There was something she hadn't told him yet. "Why should you worry?" he asked. "He seems perfectly capable to me."
She sighed, and chewed her lower lip. "I've known him a long time, and the Skif you know isn't the Skif I first made my brother. I haven't talked to anyone about this, but something happened to him a couple of years ago, something to do with the war with Hardorn, and it changed him. He hasn't been the same since. But he never said anything to me about it, and I don't feel that I should press him on the subject. I mean, he values his privacy."
He considered her words for a moment, hoping that the relief he felt on learning that Skif was no more than a brother to her did not show too clearly. But changes in a personality—oh, he was all too familiar with that. Though this was not likely to be the kind of sinister change that had overcome Starblade.
No, more like the change of shock that had made Songwind become Darkwind.
"I think that if it was something he felt comfortable about revealing to you, he would have done so," he said carefully. "That may have been because he considered you to be too sheltered to reveal it, because he was ashamed of it, or even because you are female and he is male. Do I take it that this experience—whatever it was—damaged him in some way?"
"Not physically, but he was never as—carefree afterward," she replied thoughtfully. "Yes, I would say that it damaged him. Probably all three reasons have something to do with why he has never told me about it."
"In that case, he might well reveal it to Wintermoon," Darkwind mused aloud. "That would be a good thing. My brother is a remarkable man and has his own burdens he might be pleased to reveal. That would be a good thing as well."
She gave him a glance filled with hope and speculation. "Do you think so? He's been so—I don't know. Before, he was always eager for the next adventure. Now it seems as if adventure has soured for him, and all he's looking for is peace. And I think that Nyara just might be able to ease some of what is hurting him. If she doesn't hurt him further."
"A good point. I do not think that she would do so a-purpose," he said, raising a dripping hand from the water to rub his temple. "She has been both cause and receiver of too much harm to wish to work further such, I think." Nyara... oh, there was a potential to become the lash of a whip if not carefully dealt with. "But there is pain waiting for him, with that one, be she ever so well-intentioned."
Elspeth nodded. "You're thinking what I'm thinking. If he—no, when he finds her, if she is not in love with him, he's going to be hurt."
"Would it were only as simple as that. You know that if she does love him and ran to save him before for that reason, he is destined for even greater hurt." Darkwind raised himself a little higher in the water, rested his arms on the ledge around the pool, and propped his head on one hand. "You must know that, Elspeth. Think on it. Suppose she loves him truly. Suppose she accepts his love. My people would have trouble in accepting a Changechild as the lover of one of their kin. But yours? To them, will she not seem a monster?"
She groaned, and rubbed her eyes. "I wish I could tell you no, but I can't. Gods, Darkwind, the Shin'a'in are looked at askance when a rare one comes to Valdemar. The Hawkbrothers are legends only. They'd try to put her in a menagerie!" She shook her head. "No matter what we did, how we tried to disguise her, I doubt it would hold for long."
"Soon or late, any disguise is unmade, any illusion is broken," he agreed. "Nor is that the only problem with Nyara. She is utterly, totally foreign. Her ways could never be yours. Gods of my fathers, her ways are utterly alien to my people! Among yours, she would be like unto a plains-cat given a collar and called a pet!"
Elspeth groaned. "And that—that aura of sexuality she has—that isn't going to win her any converts, I can tell you that. Havens, she even made me annoyed, sometimes, and there was nothing for me to be irritated with her over!"
"Except that every male eye must ever be on her," he said ruefully. "Be he ever so faithful to his lover, he still must react to her like a male beast in season! Even I—well, I entertained fantasies, and I knew well the danger she implied. You say that Skif seems to seek only peace. Well, he will not find it with that one on his arm! Every male with no manners will be trying to have her for himself. Every female will react as you—or more strongly."
"And she can't help herself." Elspeth's mouth quirked in a half smile at his confession, but she quickly sobered. "Darkwind, what should I do?"
