Without pausing to consider the implications, she stalked from the audience hall and hurried to the fountain she used to travel the ley lines. As she briskly strode, it felt as if some inner voice was howling for her to run, not walk.
“My lady?” one of the serving girls asked.
“Find Thierry,” she ordered. “Tell him I’m going to the grove.
Something’s wrong.”
The maid bobbed quickly and rushed away. Worries began to cascade through her. When the bowl was invoked, the guardian of the grove was summoned. Captain Staeli had been gravely wounded in the Battle of the Kings, but he had healed with help from her magic. He was the one who wore the ring of the grove and would be summoned to defend the place. If he was defeated, the ring could be claimed by another person. This thought, this fear, was what made her stop her determined walk and break into a run. Servants stared at her in concern as she rushed past them. The knights stationed at the fountain looked at her worriedly as she stepped inside.
“My lady?” one of the knights demanded.
“Send knights to the grove,” she ordered. “At once. I fear something awful has happened.”
With the message still on her lips, she thought the word of power to cross the ley lines and felt the magic engulf her, as if she’d plummeted off a waterfall.
She arrived in the grove instantly. Chunks of ice as big as fists crashed down all around her, the hailstorm creating a cacophony.
There were soldiers all about, some huddled under shields, arms raised to deflect the bombardment. Most were sprawled on the muddy ground that was thick with frozen shards of ice, bleeding from the impact of the jagged chunks.
Her father had brought her to the grove long before he was attacked there. He had shown her how to summon its magic and what it did. The storms summoned by the silver bowl had always terrified her, but the magical assault never lasted long.
“Aspis!” she cried, creating a shield around herself and those nearby. She gazed through the pelting storm, trying to find someone she recognized. The aura of Fountain magic was everywhere. The air tingled with it.
The hailstorm ended abruptly, and in the wake of its commotion, she heard the groans of the survivors. People had collapsed everywhere. There were no horses. They must have all bolted away.
The sounds of pain were dissonant with the angelic song of the birds that suddenly appeared on the limbs of the denuded oak tree.
The hauntingly beautiful chorus had always wrung tears from her eyes in the past. But today she was desperate to find her husband and her friend, to help them and the wounded men.
Lord Amrein was lying on the ground, a jagged wound on his skull and blood covering most of his face. He looked like a dead man. Trynne gasped with shock, but she could not absorb what her eyes saw.
The presence of another Fountain-blessed drew her gaze to the cleft of the riven boulder, and she caught the swish of a pale-colored silk skirt. It looked familiar and she squinted, trying to make out the shape as the person disappeared into the cave beyond the great rock.
She took a few steps and then saw Gahalatine struggling to sit up. His big shoulders were trembling with weakness and he pitched forward again. She felt the throb of his Fountain magic, but it felt wrong—like a bubble that popped each time it attempted to coalesce. Hurrying to his side, she knelt in the melting ice, soaking her skirts.
She looked at his face, his brow twisted into a rictus of pain.
There were chunks of ice in his hair, along with a matting of fresh blood. She wrapped her arms around him and invoked a healing word, pouring some of her magic into him.
Some of the soldiers were upright now, gazing at the tree and listening to the anthem from the beautiful birds. But only a few had managed to stand. Most lay still. Many, she realized, were unbreathing. Marshal Soeur was among the dead. Her breath hitched, but she would not let herself cry. Where was Reya?
“Where am I?” Gahalatine muttered, wincing, staring around the grove in shock and confusion. Her magic was working through him, repairing the injuries he’d sustained during the hailstorm.
“You’ll be all right,” she said soothingly, choking on the words.
She stroked his shoulder and then wrapped her arms around him, wanting to both give comfort and take it. “You weren’t meant to come to this place. Why did you come here?”
He turned his head, gazing up at the skies as if afraid of them.
He looked shaken and fearful. Then he looked at her, his eyes tracing her features. There was no anger or hatred in them now. Just fear and worry and confusion. He struggled to sit up and was successful this time. She couldn’t stop holding him.