"No, my heart. At least, there's no trouble coming between the three of us." I loosed her enough to look into her eyes again. "I'm yours, Rella, as long as you want me," I said. "I won't pretend Maran isn't dear to me, of course she is. Lanen is my daughter in every way that matters, and Maran is her mother. I can't escape that connection, nor would I want to." I kissed her gently. "Maran walked out of my life more than twenty years gone without a word of farewell. It took me years to forgive her, but you may take my word upon it that I do not harbour any visions of lost love for her." I smiled. "At least I don't want to punch her anymore." Rella answered my smile with a rather more mischievous one. 'The honest truth is that you fill my heart, Rella. There is room there for friendship, there is room for Lanen, but as for my heart's own—that room is taken by you alone."

After a rather longer and more intense kiss, I sighed.

"What now, dear?" she asked, comfortable in my arms.

"It has occurred to me that I may well have to introduce Maran to her daughter."

"Ow," said Rella, wincing.

"Indeed. I don't expect it to be a particularly loving meeting."

Rella grinned wickedly. "I do admire your capacity for understatement. I expect they'll hear them in Elimar."

I grinned back at her. "Well, in the end it's their headache, not ours. Still, it strikes me as strange. She must have left Beskin months ago. How could she know what was going to happen?"

Rella gazed at me. "It's not so very odd. I know Maran well, Jamie, better in some ways than you, now." She drew back, her arms still around my waist. "She has a damned strange way of showing it, but she has always loved her daughter fiercely."

"Just as well. Lanen deserves it," I said. "And 'fierce' is a good quality to have just now. I was so damned helpless, Rella. I thought I could fight any man or woman in the world, but Berys is pouring out his own power like water and using demons like a mad general uses conscripts—throwing them heedlessly into the front of any battle to disrupt the enemy. Us."

"We don't have to go after him, you know," she said. "He's gotten away..."

"Yes, that's the problem," I growled. "He's just killed who knows how many Magistri, and nearly the whole of the next generation of young Healers, and he's gotten away. Again. If I can track him down, I will, but I'll need help."

She grinned. "You know Vilkas was out for his blood before. This night won't have soothed his feelings at all. The good news is, we've got some damned fine help on our side. And by the Goddess, we've got the demons' natural enemies as well—three full by-our-Lady races of them! We'll just have to think of a way to work together."

I held her close again, not speaking. I had forgotten how much simple human comfort there was in the touch of one you love. And Rella, who knew me far too well even then, said into my ear, "Lanen's safe and well, Jamie, and if it means so much to you, we'll find that bastard and make him pay. I swear it by my back."

I straightened, moved a little away to look at her. 'Tour back?"

"It's the one real, true thing I can count on in this world," she said, one side of her mouth raised in a wry smile. "It may be crooked and it may not work overwell, but when I hear the creaks and feel the pains from it I never have any illusions about what's true and what isn't."

"I've given up my illusions," I said, holding her tight.

"Good, my heart," she whispered. "Truth is always better."

I woke late that morning, safe in my husband's arms, to sunshine blazing through the windowpanes. I kept my eyes closed against the light for I knew, somehow I knew deep in my bones that I was right to treasure the night, and that the day was not my ally. I stirred, holding him closer, putting my head on his broad shoulder. His arms tightened around me and he turned to kiss my forehead, and I heard his blessed voice in my mind, pouring balm on my heart. There were no words. What words could possibly encompass all that we felt? There was simply love, sung strong as the mountains, deep as the sea, boundless as the sky, pouring between us tangible as light.

It was not until he touched my rounded belly that I began to weep. Gently at first, a few soft tears, then to my own amazement I was taken with uncontrollable sobs from the gut, shaking my body violently as I hung on to him for very life. "Beloved, beloved," he murmured, holding me in a grip of iron. It was just what I needed, feeling his strong arms about me, but still I sobbed without knowing why—when of a sudden I was minded of Jamie, as he spoke of the time my mother Maran bade farewell to her father.

"I tell you, Lanen, I hope never to see another such farewell in this world. Both she and her father wept bitter tears as they embraced. It was their last sight of each other. Somehow they both knew."

I gave a cry and drew away from him, rising to my knees on the bed the better to gaze into his eyes as if I feared to see his death therein. My newfound vision was with me still, it seemed, for I saw far more than love and concern in his emerald-green eyes. Death did not haunt him, blessed be the Winds, but I was shaken from my own sorrow by the depth of grief that I sensed in him. In that unguarded moment I touched the dark, still lake of it, deep as my own, heavy and cold, taking unto itself all hope and light. I reached out gently to my beloved, tracing the line of his brow, his cheek, his throat.

"Varien, love, what sorrow is this that lies so deep and cold?" I whispered. He opened his mouth to speak—I saw him swallow the easy response as he remembered our oaths always to speak truth to one another. He said nothing, he did not bespeak me, only returned my gaze. I reached out and took his hands in mine. "Speak to me, love," I begged, swallowing against a lump in my throat. "For my heart is shadowed and I cannot lift it. I know the day is bright and we are safe, and reason tells me to rejoice that I am with you again, but—oh, love, my fool heart mourns as if you were struck dead before my eyes."

"The Winds take your words and make them false, Lanen!" he cried, rising all in a moment and holding me to him so tight I felt my bones creak. I did not care.

"Sweet Winds of morning forbid such a thing—oh, my Lanen—would that I might laugh at you, but my own heart sings that same song of unreason," he whispered. We held one another without speaking, until I could feel his heart beating against my own. That very simple, very real thing steadied me. I managed to let him go a little. Enough to stop my muscles from cramping, at any rate.

"Do you know, kadreshi, I believe it is a just grief," said Varien quietly.

"How should it be just? How reasonable?" I objected, moving back a little but still in the circle of his arms. I swear, sometimes that Kantri calm voice of reason made me furious. And anger was vastly more comfortable than the desperate grief.

"Beloved, when you were taken from me, I called to you with all my soul." He shuddered. "Never will I forget that day, kneeling on the grass, dead to all else, pouring all that I am into truespeech as I strained to hear your lightest whisper upon the Winds. There was—nothing." He shuddered. "I was—my heart, I have shed barely a single tear since you were taken. I could not hear you, in mind or heart, anywhere in all the world. I did not dare to weep lest I could never stop. I feared"—that glorious voice faltered, and his arms around me trembled—"I feared you were taken entirely from life, I feared I never would see you again or hold you in my arms, and with your life mine was come also to its end. Beloved." He breathed roughly, drawing me to him once more, his strong body my rock in a swirling sea. "My heart is full of sorrow deep as time, that I did not dare to speak before, lest it destroy me and take away all my resolve while still there was something to be done. Now that you are with me—oh, beloved, now I am grown brave enough to weep." And so he did, for I felt his tears raining upon my cheeks even as we kissed and clung to one another, and my tears fell upon his face, and mingling they washed away our sorrow for that time.