“Aven!” she called.

He stared at her, blinking. Oh, gods. This was going to be hard to explain.

“Mother!” he called back. “And Lord Beneral! I hadn’t expected to see you here.”

“Hail, my lord,” said Beneral, bowing with a grin.

“Apparently you are not the only one who’s been hiding some magic,” his mother said wryly.

“Your steward Fayton is quite the observant one,” Beneral replied. “This is my apprentice Vonen, who assists us by casting this spell.”

“I am pleased to have you as allies.” With as regal of a nod as he could muster, Aven grabbed his pants and made his way toward the bank. He stopped as close as he could while remaining in the water. “Water’s cold, but the air’s even colder. Can we talk from here?”

“Of course,” his mother replied. “Are you all right? We’ve been following you—well, watching. Via the birds.”

“I figured you would be.”

“Clever work getting out of those fools’ clutches back there,” she said.

“The nomads? They’re not fools.”

“No, the Devoted. Evana. I knew you were a great warrior. But I hadn’t imagined you with your own set of claws.” Her eyes twinkled with laughter, even more now as a being made of light.

“Ah. Well. Thank you.”

She was silent for a moment. So was he.

“You’re not leaving,” she said flatly. A slight smile remained in her eyes.

He said nothing.

“You’re free. She isn’t here holding you. And yet you sit like this is where you belong.”

He looked at her as solemnly as he ever had.

“Maybe it is where I belong. I can’t leave, at least not yet,” he said, unsure how to broach the subject.

“I assumed you had a reason. What is it?”

“I just…” How could he explain?

“Is it magic? A spell? Does she have something? Know something?” She watched his face at each question for a sign or reaction, but found nothing. “She’s going to kill you or enslave you at best. But—you already figured that out, didn’t you.”

He nodded.

“Then what is it?”

He wasn’t sure if it was the words or the frigid air on his shoulders, but he did find himself shaking. “She’s not the one trying to hurt me, Mother. She’s a slave.”

She paused, frowning. “Does that make a difference?”

He shrugged, searching for words. “To me, it does. I’m not a fool, I know I’m in danger.” He searched her eyes, hoping to find the words to explain that Mara was more than a kidnapper, more than some mercenary from Kavanar. If he was inexperienced in love, he was even more inexperienced in telling his mother he was in love. With an audience, no less.

“I don’t understand. What could be worth giving everything up—” Then she stopped, as if the only reason why he might be so crazy and irrational had just occurred to her. “Ah, but there is that one thing you don’t have. And have struggled to find.”

He glanced up to meet her eyes, hopeful.

“By the gods. You’re in love with her, aren’t you.”

“Indeed.” He looked away, then down at his feet. Anything to dodge her stare. She said nothing. He swallowed hard. Maybe now he could explain the situation if he didn’t have to relay the craziest part of the story. “She might have been born a mage, and so in Kavanar that might mean that she’s a slave. But she didn’t ask for this. She didn’t ask to kidnap me. Just like I didn’t ask for this. But fate brought us together. I can’t leave her. I have to help her. Somehow. I have to.”

Her eyes bored into his, a mixture of sadness and love that he didn’t know how to interpret. “How, Aven? She can’t be helped.”

“Yes, she can. I have to free her.”

The apprentice Vonen gasped, then tried to hide it. Beneral raised his eyebrows. His mother only smiled. “Stubborn as your father,” she whispered.

“I have to find a way,” he insisted, his voice hard.

“I tried to argue with a Lanuken in love once, and I wound up married to him. I won’t fight you, crazy as you are.”

He sighed with relief. Thank the ancients, she understood.

“Well, he’s said he wants to free her. Seeing that he can’t be argued with, what shall we do next, mages? Any suggestions?”

“We could at least check the libraries for spells or histories to give us any clues,” said Vonen.

“We can contact some of the elders. Perhaps there is one who at least knows if it’s possible,” Lord Beneral added.

“All right, you heard that, Aven. We will go back now. It’s midday. Be back here at sundown if you are still able, and I will try to return and see if we can find anything to help you.”

He nodded earnestly. “Thank you, Mother.”

She nodded with a smile as their forms dissolved into the air.

He was alone by the water. He listened to the stream gurgling, the birds, the wind in the leaves. The air across his chest made him shiver, and he dunked back into the water. He hoped they would find something because otherwise, he was purely on his own.

There had to be a way to free her. He was committed now; he would find a way to free Mara or die trying.

Aven fetched his star map from the riverside and retreated to the warmth of his tent to wait for his clothes to dry out. He took them off, laid them out beside him, and hid himself under the furs. Regin brought him a generous helping of some sort of soup this time, as well as some kind of herbal tisane. For the first time since their journey began, Aven felt warm, clean, well-fed, healthy, and safe all at the same time.

“How is she doing?” he asked Regin before the man could leave.

“She’s fine, just needs more rest, that’s all. She did the heavy lifting.” Regin ducked out of the tent with a wink.

As his clothes dried, he studied the star map. Two large circles graced the top half, each overlapping with the other. Dozens of characters circled the outside of each ring. Several characters indicated the months of the ancient lunar calendar. The bottom half of the map was divided into thirteen tall, narrow sections. Now that he had some time to study it, he felt sure he could make out several familiar stars at the top. The names still seemed wrong, for what little he could recognize of the angular, hooked Serabain script. Why would characters be missing, broken? And beyond seeing them labeled, what good was this map? What did it have to do with magic? What did the sections at the bottom mean? Could it just be a very old, very ordinary star chart? Was he ridiculous to think there must be something special about it? Perhaps Teron had just been enthusiastic about the stars. Or trying to indicate something else entirely.