Gaborn knew that he thought of the loss of his wylde. “Is it lost to us, destroyed?”

“It is of the earth. A mere fall will not kill it. Yet, I . . . I worry for this creature. It will have come naked from the earth. It knows nothing, will be lost without me to teach and nourish it. . . . And it is more powerful than anyone knows. The blood of the Earth flows in its veins.”

Gaborn asked. “Dangerous? What can it do?”

“It is a focus for my power,” Binnesman said. “Just as water wizards draw power from the sea, or as flameweavers draw it from fire, I draw strength from the earth. But some earth contains more elemental force than others. For decades I have scoured the ground for just the right soils, just the right stones. Then I called my wylde from them.”

“So . . . it is nothing more than dirt and stones?” Gaborn asked.

“No,” Binnesman said, “it is more than that. I cannot control it; it is as alive as you or I. The wylde chose its shape from my mind. I tried to envision a warrior to fight the reavers, a green knight like the one who served your forefathers. Yet even in that, I could not control it.”

“We will have to send word,” Gaborn said, “ask people to help us search for it.”

Binnesman smiled weakly, pulled a blade of wheat from the ground and chewed at its succulent end.

“So Raj Ahten is lost to us,” Binnesman mused. “I’d hoped for better.”

Leading her own mount out back, Iome found Gaborn and the wizard beside a trough, feeding the horses, which ate as only force horses can, chewing so rapidly she feared for them.

Iome left Gaborn and Binnesman to tend the beasts while she took her father to the creek and washed him in the clear water. He had soiled himself near the Seven Stones, and she’d never had time to care for him.

When at last Gaborn came to her, leaving the horses in Binnesman’s able care, Iome had her father dried and in fresh clothes, and he lay at the edge of the orchard, using a tree root for a pillow, snoring contentedly.

It seemed an uncommon, yet peaceful sight. Iome’s father was a Runelord, with several endowments of stamina, and others of brawn. Only once in her life had she known him to sleep, and then only for half an hour. Yet she wondered if from time to time he might have slept beside her mother. Certainly, Iome knew, at times he’d lain beside her mother as he pondered the kingdom’s problems, long into the night.

But sleep? Almost never.

The long day must have worn her father out.

Gaborn took a seat beside Iome, both of them leaning their backs against the same tree. He took a plum from the pile near her hand, and ate.