Winds Of Fate

*Chapter Twelve DARKWIND

This patrol-like all the others lately-had been completely uneventful. this is almost too easy, Darkwind thought, making frequent checks of the underbrush beside the path for signs of disturbance. A week now, that Nyara's been hiding with us, and there's nothing from the other side.

Nothing hunting her, except that couple of wyrsa I caught on her trail, no magic probes, nothing.

The very quietude set all his nerves on edge. Of course, her shielding is really outstanding. Falconsbane might not know she's here, or even that she headed this way when she ran. He could be hunting for her in another direction altogether.

That was what Treyvan said; Hydona was of the opinion that Falconsbane knew very well she'd come this way but assumed she was in the Vale. She pointed out that in all the time Falconsbane had been on their border-and everything Nyara said indicated that he had been there for a very long time-he'd never directly challenged k'sheyna. He was only one Adept, after all, and there were at least five Adepts and ten times that many Masters in k'sheyna. And even though none of them were operating at full strength, the mages of k'sheyna could still be more than he cared to meet in conflict. Especially when the conflict was over the relatively minor matter of the loss of a single Changechild.

"He can alwaysss make anotherrr," Hydona had said, callously. "It isss unussual for one like himssself to keep a pet forrr longerrr than a few yearsss." And oddly enough, Nyara agreed with Hydona's analysis.

If he was angered at all, his anger would have been for a loss; not for the loss of me," she'd said, more than a little piqued at having to admit that she was worth so little to her former master. "As an individual, I mean very little to him. He has threatened many times to create another, to then see how I fared among his lesser servants as their playffin. All that would goad him into action was that he had lost a possession. If something distracted him from that anger, he would have made only a token attempt to find me, more to appease his pride than to get me back." So it seemed, for other than the pair of wyrsa, there had been nothing in the way of activity-not along Darkwind's section, nor Dawnfire's-not, for that matter, anyone else's. Except for Moonmist; she ran into a basilisk who'd decided her little patrol area was a good one to nest in.

Prying that thing out had taken five scouts and three days. They didn't want to kill it if they didn't have to; basilisks were stupid, incredibly dangerous, and ravenous carnivores who would eat anything that couldn't run away from them-but they weren't evil. They had their place in the scheme of things; they dined with equal indifference on their own kills or carrion, and there were few things other than a basilisk that would scavenge the carcasses of cold-drakes or wyrsa.

But no one wanted a basilisk for a near neighbor, not even the most ardent animal lover. Not even Earthsong, who had once unsuccessfully tried to breed a vulture for a bondbird.

But that was the only excitement there had been for days, and there was no way that incident could have been related. No one could herd a basilisk. The best you could do was to make ~ so unpleasant for it that it chose to move elsewhere. No one, in all the history of the Tayledras, had ever been able to even touch what passed for one's mind, much less control it. The histories said they were a failed and abandoned experiment, like so many other creatures of the twisted lands; a construction, of one of the blood-path mages at the time of the Mage Wars. But perversely, once abandoned, the basilisk continued to persist on its own.

It's just a good thing they only lay two or three fertile eggs in a lifetime, he thought wryly, or we'd be up to our necks in them.

A broken swath of vegetation caught his attention, and he looked closer, only to discover the spoor of a running deer and the tracks of its pursuer, an ordinary enough wolf pair. From the small hooves, it was probably a weanling, separated from its mother; it wouldn't have broken down the bushes if it had been an adult. this is ridiculous, he thought. I might as well be a forester in the cleansed lands.

There hasn't been att3~bw worth talking about out here for the past week.

That was the way the area around a Vale was supposed to look, just before a Clan move to a new spot. No magic-warped creatures like the giant serpent, no mage-made things like the basilisk; just normal animals, relatively normal plant life.

Maybe Father's been right about sitting and waiting for the Heartstone to settle...Up ahead, the forest thinned a little, the sunlight actually reaching the ground in thick shafts. These golden lances penetrated the emerald leaf canopy, bringing life to the forest floor, for the undergrowth was thicker here, and there was even thin grass among the wild plum bushes.

He looked up at the hot blue eye of the sky as he reached a patch of clearing; framed by tree-branches, Vree soared overhead, calmly. He hadn't seen anything either; in fact, he'd been so bored he'd taken a rock-dove and eaten it while waiting for Darkwind to catch up. It had been a long time since he'd been able to hunt and eat while out on scout.

