Free The Makers of Light by Lynna Merrill Page A

was crying, calling. Calling to her now, its voice in rhythm with her steps. So, she ran, hair and the black robe flapping at her back, creating wind where perhaps wind had never been, awakening the stale, old air from its dark slumber.
    It called to her again when she leaned against the massive iron door of its prison and shoved it open just enough to squeeze herself inside a room full of blackness. It called, but this time the call was not a howl but a snarl, yellow eyes glaring at her as sharp teeth flashed with the reflection of her tiny conjured light, a chain clanging as the animal tried to charge at her.
    She jumped back, and perhaps she would have made the tiny light erupt, would have sent fire to this fierce wild creature that so much wanted to assault her. Sounds and songs mingled in her ears again, and almost she did not know who and where she was—sounds of metal, wails and howls, sounds of burning ...
    Perhaps she would have hurt the wolf with fire, had she not tried a song first, had she not sung one in her mind, again, to keep those sounds away that tried to claim her.
    But sing the song she did, and though it started in her mind, the echoes reached her heart and stayed there. About a wolf the song was, about a wolf big and dreadful. She'd heard peasants and even some servants sing it to their babies in Balkaene when Father and Mother could not hear—though the peasants and servants, like Merley herself, must have rarely, if ever, seen wolves in this world ruled and " protected " by Bers. The big dreadful wolf should stay away from the child and the home, the song went. The wolf should stay away in the wildlands. And the wolf should know that one day the child would grow big and strong, that one day the child would go after the wolf and rid the world of him.
    This wolf was large, his head rising to her waist. His neck was strong, his limbs lean and muscled. And yet, some of his fur was burned and the rest was matted with both dirt and blood, and strong his legs might be, but he stood on only three, the fourth hanging limp and useless.
    "So the accursed child did grow strong, didn't it, big dreadful wolf?" Merley whispered, and something in her voice made him pause, the wild yellow eyes alien and yet full of something that spoke to her deeply.
    They had called her dreadful, too, one who would destroy a man in his own home, and they had not once asked what her reasons might be. Giles of Laurent, a future High Lord. Merley's mother had been so anxious to marry her off to one such as him that she had not even asked Merley what she thought, but went straight to Father. Typical Mother, scheming, idolizing power and the male half of the world. Father had of course agreed, for an alliance with Laurent was much desired with Iglika cool towards Waltraud and Qynnsent hostile.
    Politics, dirty little games with great stakes and crushed or broken-hearted pawns—had humankind invented anything more loathsome? Merley had refused, and Father, in his typical cold detachment said that of course that was her right, but not before she had met the man and talked to him in person. But it was not talking the man wanted. Many a night she had tried to forget what he tried to do but never could, and twice as many nights she had tried to forget how she had stopped him. But now, as eyes of challenge, anguish, and yellow wild fire bore into hers, she could not forget any longer.
    "What did you do, big dreadful wolf? What did they do to you to cause it?"
    The wolf lowered his head, and she made a step towards him. When the Bers had caught her, they had not chained her neck like his, only her limbs and her runaway heart as they threw her in a sealed Mierber-bound carriage. But she knew—oh she knew!—the wolf's look. Misplaced, alone, mistreated, angry, trapped at the mercy of those who never gave it.
    "Well, you are luckier than I was. I had no one. You have me. Come here, puppy."
    He growled, softly, and she was afraid, but still she