Book 2: Chapter Seven

Yelena dipped her pen into a bottle of ink as she took notes. “So, each spell feels different in your mind, but you don’t necessarily know what it does when you first learn it?”

“Right,” Corec said. “Sometimes, I don’t even know that I’m casting it. About three weeks ago, we were ambushed by…bandits. I felt strange during the fight, like everything was easier. At first, I thought it was just because the last time we were ambushed, they caught me without my armor, and this time, I was ready for them. But then, a week and a half ago, we were fighting ogres, and I felt the same thing again. I think it’s a new spell.”

“Did your weapon feel lighter?” Venni asked. The tall, big-boned blonde woman stood where Sarlo had been the previous day. She wore a surcoat over a padded gambeson, and had an arming sword belted to her hip.

“Yes, it did.”

“It sounds like a strength spell. It’s exhilarating the first few times you cast it, until you get used to the effect and learn to compensate for it.”

“I asked Venni to join us because she has experience with the types of spells you know,” Yelena said. “She’s a battle wizard.”

Venni nodded. “You sound like one yourself, except for not being a wizard.”

“Battle wizard?” Corec asked.

“A wizard that specializes in spells for fighting with weapons,” Yelena said. “I suppose the term isn’t used much these days.”

“Wizards can only master so many spells, so some of us choose an area to focus on,” Venni added. “You sound like you don’t have any choice over what you learn, but a real wizard does. My father had started teaching me to use a sword before we found out I was a wizard. I didn’t want to give that up, so I decided to combine the two. There was actually a small group of us back in Matagor, where I grew up, but the others didn’t bother recruiting new members, and the last of them passed away, oh, close to two hundred years ago.”

Yelena said, “Venni recovered some of their spell books, so every once in a while, she’ll take on a promising student, but from what we learned this morning, I don’t believe that will help you.”

Corec nodded. Yelena had spent several hours testing him to see if he was a wizard, but she’d concluded that he wasn’t.

“This strength spell makes me stronger, I take it?” he asked.

“Yes,” Venni said, “but it can throw off your balance, so be careful. And you’ll want to strengthen your sword, too, or you’re liable to break it.”

“You can make a sword stronger?”

“With a different spell. I’m not sure how to explain it for someone who doesn’t learn magic like a wizard.”

“I wonder…” Yelena started, then paused. “Maybe the spells he learns are based on the actions he takes. He’s a warrior, so he learns battle wizard spells. If he was a sailor or a librarian, perhaps he’d have learned completely different ones.”

That theory appealed to Corec—it at least provided an explanation that made sense.

Venni shrugged. “If that’s true,” she said to him, “and you can control it to a degree, try to teach yourself the spell. If you know your sword won’t break, you can even use it against plate armor. It still won’t cut the armor, but if you miss a gap and hit the plate, the blade won’t dull or chip. It’s not as good as using a hammer or a bill, but it’s better than nothing.”

Corec nodded. He’d never faced an opponent wearing plate armor outside of practice sessions before he’d left the knights, but it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared.

“Is that what you do?” he asked.

She patted the sword at her side. “I used to, but Dart here doesn’t need the spell. She’s happy enough to go up against armor all on her own.”

Before Corec could ask about that, Yelena said, “We’re getting off track. Let’s get back to your spells. You’re wearing a mail shirt today but you weren’t wearing it yesterday. Do you prefer armor over being able to use magic?”

“I didn’t wear it yesterday because I figured I’d need to show you my runes, but the metal doesn’t stop me from casting spells. I wear plate armor when I’m on the road, and I can still use magic.”

“Now I’m jealous,” Venni said. “My armor spells are good, but not that good.”

“It’s unusual,” Yelena said. “I’ve spoken to two dozen arcane mages over the years, and most of them were affected by metal the same way a wizard is. There were only a few that weren’t. Again, my guess is that the magic is conforming to your lifestyle. You wear armor regularly, so the magic has somehow compensated for that.”

“What were those other mages like?” Corec asked. “Deshin—he’s a wizard here in the city—he said that most only manage to learn one or two spells.”

