Page 70 of Homeward for a Spell

“Oh, stop!” Wren snaps, more irritation than anything else filling her voice. She mutters something that sounds very much like, Bards. “I’ll take you both back to Arkney, my village. Lots of work to be done there, if you’re willing, and a room to see you through the winter.”

“Are you a healer?” Araphi asks as she helps Sage ease back into the chair. “Sage shouldn’t walk on this.”

“I have a measure of magic, but true healing is beyond me. My aunt had the touch, but the winds took her last month, and we’ve been short a healer in Arkney since.” Wren takes off her cloak and drapes it over one of the armchairs by the fire.

From its perch on the mantel, Goway hoots. Wren rolls her eyes again. “The bird says to tell you I’m the most powerful sorceress of my generation, but that’s nonsense. Birds will believe anything, truly. It’s astonishing. Now, may I take a look at this knee of yours?”

Sage nods and rolls up her pant leg. Her knee is more swollen today around the bedsheet bandaging, and bruises and scrapes line her calf where it dragged against rock below the water. Araphi wants to kiss every one of them.

Wren gently prods at Sage’s kneecap, testing the joint, and Sage inhales sharply. Araphi grips Sage’s shoulder, hoping that’s comfort enough.

“I can help, at least,” Wren declares with a nod. “It’ll have to heal naturally, but I can numb it enough to get you walking. Stay still.”

She wraps both hands around Sage’s calf and closes her eyes. Vermilion light, red as rubies, pours from her fingers. It knits around Sage’s leg, twining and weaving. Wren’s still concentrating across from them, but with a word, she pushes all of the red light into Sage’s knee. It winks out, and Sage lets out a long breath. Her head falls back against Araphi’s stomach.

Araphi’s fingers brush the back of Sage’s neck. “Better?”

“Much better,” Sage whispers. “Thank you, Wren.”

The sorceress makes a dismissive noise. “It was nothing. The magic will act as a kind of brace, though the wound will have to knit with rest and time. Let’s not make a meal of it, shall we? Now, if you’re able to walk, we should get moving. Another storm will be here soon, and we’ve got the better part of a five-mile hike downriver ahead of us.”

“Why are you doing this for us?” Araphi asks, hesitant as she is to question the woman who may well have saved their lives.

Wren glances around the cabin again. A shadow of sorrow crosses her delicate features. “Because someone once was very kind to me when I needed it most, and although he’s gone now, I’m still trying to reward that kindness.” Goway hoots again, and Wren scowls at it. “The bird says I should tell you the full tragic story of my lost love, but we’ll save that for a different time. Let’s get moving.”

With one last look at the cabin that was so very magical to them, Araphi follows Sage and Wren out the door.

27

Sage

The first time Sage sets eyes on Arkney, once they clear the sky-scratching pines and the mist that pools between them, she struggles to make sense of it. Instead of a scattering of rugged cabins hunkered down against the forbidding landscape, Wren’s village appears as one structure with several dozen rooftops and chimneys. It’s built into the foothills of the Kald Mountains and surrounded by a stone wall currently encased in moss and ice. The rocks that range from the size of scones to cannonballs are easily scalable, but stacked just high enough to keep out wandering beasts. There’s a sturdy wooden door, like a castle’s wicket gate, set into the side that faces down-mountain. All told, the long structure looks like a dragon’s spine curling up the slope.

“Better for moving about in winter,” Wren explains at Sage’s questioning glance. “How’s the leg holding up?”

It’s fine would roll so easily off the tongue. And undoubtedly, it’s better than it was; she never could have made it this far otherwise, even with the sturdy branch she found by the cabin to use as a walking stick. But Wren spoke truly. While the magic has numbed and braced the joint, it’s fading quickly. Her knee has still grown stiff and sore, a dull throb settling in, and it threatens to give out again if she shifts too much weight onto it for a second. Soon enough, she’ll be right back where she started. “I could use a rest,” Sage admits.

“Well, come on, then. Not far from a fireside chair now.” When Wren twitches her shoulder, Goway takes flight at her subtle cue, and Sage resists the urge to cover her head. The owl looks nothing like those gods-be-damned wraithverns, but it will be a while until she doesn’t flinch when the shadow of a winged thing crosses hers. “Let them know we’re coming,” she instructs her pet, oblivious to Sage’s discomfort.

“Goway can speak?” Araphi asks, astonished.

“Not to anyone besides me, but he can make a nuisance of himself till the morning watchman wakes in his tower.” She nods toward a bell-tower-like structure that rises from one of the rooftops, enclosed against the cold. “He’s probably asleep at his post now. Snow like this sends both beasts and travelers to ground. Good for a few day’s peace, though it does make for a very boring shift.”

They tuck their faces down into their collars and wraps as they leave the relative shelter of the trees, and the wind whips up to scrape snow across every inch of exposed skin. Wren claims there’s a path beneath their boots, but it’s buried under fresh snowfall, so they struggle upward through the drifts. Some are knee-deep. Araphi hovers next to Sage the whole time, poised to catch her in case her knee gives way. More likely, Sage would send them both tumbling back down the hillside, but she doesn’t push the bard away.

Sage has grown rather accustomed to having Araphi Clauneck by her side.

Once they’re close enough to count the icicles that hang from the rafters, Sage looks up to see Goway pecking at the frost-patterned windowpane of the tower. A moment later, the window swings outward, sending the owl flying with a disgruntled hoot until he comes to settle on Wren’s shoulder once more.

“That you, Morwena?” a sleep-rough voice bellows down.

“And who else would it be?” she calls back. “May we come in before our own breath freezes to our faces, Lenor?”

“Aye, aye, keep your breath in your mouth, and I’ll be down.”

Moments later (and yet somehow, also, ages later) the gate unlatches from inside. Lenor turns out to be a barrel-chested man with bushy blue-black eyebrows and a scarf tucked up to his blue-black mustache, so that he appears as mostly hair. But for all his gruffness, his blue eyes are kind as he regards Wren and curious as he takes them in. “Strays?” he asks.

“Much worse.” Wren rolls her eyes. “Adventurers.”