The Blight of Muirwood

Book 2: Legends of Muirwood

by Jeff Wheeler

Genres: Fantasy; Epic Fantasy; Fantasy action & adventure; Historical Fantasy; Romantic Fantasy; Sword & Sorcery; Young adult; YA Epic Fantasy; Coming of Age; YA Coming of Age

Synopsis

In The Blight of Muirwood, the second book in the Muirwood Trilogy, Lia finds herself filled with inner turmoil after the great battle of Winterrowd that led to the death of the wicked king and her closest ally. Despite her reservations, Lia is called to be an official protector of Muirwood Abbey and is charged to employ her magic to defend Ellowyn Demont, the lost heir of the fallen kingdom of Pry-Ree. Her duties are put to the test when the Queen Dowager arrives in Muirwood accusing the Aldermaston, the abbey's overseer, for the king's death. Amidst the turmoil, battle ensues, and Lia learns of a terrible plague that threatens to cover the land in darkness and death. Atop it all, the magic of the world begins to fail. In a quest to undo the devastation, Lia's path brings her to a startling revelation that will change her life forever.

Release date: January 15, 2013

Publisher: 47North

Print pages: 466

Sample

CHAPTER ONE:

Whitsunday

 

 

Someone threw a stone or a spoiled fruit at the man perched atop the maypole, and he nearly lost his balance. After ripping his cap from his head, he shook it at the offender, probably a young man dashing through the crowd. Then grumpily, he planted the cap back on his head, made a gesture of frustration, and continued tying the sashes to the rings crowning the maypole. One by one, the colorful sashes tumbled down.

“He almost fell off that time,” Sowe said, wincing.

Lia could not help grinning. “Every year someone tries to knock him down. Every year. What would happen if they did? He would probably break his neck, and then there would be no dancing.”

“Maybe that is why the boys do it.”

“Not all of them hate dancing. What color sash do you want, Sowe?”

“It does not matter,” she said, looking down. “No one is going to ask me to dance.” Her shoulders drooped. Dark hair veiled part of her face.

“Only if you hide up here in the loft. If you go to the maypole, someone will dance with you. I know it.”

“I do not think so.”

“Thinking that will surely make it so.”

Sowe just shrugged and looked back out the window to the maypole in the middle of High Street. “What color do you think I should choose?”

“Blue,” Lia said. “It matches your eyes as well as our dresses.” She also looked back. The maypole was taller than the walls surrounding Muirwood’s grounds. It was a tradition of sorts, these many years they had spent in the kitchen together, to watch it hoisted up and festooned with decorations. But this year was different. They were both old enough to dance around the maypole. The thought brought giddiness and jittery nerves. Both Duerden and Colvin would ask her to dance, so she did not have Sowe’s fear of being a girl lacking a partner. But she did not want to embarrass herself by tripping on her hem or squashing someone’s foot as they skipped around the circle, holding hands. As she imagined the dance, a sudden pang of sadness struck her. The man who had taught them the maypole dance was dead, and it was her fault. Even the smallest things reminded her of Jon Hunter.

“What is wrong?” Sowe asked, seeing the expression on Lia’s face, studying her with concern.

“Just remembering when Jon taught us the dance.”

Sowe’s smile wilted. She reached out and gripped Lia in a tight hug.

Pasqua’s voice bellowed from below. “How long does it take to fetch a bag of milled flour, I ask you? Stop watching the window, the pole will still be there when your chores are finished. Do you smell the honey cakes in the oven? Mind you, do not forget the sugarplums, the tourtelettes, the sambocade. And I need you to carry out the Gooseberry Fool before you change. If you spill and make a mess of yourselves before the dance, you will regret it. Get down here, girls. If I have to come up there, I will bring a switch. I will. Or a broom.”

Lia and Sowe grinned at each other through their tears, for they both knew that Pasqua was totally incapable of climbing the loft ladder. They hugged each other fiercely a moment longer, saying nothing, then brushed their eyes and hurried down, moving through the kitchen as if preparing for battle. Every open space on the tables was crammed with trays already spilling over with sweets and delights that only emerged the week of Whitsunday. Lia snitched a tiny Royal cake and stuffed it into her mouth. Sowe looked shocked and then tried not to giggle.

Pasqua’s sleeves were rolled up, and she was everywhere at once, stirring pots, poking loaves in the ovens, cracking eggs, and ladling honey. Lia balanced the trays on barrels and chests, while Sowe scrubbed pots clean so that other dishes could be started.