“Some of them are like that. Like the boy who was caught in a burning house and figured out a spell to protect himself from the flames. A useful spell in very rare circumstances, but it was the only one he ever learned. He ended up working for a circus. Others learn a strange mishmash of spells without any rhyme or reason, as if someone took a spell book and chose a few pages at random. And then the last group pick up a pattern of related spells. I’d say you’re one of those.”

“I guess it’s reassuring that there are others like me.”

“Well, a battle wizard is a strange choice, even for that group,” Yelena said. “They’re more often like Sarlo, though in his case, it didn’t happen by accident. His people are sometimes born with unusual arcane gifts—or at least his grandmother’s people are. Seekers, Seers, Travelers...they’re all related.”

“I’ve never heard of those. Yesterday, you said he’s a Seeker, right?”

“Mostly, though there’s some overlap between the three abilities. He can find things or people, given enough time and information. It’s fascinating, actually. To him, Seeking is just something he does, but as far as I can tell, there must be nine or ten different spells involved that he doesn’t even know he’s casting.”

“Can he help us find Three?”

“I can’t spare him for the amount of time you’d need for an ocean journey. Besides, I have another task for him—someone who needs to be found. We’re off track again. Let’s get back to the binding spell. You said the last time you cast it, you felt something?”

“I think so, but it was hard to tell.”

“Cast it on me.”

“What?”

“You can’t bond another warden, so you can cast it on me for practice. Or Venni, for that matter, since she’s already bonded. Once you know how to cast it purposely, you’ll also know how not to cast it.”

Corec nodded. The idea made sense. “How do I do it?”

“The same way you cast any other spell, I’d assume. For me, the warden’s binding spell isn’t like one of my wizard spells. There are no words to say. I just feel it in my head, and I…it’s difficult to explain. I know how it’s supposed to feel, so I make it feel that way. I believe it’s similar to how you cast all your spells, yes?”

“Yes, I can feel a shifting in my mind. If there’s a fight, it all happens without me thinking about it, but if I’ve used a spell enough times, I can usually cast it on purpose too.”

“So, remember what the binding spell felt like, then repeat it.”

Corec tried but nothing happened.

“It didn’t work,” Yelena said. “Try again.”

He did.

“Again.”

#

Katrin sat with her harp in the room she shared with Corec, practicing some different fingerings she’d learned from the minstrels she’d played with two nights earlier. The performance had been awkward, since nobody had been quite sure who should take the lead—the minstrels had much more experience, but they’d recognized her as a bard shortly into the first song, and had then been reluctant to offer suggestions of their own. It had been fun to try new things, but the three of them hadn’t repeated the experience.

She looked up when Corec returned. “You were gone for a long time.”

“Yelena had me practicing how to cast the binding spell,” he replied. “We went until I could barely see straight.”

“Did it help?”

“Well, I think if I wanted to cast it now, I might be able to figure it out. The trick will be in seeing whether I can keep from casting when I don’t want to do it.”

“That’s something, I suppose, but you’re not really going to cast it again, are you?”

He sighed and sat down on the bed. “It’s a lot to take in. I’ve spent the past day wondering if I can just ignore everything she told us. I don’t really have to be a warden. They don’t seem to serve any purpose, and I’d just like to live my life. On the other hand, if someone wanted to be bonded, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt, if it was the right person.”

“Like who?”

“I’d have to give that some thought. Yelena took years to pick each of her…she called them bondmates. I suppose it takes that long to find the right people. The First said something about that as well, but I didn’t really understand what he was talking about at the time.”

Katrin set her harp to the side. “So it’s a choice between being a warden—whatever that means—and us just going off and living our own life.”

“It seems like it. But also, I don’t think Yelena wants me to settle down here in Tyrsall. You heard what she said yesterday about the wardens being territorial. Before I left today, she asked me to let her know any time I’m in the city.”

“I didn’t really think about what she meant by that. I was starting to like the idea of living here.”

“So was I. But she said she’d be moving on in a few years, so maybe we could live here after that.”

“What do we do until then?”

