Free Silver Eve by Sandra Waugh Page B

I’d not even noticed.
    “The reeds.” My indignation deflated. I simply felt exposed.
    “Or the wisps,” he suggested with a nod to the pond. “You might wash.”
    As if he needed to tell a Healer what to do for this. Nonetheless I walked to the pond, dropped my satchel and cloak, and pulled off my frock and dropped it as well, realizing later there was no point in removing anything since all of it was wet anyway. I was not acting myself.
    Wisps.
He’d named them as I had. “Those wisps,” I began, splashing off the blood. “What are they?”
    “Vestiges of the Waste. They come from underground and are rarely seen above, but if they are stirred to swarm…Shadows, seemingly nothing, but needle-sharp when threatened or spurred to aggression. When massed they can overwhelm, whisk you off your feet. Easy enough to be rid of, but you have to be quick.” He said a little ruefully, “I was not quick.”
    “Quick?”
No questions, Evie!
I bit my tongue before I could ask what the Waste was.
    “Fire, any sort of light—as you said. I knew better than to fight the swarm. Though I do not know why water worked.”
    “ ’Twas moonwater.”
    Laurent looked hard at me, but then nodded as if he’d heard of such a serendipitous occurrence before. He said more solemnly, “Thank you for coming to my aid.”
    “Then we are even.” I sloshed out of the pond, dragging my clothes behind. “Should these wisps return, I’ll know how to stop them.”
    “They will not stop.”
    “But you have just said. Easy enough to get rid of.” I was impatient, pretending to be calm when I was not calm. I wanted to go. I’d had enough challenges this night.
    “Wisps are the least of our worries.” The Rider was matter-of-fact. “
They
can raise the earth and build firestorms, gather the most vicious creatures, or pull the worst from humans—”
    “They?” I’d misunderstood. “Who are
they
?”
    “Breeders. They will find you. They will not stop.”
    The tiniest breeze ruffled over us. I said, “You found me, Rider Laurent. Are you one of these Breeders who will not stop?”
    “No.” He made the slightest hesitation, as if confused that I suggested it.
    “Then how
did
you find me?”
    The Rider looked up over my head toward the pond and said softly, “Moonlight on water brings Nature’s daughter.”
    The breeze chilled my skin.
Moonlight on water…
’Twas what the seer had said. I turned around. There the sinking moon carved a path of silver straight across the water. From where I stood at water’s edge it trailed right to my feet.
    I looked back at him, then shivered. He asked suddenly, “Do you not know who you are, my lady? What it is we fight? Can it be that no one has told you?”
    I said, “I am a Healer.” A tainted one by now, but I kept that to myself. “I do not fight.”
    It was not enough. “Your cousin returned to Merith not long after the battle with the Troths. She didn’t speak to you?”
    “Lark was wounded, and when she was better—”
    “You left.”
    I looked away. “There wasn’t time to talk…of much.”
    “Then, my lady, where are you going?” the Rider asked softly. “Do you know?” A second shiver rippled over my skin, but not from the breeze. His voice was rich.
    I hadn’t answered, so he asked another: “Do you think your cousin, Lark, is still in Merith?”
    I said, “I think she is with one of your Riders. Gharain.”
    “She is.”
    “Except…I saw walls, a castle.” I couldn’t help telling it, for the image of Lark at home there was so strange. I glanced at him. “ ’Twas not what I imagined for her.”
Or for the Riders.
    But Laurent was frowning. “What do you mean ‘saw’?”
    “I made a spell. I saw Lark in a castle. And she saw me.”
    In the barest hint of dawn, Laurent’s face went dark. He took a slow breath; his hand found the hilt of his sword. “So that is what the queen meant in her message, why they come so quickly.”
    “Who? These