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"Ranon’s Wood is a fair-sized village, but there weren’tthat roup, so we all had a little piece of the ay on either side of the street staked out as our territory At the tih not to draw the notice of the older youths I learned round unless specifically summoned"

"If your father wasn’t there, who’d have that much influence?"

"My mother She’s a Healer" Warmed by the memory that was now as bittersweet as all of his memories of Reyna, Jared’s voice swelled with unmistakable pride

Brock nodded, silently respectful

"My father’s eyes glazed when the carriage reached the beginning of the main street and he saw all of us spread out like that But the Queen ordered the carriage to stop and said she wanted to walk a bit And walk she did I was the first one on that side of the street, and my father, may the Darkness embrace hi, but I saw her glance at the street and iet run over by another carriage--not that there were any carriageson the street She accepted my hand, and I led her across Except then her official escort was on one side of the street and she was on the other Naturally, the nearest boy offered to escort her back across

"She never laughed at us, never gave us the slightest i shepherded back and forth as she slowly made her way up the street The last boy at the top of the street handed her back topace, and he took her into the coffeehouse

"To this day, I have no idea where he was supposed to have taken her or if she got any refreshment before he slipped her out the back door to avoid more assistance" Jared smiled

"Did he tell your mother?" Brock asked

The mud and the rain--what did they matter compared to this?

"My mother and several other witches dined with the Queen that evening Since it was Ladies only, my father stayed home with my brothers and me For several days after that, every so often le while his face turned red"

They walked for a minute in companionable silence

Then Brock said, "Corry and Cathryn are walking up ahead Randolf s keeping an eye on the Eryk away fro hands"

Jared and Brock grinned at each other

"Go on," Brock said, hitching a thuon "Go warht tell her that story I think Thera would like it, too"

More than willing to get out of the rain and give his legs a rest, Jared waited until the wagon caught up to hi the thought over and over in his ainst instincts sharpened by the cruelty he’d seen, and endured, over the past nine years

Then he hurried to catch up, suddenly wanting the war to see if he could read anything in those hard gray eyes when he told her the story

He wasn’t sure he trusted the Gray Lady Yet he felt certain that in soe on some other street, she, too, had allowed herself to be needlessly shepherded so that a few young boys could proudly say they had served

Chapter Eight

Krelis stared at the spelled brass button in his hand and then at the uneasy guard "Are you sure?"

The guard’s face tightened "I made no mistake, Lord Krelis"

Krelis waved his hand, an oblique apology for insulting the man’s skill His voice thickened with frustration "What in the naed "There’s a Coach station less than a ht next to the station if she’d intended to buy passage and go on to the Tamanara Mountains"

Which is precisely what the bitchshould have done

"The innkeeper was sure it was the Gray Lady?"

"An old Queen dressed in gray with twelve slaves I found that button in the guest servants’ quarters because the slave quarters weren’t ‘co to taar instead of the lash"