Mistress of the Night Page 20

  “What about the path?”

  “I’ll pick up another one later.”

  They walked in silence until Keph shifted uncomfortably and said, “Feena, do you mind if I make a light?”

  “There’s nothing to see.”

  “The dark is getting on my nerves.” He turned and reached for his saddle bags. “I have a sunrod …”

  Feena clicked her tongue. “Too bright,” she said. “We wouldn’t be able to see anything beyond it. Let me.”

  She picked up a fist-sized stone from the road. A prayer to Selûne brought the glow of a full moon to it, bright enough to dispel the darkness around them, not so bright as to completely spoil their night vision.

  “Better?” she asked, passing the stone up to him.

  He hesitated before taking it.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He settled the stone into the crook of his arm, cradling it, then looked down at her. In the magical light, she finally got a good look at his face. He still seemed thunderstruck at her presence. She looked away uncomfortably.

  Most of the land in that part of Sembia was farmers’ fields and pastures. Low hedgerows separated fields from the road. Feena listened to the rustlings of small creatures in the hedges as their illuminated passing disturbed the nocturnal activities of mice, small birds, and badgers. A fox crouched in the shadows, eyes gleaming.

  “You never asked me where I was going,” Keph said with the abruptness of someone desperate to break a silence.

  Feena glanced up at him and replied, “You didn’t ask me where I was going either.”

  She looked back to the hedgerow. The fox was gone. Keph hadn’t even noticed it.

  “So,” he ventured, “where are you going?”

  “Arch Wood.”

  His face creased. “That’s northwest of Selgaunt, isn’t it? Right on the border with the Dalelands? It’s a long way.”

  “My village is there.”

  “Ah.”

  They walked a little farther.

  “What’s your village like?” he asked finally.

  “Small,” said Feena. “I suppose it’s more of a hamlet, but no one there would ever admit to it. There’s only a few houses clustered around a mill really, with a blacksmith on the other side of the mill run. My mother’s cottage—my cottage,” she corrected herself, “is out beyond the smith’s.”

  “It sounds nice,” Keph said. “Why are you going back?”

  “I’ve had enough of Yhaunn,” Feena said. She managed to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Moonshadow Hall has lots of priestesses. Arch Wood needs me back.” She looked up at Keph and asked, “What about you?”

  He shrugged and said, “Ordulin, I guess. Then maybe Selgaunt or Saerloon.”

  “Wherever the road goes?” asked Feena. Keph nodded. “You did leave Yhaunn in a hurry, didn’t you?” When he nodded again she asked, “Am I going to regret helping you?”

  He fell silent, his eyes suddenly dark. Feena frowned.

  “Keph?”

  “You might,” he said.

  He took a deep breath and drew something out of his pouch, then opened his hand to let it dangle from his fingers.

  A disk of Shar.

  Feena gasped and leaped away, eyes searching the night for signs of an ambush.

  “Feena!” Keph shouted. “It’s not what you think!”

  He kicked his feet free of his stirrups and slithered out of the saddle, still clutching the glowing stone in one hand and Shar’s symbol in the other. Feena whirled to face him.

  “Stay back!” she growled at him, stepping away.

  He held his arms wide and said, “Please, listen to me. This isn’t a trap.”

  “What is it then?”

  “I need your help,” he pleaded.

  Feena stared at him in shock. There were tears running down his cheeks. His outstretched arms were trembling.

  “I didn’t know you were a Selûnite, Feena. I swear I didn’t. I wouldn’t have helped you if I had—not then, anyway. And you know I didn’t expect to see you at the gate tonight. But now …” He choked. “Selûne is Shar’s enemy, isn’t she? You have to help me, Feena. Please. I’m running away!”

  She stared. A Sharran running away … Her stomach convulsed. Her chest—still aching from sobs—heaved.

  And she laughed. A short, bitter bark. Her mouth twisted.

  “Well,” she said. “I guess that makes two of us.”

  Selûne was slowly sliding down against the night sky behind them. In the eastern distance, Yhaunn threw up almost as much light as the slivered moon, the combined glare of thousands of lanterns and torches a stain of brightness in the dark. Because the city was sunk down in its quarry, that stain was really all there was to see of it. It was strange, Feena thought—Yhaunn was only really there when you were right down in it.

