Wolf's Blood Read Online Free Page B

rulers are forced to be strict. Right now Sunshine thinks I’m an absolute tyrant because I won’t let her eat all the jam she wants and then run about sticky afterwards.”
    “I can see,” Blind Seer said to Firekeeper , “why Ynamynet would prefer to remember her ancestors in such a light, but I have heard many tales of the abuses perpetrated by those Once Dead who reigned on these islands only a few moonspans ago, enough to give lie to those summershine dreams.”
    Firekeeper reached out and pulled loose a clump of shedding fur from one of his shoulders.
    “I agree, dear heart, but we will not get what we want by reminding Ynamynet of what she prefers to forget.”
    “Nor will we if you drop champs of shed fur on her carpet,” Blind Seer reproved. “Leave grooming for now. You have asserted your precedence enough already.”
    Derian spoke to Ynamynet. “So you, personally, have no information about the coming of querinalo. Do you think anyone else among the Old World community might? Your husband, Skea, comes from another people than your own. What about him? We’d even like to hear stories that might be dismissed as legends. Sometimes there’s a good deal of truth hidden underneath.”
    “Querinalo is not something about which Skea and I have talked much,” Ynamynet said. “We both passed through the Bane long before we met. Would you like me to ask among the other Old World residents here who might have stories to share?”
    “That would be helpful,” Derian said.
    “I will do that, then,” Ynamynet said.
    She half rose, indicating the interview was ended. Isende spoke before they were quite dismissed.
    “What about records? Are there any archives here on the Islands that might contain information about the coming of querinalo?”
    Ynamynet frowned. “Possibly. Although I lived here a good many years before your coming, I can’t claim to know everything that’s here. My interests tended to be in the active practice of magic, not in history. Urgana might know. She long made herself useful by doing research for various projects. Why don’t you speak to her?”
    “We’ll do that,” Derian promised. “Thank you for seeing us on such short notice.”
    Ynamynet looked tired, as if suddenly aware that she had been less than the ideal hostess.
    “I’m sorry I couldn’t help more. The Bane was a shadow over my entire life. I sat and watched it burn my brother, Kiriel, alive when I was only six. I’ve feared it and hated it all my life. Will you tell me why you’re so interested in it?”
    Firekeeper could hear the fear Ynamynet was trying to conceal. She realized that Ynamynet thought they might be seeking to learn about querinalo in order to somehow use it. Such behavior would have been quite in line with the practices of the Once Dead, many of whom had sought magic for the power it would bring them. What was querinalo if not a terrible power?
    Firekeeper rose to her feet in one fluid motion and touched Ynamynet on the arm. The woman’s skin was cold as ice.
    “We seek querinalo to kill it,” Firekeeper said. “So that once and for ever it will never hunt another—so that little ones like your Sunshine will be safe from the fear that even now makes your blood so cold.”
    Ynamynet gaped at her, and a warmth Firekeeper had never before seen lit her eyes from within and brought color to her pale skin.
    “Do that,” Ynamynet promised, “and I will be your slave.”
    Firekeeper shook her head. “I would not have that. But I will find querinalo and I will kill it dead, even so. I promise.”
     
     
     
    URGANA TURNED OUT to be the wrong person to ask for help. The older woman belonged to what had been, before the coming of the New Worlders had led to a major restructuring of the social order, the so-called “Never Lived.” This was the term given by the Once Dead—those who had survived querinalo with their magical ability intact—to those who had been born with no inherent magical