The Rancher's Daughter (Daughter of the Wildings #3) Read online

  Aleet was silent for a long moment. “It isn’t that simple,” she finally said. “But… yes.” She glanced down. “I also wanted to say thank you for taking my daughter’s place. She couldn’t have fought off those dark powers the way you did. Believe me, I didn’t know the ritual would put your life in danger. I just didn’t want my child to be involved in a war.” Now she looked Lainie straight in the eye. “But if I had known, I would have done anything to save my daughter’s life, even if it meant someone else would die.”

  “I know,” Lainie said. “I would do the same thing if I had a child. But all this never should have happened in the first place.” She looked over at Aktam. “I think this new wiseman will be wiser than the old one.”

  An embarrassed grin spread across Aktam’s face, and Kesta beamed up at him. “I know he will,” she said.

  After a final round of farewells and assurances to Shayla that she would be able to see her papa soon, Lainie and Silas mounted up and rode away, heading through the snowy mountains towards Bentwood Gulch and the best hotel in town.

  Chapter 14

  BACK IN BENTWOOD Gulch, Silas and Lainie took the best room at the Bentwood Palace Hotel and didn’t come out for four days. The room had a huge, soft bed, a private bathroom, and a bathtub plenty big enough for two. There was even a bell pull so that they could send down to the hotel’s fine restaurant for meals without ever having to leave their room. They also got their clothes cleaned and mended, and sent for the town doctor. The physician inspected Silas’s injuries and questioned him closely about when he had been hurt, refusing to believe that it had only been within the last nineday. Even the broken arm was far along the way to healing.

  Lainie’s ills, of course, were beyond the skills of a Plain doctor to treat. She had suffered another bout of cravings in the mountains, and went through two more while they were at the hotel. Each episode was slightly less severe than the one before, as Silas had expected would happen as her power naturally regenerated itself. But that was of little comfort through the long hours of holding her while her body was wracked with cramps and sickness, and of watching her breathe and willing her heart to keep beating as though his will was the only thing keeping her alive.

  In between cravings, Lainie came up with a plan to try to cure herself of the addiction. Once they were finished with their business in Bentwood Gulch, they would find some remote place to hole up, away from the notice of Plains and other mages, and she would put herself through repeated cycles of draining her power then going through the cravings while replenishing her power in more conventional ways. If she did this enough, her thinking went, eventually she would purge the addiction from her body.

  As well, since magical power increased in amount and strength by a tiny amount every time it was completely drained and then regenerated, by the time Lainie recovered she was going to be even more powerful than she was now. If she recovered; Silas had never heard of anyone surviving demonsalts addiction long enough to get rid of it. But this plan sounded like it could work. It had to work. If it didn’t, her life was going to be miserable and, most likely, very short.

  * * *

  AFTER FOUR DAYS of convalescing at the hotel, Silas and Lainie decided they felt up to facing the world again. Silas sent a note over to Coltor’s office in town, and a reply came back immediately: Coltor was waiting for them.

  Storts led them into Coltor’s office, where the rancher was sitting behind his huge desk, then closed the door and took up his usual watchful position.

  “Where’s my daughter?” Coltor demanded.

  Silas let the question wait. He still wasn’t feeling especially kindly about Coltor’s failure to deal straight with him and Lainie, and he had no intention of letting the rancher put him on the defensive. He held one of the visitor’s chairs for Lainie, then took his own seat. “She’s with her mother,” he said. “Which I think you knew all along.”

  “Why – what makes you think –” Coltor blustered.

  “Is there any particular reason why you didn’t tell us that the girl is half-A’ayimat, and that she would be with her mother? Or why you didn’t tell us you’re a mage?” Under the circumstances, Silas didn’t feel any qualms about revealing Coltor’s secret – or his own – in front of Storts. He was certain that Storts already knew; the fact that Storts was allowed to be present for this particular conversation, in which Coltor had to know that the subject of magic was bound to come up, only confirmed it. It also confirmed that Storts could be trusted not to spill any details of his employer’s affairs, including the fact that the people Coltor was doing business with were mages. “We walked right into a lot of trouble that we could have avoided if you’d told us the truth to start with.”

