Raven's Strike (Raven #2)(10)

Heedless of his damaged knees, Tier dove through the flames and caught Seraph around the waist, jerking her off the well and away from the fire. He had her on the ground and rolled her over twice before he realized that her clothes had not kindled and she was laughing.

He released her abruptly, but she sat up and kept her hands on him, brushing over his sleeves and quenching the smoldering fabric.

"I overdid it," she said, with a grin he recognized as the expression of action-drunk joy that sometimes caught warriors in the height of battle. He'd never seen her look more lovely.

He'd never been so angry with her, either - she could have killed herself.

There was a sharp crack of sound behind them, and Tier jerked around to see Seraph's flames whoosh out of existence as quickly as they had come, leaving the shed that protected the well blackened but unharmed.

As Hennea lowered her hands to her side after quenching the fire, something dark and smoking slipped over the rim of the well. It darted past Tier in an attempt to reach the nearby woodland; its pace so rapid he was left with scattered impressions of sparse wiry hair over wrinkled skin and sapphire eyes. The wolf who was Jes was only a little slower.

"The wight!" shouted Benroln.

An arrow intercepted the beast before Benroln finished the last syllable of its name. The thing rolled end over end several times, and Jes was upon it.

Dust and fur and darkness tangled until Tier couldn't tell one creature from the other. But evidently Lehr had no such problem. A second arrow found flesh, then a third and fourth.

Jes separated himself, then shook his fur to rid it of dust and dried grass. The mistwight struggled weakly for a few seconds more, three of Lehr's arrows stuck up from hip, neck, and rib. A fourth, broken off a handspan from the tip, protruded from its eye. Its ribs rose twice more and stilled.

Dead, it seemed to take up much less space than it had alive.

Seraph lay back down and laughed. She turned to Tier, and the smile slid from her eyes. "What's wrong, Tier?"

He forced a smile and shook his head. She didn't deserve his anger. It wasn't her fault that she enjoyed the spice of danger - he knew the feeling himself, but it unsettled him to see it in his wife. Not just because she had risked her life, either.

"Nothing, love. Let me give you a hand up."

This is what she had been born to do, he thought, as they strode back to the smith's hut like a small triumphant army after Hennea disposed of the mistwight's body with another bout of flame.

He could feel her outgrowing the home they'd forged together. He'd tried to ignore the changes in her since she and their sons had ridden to his rescue, but today had forced him to face them head-on. To save him, Seraph had taken up the mantle of her Order again.

He couldn't see how she'd ever pull herself small enough to live on the farm and be nothing but a farmer's wife again. Even if she tried to set her power aside a second time, he wasn't certain if he could allow it, not remembering the joy on her face as the well lit with flames.

Chapter 2

"No wonder he was out in the middle of nowhere. If there were a good smith nearby, he'd starve to death," said Benroln sourly as his sturdy bay kept pace with the little horse Tier rode. Brewydd had appropriated Skew for the ride back to the clan's camp with Tier's blessing. Lehr had had to carry the exhausted healer back to the horses, but the smith's wounded would recover.

"The smith's work is good enough by the local standards," Tier told Benroln. "You can't expect master-level bladecrafting from a man who makes mostly nails and plowshares. If you'd asked for a plow, doubtless you'd have been better pleased."

"We have not the slightest need for a plow," grumbled Benroln. "Or nails either. But either would have done us more good than three braces of ill-balanced, rough-handled knives."

"Then your own smith can use the metal to make something more suitable," soothed Tier. "You know as well as I that the real benefit you gained this day is that next time you - or any Traveler - comes by here, you will be welcomed and treated fairly."

"Is Benroln still complaining?" Seraph came up to ride by Tier's side. She gave Benroln a steady look. "If you'd really wanted a good bargain, you'd have driven it before we killed the mistwight and Brewydd healed his family. Afterward, you get what he gives and be grateful for it."

Benroln muttered an excuse and dropped back to talk with someone who would listen to him with a more sympathetic ear.

"The knives aren't so bad," said Tier. "They're just not up to the standards of the clan's smith."

Seraph watched him closely. "What's wrong?"

"My knees," he lied. She saw too much with her clear-eyed gaze. "They'll be fine."

He would lose her, he thought. She would stay with him for a while because the children needed her and because she'd given her word to him. But the boys were young men already, and their daughter was no longer a helpless child. How long would his love cage her from the life she was born to?

She'd grown into a woman who could deal with the responsibilities she'd come to him to escape. She was Raven, and he thought perhaps for the first time he understood what that meant.

"We can stop for a while and give your knees a chance to rest," said Seraph. "Brewydd could probably use the rest as well."