No longer was he the shuffling old man she’d seen that first night or watched as he cowered from Jaelle in the Great Hall. Metran stood straight and tall, his eyes bright with malice.

“You traitor!” Jennifer burst out.

He gestured, and she screamed as her nipples were squeezed viciously. No one had touched her; he had done it himself without moving.

“Carefully, my dear lady,” Metran said, all solicitude, as she writhed in pain. “You must be careful of what you say to me. I have the power to do whatever I want with you.” He nodded towards his source, Denbarra, who stood close by.

“Not quite,” the other voice demurred. “Let her go.” The tone was very quiet, but the pain stopped instantly. Jennifer turned, wiping tears from her face.

Galadan was not tall, but there was a sinuous strength to him, a sheathed intimation of very great power. Cold eyes fixed her from a scarred, aristocratic face under the thatch of silver hair-like Brendel’s, she thought, with another sort of pain.

He bowed to her, courtly and graceful, and with a veiled amusement. Then that was gone as he turned to Metran.

“She goes north for questioning,” he said. “Unharmed.”

“Are you telling me what to do?” Metran said on a rising note, and Jennifer saw Denbarra stiffen.

“Actually, yes, if you put it that way.” There was mockery in his voice. “Are you going to fight me over it, mageling?”

“I could kill you, Galadan,” Metran hissed.

The one named Galadan smiled again, but not with his eyes. “Then try. But I tell you now, you will fail. I am outside your taught magic, mageling. You have some power, I know, and have been given more, and may indeed have greater yet to come, but I will still be outside you, Metran. I always will be. And if you test it, I shall have your heart out for my friends.”

In the silence that followed this, Jennifer became conscious of the ring of wolves surrounding them. There were svart alfar as well, but the giant red-eyed wolf was gone.

Metran was breathing hard. “You are not above me, Galadan. I was promised this.”

At that, Galadan threw back his fierce, scarred head, and a burst of genuine laughter rang through the clearing.

“Promised, were you? Ah well, then, I must apologize!” His laughter stopped. “She is still to go north. If it were not so, I might take her for myself. But look!”

Jennifer, turning skyward to where Galadan was pointing, saw a creature so beautiful it lifted her heart in reflexive hope.

A black swan came swooping down from the high reaches of the sky, glorious against the sun, the great wings widespread, feathered with jet plumage, the long neck gracefully extended.