Suddenly, out of the stead came a tall dark-haired man. It seemed perfectly normal to see him, and it wasn't until he turned a sour face to me and grunted, "What are you doing here? Be off with you," that I realised with a shock who it was.

Hadron.

I half-jumped, half-fell off of Shadow and backed away. My dear mare Shadow. She had died in the fire. Hadron had been dead since last Autumn.

I ran with all the strength of terror towards the far fields, crying, "Varien! Varien! Where are you?"

I called to her aloud but she did not so much as twitch a finger. There was no help for it. I called to her in truespeech. "Lanen! Lanen! Come, you must waken."

"Varien! Varien! Where are you?" she called, her mind-voice weak and confused.

"Here, dearling." I said gently. "Come, I am here. Waken and come to me. You do but dream."

"Akor, damn it, get me out of here!" she cried. Her thought was oddly distant, as though we spoke through water. She was far away, so very far away, and death so near.

"Lanen Kaelar, Kadreshi na Varien, I call upon thee." I said with all the strength of my thought, sending all the depth of my love to her with all my strength, using her true name, sending love like water in a cold clear stream to one dying of thirst. "Come to me, beloved, my own Lanen." I said, reaching out to her in the regions of the mind. "Come, littling. Thine hour of death is not yet come. Leave thy dream and waken to healing."

"Akor?" she said, much nearer and stronger. "Akor, I can't see you."

I laughed. "Forsooth, dearling, it is no great wonder. Your eyes are closed! They are comely thus, it is true, but I love them better open."

I felt her hands take hold of mine an instant before her eyes opened. "Good point," she said. Her voice frightened me, it was so very weak. "Makes it easier to see, you're right."

I leaned over to kiss her. "It is good to have you back."

"Varien, I had the strangest dream," she began quietly, but I interrupted her.

"I will hear it later, dear one. Behold, these folk are healers to tend thee. This is Vilkas, a great mage, and this lady is his companion the healer Aral."

"Work faster, will you, great mage?" she said with a strained smile. "It still hurts like all the Hells."

"I am holding the pain at bay even as we speak, Lady," said Vilkas. "When all is done it will be gone, but not yet. You must understand what is happening and what you and I must do about it."

"We? You're the Healer," she said weakly.

"I am, yes, but—I have never tried the kind of healing your body requires," he said. "You know that at the moment your body will not consent to keep these children any longer."

"Child. Yes, I know. But it will not consent to leave." She frowned and turned to me. "I only wish it would not take me with it."

"You are not going to die!" cried Vilkas angrily, to my surprise. "There has been enough death. I have lost one I cared deeply for this day. By the Lady, these children will live if you will it, Lanen." He turned to me. "She knows what you are, does she?"

"She knows full well," I said, smiling down at my dear one.

"So I do," she replied. Her voice was stronger now. "You're an awkward so-and-so, but you're my husband so I have to put up with you."

"Lady, this is no time to jest," said the Healer solemnly. "You know that this man was once a dragon?"

"Of course, you idiot," she replied. "He just told you I knew. What of it?"

"It is the dragon in his blood that is causing the problem with your pregnancy," he replied, ignoring Lanen's insult. "I have stopped the bleeding and begun to repair the structures in you that are causing you pain, but unless you help me with the underlying cause the healing will not last."

"Very well, O great mage. What can I do?" asked Lanen.

Vilkas stood, thinking. "I do not know exactly how to say this. You must—it is a matter of acceptance—"

The lady Aral spoke then, and her voice was soft and gentle. "Lanen, it has a great deal to do with the way you think of things. Vilkas can do wonders, but you have to accept the strangeness of these children in your mind and in your heart, or your body will never let them live."

"I have tried," she cried, "but it is killing me! I don't want to die!"

Aral came close now and said, "Lanen, look at me." She grinned. "No, not like that. I'm a girl too, remember? Now really look at me."

Lanen relaxed a little.

"Forget your fear and anger for a moment and listen to me. It's important. Have you and your husband ever worried about the children?"

"Of course, I have been ill from this for nearly a moon now."

"No. I mean, knowing what he once was, have you feared what your union might produce?" The little Healer took a deep breath, swore briefly and said, "Monsters, Lanen. That's the word. Have you been afraid that you were carrying monsters?"

Lanen wept, all in an instant

"Oh, Goddess," she said, her voice breaking. "Yes! The words, they haunt me, Rishkan's words—oh Varien, help me! He said our children would be—would be—"

"What did this Rishkan say to her?" Aral asked me, "and why did it make such a deep impression?"

"He had a dark vision of world's ending," I said. "He tried to kill her, and only my friend Shikrar prevented it. Rishkaan said—"

"He said I would mingle the blood of the Kantri and the Gedri, that I would bear monsters, that the world would fill with Raksha-fire and there would be no one to stop it because of me," said Lanen, her tears falling unnoticed. "Is it true? Oh Goddess, no, is it true? Are they monsters?"

"Don't be stupid, woman. They are perfectly human creatures, if that can be said of babes so tiny," said Vilkas sharply. "But the mingling of the blood is not happening, and it must happen. If they are to live, the two must blend and become something new, something that will sustain both them and you."

"What in all the world can I do about it?" Lanen asked.

Aral spoke again. "It's all in your mind, Lanen—well, at least that's where it starts. This is all very new and we don't really have words for it, but I think—I think you have to let these babes be what they are, both dragon and human, no matter what you think of it, and—Vil, is this right?"

"Yes," he replied. All this while he had been sending a steady stream of power into Lanen, giving her his strength. "But there is more. For this change to happen, Lady," he said, gazing into her eyes, "you must love them. As they are, what they are, who and what they will become—you must love them and be willing to be changed by them, shaped by them, as they have been shaped by you and your husband."

"First is the Wind of Change, Second is Shaping, my Lanen," I said, with a shiver. "Although it costs me nothing to speak thus, for it is thou who art being shaped." I grasped her hand tight, making her look at me. "Kadreshi—"

"No, Akor," she said, and her voice had some of its usual strength. "They're right. Lady—I can't remember—"

"I'm called Aral," the little Healer said.

"Aral. What do I do?"

She smiled. "First, we ask the one who's the focus of the healing. Vil?"

He looked up, his face carefully neutral. "We will work together, Mistress Lanen. You must welcome the dragon—"

"Kantri, please," she said. "They call themselves the Kantri."

He managed a small smile. "You must welcome the blood of the Kantri into your body, and I will work to change your own blood that it might support both Kantri and human at once." He gazed at her. "You must understand, Lady. This is the only way you will be able to survive, but it will change you forever. You will not be able to go back to the way you were."

My valiant lady laughed, despite her pain and fear. From her true heart, in despite of all that beset her, she laughed. "Akor, you see, all is well. This is my turn!" She grinned at me. "Mind you, I have the easy part. I have these kind folk to keep the pain at bay, and I'm not going to be growing wings or losing anything I had before."