The Keep of Fire (33 page)

Finally, frustrated at not connecting, Grace had tried a different tactic, asking if she might see what Tira was playing with. Tira held out the object: a
small, crude doll, fashioned from a piece of wood wrapped in a frayed rag. Accepting the doll, Grace turned it over in her hand, then sucked in a sharp breath. The side of the doll’s head was charred black, as if it had been deliberately stuck into a fire. Tira stretched out small fingers, taking the doll back, gently stroking tangled string hair.

After that Grace had run out of questions. But she had known Lirith was right, that neither Tira nor Daynen must be left in Falanor. The villagers had shut themselves in their hovels in fear. There was no one to care for the children.

She had thought Meridar might protest, but the knight hardly seemed to notice Daynen and Tira.

“Where shall we take them?” Durge had asked.

“To Ar-tolor,” Lirith had said. “Ivalaine will see that they are cared for.”

At this Daynen had smiled. “I have heard the queen is very beautiful.”

Grace had grimaced, glancing at the boy’s sightless eyes.

Now, as they rode in the morning sun, Grace felt Tira’s slight, warm body against her own, and while the sensation was strange, it was curiously compelling as well. She lifted a hand to touch the girl’s tumbling red hair—then halted. Tira was playing with the wooden doll again, making it dance on the back of Shandis’s neck, stroking its fire-blackened face.

Grace swallowed and let her hand fall.

It was afternoon when they reached the edge of a wood. The road passed beneath an arched canopy of branches and wound its way among tall, gray-skinned trees.

Grace was tempted to reach out with the Touch, to try to sense the life all around her, but she did not. The magic she had woven on the green of Falanor had astonished no one more than her. Aryn had expressed admiration at the way Grace had been able to draw on
hers and Lirith’s threads, and the Tolorian woman had questioned Grace long and pointedly on the manner in which Grace had accomplished this feat.

“I have seen the Weirding woven in such a way before,” Lirith had said, her dark eyes intent, “but never have I seen a weaving so great, nor one that could move such a wind. How were you able to manage this, Lady Grace?”

Grace had thought about this question, then had shaken her head. “I
didn’t
manage it. I wove the Weirding, but that was all. I couldn’t … I couldn’t touch my own thread. All the power came from you, Lirith. And from Aryn.”

Both women had gazed at the baroness, but Aryn turned her head, staring into the far-off distance, as if she saw something there.

Lirith had returned her dark eyes to Grace. “We will speak more of this in Ar-tolor.”

Grace had only given a stiff nod.
I’m sure we will
.

The road dwindled to a narrow track between the trees, and they were forced to ride single file. Durge led the way on Blackalock, with Grace, Tira, and Shandis just behind. The others followed, and Meridar brought up the rear.

Grace sighed. It was dimmer and cooler in the wood. Yet before long her sense of relief faded. The forest was too quiet. Shouldn’t she have heard the movements of small animals, or the trill of birds? Instead, aside from the clopping of the horses’ hooves and the jingle of the knights’ mail shirts, there was only the faint creaking of trees which, the more Grace listened to it, the more it sounded like the whispering of dry, distant voices.

Just when Grace thought the silence might drive her to scream, the track widened, and a clearing opened before the riders. Grace brought her horse to a halt beside Durge’s, and an acrid scent filled her nostrils. A breeze stirred up grit, flinging it into her eyes.

The clearing was not natural. In a perfect circle a hundred paces across, everything—trees, vines, shrubs—had been burned to a fine, gray ash. The ground was blackened and cracked, like a clay pot left too long in the kiln. Aryn gasped, lifting a hand to her mouth, and Durge muttered a low oath.

“What is it?” Daynen said. He tilted his face up, moving it from side to side. “It smells like fire.”

Grace could only nod.

“There’s something over there,” Lirith said, pointing across the burnt area. “Near the edge of the circle. I cannot … see what it is.”

Grace glanced at the witch. Something told her it was not with her eyes that Lirith had been looking. She turned her gaze forward again. Yes, she could see it now—something dark and shapeless lying on the scorched ground.

“I will see what it is,” Meridar said.

Durge glanced at him. “Be careful, Sir Meridar.”

