motherherbivore

Sergeant Nuressa Porthill was a hill elf with a scar across her forehead and a sharply raised eyebrow. She eyed me impassively when I opened the door, glanced past me into the house, then asked, “Goodwife Heiric?”

“Sergeant Porthill,” I replied, and ushered her party inside. She had brought another hill elf with her, and four Greater mages with the emblem of their lodge embroidered on the high, stiff collars of their mantles. They each nodded at Harlan, who barely inclined his head.

“Now,” said Porthill, “I will try to make this as quick and painless as possible.”

Hearth wards are not uncommon, especially in homes that lay outside of cities or towns, but they are usually simple enchantments meant to deter intruders and alert homeowners to ready more dramatic defenses. Anti-scrying measures are much more complex, and like all complex magic, they leave a trace, a feeling. My second husband, Mooreve Toorac of the Silverglen Lodge, spent months on the topic with our daughter Fairlark, often continuing his lectures at the dinner table while I listened patiently and smiled at his passion. I was not the student, but still I remember what he taught her of looking out for magical wards. What might this caster have felt when they hid their house from curious eyes? Deceit, I thought. Fear of being caught. I even hoped that there was guilt. I struggled to imagine someone who would steal a child from their family and not feel some measure of wrongfulness.

The ride to Yuville was far more pleasant, buoyed by hope for Falnight and relief after breaking the silence with Harlan. He seemed shy as we cleaned up camp, probably embarrassed, but I was careful to act normal, and that seemed to relax him. I asked again after the elf he’d been with the morning we left, and this time, he answered.

“Hearthmoor,” he said. “We met when I left the cavalry.”

“A friend?” I asked. I did not mean anything more by it, sincerely, but Harlan gave me a somewhat exasperated look.

“They have a wife,” he said. “I am a bachelor yet, Mama.”

“I did not say anything,” I insisted. “I know you value your solitude.”

“Yet you worry.”

“Only for your happiness, starlight.”

“I am fine.”

“Harlan?” I asked into the dark. A gunshot rang out, deafeningly close.

Harlan was sitting on the porch again when I arrived, just after the midday meal, but he was not alone this time. Another elf sat beside him in a rocking chair, swaying gently as they talked. Harlan said something to them as I rode up, and they paused to look at me. They raised a hand in greeting, and I waved back, but I did not get close enough to make out much more than the pale blue of their skin and their silver hair before they got to their feet and went inside.

“Who is your friend?” I asked, when Harlan came out to meet me at the gate.

“You’ve answered your own question,” Harlan said. “Just wait here. I’ll fetch my pack and horse.”

“Before I ask anything about it, you should talk to Winedawn,” they said, before I had greeted them. “He was looking for you this morning. Searched the whole property before he came to me in tears, asking where you were.”

My heart sank. I had not spoken to him the night before, either. “I should have told him before I left. I do not know why I didn’t—”

Vicaste interrupted me, “It is done, don’t dwell on it now. Just talk to him.”

Still, I felt bad for upsetting Winedawn so carelessly, and we walked back to the house in silence.

“How can you be content to wait?” they asked me one evening, as we all sat eating supper in silence. I was distracted, thinking about repairs that needed to be done at the hotel before the weather turned really cold, and at first I did not understand what they were saying. They became annoyed when I asked them to repeat the question, and even more so at my reply when they did.

“It has only been half a year,” I said. “Not even a full turn of the seasons.”