“Lia, take the pizzelles to the manor house,” Pasqua said. “They are for the Aldermaston’s guests this afternoon. Hurry back, girl. Do not dawdle and gawk! There is much to do.”

As Lia approached the door with a tray of pizzelles, it opened from the outside. Sunlight blinded her for a moment, and she did not recognize the man in the doorway. Though she did not know him, he walked in as confidently as if he had entered the kitchens a hundred times.

He was shorter than Lia but as old as the Aldermaston and Pasqua. He had a cropped beard that was well salted, matching the rough tangle of hair atop his head. The leather hood was pulled down about his dirty neck and shoulders, and he wore stained leathers beneath a rough-looking tunic black with sap spots and a sheathed gladius belted to his waist. The sight of the weapon struck Lia like thunder. If that did not, the bow sleeve around his shoulder would have. The wild look of him, the oil and leather smell of him, reminded her fiercely of the man she had buried in the Bearden Muir.

“Who is barging into my kitchen on Whitsunday,” Pasqua said, her voice building to a roar as she turned around. She was dumbfounded a moment. “Martin?”

His voice was loud and thickly accented. “It is a good reason, Pasqua, and I will beg you not to raise your voice at me again. Even these many years have not dulled the ache from hearing you rant, by Cheshu. Tell me where the Aldermaston is, and I will be on my way as quickly as I came.” He turned his fiery eyes to Lia. “Do not stare so, lass. That will not do. Not at all. The rudeness of children these days. I will relieve you of several of those since the tray looks so heavy.” And with dirty fingers, he snatched three pizzelles and started eating one. Crumbs clung to his beard.

Lia looked back at Pasqua. She stood silently, her mouth gaping open, staring at the intruder. “Martin,” she said again, almost whispering. Then her eyes blazed with white-hot heat. “Out. Now. Out!”

He leaned against the doorframe and cocked his eyebrow at her, waiting.

“Get that tray away from him, Lia. Do not let him steal another bite. Where is that broom? Sowe—the broom! Out, Martin. Out!”

“Huff and holler all you like, Pasqua. Just tell me where I can find the Aldermaston, and I will go.” He wandered over to a nearby barrel with a perfect dish of sambocade. Not a slice had been cut into it yet. “I always did fancy this dish of yours. I just might have a taste of it.”

“If you touch it, I will have your finger in a stew!”

He stood over it, eyeing it hungrily. “Just a little. I will use a spoon.”

“Do. Not. Touch. It!”

“The Aldermaston is in the manor,” Lia said, nodding to the man respectfully and nudging him with her eyes toward the door. “I will take you, sir, as I was just on my way.”

“Kind of you lass, but I know the way. Much has changed since I last roved these grounds. Much indeed, including yourself.” His eyes burned like blue fire. “Why, you were but a mewling little thing. It was I who found you in a basket that night, lass. I who brought you to Pasqua, if she has sense enough to remember your first taste of milk. I left Muirwood when you were but a seedling, but how you have sprouted! You have the same look about you. Why, you are even taller than me now. On our way then. Pasqua, I will have some of that later, mind you. You will save me a slice.”

And he said it in such a way that Lia felt the tingle of the Medium thread through his words.

 

***

 

“You wanted to see me when the guests left, Aldermaston?” Lia said, clenching her hands as she stepped into his study. “Astrid said they were gone.”

The Aldermaston’s voice was leathery and out of breath. “You may go, Martin. Enjoy the festival. I will speak to her. Alone.”

She had interrupted a conversation and paused, looking about the room. Lia had not seen Martin in the shadows on the other side at first. He blended in well, his features still and brooding. With a sour-faced shrug, he rose from the window seat and crossed to the door, staring intently at Lia all the while, his expression growing sterner and sterner, as if he found something very distasteful about meeting her a second time.

Even with the conversation unfinished, Martin obliged. “All in due time, Aldermaston. Aye, all in due time. Enjoy the festival. As if I would enjoy myself watching for sneaky cutpurses or learners getting too cuddly under the eaves instead of eating finch pie. Enjoy myself, by Cheshu.” He gave Lia one final scorpion look and then shut the door behind him, hard.

Lia turned and found the Aldermaston reaching down and lifting something heavy to the table. She recognized it instantly as Jon Hunter’s gladius, except it was polished, and the leather scabbard smelled of oil soap. Next, he set down two leather bracers, a shooting glove, a tunic girdle, and a quiver of arrows. Each item had been painstakingly polished. Finally, the bow came next, and the Aldermaston set it on top of them all. Slowly, deliberately, he pushed them toward her.

