"It's romantic nonsense, Kai-lid, a dream born of eating something you shouldn't have in Haven yesterday."
"I saw my mother."
The discussion circled on itself until both owl and mage grew weary. Each sat wordless, stubbornly silent at first and then merely lost in thought. Finally, as the sky was growing light in the east, Xanthar spoke again as though no time had passed. "And you believe it, that your father will attack from the south?"
Kai-lid hesitated. Then she nodded. The owl nodded, too. "Then we must act," he said softly.
"We?" she asked, sitting up. Her hood fell back. "You can't go far from Darken Wood. You'll lose your magic."
"We don't know that for a certainty. The rules of Darken Wood may vary. They say that travelers who enter much of Darken Wood find their weapons have disappeared—but not here. They say ghosts prevent travelers from entering—but not here. I may be able to go farther away than we have thought."
"You've said . . ."
"We must stop the Valdane."
"We're safe here."
The giant owl was silent for a time. Then he said, "No one is safe anywhere." Kai-lid remembered Xanthar's dead mate and nestlings.
"You are his daughter. You can't hide from him if he is determined to find you."
Kai-lid turned her back on the owl. Her voice was tight. "He forced me into a marriage I didn't want, hoping to gain control of the Meir's kingdom. Then, when the Meir and I fell in love and barred him from our land, he attacked. He killed my husband. Should I forgive that?"
"I'm not telling you to forgive anything. I'm telling you that you have to stop him. You alone may be able to."
Kai-lid slid from her branch to a lower one, then to the ground. She glared up at the owl. "I won't do it."
"You escaped because your lady's maid went back, you said."
Kai-lid's face went white. "Stop it."
But Xanthar continued. "Lida went back," he said. "You told me this yourself, Kai-lid. Lida went back; she dressed in your clothes, realizing your father would destroy the castle, and knowing that only if they found a body they believed to be Dreena ten Valdane's would they stop from coming after you."
The owl's voice was relentless. Kai-lid put her hands over her ears. The bird switched to mindspeak.
She was your friend. You grew up together; her mother reared you both. And she died for you. Whether you are Dreena ten Valdane or Kai-lid Entenaka, can you be selfish now?
The spell-caster began to cry.
Recall that morning, Kai-lid. Recall it, Dreena.
Against her will, the spell-caster remembered fleeing the castle with Lida. The servingwoman balked halfway down the escape tunnel, saying she had to go back for something and asking if Dreena wanted to leave her wedding pendant with the Meir in his coffin as a final gesture of love.
Memories from that hasty predawn exchange still haunted Kai-lid. Lida's shadowed face, resolution and fright alternating in her features. The damp of the stones that walled the corridor. The musty smell of the earthen floor. The sound of water dripping. And over it all, the booming of the enemy's drums, mimicking Dreena's heart. She'd removed the pendant, kissed the broad green stone, and placed it in Lida's hand. She half-guessed what her faithful friend had in mind, but she made no protest. Dreena told Lida to meet her in a cave beneath a copse of trees west of the castle. Then the servingwoman threw her arms around Dreena, kissed her, and whispered "My sister" before hurrying back through the corridor.
How many others will you let die to keep you safe, Dreena?
Kai-lid cried out, ran back into the cave, hid in the shadows, and sobbed. Finally, rustling and the scraping of clawed feet on stone told her Xanthar was just outside. His mind-speak was gentler.
I believe this dream you had, Kai-lid. But I believe it is a sign that only you can stop your father. He paused. When Kai-lid didn't answer, he added, I will go with you.
"You can't," Kai-lid whispered.
I won't let you go alone.
"And someone else will die for me, Xanthar?" she demanded bitterly.
I am sorry. I should not have said that. People make their own choices. Lida chose to stay at the castle. I choose to leave here with you. A hint of humor found its way into the owl's mind-speak. I should add that I also choose to come back here, hale and hearty, to continue to inflict my curmudgeonly presence on my grandnestlings.
Kai-lid sat on her cot until her shivering stopped. She drew on her sandals, then rose and closed the curtain to the cave, shutting out the owl.
What are you doing? Xanthar asked.
"I have an idea."
She sensed the owl's question and replied before it quivered in her head. "The mercenaries. Perhaps I can persuade them to go with me. They're trained."
The owl hesitated before speaking. It is a thought. You can find them by scrying?
"Perhaps. I'll need quiet, Xanthar."
She felt rather than heard the bird's assent. A shadow fell across the curtain as Xanthar took up the guard there.
The bowl that the spell-caster reached for looked like an ordinary tureen on the outside—maple wood, polished until it gleamed. But the inside glittered with hammered gold. At the very center, another mark broke up the pattern of the hammering—the image of an edelweiss plant etched in the metal.
Now she leaned over, retrieved a purple silk shawl from a leather bag beneath the table, and pulled a cloisonne pitcher from a niche in the stone eave wall. The fluid that Kai-lid poured from it appeared to be ordinary water, but the liquid came from a nearby stream, a tributary that entered the White-rage River west of Haven. "A stream born at
