The Silver Pear (6 page)

R
ane knew
Ylana was just behind the house. He’d been watching her since Kayla stepped back and left the witch to decide whether she would take her on as a pupil or not.

Kayla had helped him set up camp on the edge of the clearing, and then taken some soap, a bucket and some clean clothes down to the stream to wash while Rane got the camp fire going. It wasn’t so easy now he’d lost his fire stick to Travis. He had to do it the hard way.

Ylana had eaten a meal, and then shuffled out of the cottage and disappeared around the back.

Rane gave her five minutes, and then rose from his place by the fire.

He didn’t like the sudden silence, now that both women were gone. Didn’t like the thought that perhaps Ylana had been gathering her strength, biding her time, and now she was feeling better, had followed Kayla down to the stream and was bespelling her right now.

He didn’t even pretend casual disinterest as he rounded the corner, fingers flicking as he contemplated pulling his knife.

His gaze flicked over the woodpile, the path leading to the right. He spotted the small drying shed, leaning drunkenly against a massive oak, just as Ylana stepped out of its crooked door, some dried herbs in her hands.

She stared at him with deep enmity.

He knew she disliked him, but it appeared that had changed to hate in the last few days. Or she wasn’t bothering to hide her true feelings any more.

Something snaked up from the ground at his feet, striking his cheek before catching hold of his wrist.

A creeper, he realized, as it yanked him down, forcing him to one knee. Mint. He could smell the freshness of it as it wound around his forearm.

He reached for his boot to get his knife, his gaze on her as he did.

Ylana didn’t move, watching him as a rope of woody green tightened around him with painful, bruising force, her face alight with satisfaction.

His knife sliced through the stem easily, and he staggered back, flicking off the pieces still twined around his arm.

Her eyes narrowed, and he sensed her building her power for another strike, when it seemed as if the shadows themselves gathered together and leaped at her.

Sooty.

Taken by surprise, Ylana fell against the wooden door of her shed, her hand drawn back to strike out at the cat, and Rane dived toward her, knife out, blade lengthening, until it was up against her neck.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you. Sooty belongs to Kayla.”

Ylana lowered her hand, looked away from him to the cat as if the shimmering blade wasn’t pressed against her skin.

“I’ve seen her before, hunting in the forest. She used to be Gert’s daughter’s cat, until the wild magic touched her.”

Rane nodded.

“I would never have taken her as a familiar. Not something transformed by wild magic.” Ylana struggled up on her elbows, and Rane let her, moving back a little, but he kept his knife ready.

“Kayla did.” He reached out a hand, and scratched Sooty between her ears.

The cat was still looking at Ylana with an unblinking stare, paws on either side of her shoulders, but she bumped her head upward at the feel of Rane’s fingers, tipping up her chin.

“She’s protective of you, too.”

Rane scratched a little harder. “Yes.”

Ylana’s face was sour with anger. She looked the furtherest thing possible from the suave, flamboyant Jisuel, Rane and Soren’s best client for wild magic items.

But Ylana and Jisuel were one and the same.

Ylana had shown him, had changed from one to the other before his eyes a few days ago, and revealed a deception that had gone on for over a year.

He couldn’t help but see it as a betrayal.

Jisuel had drunk with him and Soren at the inns of Therston after a good day at the Hidden Market. And while there had always been a dangerous edge to the client Rane had thought a young, reckless nobleman, there had been camaraderie, too.

Or, he’d thought there was.

He’d been wrong.

Ylana had drunk ale and laughed, but now Rane knew it had been at them, not with them.

She’d bought up every wild magic item he and his brother had for sale from seemingly bottomless pockets.

“How did you pay for all those things you bought from us?” The gold had been real enough. Jisuel wouldn’t have lasted long if the coins he’d paid with had disappeared or turned to leaves or acorns the next day, but seeing her cottage, the way she lived, Rane couldn’t fathom where the money had come from.

“I used earth magic to find some troll gold hoards.” There was something in the way she said it, something a little guilty, that rang a bell.

“Troll? That’s why that troll was chasing you the other day? It caught you stealing some of its hoard?” He’d risked his life to bring that troll down. And Ylana had taunted him for his efforts, when she should have been thanking him.