Lia swallowed. “I do not understand.”

“The Medium weighs heavily on me tonight, child. Concerning you. The feelings have persisted, and I am too old to bother ignoring them. These are yours now. Tomorrow, after Whitsunday, you are the new hunter of Muirwood. I sent for Martin to train you. He is not pleased with the choice, as you could tell, but he will obey. There is no one better than he that I could trust to train you. He is Pry-rian, actually, which makes it all the more interesting, considering our discussions since the death of the old king at Winterrowd. Your training begins tomorrow, as I said.”

Years before, Lia had stumbled off the ladder steps carrying a heavy sack of flour. She had fallen on her back, the sack spewing flour dust all over her, nearly choking her to death. She felt like that now, her world turned upside down, her head aching and mouth too full of questions to even know how to start speaking.

The Aldermaston slowly stood and walked to another chest. He gently opened it. “You say nothing?” he asked.

“I am too…I am too startled to speak. What about my duties in the kitchen?”

He looked closely at her, squinting. “You will be replaced with another helper. It happens often enough. It would not be possible for you to do both duties, Lia. You must learn to fight, to hunt, to handle animals.” His gaze penetrated her soul. “You will memorize the secret tunnels beneath the grounds for errands that I will send you on. Be one of my advisors, like Prestwich and Pasqua. And Martin. You are to be one of the Abbey’s defenders now. Since you are so talented with the Medium already, you will even handle some of the outer defenses, the stones that warn us of danger. The stones that defend us. That is a duty that Jon could never fulfill because the Medium never heeded him. You are different.”

Become a hunter? Her? The thought of leaving the kitchen made her ill. Leave Pasqua and Sowe again so soon? Her experience with Colvin in the Bearden Muir and Winterrowd was hardly a fortnight ago, and she finally felt safe again. Now the Aldermaston ruined it with his words. Yet at the same time, she was excited, thrilled that he trusted her despite her youth. That he needed her. That the Medium needed her.

Her mind was so full, her question came out a little foolishly. “Has there ever been a girl before?”

“Pardon me, Lia?”

“As your hunter—I mean, as the Aldermaston’s hunter. Has it always been a boy?”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Does that matter?”

It was difficult to explain her feelings. “What will everyone say? They will wonder why you chose me and not someone strong like Getman Smith, or some other wretched like Asdin, who you trust with messages.” They will mock me, she thought, her eyes boring into his.

He was quiet a moment, his expression beginning to twist into annoyance.

“Fools mock,” he answered gruffly. “Tongues wag. Babies cry. And goats bleat.” He reached down into the chest he hovered near and pulled out a bundle of soft blue fabric. “They would fuss and fret no matter who I set in that position. Many did the same when Jon became the Abbey’s hunter. But only because they do not understand that I did not choose him. Neither did I choose you. Muirwood is guided by the Medium, not by me.” He paused and studied her face. “Tomorrow, the training begins. Tonight though, you must dance.” He approached and handed her the bundle, which she discovered to be a new cloak and dress.

His voice was thick with emotion. “I cannot believe you are old enough for the Whitsunday festival. I knew this time would come. I always knew it. The night of the storm when you stole the ring. I was so angry with you, that you stole something valuable from my chamber. A gold ring. Yet the Medium forbid me to reclaim it from you or to chastise you. You still wear it around your neck. The Medium was aware that you would need it. And you did, in the Bearden Muir. Just as it is aware that you need this experience now. Here, take these. Your old cloak and dress are fit for rags now. Pasqua has been telling me for some time that you are still growing. And since tonight is the maypole dance, we thought it best if you and Sowe had new dresses and girdles. Go child. Return in the morning for the sword and the rest instead of bringing me my breakfast.”

Lia bit her lip. “Does Pasqua know?”

The Aldermaston shook his head. “Not yet. She will know tonight, and I will tell her.”

Lia took the soft bundle and hugged it to her chest. Her feelings swarmed, threatening her with tears, but she clenched them back, refusing to cry in front of him. For a moment, for an instant, she had hoped he was going to tell her that she could become a learner at the Abbey. Colvin had promised her that. Would he not have made the arrangements for her to start when the new first years arrived? More than anything, she wanted a tome of her own and the implements of scriving. She wanted to read about the mastons of the past and how they had learned to tame and be tamed by the Medium. That was what she wanted, not becoming a hunter. The experience in the Bearden Muir still haunted her dreams at night. She never wanted to go back there.