Starblade's answer to the fracture of the Heartstone had been to wait and see what would happen. He'd insisted that the great well of power would drain itself, slowly-Heal itself, in fact-until it was safe to tap into it, drain the last of its energies, construct a Gate, and leave.

Darkwind had disagreed with his father on that, as he had seemingly on everything else. And up until the past week, it certainly hadn't looked as if the Heartstone was following his father's predictions. In fact, if anything, the opposite was true. There had been more uncanny creatures; more Misborn attracted, more actually trying to penetrate the borders.

And recently, there had been the other developments; the fact that the mages within the Vale had been unable to sense the changes in energy flows outside it, the fact that now most of the scouts' bondbirds refused to enter the Vale itself, the perturbations that Treyvan sensed.

But maybe that was all kind of the last gasp-maybe things have settled down. Maybe Father's right.

But when he considered that possibility, all his instincts revolted.

Yes, but what if I just feel that way because if Father is right, it means that I am wrong? at if I am wrong, what does it matter? Other than if I'm wrong, Father will never let me forget it...He stopped for a moment, hearing a thudding sound-then realized it was only a hare drumming alarm, hind foot beating against the ground to alert the rest of his warren-probably at the sight of Vree.

Is it just that I can't admit that sometimes he might be right?

On the other hand, there was a feeling deep inside, connected, he now realized, with the mage-senses he seldom used, that Starblade was wrong, dead wrong. A Heartstone that badly damaged could not Heal itself, it could only get worse. And this calm they were experiencing was just a pause before things degenerated to another level.

I guess I'll enjoy it while it lasts, and stay out of the Vale as much as possible.

He sent another inquiring thought at Vree, but the gyre had no more to report than the last time.

It was very tempting to cut everything short and go to see how Nyara was doing. So tempting, that he fought against the impulse stubbornly, determined to see his patrol properly done. It might make up for the other days he had neglected it.

Not really neglected it-there were the dyheli, and then Nyara.

His efforts at appeasing his conscience came to nothing. It still wasn't done. And if I hadn't been very lucky, things could easily have slipped in.

He no longer worried that these temptations were caused by anything other than his own selfish desire to spend more time with the Changechild.

Nyara was good company, in a peculiar way. She was interested in what he had to say and just as interesting to listen to.

At least I can appease my conscience with the fact that I'm learning something about our enemy.

She was also as incredibly attractive as she had been the first time he'd seen her. If he had been a less honorable man, her problematic virtue wouldn't have stood a chance. Which led him to revise his earlier assumptions; to think that she wasn't in control of that part of herself. She might even be completely unaware of it.

That would fit the profile of her master.

Mornelithe Falconsbane would not have wanted her in control of anything having to do with sexual attraction; he would have wanted to pull the strings there. Which was one reason why Darkwind had continued to resist letting her lure him to her bed. He had no prejudice against her, but he was not sure what would happen, what little traps had been set up in her makeup, that a sexual encounter would trigger.

That would fit Falconsbane's profile, too. Make her a kind of walking, breathing trap that only he could disarm. So anyone meddling with the master's " would find himself punished by the thing he thought to enjoy.

With a set of claws-and sharp, pointed teeth-like she had, he didn't think he was in any hurry to find out if his speculations were true, either.

Darkwind was not about to risk laceration or worse in a passionate embrace with her.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he almost missed the boundary marker, the blaze that marked the end of his patrol range and the beginning of Dawnfire's. He glanced at the sun, piercing through the trees, but near the horizon; it was time for Thundersnow to take over for him.

And if he hurried, he would have a chance to chat with Nyara before he went to the council meeting.

He was already on the path to the hertasi village before the thought was half finished.

"I think this is the best chance I'm going to have; things have been so quiet, they can't blame disturbances on your presence. So I'm going to tell the Council about you, and put your request to them," he told her as they both soaked up the last of the afternoon's heat on the top of the bluff.

She didn't answer at first; just turned on her back and stretched, lithe and sensuous-and seemed just as innocent of the effect it had on him as a kitten. She wasn't even watching him, she was watching a butterfly a few feet away from them.

