The Invisible Ring

Dorothea began her slow, hip-swaying pacing. “How long?”

Krelis swallowed carefully, keeping his eyes away from the thing. “A couple of days, Priestess, before I’ll be able to hand the Gray Lady’s bitch into your keeping.”

“A couple of days,” Dorothea murmured.

He caught a flash of amusement in her eyes. He held his breath and waited. By tomorrow evening, his cousin or the young Warlord whose training he’d been overseeing would look like that quivering thing. His pet’s information had come two days too late, which was something Krelis wasn’t going to forget when he got to Ranon’s Wood.

“A couple of days,” Dorothea murmured again. Pausing at the table, she selected a knife and looked at the quivering thing.

It whimpered. Tried to shift its position.

Dorothea put the knife down and approached Krelis. “This has been a difficult time for you, hasn’t it, darling?” she said as she stroked his cheek. “And I do understand how wearing it can be when a person’s concentration is split between business and family. Since you’ve obviously taken my incentives to heart, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Your cousin and protégé will remain confined but untouched. We’ll discuss their future upon your return.”

Krelis turned his face just enough to kiss her palm. “Thank you, Priestess.” When she lifted her hand, he stepped back and bowed low. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s a great deal to do.”

“Of course.”

He took a step toward the door. Stopped. Turned back. Cutting off his ability to feel anything, he carefully studied the thing that had been a man.

Dorothea eyed him curiously. “Is there a problem. Lord Krelis?”

Krelis’s lips curved in a small smile. “My pet has not fulfilled his duties satisfactorily and will, I fear, require discipline.”

Dorothea’s eyes filled with glittering pleasure. “Yes, fear is always a useful tool. Something your predecessor didn’t understand.”

Krelis almost reached the door when she added quietly, “But then,he was an honorable man.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Jared poured another two fingers of whiskey into his glass. Raising it to eye level, he studied it.

A liquid cloak to cover the heart and protect it from lethal shards of pain. A fluid wall to keep grief at bay.

He turned away from such thoughts. If he kept his mind harnessed to practical matters, he didn’t really have to think at all.

And right now, he couldn’t afford to think.

“Jared.” Yarek sipped his whiskey, hesitated.

Jared leaned back and waited. He and Yarek were the only ones left in the inn’s dining room. Lia, Thera, and Blaed had gone for a walk after the midday meal. He suspected Lia needed a little time away from the pulsing needs everyone in the village was trying so hard to keep reined in. He’d seen the hunger in the males’ eyes, the relief in the witches‘. And he’d seen the way Lia had quietly accepted and eaten the full bowl of stew that had been placed before her—theonly full bowl that had been served. She hadn’t shamed the village by refusing the food offered, hadn’t denied them the honor of serving a Queen.

She must have choked on every mouthful with all those eyes anxiously watching her, but she never showed it.

Sitting beside her, his heart had swelled with pride . . . and something more.

He would never burden her with his feelings. Having been a pleasure slave—having his self so divided and debased—made it impossible for him to have what he wanted most.

But he would love her for the rest of his life.

“Jared,” Yarek said again.

Jared pulled his attention back to his uncle. “What is it?”

Yarek cleared his throat. Took another sip of whiskey. “The witchling . . . the Lady. She’s got a kind heart, but . . .”

“If she says there’s a place for all of you in Dena Nehele, then there is,” Jared replied.

“A land can only give so much, can only hold so many before the scales tip and we take too much.”

“I think Dena Nehele can absorb a hundred of Shalador’s own.” A hundred survivors out of two thriving villages. Jared took another swallow of whiskey.

“More and more people are going over the mountains,” Yarek said worriedly. “Plenty of them settle in the other Territories, but—”

Jared laid a hand over Yarek’s. “You were the one who always told me not to plant troubles where there aren’t any.”

“Suppose I did.”

“So Dena Nehele will gain Shalador’s best and be better for it.”

Naked grief filled Yarek’s eyes before he looked away.

Jared leaned back, unable to offer any words of comfort that wouldn’t shatter his own fragile control.

Shalador’s best would never leave Shalador—unless they found their way to the Dark Realm. The war had seen to that.

“The Coaches are intact?” Yarek asked after a moment.