Closing her eyes, Lia nodded and turned away from the Aldermaston, uncertain what she should be feeling toward him. Gratitude? Dismay? Trust? Betrayal? Why were her feelings always so tangled and confusing with him?

She hurried out of the manor house to the kitchen. The sun was low in the sky and sinking fast. The festival would begin soon. Everything in her world was about to change.

Desperately, she wanted to talk to someone, to spill her feelings and know she would be listened to. Someone who knew about facing their fears and rising above them. Her heart wrenched with confusion. It was not Sowe she wanted to tell. It was Colvin. She was grateful that she would see him soon. For word had spread all day that many knight-mastons who had received their collars and spurs at Winterrowd had come to celebrate Whitsunday at Muirwood.

 

***

 

Sowe clenched Lia’s arm, walking so close their feet almost tangled. Her voice was soft and frantic, her breath fragrant from the mint leaves Pasqua had given them. She had also tried to tame Lia’s curly hair, but that was always its own challenge. “Tomorrow? You are leaving tomorrow? That is not fair, Lia. You are my sister, not just my friend. How can he separate sisters?”

Lia kept her voice low since there were so many others crowding through the gate, trying to leave the grounds for the village beyond.

“The Aldermaston said he would tell Pasqua tonight. But what can she do, Sowe? He is committed to doing this. When has she ever been able to change his mind? Look, do you see Reome over there? Look how she has braided her hair. She is too beautiful. It makes me ill.”

Sowe squeezed her arm even tighter when the maypole came into view, illuminated by torches and rushlights. “I have never been so nervous. We should have practiced more. What if I stumble?”

“You will not stumble, Sowe.”

“What if I do?”

“If you keep thinking about that, it is bound to happen! Just breathe deeply. This is our first year, no one is expecting us to dance all that well.”

“Who is that young man who just asked Reome?” Sowe whispered. “His arms are enormous!”

“The local blacksmith, I think,” muttered Lia jealously. He was a head taller than the other boys. “Ugh, there is Getman. Pray he does not see us.”

“He is coming our way, Lia!”

In an awful moment, she realized Sowe was right. They had just exited the gates with the flow of the crowd, and Getman appeared from their left and cut a course directly barring their way to the maypole. Lia’s stomach shriveled, and she searched the crowd for a sign of Colvin. Where was he?

“Will you dance with me?”

Lia looked at him scornfully, hating even the thought of touching his sooty hand. But she realized with some surprise that he was not even looking at her, but at Sowe, who squeezed her arm so tightly it hurt.

Sowe mumbled an answer, but the crowd was so boisterous that Lia knew he had not heard her.

“Will you?” he repeated, his eyes blazing, daring her to humiliate him with a rejection.

Sowe released Lia’s arm and extended her hand. A look of victory filled Getman’s eyes, and he snatched her hand and tugged her after him, for the first circle was forming around the maypole already. Looking back, Sowe met Lia’s gaze, pleading with her for rescue; there was nothing Lia could do but watch them. Watch them twirl and dance. Watch the torchlight glisten on Sowe’s dark hair as they circled around the pole, back again, swirling, dancing.

Everything seemed to slow like thick honey. It was as if Lia saw her friend for the first time, even though she knew Sowe’s face better than anyone’s. But it was the unforgiving look in Reome’s eyes that spoke the truth. Reome also watched Sowe as she danced—and it was the look of utter jealousy. The look that sprouts from a proud woman’s heart when it realizes someone else is more beautiful. Sowe was completely ignorant of the scathing stare. She was shy with Getman, but that only added to her appealing qualities. They twirled, and they danced the other direction. Around the pole and back, weaving the ribbons until the entire maypole was sheathed in silk. Lia stood aloof, with some other girls who did not have partners.

When the song was finished, the dancers were given a reprieve while the coiled ribbons were untangled. Sowe left Getman graciously and started away when another young man, the Tanner boy, appeared breathlessly at her side and asked for the next dance. He claimed her hand and tugged her back toward the newly gathering circle. Sowe looked over her shoulder, searching, but their eyes did not meet.

Lia stood there, her stomach twisting into knots. There were learners dancing with learners, their fine cut gowns and gold-threaded tunics dazzling with jewelry, their skin spicy with the scent of costly perfumes. But on Whitsunday, even the wretcheds were their equals. No one was forbidden to dance around the maypole.

