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“I want to see if I’m right first.”
He didn’t like it, but he trusted Nic implicitly, so he subsided, waiting and scanning the billowing mist concealing and revealing the orchard in turns, seeking to penetrate it with his wizard senses.He discovered little more than what he’d already told Nic, besides one unusual detail.“They’re on foot.”
“Hmm.”Her hand tightened on his, her magic available to him but otherwise firmly contained.She was nervous, not afraid.
Three figures resolved from the mist, one tall and two shorter, one of the shorter ones limping visibly.The tall figure had an arm around the limping one, helping them along.The other figure, who moved wearily, stepped in front of the other two, Elal magic flaring bright as several spirits condensed before the trio, forming a protective phalanx.
“Lord Phel, I presume,” the wizard called.A young woman’s voice, trying to sound stern, but though her power blazed with impressive strength, a wobble in it betrayed her uncertainty.She also sounded very much like Nic.
Confirming it, Nic caught her breath.“Alise!”she called.
“Alise… Your sister?”Gabriel asked under his breath, and Nic nodded, her emotions a tumult of excitement and trepidation, joy and… guilt?
Alise took a few steps closer, her two companions staying behind.The spirit guardians manifested swords, an Elal wizard’s trick Gabriel had encountered before.As Alise emerged from the denser mist, Gabriel noted her strong familial resemblance to Nic.He’d have guessed her for a sister immediately.If not for being several years younger than Nic, a teenager still, Alise could have passed for her identical twin.With her high Elal forehead, strong nose, and shining, sleekly cut black hair, the young wizard possessed a poise beyond her tender years.He found it somewhat jarring, however, to see wizard-black eyes instead of Nic’s striking emerald green.
He used to have the prettiest blue eyes like his father’s…his mother’s anguished voice echoed in his mind.
“Lord Phel,” Alise repeated, tearing her gaze from Nic and focusing on Gabriel, lifting her chin just as Nic would when she’d determined on a course of action and wouldn’t be swayed from it.“I demand that you release my sister from your unlawful abduction of her.You will remand her into my custody in the name of House Elal.”
“Or?”Gabriel asked, partly amused by the young wizard’s temerity.Her magic was strong, and might grow stronger still with maturity, but she was no match for him, even without the massive boost in power Nic provided him.He was also angry, the wizard’s instincts Nic liked to tease him about, bristling at the mere suggestion that he’d part with Nic.
“Or suffer the consequences,” Alise replied with cool poise.
Beside him, Nic shifted.She wasn’t going to interfere, but she clearly wanted to.
“Nic is my duly bonded familiar,” he replied, more gently than he would have, if not for what he sensed from Nic.“She is also my wife, my lover, the mother of our unborn child, and the lady of House Phel.Even if were I to agree to release her into your custody, which I emphatically refuse to do, she wouldn’t wish to go.”
He risked a glance at Nic, just to make certain, and she smiled warmly at him, her magic curling around him in wine-red, rose-suffused love.All right, then.It would be nice, however, if he could pass one day without someone threatening to take her away from him.
“If that’s true,” Alise replied in a hard voice, “then why did she bring shame upon House Elal, jeopardizing her entire future, by refusing and attempting to escape you?”
Nic groaned, pressing her lips together and shaking her head.
“You are free to speak up, you know,” Gabriel reminded her.
She cast him a startled glance, as if she had indeed forgotten in her ingrained response to a new wizard’s presence.“I assume Papa told you that, Alise?”she called.
Alise leveled a look on her sister, expression and magic roiling with conflicting emotions.“Yes.He thought you might have come to me for help, but you didn’t, did you?”
That guilt he’d sensed in her flared, but she answered with comparable poise.“No, I didn’t want to involve anyone else in my problems, least of all you.”
“Why would you be so imprudent?”Alise asked, indignant and pleading at once.“You had to have a strong reason.And there have been rumors.I heard he put you in an iron collar.”
Nic’s hand went reflexively to her throat where the hunters’ collar had weighed on her, though Asa had long since healed the abrasions and bruises.“You should know better than to credit rumor, Alise,” she replied with disdainful amusement.“Especially at Convocation Academy.”
“And the rest?”Alise persisted.
“The rest is a long tale best told by a nice fire and over a warm beverage, possibly breakfast,” Nic replied.“You and your companions appear to have traveled some distance and under onerous circumstances.I’m interested in hearing your tale as well.Won’t you all accept the hospitality of House Phel and be welcome?”
Alise’s gaze went to Gabriel, then his sword, and his clasp on his familiar.
Wiser now to the social signals of the Convocation, Gabriel released Nic’s hand—after brushing a kiss over the back of it—and sheathed his sword.“I welcome my sister-in-law to House Phel,” he confirmed.“And her companions?”He made that a question, as it seemed odd that Alise hadn’t introduced them.
Interestingly, she winced, glancing back at them.“As for that…” She gestured them forward, keeping her spirit guardians in place.“I should be transparent before offering insult to House Phel by involving you in a potentially difficult situation.”
Nic and Gabriel exchanged an intrigued look as the other two stepped forward.They were also as bedraggled as Alise, the young man tall with penetrating blue eyes and long pale-blond hair tied back.He still had an arm around a lovely, vivacious redhead.Her long curls hung limp and damp, but her eyes remained brightly interested, freckles standing out bright on her pale face.
“This is Han and Iliana,” Alise said, indicating first the young man, then the young woman—and interestingly omitting their house affiliations.
