“It is spring,” he said, “and these are the first flowers. Loren is meeting in the palace with a great many people. I thought you might come with me to Aideen’s grave.”

As they walked around the lower town and then struck a path to the west, she was remembering the story he had told her so long ago. Or not really as long as it seemed. The story of Nilsom, the mage who had turned evil, and of Aideen, his source, who had loved him: the only woman since Lisen to be source to a mage. It was Aideen who had saved Brennin, saved the Summer Tree, from Nilsom and the mad High King, Vailerth. She had refused to be source for her mage at the end. Had denied her strength to him and then killed herself.

Matt had told her the tale in the Great Hall at Paras Derval. Before she went riding and found the lios alfar. Before Galadan had, in turn, found her and given her to the swan.

Westward, they walked now, through the miracle of this spring, and everywhere Jennifer looked there was life returning to the land. She heard crickets, the drone of bees, saw a scarlet-winged bird take wing from an apple tree, and then a brown rabbit dart from a clump of shrubbery. She saw Matt drinking it in as well with his one eye, as if slaking a long thirst. In silence they walked amid the sounds of hope until, at the edge of the forest, Matt finally stopped.

Every year, he had told her, the Council of Mages would curse Nilsom at midwinter when they met. And every year, as well, they would curse Aideen—who had broken the profoundest law of their Order when she betrayed her mage—even though it had been to save Brennin from destruction, and the Tree that lay within this wood.

And every spring, Matt had said, he and Loren would bring the first flowers to this grave.

It was almost invisible. One had to know the place. A mound of earth, no stone, the trees at the edge of Mórnirwood for shade. Sorrow and peace together came over Jennifer as she saw Matt kneel and lay his flowers on the mound.

Sorrow and peace, and then she saw that the Dwarf was weeping, and her own tears came at last from the heart that spring had unlocked. For Aideen she wept, and bright Kevin gone; for Darien she cried, and the choice he had to make; for Laesha and Drance, slain when she was taken; for all the living, too, faced with the terror of the Dark, faced with war and the hatred of Maugrim, born into the time of his return.

And finally, finally by Aideen’s grave in Kevin’s spring, she wept for herself and for Arthur.

It lasted a long time. Matt did not rise, nor did he look up until, at length, she stopped.

“There is heart’s ease in this place,” he said.

“Ease?” she said. A weary little laugh. “With so many tears between the two of us?”

“The only way, sometimes,” he replied. “Do you not feel it, though?”

After a moment she smiled as she had not done for a very long time. He rose from near the grave. He looked at her and said, “You will leave the Temple now?”

She did not reply. Slowly the smile faded. She said, “Is this why you brought me here?”

His dark eye never wavered from her face, but there was a certain diffidence in his voice. “I know only a few things,” said Matt Sören, “but these I know truly. I know that I have seen stars shining in the depths of the Warrior’s eyes. I know that he is cursed, and not allowed to die. I know, because you told me, what was done to you. And I know, because I see it now, that you are not allowing yourself to live. Jennifer, of the two fates, it seems to me the worse.”

Gravely, she regarded him, her golden hair stirred by the wind. She lifted a hand to push it back from her face. “Do you know,” she said, so quietly he had to strain to hear, “how much grief there was when I was Guinevere?”

“I think I do. There is always grief. It is joy that is the rarest thing,” said the onetime King of Dwarves.

To this she made no reply. It was a Queen of Sorrows who stood with him by the Godwood, and for all the earnest certitude of his words, Matt knew a moment of doubt. Almost to himself, for reassurance, he murmured, “There can be no hope for anything in a living death.”

She heard. Her gaze came back to him. “Oh, Matt,” she said. “Oh, Matt, for what should I hope? He has been cursed to this. I am the agent of the Weaver’s will. For what should I hope?”

Her voice went to his heart like a blade. But the Dwarf drew himself up to his fullest height and said the thing he had brought her there to say, and there was no doubt in him for this.

“Never believe it!” Matt Sören cried. “We are not slaves to the Loom. Nor are you only Guinevere—you are Jennifer now, as well. You bring your own history to this hour, everything you have lived. You bring Kevin here within you, and you bring Rakoth, whom you survived. You are here, and whole, and each thing you have endured has made you stronger. It need not be now as it has been before!”

She heard him. She nodded slowly. She turned and walked with him back to Paras Derval through the profligate bestowing of that morning. He was not wrong, for the Dwarves were wise in such things.

Nevertheless.

Nevertheless, even as they walked, her mind was turning back to another morning in another spring. Almost as bright as this, though not so long awaited.

There had been cherry trees in blossom all around when she had stood by Arthur’s side to see Lancelot first ride into Camelot.

Hidden among the trees on the slopes north of them, a figure watched their return as he had watched them walking to the grave. He was lonely, and minded to go down to them, but he didn’t know who they were and, since Cernan’s words, he was deeply mistrustful of everyone. He stayed where he was.

Darien thought the woman was very beautiful, though.

“He is still there,” said Loren, “and he still has the Cauldron. It may take him time to put it to another use, but if we give him that time, he will. Aileron, unless you forbid me, I will leave to take ship from Taerlindel in the morning.”

Tense sound rippled through the Council Chamber. Paul saw the High King’s brow knitted with concern. Slowly, Aileron shook his head. “Loren,” he said, “everything you say is true, and the gods know how dearly I want Metran dead. But how can I send you to Cader Sedat when we don’t even know how to find it?”

“Let me sail,” the mage said stonily. “I will find it.”

“Loren, we don’t even know if Amairgen did. All we know is that he died!”

“He was sourceless,” Loren replied. “Lisen stayed behind. He had his knowledge but not his power. I am less wise, far, but Matt will be with me.”

“Silvercloak, there were other mages on Amairgen’s ship. Three of them, with their sources. None came back.” It was Jaelle, Paul saw. She glittered that morning, more coldly formidable than ever before. If there was an ascendency that day, it was hers, for Dana had acted and the winter was over.

They were not going to be allowed to forget it. Even so, he felt sorry for his last words yesterday evening. Hers had been a gesture unlikely to be repeated.

“It is true,” Aileron was saying. “Loren, how can I let you go? Where will we be if you die? Lisen saw a death ship from her tower—what mariner could I ask to sail another?”

“This one.” They all turned to the door in astonishment. Coll took two steps forward from his post beside Shain and said clearly, “The High King will know I am from Taerlindel. Before Prince Diarmuid took me from that place to serve in his company, I had spent all my life at sea. If Loren wants a mariner, I will be his man, and my mother’s father has a ship I built with him. It will take us there with fifty men.”

There was a silence. Into which there dropped, like a stone in a pool, the voice of Arthur Pendragon.

“Has your ship a name?” he asked.