Read Online Fire in the Mist by Holly Lisle - Free Book Online

devices. Last time you were mostly lucky. Next time you might not be—and more people than you alone could suffer from your ignorance."
    Jann returned and told Medwind, "The wingmounts are ready."
    Medwind nodded. "Good." She turned to Faia, and said, "We'll offer you the same thing the sajes offered. Room, board, training—we can't make you come with us, but we can tell you that, for the good of everyone around you, you must make yourself see this our way. Your talent cannot be allowed to continue unschooled; that way lies certain disaster. You needn't worry about yourself or your future, though. We'll take care of you."
    Faia looked into the implacable eyes of the two city-women. She could sense no wavering in their determination to convince her to go with them. She looked behind them to the villagers of Willowlake, her eyes pleading with them to show her some sign of welcome. But the villagers had heard, not only Faia's story, but Medwind's assessment of the danger Faia and her Gift posed to them. Her glances were returned with coldness. Faia could see that they wanted nothing to do with her.
    Except for Aldar, then, she would have no support in Willowlake. Her presence would bring nothing but resentment. And if she fought the will of the Ariss mages, she would also make life hard for Aldar.
    She turned her back on the bridge and slowly walked to the waiting boy.
    Behind her, she heard the small red-headed Ariss woman say, "Stop her."
    The other one replied, "Let her go. She'll be back."
    Aldar had waited patiently in the rain. His eyes were trusting when he asked her, "What's going on?"
    She saw no reason to soften the blow. It would benefit neither him nor her to pretend that everything was going to be fine.
    "I am going to go with those women to Ariss," she said.
    "You cannot. You are all that I have left."
    Faia gripped her staff and leaned her cheek against it. No. You are all that I have left, she thought. "That is not so," she told him. "You have your aunt here, and you will be accepted. The townspeople here are afraid of me because those Ariss women told them what happened in Bright. The townspeople are afraid that I might do something like that again."
    "You would not, Faia." The boy was loyal.
    "I do not know." Faia found to her surprise that when she said that, she meant it. She really was not sure if she might not make another stupid mistake with magic—a deadly one. "I did not mean to do what I did the first time," she added.
    The wind gusted stinging drops of rain against her face and in her eyes; Aldar moved around so that his back was to the wind.
    His expression was hopeless. "Faia, if you go, there will not be anyone with me who remembers. You do not want to go, do you?"
    "No. But I have to." It was simple truth. More than anything, she wanted to stay—but that choice was not hers to make.
    "Goodbye, Aldar. You will be fine." She embraced him and whispered, "I will miss you, brae'ling. Be happy."
    His eyes were bright with unshed tears. "I will miss you, sis'ling...."
    Faia turned her back before he could see that she was crying. It would be hard enough for him if he thought she was resigned to her fate—she could not let him know how miserable she was to be leaving.
    She returned to the waiting women, and nodded. "If I must go, then let us leave now."
    The woman in blue, the one the other woman had called Jann, wrinkled her nose and ruffled her fingers through her dark red hair. "Like that?! You can't go to Ariss looking like that! You're dirty, you smell like a stable, and your clothes are dreadful. We'll get you a bath and take you to a shop where we can buy you some clothes that civilized people wear."
    Medwind made a surreptitious jab with her elbow at Jann's ribs. "What Jann means to say is that you would probably feel better if you got some clean, dry clothes on before we left," she said, and glared at her associate.
    That is not what Jann meant to say at all, Faia thought. Prettified helke!