Jared nodded. The two Coaches that belonged to the destroyed Coach station hadn’t been damaged in the attack, but he still hadn’t figured out how they were going to fit everyone who couldn’t ride the Winds on their own into two Coaches that comfortably held thirty people between them. And he didn’t know who would handle them. The three Warlord brothers who had run the Coach station hadn’t survived the attack, and no one else had the training.

Yarek frowned, gave Jared an uneasy glance, frowned harder. “Didn’t have a Black Widow in Wolfs Creek.”

“Not every village has one, any more than they have a Priestess or a Queen,” Jared said, wondering where this was leading.

Yarek rubbed his chin. “The Hourglass covens have different ways. Stands to reason considering the kind of Craft they do.”

Nodding, Jared waited.

Yarek shrugged, and asked hesitantly, “Do they eat different?”

Jared narrowed his eyes. That hint of fear hadn’t been there a few hours ago when Yarek talked about Thera fretting.

“The women asked about it, you see, and I said I’d ask you.”

“About what?” Jared said cautiously.

“Well, they butchered the two pigs and the chickens that were left.” Yarek held up a hand as if Jared had protested. “No room to take them with us and no point leaving them to fill someone else’s belly. But a cool box filled with cooked meat won’t take up much room in the Coaches and would make everyone feel a little easier having a bit of their own for the first day or two. So we’ll eat hearty tonight and tomorrow morning.”

“What’s that got to do with Thera?”

“Seems she came along early this morning and saw what they were doing. Came back a few minutes later carrying a couple of wash buckets and insisted on having all the offal she could fit in them. Soon as they were filled, she vanished the buckets and left.”

“I don’t—”

“I told you how she was fretting last night, remember?”

Jared nodded.

“Well, after I got her calmed down a bit, she went up to the room she’s sharing with the young Warlord Prince. He went up with her, then came down a few minutes later in a snarling mood. At the time, I just thought she wanted to be alone for a little bit and had shown him the door. Now I’m thinking she wanted some privacy to spin one of those tangled webs. When she came back downstairs a couple of hours later, she was troubled but a lot calmer—and very hungry. Didn’t have much to offer her last night. That’s why the women started wondering—”

“Lord Yarek! Lord Yarek!” A boy barreled into the dining room. “Riders coming,” he gasped. “Thirteen of them.”

Jared jumped to his feet, knocking the chair over.

“Mother Night,” Yarek whispered. “They’ve come back.”

The descent to the Red was swift but controlled. By the time Jared stepped into the street, he was centered in his strength and ready, almost eager, to rise to the killing edge.

He looked east.

Lia and Thera, returning from their walk with Blaed, slowed down when they saw him.

Blaed gave Jared a swift look, then dragged the two women into the nearest building.

Jared turned and began walking down the street.

Brock and Randolf came out of one building, but neither of them stepped into the street to join him.

It was his uncle Yarek and Thayne—and Garth—and the Jeweled Warlords and witches who were left who formed a wall at his back.

The riders turned into the main street and rode forward slowly. Six pairs of Warlords behind a Sapphire-Jeweled Warlord Prince.

The Warlords stopped.

The Warlord Prince kept coming. He reined in a few yards from Jared, dismounted, and closed the rest of the distance on foot until he stood a man’s length away.

“Warlord,” he said with deceptive pleasantness.

“Prince Talon,” Jared replied, keeping his face and voice neutral.

“We need to talk, Warlord. Privately.”

Jared jerked his head at the building to his left. “This will do.”

He barely got into the room before Talon slammed him into the wall.

“What in the name of Hell were you thinking—ifyou were thinking?” Talon roared as he jammed his tunic-filled fists under Jared’s chin. “You’ve been staggering around in a hostile Territory like a drunken landen! If we hadn’t come across that slaughter and followed the tracks, we’dstill be searching.”

Jared bared his teeth. He clamped his hands around Talon’s wrists. “Maybe your tracking abilities are at fault.”

“I’m the best tracker around!”

“Then think how much trouble the second-best tracker has had.”

Talon’s eyes glazed with fury.

Remembering how easily a Warlord Prince rose to the killing edge, Jared leashed his own anger. “Talon—”

Talon just shook him and roared.

“What do you care?” Jared snarled. “You got your niece back. Lia’s not your concern.”