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“Easy, little one.” The king put a hand on her arm, guiding her back into her chair. “Numair believes—and I agree—you have magic. You may have no Gift, but there are other magics, ‘wild magics.’ The Bazhir tribes use one kind to unite their people. The Doi read the future with another. There are creatures we call ‘elementals,’ whose very nature is composed of wild magic.”
Daine frowned. “Miri told me the sea people know about it. Some of them use it to talk to fish and dolphins.”
“Exactly. From what your friends say”—the king nodded to Onua and Numair—“your wild magic gives you a bond with animals. Your mother might not have recognized it. Only a few people know it even exists.”
Daine frowned. “Can’t you see it on someone, like them with the Gift can see it on other folk that have it?”
“I can,” Numair said. “And you do.” Daine stared at him.
Jonathan said, “He’s perhaps the only living expert on wild magic.”
Daine scowled at Numair. “You never mentioned this on the road.”
He smiled. “If you were trying to get a deer to come to you, would you make any sudden noises?”
Her scowl deepened. “That’s different. I’m no deer.”
Jonathan took Daine’s hands. “Will you let Numair help you study wild magic? It may help expand your awareness of the immortals, for one thing.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to tell creatures to obey you?” Onua added. “All the way here you coaxed the ponies to mind you. You’re dominant—you proved that on the stallion, the day you and I met. Why prove it to each pony in the herd, if you could do it just once and never again?”
“Daine.” Something in Numair’s voice made her look at him, and only him. At the expression in his dark eyes, she even forgot that the king still held her hands. “I can teach you to heal.”
“Animals?” It came out as a squeak. “You mean—like Ma did humans? But how do you know if I can?”
“Because I saw you do it once.” That wasn’t Numair; it was Onua. “At the marsh, after the fight. You were holding a bird, and you fainted, remember?” Daine nodded. “I was looking right at an owl with its head cut almost off. The wound healed; he flew away. So did a lot of birds that shouldn’t have been able to fly. I think it happened because their need just pulled the healing out of you.” The K’mir nodded to Numair. “He can teach you to heal of your own will, without burning yourself up so you faint.”
All her life she had splinted, sewed, bandaged. Most of her patients had mended, but some had not. She felt the badger’s claw heavy on her chest. To fix her friends, like he’d fixed himself after giving the claw to her . . .
She looked at the king. “I still think it sounds crazy, but I’ll try.”
He squeezed her hands. “You will?” he asked quietly.
I’m in love, she thought, and nodded. “Oh, wait, I hired on with Onua for the summer.”
“That isn’t a problem,” said Numair. “The trainees will be going to Pirate’s Swoop. I live near there. Why don’t I just go along?” When the king frowned, he added, “Hag’s bones, Jon, there’s nothing I can do here right now that you don’t have a hundred other mages doing already. If I work with Daine, maybe I can devise a spell to warn people that immortals are coming.”
The king made a face. “You just say that so I’ll let you go.”
“You have too many mages eating their heads off around here as is,” Onua pointed out. “It’s not as if you can’t contact him if something comes up.”
“Whose side are you on?” the king asked. The woman grinned. He sighed and looked at Daine once more. Squeezing her hands, he let them go. “Thank you.” He got up. “Onua, Numair, keep me posted?” They nodded. “I’d best go then. I have to dance with the Carthaki ambassador’s wife.”
Numair grinned at him. “Wear iron shoes, Your Majesty.”
Daine said, “Excuse me—Your Majesty?”
The king looked back at her. “Yes, my dear?”
No one had ever called her that. She blushed, and managed to say, “I’m sorry I can’t help more. With the sensing, and my da, and all.”
Jonathan of Conté smiled at her. “If I’ve learned anything as a king, it’s been I never know when someone will be able to help me. I have a feeling you’ll be most welcome in this realm, Veralidaine Sarrasri.”
And he was gone, which was really just as well, because it was suddenly hard for her to breathe.
Onua patted her back. “He has this effect on most of us, if it helps.”
Numair rose, nibbling on one last cake. “No time like the present to begin. Daine, will you get Cloud, please? We’ll meet you by the stables.”
