For the most part, we are a reserved people, as befits those who can speak from mind to mind. I was staggered, and honoured beyond words.

He stepped back and stroked my faceplate with his soft Gedri hand, just once. "And so, Hadreshikrar," he said, smiling upon me, and his smile like his eyes was a thousand years old. "Let the Black Dragon shake that. I dare it."

"What Black Dragon?' I replied, my soul rising on wings of joy. "Akhor—I—"

"It is well, my friend," he said, smiling. "You have always known it in any case."

"Yes," I said, blinking at him in the firelight. "But sometimes it is well to be reminded. May the Winds bear you wherever you—I mean—"

He started laughing. "If the Winds bear me wherever I wish to fare, I hope you will be there to catch me when they let go!"

It was the fire of my laughter that guided the others to us.

Aral didn't so much sit down on the ground beside me as plop. Then she threw herself full onto her back with a great sigh and gazed up at the stars in a clear sky. I too looked up from our roaring fire into the deeps of the night. The brighter stars shone like candles on a distant hillside, beckoning weary travellers to warmth and rest. The fainter ones were little children, peeping shyly into the night sky, as if making sure that all was safe ere they came out to dance.

Astoundingly, Gyrentikh and Idai had found Shikrar and the others and we were told that Alikirikh was near. We were camped beside a good-sized river with a rocky shore and a little wood on the near side. Idai had gone upstream to look for fish or whatever else might appear. Gyrentikh, who had borne Jamie and me, had started a separate fire for us before disappearing into the wood, declaring that he sought "something larger than fish." I hoped he would be willing to share whatever he found. I was ravenous.

However, both Aral and I needed sleep even more than food and the others were likely to be awake for some time, so we stayed by this smaller fire. I was still thinking, stupidly, of offering to help Gyrentikh when I realised that he and Idai were already gone. To be honest, despite being so hungry, I wasn't exaggerating. I needed rest desperately. I felt like I hadn't stopped running for a fortnight. When I thought about it, Aral and I really had done an insane amount of work in the last few days. Healing Shikrar's wing, then a mere few hours later treating that terrible demon gash, and Goddess help us all, rescuing Rathen nearly killed me. Going but a little further back, I realise that mere days before we first helped Shikrar we had been up all night sealing the Lesser Kindred's soulgems; a few nights before that, I had done something that I still could not fully believe. I had changed a woman's blood, Lanen's blood, to match that of the babes beneath her heart. Half human, half dragon.

Goddess preserve us, I thought. In the mad rush I had almost forgotten. What in all the wide world is going to come of that?

And what kind of power dwells within me that I could do such a thing?

I had been running from my own power most of my life, for a very good reason. Since I first manifested as a Healer, very early, I have had recurring dreams. In them I—I fight my way to the top of a mountain and I can touch the sky. Really touch the sky, reach out and feel the soft blueness of it. I am the ruler of the world.

After that, the dream can go one of two ways. In some I become a kind of Sky God, or a Sun God, like the one 'tis said is worshipped by the tribes of the Far South. In these dreams I use my power to its fullest extent, the land is blessed and I help make the world a glorious place.

In the other dream I also use my full power, but I become the Death of the World. I am fighting a demon, and when it stabs me I do not die—instead I become a demon myself, a thousand times worse than the one I fought. I destroy it with a flick of my power, for I am grown strong as worlds, and then—I kill every living thing, joyfully, and at the last I reach out and crush the sun in my hand, and the world ends.

And I laugh. Every time. Sky God or Death of the World, I laugh. Because either way, it feels wonderful. The use of my full power is the ultimate release, complete fulfillment and complete self-indulgence—and it is my fate, inexorable as night following day. And I have been running from that fate ever since I was come to manhood. The single exception was that night when I saved Lanen. It was change her blood or let her die, and Aral challenged me, and I—well, it was hard, yes, but once I had started, I—I felt as if I had entered my dream. It was so obvious what had to be done. I did not think about it, I simply did it. My memories of that night are very strange and blurred, almost as if I were drunk at the time.

Or as if I had called at last on the power that lies within me, churning, roiling like Hellsfire, that it takes all my control to restrain. Every moment of every day.

I did manage to control it that one time I used it, because Aral was there to keep me in line. I don't know if I can restrain it without her. She keeps urging me to accept my power, even though I have told her the risk. She believes in me utterly. That is very ... seductive.

I often feel guilty about Aral. She is dearer to me than anyone, now that my family is gone, but I know she wants more. Damn it.

She is in love with me. I've seen it in her eyes. I've never done a thing to encourage that, but Hells, I don't know much about women, maybe she has just misunderstood. Of course I love her, if you want to use the word that way. But I am not in love with her. I value her friendship beyond words, beyond understanding, but it's friendship rather than anything else. I feel no unrequited longing, as I fear—as I know—she does.

Sometimes I think I should say something. In fact, before all of this madness broke out, I was on the point of telling her—but life has been moving at a dead run since we and Will barely escaped from Verfaren with our lives, and I really don't think she needs to hear this now. And to be honest, I don't think I want to deal with it right now either.

Mind you, there is a lot I don't want to deal with right now.

"Blessed Lady," said Aral eventually, still gazing at the night sky. "Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, think that you'd fly like that?"

"In my dreams, I fly all the time," I replied truthfully. "But no," I said, to her quiet ha! "No, I never imagined I would do it in real life. It was—"

"It was bloody terrifying, that's what it was," she interrupted, earnestly. "And horribly uncomfortable. And cold. And I've never been so scared as I was in those first few minutes."

"Right enough," I said, smiling. "No argument there. But the rest of it was more exhilarating than anything I have ever done, waking or sleeping—and that, my girl, is saying something." I held my hands before the fire, rubbing them together, in the earnest hope that I would soon be able to feel my fingers again. "I wish they had warned us how bloody freezing it was going to be up there," I added.

"Idai did warn us," she said, surprised. "Didn't Gy—Gy-what's-his-name tell you?"

"Gyrentikh, and no, I just told you he didn't."

"Mmm, sorry," she said, not really paying attention. "Anyway, it wouldn't have made much difference. All we could do was keep our hands under our cloaks. Idai was really nice about it, though, she held us right up against her chest, when she thought of it. It was a lot warmer that way."

"Who were you with?" I asked. "It was all such a scramble when we left, I didn't even notice."

"Lanen's mother, Maran," she replied.

"Did you get a chance to talk?"

"Not really. We tried yelling back and forth a few times, but the wind was so loud it wasn't worth it. We ended up pointing a lot." She gave a grunt and heaved herself with a great effort back into a sitting position. "Besides," she said rather more quiedy, "I'm not the one she wanted to talk to." She nodded in the direction of the riverbank, where two dark figures, some distance away, stood together in the moonlight.