“Amazing.”
Her compliment brought a smile to his face, but it soon fell again. “I’m sorry your first visit is for such grave concerns, Lady Bryn. I trust you met with no attacks on the road?”
“We were safe,” Rangar assured him. “Though some of the forest folk reported attacks nearby.”
Anter nodded, his long auburn hair sleek and smooth. “Yes, and in fact, a messenger arrived not long before you bearing more reports of wolf attacks. The berserkir wolves, as you call them.” He took a deep breath. “But you have traveled far. It is nearing suppertime. I’ll have someone take you to your rooms to rest, and then we can speak more over a meal.”
Rangar dipped his chin.
A young lad in green wool showed Valenden to his room, a chamber built over a cave so close to the waterfall that drips splashed the room’s single window, and then took Rangar and Bryn to a tower bedroom whose circular windows looked out among the treetops. More servants silently brought in basins of warm water, towels, and a pitcher of wine before leaving them to rest.
Bryn sank onto the bed, easing off her mud-caked boots. She sighed as she let herself flop backward. “My thighs are killing me.”
Rangar went over to the table to pour them mugs of wine. “Don’t talk like that, my love, or you’ll tempt me to be late to supper.”
“Lords and ladies, Rangar. You’re insatiable!”
He handed her the wine glass with a smirk. “It’s good that you understand the man you’re about to marry.”
He pinned her to the bed for a long kiss and seemed tempted to make good on his threat to be late for supper, but then groaned reluctantly and stood. “We shouldn’t keep our host waiting—though by the gods, it’s hard to step away from you.”
They bathed quickly and freshened their travel clothes, then were escorted to a private dining area on a balcony overlooking the waterfall. Anter, Valenden, and Lady Enis sat around a roast wild boar.
“King Rangar. Princess Bryn.” Lady Enis greeted them warmly and motioned to chairs. “Your brother has already sampled much of Vil-Kevi’s cuisine . . . and wine.”
Valenden raised his wine glass. From his unfocused eyes, it was clear he’d already downed at least a full bottle. Bryn rolled her eyes.
Prince Anter cut to the chase as soon as they’d been served. “Winter is hard enough in these lands; my people cannot also be fighting off berserkir wolves.”
Bryn rested her hands on either side of her plate. “Valenden and I examined a wolf carcass and found no evidence oflyssa. Our mages do not believe the wolves are infected. It isn’t a sickness we’re dealing with, but dark magic.”
Anter shared a long look with his cousin. “The same possibility crossed our minds, though our mages cannot identify any known hex capable of such a thing.”
“Nor ours,” Bryn confessed. She took a slow sip of wine while gazing at the falling waters. “Our head mage sent some of our primary texts to share with your magic casters, though I have examined the books myself and found nothing. Still, yours might discover something we overlooked.”
“We’ll be grateful to review them,” Lady Enis said.
Rangar wiped his mouth and said, “You say you have one of the wolves captured? A live one?”
“Yes,” Anter confirmed. “In a pit in a lower portion of the cave. Our mages cast a hex to put it to sleep after it attempted to bash its head in against the stone walls when we captured it.”
“I’d like to inspect it this evening,” Rangar said.
They continued to debate what might be causing the berserkir wolves to act so violently and then turned to how to protect the population until a solution could be found. Rangar offered to house any forest folk living near the border in one of the Baersladen’s mostly empty fortresses and vowed to send extra arrows to their archers’ stores.
“The thing I keep returning to,” Bryn said, “Is who has the motivation to cast a spell on the wolves? If it isn’t a natural process, as we all seem to believe, then what enemies does Vil-Kevi have?”
Anter leaned back in his chair as he considered this. “Our last war was fifty years ago against the ice folk incursion that came from across the Eyrie’s upper sea. We keep to ourselves here with our sister kingdom, Vil-Rossengard. My grandfather had to be dragged into signing the Treaty of Windvalley in the first place. He would have preferred us to remain our own sovereign land.”
“Yet you sided against the Mirien when my brother first rose to power,” Bryn said.
“In name, yes,” Prince Anter conceded. “We were all aware of your late parents’ tyranny, and it seemed your brother was posed to follow in their footsteps. It was a tense time. My father swore to fight the Mirien if needed—but war never came, fortunately.”
“Yet,” Valenden said darkly before downing more wine.
“And now, as I understand it, your brother intends to rule more equitably,” Anter said.
“That is true. My brother is not an enemy of your people, nor would he have reason to harm the forest folk.”
