"My father was Sulasian."

"Who do you identify more with?"

Tarrin looked at her, then he snorted with a smile. "Well, I guess my mother," he replied. "You mean I saw my mother's braid, and something under my conscious decided that I should have one too?"

"That's the way it looks, isn't it?" she replied.

"It seems pretty farfetched."

"If you were a human, probably," she told him. "You're not."

"Point taken," he said. He looked at the braid, then focused on his paw. It looked a little bigger. "How, how tall am I now?"

"Eye to eye with Triana," she replied with a grin. "And you don't look like a boy anymore. You look like a man. Boy, will be she surprised to see you."

"I'll be surprised to see me," he told her. "How long has it been?"

"You mean you don't remember?"

"Sarraya, I couldn't tell you what year it is."

"Well, guess you regressed into your instincts just about as far as you could go," she snorted. "It's been nearly two months since we saw the Zakkites. Right now, we're just over the border into Saranam. We're out of Yar Arak."

"Huh," he said absently, surveying the land. "It doesn't look any different."

"Why were you so quiet?"

"I don't think my instincts were ready to deal with my human emotions," he replied after a moment of reflection. "All it could understand was the feeling of something missing. Something it couldn't bury or translate into some feeling it could understand." He shuddered. "It's not something I want to discuss."

"I think I understand," she said compassionately. "Aren't you taking a risk by shifting back?"

"I had to," he grunted, sitting down on the ground. Sarraya flitted up and landed on his knee, looking up at him calmly. "I just needed some time to sort things out without the Cat interfering. As far ahead as we are, we should be alright. I… I don't remember seeing anybody chasing us."

"There were a few, but they passed us up during the day. They're probably nearly to the desert by now."

Tarrin sat down on the log, head in his paw, sifting through the pain inside. He'd never felt anything like it, even when he had been with Janette. But that had been a different kind of pain, caused by a different reason. With her, he had felt the security that he so desperately wanted, where out here there was no such comfort. Sarraya was a dear friend, but she wasn't enough to fill the void inside, not in the way his mind wanted. He wanted to be protected, to be loved, to be kept safe. They were things the immature child in him wanted, things the Cat demanded. They were things that Sarraya couldn't provide. He looked on her as his responsibility, his child to protect. She could not give him the same feeling of security as he tried to provide to her.

Nonsense. He was craving security. He was acting like a child. The rational part of him understood that, but even it couldn't hold against so powerful an impulse. He was an adult-his trials had made him older than most people three times his age-but beneath it all was still the vulnerable little cub that wanted to be held and protected. There was no room for such frivolity out here. He had half of the Known World looking to take what he had. That was a little fact that overrode whatever childish desires he had inside.

He was not a child. Anything even close to childhood was lost in the instant that Jesmind's fangs sank into his arm. He didn't blame her for it, but that was just the way it was. Being turned Were had taken away his innocence bit by bit, and his position had robbed him of any right to feel the need to be protected like a cub. There were people out there that needed his protection, and he couldn't protect them if he was wrapped up in feeling sorry for himself. Allia and Keritanima were counting on him to keep the eyes of the enemy away from them. Jenna and his parents were counting on him getting back to Suld, to find out if the Dals really had invaded his homeland, and if they had, to do something about it. Janette was counting on him to protect her world, the world that would be hers, the only world that mattered in his eyes. He couldn't do any of those things if he sat sulking on a dead log in Saranam.

But the feelings weren't going to go away. Even he had to admit that. So that meant that staying in his cat form all the time wasn't going to work. The emptiness was going to come back, and it would send him back into a depression. He had to spend time in his humanoid form so his emotional state couldn't imbalance him again, and that meant that he was allowing his enemies to know where he was. He would move faster, but he'd pay for every day gained with blood. It would be much riskier, but he really had no choice.

That seemed to have become the slogan of his life. He had no choice.

"Maybe talking to Allia would help," Sarraya said quietly, landing on the log beside him.

"No," he said after a long moment. "Talking to Allia would make it worse." And it would. It would only intensify all the negative feelings inside him. Hearing her voice may make her seem closer to him, but the harsh reality of knowing she was out of his reach would hit him that much harder. No. He was alone, and that was how he had to remain. Only if he had to talk to her would he call to her. Not until then.

"Maybe Triana?"

"Triana? I can't talk to Triana without talking to Allia."

"Cub, don't be silly," Sarraya winked. "I can talk to her any time I want. I can fix it so you can talk to her too."

"I forgot," he said. Maybe talking to Triana would help. He trusted her, loved her, felt she was one of his parents. She was, actually. She was as much his mother as Elke Kael was, in his heart and his mind.

"I need to talk to Triana anyway," Sarraya added. "She's been demanding a monthly report, and it's about that time." She looked at him. "Maybe I can let her see you. Boy, will she be surprised."

"Druidic magic can do that?"

Sarraya laughed. "Tarrin, Druidic magic can do anything," she said with a bright smile. "It's only the weakness of the user that limits it."

"What do you mean?"

"I shouldn't really tell you this, but you'll have to learn eventually," she said, flitting up onto his knee and sitting down, then looking up at him. "Druidic magic isn't really magic, Tarrin. Well, it is, but it's not the same as Sorcery, Wizardry, or Priest magic. It's entirely different. All those reach out to some energy supply that exists somewhere else, a power that is just that, power. Druidic magic taps into the living energy of the land, the soul of the world. We draw on a power that makes even Sorcery look like a candle held up to the sun. The power of Druidic magic is absolutely limitless, Tarrin. Nothing is impossible with Druidic magic." She looked right into his eyes. "It's like having the power of a God, but without the rules and limitations they live with."

"There has to be a catch somewhere," Tarrin said.

She nodded solemnly. "A very big catch. The power is limited by the person using it. A Druid can do absolutely anything, but only if he can handle the amount of power it'll take to do what he wants it to do. Overstep yourself, try to do something that requires more magic than you can control-" she snapped her fingers- "and it's over. That's why you can't ever make a mistake, Tarrin. Druidic power is limitless, and it's also merciless. Make just one mistake, and it'll kill you."

"That's pretty harsh."

"Nature is not very merciful," she told him. "Some of the things we all do are the things that are the easiest to do. Conjuring, summoning, healing, influencing the growth of plants, they're very easy, because Druidic magic is the magic born of nature, so anything that operates within the constraints of nature doesn't take much power. But try to do something unnatural, and the amount of power it requires shoots to the moons. A Druid could literally resurrect a dead man, but the amount of power it would take would kill him."