"For a short while only," Pony replied, and she let her gaze drift from person to person. "I am going to Palmaris," she announced, "to accept King Danube's offer."
"Baroness Pony? " Dainsey said with a great and joyful laugh.
"Baroness Jilseponie," she corrected.
"What about yer Church friends?" Belster asked. "They're busy makin' Avelyn a saint now-should be done this very year-and are hopin' to open a new chapel in Caer Tinella. I'm thinkin' that Braumin's wantin' ye to head that chapel, girl, or at least to join with him in his Church."
Pony shook her head throughout the speech. "They will understand," she insisted. "I can do more good for the teachings of Avelyn as a secular leader than if I went into the Church, where I would have to fight every day for my survival in any position of power merely because I am a woman."
She looked to Roger mostly, for support, because he, above all others except for Bradwarden, knew her the best. And he was nodding and smiling.
This was the right course for her.
"I will have a place at Chasewind Manor for Belster," Pony promised, "and for Roger and Dainsey."
"And Bryan," Dainsey put in with an impish grin.
"Bryan?" Pony started to ask, and then, given the expressions worn by both Roger and Dainsey, she understood. Again came the hugs; and then Dainsey, leading Pony by the hand to the back room where little Bryan slept peacefully, detailed every moment of the child's birth and life thus far.
Jilseponie Wyndon left Dundalis a month later, after having sent word ahead to Palmaris requesting that King Danube honor his word and give the city to her as baroness. By the time she arrived in the city, Duke Tetrafel had long-and gladly-vacated Chasewind Manor.
Brynn Dharielle thought she had him beaten, a clever twist-thrustdisengage-and-thrust-again movement that seemed as if it had young Aydrian caught off balance.
But the disengage cut both ways, and as Brynn's slender blade knifed in for a low strike, Aydrian's slapped down atop it, driving the point to the ground. A twist of the wrist had the boy's sword tip at Brynn's throat.
"Finally," Aydrian said, for this was his first victory over the older ranger-in-training, a warrior the Touel'alfar regarded very highly. "Remarkable progress," Lady Dasslerond said to Belli'mar Juraviel, the two of them standing in the brush off to the side, unseen by the combatants. "His work is even more promising than that of young Brynn."
Juraviel nodded, finding it hard to disagree, given what had just happened on the field before them. He didn't know much of Aydrian, hadn't spent time with the boy, but from what he had heard, the child was possessed of an enormous amount of pride, and more than a bit of a temper. Those factors seemed to bother Lady Dasslerond not at all, though, for whenever Juraviel had mentioned them to her, or anything at all negative about the youngest ranger, she had merely labeled it "passion," and had gone about her business.
"It is time to begin the other side of his training," Lady Dasslerond remarked then, catching Juraviel off his guard.
"The gemstones?" he asked hesitantly.
Dasslerond nodded. "With the inclusion of magical prowess, he will become the most complete warrior the world has ever known," she said. "Greater than his father, greater than the original Aydrian, and greater even than Terranen Dinoniel."
"He is still young," Juraviel dared to say, but what he really wanted to scream out at his lady was that this one needed more than training with weapons and gemstones. That he needed emotional training, as well, some measure of the balance within his own thoughts and, more important, within his heart.
He didn't say that, though, because he knew that she wouldn't hear his words.
He listened then to Aydrian, taunting Brynn Dharielle and begging her for another fight so that he could "beat her again."
Belli'mar Juraviel had a very bad feeling about all this.
Epilogue
I shrugged off her title, Baroness Jilseponie, as she descended the dungeon stairs in Chasewind Manor to a small and dark room she had taken as a private place for her meditations, becoming Pony, just Pony, once more.
And there, in the darkness, with all of the tumult of the politics and the public solidly put out of her mind, Pony stared into her mirror and sought the form of her lost love. She had found her place and her reason again, and when she spoke to Elbryan, with thoughts and not words, she did so with complete confidence.
I understand now, my love, and in that understanding comes a peace I feared I never would again know, a true contentment.
When I lost you, I came to fear that it had all been in vain, that we had really accomplished nothing by our sacrifice. I feared that it was the nature of man to continue with all that we fought against, that one battle only served to begin another, and that it could not end. I am still not convinced of the opposite, not convinced that paradise can be found in the kingdom of Mankind.
But now I understand that we must continue the fight, no matter the odds, no matter the outcome. We fight because, in doing so, we make a statement about who we want to be, about who we must become. We fight because the opposite is to surrender to a way of thinking that we know to be wrong. We fight to save ourselves, if not the world.
And we, all humanity, are better for the fight. The world is indeed a brighter place because of our battle against and victory over Markwart, because of our efforts and your sacrifice. The darkness will come again, I know; and I know, too, that there will be others to take up the mantle of battle, to cry out the name Nightbird, as many in our own struggle called out the name Dinoniel. You bettered the world, my love, physically by lifting the darkness from the highest level of the Church and spiritually by bringing inspiration to those of like mind who would take up the fight.
And so your death was not in vain, and though I miss you terribly, and always shall, and though my heart will never be whole again, I accept now the price of our victory. Yes, my love, the cost was worth the gain.
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Mortalis dw-4 Page 63
