Galan was drawing again. He hunched in his desk at the back of the schoolroom, shielding the illicit paper with his arm from the eyes of his classmates. His fingers were smudged with charcoal as he sketched away, throwing the occasional glance toward the front of the room where his mother stood before the slate board, teaching history.

  School had run late this year due to the cold spring and the late planting. The fields should have been tall with barley and wheat turning golden in the summer sun. Instead, the green shoots were struggling. The soil was still too cold. The village council, in order to keep the Ambermill youth out of trouble, had decreed that school would go an extra month. That didn’t help Galan’s standing among his schoolmates. It had been all their parents who had decided it, but that hardly seemed to matter. Galan’s mother was the teacher, and that meant it was his fault.

  It also didn’t help matters, at least in Galan’s view, that he and his mother were some of the only elves living in an otherwise gaian town. Ambermill lay within the borders of House Raith, the gaian rulers of Tol Morad, at least on the map. Most of the elves on Tol Morad lived closer to Ravenwood, the seat of House Celwyn. He’d asked more than once why they had to live in Ambermill, but his mother’s answers had always been vague.

  What that meant for Galan was that he was smaller than the other boys his age, and much smaller than the older boys like Caleb and Behil. He couldn’t fight back as well as the others, couldn’t hold his own against them, and that made him an easy target. It didn’t help that he looked different, either. “Long ear” was Caleb’s favorite insult to throw Galan’s way.

  “Did you hear? Flora found an ill wish.”

  Galan looked up from his drawing. The speaker was Darcy, a black-haired girl occupying a desk two seats over. She kept her voice low, darting furtive glances toward the front of the room.

  “Are you sure?” Nora asked. She sat directly to Galan’s right, as she always did. She was his buffer from the rest of the village children. She had taken on that unspoken role since they were little. She was a year older and prettily plump, her hair and eyes a rich brown.

  Darcy nodded. “Flora showed it to me. She found it on her porch yesterday, but she hid it before her pa could see it.”

  “Did she burn it?” Galan asked. “That’s what you have to do with an ill wish.”

  Darcy scowled at him. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “Did she burn it?” Nora asked, glancing Galan’s way.

  Darcy shook her head. “She said she’d do it later. She wanted to show it to Staenie first.”

  “Who would leave Flora an ill wish?” Nora asked.

  “No idea,” Darcy said.

  Galan went back to his drawing. At least no one was paying any attention to what he was doing. Caleb, three desks over, was whispering with Behil, while Jordie had his head down, drooling on his papers as he dozed. He hoped it would stay that way, but previous experience suggested it wouldn’t. Caleb was two years older than Galan, almost too old for school, and he had made it his goal in life to torment Galan whenever he could.

  “What are you drawing this time?” Nora asked, leaning over in her seat to peer at the charcoal-smudged paper in front of Galan.

  He moved his arm away to show her. It was the Battle of the Telmorr Field as he imagined it, the same battle his mother was currently lecturing about up at the front of the room. It was the deciding battle of the Goding Uprising, where Ulric the Bold slew King Talathan Istarion and his sons and took the throne of Lath for himself. Galan had drawn Bright King Talathan and his brother, Andresin, upon a hill, the elven forces rallying around him as the gaian army of House Goding closed in.

  “That’s really good,” Nora said, giving him a smile.

  Jeren looked back over his shoulder. He sat directly in front of Galan and usually ignored him. He snatched Galan’s drawing off the desk and held it up in front of him. “Just like you to draw something like this,” he said.

  “Give it back!” Galan reached for his drawing, but Jeren held it over his head, out of reach.

  Jeren looked at the drawing, squinting his brown eyes at it as though he even knew what art looked like. “Is that supposed to be your pa?”

  “Give it back,” Galan said sullenly. He sank back into his seat, unwilling to play Jeren’s game.

  “Give it back to him, Jeren,” Nora said.

  “He can come get it,” Jeren snapped, waving the paper over his head. He was smudging it with his fat fingers.

