Now he was something more than irritated. “I don't suppose it's occurred to you that it might just be the simple fact that I'm a Herald, a safe sort of romance object? Great good gods, 'Fandes, I doubt she had any notion of my rank!”

:Well what about all those young women your mother parades before you - telling them they're prospective brides? What do they think that gallantry is?:

“I would imagine that Mother tells them plenty,” he replied with heat, beginning to flush, and very glad there was no one about to overhear this conversation.

:Well, you imagine wrong. Talking to servants is beneath her. As for the others, all she ever tells them is that you - and I quote - ”lost your first love tragically. “ Now what in the Lady's name do you think that makes them want to do?:

“Gods, 'Fandes, is that somehow my fault? Was I supposed to interrogate them while they were chasing me?”

:You,: she said, ice dripping from every word, :never asked. Or bothered to ask. Or wanted to ask. It never occurred to you that Withen might not want it spread about the neighborhood that his first-born son prefers men ?:

“ 'Fandes,” he replied, after a long, bitter moment of silence. “I don't see where it's any of your business. It has nothing to do with my duties as a Herald.”

Silence on her part. Then, :You're right. I'm sorry. I . . . overstepped myself. I - I just wanted you to think about what was going on.:

“Is that what I've been doing?” he asked quietly.

:Well - yes.:

“Then I should apologize. I can't afford to react automatically to things - not even in my personal life. And -  gods. Not when I'm hurting people.”

A wash of relief. Then a tinge of sarcasm. :You're thinking. And about time, too. Now are you going to enjoy a long wallow in self-accusation?:

Something about the tone of her mind-voice - and the exact wording she'd used - made him pause for a moment. “Wait a minute - let me look at this from another angle.” He made a mental checklist of all the young women Lady Treesa had pushed off on him, and what they'd done when he'd failed to succumb to their various charms. And the more he thought about I t-

“You are exaggerating, aren't you?” he accused.

:Well - yes. But the situation exists. What are you going to do about it?:

“Be careful, I suppose. But I'll have to watch what I say.”

:Good. You're still thinking.:

“The ones Mother keeps flinging at me are the hardest. If I tell them the truth, I'll hurt Father. I'll shame him, at the least. Even if I pledge them to silence, it'll get out.”

:So?:

“I don't know. But I'll think about it.”

:Now that is the Vanyel I Chose.: Her mind-voice was warm with approval. :You’re not “just” reacting anymore. :

“Havens, I've been going numb between the ears for the past year, haven't I?”

: Well - yes. You had reason but -

He nodded, slowly. “This last year - I've gotten into a lot of habits.”

:Exactly. You can't let your heart or your habits control you. Not when you're who you are, and wield the power you do. Think about reacting emotionally in a battle situation.  Think about even reacting reflexively, instead of tactically.: He did, and shuddered.

He always stopped at Halfway Inn - the name, he'd learned since, was a conscious pun - the hostelry that sat in the middle of the forest that cut Forst Reach off from the rest of the Kingdom.

In a way, what he had become had started here. The Inn had certainly marked his passage into a different world, though young Vanyel Ashkevron, more than half a prisoner of his escort, had not gotten the attention that Herald-Mage Vanyel got now.

It was an enormous place, and in the normal run of things very few travelers even saw the Innkeeper. A Herald was an exception. The Innkeeper himself saw to Vanyel's every whim - not that there were very many of those. The Inn was quite comfortable even for those who were less noteworthy than Vanyel.

There was less of the hero - worship here than there had been in other inns along the road. Vanyel was “local”; everyone attached to the inn and most of those staying there knew his family, his holding. They seemed to regard him with proprietary pride rather than awe, as if the things he had done were somehow reflections on them; as if his fame brought them fame. And as if they had something to do with what he had become.

In a way, perhaps they had. If events that occurred here had not made him feel so utterly alienated from the rest of the world he might not have responded as strongly as he had to Tylendel.

He left Halfway Inn just after dawn, hoping to reach Forst Reach by early afternoon at the very latest. He had always made excellent time on this last leg of his journey every other time he'd made his trips home - though he always left much faster than he arrived. . . .

But he stopped Yfandes before they had traveled more than a candlemark, while fog still wreathed the undergrowth and it was dark beneath the silent trees. The air was damp-smelling, with the tang of rotting leaves, and a hint of muskiness. No birds sang, and nothing rustled the fallen leaves underfoot or the branches overhead. This forest was always quiet, but this morning it was too quiet,

“Something's wrong,” he said, straightening in his saddle, and pulling his cloak a little tighter around his shoulders.

:I can feel it, too,: Yfandes agreed, :but it's very subtle.:

This forest-unnamed, so far as he knew - had frightened him to the point of near-hysteria the first time he'd traveled this road. Now he knew why; there was magic here, old magic of the kind that the Tayledras used, that they frequently drained off in order to weaken it, and open the lands to more ''normal” human settlements The kind of magic that made the Pelagir Hills the changeling-haunted places they were. Anyone with so much as the potential for the Mage-Gift could feel enough to make them unhappy and uncomfortable.

But this magic had been dormant for a very long time.

“I'm going to probe,” he said, and closed his eyes going in, then opening out -

The magic was still there, but it lay even deeper below the fabric of the forest than it had the last time he had passed this way. Now that his Gift was fully trained, he could even see the traces that told him it had been drained by the Tayledras at least twice, which meant it should be “safe.” The Hawkbrothers never left wild magic behind when they abandoned an area.

But that draining and abandonment had been long ago - very long ago.

Yes, the magic still slept, deeper than the taproots or the trees and harder to reach - but it slept uneasily. All magic was akin, and all magic touched all other magic - an affinity that made the Gate-spell possible. But close proximity meant stronger ties to magics that neighbored one another; disturbance to one site frequently disturbed another.

Vanyel could feel that disturbance in the magics here A resonance with another pole of power at a distance - probably across the Border, and most probably in Baires given that the ruling family was composed of mages Something somewhere was powerfully warping kindred magic fields, and this field housed in the forest was resonating to that disturbance, like a lute string resonating to a touch on the one beside it.

But it was too far away, and the resonances too tenuous, for Vanyel to determine who was causing it, or where it originated, or even what was being done. Although -

Vanyel brought himself up out of his scanning-trance, and bit his lip in thought.

“ 'Fandes, did you get anything?”

:No more than you,: she replied uneasily, resuming her pace without his prompting.  - .Except - the root of all this is evil.:

“And I know better than to ask you to probe anything I can't reach. But I don't like it either. I like it even less now, with the Border uneasy. It makes me wonder if someone is forcing an issue - and if so, what, and to what end?”