“No one would make you do that.” Temar’s voice rose and he quelled it with an effort. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I don’t think so. You’re the last of your line. In any case, my family do insist on the traditional observances, whatever you might choose to do.”

“Is this about family? Is that it?” Temar could not hide his outrage. “My Name isn’t good enough for you? You know very well D’Alsennin is an ancient house and—”

“If I wanted to marry some well-groomed stud from an impressive bloodline, I’d have my choice ten times over in Toremal.” Guinalle interrupted Temar acidly. “I’ve had fortune hunters after my father’s coin and rank since Drianon blooded me. Why do you think I study Artifice? Why do you think I asked to join my uncle here?”

A nasty suspicion reared its head at the back of Temar’s mind and grabbed his tongue before he could stamp it down. “You keep bringing your uncle into this? You’re not related by blood, are you, only marriage. He’s not planning to salvage the Den Fellaemion bloodline with a judicious marriage, is he? That would be very traditional.”

Guinalle gave Temar’s face a stinging slap. “Don’t be disgusting. You just can’t accept it, can you? You’re so full of yourself that you cannot imagine a girl not falling over herself to marry you!”

“You were quick enough to lie down with me this summer!” Temar scowled as he heard the pain in his own words, suddenly glad of the darkness hiding his face.

“That was different, that was fun, it was delightful,” Guinalle’s anger softened with contrition, “but I would never have done it if I had thought you would make so much of it. I’m sorry.”

Astonishment drove all other feelings out of Temar’s head. “Are you telling me it wasn’t your first time?”

“Oh Temar, I’m the youngest daughter of a long family. My older sisters were the ones who had to make sure they could stain their wedding sheets convincingly.” A faint giggle escaped Guinalle and a glimpse of moonlight betrayed a smile on her face. “You’ve obviously had little experience of virgins.”

“I wouldn’t have thought it of you,” spat Temar angrily. “How could you?”

“Oh really?” Guinalle took a pace toward him. “Tell me, what right have you to judge me? Temar D’Alsennin, the Esquire every chaperone warns their girls not to let him get them behind a curtain? You accused Vahil of garter hunting, didn’t you? What was your score last winter solstice? That was what you would get the girls to wager, wasn’t it? Against your hitting a rune bone with a throwing dagger at twenty paces? According to my brothers, you had the best collection in the cohorts and a fair few girls let you pluck their petals when you claimed your prize didn’t they? Your reputation precedes you, Temar, didn’t you know that? At least I’m discreet!”

Temar stood amid the wreckage of his hopes, furious with Guinalle, with himself, with everything. He opened his mouth but, before he could speak, Maitresse Den Rannion rounded the corner and halted abruptly at the sight of them.

“Maitresse, I’m sorry, I was just about to—” Guinalle lifted a hand toward her mouth before realizing she still had the necklace twined around her fingers.

“My dear, whatever is that?” The Maitresse reached for Guinalle’s hand and lifted it toward a lantern.

“Why Temar, how splendid!” Her eyes were alight with curiosity. “Are you celebrating Drianon’s festival with something important?”

“Temar was telling me of the discoveries his expedition made.” Guinalle tried to pass the necklace back to Temar but he stuck his hands stubbornly through his belt.

“It’s a birth festival gift for Guinalle.” He forced a semblance of a smile. “You were an Aft-Summer baby, weren’t you, demoiselle?”

Maitresse Den Rannion turned to him, open-mouthed. “Now isn’t that just typical! I was asking Messire Den Fellaemion if any of his household would be celebrating their year at the festival and he told me Guinalle was born in For-Winter! Here, my dear, let me take your lace, you must show off a jewel like that!” She unpinned Guinalle’s tippet before the girl could find a plausible objection and clasped the necklace around her throat. The gem shone rich and brilliant on the soft hollow of her throat. “What a handsome present to make, Temar.”

“I think the Messire is looking for you, Maitresse.” Temar pointed through the arch of an empty window to where Messire Den Rannion was waiting by the hearth, head turning this way and that.

“Oh, yes, I think you’re right.” The Maitresse tucked Guinalle’s lace briskly around her own neckline. “I’d better see what he wants.”

“I’ll go and find Vahil.” Guinalle began hastily to walk away from him but Temar followed. “You do that, my lady. I’ll get Elsire away from those silly girls, shall I? The music’s started so if I dance with her all evening that should give the gossips plenty to go on, shouldn’t it? That should protect your reputation, Guinalle. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone how hollow it really is!”

Temar strode past, outpacing her with his long legs, catching Elsire around the waist and making her an extravagant bow, keeping his back firmly turned on Guinalle as he swept Elsire into a closer embrace than was quite appropriate for that particular dance.

I woke with an image vivid in my mind, a dream so clear I could recall every detail. A young man, black hair drawn back in a silver clasp of wrought leaves and dressed in the style of Messire’s ancestral portraits: So this was Temar D’Alsennin, last scion of a lost line and the man whose sword I now possessed. But this was more than an image, more than a dream. I shook my head at the thought of his conflicting hopes and apprehension for the future, reason yielding to an overwhelming need to make a family to replace the one he had lost in his childhood. I felt his pain at Guinalle’s intransigence, his confusion, sympathized with his blatant flirtation with Elsire, just to let Guinalle know she wasn’t the only squab in the dovecote. In many ways he reminded me of myself twelve years gone. I recognized that impulsiveness, the confidence that had led me into the toils of chewing thassin, above all the intensity of youthful emotion unblunted by more mature experience.

I shook my head with a faint smile over Temar’s difficulties with Guinalle; at least Livak and I only had ourselves to please when we finally worked out what we wanted from each other and the future, if we ever did. I wondered fleetingly what Livak was doing at that moment.

It had been a strange dream, mostly seen through Temar’s eyes, but at the same time I had felt separate from him. I was an outsider yet seeing direct into his ambitions and fears in that curious fashion. Above all I was most startled to realize that if I’d met him on the road I would have sworn Temar was the man who had awakened me when the bandits had attacked us on Prosain Heath. What had that been all about? That must have been a dream as well, mustn’t it? I’d recognized that belt buckle too, the one that Elietimm priest or whatever he called himself had been weaving his spells around for Kaeska. It had belonged to Temar; what could that signify? Had it been Temar’s passion erupting into my mind that had sent me insensible in Relshaz? I had no logical reason to think so but felt convinced of it nevertheless.

I sat up on my pallet and leaned against the wall. This early in the morning the air was still cool and the sounds of birdsong in the gardens filtered through the light shutters, no insects to torment me. I savored the peace and quiet, only broken by the sounds of stealthy house slaves going about their early duties far below. Was this recollection of the long-passed festival the sort of memory that Planir the Archmage had been hoping the sword would pass to me? If so I could not for the life of me see any significance in it, other than perhaps as an object lesson in the many paradoxical ways people can find to fall out with those they love. I looked at the sword. If this was aetheric magic, it seemed no more than a curiosity, a far cry from the vicious enchantments of the Elietimm.