far enough for them all to be together just once more. But life didn’t give you second chances at such things. Life just swept you along and never took you back to where you had been.
« It will be all right,” he whispered.
He had said that to her once before and had not been certain it was true. This time, for reasons he could not explain, he felt that it might be.
Fifteen
When he was finished speaking, Shadea a’Ru studied Pyson Wence as if studying an interesting insect, glanced momentarily at Traunt Rowan, and then turned her back to both of them and looked out the window into the fading afternoon light.
« Tell it to me again,” she said softly.
She managed to keep the rage from her voice, but it radiated from her body like heat off sunbaked earth in midsummer. She sensed their trepidation, their uncertainty, but she let them live with it as the silence between them lengthened.
« I really don’t see the point in going over it a second time,” Pyson Wence replied.
She could picture his exchange of looks with Traunt Rowan, could picture as well the sullen, gimlet–eyed stare, the one that waffled between boredom and disdain, he was giving her back. She could picture the way his sharp Gnome features were tightening, eyes narrowing and mouth twisting into a crooked line. She had seen that look often enough to have it memorized. She knew when to expect it. Even thinking of it enraged her further.
« I just want to be sure I didn’t miss anything,” she said.
She remained turned away so that they couldn’t see her face. The silence returned and lengthened slowly as she waited to see which of them would speak next. Until then, Pyson had done all the talking.
That was unusual, given the fact that it was Traunt Rowan who normally did the talking for them both. He was the one who stayed calm when there was bad news to deliver or an untenable position to defend. He was the steady one. Pyson was the weasel, the sly one, the manipulator, and perhaps they had decided that his skills were what would work best in their current predicament.
If they had possessed an ounce of sense between them, they would have realized that nothing would save them.
Pyson cleared his throat. «There is nothing to be gained from going over it all—”
« Tell it to me again!» she screamed, wheeling now to fix him with her white–hot glare.
Her tall, muscular body was taut and flexed, as if she might attack him. He blanched at her words, at her posture, he wilted under her glare. He turned small and insignificant. But he was quick–witted and adaptable, and he could return to form in a moment’s time, so she gave him no hint of compassion, no suggestion that his lifeline would extend beyond the next moment.
« Cat got your tongue, Pyson?» she spit, taking a quick step toward him, causing him to take several back. «Is the task too difficult for you? Is repeating the words you just spoke too onerous, too demanding? I want to hear them again, Pyson. I want to hear you tell it all to me again! Now!»
« Let him be,” Traunt Rowan said, speaking for the first time.
She shifted her angry gaze instantly. «Oh, so you would speak in his place, then? Do so, Traunt Rowan. Amuse me.»
« No one is amused, Shadea. Your sarcasm is wasted. We are as angry as you are about what has happened. But it isn’t anything we could have avoided. We thought the boy safely locked away.»
« Yes, I’m sure you did!» she snapped. «Very much the way you thought his parents were safely locked away. But they escaped as well, didn’t they? In fact, they escaped first! Odd. You were given some indication that your security was not all that tight, but that doesn’t seem to have made any difference because you didn’t change anything and so the boy escaped, too!»
Traunt Rowan shook his head. «The parents escaped because two of our number, misguided believers in the right of Grianne Ohmsford to be considered Ard Rhys even past all reasonable hope, helped them escape. Young Druids—Trefen Morys, whom we mistrusted already, and a girl about whom I know almost nothing. If not for them, the boy’s parents would still be here, locked away. But we will get them back again.»
She laughed at him. «You sent out word that you have their son, thinking that they will march right back to Paranor when they hear the news. You are deluded. They know what will happen if they return. Even to save their son, whom we don’t, in fact, have anyway! You underestimated them once and you are doing so again! Besides, it makes no difference now whether we have them or not, does it?»
She stalked across the room to where the door to her sleeping chamber stood closed, flung it open, and knocked the Gnome guard who crouched with his ear to the door all the way across the hall and into the wall beyond, where he lay stunned and bleeding.
« Try to listen in on my conversations again, and I will cut your throat,” she hissed, speaking to him in his own tongue, her voice thick and guttural in the Gnome way. «No one is to come near this door again until I open it!»
Without waiting for a response, she slammed the door shut, wheeling back on the other two. «They listen to everything, your trusted followers, Pyson. They listen and report to you, but that’s going to stop right now.»
Terror flickered in Pyson Wence’s yellow eyes. She watched it shift into a hint of desperation and shook her head in disgust. «You are hopeless.» She glanced disdainfully at Traunt Rowan. «Both of you.»
She stalked across the room to the window and stared out into the coming night. She wished it would close around the Keep and swallow up everyone in it who had failed her. She wished it would swallow those traitors who had helped the Ohmsfords escape. She wished it would swallow up those fools who had taken sides against her in the matter, starting with Sen Dunsidan and Iridia Eleri.
She wheeled back around. «The parents escaped because you weren’t smart enough to expect them to try!» she snapped at Traunt Rowan. «The boy escaped because you weren’t smart enough to learn from the example of the parents! You took away the staff, you locked him in a cell, and you thought that was the end of it.Wait for Shadea to return, you thought. That was all that was necessary.»
« I thought it sufficient, yes,” Traunt Rowan replied tightly.
She gave him a withering glare. «It never occurred to you, I don’t suppose, that you were bringing the boy to the one place he should never have been brought.»
He frowned. «What do you mean?»
She stared at him without speaking, the weight of her gaze enough to crush another man. «You don’t understand anything, do you? Neither of you understands what’s happened.»
Pyson Wence exhaled sharply. «We understand, Shadea. They’ve escaped, all of them. If you want to blame us, then do so. But we will get them back again.»
« Will you?» she whispered.
She walked over to her writing desk and sat behind it, thinking that it might be time to put an end to them both. Why wait? With Terek Molt dead and Iridia turned traitor and perhaps something worse, these two were the last of those who had conspired with her to eliminate Grianne Ohmsford. Her grip on the Third Druid Order was strong enough now that she could afford to do away with them.
She considered the idea a moment longer before dismissing it. It was still too soon.
« You took a staff from the boy,” she said to Traunt Rowan. «It had rune markings carved up and down its length. The boy tried to hide it from you, but you knew it was a talisman.» She paused. «Do you know what it does?»
The tall man shook his head. «No.»
« You took it away from him and you put it in this room?»
« I used magic to suspend it in a cradle so that it would wait undisturbed for your return.»
« Except that the boy or this Elven girl who helped him escape found a way to undo your magic. So now the staff is gone as well as the boy.»
He stared at her wordlessly.