"Should you do anything?" he countered. "Can you do anything? Is there even any advice that you could give him that he would heed?"
She shook her head sadly. "Probably not. I guess there's only one thing I can do—to be ready for whatever decision he and she make."
"That is all that a friend can do, Elspeth," he agreed. "And I think perhaps that is all that a friend should do. But you know, there is another course that he might take that you do not seem to have considered. What would you and your people think if he should choose to stay here—with her?"
"If he—" She stared at him now as if the very idea were so alien that she couldn't quite grasp it. "But he's a Herald!"
"He is also a human—and a man. And he is very much in love." Darkwind had a fleeting feeling of disorientation, as if he were not talking only about the Herald Skif. "Would your people make him choose between his love and his land? Would this cause his Companion to abandon him?"
"I don't know," she said helplessly. "The subject has never come up."
"Interesting." He leaned back into the water again. "Perhaps you and Gwena should discuss this at length. I have the feeling that it may be important."
"So do I," she replied, slowly. "So do I..."
* * *
The Adept from k'Treva did not appear by nightfall, at which point Darkwind felt that he had most probably taken the wise course of finding a secure place to rest for the night. When he and Elspeth sought out Iceshadow just after dusk, the Elder said words to that same effect.
"I do not think our Clansbrother is likely to arrive on our doorstep until the morning," Iceshadow predicted, as the three of them strolled back to the Elder's ekele. "Were I he, I would find a tervardi and share his shelter for the night. I have sensed nothing amiss, and I think if he were in trouble, we would certainly know it."
Darkwind nodded. Very few Tayledras traveled by night by choice. Even fewer did so in unknown and possibly dangerous territory. "He knows that our borders are shrunken, and that the land within them is not certain. The heavy snows of the past few days have probably slowed him down. I doubt the one who replied took the difficulties of winter riding into account when he sent the message and told you the Adept would arrive in half a day. Even on dyheli I would not undertake to go anywhere in this snow in half a day."
They reached Iceshadow's home at that moment; the Elder stretched, and paused with one hand on the railing. "I would not worry, were I you. I am not concerned. We will see this marvel when he arrives and not before, and the matter of one or two days more is not going to make a great deal of difference to our situation. True?"
When they agreed, he chuckled, and bid them a pleasant evening, a certain twinkle in his eyes as he looked from Elspeth to Darkwind and back.
Not that Darkwind minded the delay. Once the Healing Adept arrived, he and Elspeth would start on a round of magic-use that would leave them quite exhausted at day's end. He knew that from experience. Sadly, heavy magic-use tended to leave one too weary for dalliance. They would have one more night together, at least—
Or so he hoped.
This time, since they were so near, she had invited him to her ekele for supper, while the hertasi turned them both into limp yarn dolls. At the time he had thought he saw Faras, the one working on her back, smile a little when she made the invitation. He said nothing, though, then or now; she knew that the lizard-folk used Mindspeech as easily as humans used their voices. Though what she might not know was the way the little folk like to play at matchmaking....
They took a second soak in the p
ool, then slipped into a pair of thick robes that the hertasi had left there for them, leaving the pool when dusk was only a memory and full darkness shrouded the Vale. Darkwind was not certain how Elspeth felt, but he had not been so relaxed or content for a very long time. He followed her up to her ekele, pretty well certain of what he would find there.
He was not disappointed. The robe of amber silk, clean again, was waiting for her—and his favorite, of deep blue, lay beside it across the cushions. And on the table there waited another intimate supper for two. This one was a bit different, though.
He recognized it, though she would not have. This was a lover's supper, a trysting meal. Sensual delights. Things to tease the palate and the four senses. Light foods, the kind found at festivals, arranged in single bite-sized pieces. Food made to be eaten with the fingers—
—or fed to another.
Oddly modest, she caught up the robe and carried it into the next room to change into it, although she had not seemed so shy at the pool. He would have enjoyed seeing the soft silk slip over her young, supple body. Well, that would come in time as she lost her shyness with him.
