And those thoughts, unfortunately, kept those goosebumps right where they were.
"Kenlan?" said Sennalee, while Dyanara prepared to deal with her corn. "He was always a little distracted, but he was a good man."
"Kenlan?" Balbas said, looking up from the wax tablet he was laboring over, surprised to see Dyanara in town. "Had his mind on something the last month or so he was alive. Seemed worried. But yes, I trusted him. He was a good man."
"Kenlan?" Jacoba's mother prodded a hen away from the side of her house and retrieved the egg the noisy bird had been sitting on. "Why, I liked him well enough, what I knew of him. He was always kind to Jacoba. He asked an awful lot of questions about the season's crops right before we lost him, now that I think about it." She sighed. 'The best any of us could figure—the way we found him inside that circle on the hill—he was fussing with magic that was too big for him. That was a sorrowful thing, his death. He was—"
"A good man," Dyanara finished for her. "Do you think... Jacoba could show me that hill?"
The bright moon disappeared behind another clump of fast-moving clouds, taking light from what had been a bright night; in another moment, it was back, flirting, washing the hillside with silver light— and then not.
The wind lifted Dyanara's loose hair and sent the ends dancing into tangles, pulling against the circlet at her brow. She had exchanged her trousers for a long, loose dress of gauzy linen, belted at her waist with woven hempweed. Spellcasting clothes, as dictated by her need to formalize any casting so serious as this one. The dress skirt snapped and belled with the wind, but the rustle of the material was lost in the sound of the trees—creaking as they bent, leaves flipping and hissing against one another, fluttering to the ground when they lost their grip on parent wood.
I should be with the village. They need their wizard on Lammas Night of all nights. But she wasn't. She was here, and she was still facing her decision. Send him on his way, or... Or trust him. Bring him back. Find out if his sweet touch on her arm felt as good in person. Find out if his sharp blue eyes looked at her the same way they had in her dream. If he could, at least, help her.
Dyanara closed her eyes tightly, and turned into the wind, letting it tug the hair away from her face, feeling it streaming back behind her. She'd spent too many lonely years on the road to be making this sort of decision—and to be making it wisely. Were the tokens, the gentleness—the look on his face—all a ruse?
She took a deep breath. She didn't have to decide now. She'd be in contact with him, she'd know him by it, before she finished the spell. She just had to be strong enough to make the right decision when the time came.
She'd made her circle of rocks, the only thing that wouldn't blow away in this fitful wind. The book of spells rested by her feet, but she wouldn't need it—she knew the spell by heart. Both versions. She raised her arms above her head, standing tall and straight, feeling the power gathering at her very intent, letting it wash up from the ground at her feet through her body to spill out to the heavens. Don't let me down, Kenlan, she thought, half prayer, half warning—and began. Chanting softly under her breath, the words a mere touch of her breath against her lips, she drew Kenlan's earthbound spirit to the circle.
Prepared to tame the power itself, she was taken by surprise at the pull of Kenlan's spirit on her own. His gratitude at her effort, his admiration of her skill, his... his love.
She struggled to pull away from him. Love, for someone he didn't even know?
But I do know you. I know you well. I've been with you all summer.
"But I don't know you!" she cried
Then learn of me now.
Bring him back, then? He wanted to come back, to break those wizardly rules and walk twice upon this earth? Her chanting lips faltered, wavering with her decision.
No! Not yet! I need your help. Churtna needs your help!
She blinked against the wind, not seeing hair that whipped into her eyes, nor feeling it snatch at her clothes. Did he know, then? Did he have answers?
Meddling with souls is no wizard's business. He whispered her own words back to her. The price is high when you blunder—and someone did. And in a quick fold of time, he showed her the night he'd died. Standing on this hill, enclosed in his own circle, lost in his own spell. She followed his loosed spirit as it traced the faint path of evil showing in the spirit shadow of the earth, marveling at his skill. As though a hunter after game, he spotted each slight sign and leapt upon it, knowing it would lead him to whatever was threatening Churtna.
She was with him when he found it, a solid core of hunger, dark and unfathomable in its need, blackness seeming to a rhythm of its own.
And you tried to stop it, she thought. But she knew right away he wasn't strong enough to do it alone. And she knew he knew—and that he had to try, for on this Lammas Night, it reached to steal the power and lifefood that the villagers dedicated back to the earth. An illicit harvester, snatching their next year's bounty.
So he tried. And... he died.
But he hadn't gone.