Page 108 of Guiding Reason

“This is not a place for them,” Anandas said. “And they”—He indicated the people he was seeing to still—”will need more than I can give here. I would have to stay for weeks or longer, and that I cannot do. But there are Darklings nearby. They can offer the sick succor.”

Li stumbled back into the house. “You’re leaving us, ma?”

Anandas shook his head. “No, child. We are taking you to where you will be safe.”

“Thistletown,” Rose said.

Li lifted her chin. “We don’t know where that is. We live here. This is our home.”

“Li,” Hyran began, but Anandas motioned him to be quiet.

“This is a home no more,” the Hound said. “I would take you to my people, but you do not speak the language at all, and those of the water lands don’t love strangers. But they will help in this instance. They will see your sick brought back to you once the healing is done.”

Col spoke up next, his voice composed and clear over the screen. “I understand correctly that the plan is Hyran takes youto those Darklings, Anandas, and then he brings everyone back here for the night?”

“I said you are a good leader. Yes, I will not need much talking with my people. Long enough for a speedling to move the young, then return another healer and helpers here for the night. They will want to move the sick in the morning.”

“Or I could move them?” Hyran asked.

But Anandas shook his head. “They cannot travel that way. They are too fragile.”

“But,” Li said, the rest of her objections dying to nothing on her tongue.

She doesn’t know what to say or do. I sympathize.“Follow my words, Li. My Conduit trusts Anandas, and I know he saved people from the cities without hesitation.” On the other end of the connection, someone snorted. “He’ll help you, and if he thinks this is best, it’ll be fine.”

She nodded. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter one way or another. My family and friends are dead, and eight people don’t need a leader’s daughter to speak for them.”

“Then it’s an agreement,” Col said. “Start moving. It’s already pretty dark out there.”

“We move,” Anandas said.

He and Rose exchanged something in the Houndish tongue, and Hyran ended the call. Knowing what to do next gave him a goal, and once he’d reached that, he’d get to hold Col all through the night. It was all he wanted, all that mattered.

36

COLDIS

Slurred speech was bad in a Guardian, and when he’d heard it, Col couldn’t be sure it was overload, not just grief and shock, but it gnawed at him.He isn’t Senny. He’s an A-classer and has more of a margin, but fuck, if he goes into shock after imprinting on me, out here…

“What did you tell him to do, ma?” Rose asked from his place in front of the fire.

Avan had decided he was making something to snack on at some point, and the sticky balls of dough he placed on a rack by the fire were glistening, filling the room with a warm smell that made Col’s mouth water.

“He’s a Guardian, and I think he may have overused his power without noticing. We have medication that can help.”

“Huh. That means Anandas must be busy. He would have noticed if not.”

Col focused on Rose. “Is that what he does for you? Did you imprint on a Hound—a Darkling?”

Rose looked unimpressed. “You silly city dwellers with your silly ideas. I fell in love with Anandas. But he knew first. He was pushy. He said, when we met, I had stepped on his path, and I was his now.”

“His path?”

Avan spooned up one of the dough balls for each of them and handed out a small plate to Col and Rose before taking one for himself.

“Like his winter path. He made it up, there was no path, and if there had been, Thistletown has been granted permission generations ago by some winter king. He just wanted an excuse to keep me. After a while, I said he could.”

Rose got a faraway look and a smile that told Col all he needed to know. Still, the idea that a Guardian was going to be kept, not that he did the keeping, it settled like yet another oddity in Col’s mind.