She stirred the coals to get flames then sank through the long steps of meditation, intoning the fire chant to call power stronger than simple magicks. When she felt the energy throbbing like a fever, she opened her hands and stared at the fire in her palms. She sensed evil, rich and dark and liquid, chaotic, without a core, without a heart. Here, in Alpage, waiting, greedy, vile. Not in this house. Beyond its walls. Outside, in the dark, in the cold.

  Hearing the men stomp the slush from their boots on the outside step, Alstera closed her fingers over the fire, dispelling the power. She had snuggled under her blanket by the time the door opened. Pretending to come drowsily awake, she raised up, pushing hair out of her face. “A good game, Raul?” Her gaze shifted to the smith and caught him looking away.

  “Good enough.” Raul grinned and dropped his boots beside his pack.

  Jaeger hung up his coat. “He won more than a few coins. Fairly, I’d said.”

  “Fairly, for sure. Hard to cheat at bones. Jaeger’s got a right good cast himself. He won as much as I did. Baudoin couldn’t say much about my winnings then.” When his head emerged from his wool overshirt, he said, “I’d like to get a few more games before we leave.”

  The smith tugged off his boots. “You won’t find the pickings easy, now they’ve seen you play. We’re a cautious bunch. Won’t be as much money out at the next game.”

  Sock-footed, he watched Raul sit down on the blankets at right angles to Alstera’s. Again his gaze tracked over her, and she had the impression that he was measuring her against whatever he had learned from Raul in those couple of hours. She met his blue eyes squarely, even narrowed hers as the stare-down lengthened.

  His mouth quirked. He checked the door-bolt. “I wouldn’t be going out tonight. We’ve got a catamount loose. We’ve had three people in the village attacked.”

  “Your wife mentioned it. And we saw the trader, remember?”

  “Aye,” he said heavily. For a long moment he said nothing, his eyes staring at nothing, and Alstera recalled the body in the cave. As she shivered, he said tersely, “Keep the inner door shut.” With that, he headed up the stairs.

  Raul waited until they heard a door close. The shooting home of that bolt sounded loudly in the quiet. “I don’t think he trusts us.”

  She lay down and pulled the blanket to her chin. “Would you? Two strangers, with no good reason to leave the main road. Either we are fools who might risk his family’s safety, or we are miscreants out to line our pockets. Dangerous both ways. His wife saw your lost finger, and he must have seen it as well.”

  “I wish you could grow that back.”

  “Power does not work that way,” Alstera snapped. “Go to sleep, Raul.”

  “Damn, you’re short-tempered. You had to drag us out here. You regretting it now?”

  “Go to sleep,” she repeated and resolutely shut her eyes.

  His home thrust nagged at her, though, preventing easy sleep. She could divine no reason for her sudden exasperation with him, no reason except a pair of dark blue eyes that looked at her with mistrust.

  Chapter 6 ~ Morning of the Eighteenth Day / Seventeenth Day / Winter’s End

  Alstera woke early. Snuggling into her blanket, she savored the warmth after days and days on a snow-laden trail. Her wizard’s time sense, honed over years of training, recognized the deepest watch before the lightening dawn. The house was quiet, Raul’s breathing the loudest thing she could hear, and she wondered what had awakened her. For the first time in months she had slept the night through, not needing to stand watch. She was in Alpage, her senses alive to the foul power burdening the village, neither imminent nor dissipating, and she wondered if these villagers had guessed at the evil menacing them.

  She pondered last evening’s talk. The headman and his family had greeted them with open sharing, but they had gone still and quiet when she had spoken of the dead trader. Jaeger had warned them about a catamount, and she remembered his talk with Orris and Baudoin about the man who would be buried today, killed by the beast. And two others dead and two more missing, by the sound of it. Aye, these villagers knew a malevolence threatened them.

  Her contentment snuffed out, leaving only the smoky memory to tantalize her. Rolling out of her hard bed, she crouched on the hearth and stirred the coals. She found a hot one buried under last night’s ashes and added kindling sticks. When the flames were large enough to feed on a wrist-thick log, she left the fire to roll up her pallet and strap it to her pack. Raul stirred when she pumped water into the kettle, but he merely rolled over, pulling the blanket over his tangled shock of hair. She hung the kettle on the hob to heat. Then, driven by continued ill ease, she swung on her cloak and ventured outside.