  Galan hunched his shoulders and hunkered down in his desk. Jeren’s dig stung. Jeren, Nora, Darcy and every other person in the room, except for Galan and his mother, were gaian. It seemed to Galan that it shouldn’t matter that he was an elf, but it seemed to matter a great deal to everyone else. Well, everyone except Nora.

  “What is going on back there?” Sheora’s voice cut through the ruckus at the back of the room. Her long black hair was contained by a light blue scarf that covered the tips of her pointed ears. When Jeren did not respond but continued to hold the drawing over his head, she waded into the class, her long, narrow skirt swishing against chair legs. She snatched Galan’s drawing from Jeren’s fingers and took it back to the front with her. Galan kept his head down and did not look up to see if she looked at it or not.

  “That will be all for today,” Sheora said when she returned to the front. “Remember, today is the last day of class for the season, so I will not see most of you back here until the fall. I hope you all will remember what you’ve learned here this year.”

  Then the room erupted in a flurry of children hurrying for the door. Galan stuffed his charcoal into a pocket and headed for the door as well. He was just behind Nora and nearly to the door when he heard his mother’s voice.

  “Galan, can you come over here please?”

  He groaned and stopped while everyone else streamed out into the cool sunlight. Nora paused and glanced back at him, then continued on with Jeren and Darcy.

  Galan reluctantly turned away from freedom and scuffed his feet on the rough plank floor as he made his way over to the slate board, where his mother waited.

  She was tall and dark-haired, her eyes deep blue. Her skin had a light golden hue that did not fade even in winter. That was the only characteristic she shared with Galan. His hair was blond, almost gold in the right light, and his eyes were pale as well.

  She held up Galan’s drawing. Jeren had smudged it. “This is really nice,” she said. “But you need to pay attention.”

  “It’s boring,” Galan said.

  “It is important. You need to know these things.”

  “I already know it all,” Galan complained.

  “Do you?” Sheora raised an eyebrow. “Can you tell me the square root of 72? Do you know the date that Dolinaar Istarion defeated the Auyurdic king?”

  Galan shook his head, staring at the floor. Sums were not his strong point and history dates all blurred together after a while.

  Sheora put her hand on Galan’s shoulder. “Look at me.” He looked up. “I know this seems boring and unimportant right now, but you will need to know these things one day, I promise you. Do you still wish to go to the University at Green Falls?”

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  Galan nodded.

  “Then you will need to pay attention.” She handed him his drawing. “I’ll see you at home before dark?”

  “Yes.”

  Sheora gave him a quick hug. Galan bolted out into the cool summer afternoon.

  Nora was waiting in the trees beyond the schoolhouse. She had her green cloak pulled around her shoulders against the wind. “Did you get in trouble?” she asked, falling into step beside Galan.

  He shook his head. “Not really. Were you hiding there?”

  “Yeah.” Nora dusted the leaves off her skirt. “Caleb was waiting for…well, either you or me, I wasn’t sure. He left,” she added as Galan looked around.

  Galan and Nora headed off into the woods behind the school. They had played in the woods beyond the edge of town almost every day since they had been old enough to be off apron strings.

  “Let’s go to Flora’s house,” Nora said. “I want to see this ill wish. Who would give her something like that, do you think?”

  “No idea,” Galan said as he followed after Nora through the woods. He pondered her question silently as they headed south through the trees, the sun riding high in the western sky. An ill wish, that was bad. Someone wanted Flora, or her family, to have bad luck, or worse. Someone meant her harm.

  He knew what to do with an ill wish. You had to burn it and scatter the ashes, ideally on the doorstep of whoever left it for you, or else far from your home as possible. Galan knew these things. He and his mother often found them around their farm and around the schoolhouse. Sheora always took them down and did away with them. Galan had an idea of who might be behind it, but his mother didn’t let him talk about it. Ill wishes, and what you had to do to get rid of one, smacked of witchcraft.

