never let me down, Aron.” Her voice sounded tight and thin, so tired, like it always did after a failed night of hunting. “I probably don’t tell you often enough that I appreciate your willingness to help me.”
“You’re my oath-sister.” He risked brushing his hand against the sleeve of her robe, and felt a charge when she didn’t pull away. “I’ll always help you.”
Dari’s expression softened to one of grief, mixed with a touch of shame. “There is no legacy skill I know of that could find Kate if I, her twin, can’t sense her. If there were, I fear I would have already asked you to try to learn it, or worked to practice it myself, no matter the risk.”
Aron stood a bit straighter and looked directly into Dari’s eyes. Even in the low lighting, they sparked with life and power, drawing him in yet again.
“My sister is Stregan and unstable, and somehow—somehow shielded. Either she’s keeping her own mind sealed away from mine, or someone else is doing that job for her.” Dari shook her head, and Aron once more brushed the sleeve of her robe.
Her tremulous smile felt like a treasure chest of reward, but a breath later, she was walking again, toward the trees and away from him. Once more, Aron found himself running to catch her.
I’m always trying to keep pace with this one. The thought came without effort, because he had it often these days. His sixteenth birthday was creeping closer, but what hope did he have that Dari would finally begin to notice him as something other than the boy she helped rescue from the Watchline massacre?
The scent of oil grew stronger, and mingled with something metallic now, rasping against Aron’s senses. He forced himself forward, demanded that his mind stay focused on Dari, on seeing to her safety, but his graal grabbed at his awareness until he stumbled.
Unease slithered across the back of his neck as he slowed and righted himself, looking to his left and right. Cycles of training at Stone gathered inside him, and his muscles bunched. Both hands moved to the hilts of his swords. Instead of drawing them right away, he dashed forward, overtaking Dari at the same moment he whispered, “Wait!”
Dari stopped walking immediately, and her palm dropped toward the hilt of her single dagger. Her glance darted toward the trees, where Blath had sheltered herself. Too far away to call out, or make a run for it.
“Something feels wrong,” Aron said, low enough to keep their conversation private from any ears that might be listening. He had learned not to fear manes, mockers, or beasts, even rock cats, when Dari was present and allowing a bit of her true essence to be known, but far more dangerous creatures with two legs and sharp swords crept about Eyrie at night.
“Come,” Dari said, gripping her dagger. “If we dash for the woods—”
Nine robed men, faces wrapped like desert bandits, stepped out of the brush pushing against the sides of the byway, surrounding them as neatly as a net drawn upward with a sharp tug. They had blades drawn, and two had bows with arrows at the ready.
Aron and Dari drew their own weapons in silence, and the nine men ringing them walked slowly in a circle, keeping their shoulders squared and their weapons pointed forward. Aron tasted the copper tang of his own fear and once more smelled the strange oil he had detected earlier. Some sort of polish or conditioning for the swords or bows, no doubt.
The men wore no dynast colors, and by their stance and behavior, Aron guessed these were rogue soldiers.
“Can you summon her?” Aron whispered, meaning Blath, hoping Dari understood, but she paid him no heed.
One of the men, the tallest in the bunch, spoke. “Apprentices? What business does Stone have in Dyn Cobb, in the middle of the night?”
“Stone business,” Dari responded in her coolest, sharpest voice. This was preplanned, her handling any verbal confrontation, since most people feared Stone Sisters even more than crazed mockers or rabid rock cats. “Do you mean to interfere?”
One of the men snorted. “Would you be intending to steal our children, then? Many enough have disappeared, all across this dynast and others, too. It would make sense for Stone to be involved in the likes of that.”
Aron had no idea what the man was talking about, so he made no response. Neither did Dari.
For a time, the men said nothing else. They kept up their stalking