  Cold shocked her as she stepped onto the enclosed porch. She snatched the oiled cloak together then stood shivering as her eyes adjusted to the pitchy pre-dawn. Clumps of snow patched the yard outside the kitchen and mounded over dormant bushes in the herb garden. The outbuildings loomed close, blocking an open view of the star-brightened sky. She thought about going back inside where it was warm, safe. Instinct compelled her to step onto the night-crusted ground and cross the yard to the smithy.

  She lifted the simple latch and slipped inside, easing the door shut behind her. Plank walls held the cold at bay. The built-up hearth gave off a palpable heat. Her hands hovered over the coals until the numbness edged out. Then, as she had in the house, she stirred up a flame.

  With the fire lit, she could see the bellows and the chimney that drew out the smoke, the glint of the anvil, the tools hanging on the wall, ready for use. The latent elements of iron and fire, the blacksmith’s tools of transformation, laded the room, as intoxicating as her great-uncle’s tower, rife with energies. Alstera grazed her fingers over the cold hammers and the iron tongs. Strong magic had forged these tools. Its force tanged the metal, luring her to touch them, to evoke their potential, to break her bindings with the elemental magic. A seductive call, to bypass the shackles on her power with these elements of fire and earth. A temporary respite from her chains of penance and no more lasting than the blood magic. But, oh, so tempting.

  She had her hands on the largest anvil, using blind touch to read its forged power, when the door opened. Her eyes fluttered open, a little dazed as she surfaced from the iron tang. The headman Jaeger stepped inside. He didn’t seem surprised to see her. Without comment he shut the door, although his gaze dropped to her possessive hold on his anvil. She released it and stepped back, tucking her hands behind her like a scolded child.

  Echoing her earlier action, he walked over to the hearth and held his hands over the flickering coals. Alstera waited for him to speak, since she had invaded his territory, village and smithy. She could sense power in him, strong and deep as the ores he shaped, but not loose and free, not the free-running power that flooded her family.

  After warming his hands, Jaeger stirred the embers before adding tinder and black coal. He hung up the poker then propped a hip on the waist-high hearth. “You mentioned last night that you and your fellow might stay a bit.” A smile soothed his abrupt beginning, but his following question sapped that comfort. “Any reason why?”

  His question echoed last night’s wariness. Raul had warned her that these villagers didn’t trust them. They might blame catamount for the recent deaths, but something else had them spooked. Or was it the natural suspicion of backmountain folk who rarely saw strangers? She grinned, offering good humor and enough truth to placate him, a lesson she’d learned from Raul. “Neither of us are used to climbing. We need to limber up our limbs before we continue through the higher mountains south of here. Mossley said the elevations are much steeper from this point on. And the snow thicker. He said we ought to wait at least three weeks.”

  “He’s right. There’s still a danger of heavy snow in the heights. Will be for the next month. If you get caught in a storm and you’re tired or too cold, you can get disoriented easily. Lose your way, and you die.”

  “Which neither of us wants to happen. We were slowing Mossley down, so we came to Alpage. It is a long road south. Since we have only ourselves to please, we can wait a while, rest up a little, before we go on.” She shifted away from the anvil and rested her arm on the top board of a horse stall. “Have you ever been to Elambra?”

  “Years ago. They say ‘El Hambre’ there.” His narrowed gaze implied that he had spotted the holes in her words. “I traded for a while. Hauled coal and raw ore for the mines, north and south. I’ve not been the road, though, for about ten years.”

  “Since you became a man of substance in Alpage.”

  “Since my first wife died.”

  The flat, emotionless statement mocked her imprudent flattery. In a scant few minutes, she had made two mistakes with this man. He was proving more complex than the other people she’d encountered in recent weeks. Embarrassed, she sought something to say and knew nothing would serve. His grief was ten years cold and covered with a new wife. Her platitudes would be as wasted as her ill-considered compliments to gain his good will and ease his suspicions.

