"Yes," I said, choking back a sob. "He is Trezhan, and she is Irian. They are to be called Ta-Varien, to remind them always of their father's love." My throat closed on the words. Thankfully, just then there was a knock at the door. Maran, muttering something about Will being a lax door warden, went to answer it. We all waited to hear the voice of the visitor, but whoever it was said nothing but came directly up the stairs. Maran was silent as well. That was unusual, certainly.

We were, therefore, all staring curiously at the doorway when Varien walked through it.

He strode to my bedside, leaned over, and kissed me—I didn't kiss him back, I was barely able to breathe let alone kiss him back—it was—he was human—Varien, caressing our children—

I'm afraid I blasphemed rather thoroughly before I fainted.

"Aral!" I shouted, catching up the baby nearest me. She was watchful and gathered up the other before Lanen dropped it.

I was tempted to bring Lanen back to consciousness immediately, but judged that she had been through enough and let her recover in her own time. In the meanwhile I dragged Varien— Goddess, it was Varien, wasn't it?—downstairs and more or less threw him into a chair. Aral stayed with Lanen, but Maran wisely brought down the other babe. In moments he held one in each arm, gazing at them in turn, lost in wonder and delight.

He was not alone. Looking around the room, I decided that a quick treatment for shock would not go amiss. I sent my Power out from me in a soft cloud, parting it around the newborns that it might not so much as brush against them. We all were locked solid in amazement, though, until Maran managed to speak. With difficulty. After clearing her throat.

"Varien, lad?"

He looked up at her, bemused. "Yes, Mother Maran?"

"Would you care to tell us just how in all the Hells you come to be here like this?" she asked. With admirable restraint, I thought.

Before he answered, he looked to me. "Lanen is well, Mage Vilkas?"

"Aside from an unexpected shock at a delicate moment, yes, she's fine," I said. "How in all the world did you manage it?"

He began to answer, but his daughter drew a deep breath and tried out her new lungs.

Good lungs.

Varien started violently.

"Take them back upstairs, you idiot," I said, restraining a rogue smile, as her brother took up the refrain. "They are hungry, and you're not equipped."

He grinned and started back up the stairs. Lanen's voice greeted him halfway up.

"Varien Kantriakor, you bastard, get back up here NOW and bring the children!"

In the face of all temptation, I held Martin back and called Aral to come to me. "What, Vil?" she asked, worried. "Lanen's al-right, isn't she? Her colours good..."

I smiled. At last, one up on Aral in the field of humanity.

"Her colour's fine. But I expect they have a few things to say to each other. A little privacy for the new family, eh?"

Aral had the grace to blush.

"Blast your delicacy, boy," said Maran grumpily. "I want to know how in the Hells he did that!"

I had a thousand questions, a thousand demands, a thousand kicks and kisses to administer, but truth be told I could pay attention to nothing else once the babes began to suckle, and I fell asleep instantly afterward. When I woke again, only a little time later, it was to find mother Maran sat by my bedside.

She answered my expression before I could speak. "It wasn't a dream, he's downstairs having a meal. I'll send him up."

"What did he...?"

"He's refused to tell us a thing," she pouted. "And I'm sure he's right, you should hear it first, but by every blade of grass that ever grew, I'm this far from threatening his life if he doesn't start talking."

When Varien was seated beside me, the babes asleep in our arms and the rest of the company waiting patientiy and not so patiently below, he told me the tale of the night he left.

"I honesdy thought I was dying, Lanen," he said earnestly. "I felt myself shrink, then I couldn't feel my wings, then I lost consciousness—and I woke in that spot some few hours later, cold and wet and human."

Fighting past the wonder, I managed to say, "What think you, love? How could it happen? Did the Winds and the Lady have pity on you? On us?" I laughed. "Goddess, do you think they actually did something for us?"

Looking a little self-conscious, my husband said, "Not precisely. At least, not in the way you mean." He thought for a moment, choosing his words with great care. "You know how deeply you were changed when Vilkas saved your life?"

"Of course."

"Well—I appear to have undergone something of the sort when—when Shikrar and I changed places."

I stared at him, waiting. "Well? What? How are you changed?"

"The Gedri chose choice itself, did they not, my heart?" he asked in truespeech. His eyes blazed, now that he was come to it. "I am of the Gedri as well, now, but for me, I am changed to— change itself ."

Bloody dragon.

"Would you kindly stop blethering and tell me exactly what you mean before the children are old enough to walk?' I said, exasperated.

He grinned like a maniac. "I'd prefer to show you, but there isn't room in here," he said. He was practically glowing. "Lanen— I can change. At will. Entirely at will." He laughed with the wonder of it. "I did not believe it when I woke. I was terribly confused, and consciously thought, I should bear the shape of the Kantri. Within the quarter of the hour, I was changed back. I have done it several times since, to make sure. Kantri or Gedri, whichever I like, when I like." He barked another little laugh. "I'm my old size, too, not as vast as Shikrar. Name of the Winds, how he ever managed to move on the ground I'll never know."

I had finally managed to find my voice.

"Bloody hellsfire!"

I think I yelled that a touch louder than I meant to, because there was a brief thunder on the stairs and Will, Maran, Aral, and Vilkas all piled into the room, the Healers with their coronas blazing, Maran with a hammer in her hand, Goddess only knew where she kept that hidden.

"All's well, all's well, my friends," said Varien, grinning like an idiot. "There's nothing to see. Not just now. Though I will give a demonstration later for those who are interested."

He told them then, in so many words, what had happened.

I will never forget the stunned amazement on all of their faces. Vilkas was the best. I never thought to see that self-contained soul so lose his composure, he was an absolute picture.

"Varien, you're not serious," I said finally. "You—I mean, it's not possible—"

And Varien laughed, a great hearty laugh from his belly that woke the babies.

"Lanen Kaelar, you never cease to amaze me. Of all that has happened to us in the last year, how much is even faintly possible?"

I smiled slowly. "Very, very little, to be sure," I said, kissing Irian, who yawned and went back to sleep.

"Quite right," he replied, far more softly. He gently rocked Trezhan until our son fell asleep again.

"Sweet Lady, Varien," I swore quietly. "What in all the world and time are you meant to do with that gift?"

"I have no idea," he said, his face transformed by utter joy. "But it will surely be a great adventure to find out."

There is so much yet to say about those times. The world and everything in it was changing around us, faster than we could keep up with it. It took a very long time to truly understand all that had happened.

The twins were born when the harvest was ripe and the light was warm and golden, a little more than a moon before my own birth-day at the Autumn Balance-day.

Despite all my fears they did not have either wings or soul-gems, but they did each have a tiny bump in the centre of their foreheads where a soulgem would have been. Believe me, I thought long and hard about that over the next few years. And I only ever told Varien about this, but—a few weeks after they were born, when we all were sitting outdoors and it began to be a little chilly, I was sent what Mirazhe calls "a picture of their thoughts," in this case a sudden feeling of cold and fear, from the children. Just like young Sherok's first efforts. Perhaps he is not strictly the youngest of the Kantri anymore, I thought very quietly to myself.