I'd just started filling my waterskin at the river's edge when I heard someone on the shore behind me. Old habits die hard, don't they? I had my belt knife ready to throw when she spoke.

"It's just me, Jamie."

I put the knife away, but to be honest I wasn't any the less shaken. Worse, if anything. I knew what to do with a foe.

"Maran," I said, by way of greeting.

It was getting dark, but I could see her grin. "Aye, well, at least you remember my name."

I said nothing, and she sighed. "I see. You remember other things as well. So do I." When I didn't reply, she sighed again. "Ay me, here we go. Yes, it was my fault. No, I never sent word to you or to Lanen. And I never—" She stopped herself, and after a moment went on, more gently, "By all the leaves of spring, Jamie, did you ever in all your days think we'd meet again like this?"

"I never thought we'd meet again at all," I said. I hadn't meant my voice to be that harsh. I'd forgotten that rogue vein of poetry in her. It came out at the damnedest times, and it summoned our past together as nothing else could have done.

I heard the faintest grunt, as though she were in pain. "Aye, well, that's fair. Neither did I," she said. "I've had the easier part. I've been able to watch you both over the years. I wish the damned thing had sound as well as sight, I'd have given a lot to have heard some of those arguments," she said, a hint of lightness in her voice. It went warm and gentle again when she added, "I saw you teach her to use a sword, Jamie, in the middle of the night when Hadron couldn't see. I watched you when you held her as she cried. I saw the look in her eyes when she was learning how to ride and went over her first jump—and it wasn't Hadron she looked to with all the pride of her soul, it was you."

"She is not the child of my body," I growled. My heart was aching as though someone held it in their fist and was squeezing. If it had been daylight, perhaps I could have kept up my guard, but in the starlit darkness there was only Maran and me, and twenty years of pain.

"I only knew for certain when I saw Marik capture her on the Dragon Isle," she replied quietly. "She must be his firstborn. And mine." Her voice caught. "I swear, Jamie, I thought she was yours," she said. "I begged the Lady—"

"She is mine!" I cried, throwing down the waterskin. "Damn it, Maran! You think a few weeks' dalliance makes a difference to who her father is? Never!" I paced away from her, and swiftly back to stand before her. "He may have made her with you, the heartless bastard, but I'm her father!"

"I know," she said, her voice steady. The distant firelight gleamed on the tracks down her cheeks. "And never a day passes but I thank the Goddess that she had such a father as you."

"She needed a mother as well," I snarled. "You should have been there, Maran. What in the Hells is wrong with you? Why didn't you come back?" I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "She needed you, damn it!"

I needed you, damn it!

She just stood there, gazing down at me. I couldn't bear it, I turned and walked away before I was tempted to violence. I didn't get far, though. Her voice stopped me.

"Jamie. Jamie," she called softiy, as a lover calls her beloved, all her heart in her voice. "I know. My soul to Mother Shia, I know. I needed her too, and I needed you. Dear Lady. I needed you as a drowning man needs air." And she was starting to gasp a little, for air, to keep her voice under control. She stopped and just breathed—when she spoke again her voice was calm and steady and as inexorable as the water flowing down beside us, and my heart pounded to every word. "I thought the Farseer attracted demons, Jamie. The first ones came for me, and I fought them off, but then one hurt Lanen"—her voice faltered for an instant—"I couldn't take the chance."

"You never told me," I said, turning to her, shaken. "Maran, you never said there were demons come after you."

"I must admit, I wasn't exactly thinking clearly," she said. "I didn't know how to hold off demons then. I'm better at it now. But I swore that if the things were going to take whoever stood near that damned Farseer—then by the Lady, they weren't going to get either of you." Her voice grew thicker as she spoke, now, and her pauses for breath stopped my very heart within me. Her throat was so closed it seemed near to choking her. "I married

Hadron so that... that if they took my husband they wouldn't take you. When I left and for sixteen years after, I feared I would draw down death upon us all, Jamie, so I stayed ... I stayed as far away from you ... as I could."

Every part of me longed to go to her, to take her in my arms, the idiot, to make all our pain go away, to make those years disappear and make her mine again—but I stood where I was, and I knew it was right.

"You are the best man I have ever known, Jamie," she said, her voice forcing its way through her tight throat. "I know—I know you and Rella are together now, and I'm glad of it. She's a fine woman, and a good friend." She coughed, and turned it into a tortured laugh. "But if she ever loses her mind and tells you she's done with you, I'll be by your side in your next breath, and by every star that ever shone, I swear I'll never leave you again."

My head was swimming, my body shaking with a hundred memories. I could bear it no more, all my best intentions melted into air, I swear I could hear her heart beating with mine. "Maran—" I began, moving towards her.

"No!" she cried, and swiftly backed away. Her voice was shaking now, along with the rest of her, I guessed. "Goddess, no—" Her voice dropped to a whisper in the darkness. "If you touch me I am lost. Please, I beg you. I am holding true by a thread as it is."

"Come, Maran," I said, trying to speak lightly. "Do you tell me the men in Beskin are all blind? I cannot believe it. Surely you have someone to walk beside you, to keep you company in the long nights of the northern winter?"

There was a moment's silence, and she answered, "I have never loved another man, Jamie. Ever. In all my life, apart from that madness with Marik. By my life I swear it. And there is only one in all the world I love more than you, and she lies asleep by that fire yonder."

"Goddess, Maran—" I croaked, my heart wrung. All those years alone beat upon me worse than fists. I at least had known the love of my heart's daughter. She had had nothing.

"So now you know how I feel, and I won't say anything else about it again," she said, her voice growing stronger. The firelight was dying a little, I could see nothing but her shape in the starlight. "Let us meet only as friends, Jamie, working together with these others to finish Berys. Goddess knows, it's time the world was rid of him. I have done so many stupid things in my life," she said quietly. "Together let us do this one good thing. For Lanen. For you and Rella."

"And what of Maran?" I asked gently, but she had turned away and was drawing near to the large fire the dragons had built.

I stood in the darkness by the river, listening to the echoes of her voice in my heart, knowing that she was right and there was nothing else to do. I picked up my waterskin, knelt by the side of the water, leaned over and filled it, and wondered idly as I corked it if it would taste even slightly of salt.

I spent some years as an assassin. I learned long ago how to weep silently in the generous darkness.

I brought back the carcasses of the two deer I had found. Gyrentikh and I had a gracious plenty to eat, and there was easily enough left for the Gedri. They all came, some roused from sleep and yawning, and carved steaks for themselves and for the absent ones. That still left most of the meat for us.