Sunset of Lantonne (49 page)

Nearby, Raeln and Greth stood in the now-open door with Therec behind them, all three staring at her in shock. Smoke rolled past them into the hallway.

After the brief moment of frozen surprise, the two wildlings rushed into the room and began working to douse the flames that had spread to the wood paneling of the room. Neither said anything to her, but their concerned glances said more than she wanted to hear. They believed she had gone crazy.

Following the others into the room, Therec leaned his walking staff against his shoulder as he surveyed the damage. Shaking his head, he walked up to Ilarra and gave the same slight bow he always did when greeting her. “Had I known you were cold, we could have brought more wood for the fire,” Therec told her, a slight smirk the only indication that he was joking. “I take it you were practicing your spells?”

Ilarra forced herself to calm down, dreading the sickness that had followed her last few encounters with magic. This time, she honestly began to feel good. Her body felt strong and she felt more alive than she had in a long time. With what Nenophar had said, that feeling horrified her.

“Yes,” she lied, giving him a forced smile. “My aim has never been excellent and accidents do happen.”

Therec’s face gave away nothing, but she did see his eyes measure the distance between the fireplace on one side of the room and the burning corner very nearly opposite it.

“Dinner is about to be served in the main hall. I had thought to send servants to summon you, but felt it was more personal to come myself. Your guards had asked to come with me, as though I needed company when visiting you.”

Ilarra saw Raeln check over his shoulder, watching Therec for any threats. Once he seemed satisfied Therec was harmless in his intentions, that same look was directed at Ilarra.

Those glances were the reason she and Raeln had been hardly around one another in more than a week. She had warned him once already that he need not concern himself with her, but he had continued following her around, monitoring everything she did. He had tried to act like he was unconcerned, but Ilarra saw the worry in his eyes every time he looked her way. The only solution to keep her from wanting to throttle him was to send him away. Since then, he had sulked around the halls nearby, often spending time with Greth in one of the neighboring rooms—likely to keep Greth from panicking in the close confines of the keep and attacking the servants…again.

Ilarra tried to look at Therec as she spoke, but she found herself unable to stop watching Greth, who seemed like he might be up to something suspicious as he smothered the smoking paneling. She could not put her finger on it, but she really believed he might be considering stealing from her belongings closest to the area he was cleaning.

“I will come down shortly. I wish to speak with my guards before I eat, if that’s not too much trouble. This shouldn’t take long,” she told Therec.

Therec agreed and left, making a point of moving wide of the smoldering table and charred remains of a painting Greth had not quite managed to save. He closed the door behind him, revealing scorch marks across much of the wood there as well.

“How many times have I told the two of you to knock before entering?” Ilarra demanded once she was sure that Therec had gotten far enough down the hall. “And again, how many times have I told you to stay away from my things?”

“About one less time than you’ve yelled at us for nearly everything else we try to do to help you in the last couple weeks,” snapped Greth, throwing the crumbling remains of the painting onto the floor as he spun on Ilarra. He shrugged off Raeln’s attempt to grab his arm and marched toward Ilarra. “Lady, I’ve had it up to here with the accusations…”

Without thinking about it, Ilarra was partway through casting a spell that would rip Greth apart where he stood before Raeln leapt between them, grabbing Ilarra’s wrists. He pulled her off-balance, disrupting her spell. Once she had lost control over her magic, Raeln released her and gave her a disapproving glare.

“How dare you?” she asked, rubbing her wrists. As an afterthought, she slapped Raeln across the muzzle. “Do not ever touch me again, beast!”

Greth snarled and started forward, but Raeln put a hand on his chest to stop him.

“We are going to dinner,” Ilarra began again, smoothing her dress and taking a deep breath to keep from shouting at the two men. “Maybe the two of you can keep from embarrassing yourselves…or at least me…for a couple hours. Act like you belong indoors this one time.”

Shoving aside Raeln, Greth walked up to Ilarra so he was glaring down his muzzle at her. “About that. I was coming here to tell you I’ve had enough.”

“Enough? Enough of making me wonder if you’re stealing from me?”

“Enough of you and this place,” the man countered. “I’m going home. It’s been months since I was captured. It’ll take me another few weeks to get back to camp on foot, if the snows continue. I’m hoping by now anyone who’s still alive has snuck back, and maybe if I’m lucky, the rodent I’m looking for is there and I’ll be out of your fur forever.”

“You said you’d be killed if you didn’t find him. Why change your mind now, if you could have gone months ago?”

Greth shrugged and scratched behind one of his ears absently. Over the last week, Ilarra had come to the conclusion that he had fleas but had yet to have him shaved to verify her theory. If he continued scratching himself in public, she might have to ask Therec to see to that.

“Listen, I’ve gone through every jail cell in this city at least twice,” he continued once he had stopped scratching. “No one I’ve talked to has seen him, so I have to believe he got away or is in a shallow grave. The last person who remembered seeing him was a soldier at the quarry, but he doesn’t even remember what happened to him. That leaves me little in the way of places to look without going home.

“I’d rather get sent back out to find him again with a few more claw scars and a lecture from Lihuan than sit around here getting yelled at and finding not so much as a clue. No offense…Raeln’s a great conversationalist, but I’m done with Lantonne.”

