Words of anger leaped to her tongue again, anger at the younger man who would hurt his own brother so, but she contained them, pushed them down, knowing that the younger d'Armand, the titanic telepath so distant on their home world, would scarcely spend the vast amount of energy necessary for his thoughts to reach Magnus over so many light-years unless there were good reason. "What news could a brother have to so sadden one of his own blood?" she asked softly.

"News of our mother," Magnus answered. "She is dying."

ALEA SPOKE BUT little in the days that followed but was never far from Magnus, trying to reassure and comfort him by her mere presence. She remembered well the death-watch as her mother lay dying, remembered the greater pain of her father's last days, greater because there was no one with whom to share it, no one whose pain dwarfed her own.

She never thought that it was unfair that Magnus should have the comfort of a friend when she had not—she was only glad that he did not have to face this long journey home alone.

In moments of honesty, she had to admit that she was also glad he finally needed her in a way neither of them could deny.

So she sat by and waited, watching his profile against the stars or watching him sitting in the lounge in the cone of light from the hidden lamp, saw him looking up now and then, startled to see her sitting and reading across from him, remembering his manners enough to ask how she fared, trying to engage in conversation, and she tried to be reassuring and positive then, smiling and talking of inconsequentialities, but ones in which she knew he had an interest—art and literature and science—though before long, his attention would fade, his gaze would wander, and she would let her own conversation lapse and return to her reading.

Reading! She hadn't even known how, when he met her on the road, on her home planet of Midgard, where only the nobles were literate. She hadn't known how to fight when she had run away from slavery, had survived a night or two alone and friendless in a world torn by war and hatred, in a forest filled with wolves and bears. Magnus had—well, not taken her in, though it felt like that. She was sure he hadn't thought of it that way, either, though she suspected he knew he was giving her protection. He hadn't said so, though, only that he was glad of a travelling companion. So he had walked the roads with her, teaching her how to fight and how to use the talent for telepathy that had been buried inside her all her life, and that she had never known. Together they had braved the perils of her world and set in train a course of events that would prevent her own people from their continual attempts to tyrannize the other peoples of Midgard.

Then, done with the task he had come to do, he had called down his starship, and she had stood rigid, knowing she would be deserted again—but Magnus had taken her aboard, given her a new life when her old one had collapsed, taken her to strange and amazing worlds where people labored in need as great as her own. They had fought off wild beasts and wilder people, guarded one another's backs, labored to save the weak and the oppressed, come to know each other's needs in battle, then in daily life—and never once had he put out a hand to try to touch her or uttered a honeyed word to try to coax her into his bed.

It was almost an insult, really, except that she knew now he had known it would violate the fragile bridge of trust growing between them—that, and that he didn't really seem to have much interest in her as a woman, or in any kind of intimacy, for that matter. Now, though, the trust had grown, become solid in spite of her tantrums and insults, and she found herself wishing now and again that he would put out a hand to her—but when she caught herself thinking that, she was aghast. She'd had enough of that sort of thing with the one young man who had used her and spurned her! The friendship she had with Magnus was far better than that!

Though perhaps it could be even richer…

This was not the time to think of it, though, with Magnus so sunken in gloom, so afraid he might not reach home in time—so she sat and read, or cleaned and oiled her leathers, then sharpened her blades, or read, fetching a cup of tea for him when she brewed one for herself, accepted the cups he absentmindedly brought her in return, chivied him gently into eating, and didn't let him see how frightened she became when he lost his appetite.

In fact, she did all that a good travelling companion should, all that a battle-mate could, and gradually, little by little, he began to talk, first a phrase or two, then in sentences, and finally in long rambling monologues about his childhood, his early travels, his parents, his brothers and sister—but he always cut short when he realized he was beginning to talk about that last adventure, about the woman who had hurt him, about the reasons he had left home.

"I couldn't be my father's son, you see." He stared straight into her eyes then, as he rarely did anymore. "I couldn't be an extension of him. I had to be myself, my own man, and I could never be that at home unless I turned against him, fought against him—so I left instead."

And Alea listened and nodded, eyes glowing, drinking up all the information about Magnus the boy, Magnus the wounded lover setting off on his travels, Magnus the son and brother—Magnus the person, the human being, as she had yearned to know him for three years and never had.

In return, when he asked her what it had been like growing up as the tallest girl in a Midgard village, one far too tall in every way, she couldn't very well refuse to answer, no matter how sharp the hurts the memories brought—but telling him, she discovered that the pain had dimmed, that she could cope with it now, that she could look at her memories and treasure the good ones and resolve the bad ones. Oh, they were still pain-filled, but they no longer had the power to cripple. She knew she could stand against them now, against any one of the people who had hurt her, could stand against the whole village with Magnus beside her—and knew he would always be there, even without the lure of sex to keep him, that she had come to matter to him as deeply as that—and paradoxically, it made her yearning for his touch grow so sharp that it was almost unbearable, even though she knew that sex hurt, that the feelings that went with it gave pain far sharper—but the conviction grew that with Magnus, it would not be so. She told herself that she only wanted to share his bed so that she could be sure of him, and that wasn't necessary at all, for she could be far more sure of him as a battle-companion, that their steadily-deepening friendship was far surer and more meaningful than romantic love could ever be, that she didn't need the baring of souls that went with it, that the intimacy they were sharing now was far more meaningful than the confidences of lovers, that she could be closer to him as a true friend, now when worry and grief made him more vulnerable than he had ever been.

But something deep inside her refused to believe it, any of it. So the starship shot onward through eternal night, bearing two people who were finally coming to know one another as they never had.

A SCREAM RANG through the castle's hall, and Rod started up, then looked back at Gwen's pale face on her pillow, framed by the long flows of red hair streaked with white. She opened her eyes, reading his anxiety and smiling. "Go to her, worried father. I shall still live when you return."

"I know. I still don't want to leave you unless I have to." Rod sat back onto her bed, cradling her hand in his. "But it's hard having you ill while our daughter's giving birth."

"I shall linger awhile, I assure you," Gwen said with a smile that suddenly blazed through her illness. "However, this is women's work, and it is better if you leave it to Cordelia and her midwife."