Her mocking smile showed a mouth full of surprisingly good teeth and then she shrugged. “Seeing as we are sharing secrets, why did you always ask about wild magic?”

“What are you talking about?”

“In Therston, whenever I saw you at the Hidden Market, you were always asking people about wild magic. Asking me. Why?” Ylana pulled herself out from under Sooty, and away from the tip of his knife.

Rane sat back on his haunches. “My father was touched by wild magic. He’s a tree now. Or, mostly a tree.”

Ylana blinked at him. “You were trying to find a way to release him? Change him back?”

It was most likely futile, but he had never given up hope there would be a way. The fact that his father was growing leaves made it impossible to dismiss that he might be alive inside his wood and bark shell. “If I could.”

“I thought you were a sorcerer’s spy.” Ylana leaned against the sun-bleached silver of the drying shed’s door, and rested her head against the frame. The bitterness had gone. She just seemed tired, now.

“I thought the same of you.” Rane had often wondered if Jisuel had been buying the items as a front for a sorcerer, so other sorcerers didn’t notice one of their own building up a stockpile.

He had never come close to the truth. That Ylana had taken on the guise of Jisuel to buy up as many wild magic items as she could, to keep them out of sorcerer hands.

“How many sorcerers do you think are up to a fight for control against Eric the Bold?” If they were going to stop Eric, they had to stop the other sorcerers he was competing against, as well.

“Two.” Ylana moved restlessly, and he rose to his feet, stepped back so she could stand. Sooty stared at her, unmoving.

“I’d hoped there was only one.” Rane gripped his knife at the thought of two more like Eric.

“If Nuen of Harness wasn’t injured, it would be three, so it’s better than it could be.”

Rane hunched his shoulders at that. “Nuen isn’t injured anymore. When Kayla rescued Soren from Jasper, the golden apple was knocked out of Soren’s hands inside Jasper’s stronghold moments before Kayla got them out. There is no question Nuen has it, and has used it to heal himself by now.”

Ylana stared at him with such horror, he forced his shoulders back. Looked her straight in the eye.

“What are you going to do about it?” Her voice was flat.

“I thought, if Kayla was busy here with you for a few days, I could spy on the sorcerers you think are up to Eric’s level. Get a feel for their weaknesses. As that includes Nuen, if I get the chance to steal the golden apple back, I will.”

She gave a derisive laugh. “And how likely do you think that will be?”

Rane shrugged. “I’ve gotten the better of Jasper and Nuen before, and so has Kayla. You never know.”

She looked as if she wanted to attack him again, clenching her fists as green light danced over her knuckles.

Time for a distraction, because no matter how he’d love a good, hard fight with her, in whatever form she chose to take, that wouldn’t help Kayla.

“I have your gem.” He slipped a hand into the leather purse at his belt, drew out the gem covered in a small piece of cloth.

She hesitated, then put out her hand to take it, the magic she was pulling to her fading away. “Ever since Kayla took it, I’ve wondered what Eric could have wanted with it. It isn’t even wild magic-made.” She pushed back the cloth carefully.

He frowned. “Not wild magic? But . . . the light when it’s touched is purple.”

Her lips twisted. “And just because a thing shoots out purple light, it must be wild magic, eh? So a sorcerer wanting to make people believe a thing is wild magic-made, need only imbue purple light into it, instead of blue, and everyone is fooled.”

Rane grimaced. He’d been so sure it was wild magic-made, he hadn’t realized it didn’t call to him as wild magic always did.

“One of my other suppliers—Jisuel’s suppliers, I should say—found a sorcerer’s stash in the forest. There were a few wild magic items in it, but most were sorcerer-made, and this was one of them.”

“Is it Eric’s? Is that how he knew you had it? I’ve heard sorcerers’ things can call to them.”

Ylana shook her head. “I’ve stolen things from Eric before. This isn’t his. It doesn’t feel like his magic. But it could belong to a sorcerer he’s killed or stripped of power. If he used their staff, he could get an approximate idea of where it was.”

