As Shavala’s figure grew small in the distance, some of the tension drained from Razai’s shoulders. Not that she’d minded the last five days with the elven woman—Shavala kept quiet most of the time, and had taken on all of the hunting and cooking for the two of them without being asked.

But after months of traveling with other people, Razai was finally alone. No more dealing with Corec and his archaic sense of right and wrong. No more listening to the constant bickering between Ellerie and Marco. No more dirty looks from Ariadne any time she thought Razai wouldn’t notice. No more of Renny’s incessant chatter.

She winced at that last, unfair thought. Renny wasn’t bad, just young and lonely.

Shavala finally disappeared over the horizon, which meant it was time for Razai to get back on the road. There was still daylight left.

First, though, there was something she had to take care of.

She found a stand of trees off the West Road, far enough away that she wouldn’t be overheard by anyone passing by. After tying her animals to a tree branch so they wouldn’t be frightened off, she stopped to think. Did she really want to do this? She hadn’t spoken to Vatarxis in a year.

But there were things she needed to know, and there was no sense in waiting any longer.

Projecting her voice across the barrier between the two worlds, she said, “All right, you old monster. I’m alone. Talk.”

There was no response.

She waited.

And then she waited some more.

“Hurry up!” she said. “I’m not going to stay here all day!”

The air in front of her shimmered, and then a small imp with red leathery skin popped through. It fell to the ground and pushed itself upright, then spun around, glaring indignantly.

“Razsai?” it hissed when it saw her. “Why Razsai bring Tifwa here?” The third eye in the middle of the imp’s forehead kept darting around, looking in all directions.

“I didn’t ask for you, Tifwa. I want to speak to him.”

“Masster busy.”

“Let me talk to him now or I’ll send you home without your wings.”

Tifwa snarled, but then his face went slack.

“Razai.” Vatarxis’s deep, bone-shaking voice always sounded strange coming from the tiny imp. “So, my wayward daughter finally deigns to speak to me again. I take it you want something?”

“You can start by telling me what happened between you and the Chosar.”

“Chosar?” Vatarxis said. “That’s a word I haven’t heard in a long time. What do you care about the Chosar? They’re long dead.”

“Except for the one I met in Tir Yadar, who somehow knows your name. She says you waged a war against her people.”

Vatarxis snorted—a sound Tifwa’s body couldn’t replicate, so it echoed faintly through the connection instead. “You think the Chosar still live? And in Tir Yadar, no less? You’re mistaken. If they were alive, they would have made their presence known by now. They’re not much for subtlety.”

“Not the Chosar; just one woman. She was in some sort of magic sleep until we woke her up.”

“Hmm, that could be,” Vatarxis said. “They were always messing with magic they didn’t understand. That’s what killed them in the end.”

“So you do know about them!”

“Of course I do. What of it?”

“Did you go to war against them? You’ve told me about fighting wardens before, but you never said anything about a war.”

“It happened a few times. Twice against the Chosar.”

“Why invade the mortal realm at all? I thought you didn’t care about it.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Vatarxis asked.

“You haven’t been here since my mother was killed.”

“That’s not true, but it hardly matters. Why cross the barrier when I have my dutiful daughter to carry out my will?”

Razai growled low in her throat. “But why attack the Chosar?”

“Why does anyone do anything?”

“That’s not an answer!” she snapped.

“It’s the only one you’d understand.”

“If you used to wage war, then why stop? Was it just the Chosar that you hated?”

“You’re missing the point,” Vatarxis said. “The game’s not as much fun when your strongest opponents destroy themselves before you get a chance to kill them all. Besides, things changed once we learned to take on their form. New experiences.”

“I don’t understand.”

“And I don’t intend to discuss it any further. But seeing as you’re willing to talk to me again, is your pet warden behaving himself?”

“Why did you send me to follow him?” she said.

“To keep an eye on things, of course. Two new wardens when there should have been just one? The Lady is playing games.”

“What does she have to do with it?”

“She and I had an agreement. A demonborn warden—the first ever.”

“Who … Rusol is demonborn?” Razai hadn’t realized. She’d watched the young prince for a while, but mostly from a distance.

