Sianim 02 - Wolfsbane

yourself.”
    “Me or the horse?”
    He grinned. “You.”
    She raised her eyebrows, and said, “Let’s just say that having a shapeshifter for a spy, whether they know it or not, hasn’t hurt Sianim any.”
    “I’ve missed you,” he said softly.
    “I’ve missed you, too. I’ll be back, though. If you let me know, I’ll come after Freya’s babe is born.”
    The Lyon’s hand stilled on the horse’s forehead. “I wish Nevyn would be alive to see it. They waited so long for this child.”
    She nodded. She’d told him the truth about Nevyn, knowing that he would not judge his son-in-law for it.
    Freya deserved the truth as well, if she wanted it. Aralorn had left that for her father to decide. Freya hadn’t spoken to her since she’d awakened to the news that her husband was dead. Maybe she already knew at least part of what had been going on.
    “This friend of yours, the one Nevyn was after when he set the spell on me. He is safe?”
    “I think so,” she said. “With Geoffrey well and truly dead, no one but Kisrah and the family know that I was ever involved with him.”
    Neither Gerem nor Kisrah had challenged the story she’d told Irrenna and repeated often since—that the last ae’Magi hadn’t been the man he’d appeared to be. He’d made an attempt on King Myr’s life, and, in response, she and his son had moved against him. They had thought he died, a victim of the Uriah—but he was a dreamwalker, and survived long enough to set up his son’s death. It had been Nevyn, she explained, who had figured out how to break the spell, but in doing so, had brought about his own death. Nevyn deserved to be a hero—and Geoffrey, who had hurt Nevyn so badly, deserved whatever blame fell to him.
    With Kisrah’s corroborating testimony regarding the character of the previous ae’Magi, almost everyone seemed to accept the tale. Aralorn suspected that Kisrah had done something to the hold the previous ae’Magi’s spells had continued to have—because no one challenged him or seemed unnaturally sure of Geoffrey’s goodness.
    The Lyon rubbed his beard. “I knew Geoffrey, but I met Cain a time or two as well—when he was younger than Gerem by a few years.”
    “I didn’t know that.”
    “Up until that point, I’d been favorably impressed by the ae’Magi. I was curious about his son though, mostly because of the stories that were circulating about him even then.”
    “What did you think of him when you met him?” she asked, curious.
    “He . . . Something that Correy said leads me to believe that the relationship that you have with Cain is somewhat more than friendship.”
    She smiled slowly. “You might say that, yes.”
    “Then bring him with you the next time you come down—tell him he doesn’t have to come and go mysteriously as he did this time. Irrenna and I would be pleased to have him as a guest.”
    Her smile widened, and tears threatened as she slipped out the door, so she could give him a hug. “I love you, Da.”
    No matter what her father said, it still wasn’t safe for too many people to know where the Archmage’s infamous son was, but she’d tell Wolf what her father said. It would matter to him.
    He bent down, and whispered, “Especially if one of you teaches my cook how to make those little cakes that you had at the king’s coronation. I know you were playing cook, so the nasty-looking guard must have been Cain.”
    Her mouth dropped open, and she took two steps back and kinked her neck so she could look him in the eyes. “How did you know?”
    He shook his head. “I’m not really certain, to tell you the truth. But I’ve always been able to tell who you are, no matter what shape you wear.”

    “You didn’t tell him we were married,” Wolf said with neutrality he didn’t feel as he paced by Sheen’s side. Had she been ashamed of him?
    She shook her head. “He’d have been hurt that he missed the ceremony,” she told him. “We can do it up properly later, when it won’t be tied up with Nevyn’s deal, don’t you think? You have his approval, though, if that helps.”
    That bewildered him. How could he approve of Cain, the ae’Magi’s despised son, for his daughter? “He doesn’t know me.”
    “He’s met you,” she told him. “He knows what you did here and why. That was apparently enough for him—oh, and he really wants to know how you made those little cakes you fixed for Myr’s coronation.”
    Wolf stopped. Sheen halted beside him, and