  Coltor glowered and took in a deep breath as though he was about to start shouting. Then he looked at Silas and Lainie as though seeing them for the first time since they had entered the office. Silas’s broken left arm was still splinted and bound up in the sling, and healing cuts and burns still showed on his hands and face. Lainie had lost weight when she didn’t have any to spare in the first place, dark shadows circled her eyes, and her hands still shook slightly. The rancher let out a long sigh and slumped back in his chair. “I love my daughter,” he said. “Maybe you don’t believe me, but I do. I would have done anything to get her back safely.”

  “And I can’t blame you for that. But if you had been straight with us in the first place, we would have been better prepared for the trouble we found. I’d like to know why you weren’t. Why you sent us in blind.”

  Coltor’s eyes shifted aside, and Silas decided to lay his money on the guess he had worked out. “You didn’t believe the A’ayimat would retrieve a mixed-blood child just out of the goodness of their hearts. They would see a child like that the same way most settlers would, as less than human. Aleet’s got talent as a mage, so your daughter has a mix of Granadaian and native Wildings power. You knew there was trouble between the clans in the mountains, and thought one of them might try to use your daughter, with her combined powers, against the others. From the rumors, you also knew about my wife’s power, and you hoped that if you sent us after Shayla, whoever had her would use my wife instead. But you were afraid if you told us that, we would turn down the job.”

  The long silence that followed confirmed Silas’s guess. His whole body went rigid with restrained fury at Coltor for deliberately sending Lainie into danger.

  “All right. I’m sorry about that,” Coltor said grudgingly. “I didn’t tell you my daughter is half-A’ayimat because I figured you would write her off as less than human and not worth the trouble to find.”

  “You don’t know me very well, then,” Silas said.

  “I guess not. And I didn’t tell you I’m a mage because I heard you had gone renegade and I didn’t want you to mistrust me, thinking I was going to sell you out to the Council. Anyhow, I didn’t think it mattered. I walked away from all that a long time ago. I haven’t even used magic since I came out here almost fifteen years ago, except to shield my power. Oh, and if you’re wondering, Storts knows about me. He’s the only one.

  “As for the A’ayimat, I didn’t know exactly what they wanted Shayla for, just that magic must be involved and, whatever it was, it was nothing that a little girl should be mixed up with. And, like you said, I don’t know you very well. If I told you how dangerous it might be, how was I to know you wouldn’t turn down the job, or just take my money and run? On the other hand, in my defense, I was confident that even if I didn’t warn you, the two of you could handle anything that came up. And I was right. Now, what about my daughter?”

  “There’s something else I want you to tell us first, now that you’re finally being honest with us. Did you rape her mother?”

  “Is that what Aleet said?” Coltor replied. “I’m not surprised, though I swear it didn’t happen that way. You have to understand, my wife back in Granadaia… She couldn’t stand the slightest discomfort or inconvenience. We had to have new
carpets put in every year. New upholstery on the furniture. Fresh linens every day. She refused to eat the same meal or wear the same dress twice in a month. One time she ripped up a five hundred gilding silk gown because the lace at the neck was too stiff. The Plain servants were forbidden to speak directly to her; she considered it a threat and an insult. She treated them as though they were little more than wild animals. That’s a big part of why I left and came out here, besides the fact that I couldn’t stand all the rules and protocols of mage society.” Coltor gave Silas a shrewd look. “I think you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I know.” Back in Granadaia, Silas had felt suffocated by mage society and all its rules and expectations, and while he hadn’t had a wife, the family of his birth had been no easier to live with.

