The Singing Read Free

Toward sunset the sky clouded over, and a thick mist began to rise from the ground, muffling her sense of smell. This bothered her more than the darkness; she depended more on her nose than her eyes.
    They didn't stop until it became too dark to move on. Cadvan found an overgrown copse where he might conceal a fire easily with a little magery and unsaddled Darsor, then rubbed down his rough coat. Maerad watched him as he worked, her eyes glowing. She had eaten the day before, and was not hungry, but the water rose in her mouth as Cadvan cooked himself a meal and ate it. He glanced at her.
    "You should say if you want something," he said.
    Maerad was slightly offended and turned her head away. She would not ask; it was up to him to offer. Cadvan laughed.
    "I swear, Maerad, you behave more like a real wolf every day. I can't always remember wolf etiquette. Would you like a bite?"
    Maerad stared over his shoulder, ignoring him, and he shrugged and finished his meal. When he had cleaned the pot, he glanced at the wolf again. She lay on her belly, just at the edge of the circle of firelight, her massive muzzle resting on her paws, and watched his every movement. Her ears flickered back and forth, but she betrayed no other sign of uneasiness.
    "I worry that you will forget that you are human if you are too much wolf," said Cadvan. "I know nothing of these powers. Are you ever afraid that you will forget how to become Maerad again?"
    Maerad's ears pricked up, but she did not answer. Her gaze turned inward as she pondered Cadvan's words. She had traveled in wolf form for a week now. The ability to transform was part of her Gift, an Elemental power that was outside the usual capacity of Bards, and she knew that Cadvan was not wholly at ease with it. Her human self was present inside her, but it was true that the longer she stayed in wolf form, the more distant it seemed, like a dream she had once had. But she dared not change into the young girl she was now, not so close to the mountains.
    I don't think I'll forget, she said at last. But even so, I can't change yet. The Winterking would find me at once.
    Cadvan nodded, and seemed about to say more, but checked himself. Instead he asked Maerad if she would take the first watch. They had traveled hard since they left the burned ruins of Pellinor on Midwinter Day, heading south to haven in the School of Innail, and he ached with exhaustion. He
    wrapped himself in his cloak and a thick blanket against the deep chill of the night, and fell asleep at once.
    Maerad was tired, but not unpleasantly, and she didn't feel the cold at all. She seemed to doze, but she was by no means asleep: her keen senses registered the smallest twitch of a twig, the tiniest shift of the air currents. She thought about Arkan, the Winterking, the Elemental being who had captured her in his mountain fortress and from whom she had so recently escaped. The reason she dared not change into her human form was not because she feared Arkan—although she did—but because she didn't trust herself. The thought of him opened a hollow inside her, a mixture of fear and desire. If Arkan said her name, she thought with contempt, she would even now turn and run to him. She didn't understand him—he was as beyond her understanding as the mountains themselves—and she didn't even like him; but something burned inside her that she couldn't control or ignore. Perhaps her desire for him was her Elidhu blood surging within her, like responding to like; perhaps her fear came from her human self. At this point, she shifted impatiently. It was always confusing thinking about her different selves.
    It was simpler to be a wolf.
    The night deepened. Maerad smelled rain coming, perhaps the next day. The clouds were heavy overhead, and neither moon nor star lifted the utter blackness. The damped-down fire gave out little light, and even that illuminated only the curls of mist that gathered between the tree trunks. But sight was only one of