That didn't stop his loins from tightening, or keep a surge of pure, unmixed lust from washing over him, making it difficult to think clearly for a moment.

He sought relief in analyzing the effect. that sexual impact she has can't be under conscious control. She couldn't fake the kind of nonchalance she's got right now.

"When?" she asked, yawning delicately. "Is it tonight, this meeting?"

He nodded; he'd explained to her the need to wait until a regular meeting so that her appearance would seem a little more routine. She'd agreed-both to his reasons and to the need to wait.

But in fact, his real reasons were just a little different. He'd put off explaining what had happened in its entirety until he wouldn't have to face his father alone. Starblade in the presence of the rest of the Elders was a little easier to deal with than Starblade in the privacy of his own ekele, where he could rant and shout and ignore anything Darkwind said-and he tended not to take quite so much of his son's hide in public, where there were witnesses both to his behavior and to what Darkwind told him.

"It is well," Nyara purred, satisfaction brimming in her tone. She blinked sleepily at Darkwind, her eyes heavy-lidded, the pupils the merest slits. "Though I still cannot travel, should they grant me leave. You will say that, yes?"

"Don't worry," he replied, "I'm going to make that very clear." In fact, that was one of the points he figured he had in his favor; Nyara obviously could not move far or fast, and he wanted to have a reason for why he had left her with the hertasi, instead of putting her under a different guardian. "More competent," Starblade would undoubtedly say. "]Less sympathetic," was what he would mean.

And if worse came to worst, he wanted to have a reason for continuing to leave her here, instead of putting her with a watcher of Starblade's choice.

"You still seem fairly weak to me," he continued, "and Nera's Healer seems to think it's a very good idea for you to stay with us until those cracked bones of yours have a chance to heal a bit more. And that reminds me; have you had any problems with the hertasi?"

"Have they complained of me?" she snapped sharply, twisting her head around to cast him a look full of suspicion.

He was taken a little aback. "Why, no-it's just that I wanted to make certain you were getting along all right. If there was any friction, I could move you-maybe to the ruins where the gryphons are. It's pretty quiet there-~,-"

"No, no!" she interrupted, her voice rising, as if she were alarmed.

Then, before he could react, she smiled. "Your pardon, I did not mean that the way it may have sounded. Treyvan and Hydona are wonderful, and I like them a great deal-as I expected to like anything Mornelithe hated. I learned early that whatever thwarted him he hated-and that what he hated, I should be prepared to find good."

"He knows about Treyvan and Hydona-"

"No, no, no," she interrupted again, hastily. "I am saying things badly today. No, it is only gryphons in general that he hates. As he hates Birdkin, so I was prepared to like you. He never told me why."

"She shrugged indifferently, and by now Darkwind knew he'd get nothing more out of her on the subject. She had all the ability of a ferret to squirm her way out of anything she didn't want to talk about.

But if she likes them, why wouldn't she want to stay near them?

"It is the little ones," she sighed, pensively, as if answering his unspoken suspicion. "I am very sorry, for I am going to say something that will revolt you, Birdkin, but I cannot bear little ones. No matter the species." She shuddered. "Giggling in voices to pierce the ears, running about like mad things, shrieking enough to startle the dead-I cannot bear little ones." She looked him squarely in the eyes. "I have," she announced, "no motherly instinct. I do not want motherly instinct.

I do not want to see little ones for more than a short time, at long intervals.

He laughed at her long face. "I can see your point," he replied. "They are a handful-"

"And soon there will be two more, this time the very little ones, who cry and cry all night, and will not be comforted; who become ill for mysterious reasons and make messes at both ends. No," she finished, firmly. "I care much for Treyvan and Hydona, but I will not abide living with the little ones."

"You've been getting along all right with the hertasi, though?" he asked anxiously. If he had to leave her here for any length of time, it would be a good idea to make sure both parties were willing. Nera had indicated that he had seen no trouble with her, but Darkwind wanted to be sure of that. Sometimes the hertasi were a little too polite.

