Free Wayfinder by C. E. Murphy Page A

this.
    “The light,” the woman said uncertainly. “I thought he was fair as well. Now I see more clearly, and see our king.”
    Lara cursed again, this time barely more than a gurgle of frustration. She wasn’t in the habit of swearing, and under pressure, felt her vocabulary lacking. “At least the shovel wasn’t edge on. He’d have taken the top of his head off entirely. Do you have any talent at all for healing others?”
    The woman, stricken, shook her head. “Healing another is one of the great gifts. Like truthseeking. You’re
mortal.
”
    “So’s Ioan going to prove to be if a healer doesn’t get here fast.” Lara bent her head over Ioan’s, holding her breath so she could hear his. She was a literal world away from her deity, but she whispered a prayer anyway, trying to infuse it with strength and song to help the Unseelie king survive.
    Aerin sat up, wrapped a hand around the dagger, and yanked it free with a sick shout. Her chin fell to her chest while she gulped for air. Then she looked up with a mixture of guilt and fury. “They attacked
me
!”
    “Of
course
they attacked you!” Lara looked up with tears of anger suddenly hot on her cheeks. “You’re a Seelie warrior, charging full speed into the single protected land they have left! You’re lucky you’re not dead, but I swear if you were I wouldn’t shed a tear! Thank you,” she added in a snarl to the farmer woman. “For not killing her.”
    “Thank her armor, not us,” the scythe woman said flatly. “It was no decision of our own to spare her life. I am Braith,” she added with the air of someone making a reminder, not an introduction. “What is a truthseeker doing here with our king?”
    “I came to learn the truth about how the lands here were drowned. If I can, I’ll try to raise them again.” Lara placed a hand behind her, reminded of the staff strapped across her back. It had tremendous power, though whether it could be used to heal a badlyinjured man, she didn’t know. Dafydd had drawn strength from it, but that had been magical weariness, not physical damage, and even then it had wrought a cost in the landscape. “But it’s not going to matter unless a healer gets here soon. How long will it take for one to arrive?”
    Silence greeted her, and she looked up to find three sets of Unseelie eyes hungry on her. Belatedly, it struck her that speaking the raw truth—that she would try to raise the Drowned Lands—might not have been the wisest thing she could have done.
    For the first time in her life, meeting those desperate gazes, Lara thought
no pressure
, and heard amusement, not censure, in the untruth’s music.

“You should come to the village,” Braith said very softly. “The healer will wish to bring Hafgan there, and your presence and explanations will be desired. Almost none of us have met a mortal, and none at all have seen a truthseeker in years beyond counting. We would like to speak with you.”
    From the undercurrents in Braith’s speech, Lara thought they would
like
to swallow her whole, as if she were a vessel of hope that could be drained to sustain them. And when she was emptied, the staff would be theirs for the taking, a more cynical part of her psyche added. She glanced at Ioan’s barely breathing form, then exhaled softly. “I would be honored.” That was true, and gave her a moment to think before shaking her head. “But we only have three days from this morning to complete our … quest. There’ll be time to visit when we’re done, though.”
    “Are you mad?” Aerin’s voice broke on the question. “The quest is over. We cannot go on without him!”
    “Something you should have thought of before riding roughshod into hostile territory,” Lara snapped. “We have to go on without him. Just because no Seelie goes into the healing waters doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And I’m not one of you at all. Different rules might apply.”
    “But if they do not.” Braith’s gaze