flight of a hawk, it was gone, leaving the room reeking with the stench of evil.

  Wolf dropped to his knees.

  Aralorn slid across the floor to the small mess of charred bones, where Kisrah and Gerem already knelt.

  “What is happening? Who is that man?”

  Aralorn looked up to see Irrenna standing in the entranceway, clad only in her nightrobes. The lady’s gaze traveled around the room, pausing at the silent form of her husband before halting on Aralorn’s tear-streaked face.

  “There is a dead howlaa by the stables,” Irrenna said. “We were trying to find out how it got there when there was a terrible noise, as if the stones of the keep were shifting.”

  “Oh, Mother,” croaked Aralorn, as Correy and Falhart, who must have been drawn by the same sound, came into the room as well. “Irrenna,” she tried again. “Nevyn saved Father, but he died in the doing of it.”

  “The Lyon’s waking now,” said Kisrah.

  Gerem jumped up and ran to the bier. Kisrah lingered a moment. He murmured something that Aralorn couldn’t hear and conjured a white rose, which he set just inside the charred area. Then he, too, left the dead for the living.

  Irrenna froze for an instant before she, Falhart, and Correy all ran to the Lyon’s side.

  Bound by weakness and inclination, Aralorn stayed by Nevyn’s remains. She touched the blackened skull gently, as if a stronger touch would have hurt him. “Rest in peace, Nevyn.”

  A cold nose touched her hand, and she turned to Wolf, who wore his wolf form once more.

  His golden eyes were dim with sorrow, and Aralorn drew him close, pressing her face into Wolf’s shoulder. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  FINIS

  Far to the east, the Dreamer stirred. It had been for naught—all the manipulation, all the work, and its own tool had betrayed it.

  It had known the dreamwalker was not stable, but it had not expected him to choose to die so that the Lyon would live. By that choice, he had rendered the magic useless for the Dreamer to feed upon. Cain’s death would not have been useless, for the Archmage’s son had been used by the Dreamer before; not even the purity of Cain’s willing self-sacrifice would have stopped the Dreamer from feeding.

  It would sleep now, but its sleep would not be as long, or as deep. It would not have to wait another millennium for a corrupt Archmage to awaken it. When Geoffrey ae’Magi had died, it had seen to it that the Master Spells would not be used again.

  The Dreamer stirred, then settled beneath the weight of the ancient bindings. It would wait.

  * * *

  Aralorn examined the healing cut on Sheen’s side. It looked as if it had been healing a week rather than three days; she was going to have to talk to the stablemaster and find out what he used for ointment.

  She wouldn’t need it for her shoulder. Halven had taken care of the cuts left by the howlaa’s claws, though it still ached a bit when she overworked her arm. She heard someone enter the stables and stuck her head over Sheen’s door.

  “You’re leaving today.” Her father moved a little stiffly, but otherwise showed little sign of any aftereffects of the spell.

  Aralorn smiled. “Yes, sir, as soon as Kisrah comes back with my wolf. They went hunting with the boys—I include Falhart in that category.”

  He reached up and rubbed Sheen’s forehead. “I understand you’ve been making quite a reputation for yourself.”

  “Me or the horse?”

  He grinned. “You.”

  She raised her eyebrows, and said, “Let’s just say that having a shapeshifter for a spy, whether they know it or not, hasn’t hurt Sianim any.”

  “I’ve missed you,” he said softly.

  “I’ve missed you, too. I’ll be back, though. If you let me know, I’ll come after Freya’s babe is born.”

  The Lyon’s hand stilled on the horse’s forehead. “I wish Nevyn would be alive to see it. They waited so long for this child.”

  She nodded. She’d told him the truth about Nevyn, knowing that he would not judge his son-in-law for it.

  Freya deserved the truth as well, if she wanted it. Aralorn had left that for her father to decide. Freya hadn’t spoken to her since she’d awakened to the news that her husband was dead. Maybe she already knew at least part of what had been going on.

  “This friend of yours, the one Nevyn was after when he set the spell on me. He is safe?”

  “I think so,” she said. “With Geoffrey well and truly dead, no one but Kisrah and the family know that I was ever involved with him.”

