She was perhaps a hundred yards into the forest and well away from Cree Bega and the other Mwellrets when the Ilse Witch paused to adjust her clothing. She pulled out a length of braided cord, looped it over her shoulders, crisscrossed it down her body and through her legs, and bound up her robes where they hung loose so that she could move more easily through the heavy brush ahead. The robes she had chosen were light but strong, and would not tear easily. Anticipating a rough climb into the ruins of Castledown, she had exchanged the sandals she normally favored for ankle boots with tough, flexible soles. She had intended her clothing and footgear for something else entirely, but her foresight was paying off. She had hunted before, though for different quarry, and she understood the importance of being prepared.
Her mind drifted momentarily to those days she had buried so thoroughly until the boy had confronted her. As Grianne Ohmsford, she had spent time in the woods and hills about her home, learning to use the magic of the wishsong. One of the exercises she engaged in regularly was a form of tracking. Using the magic, she would detect the passing of an animal and then follow it to its lair. Her singing, she discovered, could color its fading body heat and movements just enough to show her its progress, if the trail wasn't too old. She couldn't read prints or signs in the manner of Trackers, but the ability to trace heat and movement worked just as well. She became quite good at it even before she was stolen away.
She thought again of the boy. He bothered her more than she wanted to admit. The hair and eyes were right for Bek. Even something about his movements and facial expressions was familiar. And that hint of magic that surfaced right at the end of things-that was the wishsong. No one should have all three save Bek. What were the odds? How long would the Druid have had to look to find such a combination? But she was forgetting that he could create everything but the magic, layer it on as if it had always been there, making over the one he had chosen to fool her.
Bek had never evidenced use of the wishsong before she hid him that last morning. He had been a normal baby. She had no way of knowing if he would ever have had use of the magic. Or did now.
She blinked away her discomfort and her thoughts and set about adjusting her robes a final time. She looked down at the pale skin of her wrists and ankles where it was exposed to the light, virtually untouched by the sun, so white it looked iridescent in the mix of forest shadows and golden dawn. She touched herself as if to make certain she was real, thinking as she did that sometimes it felt as if she weren't, as if she was created out of dreams and wishes, and nothing about her was hard and true.
She gritted her teeth. It was that boy who was making her think like this. Find him, and the thoughts would disappear for good.
She set out once more, leaving the hood in place, her face in darkness, hidden away from prying eyes. With her robes bound close, she eased through the trees, humming softly to reveal the trail of the shape-shifter and the boy, finding their lingering presence at every turn, their passage as clear as if marked by paint on tree bark. She moved at a steady pace, used to walking, to journeys afoot and not just to riding her Shrikes, toughened long since because she knew that she would not otherwise survive. The Morgawr might have been content to let her remain just a girl, less a threat, more malleable, but she had determined early on that she would never allow herself to be vulnerable again. Sooner or later, she would be threatened by something or someone toughened by years of wilderness living, and she wanted to be ready for that. Nor did she ever want to be considered just a girl or even a woman, somehow reduced in stature by her sex and not regarded with caution.
No, she thought grimly, she would never be thought of like that. The Morgawr had trained her in the use of her magic, but she had trained herself in the art of survival. When he was gone, which was often, she tested herself in ways he did not know about, going out alone, into dangerous country, sometimes well beyond the Wilderun. She lived as an animal, tracking as they did, foraging, hunting, and always learning what they knew. Because she had the use of the wishsong, she could speak their language and gain their acceptance. She could make herself appear one with them. It took concentration and effort, and a single slip might have spelled disaster. She was powerful, but it required only a moment's inattention to let a predator past her defenses. Moor cats and Kodens could strike you down before you thought to wonder what had happened. Werebeasts were quicker than that.