"She'll be safe with Gura," Seraph said, though she wasn't happy with it either. "And Jes will be back soon."
She'd certainly be safer at home than investigating a place that might have been Shadow Blighted. If Seraph hadn't needed Lehr's help, she'd have found some way to leave him behind, too.
Jes, she'd found excuses to send off with Hennea. The forest king's territory extended on either side of the trail to town, but Jes thought that as long as he was with her the forest king wouldn't stop Hennea a second time. The geas had obviously been very painful by the time they'd left - Jes could get Hennea back to the temple sooner than if she had to find her way herself.
So now she only had to risk one of her children to find out if Hennea had been right. Tier was alive. Seraph was too much a Raven to allow herself to believe it without more proof, but even so, the thought thrummed through her. She would have the chance to save him, as she hadn't been able to save Ushireh.
"There's two places I could pick up the trail," Lehr said. "But knowing Jes, I thought that it might be shorter to follow the path he took with the forest king than to try and follow the trail he made bringing Hennea back."
"You're the Hunter," Seraph said. "I trust you."
Lehr stopped where the field turned to forest. "The forest king came here," he said, but he didn't immediately start on the trail, just stared at the ground. "Are you certain that I'm a Hunter? Papa could... can track as well as I can."
He didn't look at her as he spoke.
Lehr, she thought, saw beyond the power to the cost of acknowledging his Traveler blood. He knew that a Falcon could never belong to Redern.
"It doesn't matter," she said gently. "We just need to track Jes to where he found the girl, then follow her trail to where... where the huntsman found whatever he found."
"Right," he said and started through the forest.
Seraph followed Lehr's rapid gait with an effort, but made no complaint. The afternoon was well spent and he would need light to track. Whatever he hoped, she could feel the hum of magic as it passed from him and seeped into the woods around her. She had learned basic tracking skills herself, but she could see no sign of bent grass or footprint in the trail Lehr followed - she doubted that anyone but a Hunter could have followed the forest king through his own territory.
But she said nothing of it. Lehr would have to accept his abilities in his own way - or not.
When Lehr began a steady jog, Seraph left off her musings and concentrated on keeping up with him. He ran a mile or so before dropping back to a walk in a glade of wild wheat edged by forest on three sides and a formidable rock formation on the other.
"I think this is where Jes picked up the girl," he said, glancing around at the ground. He turned his back to the stone formation and knelt in the thick, spring-short grass. "There are several sets of his tracks. Do you see how much deeper Jes's print is here than it usually is?"
A branch moved behind his head. Seraph hissed a warning and called her magic.
"Now there is no need for that, Raven," said the man who rolled nimbly out from under a particularly thick area of foliage that gathered in front of the stone formation. "It is you who have invaded my home, not the other way around."
Lehr got to his feet and dusted off the knee of his breeches. "Mother," he said. "This is Jes's forest king."
He looked more like a grubby farmer fallen on hard times, thought Seraph. The tunic he wore was patched on top of older patches. His feet were bare and his hands were the knobby-knuckled, dark-nailed hands of a man who had worked the land.
She'd always wanted to see Jes's friend, and on any other day she would have had a number of questions for him. But nothing mattered except Tier.
Seraph bowed her head shallowly so she could keep her eyes on him. "We are sorry to disturb you," she said. "We are following the woman's tracks to the place where my husband's horse died."
"You won't find it trying to track her from here, Hunter. I didn't bring her by ways