"Jamie, I—"

"Now, then, my little Lanen. All's well." He smiled, the smile he kept for me alone. "I’m the better for having told you. I should have done it ages ago."

'I haven't been anyone's little Lanen for ten years," I said, returning his smile. I had been well taller than Jamie since I was twelve.

"Ah, my girl, now there you’re wrong. My little Lanen you'll always be." He took my hand for a moment across the table. "And now, my little one, it is your turn."

"For what?" I asked, genuinely confused. "You've known me forever, what could I possibly tell you?"

"I can't imagine," he said lightly. "You woke me the day we left to sign a contract it wasn't light enough to read, you're carrying silver enough for two months, and all this journey long you've said not a word about it. What could I possibly be wondering about?"

I grinned at him. "I can't imagine. Now I'm concerned about that little bay mare, she seems to be limping on the near fore—"

He leaned over and swiped at the top of my head. "Terrible child" he said affectionately. "Your turn. I'm dry as the Southern Desert. Enough of chélan, I want ale. Ale!" he yelled, and the girl scurried over with a jug. "Now," he said, "talk to me while I drink, my girl: Since you turned five I've known you would give your right arm to leave Hadronsstead—why now, so long after Hadron's death? Why did you not leave at once? What has brought you to it at last?"

I told him of Walther' s absurd proposal in as few words as I could, but even so we were laughing heartily by the time I was done. "Ah, young Walther, he's not so bad a fellow, just a bit slow in everything bar horses." .

"I wish the horses joy of him. I swear, Jamie, if you had seen his face—well, I hope he and Alisonde are happy and have the decency to keep out of your way."

"I won't mind them. I shall see her and think of you well away with a calm heart. But I must know for my own peace where it is you are going."

"I'm not sure myself. Away, mostly. There is a lot of Kolmar to see."

He narrowed his eyes. "Don't try that with me, Lanen Maransdatter, I know you too well. Come tell me, where are you going and what do you seek? You and I are all the family we have left now, unless it be Maran's mother or her brothers and sisters. I will follow behind you the rest of your days rather than let you go with no idea of where you are bound, or why."

Maran's mother, or her brothers and sisters. My grandmother, my aunts and uncles. I swore rapidly to myself in the silence of my soul that I would go one day to the village of Beskin and find that family I had never seen.

I liked the sound of "Maransdatter."

But for now—I took a deep breath and told Jamie the deep desire of my heart, speaking it aloud for the first time.

"I seek the Dragons, Jamie. True Dragons, on the Dragon Isle itself. I have dreamt of them since I was a child, since I heard that bard sing the Song of the Winged Ones, and I have longed for them beyond all reason. I heard them in the silence that night, you know, heard their wings and a melody beyond hearing; and I have heard them in my dreams all these years since."

"And what makes you think there will be a ship sailing, when so many have been lost? And what makes you think that you will survive where so many have died?" he asked solemnly. He shook his head, sadness in his eyes, but smiling at me as he always did when he knew I would have my will no matter what. "And what will you do when you find them, Lanen Kaelar?" he asked in a low voice.

"What? What did you call me?" I asked, shocked. How should he know that name I had chosen for myself?

He smiled, speaking very softly. "That was the true name your mother gave you. Lanen Kaelar, Lanen the Wanderer. I often wonder if she had the Clear-sight to go with the Farseer. It would explain a lot. I would swear she knew you would go adventuring as she did. Certainly she knew you would be a dauntless soul, you had no fear even as a tiny child. But come, answer me. What will you do when you find these Dragons that call to you so?"

"Talk with them, Jamie. Talk with them, learn the thoughts of those great minds that live, a thousand years and more. Surely that is not impossible." I let him see my excitement, strong now with knowledge of my past, creating my future as I spoke. I had never dared say these things aloud, and the very sound of the words fired my heart. "I cannot believe that we two races should never meet. Why then can we both speak and reason? If there were but two people in all the world, would they not seek each other out? For companionship if naught else. I will find them, Jamie. Somehow, I will find them, and I will speak with them if I must risk my life to do so."

He was silent. I found I feared his disapproval as I had never feared anything else.

"I am not mad, Jamie, unless I have been mad my life long."

"I do not fear for your mind, my girl." He gazed into my eyes, the love of long years clear and strong. "But I wish with all my soul you did not have to risk your life on anything. Still, you are your mother's daughter. If you have this dream before your eyes, I know well that no power in the world may stop it." He smiled. "Just remember that Walther is not all that remains in Hadronsstead. I will be there still, waiting to hear the tales of your adventures."

He yawned, stretched and stood. "But for now I'm off to bed. We'll have a long day of it, tomorrow. We're still three days away from Illara."

It was still early evening, but I too was exhausted. I wanted to say something to Jamie, but I had no words. What could I have said? I embraced him, bussed him on the cheek and bade him sleep well. I glanced at the couple in the corner, who had long ago stopped talking and now lay with their heads on their table, snoring gently. I smiled and went to my bed. I slept like a rock.

We set off early the next morning. The rain was still dropping showers on us as, it passed, but at last we managed to dry out a little in between. By late afternoon the sky had cleared for good, and by the time we stopped—we rode only until sundown—the ground was mercifully dry. We camped at the border between a wheat field and a small wood.

The next morning I woke to a clear, crisp autumn dawn. Around me the kingdom of Ilsa gleamed, cold, rainwashed and wondrous with the dance of red and yellow leaves left on the tree boughs and the soft murmur of the late, deep golden wheat swaying in the wind. I stood still and let the land fill my senses, birdsong and leaf-whisper, sharp scent of tire and spicy smell of dying leaves, touch of wind on my face and taste of autumn on my tongue.

I shall never forget that morning. I woke for the first time with knowledge of my mother, with a sense of my own past and my own self; and with the knowledge that Jamie, friend and more than father, who had always been for me the love of family, bore within him the life and soul of a paid killer. I also knew what it had cost him and that both sides together made the truth of him. It was frightening, this new clarity of vision: but I felt free at last to know darkness as the other side of light, and that both were needed for sight.

And with that thought—it was almost as though I felt it in truth—the shackles of my old imprisoned self fell away at last. No more did I long for a warm bed behind safe walls. My heart drank in the beauty and wonder and danger of the world, and I saw for the first time that life was not something to survive, but something—the only thing—to be savoured in all its diversity. Light and dark together, mingled in all things, giving depth and substance where either alone was a pale shadow. I felt from that moment I might begin to find all things new.

I never lived in Ilsa again, but I never forgot that journey, the first of my long life of wandering. Forever after, the kingdom of Ilsa was to me the colours of autumn bright as sun after rain, and the sound of wind in the grass.