“Follow Shavala around until she decides to return home?”

Katrin laughed. “That’s a lot more traveling than I was planning on, but I guess we can make up our minds as we go. Maybe we’ll find another city on the way. Matagor sounds nice from what Bobo says, and it’s a long way from Yelena.”

“There are plenty of places we haven’t visited yet, and it sounds like Shavala wants to see them all. I guess it won’t be hard to find somewhere else to live until Tyrsall is available.”

“If we really are going to live as long as Yelena, we’ll have plenty of time to made a decision.” Katrin didn’t quite believe how old Yelena claimed to be, but then, why would the woman lie about it? “What do you think the others will do?”

“Hmm,” Corec said. “When we figure out how to end the bond, Ellerie will do that, then get as far away from me as possible. Treya might actually keep it, but I don’t know what she’ll do after that. Shavala will either go home someday, or she’ll just keep right on traveling.”

“What about Bobo?”

“Fifty years from now, he’ll still be snoring away in the next room. I’m never going to be able to get rid of him.”

Katrin laughed.

There was a knock at the door, and Corec opened it to let in Ellerie and Boktar.

“Did you finish getting the supplies?” he asked.

“All stocked up,” Boktar said. “Are we leaving tomorrow?”

“I think I’ve learned what I can from Yelena, at least for now,” Corec said, “and I’m going to pick up my armor in an hour. I’ll be ready to go.”

Ellerie nodded. “Then I’ll send a messenger to Treya letting her know we’re heading out first thing in the morning.”

“I asked Yelena if Sarlo could come with us to help find Three, but she said she needed him for something else right now.”

“Oh, that was a good idea. Maybe he’ll be available the next time we’re in town.”

#

Treya made it to the inn early in the morning. While the others were packing, she cornered Bobo alone.

“Do you have a few minutes to talk?” she asked.

“Of course, my dear. What would you like to talk about?”

“What are godborn?”

“Godborn? That’s a departure from our usual topics. Why the interest?”

“The first time we met with Bishop Lastal, he insisted godborn were real, but I don’t know much about them.”

“Ahh. Well, I’m no expert, but to the best of my knowledge, they are distantly descended from a god just as demonborn are distantly—or not so distantly—descended from a demon.”

“But…how?”

“I assume in the normal way. I thought that was the sort of thing they taught you in concubine school.”

She rolled her eyes. “That wasn’t what I meant. I meant…how?”

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“The way I’ve heard it said is that a mortal and a god have a child together, and that child is godborn. Some of the child’s descendants may also be godborn. They might have something to mark them, just as demonborn do, but the stories aren’t very clear on what that something is.”

“But how would a human…be with a god? Nobody can see or touch them. Only priests can communicate with them, and even then, only through visions.”

“Well, here, you’re getting into legends. It’s hard to know what’s the truth and what’s a myth when you’re looking that far back, but some stories suggest the gods were once more involved in the world, and would interact with people.”

“But if that’s right, and godborn and demonborn are descended from gods and demons, then are seaborn really descended from the sea?”

Bobo laughed. “So the legends say, but they sure look a lot more like an elf or a human than an ocean, don’t they? The same with the stormborn and the stoneborn. I doubt very much that Boktar’s ancestors were boulders.”

“Then it’s possible godborn aren’t descended from gods at all.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

Treya breathed a sigh of relief. “What do the godborn…do?”

Bobo said, “I’ve never known one, but I imagine they do whatever they can to get by, just like the rest of us.”

“Lastal said that demonborn and godborn sometimes inherit magic from their ancestors. Is that true?”

“Now you’re well away from anything I’ve read about. Ellerie’s more likely to know something like that. You should ask her.”

“It’s not all that important,” Treya said. “Perhaps I’ll talk to her some other time.” Then she had another thought. “Why aren’t lizardfolk called lizardborn?”

“I couldn’t say. Perhaps the word changed gradually, like the stoneborn, who are more likely to be called dwarves these days. Maybe humans and elves had another name in the past, too.”

#

Corec was helping Boktar load the last of the pack mules when Venni rode into the stable yard, her horse fully loaded for traveling.