  Flora’s house lay just south of Ambermill. Rather than go through town though, where Caleb and his gang might be waiting, Galan and Nora took the long way around, cutting through the woods east of town. The wilderness pressed close to the farms and homes of Ambermill. As they skirted the edge of a sheep pasture, they spied wolf tracks in the mud beside a trickling stream. Each one was bigger than Galan’s hand.

  “We need to tell Master Ashlock,” Nora said. “Before it gets into his sheep.”

  “You tell him,” Galan said. “He scares me.”

  He glanced toward the farmhouse at the far end of the pasture, then away. Master Coewynn Ashlock had no love for either Galan or his mother. He actively spoke out against Sheora teaching in the schoolhouse, though Ambermill had not had a schoolteacher for more than 20 years before Sheora arrived. He claimed she was spreading “elven ideals,” whatever that meant. The wolves could eat every single one of his sheep before Galan would go and knock on his door.

  They continued on. Nora seemed as comfortable in the forest as Galan himself. She walked quietly, her leather boots making barely a rustle on the duff of the forest floor. “Grayar Callahan is putting together the caravan to go the horse fair at Stormgarde again,” she said as she walked.

  “Already?” Galan asked.

  “It’s nearly midsummer,” Nora reminded him.

  “It doesn’t feel like midsummer,” Galan said, looking skyward.

  “Are you going to come this year?”

  “I want to,” Galan said. Every year, Grayar Callahan, a horse farmer, took his best colts to the horse fair at Stormgarde, far to the south at the mouth of the Alewyll River. Every year, he brought along a group of Ambermill youths. Anyone older than twelve was welcome to come, as long as they pulled their weight and helped out with the horses. Galan had been old enough to go for two years now, but his mother had so far forbidden it. It was too dangerous, she said. Yet Nora had gone twice now, and she was only a year older than Galan.

  There was already a group of Ambermill adolescents gathered about at the Danford farm when Galan and Nora arrived. They had congregated in the barn, out of sight of Flora’s father. Flora Danford, a brown-haired girl of 13, was holding court in the center of the barn, half a dozen similarly-aged children, mostly girls to Galan’s dismay, gathered around her.

  Flora looked to the new arrivals and frowned. “Did you have to bring him?” she demanded of Nora, jerking her chin in Galan’s direction.

  “Yeah, I did,” Nora said. “He’s my friend. Do you still have the ill wish?”

  Flora held up something in her hand. It was a bundle of herbs and sticks, bound with red thread. Galan could see the white sprigs of bog nettle, the deep green of yew, the red and gold blossoms of demon’s eye. There might have been some black mint as well, but he wasn’t sure.

  “Are you going to burn it?” Galan asked.

  “Of course,” Flora snapped. “I’m not stupid.” Galan fell silent. He was used to being talked to like that. He suddenly wished that he had gone straight home rather than coming with Nora.

  Staenie, her honey-blonde hair pulled into a thick braid, leaned close to Nora. Galan was close enough to hear. “Harin said he saw the Nightwolf,” she said.

  “Really?” Nora asked. Galan leaned in a bit, but he kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt. He wanted to hear this.

  Staenie nodded. “He rode through town early this morning and stopped at the inn.”

  “Did he have his wolf with him?” Nora asked.

  “He did,” Staenie said. “Harin saw it.” The Nightwolf was a ranger, one of the men who wandered the wilds, hunting monsters and wild beasts, keeping the roads safe for travelers. Most rangers were seldom trusted though, being odd as they were. No honest man would forsake civilization and choose that life of living rough and wild, after all. That, at least, was what the people of Ambermill said about rangers. Galan was more than a little fascinated by them. The stories of Black Wren and Grenn the Giantslayer were his favorites. They were scouts for armies and hunting guides, but rangers were hunters at heart, stalking the edges of civilization, fighting monsters and dragons and demons.

  The Nightwolf seemed a ranger straight out of legend. He rode a night-black horse and came and went under the cover of darkness. Even more, he kept a wolf for a pet. Galan had read stories of rangers with valiant animal companions at their side. Black Wren had kept a talking raven that told him secrets. Sir Laurel of the Greenwood was said to have befriended the deer of the wood, which came to his defense in his hour of need.

