Free Raven's Strike by Patricia Briggs Page A

their fields, ignoring the people who scuttled out of her way. She stared at the ground to spare them her gaze until she made it into the woods that bordered the farm.
    What had she been going to do?
    She stood where she was for a long moment.
    She had to protect . . . by Lark and Raven, she was power-sick. Couldn’t think clearly.
    The warding. She should reset the warding. Slowly she made her way to the place where the warding had been and knelt in the dirt.
    There are two ways to set wardings. The voice of her old teacher was as clear as if he’d been standing over her shoulder. For a night a warding can be a simple thing, a rope that surrounds the tents and wagons and keeps them safe. But for any longer, or where dangers are greater, a warding is best worked as a chain with interconnecting links, each subtly different from the one before so that if one link fell, the others will still be effective guards.
    She pressed her hands into the soil and began, ignoring the ugly whispering voice that tried to coax her to keep the powershe held. If she could kill a troll with a whisper, how great was the good that she could accomplish with what she now held?
    Her hands tingled as she carefully drew a curved line. She’d never held such power.
    Only as the terrible rush of the troll’s death died away did she really understand how old it had been. She felt his age in the burn of magic that was not lessened even when she set wards that should keep out the shadowed for generations.
    She feared that just relaying the wards would not be enough to absorb so much so she began to feed it into the forest. Too much, and she’d harm as much as she helped, but a slow trickle of magic should not cause a problem.
    Gradually the discipline of redrawing the wards absorbed her. Mathematical and artistic at the same time, they required enough of her attention that the part of her that desired the rush of power was reduced to murmurs she could ignore.
    She became aware of him gradually, a pale form grazing quietly beside her. The pattering of the light rain was accompanied by the grinding of teeth and grass. The familiar, peaceful sound helped somehow, and she became aware of a deep inner contentment.
    She was home.
    She finished the link she was working and sat back, fisting her hands against her lower back as she stretched.
    â€œYou don’t look well,” she said.
    â€œOne of the tainted creatures attacked the priest,” replied the pale horse who was Jes’s forest king. His voice was velvety and very deep. “I saved him, but it was a near-run thing. Karadoc’s not young by Rederni standards, and he’s ill even yet. Without a priest, fighting the shadow-tainted has been draining, even with the help of your daughter.”
    She absorbed what he said and sorted through questions. The slowness of her thoughts told her that she was far from free of power-sickness yet.
    â€œThe troll wasn’t the first of the shadow-tainted creatures to come here?” she asked. She didn’t need Lehr or Jes to tell her that the troll had been tainted. Unlike the mistwight, trolls were shadow-born, creatures whose only purpose was to destroy and kill.
    â€œNo, there were other things, too, things I haven’t seen since the Fall, though none as dangerous as the troll. They come to destroy and feed the Shadowed.”
    Seraph stilled. “I had hoped that we were wrong. You are sure there is another Shadowed? That Volis couldn’t have set up a summoning spell?”
    The horse snorted. “Creatures like that troll would only come to the call of a Shadowed.” He rubbed his nose on his knee.
    â€œYou mean the Shadowed is here?” asked Seraph, then shook with the rebellion of her magic as her control of her emotions wavered. She took in deep, even breaths until everything settled down.
    The forest king waited until she was through before he said, “Not now, I don’t think. But