perhaps even Aeren.
He would never have foreseen Fedaureon seeking him out.
Standing up straight and positioning himself off to one side, a step or two away so that he wouldn’t appear threatening, Colin allowed time to resume.
Fedaureon lurched backward, a gasp escaping him even as his hand reached for the cattan strapped to his side. The blade was out before he’d found his balance, his gaze shooting frantically to either side before he caught sight of Colin standing at the railing.
It took him another few deep, shuddering breaths before the tension bled from the Rhyssal heir’s shoulders and he stood, resheathing his blade.
He bowed formally toward Colin. “I apologize. I didn’t intend to startle you.”
Colin considered lying, then smiled. “I should have been aware of your approach long before you got here. It was my fault.” He turned away. “I must admit that I’m surprised to find you out here. Did you seek me out on purpose?”
Fedaureon hesitated. Colin glanced toward him from the side, noted the angularity of his face, the eyes that came from Moiran, yet all so young. There was only a vague hint of maturity about him, something subtle in the youth’s stance.
He wondered if the Trials had continued whether or not the signs of adulthood would have been ground deeper by this point. It had seemed so for Aeren, and Fedaureon would have returned from his own Trial by now.
“Yes and no,” Fedaureon finally answered. “I came to see if you would ask Eraeth to remain. My father has always had his Protector there, not just for protection, but for advice. But I know what you will say.”
“That your father is capable of making his own decisions? That he does not need Eraeth there to help him?”
Fedaureon’s mouth twisted with irony. “Exactly.”
“You came for reassurance.” When Fedaureon didn’t answer, shifting uncomfortably where he stood, still not looking toward Colin but out over the water instead, Colin added, “Your father is capable of facing Lotaern and the Evant by himself, without Eraeth at his side, Fedaureon. You forget that he will have you near at hand. He will rely on you instead of Eraeth for his strength.”
“You mean he will rely on my mother.”
Colin’s eyes widened at the thread of bitterness in his tone. “He didn’t speak to your mother at all at dinner tonight. He received the report from you.”
“He will speak to her about it later, I’m certain.” Fedaureon said the words tightly, but Colin heard the doubt that had crept into the bitterness.
“I doubt they are arguing about you at the moment.”
Fedaureon turned toward him and Colin’s heart lurched at the vulnerability in the youth’s gaze. He’d never seen such an expression on Aeren’s face and he had to remind himself that this was
He faced the youth, straightening. “Fedaureon, do you think that I would allow Eraeth to leave your father’s side if it weren’t important? This is bigger than the Rhyssal House, bigger than the Evant and Lotaern, bigger than even the Alvritshai. You have never had to deal with Walter and the Wraiths and Shadows, never seen what they can do. We halted them before, but not until after they’d awakened the Wells and allowed their sphere of influence to expand to the entire known continent. And now they are beginning to act again… have already begun, if what the Wraith told us at the Well in the White Wastes is true and not a bluff. If I do not find out what is happening, then the Alvritshai, the dwarren, and the Provinces will be caught unaware. I need Eraeth’s help, no matter how much I protested having help at first. I need it more than Aeren does at the moment. Your father understands that, even if he does not like it. That’s why he agreed to let Eraeth go.”
Fedaureon considered the information in silence for a long moment, head bowed. When he finally looked up, something had settled in his gaze. His eyes had hardened and his shoulders had squared. “Thank you.”
Colin reached out and gripped Fedaureon’s shoulder, even though he knew such familiarity was not common among the Alvritshai. He was glad to see Fedaureon did not stiffen at the touch. “Relax, Fedaureon. In the morning, Eraeth and I will leave with Siobhaen for dwarren lands, and you and your father will handle whatever it is that Lotaern is planning here. We’ll halt whatever is happening, as we did before.”
Fedaureon nodded at the reassuring words.
But Colin heard the falseness in his own voice, felt the roil of uneasiness in his own stomach and in his skin, in the black taint of the Well there. He knew how close the Alvritshai had come to being destroyed at the Escarpment. And he knew how brutal and vicious Walter and the Wraiths could be.
And he knew that on the plains, with the dwarren, he wouldn’t be able to protect Aeren, Fedaureon, or Moiran from whatever Lotaern or the Wraiths were planning.
10
Tomson swore as his plow clanged against yet another stone, and with a yank of the traces he brought the plowhorse to a halt. The horse stamped her foot on the hard-packed earth, covered over with a thick layer of soggy grass that had been crushed to the plains by the winter snows and had only been exposed to the sunlight two days before. It was still wet with snowmelt, which made for good plowing. The earth was as soft as it was going to get.
But it was riddled with stones.
Wiping the sweat off of his brow with a handkerchief, Tomson shifted the plow to one side and exposed the rock, uttering a silent curse at its size. He knelt down and reached a hand around one edge, pulling it out of the ground. Rich black earth fell away as it came free and he gasped at a twinge in his back as he lifted it up. Carrying it with arms extended straight down, he hobbled toward the edge of the field-only a few rows away-and dropped it where a dozen other stones already littered the ground, then brushed the dirt from his hands and turned.
The rolling hills at the far eastern edge of Temeritt Province filled the horizon, dotted with random copses of trees near streams and the occasional exposed plinth of granite. Farther to the northeast, he could see where the hills fell away to what the dwarren called the Flats-a vast expanse of dusty earth that stretched to the horizon. The sheer flatness of it sent a shudder through Tomson’s shoulders as his eyes scanned south and west. He could barely make out the beginnings of the cliffs called the Escarpment, the natural boundary between human and dwarren lands. Somewhere to the south would be the Serpent River, what most considered the edge of Temeritt lands, but it was lost among the hills. No one had settled beyond the Serpent, which was why Tomson was here. Most claimed that going beyond the Serpent placed settlers beyond the boundary of the Autumn Tree and within the reach of the Shadows.
Tomson had rolled his eyes at the old men in the tavern at the warning three months before, scoffed and walked away with his drink to the far corner of the room. The Shadows. An old wives’ tale, used to keep children from sneaking out into the night and getting into trouble. And the Autumn Tree was nothing but a legend as well. GreatLord Kobel used it to keep those in his Province within his grasp, to keep men like Tomson from claiming what was rightfully theirs. The threat of the Shadows was empty, nothing but a ruse to keep settlers away from the fertile plains between the Serpent and the Flats, land that GreatLord Kobel claimed belonged to the dwarren.
Tomson had been out here for two months already and he’d seen no dwarren. Nor any Shadows. Only wide open land, ready to be taken.
His horse snorted and tossed her head, breaking him from his contemplation of the southlands. He frowned at the animal’s fear-whitened eyes and flared nostrils. When he moved suddenly toward the bucket of water and his satchel, his horse flinched and shied away from him, drawn up short by the attached plow.
“Steady,” he said soothingly. “Steady there, girl.”
He knelt down and dug through his satchel, bringing out a sheathed knife and pulling the blade free. He scanned the field, searching for what had unsettled his horse, but saw nothing.
Rising slowly, he turned full circle as he made his way to her side. The muscles beneath her smooth brown coat twitched when he touched her and she snorted again. Her legs were rigid with tension, her body