“Good, you haven’t left yet,” she said.

He cinched up the last strap on the pack mule. “We’re just heading out now. Boktar, this is Venni, a friend of Yelena’s.”

The two greeted each other, then Venni turned back to Corec. “You’re taking the North Road, right?”

The North Road led northeast along the coast to High Cove, then roughly north to Lanport. The other option was to take the Mountain Road northwest, which skirted around the southern edge of the Storm Heights on its way to the plains.

“Yes,” he said. “We think we’ll make better time that way. We’ve heard the roads are better.”

“How would you feel about some company? The Baron of High Cove is dealing with something that’s been killing dogs and cats in the city. He thinks it might be imps. The baron sent a pigeon to the Duke of the North, who sent a pigeon to Duke Voss, who asked Yelena to take care of it. I’m the only one who’s nearby that she can spare right now.”

“Imps are demons, aren’t they?” Boktar asked.

“Little demons. They can cross over easier than the big ones.”

“Do you need help?” Corec asked.

“No, but I hate traveling alone. So, what do you think?”

“Will we get there in time?” Corec asked. “We’ve got to be twelve or thirteen days away from High Cove.”

“I don’t have much of a choice. Yelena normally sends Sarlo for something like this, but he’s off taking care of another matter. And the duke isn’t going to give me a ship for a few dead animals.”

Boktar said, “They could ask someone in High Cove to take care of it. It’s a big city. They’ve got to have guardsmen and wizards.”

“True,” Venni replied. “If that happens, I’ll just head back here, but Yelena didn’t want to wait for more pigeon messages back and forth before sending someone.”

The dwarf nodded. “I’ll go let the others know that we’re ready to saddle up the horses…and that we’ve got company.”

After he’d gone, Corec asked, “What’s this really about? Somehow I doubt you’re all that concerned about traveling alone.”

“No,” Venni said, “but it’s not much fun, either. And…I thought it would be good to get to know you. Yelena is uncomfortable with the idea of another warden being so close by.”

“Well, I do sometimes have business in the city, but you can let her know I won’t settle down here, at least not while she’s still here. I’m sure we can work out anything else.”

“She’ll appreciate that. What sort of business?”

“I work for a few of the trading houses. Caravan guard. I was thinking about asking if they have any bodyguard work, but I guess I’ll have to do that somewhere else now.”

Venni laughed and shook her head. “I’m not sure you really understand what it means to be a warden. Trust me, you’re not a caravan guard anymore.”

“To be honest, I was thinking of ignoring all the warden stuff. If I can learn not to bond people anymore—or even better, learn how to end the binding spells—Katrin and I just want to settle down somewhere.”

“Katrin—that’s your girl, right? The bard you mentioned?”

Corec nodded.

“Look,” Venni said. “Settling down, maybe. Not binding anyone else, maybe. But that doesn’t change who you are. If there’s nothing more important you’d rather be doing, bodyguard work might be a good fit, as a bodyguard to a king or a duke. I’ve done a bit of that myself over the years. You’re a battle wizard, or something like it, and you shouldn’t let your talents go to waste.”

“I suppose. I’ve thought about looking for something more…meaningful, but I haven’t figured out what that is yet.” That was something he’d only discussed with Katrin and Shavala, so he didn’t want to go into detail with a near-stranger. “And I’m not much of a battle wizard. I mean, sure, the spells help, but I don’t think I’m any better of a fighter than, say, Boktar.”

She laughed again. “You’d be surprised how effective even the tiniest spell can be, especially when combined with your own training and equipment. Speaking of which, are you seriously telling me you can cast spells in that getup?”

He was wearing his full panoply since they were preparing to ride out. The breastplate had been returned to working condition, though with the remaining dents and scratches, it looked well used. Venni wore the same surcoat and padded gambeson she’d had on the day before.

Corec shrugged and held his palm up between them, summoning a mage light to float above it.

Venni just shook her head. “That’s simply not fair.”