  She and Keph sat together on a hilltop not too far off the road, looking back the way they had come, the glowing stone set between them. Down along the hill’s slope, the young man’s horse chomped contentedly at summer dry grass. Its pale hide shone ghostlike on the fringes of the magical moonlight.

  Feena took a pull at a bottle of surprisingly good wine—Keph really had packed his bags in a rush—and passed it back to him. He drank as well, then stared at the bottle without saying anything.

  “There’s no rush, Keph,” she told him. “Take your time. We still have half a bottle left.”

  Keph sighed. “There’s not really much else to tell. After the dream, I knew there was only one thing I could do.” He sat with one leg stretched out and the other bent, one arm draped around it. He took another gulp of wine, then rested his cheek on his arm. “I was wrong about so much, but Variance, Jarull, Bolan—Shar—none of them were going to let me go easily. If I stayed, what would happen to Adrey? To the rest of my family?” He looked up. “So I ran.”

  “You can’t outrun a goddess, Keph.”

  “But I can try to keep anyone else from getting hurt, can’t I?”

  “You can do that.” Feena stretched out her arm, and Keph gave her the bottle. “Wouldn’t Mifano and Velsinore love to see this? As if they didn’t have enough to turn against me, I’m sitting and drinking wine with a Sharran.”

  Keph snorted and said, “Just this morning, I wouldn’t have even thought about having wine with a Selûnite. Let alone the werewolf who killed Cyrume.”

  Feena growled under her breath and bared her teeth.

  “The Sharran at the well in the Stiltways?” she said. “I didn’t kill him.”

  Keph looked at her, surprised.

  “But everyone says—”

  “If I’d had to,” Feena said. “I would have. He was going to poison that well.” She drank from the bottle. “But I didn’t have to. He killed himself rather than face me. He died with Shar’s name on his lips. I didn’t touch him. But Moonmaiden’s grace, I’d like to know who did! It’s almost as if I were being set up.” She took another sip and set the bottle aside. “Why would this Cyrume try to poison the well anyway?”

  “As an act of devotion to Shar, I suppose,” Keph said sourly. “We—” His face twisted. “Sharrans are supposed perform a dark deed at least once every tenday. Jarull said poisoning the well was Variance’s idea. Apparently the cult was smaller and a lot less aggressive before she came along.”

  “That would probably explain why Moonshadow Hall had no idea they were in the city.” Feena stared back at the stain of Yhaunn. “Where did she come from?”

  “Jarull says the Temple of Old Night beneath Calimport.”

  Feena’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard rumors about that place. It’s supposed to be the ancient seat of Sharran power, the oldest of Shar’s temples.”

  “Bolan and Jarull never said much about it. They just went really quiet whenever they mentioned it.”

  “Jarull …” Feena glanced at Keph. “Your friend seems to have taken to his conversion zealously.”

  “I guess he has,” Keph said. “W
hat am I going to do, Feena? Have I damned myself over stupid revenge?”

  Feena sighed again and rubbed her medallion between her fingers.

  “I don’t really know,” she said. “I’m no philosopher. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you did anything wrong. Think about the initiation Bolan put you through. You swore no oaths. The sacrifice you made was only an illusion. And you’re repentant. There’s hope, I think.”

  “And what I did to Lyraene?”

  Feena said, “That you’ll have to live with, Keph. It was no noble act. You’ll carry the stain of it for the rest of your life.”

  “I guess I have to expect that,” Keph replied. He stared out at the distant, dark horizon. “But what about the orison? I felt Shar’s power, and I channeled it …”

  “You couldn’t have.” Feena scowled. “A priest has to take oaths and training. It sounds too easy, too convenient. It must have been some trick. There’s a spell that lets a priestess share the power of her faith with someone else. If Variance worked that on you, it might have felt like you were casting an orison when it was really Variance’s magic.” She closed her eyes and scrubbed her knuckles against her forehead. “The thing you have to fear is Shar’s cult, not the goddess herself.”

