Wolfsbane (31 page)

“If you’d like,” Wolf said.

“I can’t do anything about the nature of the sacrifice,” said Halven. “I can’t do anything about Nevyn. But I think I can help you with your magic problem. Aralorn, haven’t you taught him to center?”

“
I
can’t center,” she said, exasperated. “Just how do you expect me to teach someone else? Besides, centering is more of an exercise in ...” Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was going to say.

“Control.” Her uncle’s voice was smug. “We need someplace warm and private.”

“We can work in my room,” suggested Aralorn. “That would allow us some privacy and warmth as well.”

“I’ll meet you there,” said the hawk, taking flight.

“Wolf,” said Aralorn, once they were alone.

“Yes?”

“You haven’t worked black magic since you left your father’s home, have you?”

“No.”

Aralorn tilted her face into the sun, though she felt no warmth on her skin. “I don’t know a lot about human magic, but I do know that good seldom comes from evil. I don’t want you to hurt yourself to save my father.”

“Aralorn,” said Wolf, “you worry too much. I have worked such magic before.”

“And chose not to do it again, until now.” She turned a rock over with the toe of her boot and kicked it into the snow.

“This is not your doing, Lady. It is my father’s work.”

“Would you work black magic if it were not my father?” she asked.

“Would he be ensorcelled if he weren’t your father?” he returned. “We’d best not keep your uncle waiting. I’ll be all right, Aralorn.”

Wolf is the only expert I have,
thought Aralorn.
If he says there will be no harm in it for him . . .
He’d never tell her if there was.

Frowning unhappily, she started back for the castle, with Wolf padding by her side.

Aralorn lay on the bare floor of her room and reconsidered calling her room warm—without the rugs to cover it, the floor was icy. Halven was taking Wolf through some basic meditation exercises, things she’d learned the first summer she’d spent with him.

In honor of the lesson, her uncle had taken on the shape of a venerable old man, with a rounded face and belly—someone to inspire confidence, she supposed.

Wolf, to Aralorn’s surprise, had left the mask off. Halven had already seen the scars, of course—but Wolf used the mask as much for a shield as he did to cover his scars.

“Now, stop that,” her uncle admonished Wolf, in tones Aralorn would bet tomorrow’s winnings against Falhart that no one had used on Wolf in a very long time, if ever. “I don’t want you to do anything to the wood—just feel it. See the growth patterns, the years where water was hard to come by and the years where it was abundant. Feel the difference between the old oak of the original floor and the plank of maple that someone used to replace an old board—yes, that’s the one. Let yourself feel how much easier magic slides through the oak than it does through the maple. Aralorn, an exercise does no good unless you do it.”

“Yes, sir.” She grinned, obediently losing herself in the pitted surface of the wooden floorboards.

There was almost a sensuous pleasure in working with the wood. Oak had a sparkle to it that always made her feel as if she ought to glow with joy while she worked with it. Not that she could do much more with it than look. A few shapes, some basic spells, and a little inventive lock picking—that was about as far as her command of magic went. That didn’t mean that she couldn’t enjoy it for its own sake.

“Now that you know the wood beneath you, children, I want you to concentrate on yourselves. Feel the texture of the floor against your skin, the fabric that separates you from the support of the wood. Ideally, of course, there would be no fabric, but I understand that you humans are sensitive about exposing your bodies. As I discovered in training Aralorn, the distraction of the clothing is less by far than the distraction of not wearing any at all.”

“Not to mention it’s warmer this way,” murmured Aralorn, her eyes still closed.

“Enough, child. I am the teacher here. You will merely listen and absorb my wisdom.”

“Of course. I shiver at your feet in humble awe at the—”

“Kessenih”—he interrupted—“would be happy to take over the training of you; I believe that she offered to do it the last summer you came to us.”

Kessenih, as Aralorn recalled, had wanted to peel the skin from her feet and make her walk back to Lambshold—who’d have thought she’d have gotten so upset over a chicken egg in her shoe?

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

Halven had changed, she thought. He’d always been cold to her, though he’d sponsored her training. After a moment she decided it could be that she, herself, had changed. As a child, she’d always been too much in awe of Halven to tease him. She’d never been able to relax around him, but now . . . everything crystallized, like a wooden puzzle that suddenly slid into shape.

It felt odd seeing herself in the way she had always been able to look into wood, to feel her heart beat and
know
why it did. Like an outsider, she could see into the fears and petty angers, touch the bond that tied her to her mate.