“And if it’s sorcerer-made . . .” Rane had thought Soren was lost to him. Wild magic was capricious, unpredictable. He’d thought if Soren wasn’t dead, he was most likely in a place no-one could reach him, or turned into something else entirely. But now . . . “The people who touch this or get caught in the blast of light from it when it’s touched disappear. What use would a sorcerer have for something like that?”

Ylana looked down at the stone, glinting in the last of the evening light. “A quick escape, perhaps. Touch it, and get taken to a safe place. Even if you’ve fought hard and your power is depleted, you could easily get away if you’ve imbued the gem with enough power earlier.”

“And if the sorcerer has created the illusion it’s wild magic-made, most wouldn’t risk touching it again if it’s left behind, which it always is, because they’d be too scared of where they’d end up. Or at least, they’d think long and hard before they did, which would give the sorcerer time to get away or prepare a defense at the other end. So Soren could be alive. Someplace the sorcerer who made this thought was safe.”

Ylana shrugged. “It’s a possibility. Not a certainty.”

Rane didn’t care. A possibility was more than he’d had before. “It doesn’t work very well, if that’s its purpose. Those caught in its light go, too.”

“Perhaps the sorcerer didn’t get it quite right, or he anticipated having someone with him he wanted to protect, so the possibility of an enemy coming through with him was less important than the idea of leaving someone behind who was in his care.”

“What’s going on?” Kayla’s call came from the woods to the left, and Rane saw her step out from between the trees, hefting a full wooden bucket.

Sooty turned to Kayla and gave a chirp, but she didn’t leave her position, blocking Ylana’s path.

“Rane?” Kayla brought the smell of spring water and crushed river ferns with her, her damp hair clinging to her neck, her clean shirt and trousers crumpled from their time in her bag.

His princess.

He took the water bucket from her and set it on the grass, lifted her hands and kissed her fingertips.

She looked down. “What is that on your wrist?”

He looked down himself, saw the red welt where Ylana’s plant had grabbed him.

He said nothing, and she looked from him to Ylana, noticed the knife in his hand.

She pulled her hands away, clenching them at her side. “That was you?” Her eyes were hard as she glared at the witch.

It still took Rane by surprise, the way she defended him. It warmed something inside him he’d thought too cold to revive.

Ylana cocked her head. “I won’t be chastised by a baby like you, Kayla of Gaynor. But,” she bent and picked up the dried herbs Sooty had knocked from her hands, “it won’t happen again.”

Rane watched as she slipped the gem into the pocket of her dress, and suddenly wished he hadn’t given it to her. It was his link to Soren, if he couldn’t find him any other way.

Ylana pushed past Sooty and walked around them, disappearing into the last of the twilight as she went back into her house. Sooty curled up where she sat, as if that had been her plan all along. She started cleaning herself.

“Was it a mistake, coming here?” Kayla’s fingers touched his wrist delicately.

He shook his head, slipped his knife into his boot and took her hand. “She told me things about the gem. Things that make me think Soren isn’t as good as dead. And I would never have known that if we hadn’t come back.”

“Oh!” Kayla’s eyes shone with sudden tears. “That is good news.”

He hadn’t had someone who shared his joys and triumphs in a long time. Soren had, once, before their father died, but not since then. It was heady to have that again. To feel Kayla’s fingers tighten against his.

It made what he needed to say next even harder.

“I’m going to leave you to train with her, if she agrees to take you. Go off on my own. Things will be easier between you and her if I’m not here. Something about me sets her off. I told her I’ll go spy on the sorcerers. And now I know there’s a chance Soren could be in a sorcerer’s stronghold, I’m even more anxious to see what they’re up to.”

“What did she say to that?”

Rane hefted the bucket. “Not much.” He started walking back to their camp, tugging her along.

The fire had almost died so he set the bucket down and went back for some logs.

As he put them on the fire, the flames flared and he watched the way the light bathed Kayla in a warm glow, catching the auburn strands in her dark hair. “When I saw your face after the tournament in Gaynor, the moment you realized I had tricked you into helping me and that I wasn’t after your hand but the golden apple, I made a promise to myself. That I would take the golden apple to Jasper in exchange for Soren, and after that, whatever Soren did, whatever happened, he was on his own. I wasn’t going to rescue him again. The price was too high.”