  “So,” Coltor went on. “You know that I was… involved with Brinna – Miss Tennir – before she became a lawyer. Our relationship no longer suited her, so I had sent her back to Granadaia to study law, and I was lonely. Then, one afternoon, I was up in the canyon helping the boys chase down some stock that had wandered off. Just at sunset, I saw Aleet patrolling on the ridge above the canyon. She was… She was magnificent. Strong, brave. Not afraid of hardship or getting her hands dirty with honest hard work. I couldn’t get her out of my mind, so several days later I sent some of my men back up the canyon to look for her and ask her to come to me. I told them that it was an invitation, not an order, and it was to be her choice whether to come or not. She came willingly; it turned out I had caught her eye as well.

  “She became pregnant within a month. I thought we were happy together. Then Shayla was born with those dark eyes, and that was when I found out Aleet already had a husband. She was ashamed of committing adultery, and she blamed me for enticing her, as she put it. So she left us. If Shayla’s eyes were gold, I suspect Aleet might have taken her with and tried to pass her off as her husband’s. In any case, it was all her own choice, both her coming to me and her leaving. I never forced her.”

  “I believe you,” Lainie said. “An A’ayimat woman Aleet talked to told me that she had spoken well of…” A blush bloomed across her thin, pale cheeks. “Your personal appearance. A woman who’d been forced wouldn’t say things like that.”

  “I believe you, too,” Silas added. “In the mountains, I came across a sentry from Aleet’s clan. From what he said about her, I guessed she had gone to you of her own will. And Aleet herself admitted later on that she had misled us. But I wanted to see if you were willing to tell the whole truth, and if all the stories finally matched up.”

  “Well, there you have it, the whole sorry tale,” Coltor said.

  “And you don’t have any interest in breeding mages with mixed Granadaian and Wildings power?” Silas asked.

  Coltor raised his heavy, dark eyebrows. “What in the world –?”

  “It’s just something that came to my attention a while back. Never mind.”

  “Well, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Now, what can you tell me about my daughter?”

  “Aleet and Shayla are with the Ta’ayatan clan, about a day and a half northeast of the top of the canyon near your land. Your guess was right; they wanted to use Shayla as a weapon against the other clans, and they took my wife in exchange for her. The wiseman who came up with the plan is dead. I killed him. The new wiseman, his grandson, seems much more levelheaded and reasonable, and he’s renounced his grandfather’s ambitions. I can promise you that Shayla is safe now.”

  Lainie took the wishcatcher Aleet had given them out of her duster pocket and put it on Coltor’s desk. “Aleet sent this for you. It holds her apology, and her promise. She said if you want to see Shayla, you should come to the place where you first saw her, on the same day of the month, same time of day. If you don’t come this month, she’ll be there again next month, and the month after that.”

  Coltor reached for the delicate pinecone-and-feather construction and held it in his hand, studying it for a moment. “You didn’t bring my daughter back to me,” he said. “Under the terms of the contract, I don’t have to pay you any more. But you did find her, and you saved her from a dangerous situation, and I have the chance to see her again. To me, that’s beyond price, certainly worth every penny of the thousand gildings I owe you.”

  “You kept the truth from us, and you deliberately sent us into a situation you believed might be dangerous for my wife without warning us,” Silas countered. “That’s also worth every penny of that thousand gildings.”

  Coltor looked down, frowning under his thick mustache. “True. If I trusted you with my daughter’s safety, I should have trusted you with the rest of it. Come down to Miss Tennir’s office with me, and I’ll pay you the balance of what I owe you. And, as well –” He took a piece of thick, cream-colored letter paper with Brin Coltor, BC Crown Ranch, Bentwood Gulch printed at the top, and wrote several lines in a fine, bold hand. “Here’s a letter of reference,” he said as he signed it with a flourish, “vouching for your and your wife’s good character and trustworthiness.” He handed the letter to Silas. “It might come in useful sometime, and go a little further towards paying the debt I owe you.”

  A letter of reference from one of the richest, most influential, and most respected men in the Wildings – useful, indeed. Silas folded the letter and carefully tucked it into the inner pocket of his patched-up coat. “Speaking of Miss Tennir, has her bookkeeper fellow, Oferdon, been around the last several days?”