A band of knights emerged from around the almonry, and Lia’s heart nearly burst with relief. They were dressed in the same uniform, each wearing a gleaming collar and chain, the same she had seen around Colvin’s neck. She bit her lip, searching their faces. They were young, all of them, and quite sure of themselves. But none of them were familiar to her. They approached a gaggle of beautiful learners, who Lia had known and served dinner to, and then escorted them to the circle. Lia watched them dance, again on the sidelines. As soon as the round was finished, Sowe was beset again by another youth—this time, a learner in fine clothes who had been watching her. An ugly feeling began to bloom in Lia’s stomach. She crushed it down, unwilling to let the feeling coalesce into an envious thought. It was Sowe’s third dance already.

Where was Colvin? He had promised he would dance with her. Where was he?

“Lia?”

She turned, expecting to see him, but it was Duerden. He coughed, trying to work up his courage. He looked so young and small, even though they were the same age, for she was much taller than him. “Lia, would you…would you do me the honor and dance with me?”

Anything was better than the agony of standing alone for the third dance. She looked down at him. In the back of her mind, she remembered being teased about his height.

“Yes, Duerden. Of course I will. I would be pleased to.”

His hand was sweaty. He led her awkwardly to the maypole ring. Reome saw them, sizing them both up, and could not be bothered to conceal a smirk. Sowe stood across the ring from them, holding hands with the learner who had claimed her.

“It is lovely this evening…you look…lovely this evening.” It was a gallant attempt, but it felt forced. Everyone in the outer circle held hands, the girls on the left of each boy.

“You do not need to praise me, Duerden,” Lia said. “We have been friends for a year now. Are you excited to see your family before starting the second year? Are they staying in the village?”

“Yes, at the Swan. They are over there, actually, by the booth where Pasqua is selling her treats. My father is the one stuffing his face with a tart.” She saw him. He was short as well. His mother was taller, more Lia’s height. She cringed inside.

“Will he mind seeing you dance with me?” Lia asked in a low voice as the circle began skipping around the maypole.

“No, Lia. It is not your fault you are a wretched, after all. I have never looked at you that way. I would like…you to meet them. My parents. After the circle is done.”

Lia closed her eyes, grateful to be dancing, but uncomfortable. Duerden was a good-natured boy. He had always been friendly to her, but she had no other feelings for him.

“I would like that,” she said, but it felt like a lie on her tongue. She glanced back at Pasqua’s booth, which was brisk with business as it was each year. A year ago, she had watched the maypole dance with hungry eyes. So much had changed.

“Have you heard the latest news about Winterrowd?” Duerden asked as the circle stopped and began rotating the other direction. “The old king was killed by hired archers, they say. Pry-rian archers. Do you know about Pry-Ree, Lia? About their mercenaries?”

Her stomach did flip-flops as it had every time he mentioned the battle of Winterrowd. So much of what he told her about it was untrue, nothing more than gossip. She knew the truth for certain, because she was the one who the Medium had used to loose the shaft that killed the king. She had only told the Aldermaston what she had done—no one else—and how the Medium had commanded her to do it. No one else knew. Not even Sowe.

“I know little about Pry-Ree,” she said, glancing through the throng surrounding the circle for a sign of Colvin.

Duerden kept going as if he had not heard her. “Pry-Ree was defeated before we were born, Lia. It used to be its own kingdom, but now it is a vassalage of the Crown. They have always hated us. Some are saying that Demont did not win Winterrowd because of the Medium, as the mastons claim. They say that there was an ambush and a slaughter to avenge the death of Demont’s father and the overthrow of Pry-Ree. They say Demont was in Pry-Ree before crossing with his men. Now that he controls the king’s Privy Council, we may never know the truth. Strange days, Lia. So very strange. I am not sure what to believe myself.”

They danced, weaving the sashes and avoiding stepping on each other’s toes. Smiles, cheers, and claps heralded them, but Lia’s heart was dark. She knew the truth, but she could say nothing of it. Not of the murderous sheriff of Mendenhall and his death by the Medium’s fire. Of Colvin and his fear of a battle where Demont’s men were hopelessly outnumbered. There were no Pry-rian archers there except for herself, and she was not even trained as an archer. Duerden held her hand and wove the sashes with her, but there was a gulf between them now, of secrets that could never be shared.

After the dance, Lia met Duerden’s family, and they were gracious to her. Pasqua embarrassed her by giving her a crushing hug in front of everyone and mumbled incoherently while weeping about losing her again. Sowe was asked to dance every time and had blisters on her feet by the end of the night and a smile on her face that shone like burning oil. As they limped back to the kitchen sometime after midnight, carrying empty platters and trays from Pasqua’s booth, Lia’s heart grew heavier and heavier with those secrets and with disappointment that seemed to mount with each step on the grass and each trip back.