"As well as one gets along with one's shadow." She shrugged. "They are quiet, they bring me food and drink, they are polite when I speak to them, but mostly they are not there-to speak to, that is." A wry smile touched the corners of her mouth, and the tips of her sharp little canine teeth showed briefly. "I am well aware that they watch me, but in their place, I would watch me, so all is well. I pretend to ignore the watchers, the watchers pretend they are most busy counting grass stems, we both know it is pretense, and politeness is preserved." Darkwind laughed; she smiled broadly. Now I know why Nera called her "a very polite young creature."

"As long as you're doing all right here--" he glanced at the setting sun. "I have to get back for that meeting. I expect to have some trouble with it." Nyara's smile faded to a wistful ghost. "I wish I could tell you it would be otherwise, but I doubt it will be so. I only hope you do not come to regret being my champion." He sighed, and got to his feet. "I hope so, too.

The windows of the ekele shook as his father pounded the table with his fist. "BY all the gods of our fathers," Starblade stormed, "I never thought my own son would be so much of a fool!" Darkwind stared at a patch of the exposed bark of the parent-tree, just past his father's shoulder, and kept his face completely expressionless.

At least it sounded like most of the tirade was over. This was mild compared to the insults Starblade had hurled at him at the beginning of the session.

Then again, it might simply be that Starblade had run out of insults.

Starblade shook his fist in the air, not actually threatening Darkwind but the implication was there. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear I couldn't be your father! I've never-"

"That's enough, Starblade," interrupted old Rainlance tiredly. "That is quite enough." The quiet words were so unexpected, especially coming from Rainlance, that both Starblade and his son turned to stare in surprise at the oldest of the four Elders. Rainlance never interrupted anyone or raised his voice. Except that he had just done both.

"By now we all know that you think your s-hmm, Darkwind-is the greatest fool ever born. We also know precisely why you think that." Rainlance leveled a penetrating stare at Starblade that froze him where he sat. "The fact is, I've known you a great deal longer than Darkwind, and I think there are times when you allow some of your opinions to unbalance your judgment. This is one of them. It just so happens I've never shared your peculiar prejudice against the Changechildren. I won't go into why, right now, but I have several good reasons, strong ones, to disagree with you on that. And I also do not share your view of Darkwind's incompetence." He coughed, and shook his head. "In point of fact, I think Elder Darkwind has done a fine job up until now, a very fine job. His peers trust him, he has never let his private opinions interfere with his judgment, and I don't see any reason to make a snap decision about this Other of his. I don't see any reason, in fact, why we shouldn't continue to help her." Rainlance looked pointedly at the other Elder, Iceshadow, who shrugged, the crystals braided into his hair tinkling like tiny wind chimes.

"She's not a danger where she is," Iceshadow said. "She hasn't caused any trouble-"

"That we know of," snapped Starblade.

Iceshadow gave Starblade a look of disapproval, and Darkwind knew he'd scored at least one point. Iceshadow hated to be interrupted. "Very well. If you insist on that phrasing. That we know of. Frankly, I see no harm in letting her stay where she is until she's healthy, and considering her request for safe passage then." Rainlance nodded. Starblade frowned angrily, then pounced. "Under strict watch. Darkwind may be a gullible boy being led by a pair of come-hither eyes and a sweet voice, but I'm not so sure this Other may not be playing a deeper game. I say she stays under strict watch, with careful observers.

"You can't get more careful than hertasi," Iceshadow remarked to the ceiling of his ekele. "And if she's leading Darkwind around by his urges, that ploy won't work on hertasi. Even stubborn, pigheaded old-ahmages will admit to that." It was Iceshadow's turn to receive a glare, but the Elder ignored it, winking broadly at Darkwind when Starblade turned away in disgust.

"I think the hertasi will do as watchers," Rainlance said smoothly, soothingly, as he sought to heal the split in the Council. "They are certainly quite competent. But I do agree she should be kept as far from the Vale itself as possible. And if she causes any trouble-"

"If she even looks like she's causing any trouble," Starblade growled.

Rainlance raised his voice a little, and annoyance crept into it.

"-she'll have to be dealt with."

"She'll find herself bound and staked, and you can tell her so!" Starblade shouted.

"Are you quite finished?" Rainlance shouted back, his temper frayed to the snapping point. "I'd like to get on with this if I may!" Starblade sank back into his seat with an inarticulate mumble, confining himself to angry glares at anyone who happened to glance at him.