“Your grand-nephew, in fact.”

“Nephew? But that means …”

“Your younger sister married his grandfather.”

Razai had never met any of her half-siblings. Vatarxis had always implied they were long dead, and he’d refused to help her track down their descendents.

She had to think back to recall the name. “Queen Benere was my sister? Wait—younger sister? That’s why you crossed the barrier again?”

“Obviously.”

Razai had to take a moment to consider the implications. Queen Benere—her sister!—had been dead for years, but she’d left behind a son and two grandsons. That meant Marten was Razai’s nephew … and he’d died just weeks before she could have met him. Just weeks before she could have talked to him. Only Rusol was left.

“Did Rusol really kill Rikard?” she asked, not certain she wanted to know the answer. If Benere was Vatarxis’s daughter, then Rikard was his great-grandson, and yet Vatarxis hadn’t been disturbed when he’d found out the young man had died. He’d seemed almost happy about it.

“You’re the one who told me he did.”

“I told you he had reason to, and that I didn’t see any sign of interference from the outside. I didn’t actually see him do it.”

“Who cares if he did or not?” Vatarxis said. “Rikard wasn’t born with our blood. Only Rusol matters.”

That explained his reaction. Rikard wasn’t demonborn, and his death would put Rusol on the throne. As both warden and king, Rusol would wield a great deal of power and influence, enough to affect all of northern Aravor. And as demonborn, he could …

Razai hesitated. She was thinking like herself, not like her father. “What do you get out of it?” she asked.

“A piece on the game board.”

“What?”

“The game may have changed, but it never ends.”

Razai growled in annoyance and changed the topic. “If Rusol is one of your agents, why did you send me to spy on him?”

“He’s not mine—that wasn’t part of the deal. He has his own role to play.”

“Role? What role? What are you talking about?”

“It’s not important. You learned what I needed to know, and that’s all that mattered.”

“But then why watch Corec? He’s certainly no demonborn. He bonded me!”

Vatarxis chuckled, the sound causing Tifwa’s body to vibrate. “That should make your task easier, don’t you think?”

“What task?”

“To start with, making sure he doesn’t interfere with my plans. The Lady only delivered on one of her promises. She failed on the others, and then this new warden came out of nowhere. Let’s make sure he doesn’t turn into an enemy. We wouldn’t want another Yelena on our hands. Or worse, another Badru.”

Razai didn’t recognize the second name, but that wasn’t the important question. “How am I supposed to keep him from interfering in your plans when you refuse to tell me what those plans are?”

“You’ll figure it out,” Vatarxis said. “For now, keep him away from Rusol.”

“It’s too late for that,” Razai said. “Rusol has been sending compelled troops to kill him. Corec asked me to find out why. I’m on my way to Larso right now.”

Vatarxis was quiet for so long that Razai thought he’d lost his link to Tifwa.

Then he spoke again. “It would be helpful if a few more wardens died. I doubt Corec is on The Lady’s list, and I was hoping to make use of him myself, but it’s best to be safe. Rusol can’t be allowed to die until he’s completed his tasks. If the two of them come into direct conflict, you’ll need to kill Corec—along with any of his bondmates that might want revenge.”

#

Corec finished tying down the tent’s last rope, then stood and brushed the dirt from his knees. “It looks like we still have some time before supper,” he told Katrin. It was Sarette and Nedley’s turn to cook, and even with Leena coaching them, it would take a while. “I’m going to try that weapon binding spell again.”

“I thought you gave up on that,” Katrin said, unpacking their bedrolls and tossing them inside the tent.

“I did, but then today, while we were riding, it came to me out of nowhere. I think I understand it now.”

“You learned the spell?”

“I think so, but I need to try it.”

“Good luck,” Katrin said. “I’ll finish getting set up here.”

Corec kissed the top of her head, then grabbed the maul and went to look for a quiet spot away from all the activity. They’d set up camp in a copse of trees away from the road, their tents hidden from prying eyes. For the past two days, there’d been more traffic on the West Road than Corec remembered ever seeing in the winter, and he didn’t want to tempt any horse thieves.