  The young man blinked. “I shouldn’t be running?”

  “Oh, you should be running,” Feena said. She opened her eyes again and gave him a long look. “They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to seduce you. They’re up to something, and like you say, I don’t think they’ll give up easily.”

  Keph exhaled slowly and shuddered. He leaned back, stretching out on the grass and staring up at the starspeckled sky.

  “What if I came to Arch Wood with you?” he asked after a moment. “Just for a little while. The Sharrans won’t think to look for me there, will they?”

  Feena groaned, “Oh, aye. That should cause some talk. I go away and come back with a man ten years younger than me and a price on my head in Yhaunn …” She looked at him and asked, “Are you so sure you want to travel with a werewolf who’ll tear into her oldest friends?”

  For a moment, Keph was silent, then he rolled over onto his side to look into her eyes.

  “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I don’t think you did anything wrong either. Dhauna manipulated you. Just like Variance manipulated me.”

  Feena stared at him—and raised her eyes to Selûne’s crescent.

  “Moonmaiden’s grace,” she whispered, “aren’t we just the best people to give each other advice?” She smiled and sighed, “Thank you, Keph.” She picked up the wine bottle and offered it to him. “How about a toast? To the two most gullible fools in Yhaunn.”

  “Not so gullible anymore,” Keph said. “And never again in Yhaunn.”

  He reached for the bottle—

  —and let it slip through his fingers to tumble onto the ground.

  “Listen!” he gasped.

  Feena heard it too: a wild cascade of hooves in the night. Someone was riding hard and fast along the Ordulin road. A sudden foreboding struck her. She grabbed the glowing rock and willed the magic to fade. Darkness wrapped around them. Keph ran for his horse and Feena scrambled for the crest of the hill and a better view. Staying low, she scanned the road’s length.

  A lone rider moved in a broad patch of bright moonlight, galloping west from Yhaunn like a madman. Or a madwoman, Feena thought. As the rider drew closer, Feena slid down from the hilltop. Keph was already mounted, his overstuffed saddlebags abandoned.

  “Is it the Sharrans?” he gasped.

  “No,” said Feena. “The rider travels in moonlight. It’s one of my people.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  The hoofbeats were even closer.

  “Wait,” she said. “We’ll face her. I think I know who it is. If she finds us, then she deserves to.”

  Out on the road, the rider slowed then stopped. The horse whinnied in alarm as its rider pulled hard on the reins, wheeling the animal around and back to a narrow gap in the hedgerow. Heels kicked into the horse’s side and sent it cantering across a field of swaying grain toward the hill.

  “Feena!” shouted Julith. “Feena, where are you? I know you’re close!”

  Feena stepped forward and called, “Here!”

  Julith spun her horse around, then slid out of the saddle and ran toward her.

  “Feena! Moonmaiden’s grace, Feena—thank Selûne I found you.”

  Her hair was wild, blown and tangled by her ride. She spread her arms. Feena hesitated, then opened her arms to accept the young priestess’s embrace.

  “I’m sorry, Julith,” she sighed. “So much happened. There was too much to say. I just couldn’t stay in Yhaunn any—”

  Julith stiffened, staring up. “Who—?” she gasped.

  Feena twisted her head to see Keph looming over them on his horse.

  “Keph Thingoleir,” Feena said. “That’s another story.” She ran a hand over Julith’s flushed, wind-burned face. “What are you doing out here, Julith? Why come after me?”

  “To warn you.” Julith hugged Feena then pushed her away. “We found Jhezzail. Mifano and Velsinore are coming after you and they’re bringing half of Moonshadow Hall with them.”

  Feena’s eyes went wide. “What are you talking about?”

  “They mean to take you back by force, Feena. They think your attack on Mother Dhauna was deliberate.”

  “But you don’t,” Feena said. The realization felt like a weight lifted from her.

  “I know you would never do something like that of your own free will,” Julith said as she dug into a satchel that she wore slung at her side. “They’re going to be an hour or so behind me. The only reason I managed to get out ahead of them is because they were arguing over the best magic to use to find you. They’ll be working together by now and on your trail.”

