Whilst I had been pondering, Soldier’s Boy’s life had gone on. Evening had descended, and the household was preparing itself for rest. The dishes had been cleared away. His feeders had brought him a long robe, a sort of nightshirt, and his body had been soothed with scented oils and then wiped clean. His bed was prepared for him. Where once only Olikea had tended him and Likari had aided her, now a full dozen serving folk came and went at their various tasks. Olikea presided over them and left no doubt as to her primacy. Likari mostly made a show of tending him; he was more pet than feeder, but no one seemed to resent that. The Great One obviously enjoyed the boy’s company, and the affection between them was mutual.

The bustle of the evening preparations faded. Soldier’s Boy was comfortably propped in his bed. Likari slept on a pallet at the foot of it and Olikea shared Soldier’s Boy’s bed, sleeping warm against his back. The lanterns in Lisana’s lodge had been blown out; the only light came from the fire in the central hearth. A feeder minding the fire and keeping it burning well through the night was a silhouette against it. Several others settled on pallets at the other end of the room. Outside the lodge, all was quiet. There was the sweep of wind, and the uneven pattering of rain that fell more from swaying branches than from the distant skies above. The central hearth kept the damp and the cold of the winter night at bay. All in all, it was the most comfortable night that I think I’d ever witnessed Soldier’s Boy enjoy in my body. His belly was full, he was warm, and danger was far away, on the other side of the mountains. I had expected him to settle in and slide immediately into sleep.

Instead, he lingered in wakefulness long after Likari’s and Olikea’s breathing had settled into deep slow rhythms. He was troubled. The part of him that recalled my schooling at the Academy knew that he must act based on the needs of the situation. Strategy demanded that Kinrove’s magical dance be strong. To dispense with it now would be like dismissing a third of his troops just before battle was joined. Kinrove’s magic of terror and depression was a steady onslaught against Gettys, wearing the soldiers down and eating away at morale. Soldier’s Boy did not undervalue it, but he dreaded the summoning and wondered uneasily when it would come. It would wreak havoc among the kin-clan and his household. That was inevitable.

He heaved a sigh. He did it for the good of his people. He was prepared to make that sacrifice, but he wondered how much of his willingness came from his drive to preserve the People and their ancestor trees and how much came from the military training of Nevare Burvelle. Would a full Speck, raised only among the People, be able to countenance such a sacrifice? Certain attitudes had infiltrated his thinking like poison in his bloodstream. He knew that what he did was a rational choice, but was it the rationality of a Gernian or a Speck?

Lisana would know.

I breathed the thought toward him. It was a distant whisper wafting against his ear. Lisana could advise him. She had enabled him to attain this position of power and authority. She had taught him all he knew of the People. She would know where that other Nevare began and he stopped.

I put his weary mind to thinking of her. I called up my most vivid memories of Lisana and focused on them until I found myself longing for her as much as he did. As he ventured toward sleep, I kept feeding his unwinding mind images and thoughts of her. My tactic worked. He drifted into a dream of her, one rich in sensory details. I joined him there and then, holding a breath I no longer controlled, I pushed us both out of his body and into a dream-walk.

I longed to go to Epiny. I also needed to speak to my sister, to know what was happening to her. I dared not try for those things. But I could focus on Lisana and anchor myself to my memories of her and then emerge from Soldier’s Boy’s dreams into hers.

I do not think she was sleeping. I doubt that she had need of sleep. But I joined her in a place where she was not Tree Woman, bound always to her tree and to her eternal vigilance in watching over the spirit bridge. She was recalling autumn. She sat on a hillside and looked down across a valley filled with trees. Through a hazy fall morning, she studied their changing foliage. A wind drifted through, trailing a train of dancing leaves in its wake.

“How many autumns have you seen?” I asked her as I sat down beside her.

She replied without looking at me. “I stopped counting long ago. This one was one of my favorites. That little birch down there had just become old enough to strike a yellow note among all the red from the alders.”

“She makes both colors brighter,” I said.

It pleased me to see a smile touch the corners of her mouth. She turned to me, and her eyes widened. “You are marked as one of the People now.”

That surprised me. I looked down at my arms and bared legs. She was right. I wore the dappling that Soldier’s Boy had pricked into his skin. I wanted to say something about that, but instead I said, “I’ve missed you so. You cannot imagine how I’ve missed you. Not just your knowledge and your guidance. Your presence. Your touch.” I took her hand. It was small and plump in contrast to mine. I leaned close to breathe the fragrance of her hair. A few moments before, it had been streaked with gray. Now it was a rich brown with only a few threads of silver in it. She closed her eyes and leaned closer to me, shivering as my breath touched her.

“How can you say I can’t imagine how you’ve missed me?” she murmured. “You move in the living world. You have the comfort of other people, the companionship of other women. I, I have only my memories. But now you are here. I do not know how you have managed to come to me, and I do not wish to waste whatever time we have in wondering. Oh, Soldier’s Boy. Just for a time, be here with me. Let me touch you and hold you. I fear it will be the last time.”

I did not hesitate to put my arms around her and draw her near. Lisana was the one place where my sentiments coincided exactly with Soldier’s Boy’s. I no longer cared what had first brought us together. I didn’t care that I could not recall as my own the memories of how we had come to love each other. It was good and simple and true to embrace her. This love I felt for her required no effort on my part. I kissed her pliant mouth and then buried my face in her hair, feeling as if I were finally home.

I had primed Soldier’s Boy to let me escape to her, and I had. Somehow I had brought shreds of his awareness with me. If he knew I was present, he did not struggle against me. Perhaps he thought he merely dreamed of his beloved. I know that the smell and taste and warmth of her drowned the question I had been so desperate to ask her. I was here with her, and now was the only time that mattered.

We were both large people. This was no frantic and athletic coupling. Between two such as we, lovemaking was a stately and regal dance, a slow process of give-and-take. Neither of us was coy nor were we shy. The size of our bodies did not permit those types of hesitation. We accommodated each other without awkwardness, and if flesh was sometimes a barrier, it was erotic as well. It forced us to move slowly; every contact was well considered. Her thighs were thick and soft as I pressed myself against her. The bounty of her breasts was a soft cushion between us. Each guided the other to what was most pleasurable, and I enjoyed Lisana’s arousal as fully as my own. In those moments, I could recall in flashes that she had been his teacher in these matters, and he had delighted in learning his lessons well. As I held her and loved her, I could glory in the soft wealth of her skin. Her fingers walked the dappling on my skin, and in her touch, I rejoiced that I had marked myself as one of her own kind.