Beyond the camp, he found a boulder to sit on and summoned another mage light to illuminate the area. Laying the war maul—Shatter, as Ariadne had called it—across his lap, he closed his eyes and concentrated.

Corec had spent months trying to learn the new binding spell. When he’d given up on it, he’d figured all that time had been wasted, but now, two weeks later, everything had suddenly started to make sense. The last step, though, was to actually attempt to cast it. The wizards he’d spoken to back when he was trying to learn about the warden runes had all suggested that binding spells required weeks or months of preparation, but Corec had already spent months practicing and picturing in his mind how the bond would work. Hopefully it would be enough.

It took him several minutes to cast the spell, the whole time feeling almost as if he was tying invisible knots in his mind. When he was done, a tiny, glowing triangle—the same shade of blue as his warden runes—appeared on his right palm. Its twin showed up on the maul’s shaft.

It was done. Before he could test whether it worked, though, there was a commotion from the camp.

Corec rejoined the rest of the group to find Boktar and Ellerie speaking to a middle-aged man with thinning hair. Behind them was a farm wagon drawn by a team of just two mules. A woman and two young children were on the wagon seat, bundled up against the cold. A lantern hung from the front of the wagon to light their way.

“Corec, we’ve got a problem,” Boktar said. “This is Willis, who was able to tell me why we’ve seen so many groups heading east. He says the dragon is coming to Four Roads.”

“Dragon?” Corec asked. “The one from the keep? That’s got to be two hundred, maybe two hundred fifty miles. They don’t usually range that far out.” But when they did, it meant trouble.

Willis’s gaze darted around the camp. “Wh … where’s all the light coming from?”

“Those are called mage lights,” Corec said. “I’m a wizard.” That was close enough to the truth, and most people at least had an inkling of what a wizard was. “Don’t worry, they can’t hurt you.”

“We were just looking for a place to stop, sir. We didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You’re not disturbing us, and there’s plenty of room for you to camp here if you want.”

“Go ahead,” Boktar said to the man. “Tell him what you told me.”

By now, everyone had gathered around.

Willis swallowed as he caught sight of the group’s weapons and armor. “I was a leather-worker in Four Roads,” he said. “A few months back, folks from south of town started showing up, saying the dragon had attacked their village. It wasn’t many at first, but it got worse. Then, five weeks ago, people said they’d seen the dragon flying as far north as Springwater.”

Treya drew in a sharp breath. “Springwater’s only twenty miles from Four Roads. A friend of mine lives there—a Sister of the Orders.”

“I didn’t wait for it to get to Four Roads,” Willis continued. “I packed up my family and got out while we still could. I can find a job in Tyrsall or Ironholt.”

“A dragon’s not likely to attack a town the size of Four Roads,” Corec said, trying to remember what he’d been taught back at Fort Hightower. “The problem is all the farms and ranches outside of town. Is the dragon circling around or coming straight north?”

“I … I don’t know,” Willis said.

“What’s the difference?” Sarette asked.

“Dragons only leave their territory for a few reasons,” Corec said. “If it’s heading in one direction, it could be looking for a new home or a mate, but that shouldn’t take too long—if it really wanted to reach Four Roads, it could get there in a day. If it’s circling around instead, that means it’s claiming a wider territory.”

“It started expanding its territory last year,” Leena said. When everyone looked at her, she added, “Last winter I saw it flying overhead near the Terril Forest, the western edge. The wood elves found me there and took me to a safe spot. They were the ones who told me what it was doing.”

Corec nodded. “Then it’s probably looking for more food. People say there were some herds of cattle left behind when the area was abandoned, but if it’s hunted those all down, it may need to look farther out.” He paused. “Or if it’s a female and already mated, it could be claiming a wider area for its hatchlings to grow up. They need more room as they get bigger, and you’d have to have an army to clear them out.” It had happened in the Tablelands a hundred years earlier, and the knights suspected the dragon in the free lands had been one of the Tablelands hatchlings.

“There’s no army in the free lands,” Treya said. “And I doubt Four Roads can afford to hire enough mercenaries to hunt a dragon.”

