Free THREE DROPS OF BLOOD by Michelle L. Levigne Page A

where the island of Wynystrys had been in Mrillis' youth.
There, they camped two days, until Gynefra's scouts caught signs of movement in the hills a
day's ride to the south. Someone had noticed their presence on the coast. Leading the enemy, or
even the dangerously curious, to Wynystrys and the secrets hidden there, would not be wise.
They broke camp and moved further south another day's journey.
    "Someone is weaving Threads," Meghianna said, when they were three hours of riding
away from their previous camp. She looked back over her shoulder, as if she could see through
the trees, along the winding coastline and high bluffs to the shallow inlet.
    "What are they doing?" Megassa called, urging her horse up alongside her sister. "Who's
doing it?"
    "Wynystrys' warriors," Mrillis said.
    "Valors?" The younger girl looked back with interest, as if she could see through the
obstacles to her vision.
    He muffled a grin at just how identical they were in such a pose, with only a thin frown
line of concentration between Meghianna's eyes differentiating them.
    "Only in the broadest sense," Captain Gynefra said, coming up to join them so the two
girls were framed between her and Mrillis. "They possess so much imbrose, matched
with their weaponry skills, they make the strongest Valors in the Warhawk's service seem like
clumsy little children, with sleight-of-hand tricks instead of true magic."
    Megassa nodded, frowning, duly impressed. Meghianna nodded once, her frown
deepening, before turning around in her saddle again.
    "They're weaving a basket, high up in the air," the older girl reported after a moment.
"To trap the people who were spying on us?"
    "Only if those people use magic of any sort to try to follow our trail," Mrillis said,
nodding.
    "People want to hurt Wynystrys, or just steal it?"
    "There are as many answers to that question as there are enemies of Wynystrys and
magic, the Rey'kil, the Warhawk, and Lygroes itself." He laughed when she rolled her eyes,
mouth flattening for a moment in purely childish disgust for his rhetorical answer. It was good to
know the child's spirits had returned to normal.
    Ahead of them, a shimmering haze formed in the air, framed between two saplings
trimmed in a lacy haze of crimson and gold-edged leaves. Mrillis nodded, pleased at this sign
that Wynystrys' guardians were satisfied that the travelers were safely out of reach and out of
sight of anyone who could cause the island harm. He watched Megassa more than her sister, as
their party approached the magic-laced doorway. The girl didn't react until they were only two
horse-lengths away from it. Then she frowned and rubbed her arms, looked to her left and right,
and finally saw the haze of magic in front of them. Her little mouth opened in surprise and
wonder. He saw no greed, no real interest in the working of magic. That satisfied him just as
much as this evidence that the regularly renewed spells to bind her imbrose did their job
well. If the Estall blessed them, by the time Megassa reached adolescence, her inborn magical
talents would be so stunted and limited, the spells would no longer be necessary. She would in
effect be crippled, but only in the sense that a chicken was crippled by its clipped wings.
Megassa would live a full life, with many opportunities to be satisfied and fulfilled, and
protected from those who would harm her or use her to harm her father, her sister, all of
Lygroes--much as chickens were protected from predators.
    Mrillis decided in that moment, watching the different reactions of the sisters, that he no
longer cared for the metaphor equating Megassa with a chicken. She was no longer the child
living in hiding and anonymity far away. He had come to care for her, and it pleased him that she
wasn't afraid of him. It pleased him more to see the healing in Efrin, evidenced by the affection
he showed both his daughters. Megassa had helped to bring that about. Mrillis hoped that one
day she would be her father's support