For Colvin Price, the Earl of Forshee, never came.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWO:

Jon’s Leering

 

 

Lia wrestled with her emotions, even though she had determined in advance to master them. The Bearden Muir was different, yet the same—oppressive, haunting, thick with memories that could not be banished or tamped down. Standing over Jon Hunter’s grave, she fought down the urge to sob, to scream, the desire to undo everything she had done so long ago. It was a year since his death, a year since that awful Whitsunday fair. A year wearing hunter boots, hunter leathers, dealing in a hunter’s errands. She bit her lip, willing the memories to dull, the emotions to fade. Jon had died because of her.

Leaves and brush choked the small glen where she and Colvin had buried him beneath a pile of rocks. Had he died at the Abbey, his bones would have been interred in an ossuary and laid to rest with the Aldermaston’s blessing. She stared at the Leering stone the Aldermaston had carved, a stump-like block hewn with a man’s bearded face on it, reposing, silent. She and Martin had finished digging a small hole for it at the head of the rock mound and set it firmly in place, kicking dirt in to fill the gaps. Their mule would have an easier journey back to the Abbey now that its weight was gone. At least the beast was relieved of its burden. Lia wondered if she ever would be.

“He was a good lad,” said Martin sternly, brushing his hands together. He sniffed and grimaced, controlling his emotions. “We will greet him again, you and I. In the next life. In a fair country where no knaves can do him harm. Where no blood is ever spilt.” He stopped and wiped his nose, but his eyes were dry and full of fire. He brooded with anger constantly, his temper shorter than even the Aldermaston’s.

Lia fidgeted with the leather bracer tight against her forearm. “I will be ashamed to face him.”

He snorted. “Did you loose the arrows that slew him? No. Did you murder mastons and spill their blood? No, by Cheshu! There are debts we all owe, Lia. But you owe him nothing for what happened. You paid your fair share in recompense, learning the ways and doing his work, which he can no longer do himself.”

Lia closed her eyes. The memories were still bitter. “If I had known then what I know now. The mistakes we made crossing the swamp. The risks we took without realizing it…”

He grabbed her arm and forced her to look at him. His finger jabbed near her nose. “It is a cruel fact, child. Wisdom comes after the moment when it is most needed. I have warned you of the doom of Pry-Ree. We failed to learn from the changing times. Failed to act when we should have acted. Instead, we were crushed, our princes butchered like hogs. So what have you learned from this journey? Hmm? If you were Jon in that moment, what would you have done differently? Knowing what you know now.”

“I do not know, Martin,” she answered, jerking her arm away from his crushing grip.

The blue fire in his eyes blazed hotter. “You do know.”

“He trained with you for much longer.”

He snorted and spat.

Anger flushed her cheeks, but she kept it from rising to her voice. “What do you want me to say?”

He pointed at her again. “Only the truth. He was a hunter, yes. He was trained, yes. But you know as much as he ever did. I have never trained a boy or man who learns as fast as you do. From rabbit snares to naming all the little insects in the wood. You know them all and remember it the first time.”

Lia wanted to shut the door on her thoughts, but she could not in time. The whisper was there. It was always there. The pulsing of the Medium, giving her thoughts and teasing hints. It probably frightened others how quickly she knew things. What they did not know was how the Medium taught her with silent whispers. She gritted her teeth, because she did not want to speak it.

“Say it, Lia!”

Her body trembled, flushed and overflowing with emotions. She was afraid of the truth. Which was perhaps the very reason the Aldermaston had sent her back into the Bearden Muir to settle the Leering and face the past.

Martin stepped even closer, his nose poking up at her. Even though she had grown more in the last year, and he only came up to her chin, his force of personality towered hers. “Say it, Lia. Cast out the shadows you cringe behind. Say it.”

Her voice was barely a whisper. “He was careless.”

“Careless? Yes! Can you taste that word? It tastes like ash in your mouth. It should. Have I not taught you this when you first started to train with me? The hunter is patient. The prey is careless.” He stormed away from her, stamping his boot in the muck. He spat. “An elk returns to the same place of water because it is the place of water. A patient hunter waits in the bushes. Waits until the elk is thirsty. That way, he has a clean shot. The closer he gets, the better aim. But a man is not an elk.” He tapped his finger on his forehead, then pointed to the mound of stones. “He was careless.”