Rainlance closed his eyes for a moment and visibly forced himself to calm down. Darkwind had no sympathy to spare for him; he'd been on the receiving end of his father's tempers too often to feel sorry for anyone else.

Really, Darkwind," Rainlance continued, opening his eyes, his voice oozing reason and conciliation. "You must see this in the perspective of the Vale and Clan as a whole. We really can't take her into the Vale.

We can't take the chance, however slim, that she might be some kind of infiltrator."

"I'm not asking for her to be brought into the Vale," Darkwind replied, echoing Rainlance's tone as much as he was able. "I'm just asking that she be allowed nearer. Right now she's in jeopardy; she's hurt, and she can't run the way the hertasi can. I doubt she'd be able to get away if something comes the border, especially if it's something that's come hunting especially for her.. She can't run, she can't hide, and Mage-Gifted or not, she probably can't protect herself from any kind of trained mage." Iceshadow shook his head regretfully; Darkwind got the feeling that if this hadn't been so serious an issue, he was so annoyed with Starblade right now that he would have been glad to agree with Darkwind just for a chance to spite his father. "No. It's just not possible. And I'm sure she realizes that, even if you don't. After all, look at what she is and what we are-we're enemies. Or at least, she's been on the enemy side.

And yet she came to us, supposedly for help. She admitted she was going to use us as a kind of stalking horse. No, she stays where she is, and that's the end of it."

"Well," said Starblade, his voice penetrating the silence that followed Iceshadow's speech like a set of sharp talons, his eyes narrowed, and a tight little smile on his lips. "Since you seem so worried about her, since you brought her into our boundaries in the first place-and since she is in your territory-I think it's only fair that you be the one to undertake her protection. Even if it means you have to fall back on magery." He looked around at the other Elders. "Isn't that fair?"

"I don't know-" Rainlance began.

"I'd say it is," Iceshadow said firmly. "I've never been happy that when Songwind left us, his magic did as well, Darkwind. I understand your feelings, but I've never been happy about it. You could be quite a mage if you'd give it another try." Rainlance shrugged. Starblade cast his son a look of triumph. "It seems there's a consensus," he said smugly.

Darkwind managed not to jump up and hit him, scream at the top of his lungs, or do anything else equally stupid and adolescent. In fact, his reaction, so completely under control, seemed to disappoint his father.

He thought quickly, and realized that, unwittingly, his father had not only left him an out, he'd given the scout a chance to do something he'd been campaigning for all along. He'd have to phrase this very carefully.

"Very well, Elders," he replied, nodding to each of them in turn. "I overruled. Nyara may stay, under the eyes of the hertasi. I will undertake to keep the Changechild protected-using all the resources at my disposal Is that your will?" Rainlance nodded. "That's fine," Iceshadow said. Starblade looked suspicious, but finally gave his consent.

"Done," said Rainlance. "You have the Council's permission, as stated."

"Good," Darkwind said. "Then if that is the consensus, I will have the other scouts keep an eye out for her and stand by for trouble, I will recruit whatever dyheli I can find to stand guard, and I have no doubt there will be plenty of volunteers, since she helped save one of their herds-I will ask Dawnfire to look for help among the tervardi, and I will see if the gryphons are willing to work some of their protective magics." He managed not to grin at Starblade's expression. For once, he'd managed to outmaneuver his father.

But there was no feeling of triumph as he left the meeting; the fight had been too hard for that. Instead, he was weary and emotionally bruised.

Like someone's been beating me with wild plum branches.

He climbed down out of the ekele before anyone else. It would have been a courtesy to wait for the eldest to descend first, but he wasn't feeling particularly courteous right now-and he really didn't want to chance his father ambushing him for a little more emotional abuse. It was dark enough around here that he should be able to escape, provided he did the unexpected. And he was getting rather good at doing that... So he hurried off into the cover of the thick undergrowth, taking exactly the wrong path-one leading to the waterfall at the head of the Vale, instead of the exit. It passed the Heartstone, though not near enough to see the damaged pillar of stone, its cracked and crazed exterior only hinting at the damage echoed across the five planes, and visible to anyone with even a hint of Mage-Sight.