  He had followed her to find out why they’d come to Alpage. Last night, as they shook the bones, he had likely asked the same of Raul. And Raul had probably flipped out an answer that was no answer. Or told a story that hedged around the truth without touching it. Whatever his response, it had not satisfied this iron-tanged smith. Like the power bound to his tools and settled deep in him, he was hard honesty. So how did she tell him she was a wizard, come to help? A bald statement would be worthless, as suspect as Raul’s missing finger. So would a flat offer of help. Until he knew her as more than a chance-met stranger, he would refuse.

  Or suspect her of causing their trouble.

  She had hesitated too long over his statement about his late wife. That way also led to folly. She hoped a common religious saying would bridge the awkwardness. Uncomfortable with meeting his eyes, she inspected the scarred pad of her thumb. “The gods ease her soul in its journey through the afterworld. She was the mother of Magretha? So, Thereiss is your second wife. And you are soon to be a father again.” He said nothing to those truths, just continued to watch her. “Raul and I must be an imposition on your household, with Thereiss due soon.”

  “You’re no imposition,” he said curtly.

  So, he would rather keep an eye on them than have his home’s peace. But she persisted. “Are there others who would house us, maybe night to night? We do not need to stay together.”

  “It’s no imposition,” he repeated. “Better you stay with us than moving from house to house, scouting people’s possessions.”

  “I am not a thief, Jaeger.”

  “Your man is.”

  “Raul is not my man. He is a friend, someone to travel the road with, no more. And he is no longer a thief. He learned that lesson.”

  “I decide based on what I know, and what I know is that your Raul’s got a missing finger, which you just admitted he lost for thieving. He’s got an easy tongue that don’t let you know nothing. And he’s handy with the bones. As for you, well, I ain’t figured out what you are yet.”

  “I am nothing. A simple woman, nothing more.”

  “So you say. That don’t explain why he follows your lead, not the other way round. Nor what you two are doing in a backmountain village that’s got nothing but sheep and cattle and farmland for wealth. There’s plenty of other places not so far off the road to rest up and wait for the thaw. If you’re not gonna steal us blind, why are you here? You want to tell me that?”

  Alstera didn’t dare. Not yet. Not when he was hostile. Their narrow escape in Le Dictame had taught her not to blindly reveal her wizardry. As she had begun her progress in Vaermonde with concealment, so would she continue it, until she knew how these people would react. She sighed, wishing honesty were as simple as it sounded. “No reason to be here, Jaeger. Nothing but a whim, a wisp of contrariness. Raul kept harping about Mossley’s never-ending tales and griping about climbing up and down. He’s a lowlander, whereas I know the mountains, not these majestic giants but. . . . Say it was a whim. Nothing more. Is that a crime?”

  “No crime.” He straightened. “It’s dawn. Magretha will be stirring about the kitchen. You should go in.”

  “No, I—. I want to see your local priest. I should go now, before the duties of the day call him. Did you not say last night that he had grave rites to perform today? So I would go now, please, if you would point me the way.”

  “I’ll walk you there. I want to see Chanoine before he takes Odbear’s boys home. Their vigil breaks at sunrise.”

  Dawn grayed the village and daubed pink light on the fine-spun clouds in the bluing sky. Their bootsteps crunched on the night-iced snow. A dozen things came to her tongue, but each was fraught with trouble. To keep them unsaid, she tucked her face up to her nose in her scarf.

  On the skirt of the village was the chapel, its stones as motley as the houses. Some ancient mason had made an effort to pattern the stones, but the rocks had defeated him. Weathered shutters closed over lancet windows. On the north side, snow remained packed over the steep roof. It had drifted around the foundations and followed a wall encircling a large area behind it.

  As they gained the level ground beside the building, Alstera could see inside the walled area. White snow smothered the ground in formless mounds and ripples, but spring had melted it enough to reveal tops of stones and wood. Each step revealed more and more of the graveyard. As she stared at it, evil shivered down her back. She stopped, afraid for the first time since reaching Alpage. Uncalled power stained over her eyes, making the snow weep blood.

  His foot on the first step, Jaeger looked back at her. “Something wrong?”

