stood his ground, face twitching in a whole range of different little ways. "We can prepare people, it's not like it will just happen overnight. No-one has to die."
"We should be doing that before starting to make plans to actually carry the Separation out." He cringed, and she piled on extra pressure. "And if there are that many lives in the balance, we have to let other people decide."
"No, we can't do that. People always decide in favour of the status quo." He walked up to her, tried to take her hand, but she shook him off. Hand held to his chest, he went on, "You see that, don't you? The Gift-Givers are actively trying to stop us approaching people. How could we persuade the whole First Realm?"
"If you can't persuade them, it could be because you're wrong about what people want." She clenched her fists to keep from seizing his shirt and shaking him. "How many people would accept the trade-off, anyway? One in every hundred to live. No-one is going to go for that, regardless of what the Gift-Givers do to you."
"That's my point." There was a wildness in his eyes, now, desperation in the imploring look he threw at Ashtenzim. The Separatist remained impassive. "Think how much better life will be if we don't have to fear the Second Realm all the time! We could live in peace and rebuild. No Sherim, no incursions, no Gifts."
Pevan forced herself to take a step back. "What's so bad about this life? If you're right, I've got a lot more to complain about than you. I grew up nearer a Sherim than any other child in the Realm. I've been Gifted for a year and a half, and in that time we lost Dieni and Temmer. I've seen and fought off more incursions than you've known in your life, probably." She poked him in the chest, hard. "If you think I'm going to trade hundreds of the civvies in my town, or even a handful of them, for your vision of peace, you're a fool. And you deserve your reputation."
He took her last words like an arrow to the gut, staggering backwards. When he looked up at her again, tears glistened on his cheeks. "No... No, you have to see. You have to see."
Something about the way he said it, like it was a slippery rope he was clinging to, kicked something at the back of her mind awake. It had been her affirmation that she liked her Gift that had toppled his mood earlier. It fit too well with this pleading.
Whispering, almost to herself, unable to believe it, she said, "This has nothing to do with the Separation, does it?"
His head snapped up to look at her, eyes wide as a snake's hypnotised prey.
She said, "It's about me. You really are in this for me."
Dizziness rose over her, her head going light. Her vision clouded, and she was turning, stumbling for the door. Chag reacted too slowly; the Separatists not at all. She heard the bang as the waiting Guard slammed the door after her, and then he - it? - was lowering her to sit on the staircase.
For a moment, his awkward voice buzzed in her ears. She shook her head and regretted it as a fresh wave of coloured spots bubbled across her eyes, but her hearing did straighten out. He'd asked her what assistance she needed.
She almost retched when she tried to speak. Curling to ease the spasm in her gut, she managed to pull herself most of the way to standing. Her voice rasped against her dry tongue, but she got the words out. "Just get me back to the Great Hall."
He lifted her, one of those delicate, unearthly arms under her back and the other under her knees. Bony and stiff as the support was, it gave her something to focus on through the whirl of not-quite-logical stairs and doors and hallways. The only thing she was sure of, as they passed through galleries and colonnades that were full of something like daylight, was that this was not the same route by which they had descended to the strange basement room.
Before long, the haphazard and ugly styles of the old, foundational parts of the Court fell away, to be replaced by the familiar mix of black and white marble. She asked the Guard to set her down, and was pleasantly surprised when he complied without protest. Her legs were unsteady, but she found her footing after only the length of one hall.
From there, it was just a pleasant stroll through some of the less well-travelled areas of the Court. They passed occasional Guards, patrolling or standing at post in courtyards, but she only once caught a glimpse of a Gift-Giver, robed in what looked like a very pale green or pink, turning a corner far ahead.
She needed to come to some sort of a decision about the Separatists and what to do about them, but she could tell from the surge in her blood at the thought that she wasn't ready to do so quite yet. Dora would have been able to kick her into shape in short order, and even Rel might have been useful, except for the fact that Taslin probably wouldn't let him out of her sight. That left Atla. Perhaps she could at least steady her nerves by talking to the boy. His grasp of the bigger picture was dim at best, but she couldn't fault his character.