Lia sucked in a strangled breath. Her body ached, her spirit suffered. Yet she knew Martin was right. Jon had misjudged the sheriff’s ruthlessness. Instead of hiding the trail, Jon could have waited to catch them by surprise. A single archer with a full quiver and a steady aim was deadlier than charging knights, for he could kill those knights at a distance.

Martin paced in the woods, waving his arms with his emotions as he typically did. “He could have created false trails with the horse and let you two sneak into the woods on foot. He could have taken another path back to the trail to throw off an ambush. Or he could have waited for the sheriff and his ilk, and the three of you could have fought together. Greater odds fighting alongside a knight-maston than by himself.”

Lia bit her lip. “He was not a knight-maston then.”

Martin snorted and waved his hand in annoyance. “We honor Jon’s grave today, Lia. You said this maston dedicated it already, so there is nothing we can do to hallow it further. The Leering is here so that the Aldermaston can pay his respects when he is no longer bound to Muirwood. Let us return home. You know your lessons. Now let this experience be a teacher to you as well.”

Lia nodded and knelt down by the Leering. She brushed her hand across the face, staring into the silent visage. A year had passed. A year of scornful mocking from Reome for dressing like a boy instead of a woman. A year wandering the woods and valleys and ditches surrounding the Hundred. Of tunnels and passwords, of memorizing faces and messages to be delivered to the Aldermaston’s allies in nearby Abbeys. Her world was a bigger place. Part of her longed to be making Gooseberry Fool in Pasqua’s kitchen where life was simpler.

Looking up at Martin, she reached into the pouch at her waist and withdrew the Cruciger orb, her special talisman—her only birthright. She wore it on every journey. She was the only one at the Abbey, other than the Aldermaston, who was strong enough with the Medium to use it. It was found with her when she was abandoned as a wretched, and the ball and spindles could be summoned to point the direction of places or people. “I would make one more visit before we go home. There is another Leering nearby. Another memory I need to face.”

He scowled but nodded to her. “Lead the way, lass.”

With a thought, the spindles on the orb began to whirl.

 

***

 

Lia gazed down at the bed of grass, thicker now and still clinging to the damp of spring. The orb in her hand tingled, and writing appeared across its immaculate surface. She could not read it. This was the spot where Colvin had carried her after the blazing fire she summoned with the Medium had destroyed the sheriff and his men. Nearby, the scorched thicket of trees remained. The wood was dead, black, and skeletal. The gorse was thriving again, but the thicket had been ravaged and would take years to recover.

Take me to my Leering, she thought, and the Cruciger orb spun lazily toward the thicket. Martin followed, coaxing the mule again. As she entered the dead place, she ran her fingers across the twisted, blackened trunks as she passed, hearing in her mind the jangle of spurs and armor, the chuckling threats of Almaguer’s men. Part of her recoiled at the memory of the soldiers beating Colvin, and how she had flung herself over his body and used the Medium to keep them away from him. She frowned, wondering why Colvin had never returned to Muirwood. No messages were ever sent. No explanation ever given.

She knew that he was alive.

The Earl of Forshee held great favor with Garen Demont and was known to all. Garen Demont, Lord Protector of the Realm, who controlled custody over the young king and ruled the kingdom in his name. The victor of Winterrowd. Oh yes, she had heard Colvin’s name mentioned excitedly after being elevated in rank as an earl. For his service in the battle, he was recognized and rewarded with additional lands. He was part of Demont’s inner circle, a member of the Privy Council, where only knight-mastons were admitted.

Whitsunday, he had whispered into her ear. A broken promise to a wretched.

Ahead, through the screen of dead trees, she could see smoke rising from the boulder as if the fires from a year ago were still smoldering. The feeling was wrong. She held up her hand to Martin, alerting him that something was amiss, and he quietly clasped the hilt of his gladius and tethered the mule with one hand. All of the trees within a dozen paces of the Leering had been charred to ash, so only the budding greenery gave color to the place. The Leering, with the carved side facing east toward the sun, was no longer shaggy with moss.

A smell hovered in the air, mixed with the aroma of charred oaks. The scent of man. Lia shuddered. All around her, she could feel them. The snuffling shadows that loped like wolves and stared at her but could not be seen with the eye. The Myriad Ones were thick around her.

Martin’s voice was flat and wary. “This grove is wicked now.”