However, the knight had already spurred his mount ahead. The charger pounded across the circle, clouds of ash flying up from its hooves. They watched the knight bring the horse to a halt, dismount, and kneel to examine something. Then he stood and signaled to them with a hand.

By the time they reached the far edge of the circle, Meridar had mounted again. Shandis whickered, her ears back, and Grace glanced down at the shriveled form on the ground. Relief coursed through her, and only then did she realize what she had dreaded she would see. However, the body was not human.

“I think it was a wolf,” Meridar said.

Durge lifted a gloved hand to his chin. “Indeed. But I have never known a wolf to wait for a forest fire to overtake it. Why did it not run?”

“But don’t you see?” a soft voice said. “It wasn’t a forest fire.”

The others turned surprised glances on Aryn. Had
she sensed something Lirith had not? But maybe none of them needed magic to know who—no,
what
—had started this fire. Grace gazed back down at the burnt husk of the wolf, and she thought of the bear—the animal that had burst from the woods to attack Durge and kill Garf. She remembered the way it had snarled madly. And the burnt, blistered patch in its pelt.

A jolt of understanding stabbed her. She drew in a gritty breath and opened her mouth to tell the others what she had remembered and what it meant.

Her words were lost in the bright, high call of a trumpet. The sound drifted among the trees and reverberated across the clearing. Before any of the riders could speak, a man stepped from the shadow between two trees. He was tall, but beyond that Grace could see nothing, for a long brown cloak draped his body, and a green hood hung low over his face.

An oath sounded beside her—Durge—and Grace snapped her head up in time to see a dozen more figures step from the forest to stand on the edge of the circle. All wore cloaks and hoods of forest colors. Here and there Grace saw the hilt of a sword protruding from beneath one of the cloaks.

A small hand clutched at Grace’s. She looked down into Tira’s frightened eyes, then circled an arm around the girl and held her close. Lirith and Aryn cast startled looks at Grace, and Daynen stared forward, silent, his face taut. He did not need eyes or magic to sense the danger.

“We wish no trouble with you,” Durge said. “Let us pass, and none shall be harmed.”

The Embarran sat straight in his saddle, face grim. Meridar’s hand crept toward the hilt of his sword, but Grace knew it was no use. No matter how skilled Durge and Meridar were, they were two against a dozen. And the armed men had them surrounded.

Durge’s eyes flickered to Grace. She caught the
message in them:
When it begins, ride
. Durge nodded to Meridar, then reached for the gigantic sword strapped to his back.

Another sound broke the silence of the barren circle. It was laughter.

“Stay your hand, Sir Durge. It’s been a bad enough day already. I really don’t want to finish it by dancing on the end of your greatsword.”

Durge froze as the figure closest to them stepped forward, raised his hands, and pushed back the green hood. Grace stared, breath suspended, then in a warm rush fear melted into joy. With one swift motion she disentangled herself from Tira, slid from Shandis’s back, and ran forward to throw herself into the arms of a tall, rawboned man with thinning blond hair and a smile like dawn after dark night.

“It’s good to see you again, too, Lady Grace,” Beltan said with a chuckle, and tightened strong arms around her.

“It is not much farther, Your Radiance,” the tall, red-haired man leading Grace’s horse said.

Grace gazed down at him where he walked and sighed. She had thought she had left that title behind leagues ago, but apparently she had been mistaken. The man—no, the
knight
, she corrected herself, for despite their simple garb he and his companions were all knights of the Order of Malachor—had bowed low when Beltan had spoken her name.

Yet, as she rode, she was less and less certain it was the title and the obeisance that had bothered her, and increasingly sure it was something else. But what?

It feels right to you, Grace. That men bow to you seems only as it should be
.

No, the thought was absurd. She was nothing and no one. The day she believed she was truly royalty was the day she drank enough tea of barrow root to turn her brain to jelly and send it running out her ears. She clutched Shandis’s golden mane with one hand, held Tira tight with the other, and let the knight lead her through the silent forest.

Grace hoped they would reach the knights’ camp soon. She ached to tell Beltan about the real purpose for her journey, but he and the majority of the men had gone on ahead to make things ready for the travelers.

