Casket of Souls

yew, which grew only around Blackwater Lake in the north, the oil-rubbed limbs shone like dark horn. Master Radly was the finest bowyer Alec had ever found, and he’d mourned the loss of the first Radly that Seregil had given him, which was probably in the hands of a slave ship captain now.
    Alec inspected the maker’s mark engraved on the ivory disk set into the back of the handgrip. Radly’s yew-tree mark stood out, and there was a tiny R in the crown of branches, proof that this was the product of the master’s own hands, rather than one of his workmen. Such bows were costly, but more than worth the price: strong, sturdy, and true.
    Still gripping it in one hand, he jumped up and grabbed Seregil in an enthusiastic hug. “Thank you, talí. I just … I don’t know what to say, except thank you!” Holding the bottom end of the bow against his foot, he bent it to set the bowstring in its notches, then eyed down the length of it. “It’s perfect.”
    “That’s good. It would be a long ride to return it. That bow Riagil gave you is a good one, but I could tell you missed yours, so I couldn’t very well leave you without one, could I? I had Runcer set up a few targets in the garden. Care to try it out?”
    Alec was already out the door to fetch his quiver.
    The back garden wasn’t large enough to set up a very challenging target, but Alec split a few wands and murdered a bull’s-eye painted on a board propped against the garden wall. When he was done, Seregil and several of the servants who’d come to watch applauded.
    “I feel safer already,” said Seregil.
    They were at supper when Micum and his family arrived. Alec tossed his napkin aside and hurried into the hall to greet them.
    “Here we are at last!” Micum had little Gherin on his shoulder and his giggling blond foster son, Luthas, under one arm. Gherin had his father’s red hair and freckles but his mother’s dark eyes. Luthas looked more like his birth mother every time they saw the child. That couldn’t be easy for Seregil, Alec knew, given the lingering guilt he still felt over Cilla’s death.
    Kari came in just behind Micum, one arm around Elsbet, their middle daughter—still in her temple initiate’s robe—and holding young Illia by the hand, laughing with them over something. Unlike Beka and Gherin, both girls had taken after her, pretty and dark-haired.
    “Uncle!” Illia ran to Alec and threw her arms around him. When he’d first met her at Watermead, he’d been able to sweep her up in his arms with ease. Now her head came nearly to his shoulder, but she hadn’t lost any of her natural exuberance.
    “Why haven’t you come to Watermead this summer?” she demanded.
    Alec laughed. “That’s your greeting?”
    Ignoring that, she ran to hug Seregil as he came in. “Uncle Seregil!”
    Seregil swung her around and kissed her. “At least she isn’t demanding presents from you, Alec.”
    “Because she knows you always have them,” her mother said, shaking her head as she came to kiss them both. Illia was wearing the tiny pearl necklace and earrings they’d given her a few years ago, as well as a silver ring from Seregil.
    Elsbet had lost some of her shyness since she’d entered the Temple of Illior as an initiate and didn’t have to be coaxed into a hug.
    “Look,” she said, showing them a round, elaborate tattoo of Illior’s dragon on the palm of her hand. It was done in black, but now some small parts of the design had been filled in with green and blue.
    “Second level already?” said Seregil.
    “She is the family scholar, after all,” Micum said proudly. “The head priestess was very complimentary.”
    “I’m not surprised,” said Alec.
    “Do I get to sleep in the library again?” asked Illia.
    “Of course,” Seregil replied.
    “But you’re not to stay up all night reading,” her mother warned.
    Illia gave Alec a conspiratorial look; why else would she want to sleep there?
    They’d hardly gotten settled in for the night when Runcer appeared at their chamber with a familiar pinched look of disapproval around his eyes and mouth.
    “That young boy is back, asking for you, my lords,” he told them, sounding pained at having to deliver such distasteful news. “I put him in the garden.”
    “Thank you. I’ll see to him,” said Seregil.
    They’d met Kepi, so to speak, in the spring when the boy had cut Thero’s purse in the Harvest Market. He’d led Seregil and Alec a merry chase to get it