him and allowed him to vent his fury into passion.
It was the Guardian who gentled the kiss again and shifted his weight away from her. He rubbed his face against hers, like a cat marking his territory, and then pulled away despite the tension that shook his body.
"Benroln has Mother and Lehr?" he asked hoarsely.
She had to clear her throat before she could say anything. "Yes," she said.
She averted her face, knowing her cheeks were red, so she didn't have a chance to move away before he touched her again. He pulled her against him, and set his chin on top of her head.
"We'll go find them," he said. Then he must have noticed Isfain, because he stiffened.
"What have you done to that one?" he growled.
She used the excuse of looking at Isfain to step out of Jes's arms. "Not as much as I'd have liked to," she said. "Benroln was young when he stepped up to the leadership - if I understand the history that led to this stupidity. But you," she tapped Isfain's nose reprovingly, "you knew better. He was your sister's son and you taught him poorly."
"Release him," said the Guardian.
She cocked her head at him warily. "Why?"
When he growled at her, she found herself smiling despite the way the skin on her back flinched. "I think we'd better just leave him as he is until we find Lehr and your mother, don't you?"
"Soft-hearted," he said.
"Better than soft-headed," she replied. "Should we go after Lehr and Seraph?"
He stepped around her and held open the tent flap. "I'd rather eat someone," he said - she thought it was for Isfain's benefit, but she wasn't quite sure. "But we'll head out looking for Mother first. Is Gura here?"
"Seraph told him to guard the tent," she said.
As she ducked through the flap he put his lips near her ear and said, "Don't feel guilty."
She stopped so abruptly that the top of her head collided with his jaw hard enough that she heard his teeth click.
"Why should I feel guilty for kissing a handsome young boy?" she said sarcastically, without lowering her tone at all.
To her amazement he grinned at her. Guardians didn't grin. They smiled with pleasure while they choked the life out of some poor fool who crossed them. They bared their teeth. They didn't grin.
"I don't know. We both enjoyed it very much, Jes and I," his grin widened. "And we'd like to do it again as soon as possible."
"Here you are," said a young man in rich clothing who awaited them in a small clearing set in the side of a hill and overlooking a twenty-acre field with a tidy cottage at the far end. "I thought you might not make it."
Benroln smiled congenially. "I don't break contracts, sir."
"And besides," said the young man, "you knew there was more gold where you got the first, eh?"
He looked too young to have been a merchant for long, thought Seraph, then she reconsidered. There was a softness in his face that made him look exceedingly young, but his eyes were sharp and old.
I'll bet that he uses that young face of his, Seraph thought as she revised her estimate of his age upward by ten years.
"Of course, sir," said Benroln after he laughed politely at the merchant's comment. "This is the woman who will set the spell."
"And this is the farm right here," replied the merchant in a light, pleasant voice. "I want it cursed - you understand. Paid good money for a mage to curse it last year - but Asherstal still got a harvest out. I told that sorcerer I wanted nothing to grow on these fields, not even a weed. I want the other farmers to avoid Asherstal for fear whatever befell him will happen to them. I want him shamed. You'd better do the job or maybe some ill might befall you, eh? Like happened to that mage I hired last year."
Benroln looked taken aback, and Seraph wondered if he'd believed that sweet, innocent air the merchant exuded.
"Your mage's curse is still here," she murmured. "Perhaps you had him killed too soon. I'll have to take it off before I can work."
"I don't tell a tanner how to do his job," said the merchant. "I just pay him for good work." He made an odd motion with his hand that might have been accidental - but Tier had taught the boys the signs soldiers used. It had the look of one of those.