“I’ve
got
it ...” It startled her so much that she sat up and lost it again, but she laughed anyway.

“So you did,” said Halven, sounding pleasantly surprised. “See if you can explain it to Wolf. Sometimes two talk better than one.”

“What did you find?” asked Wolf.

“My center,” she said, sounding as shocked, as elated as she felt. “I’ve always been able to sense it well enough that I can use magic, but it was never clear. Like being in a boat and knowing that there’s water under me, but not being in the lake myself.”

“So this time you fell in?” Wolf sounded amused.

Aralorn grinned at him. “And the water was superb, thank you.”

“You,” said Halven to Wolf, “have no sense of center at all, that I can see. Without centering, it is impossible to be grounded—to be aware of yourself and your surroundings at a level where it is safe to work green magic. If we can get you there, then having your magic run amok should no longer be a problem.”

He ran a hand down his beard. “For human magic, this is not necessary—you control the magic with your thinking self. Like working a logic problem, with just a touch of artistry to give it form. Green magic is just the opposite. Your . . . emotions, your
needs
, generate the magic with just a touch of conscious control. Aralorn has been working half-blind for most of her life, and
you
are wiggling puppet strings without knowing which string is connected to which puppet.” He looked pleased with his analogy, savoring it for a moment before turning back to Aralorn. “You found it once—do it again.”

It took her a while before she could do it reliably, but once she had it, Halven went back to work on Wolf.

If it had been difficult for Aralorn to relax into her center, it was nightmarish for Wolf. Control had been his bulwark for most of his life, a defense against the things he had done and what was done to him. Unless he could give it up, he would never be able to control his magic: a paradox he understood in his head, but not in his heart, where it mattered.

It made for a long afternoon. By the end of it, he was sweating, Halven was sweating, and Aralorn was exhausted, but Wolf came out of it with a better sense of self, if not precisely his center. An achievement that left Halven nodding grudgingly.

“At least,” he said, helping Wolf to his feet, “you know that there are strings on your fingers now. If you don’t know what they do, you can elect not to tug on them.” He sounded almost as tired as he looked.

“Thank you,” said Wolf.

Halven smiled slyly. “Couldn’t do less for my sister’s daughter’s mate, now could I?” He slid from old man to bird shape. “I expect you to keep her in line.”

“How?” asked Wolf, amused.

Halven let out a bark of laughter. “Don’t know. I’ve never seen it done. Open the shutters now, and I leave you children to your rest.”

“Well,” Aralorn said after Halven had left, “I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”

Wolf gave her what might have been a wolfish smile without his scars, looking more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. “I could eat a sheep.”

“You think so?” she said thoughtfully, pulling on her boots. “I’m not so sure; the local shepherds are awfully quick with their arrows.”

He laughed, changing gracefully into wolf shape.

Most of the family was already eating when they made it to the great hall. Aralorn slipped into her old place between Falhart and Correy. Nevyn, sitting directly across from her, pointedly didn’t look up when she sat down. Freya shrugged apologetically once and otherwise ignored her husband’s distress.

“. . . when I came out of the village smithy, there was my meek and ladylike wife screaming at the top of her lungs.” Falhart stopped to eat a bite of food, giving Aralorn a quick view of his wife on his other side with her head bowed and a flush creeping up her cheekbones.

“I thought something was wrong and was charging to the rescue when I realized what she was saying.” He cleared his throat and raised his bass rumble to a squeaky soprano. “Three geese, I tell you! I need three. I don’t want four or two—I need three. I don’t care if they are mated pairs. I am going to eat them, not breed them!” Falhart laughed.

Aralorn was too tired to join in the usual family chatter and picked at her food. The familiar scents and voices, some deeper now than they had been, were soothing.

She let her eyes trail across her siblings with the magic she’d been working all day. She’d occasionally been able to use her magic to look deeply into a person, but never for more than a moment or two.

It was an odd experience, her senses interpreting what her magic told her sometimes as color—Falhart radiated a rich brown that warmed those around him. Irrenna was musical chimes, clear and beautiful. Even though he sat at the far end of the table, Aralorn could feel Gerem’s magic flickering eagerly, vibrating on her skin like the wings of a moth. One of the little children, a toddler, had it, too. She’d have to remember to tell her father . . . She turned abruptly and caught Nevyn staring at her.