The summer I was fourteen, my uncle Jaxon took me with him on an expedition to hunt for aliora. I had only seen the fey, delicate creatures in captivity, and then only when I was visiting Castle Auburn. I was as excited about the trip to the Faelyn River as I had been about anything in my life.

I had been surly at first when Greta insisted that I could not go alone with my uncle such a far distance from the castle. "People will say things," she pronounced in her hateful voice. "A young girl and an older man gone off together for three nights or more. It will cause talk."

"He's my uncle," I pointed out, but Greta was not appeased. She did not like me, and I assumed her ambition was more to thwart my glorious adventure than to protect my reputation.

However, when I learned who my traveling companions were to be, I stopped complaining and began dreaming. Bryan of Auburn was everything a young prince should be: handsome, fiery, reckless, and barely sixteen. Not destined to take the crown for another four years, he still had the charisma, panache, and arrogance of royalty, and not a girl within a hundred miles of the castle did not love him with all her heart. I did, even though I knew he was not for me: He was betrothed to my sister, Elisandra, whom he would wed the year he turned twenty.

But I would be with him for three whole days, and say clever things, and laugh fetchingly. I expected this trip to be the grandest memory of my life.

The others who were assigned to us I accepted with passable grace, though only one had come my way often. Kent Ouvrelet was Bryan's cousin, a thin, serious young man whom I had known since I first began visiting the castle eight years ago. Damien, a peasant's son, was Bryan's food taster, and never more than three feet from the prince. However, I could hardly say I knew him since he almost never spoke. The last member of our party was a young guardsman, tall, sandy-haired, lanky, and freckle-faced. He was new to the castle since my last summer there, and I did not even know his name until we set out.

Which was the hour before dawn, a time both dark and wet. We all met at the stables behind the castle, myself, at least, skidding on the slick cobblestones that spread a hard carpet around the entire grand citadel. I had tied my heavy black hair back in a thick braid and dressed in boy's clothes (a more flattering look for my slim figure than some of my court gowns, and I hoped Bryan noticed).

Jaxon laughed when he saw me. "Don't you look like the gatekeeper's urchin!" he exclaimed, not letting this prevent him from giving me his customary bone-cracking hug. "What was Greta about to let you out in public dressed like this?"

"She wasn't awake when I left my room," I said breathlessly.

"Well, your sister's maid, then. I can't imagine that she-- Come to think of it," he added, breaking off to look about him in an ostentatious way, "where is that girl? Didn't Greta tell me she would be coming with us to chaperone you?"

I gave him one long, guilty look as I tried to think of a response. There was no good answer: He laughed again, more heartily this time.

"She's still sleeping, I'll wager," he said shrewdly. "Thinking that our little caravan's not leaving till noon or some such hour."

"Nine," I said.

"Well, that gives us plenty of time to travel beyond reach. Bryan! Kent!" he shouted out the stable doors, as if expecting his voice to carry to the turrets and corridors of the castle. "Where are those boys? I should have hauled them out of bed myself."

Five minutes later, as Jaxon and a sleepy groom double-checked the saddle packs on the horses, we heard footsteps running over the wet stone. Bryan was in the lead, tossing back his dark red hair and calling to someone over his shoulder.

"Told you I could outrace you, even in my boots," he crowed and burst into the stables. It was as if dawn had come early and forcefully, an explosion of light. I caught my breath and fell back against the wooden walls. Three whole days!

Kent entered at a more leisurely pace, apparently having given up the challenge some distance back. "You win," he said in an even, indifferent voice, as he pushed his straight dark hair from his eyes. "I think poor Damien fell down somewhere back there."

Bryan shook his head. "I'll never make a man out of him."

"He doesn't have to be a man, he just has to be a stomach," Jaxon said, and then roared with laughter at his own joke. Bryan snorted, amused at this picture. Kent just looked around.

"Are we ready? Where's Roderick?"

"Who's Roderick?" I asked.

"Guardsman. Just up from Veledore," Kent answered. He nodded over at Bryan. "My father won't let the young prince off the property without some protection, so Roderick's our sword."

On the words, Bryan whipped out his own weapon, a wicked silver blade with a gorgeous filigree grip. "I'm sword enough for my own protection!" he cried, thrusting toward Kent and slashing his blade three times through the air. "If we're set upon by rogues or outlaws-- "

"Which I doubt, since there are no trade routes cutting up toward the Faelyn River," Jaxon said dryly.

"I could defend myself," Bryan continued, a little more loudly. "I could defend all of us."

"Well, and don't forget I've some skill with a sword myself," Jaxon said, still in that same cool voice, "not to mention young Kent here, who's even better than you are."

"Who's -- he is not!" Bryan exclaimed. He fell into a fighting stance just two yards before Kent. "On your guard, then, man! Let me prove once and for all--"

"Lord, Bryan, just put away your sword and shut up," Kent said impatiently. I almost jumped a foot in the air. I had never heard anyone talk to Bryan that way -- so dismissively, so cavalierly. Usually everyone hung on his words as though diamonds would spill from his mouth. At least, that's how the girls in the castle listened to him.

Bryan didn't like the tone, either. He paused in his crouching dance forward and brought his sword up to his nose, bisecting his face. "Are you telling me you refuse my challenge?" he asked in an ominous voice. "Are you telling me you refuse to test my mettle against yours?"

"I'm telling you we should get on the road before the sun comes up and stop wasting time fooling around here," Kent said. "You're a great swordsman. Everyone knows it. If we're attacked on the road, I'll personally let you defend me."

"If we're attacked on the road--" Bryan began, but before he could finish, the last two members of our party hurried through the stable door. Poor Damien looked wet and bedraggled, as though he had fallen more than once. He held his head down and said nothing as he sidled in. Roderick glanced around once, quickly, as if to assess the situation in every detail.