He felt it, though, as he passed; an ache like a bruised bone, a sense of impending illness, a disharmony. If he'd had any doubts about it Healing itself earlier, they were dispelled now. It hadn't Healed itself, it had only gotten worse. Now it left a kind of bitter, lingering aftertaste in the back of his mind; if it had been a berry he'd tasted, he would have labeled it "poisonous" without hesitation.

So he did something he had never thought he would do in his lifetime.

He shielded himself against it.

The air immediately seemed cleaner, and the sour sense of sickness left him. There was only the hint of incense-like smoke from the memorial brazier at its foot, the flame that commemorated the lives lost when the Heartstone fractured. Now all he had to contend with was the bad taste the meeting had left in his mouth.

He started to look for a way to double back to the path he wanted to take, when he remembered that there was another hot spring at the foot of the waterfall. It wasn't a big waterfall, but it was a very aumtive one; it had been sculpted by Iceshadow himself, back when the Vale had first been constructed, and the cool water of a tiny stream fell into a series of shallow rock basins to end in the hot pool of the spring below. Each of the basins had been tuned, although Darkwind had no idea how something like that was done.

The music of the falls was incredibly soothing just what I need right now.

That decided him; instead of retracing his steps, he took the path all the way to the end. And as if to confirm that he had made the right decision, as he entered the clearing containing the pool, the moon rose above the tree level, touching the waterfall, and turning it into a shower of flowing silver and diamond droplets. If you didn't know better, you'd swear there was nothing wrong here in the Vale, it's that peaceful.

And no one, absolutely no one, was there.

Of course, that might have been because this particular pool had once been a popular trysting spot, and there was not a great deal of romance going on in the Vale anymore. Most of the young Tayledras were scouts, and they seldom came this far in now. As for the rest-Darkwind suspected the mages were suffering, perhaps without realizing it, from the same, sickened feeling the Heartstone induced in him. That was not the sort of sensation likely to make anyone think of love-making...He wondered how many of them had thought to cut themselves off from the Stone. Not many, he decided, shedding his clothes and leaving them in a heap beside the pool. It's their power, their lifeblood. They'd rather feel ill than lose their connection to it. They wouldn't be able to draw on it if they shielded themselves against it.

Idiots.

Then he left all thought of them behind, as he plunged in a long, flat dive into the hot water of the pool.

He came to the surface, and floated on his back, letting it soothe the aches in his muscles as it forced him into a state of relaxation. Only then did he realize how tightly he had been holding himself, and how many of those aches were due to tension.

He drifted for a while, losing himself deliberately in the sound of the falling water, the changing patterns of the sparkling droplets, the silence.

"Turning merman?" said a shadow at the entrance.

He swam lazily to the edge, rested his arms on the sculpted rim, and looked up into Dawnfire's amused eyes. She looked down on him, a faint smile playing on her lips, her hair loose, her boots in her hand.

"Not that I'm aware of," he said lightly. "Unless you saw something I didn't know about."

"Probably not." She knelt down beside him, put her boots down beside her, then unexpectedly seized his head in both her hands, leaned down to water-level, and presented him with the most enthusiastic-and expert-kiss he'd ever had from her. His mouth opened under her questing tongue, and he clutched the rim with both hands, convulsively.

What-she never gets aggressive- He became aware that not all the heat coursing through his veins was due to the temperature of the water. He closed his eyes, went passive, and let her lips and tongue play with his, until he was breathless. Her hair fell around him, enveloping him in her own silken waterfall.

She released him, and he nearly slid under.

" that was for going back and saving my dyheli," she said, sitting back on her heels, balancing there as if she had no weight at all.

"I didn't-exactly-" He regretted having to confess that he had very little to do with it, if that was what she had in mind for a reward.

She dismissed everything he was going to say with a wave of her hand.

"I know, there's that Changechild involved in it, and it did the magic-but you stayed with them, and you Mindcalled them. They'd never have found their way out without that."

"It" did the magic. She doesn't know Nyara is female... His attention was captured and held, as she began removing her clothing in the most provocative way, slowly, teasingly. He found himself watching her with parted lips. First the tunic-lacings loosened, then pulling the garment slowly over her head. Then the breeches, inching them down over her hips, sliding them a little at a time down her long, lithe legs-all the while maneuvering so that the shirt covered all the strategically important parts of her. Then the shirt followed the tunic at the same tantalizingly slow speed.