  “How did you manage to find me, then?” Feena asked.

  “Unlike Velsinore and Mifano,” the younger priestess said with a smile, “I know you, Feena. I knew that if you were running, you’d be heading back to Arch Wood. I just rode in the right direction, and while I rode, I prayed to Selûne to guide me. And she answered my prayer.”

  “I—” Feena pressed her lips together, then exhaled slowly. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Don’t thank me just yet,” said Julith. She pulled out a gray bundle tied up with a leather strap. “This is how you carry your clothes while you’re in wolf form, right?” Feena blinked and nodded. Julith breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.” She thrust the bundle at her. “That’s a robe. Take off your clothes, change into your wolf form, and get back to Moonshadow Hall.”

  “But if Mifano and Velsinore are coming after me, why would I want to run to them?”

  “You wouldn’t,” Julith answered, looking her in the eye. “You need to get back for Mother Dhauna’s sake.”

  Feena’s heart sank.

  “What’s happened?” she asked.

  “She let Chandri heal her wounds, but when Velsinore tried to give her the belladonna you prescribed, she refused it. Velsinore tried casting healing magic on her as well, but Mother Dhauna resisted that, too.” Julith swallowed. “Then she prayed to Selûne herself, asking her to send her brightest light.”

  Selûne’s brightest light …

  “The light of a full moon?” Feena asked, and Julith nodded. Feena sucked in her breath. “Moonmaiden’s grace, she’s forced herself to transform into a werewolf!”

  CHAPTER 12

  Keph watched color spring back into Feena’s face. Her jaw shifted in determination. She dropped the gray bundle to the ground and began to loosen the drawstring of her skirt. He stared, then turned away.

  It felt very much like he was on the periphery of events. Whatever was happening at Moonshadow Hall didn’t involve him. Feena had helped him just by talking to him—but what was he to her? Just a misguided enemy of her faith she’d only met once before. Her real devotion lay with her old friends and her own mistakes.<
br />
  Something inside him raged at being ignored, just as Strasus and Dagnalla had ignored him, but he fought it down, swallowing the arrogance that had brought him so much trouble.

  “Wouldn’t she have changed at the next full moon anyway?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “The next full moon. A tenday and a half from now. We …” Feena’s voice caught. “Moonshadow Hall would have been ready.”

  “She caught us off guard,” said Julith. “The clergy present managed to keep her back, but just barely. She needs your help, Feena. You’re the one who knows the most about lycanthrope. Mother Dhauna was locked in a chamber in the infirmary when I left. She’s like a wild animal.”

  “She is a wild animal,” Feena said. “That’s the chamber I used to be locked in when I changed as a girl. Julith, what are you doing?”

  Keph glanced around out of reflex.

  Feena was naked. Before her, Julith was also undressing—and swiftly donning Feena’s discarded clothes. Keph gulped and looked away again. He heard Feena growl at him.

  “Keph, don’t be an idiot.”

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  He swallowed and turned back around. Under the moonlight, Feena’s skin shone like ivory. Her arms and legs were long, lean, and muscular. The moonlight had leeched the color from her hair, turning flaming red into lustrous copper. If Selûne herself had stepped down onto that field, she couldn’t have chosen a more beautiful, vigorous form. He bit back a gasp and forced his eyes away before he could stare too long.

  Julith pulled Feena’s blouse down over her head. The other woman’s country clothes hung ridiculously loose on her frame.

  Julith shook her head in response to Feena’s stare and said, “I’m not mad.” She reached into her satchel again and produced a slim case of worked silver. “Jewelry and baubles aren’t the only treasures in Moonshadow Hall’s chests.”

  She touched the case and it sprang open. Inside, two square vials of crystal wound with silver filigree nestled side by side. The liquid inside them caught the moonlight and reflected it back in a blue-white glow.

  “Temple records refer to this as Iraelathe’s Escape,” Julith said, “presented to a High Moonmistress over three hundred years ago by a worshipful devotee. When the vials are replaced in the case and the case placed in moonlight, the potions regenerate themselves with the turning of the moon.”