I was wondering how to fill in the final verse, the tale's heart that I feared would turn my people from me, when Rishkaan saved me the trouble.

"And what is the last refrain, Akhor?" he asked sourly "Your song is not complete, you have left out a verse in the center. Why should this Gedri child do such a thing? She is no Healer by her own admission. Did you threaten her? Or beg? I cannot believe either. All she had to say was no, and no shame to her." His voice grew harder. "And why did she speak so to you, before the Council was begun. 'Dear one' she called you. Why, Akhor? What have you not yet

told us?"

Trust Rishkaan, I thought. He knows me well, and his disdain of the Gedri verges on hatred.

It was time.

"Because, Rishkaan, my people: she loves me. She would do anything for me, and I for her."

My soul to all the Winds, preserve my dearling and me, bring us home to that joy you spoke of, for at this moment it seems a thousand leagues and ten thousand years away.

"There is one last thing I have to tell you, my people, and try though I might there is no way to ease the telling.

"I flew the Flight of the Devoted with this child of the Gedri as we sat in my Weh chamber two nights past. We flew on the wings of our souls and made a new song together.

"We know it is foolish, it is impossible, we know there can be no joining save mind to mind; but I swear to you she is my heart's beloved, and my mate for now and ever. As I am hers."

There was a brief moment as a hundred and fifty of the Greater Kindred were stunned into silence, some for the first time in centuries, some for the first time in their lives.

Then the Great Hall was awash with sound as they found their voices and, as one, protested.

My own reaction was not what I had expected. I knew a chastened pride in myself for speaking openly about Lanen, but apart from that I was excited, and in the main I rejoiced.

For the first time since I could remember not only were the Kindred united—albeit against me—they were awake.

My people have slept too long, this is snow on their faces. It is good for them, however it may turn for Lanen and me.

Indeed, I began almost to be amused as the most outraged stormed up to face me on the dais.

They stood in Admonition or Disgust or Anger, as it took them, and I could not possibly hear more than a few words from each.

"You cannot, it is unholy...."

"What spell has this Gedri witch ... ?"

"It has always been death for the Gedri to pass ..."

"Akhor, how could..."

"You fool, you were our hope for the future, touched by the Winds...."

''What omen now, Akhor? Will the Silver King lead us into the arms of the Gedrishakrim?"

This last was Rishkaan. He stood where I could see him, his body twisted in the extreme of Fury, his wings half-raised and rattling, and spat the word "Gedrishakrim" at me like a curse.

I stood in Sorrow. I could think of no words for him, nothing to say to ease his pain and anger, and I would not dignify this fury with a direct response.

Turning to the others, I stood and called in the loudest voice I possessed, pitching it again to make the cavern ring. "Silence! Silence, O my people! Is this the Council of the Kindred? Silence I say!"

The habit of obedience is strong, as is our pride. Those on the dais stepped off, save Rishkaan, who had the right of age and claimed it now. He had controlled his anger and now took the place of the Eldest, which was due him as the eldest of those present. All kept silence (out of curiosity as much as anything else, I strongly suspected: there had not been this much excitement at a Council meeting for centuries).

"Who has laid a spell on you to draw you from your true nature?" cried Erianss. She was about the age of Mirazhe, mated to a good soul, but she had never quickened from their nights. "Our people diminish and you, the King, give your heart to one who is but a flicker in our lives! Even should she live past this sickness, she will be dead in half a hundred years. Is such a creature worthy of the love of our King?''

There was a general murmur of agreement.

"Erianss, you know that no spell could be hidden from you all. How could the Rakshasa be involved and leave no trace for our kind? We know such a thing cannot be done. And as for my—as for Lanen's life being short, you are right, and my mind knows that you are right. But I cannot deny love, no matter what form it takes. Was Yrais less worthy of Hadreshikrar because she lived but thirty years after their joining? I have not taken a mate from our Kindred because there has never been a lady who could understand the ferrinshadik that has haunted my heart all my life. One lady even told me the kingship had made me too solemn, that I should try to think less." I had to smile; it had, of course, been Erianss. "I suspect that lady is now less than happy with the outcome of her advice.

''My people, I am your King by your own gift. When that office was bestowed upon me I changed, as a king must. In many ways I have lived not the life I wanted, but the life I was required to lead. I have not shunned that duty. I have held what I believed to be best for us all in the front of my heart for nearly eight hundred years. In that time, I have come to know that I must think of you at all times, and of our Kindred as a whole, our future and our past.

"It is no secret but a great tragedy that we are fewer than ever before in our history. In the last eight hundred years there have been but three births, including Kédra's youngling. We are declining, my people, even from the few we were before, and I have wondered what was to be done for many long, long years. Now I believe that it is time to attempt a reconciliation with the Gedri. They were great Healers of our people at one time. Perhaps if we can communicate

with them they might be able to discover what it is that has so changed us of late."

"It has always been death for the Gedrishakrim to pass the Boundary," said a voice behind me. Rishkaan had mastered his fury and stood now in Anger and Rebuke. "I do not recall there being anything in the treaty or in our laws which allowed for any other fate, no matter how they happened to come there. Why should there be any other consideration? She deserves death."

My heart fell when I heard a murmur of assent; at least, that was my first reaction. Then I began to grow angry.

"Is your respect so lightly given, my people?" I demanded, fighting my instincts to take on Anger myself. Calm, Akhor, calm, that alone will sway them. "Not a breath ago I heard your praise for this child of the Gedri who put herself in peril of her own life that two of us—strangers to her—might live; this child of the Silent People who has the truespeech, as none of her Kindred had even in those times when our two peoples lived in harmony and the Peace was in flower. And I charge you to remember, it was I who crossed over to her, and that to save her life."

My words met only silence. Still mistrust, still anger, still vengeance. When would it end? I felt my words falling as on stone. I was suddenly weary. I gave them my last words.

"Consider well, O my people. I did not invite this, and neither did my dearling. When Lanen and I met, it was with the simple hope that our peoples might speak with one another, not that we two would join in a hopeless union. For we both have doomed ourselves to barrenness, to loneliness, to a life apart from all those we hold dear.

''When our several gods spoke to us at the same time outside my Weh chamber, we realised there was more to this than wecan know. I hope you also will realise that there is more to this than madness, and will see in this joining the will of the Winds and of the Lady.