Of Truth and Beasts

“So, you deny any part in the prince’s loss?” Premin Jacque demanded.

“I deny its relevance ... in the present,” Wynn answered. “It has no bearing on my request to travel south to the Lhoin’na’s guild branch.”

This was her goal. In the brief time she’d regained access to the ancient texts, searching for clues of the Ancient Enemy’s return, Wynn had found hints of where to look for the mystery’s next piece.

Bäalâle Seatt: a great dwarven settlement, lost in the mythical war at the end of the Forgotten History.

Her best guess placed it somewhere south, nearer the great desert and mountains separating the north from the southern Suman Empire. The Lhoin’na—elven—branch of the guild was not far from that range of mountains. Each guild branch had gathered lost fragments of the far past in their own regions. The archived library of the Lhoin’na sages might be the better place to find clues to the location of that lost seatt. She now staked everything on the hope that her own guild branch wanted to rid itself of her presence.

Wynn stood in a long silence, watching her superiors. During some moment she hadn’t noticed, Hawes had pulled down her cowl. The premin of metaologers was the only one who hadn’t spoken as of yet.

Premin Frideswida Hawes appeared to be late middle-aged, but her short, cropped hair was as fully grayed as dull silver. With smooth, narrow features above a pointed chin, her expression rarely betrayed mood or thought.

Hawes’s silence, versus the others, seemed out of place.

Wynn viewed metaologers as logical, willful, used to the subtleties and hazards of balancing belief and knowledge. She wondered if blunt honesty would now be a useful tactic.

“I wish to go south. You wish me gone,” Wynn said, looking at Hawes, but then she turned to Sykion. “Simply give me approval. A quick word serves all our needs.”

Shocked expressions rose on both Sykion’s and Adlam’s faces, but no one spoke for the span of three breaths.

“The council will discuss your request ... later, in private,” Sykion said. “For now, as you clearly won’t face your transgressions, you are dismissed.” Then she leaned forward. “You are confined to the guild grounds.”

Wynn tried not to stiffen, but failed. “You cannot order me to—”

“Journeyor Hygeorht, you will remain on grounds!” the high premin commanded. “Or I will have your status revoked. I may face the consequences of that, but it would be a price worth paying.”

Wynn was too stunned for her growing anger to escape.

“Understand this clearly,” Sykion went on. “No guild protection, no funding, no status whatsoever as a sage. Threaten us again with action to regain the texts, and I will have you charged with the theft of the journals, which were in the dwarves’ possession at the time. We shall see whose case the High Advocate takes ... and whose word stands unblemished before the people’s court!”

Her aged features were strained with a fury that Wynn had never seen there before. But open hostility was preferable to politely veiled aggression.

They were in a deadlock. No matter Sykion’s warnings, she was desperate to keep a hold on Wynn. And no matter what Wynn threatened, she couldn’t afford to be cast out, or she would have no right to enter the archives of Lhoin’na sages.

“Do you understand?” Sykion asked.

Wynn nodded curtly.

“Then you are dismissed ... for now.”

Wynn turned slowly and found herself staring at the impenetrable barrier of solid wood. By the time she glanced back, Hawes’s hand finished an upward sweep, thin fingers curling lazily inward at the last. When Wynn turned back, only normal, old oak doors stood before her.

They began to open under the push of the outer attendants.

Looking out hesitantly, Wynn was relieved not to see Chane outside. He must have followed her request and gone back to her room. Trembling slightly, Wynn left the now silent council chamber, trying not to break into a jog until she was out of sight of the attendants.

A short while later, Chane paced Wynn’s small dormitory room, listening to her recount what had happened with the Premin Council. Seething, and still startled by how easily he had been locked out of the proceedings, he listened carefully to all that had transpired.

“They gave no answer to your request?” he asked.

“Only that I’m confined to guild grounds.”

She sat on the bed, one limp hand on Shade’s back. Chane studied them both.

Wynn looked less troubled than he expected. Her wispy brown hair hung around her pretty, olive-toned face. He suppressed an urge to push a few strands behind her ear.

Shade still appeared put out at having been left behind. Reading a canine face was not always easy, but she had almost taken on an air of petulance. Though she was an elven breed of dog called a majay-hì, anyone who did not know this saw only an oversized, long-legged, near-black wolf.

Wynn ran her hand down Shade’s neck.

“I think they’ll let me go in the end,” Wynn said. “Once they believe they have the means to get me out of their way and keep me on a leash.”