#

Five nights into their journey north, they stayed in a little fishing village. The innkeeper wasn’t interested in Katrin’s offer of music, so they paid full price for their four rooms. Treya shared with Shavala, as she usually did, but the room only had one bed, so they had to share that too. Boktar had insisted that he and Bobo would get the room with the two beds—there was a limit to how much he could put up with the other man’s snoring.

Before going to sleep, Treya sat cross-legged on her side of the bed and closed her eyes.

“Meditating again?” Shavala asked. “That’s every night since we left.”

“My teachers said I need to get better about doing it.”

“Perhaps I will join you. Your meditating seems much like the exercises I’m supposed to do to extend my elder senses.”

“I hadn’t considered that,” Treya said. “I don’t use my healing senses at all when I’m meditating—it would cause too many distractions when I’m trying to focus on nothing. Doesn’t that happen to you?”

The elven girl cocked her head to the side. “I’ve never known the elder senses to be distracting. They represent the world around me, which was already there, so how can I be any more distracted by it than I was before? But perhaps it’s not so similar to your meditation after all. I’m supposed to focus on everything I can sense.”

Treya decided to give Shavala’s idea a try, but when she reached out with her healing senses, the mass of information she received made it impossible to meditate. In some ways, her different abilities worked together, such as when she was fighting, but in other ways, they were at odds with each other. Which seemed fitting, since she was at odds with herself.

Ever since Shana had defeated the bandits who’d killed Treya’s parents, Treya had wanted to be like her. And she thought she could be, if she wasn’t constantly being pulled in other directions. The day she’d spent in the almshouse had been an eye-opening experience. There’d been nearly a hundred sick and injured people in that house alone, including children. There were broken bones, infected cuts, and internal illnesses that she didn’t even know the names for, and none of those people had been able to afford a healing priest on their own.

The administrator had been thrilled to have her help, and he wasn’t inclined to inquire too deeply about which temple she belonged to. Besides Treya, the volunteers for the day were two other healing priests, a chirurgeon, and an herbalist. That was enough that not only did they keep up with all the emergencies and serious problems, but they also made some progress on the patients with less serious conditions.

Treya’s own magic had given out after an hour. The other healers had warned her not to overextend herself, but she’d continued working throughout the day, helping in other ways. She resolved to bring Bobo with her the next time, and to mention to Mother Ola that the Three Orders herbalists might spend some time there themselves.

Being a healer wasn’t what she’d wanted for her life—it didn’t give her the same thrill she got from training as a mystic—but at the same time, she couldn’t just ignore it. She needed to find a balance between the two parts of herself.

That reminded her that she was supposed to be meditating. She shut off her healing senses and did her best to blank out all of her thoughts and concerns. A stray worry crossed her mind about what Lastal had said about godborn, but she pushed it away.

As her thoughts quieted, she slowed her breathing and concentrated on the sensations her body was experiencing. The feel of her tunic on her skin, and then her leggings and the blanket she was sitting on. The strand of hair brushing against her eyelashes. The slight stress in her left thigh that would become painful if she stayed too long in the same position. The sound of Shavala’s breathing.

As each feeling and sensation came to her, she blocked it from her mind so she could look internally instead. She could feel her heart beating, but not in the same way she felt it with her healing senses. This was a sense that went deeper than the magic. She couldn’t use it to heal, but she could use it to know. It was the thing that made the mystics what they were. They didn’t have a name for it, though Shana sometimes referred to it as a sense of self.

Treya slowed her heart beat, and felt the rest of her body slow down in response. In this state, she’d always found it easier to ignore external stimuli and focus on the internal. She could trace the path of the blood as it left her heart and passed through her body. She could almost feel the muscles and tendons that lay beneath her skin, could almost feel the tingling of air against her body…but not quite. Somehow, Shana could regulate her body temperature, and harden her fists enough to punch through a drake’s scales, but Treya couldn’t. Very few mystics had ever mastered the arts as well as Shana. Was it just a matter of knowing her body, or was there a level beyond that?

#

Barnabas hadn’t been lying when he’d said it would be a long way south until she reached civilization again, Leena reflected as she walked on, trying to ignore her aching ankles. It was still just as cold out, but at least the snow was gone, and her new clothing was helping to keep her warm.

