Rachael watched as the elder set the table and lit a candle as a centerpiece. She couldn’t quite leave the doorway and the night. Rio was a presence ever ywhere, but out in the darkness, he was in his element.

She knew he was far from her, yet she still felt him. All the nights she woke to find him gone, or just returning, he had been running free, running in his other for m. She longed to be at his side instead of debating an issue neither could resolve.

“Come sit down and eat,” Delgrotto said kindly. “You have great courage, Rachael, and you protect those you love fiercely, just as Rio does. I’m grateful he found you. You’ve brought him happiness.”

“He would have been happy if you hadn’t taken everything away from him.”

“We spared his life. It was the only choice open to us. Banishment or death. No one wanted it, and no one was happy with the sentence, but we felt we had no choice. We spared his life and lived without him. We caught glimpses of his greatness, this son to our people. A born leader. We saw what it did to him. You can’t see what it did to us.”

“I hope you don’t want me to feel sorry for you.” Rachael limped across the room to the table. She left the door wide open. There would be no sleeping until Rio returned safely and the sound of the rain soothed her ragged nerves and made her feel closer to him. Rio’s rain songs. The sound made him closer to her.

“Not sorry for us. Perhaps understanding. We lost him and his mother. Banishment means he is dead to us. We can’t see him or speak to him, yet he gives his money to us for the preservation of the forest.”

“How could you take it?”

“If we can’t see him or speak to him, how could we return it?”

“So you could see the money, just not the giver.”

Delgrotto smiled at her ferocity. “You must promise me you’ll have many children with him. We need them.”

The soup was delicious. She hated to even concede him that much and it annoyed her. A faint grin stole over her face. “I think I have a closed mind where you’re concerned. I don’t want to see your point of view.”

“At least you can admit that.” He seemed to savor the taste of the broth. “You would make a good member of the high council.”

Rachael managed a rude noise around the next mouthful of soup.

Delgrotto’s eyebrow shot up. “You don’t think so? One has to look at a problem from every angle.

Before you can do that, you have to acknowledge there is more than one angle. I didn’t agree with banishment, but the alternative was beyond our capabilities to impose on him.”

“Well for heaven’s sake, did you consider another punishment? Something not quite so harsh? Live a little, make a few laws up, that’s what every other governing body does.”

He nodded his head politely, considering her suggestion. “What do you believe is a fair punishment for murder?”

“It wasn’t murder.”

“What was it then?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve seen murder. I’ve felt the malevolence of a cold-blooded murderer, of someone truly evil, and that isnot Rio.”

An owl hooted in the distance. The elder lifted his head and stared toward the door for a long moment.

“I’m sorry you’ve had to be exposed to such a thing, Rachael, and, of course, you’re right. There is nothing evil about Rio.” Delgrotto ate another spoonful of the soup. “We can agree he took a life.”

Somewhat mollified, Rachael nodded. “I can’t very well deny it when he told me so himself.” She sighed. “He doesn’t blame you for what you did.”

“No, he doesn’t, because he understands the need for laws.” The owl hooted a second time. Delgrotto leaned forward and blew out the candle. “Close the door and be very quiet.”

“The birds aren’t sounding off, neither are the monkeys.” But Rachael obediently closed the door and dropped the bar in place. “What’s wrong?” Always before she’d heard the clear warning of the animals as an intruder moved through their territory. “Maybe it’s Rio coming back.” But she knew it wasn’t.

Cold fingers touched her spine, sent a chill of fear through her body.

“It isn’t Rio. Do you know the way to the village?”

Rachael shook her head. “I’ve never been there.”

“You might be able to follow Rio, using scent, but I know him. He’ll have tried to go to the water several times to throw anyone off. He’s very careful. He must have an escape hole other than the front door.”

“Yes, but we don’t even know what’s out there.”

“If a man was out there, the forest would have been in an uproar. It’s a leopard, and he knows the ways of the animals. He knows to soothe them as he passes by, careful not to look as if he’s hunting. And he must be hunting to want to come to us so silently.”

“I came here hoping to escape the trouble I was in,” Rachael confessed readily. “They sent someone after me once already. You should go, I can show you the escape door. You shouldn’t be here with me.”

“I may be an old man, Rachael, but I am capable of helping you protect your life. I would never slink back to Rio and tell him I left his woman alone to fend off an attacker. I could never live with myself.”

She had an idea Rio might not look too kindly on him either. “Kim Pang came by earlier and told Rio his father had a vision about a party of researchers entering the forest looking for medicinal plants.