“Uhm...” he returned her unspoken question, a smile pulling his face wide, his natural eye beaming, “I’d love to tell you the whole story, but now isn’t a good time.”

Shadra’s back straightened as she beheld the change in the man. “What—?”

“I’ve got a call I need to make,” he clarified.

“A what?”

He was almost quivering. “I need to be alone for a bit,” he told her. “Please?”

She didn’t understand, or told herself she didn’t understand, and was somewhat taken aback at this new person before her, so removed from the other two of him she’d been fixing into her frames of reference. He was suddenly a great wriggly puppy all slobbery tongue and wagging tail. She didn’t want to wait any longer for answers. She couldn’t wait any longer for answers. But he asked her again for privacy and the puppy dog had moved to his pleading eyes, so she excused herself stiffly and moved toward the camp.

Storm waited impatiently as Shadra moved off into the darkness. Once he was certain he was alone, he lay back and crossed his arms behind his head, breathing deeply. He closed his eyes and reached. Instantly, they were there with him, blue eyes and green, squealing with delight and he swirled his consciousness around and between them, whole for the first time in days, drowning in the warmth of them.

* * *

Shadra approached the camp quietly, lost in thought. Very quietly. So quietly she nearly tripped over Corwyn before she noticed him there in the tall grass and stumbled to a halt nearly beside him.

Corwyn became aware of her at almost the same instant, realizing himself caught. His face flushed deep red.

“Spying, milord Governor General?” she inquired mock-sweetly, a hint of rose tinting her own cheeks at the memory of her mild flirtations.

“I was– I wasn’t– you– he....” he stumbled over his tongue. He clamped his mouth shut then, and climbed slowly to his feet, shoulders hunched in embarrassment. Without another word, he slumped off back to camp.

Shadra watched him go, her own embarrassment tingling. The nerve of the boy! What right had he to spy on her? What care had he for her actions or her desires?

And what desires were those? She asked herself suddenly. Why was she embarrassed? She’d done nothing to be embarrassed about, had she? But the path of magical pursuit was a search for the truth, and the habit was centuries old in she of the purest light. What had she done?

She’d sought the man out in the darkness. She’d shown him enough thigh to make a bar wench blush and then spent more time leaning forward than the circumstances had merited. And then there was the anger at his sudden desire to be alone.... Belatedly, she followed in Corwyn’s path, clucking disapproval of her own actions and wondering where they’d come from.

* * *

Koli recognized the scent well clear of the sylvan’s shelter, even with his human nose, and was confused. Sylvans mated for life, and these particular sylvans seemed more mated than the run. But the nose doesn’t lie. He called out as he drew near, looking for strange tracks near the entryway. None that shouldn’t be there.

Had they—? “No, no, old wolf,” he cautioned himself. “Stray not down that trail.”

Thrush Dancing crawled free of the shelter, face and bosom flushed, lending weight to the tale of the scent. Swallow Courting followed, oddly serene. They saw his expression and blushed mightily.

“Brae was here,” Thrush smiled, the tension that had so long been a part of her voice completely gone.

“I beg your pardon?” Koli blurted.

“Not physically here, silly wolf!” Thrush giggled. “But he was here nonetheless.”

“We know where he is now, and what happened.” Swallow added.

“He’s even farther away than we thought,” Thrush continued. “And he’s gained new companions.”

“And the dragon?” he asked.

Two sets of shoulders rose and fell. “No trace since the first night’s chase,” Thrush gave voice to the answer. “Though he continues to be wary of its return.”

“And we learned a new trick!” Swallow clapped her hands with glee.

“So I could smell,” Koli tried to stifle the grin.

Swallow went bright red and her hands went to her mouth. Even Thrush blushed scarlet. “Not that!” she spat. “Or not simply that.” she smacked him on the chest in mock anger. “Although you might do well to learn it for your wife’s sake at least, since you seem determined to wander about the second world without her.”

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* * *

Storm swam slowly to wakefulness, gradually realizing someone was poking at him. He opened his eyes to behold the bleary image of Shadra of the Purest Light. She didn’t look happy.

“What is it?” he demanded, bolting upright, weariness momentarily forgotten. “Have they found us?”

“It’s well into morning and nearing noon,” she answered dryly. “Unless your plan is to await any pursuers it might not be a bad idea to rouse—” her cheeks went inexplicably rosy. “To awaken and resume our journey.

He flopped back down on the grass, weary beyond reason. The sun was heeling way over towards noon. “Why didn’t somebody come and wake me?” he asked, scrubbing at his gritty eyes.

“I did,” Shadra harrumphed. “Near to dawn, I returned, thinking you’d want to get an early start. You were... rampant,” distaste edged her voice. “And I thought it best not to rou—” the blush deepened. “Bother you.”

He cleared his throat self-consciously. “Ahrm... yes. Thank you. And please forgive me. I was—”

”I don’t want to know!” she blurted, spinning about and stomping off in the direction of the camp.

At the edge of his consciousness, he felt Sandahl amusedly projecting the difference between happy mares and unhappy mares. He told the horse to shut the hell up.