Lia stuffed the orb back into the pouch and withdrew her bow and nocked an arrow, which she kept in place with her finger as Martin had taught her so well. The air was full of sounds, of buzzing gnats and cawing ravens and the twitter of insects. There were no sounds from other people, but holding absolutely still, she could almost feel the muzzles of the Myriad Ones sniffing about her legs. Cautiously, patiently, she waited—watching the woods for the sign of movement, the sound of intruders. The feeling in the air clung like smoke to her skin. Biting her lip, she focused on the source of the feelings and realized, to her shock, that they were emanating from the Leering itself.

One step closer. Two steps. She ducked around a tree, keeping low to the ground. A single quail flew overhead that might have made a tasty meal, but even the thought of food brought revulsion. Fear filled the blackened grove to the brim. Sickness and disease stalked the woods. As she came closer, even the plant life began to alter. The charred trunks of the oaks were wreathed in vines with bronzed leaves of a shape Lia had not seen before. The leaves were moist and colorful, which was strange. She touched one gently, and the oil stuck to her fingers.

The mule brayed, and Martin hushed it with an apple, his muscles taut as he continued to listen to the surroundings.

Lia grimaced, feeling the oily wetness on her fingertips. “I have not seen this plant before,” she warned. Bringing her pack around, she withdrew her gloves and an empty pouch. With her short knife, she cut off a small segment of leaves and stuffed them in the pouch.

“Let us depart, Lia. This is no place for the living. The dead linger here.”

“No, something is wrong with the Leering,” Lia said. Carefully, she stepped through the tangled vines that tried to grope at her and entered the clearing surrounding the boulder. The vines grew everywhere and wrapped around the base of the boulder. Martin had never seen the depth of her potential with the Medium. If she could get close enough, she might be able to stop the rock from burning. The Aldermaston would want to know as much as possible since he could not travel beyond the Abbey borders.

She crossed around to the side where her face was and stopped, fearful at what she saw. The Leering was alive, seething with power. The face had once been hers. Now it was unrecognizable as even human. The eye sockets blazed with red-hot heat, but the expression had been charred completely off. The entire face of the rock shimmered with waves of heat. She knew that if she tried to summon water from it, it would only come out as steam.

The entire boulder was pitted with cracks, as if the stone were about to burst from the force of the Medium’s power.

Is this my fault? she asked herself. In her memory, the power of the Medium had abandoned her after the fire had destroyed Almaguer and his men. She remembered it ending and feeling weightless. What was causing the Leering to behave in such a way?

Martin’s voice was worried. “Lia, come away from that stone.”

“I know what I am doing, Martin,” she said, trusting her willpower. The boulder was blackened, charred. Lia closed her eyes and reached out to it tentatively. At the Abbey, she could summon water from the Leering at the laundry. She could mix it with fire to warm it. She did not really understand how it worked, only that they responded to her thoughts, as Colvin had taught her.

She quietly willed it to stop burning so she could touch it.

It refused.

Fear bloomed in her stomach. The Leering knew she was there. It defied her.

Stop, she told it in her mind.

“Lia, come away.” The mule brayed again.

Again, it resisted her. A mewling sound filled her ears. The Myriad Ones crowded against her, drawn to the stone, to its powerful summons. They fed on the fear it exuded. Some hissed at her.

Obey me, she thought fiercely, pushing her will against it.

The rock groaned. The mewling turned into howling. A breeze blowing through the grove turned into a gust, then into a gale. Lia’s mass of hair whipped about her face, along with tendrils of vines coiled around the boulder like little snakes. She held her thought firm. A sensation of illness wrenched through her, making her head spin, and she nearly collapsed into the bed of oily leaves.

She heard Martin shouting, but she could not hear his words through the blast of winds. Her thoughts focused. She could see in her mind the stone’s heat quenching. Another groan, another furious storm. Dead oak branches crashed to the forest floor, unable to cling to the trunks. A memory came to her mind.

“The rains have plagued us enough. They will quit. Now.”

As the memory of the Aldermaston’s words filled her mind, she mimicked the force of his will. Now, she told the Leering. You will stop now.

It did, but grudgingly. The burning withdrew. The flames were tamped. But she could feel it hunkering deep inside the stone, diminished but not quenched. But that was enough for Lia. The rock cooled enough to touch it.

When she did, an image came to her mind. Soldiers camping around the stone wearing blood-spattered armor and shivering. Not the sheriff—for it had happened during the winter months when snow covered much of the Bearden Muir. A man, devoid of speech and clutching a snail-shaped medallion, had touched the Leering and summoned the flames to warm them. He communed with it in his mind, for he could not speak, and the Leering had told him who last had touched it. It had shown him her face. Lia’s stomach clenched and twisted, for she recognized the man and knew his name.