If they had the time....
He pushed the thought from his mind. He would enjoy what they had, and not seek to shape their future. He slipped into his own robe as she returned, the amber silk caressing her and enveloping her like a cloud of golden smoke. She made a circuit of the room, lighting scented candles to perfume the air; he watched her with pleasure, and wondered a little at her grace. Had she always moved like that? Or had he only now begun to notice?
He waited until she had made herself comfortable before moving toward her. She patted a place beside her and he settled next to her. His most urgent appetite was not for food, but he contented himself with nibbling on a slice of quince as she hesitantly took a piece of cheese.
"What do you think he'll be like?" she asked abruptly, proving that whatever his thoughts were, hers were elsewhere.
The question took him by surprise, and he had to drag his thoughts away from contemplating her, and apply them to something a bit more abstract.
"The Healing Adept, you mean?" he hazarded. That was the only "he" the question seemed apt for. "The one from k'Treva?"
She nodded, and he made a half shrug. He hadn't thought about it; he was far more interested in the Adept's skills than in anything else.
"It usually takes a Healing Adept years to come into his full power, so I suppose that he is probably about the age of my father," he said, after a moment. "Probably very serious, very deliberate. Although—" he frowned, trying to recall the message's exact words, "—they did say that he was a kind of experimenter. That is an interesting point. He might be more like Kra'heera than my father."
"What, that funny kind of trickster?" She nibbled at a piece of fruit. "But powerful."
"Oh, that, at the least," he agreed. "He would have to be, to be willing to ride alone across uncertain land. I think that he will definitely have that kind of air about him that Iceshadow has when he is truly certain of himself. Except that he will have it all the time."
"You have that air sometimes," she said suddenly.
"No—" Now that startled him. "I do?"
"Yes." She licked juice from her fingers and gave him a sidelong glance. "You did last night. Sometimes I think you don't give yourself enough credit."
He shook his head. "I think you are being flattering, but—"
"I'm not really hungry," she interrupted him. "Are you?"
He laughed, now knowing where the pathway was leading. "Not for this sort of food," he said.
Bondbirds carried the message in midmorning that the k'Treva Adept was less than a league away. Those of the Clan that were not otherwise engaged in Clan duties gathered at the entrance of the Vale to await his arrival. Although the snow was knee-deep beyond the Veil, it would not have been a proper welcome to greet him within.
Elspeth and Darkwind were among them, and she thought privately that this mysterious mage could not have contrived a more perfect backdrop for his first appearance. The clouds of the past few days had cleared away by dawn, and the sun shone down out of a flawless blue sky, filling the snow-bedecked woods outside the entrance of the Vale with pure white light. There wasn't even a breath of wind, and the woods were completely silent except for a few calls of birds off in the distance. As they waited in the snow, straining their ears for the sound of hoofbeats, Elspeth fretted a little beneath the suspense of the moment. Even Gwena seemed tense with anticipation.
Finally, the sound they had been waiting for echoed beneath the trees; the muffled thud of hooves pounding through snow. From the cadence, Elspeth knew that he had urged his mount into a gallop. Not that dyheli had any objection to galloping, but he could not possibly have kept up that pace all the way here. Only a Companion had the stamina to gallop for hours at a time.
Either he's impatient for the end of the trip, or he wants to make an impressive entrance, she thought with amusement.
And then the object of their anticipation came pounding in, sprays of snow flying all about him, and a magnificent, snow-white firebird skimmed just beneath the branches precisely over his head, its tail streaming behind it as the Adept's long hair streamed behind him.
The firebird was the biggest one she had ever seen—and never had she ever heard of anyone using one for a bondbird. It threw off the little false-sparks of golden light as it flew, glittering, a creature of myth or tales.
From the murmurs of surprise, she surmised that no one among the Hawkbrothers had ever seen a firebird bondbird before, either.