“There’s a lot for us to talk about, Grace,” Beltan had said in the clearing, his bright expression falling dim. “But it’s better not to speak of it in this place. We can talk more where it’s safe, and after you’ve rested and eaten.”

He and the others had disappeared back into the trees then, vanishing as quickly as they had appeared.

“Come, Your Radiance,” the red-haired knight had said, taking Shandis’s reins in hand. “We must lead the horses by a longer trail than those who walk on foot.”

Two more knights had stepped forward to lead Aryn’s and Lirith’s palfreys. All three of the knights seemed frightfully young—none of them could be more than twenty-five—but she remembered hearing that it was mostly the younger, landless men who were joining the Order of Malachor. For a moment she had been reminded of Garf, but she had forced the thoughts from her mind. This forest was already too damn somber.

“Sir Tarus,” Durge spoke now from atop Blackalock. The Embarran rode alongside Meridar at the rear of the party. “What can you tell us of the burnt circle?”

The red-haired knight who led Grace’s horse glanced back. “You had best ask Sir Beltan of that
when we reach our camp, my lord. It was he who discovered the place.”

“What is there to know?” Aryn said in a quiet voice. “It’s dead. Utterly dead.”

The baroness hugged herself with her left arm, and Grace chewed her lip. Had Aryn tried to touch the Weirding in the burnt circle?

Durge gazed at the young woman, then blew a heavy breath through his mustaches. “It was ill fortune to come upon that place so unexpectedly.”

“And yet,” Lirith said in a musing voice, “it was good fortune to come upon Lord Beltan, was it not?”

Durge opened his mouth, but the solemn Embarran seemed to have no reply to that. Lirith’s lips curled in a smoke-red smile, and Grace found herself smiling as well. Only Lirith could manage a jest in a place such as this. Once again Grace was grateful the witch had stolen away with Aryn to come on this journey.

It was a good thing the Malachorian knights were leading the way, for even had Grace walked right past the camp, she would have missed it completely. Tarus brought Shandis to a halt before a thick wall of silver-barked trees that looked to Grace exactly like every other part of this forest. He lifted a pair of fingers to his mouth and let out a soft whistle.

Two shadows separated themselves from the murk beneath a tree and stepped into a shaft of golden light. Grace lifted a hand to her chest, startled. The men were no more than five paces away, but she had not seen them. Their garb blended perfectly with the surrounding woods—although here and there she caught the glint of steel beneath the green-and-brown cloaks. The knights saluted Tarus with a fist against the chest, and the red-haired man returned the gesture.

“They’re waiting for you,” one of the knights said.

Tarus glanced up at Grace. “Come, Your Radiance. Our journey ends just ahead.”

They moved through an arch of trees, and only then did Grace see that there was in fact a fairly broad track leading through the wood. They followed it for no more than a minute before Grace caught the sound of water over stone. The trees parted, and the bright note of a horn pierced the air. Grace stared, and Tarus grinned, displaying crooked but white teeth.

“Welcome to our humble fortress, my lady.”

Grace handed Tira down to the knight, then gazed around as she and the others dismounted. It was not exactly a glen, but the trees were more open there, where a small brook widened and flowed in a frothy cascade over a series of flat rocks. On the ground were a handful of canvas tents, but it was toward the forest canopy that Grace’s eyes were drawn. Tira disentangled herself from Tarus’s big, gentle hands and walked forward, gazing upward with solemn eyes.

Twenty feet above the ground, rope-and-plank walkways stretched between a dozen gigantic trees. Ladders were nailed to the trunks, leading to and from wooden structures tucked among stout branches. Grace opened her mouth, but before she could find words, a tall form parted from a nearby group of knights and strode toward them on long legs.

“Grace, there you are.”

Beltan grinned as he approached, and as always Grace was struck by the way the simple act of smiling could transform the blond knight’s face. Unlike his uncle, King Boreas, Beltan was not a handsome man. He was tall and straight but rangy, with long, white-blond hair far on its way to thinning at the crown. His green eyes were bright but small, and his face—adorned by a sparse yellow mustache that framed either side of his mouth—was broad and plain. However, when he smiled it was like a light shone upon him, concealing in shadow what was jovial but homely, and highlighting what had been hidden, and which was noble and beautiful.