He was waiting in the Great Hall when she got there, just staring up at the leafy ceiling. If you spotted the Hall building while flying down from outside the Court, it looked just like the rest of the place, dark slate and black gables, but somehow, from the inside, the Gift-Givers had managed to preserve this one magnificent piece of Second-Realm strangeness. The walls looked like they had been designed to open the space to the sky; branches laden with every shape of foliage and several colours of bloom spread across the opening, shimmering where sunlight fell through them.
It was nourishment for the soul, though Pevan wondered idly if Chag felt the same way. Atla seemed to sense something amiss as he turned and walked towards her. His smile of relief shrank and fell, his brow pinching in worry. He said, "Is everything alright?"
She took a deep breath. "Anybody ever try to impress you with actions you disapproved of?"
His frown turned puzzled, and he stared at her.
"Never mind." She waved the question away. "In some ways, I guess I shouldn't talk about it. Some of it ought to be private. Let me ask you a different question. Do you like being Gifted?"
"I... uh, well, I think so?" He cringed back a little, apparently from his own answer. Pevan chose to suppress her almost automatic eye-roll. Still struggling to see his thoughts through, he went on, "Do I count? I mean, uh, I'm not qualified... It's a big job, and I don’t... well, I don't know if I can really say yet."
She let herself chuckle. "Apart from the stuttering, you've done alright by me so far. What we've done today... this is what you can look forward to for the rest of your life. Are you happy with that?"
"Um... well, I-" He caught himself, gave her a sheepish look. "Sorry."
At that, she did roll her eyes. The apology was worse than the stammer. "I was joking. The question stands. What have you made of the day?"
"Is this a test?" He frowned again, wringing his hands. "I mean, uh, why are you asking?"
"Call it curiosity." She shrugged. "I love my Gift, I wouldn't give it up for the world. Chag feels very differently, and I'm only just starting to realise that." That thought made her pause, turning to look up at the ceiling. She'd assumed that people wouldn't be willing to trade some of their loved ones for peace, but... More folks lived in the South, where Chag and Atla were from, than up North. What would she think - how would she feel - if Atla agreed with the thief?
When he spoke, though, his voice trembled. "Are you and he, uh..?"
It took her a moment to figure out what the other end of that sentence was, and another to summon up the right level of laughing scorn. "I hope he didn't tell you we were. There's a Clearviewing that shows us as lovers, but it belongs to a path that I think we've diverged from."
"You're not... uh, there isn't someone else?" His voice dropped even closer to a mumble.
She caught herself short of answering, seeing the approaching disaster. It was so hard to remember that Atla was her own age. The boy - and he was a boy, a child, however much Pevan was a fully-developed adult - was just so adolescent. Of course he'd be fascinated by the mysterious stranger who'd swooped down out of the legendary, perilous North to carry him away from his humdrum life.
The question was how to let him down gently.
She needed him functional, not heartbroken, and however stout he'd been on the journey, it was hard to imagine he'd been in love before. There was no time to cozen him, either. She smiled, as broadly and gently as she could. "I have a bit too much on my plate right now to worry about it, don't you think? Chag, Rel, the Abyss, the Separatists. I'll have to make some decisions soon, obviously, but as Gifted it's best to be businesslike about it. Something you'll have to think about, too."
He looked down at his hands again. "Yeah, I guess."
"There's no childhood sweetheart waiting for you back home in Lefal?" She put a little levity in the words, hoping to see him blush, maybe even bluster some adolescent brag.
Instead, he frowned. "No. I thought maybe, when I got my Gift, but... No."
Pevan raised her eyebrow, surprised. The Guide's face was by lengths more mournful and distant than should have been possible. Whatever his story was would have to wait for another time. In place of a searching question, she laughed gently. "It's not an attractive thing, being Gifted. The air of danger's all well and good, but take it from me," she reached over to clap him on the arm, "a lady wants someone who's not likely to die before forty. Some men like a Gift in a woman, or at least so I fervently hope. Something to do with not wanting to have to look after a shrew as she withers, probably, but a
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