Sianim 02 - Wolfsbane

look at you would have sent her running—but I’m grown now and have been for some time. So tell me”—she was snarling at him now—“ why are you trying to turn my attention to Nevyn with the skill of a village matchmaker?” She changed her voice, giving it an elderly quaver and a Lambshold crofter’s accent. “ ‘Look at this wonderful man, wounded, yet noble—a powerful mage in need of tender care. So he’s married to tha sister, so he hates shapeshifters—what’s a little challenge?’ ”
    She needed him to talk about what was bothering him in order to address it. She needed to goad him; perhaps a shift to gentleness would work—he hadn’t experienced enough to be entirely comfortable with it. “I don’t need Nevyn, dear heart. I have you.”
    “Of course,” he snapped. She was glad to see anger because sadness in his eyes tore her soul. “Oh, I am any maiden’s dream. A master wizard—except the only magic I know, other than a few basic spells, is black magic, and it will, at some future time, ensure my death at the hands of any mage who can back me into a corner. Without my conscious will, green magic randomly chooses to use me to call itself into being and do whatever the”—he paused and drew in a deep breath and deliberately relaxed his shoulders—“and do whatever seems fit at the time. You are better off without me.”
    The prudent thing, Aralorn considered, would be to allow him to work it out on his own. She knew he’d never hurt her, not even with magic he couldn’t control; she was even fairly certain he wouldn’t hurt anyone else who didn’t deserve it—and she thought that when he had a chance to reason it through, he would come to the same conclusions.
    What really bothered him was the nature of green magic. You coaxed it, you asked it, but you couldn’t always force it to do exactly what you wanted—but he’d dealt with much worse than that. She was confident he would again; she would just have to be patient until he worked it out.
    The prudent thing, she told herself, would be to leave him alone. He had a nasty temper when he was pushed.
    Since prudence wasn’t one of her attributes, she said, “Self-pity never accomplishes much, but sometimes it’s nice to wallow in it for a while. Do hurry up though—I’m getting hungry.” She tilted her head to indicate the sounds of people gathering on the other side of the curtain for their meal. “I’m tired of eating cold food.”
    Wolf closed both eyes. He stretched his neck to the left, then to the right. Only then did he open his eyes. Baleful lights glittered in their amber depths as he closed his hands ever so gently around her neck and pulled her forward until she had to tilt her chin up to look at him.
    “Someday,” he whispered, bending down until his lips were next to her ears, “you’re going to step into the fire and find out that it really is hot.”
    “Burn me,” she said in equally soft tones, and for a few moments he did—without a single spell.
    When he released her, there was a measure of peace in his eyes. “Shall we go eat?”
    She turned to go, and her eyes touched her father. Smile fading, Aralorn approached him and put her hand on his face.
    “Got rid of the creepy crawly, but no luck yet, sir, on your entrapment,” she murmured. “But tomorrow’s another day.”
    Wolf’s warm hand came down to rest on her shoulder. “Come.”

SEVEN

    Wolf changed back into his four-footed form, then staggered. Aralorn put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, and he leaned against her with a sigh and an apologetic look.
    “Sorry,” he said.
    “You need food,” she replied, and pulled back the curtain, only to find that not only was the great hall filled with people dining, but every head was turned to her. By the intentness of their gazes, she figured that the guard told them all that she’d brought her uncle to look at the Lyon.
    She bowed, and said, “We’ve made some progress, but the Lyon still sleeps.”
    She closed the curtain and set her own wards against casual interlopers since Wolf was in no condition to be working magic. By the time she was through, most of the diners had turned their attention back to their plates.
    Aralorn snagged a clean trencher from a passing kitchen servant and sat at the nearest table, Wolf collapsing at her feet. She took one of her knives and cut a bit of this and that from the platters arrayed on the table and tossed a large piece of roasted goose