Ilarra felt briefly worried about Greth, but that passed almost immediately. “You’ll be executed as soon as they think you are leaving my service,” she warned him.

“They have to catch me first, elf.”

Ilarra took a long, slow breath to keep herself from telling Greth he would likely be dead within the hour if he was counting on his own intelligence to keep him alive. “Take Raeln,” she said instead, drawing shocked stares from both men. “No matter how he glares, he watches out for you as much as he does for me.”

“What? Why?” Greth asked, giving Raeln a truly uncomfortable look. “I don’t need a cubsitter. He’s yours, not mine. I don’t need a pet wolf.”

Raeln looked frantically between the two of them, his tail flicking nervously back and forth.

“He can get you there safely, if anyone can,” she reasoned, even if she did just want the peace of having both men gone for a while. “I trust him with my life and you can, too. I face no real danger inside Lantonne and don’t plan on leaving the city before he would be back. A couple weeks there, then the same back. I’ll hardly know he’s gone.”

Greth cocked his head. “What about your father? Aren’t you heading back up to Hyeth at some point?”

“Not anytime soon. Therec has men traveling up there to make sure my father’s doing as well as I am. There’s little more I can do until the king accepts I’m not working with Altis. Until then, you can come and go inside the keep, but I can’t leave this room without an escort.”

Eyeing Raeln, Greth finally nodded and struck Raeln across the shoulder. “Get your things, pup. We’re going to introduce you to real wildlings if it’s the last thing I do.”

Raeln growled and gave Ilarra a long stare, waiting for her to change her mind. When she did not, his ears flattened back and he followed Greth from the room.

“Boys,” Ilarra added before they had collected any of their belongings, “you will want to slip out while I’m at dinner. Therec will expect you there, so this is your best chance. If he finds out you’re packing, I doubt you will get far.”

The two wildlings nodded understanding and began packing. Given how little each of them had, it took only a few minutes. When they had finished, they left, going past the soldiers stationed at the door without any questions and leaving Ilarra alone in the room with her thoughts.

“I’m ready,” Ilarra announced to the silent room. “I understand what’s happening now. I’ve never wanted to hurt Raeln before, but I’ve seen it more each day. You’re right.”

“Of course I am,” came Nenophar’s voice as he appeared near the bed.

“What now?”

Nenophar looked out the window. “Complete whatever social customs you have left for today and sneak out. I will teach you what you need to know, but you need to get yourself out of the keep.”

“Then what?”

“That will depend on you,” he admitted, stepping back into the shadows. Whether he had vanished or was just obscured, Ilarra could not be certain. “I will meet you at the southern gardens at midnight. So long as you remain in here, I cannot help you. Out there, we can begin our journey after I arrive.”

“Why not earlier? I can get out while the wildlings are running…”

“I would never reach you in time, Ilarra. Sundown is the soonest I can bring myself to the city as anything more than these illusions. Three hours is all I ask. Once I do arrive, I cannot stay long or I will be found out. You will need to be precise in your timing.”

The shadows where Nenophar stood deepened abruptly, and Ilarra realized that she was alone again.

*

“Are you sure they are coming?”

Ilarra smiled across the large table at Therec. Myriad platters of steaming food lay between them, but Therec had made sure to keep a path open between them so they could speak. The various other nobility or courtiers that attended regularly mostly kept to themselves; therefore, they had been placed farther down the table, allowing them to converse separately.

The two seats on either side of Ilarra where Raeln and Greth normally sat remained empty nearly twenty minutes after the meal had started.

“Positive. They said they had gotten into a quarrel and needed to clean themselves up before arriving. Raeln pounded Greth pretty badly and I didn’t want them appearing at dinner in that condition,” she lied, hoping her deception was at least somewhat believable. “You know how wildlings are. Fur and some blood every time they argue, which is far too often.”

Therec’s acknowledging smile gave Ilarra no doubt that he questioned her, but was being polite in not saying so, at least not yet.

“This morning, I believe you were explaining about how you came to be sent to the city for schooling. Would you care to continue?”

Picking up a grape from the platter in front of her, Ilarra rolled it between her fingertips several times. On a whim and a silent challenge to Nenophar’s claims that she could not control her own magic, she channeled a thread of energy into a very basic pattern in her mind, withering the grape until it was dry and shriveled. Looking up as she let it drop to her plate, she saw Therec’s eyes narrow briefly.

“I know you were attempting to get me to tell you more about how I became a representative for Altis,” she told him, sliding the plate away. “Having me narrate my entire life’s history will not get you any closer to proving me a liar. I have been honest about my past for weeks, and I tire of this game. Dorralt may have claimed I was his, but no matter how much you believe him, I am still not…”

Ilarra trailed off and stared at Therec as he sat up straight. She had never heard that name before and had no idea where it had come from, along with the assumption that Therec was trying to gather information. The thought had not crossed her mind. It was almost as though someone else’s thoughts had been pushed into her head.

“I’m sorry, I think I should go check on my guards.” She stood quickly. “They could be causing more trouble and the idea rather spoils my appetite.”