  She shook her head, shaking away the vision. “No. Go on.” Gods, she was no mystic. First the dream with its elemental and now this. What is happening to me? Dreams and visions. Could my power be changing?

  They entered the chapel, shadowy and cold. Vigil candles at the altar and saints’ statues had burned down. Scented smoke mixed with the evergreen boughs adorning the altar. A bier bridged the distance between the altar and the penitent’s rail, as it was itself a bridge between life and death, mortal and spiritual, and on the bier lay a shrouded body.

  “This way,” he said, and she heard men speaking. The headman used a side aisle to reach the vestry. At the doorway he stopped and was greeted in somber tones. She hung back, reluctant to interrupt. Then Jaeger stepped aside for a white-haired priest in a black cassock. “Here she is,” he said. “Père Hals, this is Alstera.”

  The priest approached with outstretched hands. Denied such an open welcome for so long, Alstera sank to the stone floor with a rustle of worn velvet skirts to do him honor.

  “Nay, nay. Stand up, good lady. There is no need for such.” Then he touched her bent head. His hand jerked back.

  Alstera looked up. The priest nursed his hand, burned by that single touch. “Truly,” she whispered, “you are a blessed saint of the church. You know me. You know what I am.”

  With bleary eyes, the priest examined her. White hair bushed around his head. Exhaustion had carved stronger lines into his weathered face. Yet he smiled and answered just as softly. “Aye, lady, I know you, wizard that you are.”

  “Is something wrong, Père Hals?”

  “Nay, Jaeger, you go on.” Again he urged her to stand. From the vestry door, the smith watched as the old priest led her to a front bench, away from the bier and the altar. He looked up at Jaeger and nodded. The smith frowned at Alstera before he shut the door. Only then did Père Hals ask, “Now, good lady, what need have you for me?”

  Alstera swallowed and looked at her hands, trying to hold them calmly in her lap. “A special blessing, holy sire, to purify my spirit.”

  “Have you done that for which you need such a sacrament?”

  To this man of the church she dared not speak of all her sins. Unintentional though it was, Gage’s death had led to her binding and exile. The renegade Léon Medreaux, however, lived with a broken mind, a crime she had intended and still did not regret. Nor could she tell this priest that she wanted to be purified before facing the evil that had reached its talons into the village.

  Rather than meet his eyes, she looked down. “The last time I saw a priest was months ago, last summer.” That was truth. Holy priest that he was, forbidden to call upon the natural powers, he would not read beyond to her lie of omission. Only Jaeger, who touched power in the iron he melded with elemental fire, had read the lies hidden within her words. “I would feel clean in my soul, Père Hals.”

  “A cleansing you ask for. This I can do with little difficulty.” He held his knees as he stood then straightened his back. “Ah, my creaky bones. They will be the death of me, I think. Stay here, lady, while I fetch the necessary things.”

  He hobbled back to the vestry.

  Alstera glanced at the altar, the marble statues, the shuttered windows. The double lancets, rough-hewn and opaque, looked like the mirrored mouths of caves. Finally there was nothing else to look at besides the shrouded body. She remembered the trader’s corpse. This man had died the night she and Raul had sheltered in the cave, the night she had looked down at Alpage and watched swarming torches search through the village. Jaeger had blamed a catamount that left no tracks. And he eyed her with suspicion, as if he knew no beast had caused the deaths but had too much sense to blame newcomers.

  Impelled by more than mere curiosity, she crossed to the bier and touched her fingers to the shroud. Closing her eyes, she tried to call power. She felt nothing, a blankness, a void. A deadness that was not the barrier that the bindings erected between her and the freshet run of power in her blood. An emptiness that sought filling. She laid her hand upon the body, centering her palm over the vitals. Again she called power. This time, like a distant echo, she sensed it. The wisp of sticky evil. Draining away. Needing more. Emptying. Dying.

  No catamount had killed this man.

  She heard the priest returning and hurriedly abandoned the corpse. When Père Hals emerged from the vestry, she was kneeling at the penitent’s rail, her hands clasped on the polished cedar, trying to control the tingling in her fingers. He had draped a blue and yellow cloth over his head and carried a copper basin.

 

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