At that moment she seemed just as exotic as Nyara, and just as desirable.

Nyara- If she doesn't know Nyara's a female, there's no harm in not telling her-She was down to a short chemise now, and she winked, once, then vanished into the shadows, reappearing before he had time to think why she had left.

"I put the 'in use' marker at the entrance," she said. "Not that there's anyone likely to be here tonight. I knew you were at the meeting, and I waited to catch you to thank you properly. But you didn't go the way I thought you would. I had to chase you, loverhawk." She stood in an unconscious pose at the rim, moonlight softening the hard muscles, and turning her into something as soft and quicksilver as a Changechild.

"I wanted to avoid Father," he said, filling his eyes with her.

I thought so," she said, and laughed. "I figured, knowing you, that as long as you were here you'd probably decide to soak him out of your thoughts. I've been checking every pool between here and Rainlance's ekele."

"I'm glad you found me," he said softly.

She sat on the rim, slid out of the chemise, and into his arms. "So T " -I,- -his-red and buried her hands in his damp hair, her lips and tongue devouring him, teasing him, doing things no woman had ever done to him before.

His hands slid down her back, to cup her buttocks and hold her against him. She strained into the embrace, as if she wanted to reach past his skin, to merge with him. Her kiss took on a fiercer quality, and she worked her mouth around to his neck, biting him softly just beneath his ear, while he ran his hands over every inch of her, re-exploring what had become new again, and making her shiver despite the heat of the pool. He gasped as she nuzzled the soft skin behind his ear, then worked her way back to the hollow of his throat, and gasped again when she untangled her fingers from his hair, and slid them down his chest, slowly-teasingly.

"Not in here-" he managed to whisper, as he grew a little lightheaded from the combined heat of the water and his blood.

She laughed, low and throatily. "All right." She began to back up, one tiny step at a time, rewarding him for following her with her clever fingers, which were now hard at work well below the waterline and threatening to make his knees go to jelly at any moment.

They reached the edge of the pool, right beside the waterfall, where some kind soul had left a pile of waterproof cushions and mats. She turned away from him to hoist herself up on the rim.

He caught her by the waist, lifted her up, and held her there, nibbling his way up the inside of her thighs until it was her turn to gasp.

She buried her hands in his wet hair and her fingers flexed in time with her breathing.

Then she clutched two fistfuls of hair, pulled him away, and swore at him, half laughing. "Get up here, you oaf" she hissed, "Or I'll get back in the water and do the same to you! You just might drown!"

"We can't have that," he chuckled, and joined her; tumbling her into the cushions, nibbling and touching, making her squeal with laughter and surprise.

He only had the upper hand for a moment. Then she somehow squirmed out from beneath him, and pulled a wrestler's trick on him.

Then she had him on his back, bestriding him, a wicked smile on her face as she lowered herself down, a teasing hair's breadth at a time.

He arched to meet her, his hands full of her breasts, catching her unawares.

She cried out and arched her back, driving herself down onto him.

Their minds met as their bodies met, and the shared pleasures enhanced their own, as she felt his passion and he experienced every touch of his fingers on her flesh.

She roused him almost to the climax, again and again, building the passion higher and higher, until he thought he would not be able to bear another heartbeat-Then she loosed the jesses, and they soared together.

"Dear-gods," he whispered, as they lay together in a trembling symmetry of arms and legs.

She giggled. "The reward of virtue."

"I think I shall strive to be virtuous," he mumbled, then exhaustion took him down into sleep before he could hear her reply. If she even made one. Verbally.

When he woke, she had moved away from him to lie in a careless sprawl an arm's length away. He'd expected as much; he'd learned over the past few months that she was a restless sleeper-after more than once finding himself crowded onto a tiny sliver of sleeping pad. The moon was just retreating behind the rock of the waterfall. He slipped into the pool for a moment, to rinse himself off after his exertions, warm up his muscles, and to cross to the other side without rustling the undergrowth. that would surely wake her, as the sound of someone swimming would not.

On the other side of the pool, he used his shirt to dry himself and pulled on the rest of his clothing. He hated to leave her like that.

But she is as curious as two cats, and I am not certain I want to answer all the questions she is likely to have when she wakes.

