She let the folds of the eiderdown fall to her sides, and stood up. Four sets of eyes gave her startled glances, Kethry's included.
"I need to clear my head," she said, shortly. "If you'll excuse me, I think I'd like to go outside for a little."
"In the dark? In a snowstorm?" Jadrek blurted, astounded. "Are you -- " He subsided at a sharp look from Kethry.
"Swordlady," the Herald said quietly, but looking distinctly troubled, "you and the others are guests in my home; you are free to do whatever you wish. You will find a number of cloaks hanging in the entry. And I am certain an old campaigner like you needs no admonitions to take care in a storm."
She followed the direction of his nod to the darkened end of the hall; past the door there, she found herself in an entryway lit by a single small lantern. As he had said, there were several cloaks hanging like the shadows of great wings from pegs near the outer door. She took the first one that came to her hand, one made of some kind of heavy, thick fur, and went out into the dark and cold.
Outside, the storm was dying; the snow was back to being a thin veil, and she could see the gleaming of the new moon faintly through the clouds. She was standing on some kind of sheltered, raised wooden porch; the snow had been swept from it, and there was a open clearing beyond it. She paced silently down the stairs and out into the untrampled snow, her footsteps making it creak underfoot, until she could no longer feel the lodge looming so closely at her back. Trees and bushes made black and white hummocks in front of her and to both sides; fitful moonlight on the snow and reflected through the clouds gave just enough light to see by. She felt unwatched, alone. This spot would do. And, by sheer stroke of fortune, "south" lay directly before her.
She took three deep breaths of the icy, sharp-edged air, and raised her head. Then, still with her back to the building, she lifted her eyes to the furtive glow of the moon, and throwing the cloak back over her shoulders, spread her arms wide, her hands palm upward.
She felt a little uncomfortable. This wasn't the sort of thing she usually did. She was not accustomed to making use of the side of her that, as Kal'enedral, was also priestess. But she needed answers from a source she knew she could trust. And the leshyae Kal'enedral would not be coming to her here unless she called to them.
She fixed her gaze on that dimly gleaming spot among the clouds; seeking, but not walking, the Moonpaths. Within moments her trained will had brought her into trance. In this exalted state, all sensation of cold, of weariness, was gone. She was no longer conscious of the passing of time, nor truly of her body. And once she had found the place where the Moonpaths began, she breathed the lesser of the Warrior's true names. That murmur of meaning on the Moonpaths should bring one of her teachers in short order.
From out of the cold night before her came a wind redolent of sun-scorched grasslands, or endless, baking days and nights of breathless heat. It circled Tarma playfully, as the moonglow wavered before her eyes. The night grew lighter; she tingled from head to toe, as if lightning had taken the place of her blood. She felt, rather than heard the arrival of Someone, by the quickening of all life around her, and the sudden surge of pure power.
She lowered her hands and her eyes, expecting to see one of Her Hands, the spirit-Kal'enedral that were the teachers of all living Kal'enedral --
-- to see that the radiant figure before her, glowing faintly within a nimbus of soft light, appeared to be leshya'e Kal'enedral, but was unveiled -- her body that of a young, almost sexless woman. A woman of the Shin'a'in, with golden skin, sharp features, and raven-black hair. A Swordsworn garbed and armed from head to toe in unrelieved black -- and whose eyes were the featureless darkness of a starry night sky, lacking pupil or iris.
The Star-Eyed Herself had answered to Tarma's calling, and was standing on the snow not five paces from her, a faint smile on Her lips at Tarma's start of surprise.
*My beloved jel'enedra, do you value yourself so little that you think I would not come to your summons? Especially when you call upon Me so seldom?* Her voice was as much inside Tarma's head as falling upon her ears, and it was so musical it went beyond song.
"Lady, I -- " Tarma stammered,
*Peace, Sword of My forging. I know that your failure to call upon Me is not out of fear, but out of love; and out of the will to rely upon your own strength as much as you may. That is as it should be, for I desire that My children grow strong and wise and adult, and not weakly dependent upon a strength outside their own. And that is doubly true of My Kal'enedral, who serve as My Eyes and My Hands.*
Tarma gazed directly into those other-worldly eyes, into the deep and fathomless blackness flecked with tiny dancing diamond-points of light, and knew that she had been judged, and not found wanting.
"Bright Star -- I need advice," she said, after a pause to collect her thoughts. "As You know my mind and heart, You know I cannot weigh these strangers. I want to help them, I want to trust them -- but how much of that is because my oath-sister comes to their calling? How much do I deceive myself to please her?"
The warm wind stirred the black silk of Her hair as She turned those depthless eyes to gaze at some point beyond Tarma's shoulder for a moment. Then She smiled.
*I think, jel'enedra, that your answer comes on its own feet, two and four.*
Two feet could mean Kethry -- but four? Warrl?
Snow crunched behind Tarma, but she did not remove her gaze from the Warrior's shining face. Only when the newcomers had arrived to stand shoulder to shoulder with her did she glance at them out of the tail of her eye.
And froze with shock.
On her right stood -- or rather, knelt, since he fell immediately to one knee, and bowed his head -- the Herald, Roald, his white cloak flaring behind him in Her wind like great wings of snow. On Tarma's left was the strange, blue-eyed horse.
Tarma felt her breath catch in her throat with surprise, but this was only to be the beginning of her astonishment. The horse continued to pace slowly forward, and as he did so, he almost seemed to blur and shimmer, much as Tarma's spirit-teachers sometimes did -- as if he were, as they were, not entirely of this world. Then he stopped, and stood quietly when the Warrior laid Her hand gently upon his neck. He gleamed with all the soft radiance of the hidden moon, plainly surrounded by an aura of light that was dimmer, but not at all unlike Hers.