It had been eight days since she’d left Barnabas and Rana’s village—which she belatedly realized she’d never asked the name of. Rana and the other women had found enough odd jobs for her to do to allow her to buy everything on the shopping list, but now her food was running low again. She’d passed through a village on the third day out, but at the time she’d still had plenty left, and since she didn’t have any money, she hadn’t stopped. That was the last time she’d seen any sign of people.

At least there were trees now to block the wind, and firewood was readily available. Here, it was water that took effort to find, since she’d left the road that had been following the stream. She’d crossed other streams on the way south, but she only had the one waterskin, and sometimes it ran empty before she found another source of water. Even when the skin was full, she had to keep it bundled inside her new thick coat so her body heat could keep it from freezing.

To the south, she saw a faint stream of smoke curling above the trees. A chimney? Barnabas had said she’d eventually reach farmland again.

She rounded a curve in the road and saw a man standing near a campfire, looking her way. He was wearing a hat and a long coat, and was leaning on a quarterstaff.

Leena stopped, not certain how to react. “Hello?”

“Hello,” he replied. “The name’s Sarlo. What’s yours?”

“Leena.”

“Leena, care to join me? The fire’s warm, and the food is good.”

“Thank you.”

They sat on pieces of a fallen log near the fire, and he served the meal he’d prepared.

“What brings you to the middle of nowhere?” Sarlo asked.

“I’m meeting some friends to the south.”

“Oh? You’re Sanvarite—Zidari if I’ve got your accent right. That’s a long way south.”

She blinked in surprise. “How did you know?”

He pulled up the sleeve of his coat to show a tattoo with three interlocking circles in a row on his wrist.

“You’re not Zidari!” she exclaimed. He was as light-skinned as a northerner.

“My grandmother was,” he said in her native tongue. “I got the tattoos when I went to Sanvar to be trained.” He rolled up his other sleeve to show the mark of a Seeker.

Leena stared at it. What were the odds she’d run into another Zidari mage here of all places?

“How…?” she started. “I didn’t know any outsiders had trained as a Seeker.”

“It was a long time ago,” he said. “A very long time ago.”

He couldn’t have been more than twenty years her senior. Surely she’d have heard about it if a northerner had sought training so recently. Was he lying?

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“I thought you might need some help.”

“What?”

“Seeking is a funny thing. Did you know that you don’t have to search for something specific? Sometimes I seek out where I need to be, even if I don’t know why I need to be there. It started pointing me in this direction a few weeks ago, but with no indication of why, so I had to seek out the reason. And then it told me about you. Not in words, but I eventually figured out that there was a lost Traveler out here. Why are you lost? Can’t you just teleport yourself back to Sanvar?”

“I never completed my training—I became a baker instead. Every time I teleport myself, I make things worse.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You gave up the life of a Traveler?”

“After nearly dying a few times? It was an easy decision.”

“Perhaps you just need a better teacher.”

“I’d rather go back to baking.”

“What if I help you get home? I can teach you how to do short, controlled hops.”

“You’re a Traveler too?” she asked. Sometimes the gifts crossed over.

“I can only teleport myself, and only at short range. It took me five days and twenty jumps to get here, but I can teach you how to do it safely.”

Leena thought about that for a moment. “I’m scared. Are you sure it would be safe?”

“Yes. We’ll take things slow, and I’ll teach you the same way I learned how.”

“All right. I’ll try.”

“Great. And then in the future, perhaps you might be willing to do a favor for me someday.”

#

Shavala sat up in her bedroll when she heard the flap of her tent rustling. Katrin peered at her through the opening.

“How are you always awake before I wake you up?” the other girl asked as she squinted in the darkness.

Shavala grinned. “The camp sounds different when we’re change shifts. I can hear the difference.” She stood and pulled on an extra tunic, then her long coat. “Did anything happen on your watch?” she asked as she stepped outside the tent.

“No, it was quiet.”

“Is Treya awake?”

