Raven's Strike

They were an hour from the spot Tier thought they should camp when Ri

“The storm’s coming,” she said.

“That’s all right.” He patted her leg, then swung up behind her. “Go ahead and sleep.”

Ri

Lehr made sweet tea and saw to it that everyone drank two cups while Seraph busied herself making a stew of a little water, salted venison, and turnips. It took forever to soften the meat, and the tea, though it had boiled furiously, was not very hot.

With Ri

A day off to rest and dry their clothing followed by five long days of travel found them riding on a game trail through heavily forested but mostly level ground. They saw no sign of other people. Everyone knew if they settled too near to Shadow’s Fall, crops didn’t grow right—as if the U

There were several other Rederni besides Tier who collected animal fur in the fall and winter, but most of them stayed out for a shorter time than Tier. They had stories to tell about things that followed them for weeks without leaving a track or sign. Tier’d had a few odd encounters himself.

Though the trail they were on was flat, towering peaks rose around them. When Tier looked back he could see the highest mountain, a long ridge with a barren red top edged in snowy white with a narrow notch that almost bisected it—the pass they’d taken over the mountain.

Hopefully, Tier thought, as Skew forded a shallow stream, they would be riding back that way in a few weeks and return to Redern—just as the people who’d survived the fall of the Shadowed King had forged their way over that same pass to a place where they felt safe, protected by the steep slope of Redern Mountain.

Then he’d be able to sing again. Skew tossed his head, and Tier loosened his reins, letting them lie slack.

Last night Tier had been singing and lost himself—at least that’s what it had felt like. One moment he was singing, and the next he was lying on the ground with Seraph patting his face.

They said he’d just stopped singing, stopped moving, then gone into convulsions. Phoran and Jes had held him down until they stopped. He

Tier didn’t want to do anything ever to put that look in Seraph’s eyes again, so he’d decided to stop telling stories and singing songs until—well, just until.

Seraph tried not to watch Tier all the time, tried not to look. She and He

He

Rufort, who was older than the other three former Passerines, had been there at a ceremony when the binding of Order to gem had been done in front of an audience. He did the best he could, but he wasn’t a wizard and, as Tier said dryly, about half the things the Masters did on stage were performance rather than magic.

If Phoran’s Memory were to show up again, it might be able to tell them more. However, it hadn’t come back to feed since it killed Phoran’s would-be assassins in Taela, though Seraph didn’t know why. Since Memories were rare, formed only sometimes when a Raven died by murder or betrayal, no one knew much about them. They formed quickly after the Raven’s death, usually while the killer was still in the room. Then they avenged the dead Raven and dissipated. With the Masters protected from the Memory by magic, if Phoran hadn’t been nearby to feed upon when the Raven died, it would have been attached to the gem as they had pla

She’d never heard of a Memory feeding from anyone other than its intended prey, so she didn’t know the rules that governed what it did to Phoran. Until the Memory returned, she and He

From information the former Passerines gave them, they believed the spell had been done in three parts. The first, which He

The Path kept its Ordered prisoners for a year and a day before successfully stealing the Orders to bind to the gems. Some of that was because magic worked better on a person who is known to the magic wielder. Seraph could work magic on one of her family far easier than she could ensorcel someone she didn’t know. But, some magics just took a long time to work. The binding of Order to gem had to be as strong or stronger than the binding of Order to Order Bearer; it probably just took time.

The second part must have been when the gem gradually started pulling the Order to it. That’s the phase Tier seemed to be in. Toarsen said both of the Ravens who had preceded Tier in captivity had begun having episodes toward the end of their stay. He

The third part of the Path’s spell was where the wizard severed the tie between Order and Order Bearer. It might not need magic at all, just the death of the Order Bearer.

Both Phoran’s and Tier’s fates were tied together: destroy the Shadowed and both would be safe. Brewydd’s last message indicated either the Shadowed was in Colossae, or they would find some way to deal with him there. Seraph glanced at Tier and away before he noticed. She would find the Shadowed, she vowed silently. She would find him and she would see that he never bothered her or hers again. Tier was riding alone in front today. He wasn’t talking much, and, though she knew that he could be as comfortable in silence as he was in a storm of words, she worried about him. However, she knew her fussing bothered him more than it helped, so she let him avoid her for now.

The game trail they’d been following emptied into a broad, flat meadow half a league across and, as Seraph could judge it, three or more leagues long. Seraph’s horse took four steps onto the meadow and stopped. Seraph realized she’d pulled the horse to a halt, but couldn’t say why.

“I know this place,” said Jes, who’d been walking beside He

Phoran came up next and stopped just beyond Seraph. He turned Blade in a rapid circle and looked through the trees as if he expected to see a waiting army. But there was nothing except a gentle breeze that moved the tops of the evergreens.

Tier looked back and saw them stopped. He turned Skew around and began cantering back to them.