“If they don’t do it themselves, they’ll have to send for help from Larso or Matagor, and that’ll come with its own price.” The two nations might not try to claim land that far from their own borders, but they’d likely insist on years of taxes in exchange for hunting down the dragon.

“Why Matagor?” Sarette asked. “Isn’t Larso closer?”

“Yes, but the keep belonged to Matagor,” Corec said. “They built a toll bridge over a river at the crossroads. A lot of trading caravans used to go through there. It’s the shortest route from Tyrsall to Matagor or Terevas.”

“What are we going to do?” Katrin asked. “We can’t go to Four Roads now, can we?”

Corec caught Boktar’s eye and tilted his head in Willis’s direction. The dwarven man nodded and led Willis back to his family, passing him a handful of silver coins. “That’s for the information,” Boktar said to him. “I’ll show you a good spot to set up your camp.”

After they’d left, the wagon following along behind them, Corec said, “Dragons don’t like cities, and Four Roads has thirty thousand people. The town itself should be safe enough, but the surrounding area won’t be. We’ll have to go farther out. North, probably, to be safe.”

“If the dragon gives Larso an excuse to sends its army into the free lands, would they come after you next?” Ellerie asked.

Corec hadn’t considered that, but the red-eyes had managed to track him down three times. Rusol must have some way of finding him.

“I think they’d come from the south, not the north,” he said. “The dragon’s probably still nesting at the old keep. Larso would send the knights first, but they’d come through Fort Hightower, along the Old Road. It leads straight there. But we’ll be careful anyway—we’ll make sure to have an escape route to the east in case we need it. If it comes down to it, we can move faster than an army.”

“Just tell me you’re not thinking of hunting down the dragon yourself,” Katrin said.

“No, of course not,” Corec said. “But the knights don’t have any mages to support them except for priests of Pallisur, and I’m not sure how much help a priest will be against a dragon. If the Order has to fight it on their own, a lot of men are going to die—men that I know. Not all the knights are as faithful to the Church’s teachings as the priests are. If they send a good commander who’s willing to accept some help …” He shrugged.

“The knights don’t work with mages because they’d rather burn them at the stake!”

“They haven’t done that in a long time.”

Katrin glared at him. “If they even look like they’re going to try, I’ll make them walk off a cliff.”

Corec suspected it wasn’t the knights that Katrin was angry about but his suggestion that he might help them with the dragon. “They’re not going to make trouble in the free lands,” he said.

She looked like she was going to say something, but Ellerie interrupted their argument. “We’ll just have to see what happens,” the elven woman said. “If nothing else, we can pay for the mercenaries ourselves so Four Roads won’t have to ask Larso for help.”

#

The tershaya rose tall above the trail, sometimes interrupted by other, shorter trees in spots where the tershaya had been encouraged to thin out enough to allow more sunlight to reach below the canopy.

Winter birds chirped as they went about their day. It wasn’t the full chorus that would rise as the summer birds returned and the mating season began, but it was a sound Shavala had been hearing for her entire life.

She was home.

She’d split up from Razai a week earlier, reaching the Terril Forest four days after that. Now she was just a few hours away from the northeast border outpost, the place where she’d spent the majority of her apprenticeship.

With luck, Meritia would still be stationed there and could provide some advice on what Shavala should do with the staff. The visions made it obvious that it belonged to the elven people, the ancient druids using it to care for the world around them. Shavala had a duty to return the staff to the dorvasta, but she’d made commitments of her own as well. She’d promised to help Ellerie grow new tershaya in Terevas, and someday she’d have to return to Tir Yadar to tend to her own little tershaya grove as well as the room under the mountain with the moths and the mushrooms. If she gave the staff to the druid elders, would they allow her to use it when she needed to?

Hopefully Meritia would know what to do.

Shavala had also brought the hefty stack of notes she’d been keeping about all the new plants and animals she’d encountered on her travels—enough for a book, if the other druids thought it would be helpful. Elven books, or dorvasta books at least, were rare, copied painstakingly by hand. Druids passed their knowledge along orally instead. But humans had printing presses which could make many copies quickly, and Ellerie had offered to help Shavala learn the process. It seemed more efficient than carefully memorizing the details over many retellings.

