Song Magick Read Online Free Page A

sighed as if searching for the right words.
    “The pulse of the Wood,” he said finally, a
small, enigmatic smile lifting his lips. “It is nothing to fear.
You have my word. Good night.”
    Telyn looked away as Mithrais began to drag
the body of the assassin out of the circle of firelight. She did
not really want to know what he was going to do with the corpse,
and climbed quickly into the back of the wagon.
    She collapsed into the nest of blankets in
the load bed and lay there a moment, her mind whirling with chaotic
images of blades and blood, and the face of an anguished father
kneeling over the body of his son. Telyn jerked physically away
from that last mental picture and turned over onto her stomach,
where sleep claimed her at last.
     

 
    Chapter
Three
     
    “You let him go?”
    Aric’s voice rose in strident disbelief.
Mithrais raised a finger to his lips in caution, pointing to the
wagon where the bard slept, and the flame-haired warden dropped his
voice to an accusatory whisper.
    “He was a bounty hunter, Mithrais! How could
you allow him to just walk out of the Wood?”
    “Actually, he ran,” Mithrais said with irony.
He had known Aric would question this decision; as his lieutenant,
Aric was right to do so, but the Westwarden held firm. “He won’t
come back, nor do I think he has the courage to try that line of
work again. It was her wish to spare his life.”
    “That’s all well and good, but how will we
explain this to the Elders?” Aric grumbled unhappily. “The Code is
very clear on this, and you of all people know the laws Lord
Gwidion passed in regard to that kind of scum.”
    “I helped him write those particular laws,
and I don’t have to remind you why.” Mithrais glanced at Aric, who
nodded and nudged the remaining body beside the fire with the toe
of his boot, his face guarded.
    The horrific scene they had stumbled upon
still haunted them both. It had been the grisly work of a
particularly vicious bounty hunter known as The Dragon, who had
slipped through the nets of the Tauron and vanished like one of the
Wood’s rumored ghosts. For Aric, who had been profoundly disturbed
by the experience, that memory was never far away, and he enforced
the new laws with a grim satisfaction.
    Mithrais’ flame-haired friend and partner
cleared his throat, and noted with grudging admiration, “I can’t
believe she held off three attackers as long as she did. What if
the one you released does come back?”
    “We’ll be here. But the Gwaith’orn no longer
perceive that man as a threat, or they would have told you.”
    “But they still perceive her as
something unusual.” Aric’s gaze returned to the wagon with a nod.
“I think the Gwaith’orn were preoccupied with her, and that’s why
it took them so long to sense the threat. But why has she caught
their attention?”
    “I’m not sure. Bards have passed through
before with little notice, but this one is different.” Mithrais
paused. “She feels the resonance, Aric. I’m almost certain she is a
heartspeaker.”
    “You don’t think she knows about them, do
you?” Aric’s voice was low and urgent, his eyes flicking to the
wagon. “She isn’t Wood-born, Mithrais.”
    “It doesn’t seem to make a difference. They
just tried to summon her.” Mithrais sighed, and his own eyes rested
on the wagon. “There are other wills at work here. This was no
chance meeting. They want us to protect her.”
    “I agree,” Aric relented. “The question that
remains is, why?” He grabbed the collar of the dead man’s tunic and
began to drag the body away into the dark, leaving Mithrais to
guard the small campsite. The Westwarden stared into the fire, his
own thoughts preoccupied with the bard, and how her tawny eyes had
bespelled him as easily as her song magic.
    * * * *
    Telyn woke at dawn, unable to keep out the
chorus of birdsong. The feathered heralds of spring knew what time
it was, and their only thoughts were of mate, nest, and eggs.