“So you can see magic,” another person said. It was Rhys, one of the youngest of the group and certainly the most curious.
“And you can hear magic,” Brannan went on.
“I can see and hear the results, I suppose,” Deyvid clarified, “but the actual magic itself, not really.”
“I don’t understand,” Rhys said. “What do you mean by the results? You just said you could hear the voice, so the magic was affecting you?”
Deyvid shook his head. “Being able to hear the person speaking was the result of the magic. The magic itself was the spell laid on the stone that was carrying their voices to me. It looked like …” He shrugged. “Nothing but a piece of granite. To you, it might have looked like something completely different. I don’t know.”
“Fascinating,” Brannan, poking the fire aggressively. “Great, just how I wanted us to spend the evening—discussing magical theory with one of the greatest enemies Riyale has ever faced. You do know that a clan of Harriers were responsible for the loss of Gemsmit on the border last year, don’t you?”
“I do know that,” Petur said, intercepting the question before it could provoke an argument. “I was, in fact, there, leading the people who fought to get it back. You were posted in an oceanfront city at the time, I believe.”
Brannan flushed but continued doggedly, “Sire, I’m just saying—”
“I’m not interested in anything you have to say right now,” Petur snapped. “I’ve offered my hospitality to this man, and I expect my offer to be respected by all of you. Is that clear?”
One by one, they murmured their assent. Petur wasn’t sure whether or not he should press the point home when, suddenly, Lise returned with clothes for Petur under one arm and a set for Deyvid tucked under the other as well as a soft pair of moccasins.
“Your boots are soaked,” she said, laying the new ones down in front of Deyvid. “These should do well enough to get you back to the spot where you stored your equipment.”
Deyvid raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to let me go back and get my things?” he said to Petur.
“Of course,” Petur said, internally smacking himself. He should have thought of that. “I can’t leave you to try to keep up with us with nothing but a brace of knives. An incomplete one, in fact.”
“Well, that’s your fault,” Deyvid pointed out.
“How dare you accuse our prince of—”
“Brannan,” Petur said. “Enough.”
Brannan subsided once more with a grumpy frown, and Petur turned back to Lise. “That’s a good idea. As soon as he’s changed, escort him there and back again, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
It was actually a good opportunity to learn about Harrier methods of concealment, Petur reflected as he began to pull on his dry clothes. They tended to cache weapons along the edges of the forest at the northern border of Riyale, but even with their enhanced senses, it took guidance from the three and the devil’s own luck to find where they hid all of their—hmm. Wait a second.
“Are you going to change?” Petur asked Deyvid pointedly, nudging the dry things in front of the man with his foot.
“I’d rather not do it with an audience,” Deyvid said through gritted teeth.
Brannan brayed with laughter. “Oh, we have a shy Harrier. That’s new. What, when you’re not shooting arrows through people’s throats or setting their houses on fire, you like to conceal yourselves behind folding fans and twitter to each other like a simpering group of maidens?”
“Something like that,” Deyvid replied. Petur admired his inability to be riled even as he wished for the tenth time that Brannan would learn to hold his damn tongue.
“Go thirty feet in that direction,” Petur said, pointing over to where he knew they didn’t have a lookout. “No one will see you, and no one will watch you. My word on it.”
“Your word,” Deyvid muttered as he got to his feet, grabbing up the clothes. “Yes, which is worth so much.”
Petur ignored the rising grumbles from his squad and replied with perfect placidity, “You’ll soon learn just how good my word is.”
“We’ll see,” Deyvid said, then moved off into the shadows.
As soon as he was out of sight, with Lise ever so carefully shadowing him, Brannan turned to Petur and hissed, “My lord, truly, we don’t need to bring that man along for this. I understand things were tense on the road. It’s clear you had afight on your hands. But we’re the best Riyale has to offer. We could handle a group of rogue mages.”
“There are several things wrong with what you just said,” Petur replied, sitting down on the log that Deyvid had vacated and holding his hands out toward the fire. “Ginnie, if you’d be so kind as to bring me some of the leftovers from dinner?”
“’Course, sire.” She jumped to her feet, and Petur returned his attention to Brannan.