  Coltor shook his head. “Haven’t seen him in – must be a nineday now. Why?”

  “He’s a mage hunter.”

  Coltor’s eyebrows shot straight up. “What? I thought there was something strange about him, but I never would have picked him for a mage, especially not a hunter. Of course, not having any dealings with magic myself any more, I never checked.”

  Silas quickly told the story of his encounter with Oferdon and their ill-fated deal, ending with his discovery of Oferdon’s stash of demonsalts, though he left out the part about Lainie picking up the addiction from him. That would have been too hard to explain without giving away the secret of Lainie’s unexpected new ability.

  “No joking,” Coltor said. “A demonsalts addict. I never could understand what Brinna saw in that weasel.”

  “I’m thinking we’d better tell her about him,” Silas said. “I don’t know if he’ll make it out of the mountains, or if he’ll come back here if he does. Either way, she needs to know what kind of man he is.”

  “I agree. I know she’s been worried. Which reminds me, along those lines…” Coltor looked down at his hands, folded on the desk, and cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking about sending papers to my wife that would allow her to claim desertion and divorce me. It’s been fifteen years; it’s high time that was all settled. Do you think that would make a difference?”

  “To Miss Tennir?” Lainie asked. “If you were free to marry her, I think it would make a big difference.”

  “Well, then, I suppose that’s what I ought to do. It’ll cost me to disentangle myself from Josenya, but some things are worth more than money.”

  He stood up from his desk, and the three of them, trailed by the ever-watchful Storts, went downstairs to Miss Tennir’s office. The lady lawyer greeted Lainie and Silas and asked about Shayla, expressing her relief that Silas and Lainie had found her and that she was okay. Then she opened her safe and Coltor counted out the remaining one thousand gildings. Silas put the money in the bags he had brought with and divided them between himself and Lainie.

  “Thank you, and good luck to you,” Coltor said. He extended his hand, and Silas shook it. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just name it. Anything at all.”

  “For starters,” Silas replied, “should anyone come around asking after us, you haven’t seen us.”

  “I’ll burn the copies of the contract you signed,” Coltor replied. “And you can trust Storts and Bri – Miss Tennir to not tell anyone, either.” He shook Silas’s hand again, then took
Lainie’s hand and kissed it in formal Granadaian fashion. “Mrs. Vendine. Thank you. You have my sincerest apologies for the trouble I caused you, and my unending gratitude for finding my daughter.”

  Lainie blushed and looked down at her feet, but managed to reply graciously, “You’re more than welcome, Mr. Coltor. It’s a privilege to meet you and I’m glad we could be of help.”

  Coltor left, followed by Storts, while Silas and Lainie lingered behind. Silas suddenly wished he hadn’t taken this duty upon himself. Maybe he should have played on Coltor’s guilt and asked him to deliver the news to Miss Tennir about her intended.

  “Is there something else I can do for you, Mr. and Mrs. Vendine?” Miss Tennir asked.

  He didn’t know how to say it. He hated having to break a woman’s heart, even if it was for her own good. “How much do you know about Oferdon?”

  “How much? Well, I – Wait. Do you know where he is?” Hope lit up her face. “I haven’t seen or heard from him in days!”

  “We don’t know exactly where he is.”

  Something in his face or voice must have given it away; the color drained from her cheeks, and one hand went to her mouth. “He’s dead. That’s what you’re trying to tell me.”

  To Silas’s relief, Lainie took over. “We don’t know that, either. Miss Tennir, did you know that Mr. Oferdon’s a wizard?”

  Miss Tennir went absolutely still. “A – a wizard? But he seems like such a nice man. I can’t believe that, I just can’t. How do you know?” Then her eyes widened behind her gold-rimmed spectacles. “You’re –”

  Silas nodded. “I’m going to trust you to not tell anyone. It would put us in danger, and it might tarnish Coltor’s reputation if it was known he was dealing with wizards.”

  “Why – Why, of course,” she stammered, making a visible effort to recover her poise. “Of course, I won’t tell anyone.”