Raven's Shadow (Raven #1)(24)

"You have to tell me more," he caught her arm before she could leave. "You don't understand. I know it is the Elders of the Path of the Five who must free it."

"Free it?" she asked, and that chill that had touched her upon seeing the Birds of the Orders in a solsenti temple strengthened, distracting her from the encroaching grip of his arm.

"In hiding him," said Volis earnestly, "the Five trapped him, for his protection. 'Sleep on, guarded be, until upon waking destroys and saves' - "

Seraph started. That bit of poetry had no business being spoken in the mouth of a solsenti, no matter how well he spoke Traveler. It had nothing to do with the Eagle, but...

"He must be freed," said Volis. "And the Master of the Path has foreseen that it is we of the Path who will free the Stalker."

"The Stalker is not the Eagle," Seraph said involuntarily, then could have bitten off her tongue. This was dangerous, dangerous knowledge. He was mistaken about the Eagle, about the Orders being gods, but the Stalker...

He turned his mad gaze to her. He must have been mad. Only a madman would speak of freeing the Stalker.

"Ah," he said. "What do you know about the Stalker?"

"No more than you," she lied.

She fought to draw in a full breath and reminded herself that this man was a solsenti, a solsenti possessed of more knowledge that he should have - but even if he were so mistaken as to confuse the Eagle with the Stalker, he still should be harmless enough.

She gave him a short bow, Raven to stranger rather than good Rederni wife to priest, and used the motion to break free of his grasp.

"I have work," she said. "Thank you for your time - I'll see myself out."

She turned on her heel and strode rapidly to the curtained entrance, waiting for him to try and stop her, but he did not.

By the time she was on the bridge, she'd lost most of the fear that her visit with the new priest had engendered. The Stalker was well and truly imprisoned, and not even the Shadowed, who had almost destroyed the human race, had been able to free it. A solsenti priest with a handful of half-understood information was not a threat - at least not to the world as a whole, but she would still have to consider what Volis's fancies would mean to her and hers.

Dismissing the priest as an immediate threat left her with no distraction for the burden she carried. Though the honey jars were gone, almost a hundred weight of them, her pack carried stones that weighed her soul more than her back. As soon as Seraph left the main road for the cover of the trail, she stopped and pulled out the bag of mermori and counted them. Eighty-three.

Her hand tightened on the last one until the sharp edge of the end drew blood. Hurriedly she wiped off the mermora; it was never a good thing to expose magicked things to blood. When she was certain it was clean, she put them back in the leather bag and returned the whole bundle to her pack.

"There's nothing I can do," she said fiercely, though there was no one to hear her. "I don't know anything. I have no more ability than a dozen other Ravens who have all failed to prevent the demise of the Travelers. Here, in this place, I have three children who need me. There are fields to be planted and gardens to tend and a husband to welcome me home. There is nothing I can do."

But, by Lark and Raven, eighty-three. She swallowed. Maybe Tier would be home when she returned. She needed him to be home.

The land that Seraph and Tier farmed was in a very small hanging valley, most of which was too rocky to plant. They had no close neighbors. It had been virgin land when they had come there as newly married strangers.

From the vantage point of a knoll above the valley, Seraph fought back the feeling that it would all go back to wild within the decade - she was no farseer, just tired. She adjusted her pack and started down the faint trail.

Trees gave way to grass and field. As soon as she started on the path above the cabin, a joyous bark preceded Gura as he charged up the trail to welcome her home.

"Hello, fool dog," she said, and he rolled at her feet in rapture at her recognition of him, coating his thick fur in spring mud.

He was huge and black, covered with hair that needed daily grooming. Tier'd come home from town one evening with a black eye and a frightened, half-starved puppy with huge feet. Always collecting strays, was her husband.

Seraph bit back tears, and shook her head at the dog. "Come, Gura, let's see how my lad did on his own today."

The huge dog lumbered to his feet and shook himself off, sloughing off the puppy antics with the mud. He accompanied her to the cabin with solemn dignity.

With Gura's welcome to warn her family, Seraph wasn't surprised to find Lehr and Rinnie quietly working in the cabin.

"Ma!" said her youngest in tones of utter relief. "Lehr was so mean. He yelled at me when I was already doing what he asked me to."

At ten, Rinnie had recently adopted the role of family arbitrator and informant - which was having the expected results with her siblings. She took after Seraph more than anyone in the - family at least in looks. Rinnie was short with Seraph's pale hair that stood out so in Redern's dark population. In temperament she more resembled her father, sharing both his calm good sense and his flair for drama.

Seraph hugged her and looked up at Lehr.

"We finished turning the garden," said Lehr repressively. "And we planted a good third of it before Rinnie whined so much I let her go inside."