"Maybe." The younger man laughed. "Or maybe we should start leaving heads on stakes at the borders." With that macabre suggestion, the scout followed his bird into the forest, moving in silence, blending into the foliage within moments. Vree had finished his rabbit, dropping the polished bones, and Darkwind launched him into the air as well, so that they could resume their interrupted patrol.
He'd meant what he told Firestorm, every bitter word of it. I hardly know Father anymore. He used to be creative, flexible; he used to have no trouble admitting when he was wrong. Now he's the worst of the lot. Every time another Clan sends someone to see if we need help, he sends them away.
How can we not need help? We've got an unstable Heartstone, we don't have enough scouts to patrol a border that we had to pull back in the first Place. Our children are gone and we can't get them back-and we don't dare leave. And he's pretending we can handle it.
That was part of the reason he spent so little time in the Vale anymore; the place was too silent, too empty. Tayledras children were seldom as noisy as Outlander children, but they made their presence-and their absence-felt.
The once-lively Vale seemed dead without them.
And another part of the reason he avoided the Vale was his father.
The fewer opportunities there were for confrontations with the old man, the better Darkwind liked it.
He would have to go in at the end of his patrol, though, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste at what he would have to endure. This invasion would have to be reported. And as always, the Council would want to know why he hadn't handled things differently, why he hadn't blasted the intruders or shot them all when he first saw them. And because he was an Elder, the questions would be more pointed.
I didn't kill them because they could have been perfectly innocent, dammit!
And Starblade would want to know why he hadn't used magic.
And as always, Darkwind would be unable to give him an answer that would satisfy him.
"Because I don't want to" isn't good enough. He wants to know why I don't want to.
Darkwind pulled his climbing-staff out of the sheath, and hooked a limb, hauling himself up into the tree and trying not to wince as he discovered new bruises.
He wants to know why. He says. But he won't accept my reasons because Adept Starblade couldn't possibly have a son who gave up magic for the life of a Scout.
Even when the magic killed his mother in front of his eyes. Even when the magic ruined his life. Even when he's seen. over and over, that magic isn't an answer, it's a tool, and any tool can be done without.
He looked out over the forest floor and briefly touched Vree's mind.
All was quiet. Even the birds, frightened into silence by the noise of the fight and the appearance of the cooperihawk, were singing again.
Well. he'd better start learning to change again, Darkwind decided, because I've had enough. I'm taking this incident to the Council as usual, but this time I'm going to make an issue of it. And I don't care if he doesn't like what he's going to hear; we can't keep on like this indefinitely.
And if he wants a fight, he's going to get one.
*Chapter Three ELSPETH
Elspeth bit her lip until it bled to keep herself from losing her temper.
Queen Selenay, normally serene in the face of any crisis, had reacted to the attack on her eldest child with atypical hysteria.
Well, I'd call it hysteria, anyway.
Elspeth had barely gotten clean and changed when the summons arrived from her mother-accompanied by a bodyguard of two. As a harbinger of what was to come, that bodyguard put Elspeth's hackles up immediately. The sight of Selenay, standing beside the old wooden desk in her private apartments, white to the lips and with jaws and hands clenched, did nothing to make her daughter feel any better.
And so far, Selenay's impassioned tirade had not reassured her Heir either. It seemed that the Queen's answer to the problem was to restrict Elspeth's movements to the Palace complex, and to assign her a day-and-night guard of not less than two at all times.
And that, as far as Elspeth was concerned, was totally unacceptable.
But she couldn't get a word in until her mother stopped pacing up and down the breadth of her private office and finally calmed down enough to sit and listen instead of talking. It helped that Talia, though she was privy to this not-quite-argument Elspeth was having with Selenay, was staying discreetly in the background, and so far hadn't said a word, one way or the other.
I think if she sided with Mother, I'd have hysterics.
"I can't believe you're taking this so-so-casually!" Selenay finally concluded tightly, her hands shaking visibly even though she held them clenched together on the desktop, white as a marble carving.
"I'm not taking it 'casually," Mother," Elspeth replied, hoping the anger she thought she had under control did not show. "I'm certainly not regarding this incident as some kind of a bad joke. But I am not going to let fear rule my life." She paused for a moment, waiting for another tirade to begin. When Selenay didn't say anything, she continued, trying to sound as firm and adult as possible. "No bodyguards, Mother. No one following me everywhere. And I am not going to live behind the Palace walls like some kind of cloistered novitiate."
"You're almost killed, and you say that? I-"
"Mother, '-'Elspeth interrupted. "Every other ruler lives with that same threat constantly. We've been spoiled in Valdemar-mages have never been able to get past our borders, and the Heraldic Gifts-especially the Queen's Own's Gifts-have always made sure that we knew who the assassins were before they had a chance to strike. So-now that isn't necessarily true anymore. I am not going to restrict my movements with a night-and-day guard just because of a single incident. And, frankly, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it." Selenay paled and seemed at a loss for words.
"That doesn't mean I'm going to be careless," she added, "I'm going to take every precaution Kerowyn advises. I'm not foolhardy or stupid-but I am not going to live in fear, either." Finally Talia spoke up. "There really isn't that much more danger than there always was," she said mildly. "We've just been a lot more careless than the monarchs were in-say-Vanyel's day. We have been spoiled; we thought we were immune to danger, that magic had somehow gone away. The fact is, we didn't learn from the last two wars. We have to do more-much more-than we have in finding ways to counter this threat. Or should I say, in rediscovering them-" Now that's odd. No one seems to have any trouble discussing magic when it's in the past-the stories of Vanyel's time, for instance. It's only when we're talking about it happening now-and here, inside Valdemar-that the restriction seems to hold.
But before she pursued that train of thought, she had to come up with some convincing arguments first. "Mother, I'm a Herald first, and your Heir second. The fact is, I can't do my job with somebody hovering over me all the time." When Selenay looked blank, Elspeth sighed. "I'm still on duty to the city courts, remember? And on detached duty with Kerowyn.
What if she wants me to go work with the Skybolts for a while?
What would your allies say if I went over there with a set of bodyguards at my back? They'd say you don't even trust your own people, that's what." Not to mention what a pair of hulking brutes at my back is going to do to MY love-life, she thought unhappily. there wasn't a lot there to begin with, but I can't even imagine trying to have a romantic encounter with half the Guard breathing down my neck.