"Sorry I'm late," the guardsman said briefly. "The captain had some last-minute advice for me."

"Well, are we all ready, then?" Jaxon demanded, touching each of us with his gaze. "All right! Mount up! Let's get out before the sun actually rises."

Everyone moved with alacrity except Bryan, who somewhat sullenly sheathed his sword and glowered at Kent. Who completely ignored him. Managing to pass by the prince on my way to my own horse, I whispered, "I think you're the best swordsman in the eight provinces." That made him laugh, and he looked quite sunny as we finally headed out through the stable doors.

The guardsmen at the gate saluted us, fists to forehead, and all the men except Bryan saluted back. I, too, raised a hand in the official gesture, wondering if the guards thought I was a boy as well. Probably not. Everybody knew everybody else's business at the castle, and the servants knew more than anybody. We had talked of this expedition for weeks, and even the lowliest scrub maid had heard that I would be on it. Before Greta was even out of her bed, someone would bring her the news that I had left the castle in the company of five men and no female companion. I hoped it ruined her day.

We had not gone half a mile before I brought my horse alongside Jaxon's so I could talk to him as we rode. Despite the fact that I adored Bryan with all my heart, my uncle Jaxon was the most important man in my life. And I rarely saw him, for the summers that I spent at the castle were his busy time; he was seldom there. A landowner, a trader, a hunter -- and, Greta would say, a reprobate -- he was a man who never stayed still for long.

"Thank you so much for inviting me on this trip, Uncle Jaxon," I said prettily, though I had thanked him a hundred times already. "I'm sure it will be the most exciting journey of my life."

He looked down at me with a wide grin showing through the thick bush of his beard. He was a big man, burly even in satin court clothes; when dressed for hunting, as he was now, he seemed massive and untamed and dangerous. His black hair, now beginning to gray, was tousled and nearly shoulder length; his eyes were a bright black, and wild as a wild boar's.

"Do you think so?" he said, and laughed again. "I doubt we'll so much as spot an aliora through the branches, let alone come close enough to catch one. But the ride should be pleasant and the weather's fine, and it won't hurt young Bryan to explore to the limits of his property. So, I don't mind the wasted trip."

"Why won't we see any aliora?" I wanted to know. "Why won't we catch them?"

"Because it takes stealth or guile, and a party of six doesn't possess either one," he said comfortably. "That's all well enough, though. I don't have time to be riding out to Faelyn Market with a few aliora in tow. Not this month. I'll go back later in the summer and see what I can catch."

He was the richest hunter in the eight provinces. He could live off his wealth acquired from this one harvest alone, but I had heard him say more than once that it was the thrill of the hunt, not the gold on the market block, that drove him again and again to Faelyn River.

"How many aliora have you caught? You alone?" I asked him.

"Exactly thirty. I've been doing this damn close to twenty years now, but I remember when a good year was catching three aliora all told, and a bad year was the third year in a row when I caught none. They're as smart as you or I, Corie, maybe smarter. That's what makes them so valuable."

I glowed a little to hear him call me by my common name. At the castle, it was a rare pleasure for me to be so addressed. Greta always called me the more formal Coriel, and everyone else followed her lead. Except my sister, Elisandra. Like Jaxon, she had asked me early on how I wished to be addressed, and ever afterward, she had called me nothing else. It infuriated her mother, of course, but then, everything about me did. My existence troubled Greta. No help for that.

"Their intelligence and their rarity and their beauty," I cited, for he had taught me that eight summers ago. He laughed again.

"And their gentleness and their teachability," he added. "Yes, all these things have made the aliora greatly sought after -- and me a wealthy man."

"Greta is afraid you will die and leave all your money to me," I said. Just recently I had overheard this conversation and had been impatient to have a chance to repeat it to my uncle. "She says the money and property should go to Elisandra instead."

He looked at me with those bright trickster's eyes. "Oh? And what do you think?" he asked.

I smothered my giggles. "I think my grandmother would turn into smoke from astonishment if I inherited a penny of your money," I said. "She has the lowest opinion of you -- and everybody in your family."

Another sideways look. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. "I would like to see your grandmother turn to smoke, I must admit," he said. "Though, if I were already dead, it's unlikely I'd have the chance. But hold a moment! She's an old lady, ninety if she's a day. I-- "

"Sixty-five," I said.

"I am a young man of fifty and will surely outlive her. So I will have to give you all my money while I'm still alive."

I wrinkled my nose. "We don't have much use for money in the village," I said. "My grandmother usually barters her services when she needs anything in the shops."

"Ah, but who's to say you'll always live in the village?" Jaxon asked. "Perhaps you'll marry a fine young man and move off to his estate. Perhaps you'll stay at the castle, wed to one of your sister's friends. Then you'd need plenty of gold."

I opened my eyes very wide. "Once grandmother dies, I'll be needed in the village," I said. "There's not another wise woman for thirty miles. It's hard on her even when I'm gone for the summers."

"Time to train a new apprentice, then," Jaxon said.

"I'm her apprentice," I replied.

He laughed softly at a new thought. "No wonder she dislikes me so much, then! She's afraid I'm taking you away. Well, but I'm not the only man who might do that. She has not realized just how pretty you are."

I smiled at the compliment, and the talk turned to other things, but later I thought his words over and realized he was right. Eight summers ago, Jaxon Halsing had showed up at my grandmother's cottage and changed my life completely. He was my father's brother, he said, and my father was dead. He had come to honor a promise he had made at my father's deathbed, that I would be found and brought to my father's household, introduced to my scattered relatives and given some semblance of the birthright I was due.

Copyright © 2001 by Sharon Shinn