He gave Shadra some time to get back to camp and calm down while he thought over what he’d learned this morning. He was exhausted. The night with the little birds was vivid in his memory and he was very nearly content for the first time since he’d left the thieves’ station, but his body felt as though he’d physically performed every single act, to include the run there and back. He groaned. So, the line was secure but not toll free.

And then there was Shadra. Her actions had smacked of jealousy. That would have to be dealt with quickly and decisively. He had too many other problems without a jealous high mage plotting his doom.

He staggered to unsteady feet and shuffled towards the camp, still wondering what to do.

He was resting against the bank gnawing on iron bread and jerked meat when Shadra stormed into view some time later. “Are we to simply plant ourselves in this ditch and await the pleasures of the king?” she demanded.

“Shadra—”

”I will not be—”

“Shadra!” he ripped out in the command tone that had frozen hardened veterans in their tracks. “Sit down.”

Shadra sat, glaring at him from beneath a lowered brow and a wave of auburn hair, lower lip extended, arms crossed before her.

He gave her a moment to come to her senses and when that didn’t work, “What is your problem Shadra of the Purest Light, oh great and wise elder mage?”

The title did what probably nothing else would have. It made her aware of who she’d been yesterday. She shook herself visibly, lip retreating, a look of controlled panic sweeping across her face. Storm nodded minutely and got wordlessly to his feet. She didn’t even notice his departure.

What was her problem? Shadra struggled to ascertain what had come over her. Jealousy? Why? When had the man ever— her eyes slitted angrily as she suddenly realized her peril.

She held her smooth, unblemished hand before her regarding it as though it were a dangerous serpent. She drew a lock of auburn into view and allowed it to fall to her shoulder. Shadra of the purest light she may well be, but she was also a child.

He’d made of her a child, with a child’s tempers and a child’s... urges. Even as she struggled to sort herself out she could feel the hot blood racing through her veins. Feel the passions of a sixteen year old girl vying with the centuries of training and experience for control of her mind.

He’d done this to her! He’d— she shook herself again, tossing her hair about in a soft cloud. Whatever he’d done, however he’d done it, it was done. She’d survived her sixteenth year once before and she’d do it again.

With a last, glaring scowl over her shoulder at the villain who’d stolen her maturity, she settled herself down to fight the child for control. She would meditate. She would conquer. She would grow up.

Sandahl was out on the prairie to the north, alert for any pursuit that might result from yesterday’s fiasco. Storm, meanwhile, was hunkered down against the bank, Shadra and Corwyn arrayed before him, each glaring at him for their own reasons. He was trying very hard to figure out how much to tell them, and how to tell them that much.

Finally, “how much,” he asked Shadra, “could you see when you looked at me last night?”

Corwyn almost seemed to growl at that, and his glance sharpened. The boy would need talking to before very long.

Shadra thought a bit, face still stern, before answering. “You’ve a connection with the... horse... That’s certain. I’ve no idea of the why or the how of it, but it’s there.” Her brow lowered.

“You’ve other... connections. Quite a knot of them of varying degrees of strength, although..,” and she paused again. “Although three of them are quite strong.” as though the words tasted sour.

“That all?”

She shook her head in irritation. “Not remotely,” she told him. “You are not a man as the second world knows men. I’ve known it from my first sight of you and last night proved me correct. I know not what you might be, but man you are not.” And for some reason that seemed to irritate her even more.

“The old magic... the magic that should no longer exist... fills you near to bursting, and the magic of the second world flows to you as water through a wick.

“Oh,” she added offhandedly, “and you’re on fire.”

He chuckled at the last bit with the dark humor of the soldier; laughing at pain and death — even his own.

“And which question would you have me answer first?”

The three strands, she thought immediately. But she said, “any you’d like, oh Man.”

“Alright,” he thought to himself. He regarded the two before him and sighed. “You won’t believe a whole lot of what I’m about to tell you. You may not believe any of it.”

Shadra snorted through her nose. Corwyn remained silent

So he told them, as the day wore on. Of the war on the other side, of the first world, of his awakening in the second, of his meeting with Bayel and the quest he’d been set upon. His battles with the minions of Turalee, and finally about his wives.

Corwyn believed all of it. How could he not? Nothing about the man smacked of the mundane and, therefore, no tale could be implausible.

Shadra took the story in differently. “Those thick strands, then,” she posited. “These sylvans?”

“Two of them,” he confirmed. I’ve not traveled the third, but I surmise it’s Bayel.”

“Of course it would be,” she mumbled, “of course. Why wouldn’t it be Bayel? The oldest of all. Bayel. The god.” She shook her head. “And naturally I’d believe it. I who’ve studied the magicks of the second world, and, aye, the second world itself and all of its peoples?”

Storm waited quietly for it.

“I,” she continued, “who know that the forest people are both fanatically monogamous and rigidly xenophobic!”

But she was just being catty for the sake of being catty, for she did believe his story. All of it. She’d seen him in both realms. How could she not?

* * *

And Thus Ends Book One