Dazed, she went out and called her mare. With the nights so fine, Cloud had asked to stay with the free ponies instead of being stabled with the trainees’ mounts. She came racing over at Daine’s summons and leaped the fence rather than wait for the girl to open the gate.
Overwhelmed by the day’s events, Daine buried her face in Cloud’s mane: it smelled of night air, ferns, and horse. “Things are so weird here,” she whispered. “You ever hear of ‘wild magic’? They say I have it.”
You have something, and you know it. Who cares what name it has? Or did you really think the wild creatures visit because they like humans?
“But magic?”
Did you call me to worry about the names of things? If you did, I’m going back. There’s a salt lick over by that big rock I want to taste.
“Daine?” Numair and Onua were coming. “Good, you have her,” Numair said. “If you can persuade her to come with me, I’d like to check your range with an animal you know well.”
“What do you mean, my ‘range’?” she asked.
“I’ve observed that when you say you ‘hear’ an animal, you actually mean hearing in your mind—not with your ears. I want to see how far I can walk with Cloud before you stop hearing her.”
“But how will you know?” the girl asked reasonably. “Should I have her tell you when we lose touch or something?”
“No!” Onua said, and laughed. “Daine, knowing Cloud, she’d do it by kicking him. Numair will do a speech spell with me. You and I will sit here, and you tell me what you hear from Cloud, and when you stop hearing her.”
“If Cloud will do it,” amended Numair.
“Of course she will.” Won’t you? the girl asked Cloud silently. The mare switched her tail, thinking it over. Daine didn’t rush her. Sometimes, if she was too eager, Cloud would refuse just to keep her in her place.
Very well. The pony trotted off down the fence, away from the palace.
“I think you’re to follow her,” Daine told the mage with a grin.
Numair sighed and trotted off after the pony. “Only one of us can lead here, and that has to be me,” he called.
Onua and Daine hoisted themselves to the top rail of the fence, and Onua held her palm out between them. In it glowed a ball of ruby-colored fire. “Numair will take a moment to set up his end of the spell.”
“Onua—if the king’s on the bad side of these Carthaks, why does he have to dance with the ambassador’s wife?”
“Politics,” Onua said. “We don’t have to mess with that, thanks be to Father Storm and Mother Rain. It means you sit down to dinner with enemies and ask how their children are.”
“Aren’t we at war, then?”
“Nah,” the woman replied. “We aren’t at war till both sides sign a paper saying it’s a war. The Carthaki emperor can raid us and send monsters against us, but there’s no war. Yet.”
“That’s crazy,” Daine said, and Onua nodded. They waited, enjoying the night. Uphill the palace glittered, its lights blurring the stars overhead. Downhill lay the forest, dark, moist, and quiet. The free ponies had come to graze near the two women, their soft movements a comforting sound.
In the distance the girl heard the callings of a pack of wolves. Did I hear them on the road? she wondered. Not so close, that’s for certain. I w
onder if they miss me, Brokefang and Rattail and the others.
Listen to these wolves. Is it hunt-song? No, pack-song. They’re just singing to be doing it, not to celebrate the kill.
If I could just run . . . dive into the forest. Go to them, be hunt-sister and one with the pack—
“Daine? Daine!” Onua was shaking her with one hand.
“Onua? What’s wrong?” Numair’s voice came from the fire in the K’mir’s other hand.
Great Goddess—I almost forgot who I am! “I’m fine,” she told Onua, forcing herself to sound calm. “Can you hear them?”
“The wolves? Of course,” Onua replied.
The pack had sensed her—their voices were approaching through the trees. The ponies snorted anxiously, huddling near the women and the fence. “I’ll be right back,” Daine said, and jumped into the meadow. “Calm down and stay put,” she ordered the herd. She walked until she was halfway between trees and fence, knowing the ponies would not come closer to the wolves.
“Go away!” she yelled. “There are hunters here, and dogs! Go!” There was that other way to speak to them, but she didn’t dare try it. Not after she had almost forgotten, just listening to them!
