When Regis returned to Felix’s room, the boy’s condition was unchanged. Danilo let out a low whistle as Regis held out the wad of cloth.

“Is that it?” Jason asked.

Regis nodded. “Open one of the boy’s hands. I’ll drop it on his palm. We might need to close his fingers around it, but be careful not to touch the stone.”

The boy’s fingers were thin, yet long and graceful. There were only five of them, Regis noted, but many of the Comyn had only five. Taking a deep breath, he lowered the bundle to the opened hand and drew out his eating knife.

“Careful,” Danilo murmured.

“Pray to your holy saints, Danilo, that he doesn’t have another seizure while I’m doing this.”

The sharp point of the knife slid easily beneath the knotted cord. The fibers parted with only a little resistance. Regis let out his breath. With his fingertips, he drew apart the folds of cloth. The boy moaned and whipped his head from side to side. Danilo grabbed Felix’s forearm to hold it steady.

A flash of blue-white light appeared in the folded cloth. Regis tipped the pouch, sliding the starstone onto Felix’s exposed palm.

Immediately, Regis had to look away. Ribbons of liquid light twisted within the heart of the stone. Nausea rose up in him, mixed with something akin to euphoria. Motes of brightness jigged and danced behind his eyes, as they had when he almost died from threshold sickness.

With a practiced mental gesture, Regis raised his barriers. The sensations ended abruptly. He knew that what he had experienced was only a fraction of what raged through the boy’s mind. He remembered how his older sister, Javanne, had guided him through attuning his starstone to his mind.

As he curled his fingers over Felix’s, closing them around the chip of faceted brilliance, Danilo reached out with one hand and placed it on top.

A shudder ran down the boy’s body, very different from his previous convulsive spasms. This was, Regis sensed, a wave of tissue-deep relief, of being made whole again.

Felix opened his eyes and looked directly at Regis. “Where am I?” he asked in an exhausted, thready voice. “What happened?”

Regis almost laughed aloud. “We’ll explain later. For now, just keep holding on to that stone. Don’t let anyone except your Keeper handle it.”

Especially not your mother,he added silently. It was a miracle the boy had survived. Tiphani must not have known what the pouch contained and saw it only as a barbaric talisman.

With a physician’s deft touch, Jason taped the stone to Felix’s hand. It only took a few moments, but when it was done, the boy drifted into a sound, natural sleep.

Regis felt as if he had just raced from the Wall Around the World to the Dry Towns. Wearily, he said to Jason, “He should be nursed by someone with larantraining. I don’t know of anyone who’s studied in a Tower who is in Thendara at the moment. I believe that some of the Bridge Society Renunciates have skill in these matters.”

Jason nodded. “Yes, we’re fortunate enough to have one or two with that training.”

“They will do for the moment,” Regis said. “It would be better if we had a Keeper to see to him . . .” Out of the corner of his vision, he caught the fleeting spark behind Danilo’s eyes, and knew that his bredhyuwas also thinking of Linnea.

“I very much suspect that because the Renunciate healer is unconnected with me, MestraLawton will regard her with favor,” Regis said in an attempt to divert the awkward moment. “Can she attend him here?”

“I see no reason why not,” Jason said. The three men had reached the doorway. “I won’t release Felix until he’s recovered from the convulsions. You look exhausted, Regis. I’m sorry to have dragged you out of bed at this hour. Danilo, take him home. I’ll speak with the Lawtons.”

Jason bowed to Regis, the slight inclination of his body that betokened personal respect rather than the responsibilities of caste. Regis promised to check the boy’s progress when he could.

4

During the following tenday, Thendara enjoyed an unseasonably rapid transition to spring, as if winter had suddenly opened its fist. Throughout the Lowlands, the bitter edge of winter softened.

Regis felt the turning toward longer days as a rising hope in his own spirit. Sometimes he paused in the middle of the street while hurrying from one conference or another, or he simply stood looking over the ancient city. All things came in their own season, he reminded himself.

Regis had used Lew’s warning as best he could to prepare for the choice that would soon be presented to Darkover. Although the vote in the Empire Senate was not yet official, rumors spread throughout the Terran Zone, spilling over into the city. No formal declaration had yet been made, but that was only a matter of time.

Division on the subject of Federation membership developed much as Regis had expected. His grandfather was not the only one who wanted Darkover to cut off ties with the Terranan.Conservatives like Ruyven Di Asturien and Kyril Eldrin immediately made alliances. They saw the reorganization of the Federation as an opportunity to sever all off-world relations.

On the other side of the question were Valdir Ridenow, Regent of Serrais, the Aldarans, the Pan Darkovan League, and many citizens of Thendara. The Terrans stationed on Darkover maintained a carefully neutral public face, but Regis needed no laranto tell they were worried.

On one of the visits Regis made to check on Felix Lawton’s progress, Dan made him an unexpected offer of assistance.

“This is completely unofficial, you understand,” Dan said privately, behind closed doors. “As Legate, I cannot be seen to take sides in the debate. Only the citizens of Darkover may determine their course.”

They were alone in Dan Lawton’s private office, with Danilo on guard beside the door. Regis remembered again that Dan had a legitimate stake in the debate, for his parentage was part Comyn. The Domains accepted the notion of citizenshipreluctantly, for the term usually referred to legal rights, rather than the complex web of responsibilities that characterized Darkovan culture. Whatever laranDan possessed was deeply buried and likely to remain so in his Terran role. Yet Regis sensed in the other man a passionate desire to protect the world of his birth.

It was, Regis reflected, not strictly true that Darkover would be allowed to choose without any Terran influence or hint of coercion. If the Terrans decided their own interests were threatened—if, for instance, a disturbance should take place at the spaceport or a Terran patroller should be threatened or injured—then those sympathetic to the Expansionists would seize the excuse to impose martial law. Such a thing had happened on other worlds, according to Lew Alton.

If we do not give them an excuse, they may invent one for themselves.

“I thank you,” Regis said carefully, “but there is nothing I need from you now.”

Dan nodded. “We still have time before a final decision. However, the prospect of full membership in the Federation may cause . . . unrest.”

Dan was saying, in the way he had juxtaposed the offer of help and the warning, Keep your own people in order, and I will keep mine out of your affairs.

Revolted by the intricacies of political schemes, Regis changed the subject. “I’m glad your son is better. That, at least, is one area in which our two peoples can work cooperatively for our mutual benefit.”

Dan’s face relaxed into a smile. “Yes, between Dr. Allison’s medical expertise and the care of the Renunciate healer—Ferrika n’ha Margali—he is recovering. It will take time for his laranto stabilize, but his life is no longer in danger. Ferrika says that eventually he ought to go to a Tower for proper training.”