Smoothly, Ven drew an arrow, fit it into his bow, and aimed. The squirrel scampered down a narrowing branch. He'd reach the end in three . . . two . . . one . . . As the squirrel leaped, Ven shot. The arrow pierced the squirrel cleanly through the eye, and the squirrel plummeted. Alet raced to catch it, diving from branch to branch, and then snatching it out of the air by its tail before it hit the dirt.
By the time he met her on the forest floor, she had already started a small cooking fire between two rocks. "Getting slow, old man."
He was forty-one, not decrepit. "I'm neither old nor slow."
Laying the squirrel on a rock, she began to skin it. "Everything's relative."
"You may be half my age, but I have twice your skill."
Pausing, she arched her eyebrows at him.
"Quarter more your skill," he amended.
She said nothing.
"Would you settle for ‘more experience and wisdom'?" Ven laid the protective charms in a circle around them. He was sure Alet had been careful to pick only dead wood for the fire, but there was no sense in risking angering any spirits.
"They say the mind decays rapidly as one's age advances." She skewered the squirrel with a stick and then wiped her hands on a fallen leaf. "Did you hear what they were saying at that last town? You started a trend. A few other champions are searching the villages too, even ones who already have a candidate."
He hadn't heard, but he was pleased. It can't be that stupid an idea if others are imitating me. "There are many women who don't appreciate their own power or recognize their importance." Taking the stick with the squirrel meat, he held it over the flame. "Not every gifted child is sent to a training school."
"Only the good ones."
"Or the ones whose parents notice their powers."
"Everyone who has powers knows it," Alet objected.
He twisted the stick. "But not everyone who has power wants to be queen."
Alet fed more sticks to the fire, and the flames shot up, dancing with the smoke. "Why would you want anyone who didn't want to be queen?"
He didn't have an answer to that so he changed the subject. "We'll visit Everdale next. You spread word of our search, and I'll talk to the local hedgewitch."
"Word has already spread. I swear village gossip spreads faster than the wind."
"This time, stress that we're not looking for children. We're looking for women who missed their chance. We're looking for the overlooked."
"Maybe they were overlooked for a reason." Flames licked the squirrel meat, singeing it. "Remember the one in North Blye? She could talk to spirits all right, but she also talked to dead twigs, empty puddles, and random piles of dirt. And how about the one you were so enthused about in Cohn? She fainted at the sight of a spirit, not-so-conveniently after she'd summoned a boatload of them. You were lucky you weren't eaten alive."
"You were lucky too," he pointed out.
"That was skill." Alet shrugged. "Point is, everyone with significant enough power is at an academy already, so that's where we should be. This is a fool's quest."
She wasn't wrong, especially about that woman from Cohn. But he was also convinced of the futility of choosing a too-young student. The conventional route wasn't going to work with their time limit.
Daleina's time limit, he amended.
He wondered how she was. She'd had four days now with the diagnosis. He was certain that Hamon would be with her, ensuring she was comfortable, and he was equally certain she was ignoring all the healer's good advice and pushing herself as hard as she could for as long as she could-that's what he would do, and he'd trained her.
After they ate, Ven and Alet took turns sleeping until the shadows in the forest lightened to pale gray and the birds began to chirp. It wasn't dawn yet, but it was close enough to navigate and that was all they needed. Ten days left-no time to waste. They packed their camp fast, rolling their bedrolls and stomping out the fire. Scooping up his charms, Ven climbed up into the trees. Alet was close behind him.
In the predawn light, the journey to Everdale was swift, and they swung into the heart of town as morning light filtered through the leaves. The center of Everdale was a large platform suspended between several tree trunks. Shops were built against the trunks, and merchants were scurrying around, setting up stands and tents for the day's market.
Sighing, Alet trudged toward the market. "I'll spread the word that we're here."
Adjusting the quiver on his back, Ven headed for a shop with a sign boasting of the best protective charms north of the river. He tried the door, expecting it to be locked, but it swung open easily. In some towns, he'd had to nearly batter down the door in order to talk to the hedgewitch this early. He didn't have time to wait for niceties like market hours. "Good morning?"