  Neither Gerem nor Kisrah had challenged the story she’d told Irrenna and repeated often since—that the last ae’Magi hadn’t been the man he’d appeared to be. He�
��d made an attempt on King Myr’s life, and, in response, she and his son had moved against him. They had thought he died, a victim of the Uriah—but he was a dreamwalker, and survived long enough to set up his son’s death. It had been Nevyn, she explained, who had figured out how to break the spell, but in doing so, had brought about his own death. Nevyn deserved to be a hero—and Geoffrey, who had hurt Nevyn so badly, deserved whatever blame fell to him.

  With Kisrah’s corroborating testimony regarding the character of the previous ae’Magi, almost everyone seemed to accept the tale. Aralorn suspected that Kisrah had done something to the hold the previous ae’Magi’s spells had continued to have—because no one challenged him or seemed unnaturally sure of Geoffrey’s goodness.

  The Lyon rubbed his beard. “I knew Geoffrey, but I met Cain a time or two as well—when he was younger than Gerem by a few years.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Up until that point, I’d been favorably impressed by the ae’Magi. I was curious about his son though, mostly because of the stories that were circulating about him even then.”

  “What did you think of him when you met him?” she asked, curious.

  “He . . . Something that Correy said leads me to believe that the relationship that you have with Cain is somewhat more than friendship.”

  She smiled slowly. “You might say that, yes.”

  “Then bring him with you the next time you come down—tell him he doesn’t have to come and go mysteriously as he did this time. Irrenna and I would be pleased to have him as a guest.”

  Her smile widened, and tears threatened as she slipped out the door, so she could give him a hug. “I love you, Da.”

  No matter what her father said, it still wasn’t safe for too many people to know where the Archmage’s infamous son was, but she’d tell Wolf what her father said. It would matter to him.

  He bent down, and whispered, “Especially if one of you teaches my cook how to make those little cakes that you had at the king’s coronation. I know you were playing cook, so the nasty-looking guard must have been Cain.”

  Her mouth dropped open, and she took two steps back and kinked her neck so she could look him in the eyes. “How did you know?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not really certain, to tell you the truth. But I’ve always been able to tell who you are, no matter what shape you wear.”

  * * *

  “You didn’t tell him we were married,” Wolf said with neutrality he didn’t feel as he paced by Sheen’s side. Had she been ashamed of him?

  She shook her head. “He’d have been hurt that he missed the ceremony,” she told him. “We can do it up properly later, when it won’t be tied up with Nevyn’s deal, don’t you think? You have his approval, though, if that helps.”

  That bewildered him. How could he approve of Cain, the ae’Magi’s despised son, for his daughter? “He doesn’t know me.”

  “He’s met you,” she told him. “He knows what you did here and why. That was apparently enough for him—oh, and he really wants to know how you made those little cakes you fixed for Myr’s coronation.”

  Wolf stopped. Sheen halted beside him, and Aralorn waited with unusual (for her) patience for him to speak. He didn’t know what to say.

  “You married me so I would not seek death for fear of causing yours,” he said.

  She got that mysterious smile that usually meant she knew more than she should about something, but all she said was “Yes.”

  He didn’t know why that bothered him so much. And if he couldn’t explain it to himself, how could he explain it to her?

  She took pity on him eventually.

  “Wolf,” she said. “Married is wonderful, married is lovely. But I loved you before that, and you were mine before that. Only you for me—only me for you. That’s how it was before our marriage.” The smile fell away and left her pale and determined. “That’s how it was when I found you in that pit trap all those years ago—I knew as soon as I first saw your eyes. But then, I’ve known all my life what love is. It took you, who had nothing to compare it to, rather longer to figure it out, to understand what is between us. But even when you did not understand or recognize it—it was always love.”

  Sheen sighed and shifted his weight, but Aralorn didn’t turn her attention from Wolf as he took her words and warmed himself on them.

  “Yes,” he said, and started out for the inn where they would spend the night. “Yes. That is how it is.”

  She rode beside him, and he didn’t need to turn his head to know that she was there.

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