It was at least as large as Darkwind's forestgyre. It seemed to be larger, because of the length of its magnificent tail. The head, with its huge, ice-blue eyes, was just as large as any bondbird's head, which meant it could be as intelligent as the rest.
But the firebirds were seed and fruit eaters. Not carnivores or hunters....
Well, why not? He's a mage. He doesn't need a combative bird to help him, the way the scouts do.
The Adept pulled up before the entrance to the Vale in a shower of snow and a flurry of hooves, like some kind of young god of winter, or an ice-storm personified. Even his mount gave Elspeth pause for a moment, until she saw the curving horns over the two ice-blue eyes, for he rode a dyheli bleached to snowy white just as the bondbirds were.
He posed for a moment, and she realized that he was doing it deliberately. Not that she blamed him. She smiled, but kept it to herself.
Oh, what a vain creature he is! And how he basks in the admiration he's getting. Rightfully.
They had expected a venerable wise man; another Iceshadow with more presence, perhaps. What they had gotten was something else entirely.
He swept his arm out and the firebird drifted down to rest on his snow-white leather gauntlet, alighting as silently as one of its own feathers would fall. Only then was it clear that the firebird was fully as large as any of the greater hawks, and approached the size of the hawk-eagle. Its tail trailed down gracefully to within a hand's breadth of the snow, and it, too, posed, as if perfectly well aware of its unearthly beauty.
He was dressed all in white; white furs and leathers, long white hair with white feathers in a braid to one side, white coat draped over the rump of his white dyheli. Three sets of ice-blue eyes looked over the assembled Clansfolk dispassionately; the eyes of the dyheli and the firebird held only curiosity, but the eyes of the Adept held more than a touch of a self-confidence that was surely forgivable—both for his Adept status (and indeed, he could never have achieved that complete bleaching of hair and eyes and bird if he had not been controlling node-magic since he could toddle) and for his absolute physical perfection.
Never in all her life had Elspeth seen anyone so beautiful. That was the only word for him. He was beautiful in a way that transcended sexuality and yet was bound up with it.
So some arrogance and self-assurance could certainly be forgiven, even if he was no older than Darkwind.
Gwena was staring at him intently, much more intently than Elspeth expected.
:What's wrong?: she asked the Companion quietly. :Is there anything wrong?:
:Nothing wrong, exactly,: she said slowly. :No, that's not true. There's nothing wrong at all. But it almost seems like I've seen him before, though I can't imagine how I ever could have. But there certainly is something familiar about him—:
:Of course there is, my dear,: a deep, masculine mind-voice interrupted. And the k'Treva Adept winked at the Companion, slowly, and unmistakably.
Elspeth was left floundering in surprise—and as for Gwena, clearly, if the Companion's jaw could have dropped in shock, it would have. Gwena stepped backwards.
"Greetings, Clansibs," the Adept called to them all, as calmly as if he had not just utterly flabbergasted Gwena. "I am Firesong k'Treva, and I trust I have not made you wait for too long for my arrival."
With that, he dismounted, sliding from the back of the dyheli so smoothly that the firebird was not in the least disturbed. There was a pack on his back—also of white leather—which had been hidden until he dismounted. The dyheli paced beside him as he walked forward to the Veil and the Tayledras waiting to greet him, one hand still on the dyheli's shoulder, a half-smile on his handsome face. Iceshadow and the other Elders greeted him first, as was only proper, but when he had done clasping arms with them, he turned immediately to Elspeth and Darkwind.
"And here are those whose message summoned me," he said, tossing his head to send his braid over his shoulder, his lips curved in an enigmatic smile. "I see one Clansib—and two Outlanders. A fascinating combination."
"This is Wingsister Elspeth k'Sheyna k'Valdemar, and her Companion Gwena k'Valdemar," Darkwind said carefully. A little too carefully, Elspeth thought. "I am Darkwind."
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