There was a rustling sound to Shavala’s left, and she looked to find a squirrel running from one tree branch to another. Its markings were familiar.

“Lele? Is that you?” she asked. “What are you doing way out here?”

The squirrel stopped immediately, sitting back on its haunches and peering at her intently. It gave a high-pitched, questioning chirrup.

“It is you!” Shavala slipped out of her saddle and approached her old friend. “Come here!” she said, patting her shoulder.

Lele jumped to the branch nearest Shavala, then ran along it and leapt off. He almost missed his target, catching himself on her tunic and scrambling up to her shoulder. He was growing older, and she felt a pang of regret about having left him behind for so long, but squirrels didn’t travel well. It wouldn’t be fair to take any wild animal away from its home.

“Why are you awake?” she asked him. Tree squirrels didn’t truly hibernate through the winter, but they did sleep for long periods of time, tucked away in their nest.

He chittered complaints about too much noise and activity waking him up. Druids couldn’t understand animal speech the way animals could understand druids, but Shavala had known Lele for years and was familiar with how he expressed himself.

“What sort of noise?” she asked, though she knew the answer wouldn’t make any sense. Talking to a squirrel could only go so far.

A voice called out from farther down the road. “Shavala?” The figure was wearing the mottled green and brown garb the rangers used to blend in with the forest. He carried an unstrung bow in one hand, and had a quiver slung over his back.

“Ellisan!” Shavala said with a wide grin. “You’re out here alone?” Normally the rangers patrolled in groups.

“Meritia said you’d be here. She sent me out to find you. She must have told Lele, too—he insisted on coming along, and he never wants to come with me.”

Shavala laughed. “What’s going on at the outpost? Lele says it’s noisy.”

“I’m not sure. Meritia’s packing to leave, and she’s taking some of the rangers with her, back to Terrillia.”

“We’d better hurry then. I need to talk to her before she goes.”

Ellisan reached Shavala and gathered her up in a tight hug, ignoring Lele’s scolding. The hug lasted longer than Shavala expected, and through the tree bond, she caught a quick flash of feeling that hadn’t been there before.

Finally, he stepped back and looked her over, as if searching for any injuries. “I’m glad you’re back. I missed you.”

“I’m not really back,” she explained. “I was passing nearby, so I wanted to visit.”

A look of disappointment crossed his face. “You can’t still be on your travels,” he said, referring to the final stage of a druid apprentice’s training. “You’ve been gone for a year and a half.”

“No, I’ve finished my travels,” Shavala replied. She hadn’t realized it was true until she’d said it, but a druid decided when their own training was over, and there was no doubt she was a full druid now. “But I’m not quite done with traveling. There are a few things I still need to take care of, but I should be around more often now.”

Ellisan nodded and led the way back to the border camp. He was on foot, so Shavala walked with him, leading Socks—her roan gelding—and her pack mule along behind her.

It took four hours to reach the outpost, and they spent the walk talking about Shavala’s time away. She told him of her companions and the discovery of Tir Yadar, but shied away from mentioning anything about wardens or her relationship with Corec. She spoke for so long, her throat grew dry. It was the most she’d said at one time in as long as she could remember. Talking with other dorvasta was always easier than talking to anyone else, the tree bond helping to gently guide the conversation.

The border outpost looked much the same as Shavala remembered, though there were two very young men going in and out of her old hut. Apparently it had new residents.

Lele jumped from Shavala’s arm to a wood pile, and then scampered up to the roof of Meritia’s hut.

Meritia was inside, tightening the straps on a travel pack.

“Ahh, good, you’re here,” she said before Shavala could speak. “The forest told me you were coming. Grab anything you want to bring—just what you can carry. Leave your animals with Ellisan. We’ll be taking the running trails. I waited an extra two days once I realized you were back, so we need to move quickly.”

The tree bond pushed for agreement.

“Where are we going?” Shavala asked.

“The druids have been summoned to a conclave. I’ll explain on the way.”