She ~ ask about the rescue, and she would also want to know about the changechild. And when she found out that Nyara was female am not ready to fend off-fits of jealousy, he thought, wearily. Father's accusation are bad enough. Hers would be worse. And their is no reason for Yet. Not that he hadn't entertained a fantasy or two.

But they are only fantasies and will Y~tn so, he told his conscience firmly. still, they are things I would rather she did not know about. She is not old enough to accept them calmly, for the simple daydreams that they are. Hmmer saffiffing.

Or accept that sometimes the fantasy can be as fulfilling as the reality.

He moved quickly and quietly along the Pahs of the Vale, pausing now and then to take his bearings.

Once outside, he went on alert. Although this was where the scouts had their ekeles, they did not equip them with removable ladders for nothing.

But the night lay over the forest as quietly as a blanket on a sleeping babe.

Only twice did he pause at an unusual sight or sound. The first time, it was a pair of bondbirds, huge, snow-winged owls, chasing each other playfully. He recognized them as K'Tathi and Corwith, and relaxed a little. If they were up, it meant the u2U was under watch. The second time he stopped was to hail his older half brother, Wintermoon, the bondmate of those owls, who knelt beside the trail, dressing out a young buck deer.

Wintermoon, one of two children of Starblade's contracted liaison with a mage of k'treva, had none of either parent's Mage-Talents, and only enough Of mind-magic to enable him to speak with his bondbird. The other child, a girl, had apparently inherited it all, but she was with k'treva and out of Starblade's reach. The Adept had never forgiven his eldest son for his lack of magery, and Wintermoon had responded by putting as much distance between ~ himself and his father as Clan and Vale would permit. He had no wish to leave k'sheyna; he had an amazing number of friends and lovers for so taciturn and elusive an individual-it was simply that he also had no wish to deal with a father who had nothing but scorn for him.

"Good hunting," Darkwind said with admiration, eyeing the size of the buck's rack. "Wish I could do that well in the daylight!" He had no fear that Wintermoon had taken anything other than a bachelor; his brother was too wise in the stewardship of the forest to make a stupid mistake in his choice of prey.

Wintermoon laughed; part of his attempt to put distance between himself and Starblade had been to bond exclusively to owls. He had become completely nocturnal, and was one of the night-hunters and night-scouts, and encountered his father perhaps twice in a moon, if that often. "It becomes easier as time goes on. And K'Tathi there lends me his eyes; that's most of it.~

"How does-" Darkwind began, puzzled.

Wintermoon followed the thought with quicksilver logic. "He perches above my head. I simply have to adjust my aim to match. Practice enough against trees, and it's not so bad. So, little brother, do you want any of this?" Darkwind shook his head. "No, I'm fine for the next few days. Dawnfire could use some, though. She was telling me her larder was a little bare." lhw should make up for my k~ her like that.

"I'll see she gets it. All's clear the way back to your place. Fair skies-"

That was a clear dismissal-and really, about as social as Wintermoon ever got outside of the walls of his ekele. "Wind to thy wings," Darkwind responded, and continued up the trail. He didn't entirely release his hold on caution, but he did relax it a little. Wintermoon was completely reliable; if he said it was clear, he didn't mean just the trail, he meant for furlongs on either side.

Once at his ekele, he woke Vree up to let down the ladder-strap for him. There was still enough moon for the gyre to see, though he complained every heartbeat, and went back to sleep immediately, without waiting for Darkwind to climb up.

Even though he was relaxed and utterly weary, he couldn't help thinking about Nyara, as he drifted off to sleep. He found himself thinking of her suspiciously, the way his father would.

Or Wintermoon, for that matter. He's more like Father than he knows. Or will admit.

He wished he'd been able to persuade the Elders to allow her closer.

And not just for her protection. No, it would have been much easier to keep a watchful eye on her, if she'd been, say, in one of the dead scouts' abandoned ekeles.

Of course, Starblade would have opposed that out of its sheer symbolism.

Still, she was within reach. The hertasi were clever and conscientious.

There were the gryphons, three or four tervardi, several dyheli herds, and Dawnfire between here and the Vale, and her only other escape routes lay across the border, into the Outlands.

I can't see her going back that way, he yawned, finally giving in to sleep.

She was running away. Why in the name of the gods would she ever run back?