Finally, Rangar paced to the window and announced, “You should return with haste to Castle Mir, King Mars. Send us word as soon as you hear from your spies. I need to look after the safety of my people here in the Baersladen before I can think of leaving. I will work with Saraj and my army captain to reinforce village fortifications and set traps for the wolves while we wait to hear plans for the grand parlay. Though, I must admit, our supplies of poison and traps are running low. If only we had more hunters.”
Bryn sat straight as an idea came to her. “What if I could get you more skilled hunters with knowledge of the forest?”
“I’d say do it,” Rangar answered. “But who?”
“My sister. Elysander’s troupe of bandits live in the woods. They know how to hunt, and during the winter, they have nothing else to do. They could be the exact reinforcements we need.”
Valenden grinned. “Brilliant! They know how to have a good time, too—I always love some scandalous nights with bandits. Will you write a letter to your sister?”
She shook her head. “I don’t trust letters not to be intercepted, and we’re already using Zephyr to carry a message. I think this is one message that must be delivered in person by a trusted individual. Someone who knows them. Who’s, say, spent some scandalous nights with them.”
As all eyes fell on Valenden, he groaned, “At least you trust me.”
“Do you really think Elysander will help?” Mars asked. “As you described in your meeting with her, she was not inclined to get involved in politics. And Dresel's royal family is against the use of magic."
“The royal family might be, but Elysander still loves the Mir people, and now the Dresel people as well. They’re all under threat. You’ll just have to be very persuasive, Val.”
He stroked his chin, considering. “Shame she’s married . . .”
Bryn groaned and rolled her eyes.
“Very good.” Mars stood and smoothed a hand over his embroidered blindfold. “We shall await more news, and if the grand parlay is agreed to, we shall see you in the Wollin in a matter of weeks.” He turned in Bryn’s direction. “I’m sorry such concerns dampen your wedding bliss, my sister.”
“Life is full of good and bad,” Bryn said. “I’ll take what comes.” She squeezed his hands again. “I’m so glad you came, brother. I pray that in the Wollin, all three of us Lindane siblings shall be together again.”
“If the Saints will it,” he said with a nod.
* * *
For daysafter Mars and Illiana’s departure, Bryn threw herself into studying more hexes that might help them solve the mystery of the berserkir wolf attacks. Working with Mage Marna and Ren, she earned a hex for silencing a person’s tongue and another one for dulling a person’s memory. When Ren told her a rumor that Trei had borrowed books that they’d never found, she used the finding spell to locate them in an old chest that had been moved to a storeroom after Trei’s death, and pored through them. She read about the history of the Eyrie kingdoms, about the customs of each land, the natural resources of forest and desert and ocean, trying to find any mention of hex spells.
She was helping Rangar and a farming family reinforce their sheep corral against possible berserkir wolf attacks when a shadow passed in the falling snow overhead, followed by a familiar caw.
“That’s Zephyr,” Rangar said, tipping his head up and squinting into the stinging snow. “Mars must have sent him back with a message. You go—I’ll catch up to you when I finish here.”
Bryn mounted Fable and rode swiftly back to Barendur Hold, where Saraj was already waiting for her on the rooftop sentry post where the falcon had landed. The post offered meager cover from the snow, but it was enough shelter that Bryn lowered her cloak’s hood.
“He bears a message?”
Saraj nodded, stroking the bird as he rested on a perch after his long flight. She removed a small piece of rolled parchment from a wooden tube fastened to his leg and handed it to Bryn.
Footsteps sounded on the roof, and Rangar soon joined them, pushing back his hood and shaking out his hair. “The message?” he said, breathless from his ride back to the castle. “Read it.”
Bryn unrolled it with fingers numb from the cold.
“It’s from Mars,” she confirmed, then read aloud, “One of my spies was slain by a Ruma guard after inquiring about the wolf attacks in what I suspect was an attempt to keep him from discovering the truth. But one of the other two successfully infiltrated Baron Marmose’s manor house. He reports that as many as a dozen of the baron’s dog trainers suddenly fell ill and passed away. They say it was rancid poultry, a terrible accident.”
Bryn looked up from the letter. “An accident?”
“More like they were all poisoned,” Saraj muttered darkly, “to keep them from talking. But talking about what, exactly, is the question.”
Rangar drew a deep breath. “About their role in developing a hex to create the berserkir wolves, I’d wager. So it can never be traced back to Baron Marmose or the Rumese royal family.”
Bryn folded the letter and tucked it into her dress. She shivered from the wind. She’d underestimated Baron Marmose’s ambitions if he would go so far as to kill twelve of his own loyal workers.
“There’s something else,” Rangar said. “As I rode into the stables, a messenger awaited me with this.” He took an envelope from his cloak with the silver wax seal of Ruma. He read the letter swiftly and summarized, “It’s the invitation to the grand parlay. They set out their reasons as Mars said—the berserkir wolf attacks spurred by the ‘sin of magic’ throughout the Eyrie. Apparently, the Hytooths have agreed to host the gathering at Hytooth Palace in the Wollin on the next new moon.”
Bryn quickly calculated the timing as she hunched in her cloak against the blowing snow. “That’s in seven days.”