  Galan had seen the Nightwolf once, two years ago. It had been a cold spring morning, the mist lying thick over the Amber River as it snaked past Ambermill, when Galan spied the dark figure on the road ahead. He had been walking to school after finishing his morning chores. He was alone, his mother having left early to ready the day’s lesson. He had thought at first that it was simply Goodman Callahan or another Ambermill local riding out to check their fields, but as the rider drew near, Galan saw that he was swathed from head to heel in a black oilskin cloak, riding a tall black horse. Slinking through the weeds at the side of the road, following in the horse’s wake, was a huge silver-gray wolf. Galan had stepped to the side of the road and stood staring in wonder as the ranger and his wolf passed.

  The man wore a generous hood that cast his face in deep shadow. Only the bare hint of the man’s face was visible as he turned his head to regard Galan with oddly-bright eyes. Then he and the wolf were gone, vanished into the morning mists.

  “What was he doing here?” Galan asked. He couldn’t help himself.

  Staenie frowned at him, but chose to answer. “Harin wasn’t sure. He said he saw the Nightwolf come out of the inn, though. I don’t think he stayed the night, though.”

  “Is he gone?”

  “Of course he’s gone,” Staenie snapped. “He never stays more than a few hours, usually less. You know that.”

  Galan drew back a bit. He wasn’t actually hiding behind Nora, but he was close to it. He hoped no one wouldn’t notice. Nora did.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I think I’m going to head home,” Galan said. He didn’t wait for a response but headed out of the barn into the fading light of evening. He slipped away from the Danford farm and into the woods.

  He hated gatherings in general, and gatherings of children his own age even more. He was always the odd man out, unless he was the target of someone’s ire. He was always the target of someone’s ire.

  The woods were growing dark as Galan turned towards home. He was more comfortable in the forest than he was in town, but this evening, the feel of the woods was off. The shadows seemed darker than they should have been on a summer evening. The wind picked up, blowing cold. Galan tugged his cloak tighter about his shoulders.

  Galan started to hurry. He glanced about him at the deepening shadows. Did that one move? He picked up his pace.

  Galan and his mother lived a mile north of Ambermill. The Dunford farm was half a mile south of the town, close to the Amber River. That meant he had three and a half miles of forest to traverse. He had never been afraid of the forest around town, not when the winter winds blew cold off the Gulf of Baral, not when the wolves howled close to the pastures and catamounts stalked the trails.

  Something was out there. Something was lurking in the shadows between the trees. Galan scanned the woods, searching for whatever it was that was out there. He walked faster, alert for any sound. He wanted to run, but he knew better. Ambermill was surrounded by the wild mountains of Tol Morad, the dense fir and redwood forests pressing close to the edges of the town. Those forests were full of wild beasts. Tol Morad was home to big northern timber wolves, black bears that raided orchards every autumn, and catamounts, huge tawny cats that hunted their prey from the shadows.

  Never run from a beast. That had been one of Galan’s first lessons living so close to the wilds. This was not a wild beast, though. Somehow, Galan knew that in his heart. He stopped in the middle of a clearing, his heart pounding in his chest.

  He scanned the forest around him, searching for any oddity, anything out of place amid the trees. There was nothing. There was…There!

  A shadow that was darker than the rest stood beside a tall fir. Galan stared. It resolved into a vaguely mannish shape, as though that of a man wearing a hooded cloak. Galan’s mind went immediately to Nightwolf the ranger, recalling the shrouded figure atop a tall, black horse. But no, there was a pervading feel of wrongness about whatever this was, a feeling of dread washing off the figure beside the tree.

  It did not move. Galan stood frozen, like a deer under the gaze of a catamount. Was it even really there? He wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him.

  Then he saw the hand. At least, it might have been a hand, once. Four long, bony fingers gripped a tree branch. The nails were long and yellow.

  The hood shadowed the face completely. Galan saw no features beneath the hood, only two glowing red eyes. Those eyes burned into his soul, measuring him, weighing him. He ran.