“Corec’s waking her up. I’m going back to bed; I’ll see you in the morning.”

When Shavala and Treya were on watch together, they usually stood on opposite sides of the camp and made a slow circuit around. They were discussing where to start when Venni crawled out of her own tent, buckled her sword belt around her waist, and strode over to join them.

“Hello, ladies. Nobody woke me up.”

“Oh,” Treya said. “I didn’t know you were taking a shift.” This was the first time they’d had to keep a watch since Venni had joined them, since villages and inns were plentiful along the North Road.

“I want to help,” Venni said, then looked at Shavala. “Do you mind some company?”

The tall woman had spent the trip talking to everyone, asking them probing questions. Corec and Boktar got along with her, but everyone else seemed mostly resigned to the conversations, hoping to keep a good relationship with their only link to another warden.

Shavala had managed to avoid the questioning so far, but it looked like her turn had come. She nodded to Venni, and hid the grimace she made in Treya’s direction. Treya just grinned at her, then pulled her coat and cloak more tightly around herself and strode across the camp.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Venni said as she and Shavala started off on their route, “how old are you?”

“A hundred and twenty.”

“That’s still young for an elf, yes? I’m two hundred sixty-eight, which is something I never imagined when I was growing up. I met Yelena when I was, oh, twenty-five or twenty-six. It was so odd to stop aging after that—sometimes I’ve wondered if it’s similar to being an elf.”

“You stopped aging?”

“I haven’t gotten any older since Yelena bonded me.”

“My friends don’t know whether to believe that part,” Shavala said. “You don’t seem that old to me, but the idea bothers them. What’s it like?”

“It seems normal now, though I went through a period of adjustment when I was sixty or seventy. Something seemed…off at the time, but I eventually got over it.”

“How old are the other wardens?”

“We don’t know for sure, but when we first met Shayliel, she claimed to have just celebrated her thousandth birthday…and that was quite a while ago now. Of course, she’s an elf, but there are at least two humans ahead of her.”

“I’ve never heard of an elf living more than seven or eight hundred years.”

Venni said, “Then I guess that part of the warden bond must affect elves, too. Well, not the bond itself, since she’s a warden. Yelena stopped aging ten years before we met, even though she hadn’t bonded anyone yet. I didn’t really believe her, you know, back at the beginning. Oh, I knew she was a wizard, and I knew she wanted to cast a binding spell on us, but the rest of it seemed too silly to be true. But I was young and in love, so I went along with it. And here we are, two and a half centuries later.”

“And you’ve stayed together since then?” Shavala asked. She’d originally planned to go home after a year or two of traveling, but after the meeting with Yelena, she hadn’t been sure what to do. Corec and Katrin wouldn’t be allowed into Terrillia. Of the entire group, only Ellerie would be granted entrance.

“Oh, no, not at all. I love Yelena, but two hundred forty-some years? We have to go our own way sometimes. Sarlo and me more than the rest, because of our relationships with her, but even the others go off on their own when they need to. Tarsi had her fill of the city three years ago and went away to be a hermit. Yelena can call her back if there’s an emergency, but she tries not to disturb us while we’re gone.”

That sounded better, Shavala thought. Perhaps she could split her time between Terrillia and her new friends. “Tarsi?” she asked.

“She’s an elder witch,” Venni replied. “I guess it must be something like a druid.”

“I don’t know much about other elder mages. Among the dorvasta, all elder mages are druids.”

“One of Shayliel’s bondmates is a druid, but he’s seaborn, not elven.”

Shavala cocked her head to the side. “There are seaborn druids?” Meritia had suggested there were rare cases of druids among humans and lizardfolk—or at least elder mages who called themselves druids—but Shavala had never heard of any from the seaborn.

“That’s what he said, anyway. Shayliel mentioned that he can change the wind and the storms to keep their ship safe and get it to where it’s going quickly.”

Shavala smiled to herself. She’d been right after all—a druid’s magic could help move a ship. She just hadn’t been strong enough the last time. She needed to practice more. She would do what she could on land, but hopefully they’d travel on a ship again soon.