Derkh’s eyes had gone round with wonder when the cloth was removed and he first beheld the Elvish community. “I see what you mean,” he had breathed to Gabrielle. “It is more different than I could have imagined.” These past days he had been even quieter than in Chênier, but he seemed more relaxed. Maybe it was easier here, she thought, where his difference would be attributed simply to being Human.
The shocking thing Derkh had said to the head of council came again to her mind. Féolan had spoken long with Tilumar to explain their seemingly outrageous request to harbor a Gref Orisé soldier. Finally, Tilumar had asked to speak to Derkh himself.
“Gabrielle and Féolan have declared you a friend,” he said. “Yet you are also of the land of our enemy. Why should I trust that you return their friendship?”
“Gabrielle saved my life,” answered Derkh, as if that one fact explained everything. “Twice, she saved my life.” Tilumar waited for him to go on. Derkh shrugged with impatience. “It is a debt more binding than any I know. I would die rather than betray her.”
“It is fairly spoken,” said Tilumar. “But what of Féolan? He did not save your life. Rather, as I hear, he has done you harm, even to the slaying of your own father.”
Derkh, dark eyes flashing, had drawn his slight figure up with a dignity that seemed beyond his years. Suddenly, Gabrielle felt she looked at another Derkh: not the uncertain boy, but the warrior destined for high command. “Féolan has offered up his neck in redress for my father’s death, and I have refused it. Why should I give up the easy opportunity, to seek a harder one? There is no ill will between us.”
After the briefest hesitation, Féolan had translated. Tilumar, visibly taken aback, had looked with long appraisal at both of them.
“I deem you speak true,” he said at last. “You are welcome to stay in Stonewater, under the protection of Féolan. Yet, for the time being, if he leaves, then you also must depart.”
It had been some time before Gabrielle was able to question Féolan in private about those words. She could hardly believe what he had done. She still did not know whether to be appalled or impressed by his action.
Standing barefoot in front of the washbasin, Gabrielle twisted back her chestnut hair and splashed water on her face. Tonight was to be her official welcome. There would be feasting and the telling of her story and hundreds of introductions and singing into the night. She wished she had had time to learn more Elvish. Féolan had been teaching her, and she could now hear the distinct words and phrases in the liquid stream of sound. She understood more than a little, but she was far from being able to carry on even a rudimentary conversation. She would cram words into her head all day, she resolved, and learn at least a simple speech to express her gratitude.
AS THE SKY overhead darkened to deepest indigo, the surrounding trees brightened with many sparkling lights. Their branches and the beams of the great gazebo were hung with lanterns, so that to Derkh it looked as though the stars themselves had joined in the celebration. Nor was that the greatest wonder of this night. Food he had never tasted, music he had never dreamed of, the flowing stream of a hundred conversations he couldn’t understand. And the people! Who could have imagined such a people? Or whatever they are, he amended to himself. Everywhere he looked he saw bright eyes, shining hair, graceful gestures. Smooth, fair faces. His eyes sought out Gabrielle and found her deep in conversation with an obviously pregnant woman with a tumble of black curls. She’s as pretty as any of them, he thought with an absurd sense of pride.
Something nagged at him, though, about all these lovely people. He scanned the crowd once more and snagged it: Where were the old ones? None here were gray or bent or wrinkled. A legend of his own people flashed into Derkh’s mind—that long ago, people who had become a burden were taken far out on the plain and left to the wolves and snow. Nobody believed it now, but... Maybe they kill off the ugly ones too, he thought, and snorted with sudden laughter.
“Something funny?” It was Féolan, with more people to introduce. It was kind of him to include Derkh, but really Derkh was just as happy—and more comfortable—watching from the sidelines. He smiled and offered Féolan an embarrassed shrug.
“Derkh, my parents would like to meet you. They have heard the story of how you became friends with Gabrielle. This is my mother, Lunala, and my father, Shéovar.”
Derkh stared at the two Elves standing before him. His parents? They didn’t look one day older than Féolan himself. The woman, Lunala, touched her breast and held out her palm, and awkwardly he met her hand with his as Gabrielle had taught him.
“Welcome, Derkh,” she said in Krylaise. “It was a difficult road, I understand, that brought you here. May you have a happier journey from now on.”
That nearly undid him. This compassion from strangers—he would never get used to it. On such a dreamlike night he could almost believe happiness did wait for him, and he felt his resolve waver. He touched palms with Féolan’s father, then excused himself for the food tables.
He wasn’t alone there for long. Glancing up from his overloaded plate, Derkh saw Féolan’s friend, Danaïs, working his way across the gazebo. Derkh’s first impression of Danaïs had been “an Elvish Tristan”—at least they both shared a light-hearted humor that was hard for even a stolid Greffaire to resist. Danaïs’s daughter was one of a handful of children flitting about the party like pretty moths. Elf children, Derkh observed, didn’t seem to have a bedtime.
“I must take Gabrielle sternly to task,” Danaïs said by way of greeting. “It’s obvious she has been starving you during your stay in Verdeau.”
“Oh, no—,” Derkh protested, recognizing just a hair too late that he was being teased.
Danaïs’ soft brown eyes danced with amusement. “Eat up,” he encouraged. “I don’t doubt you are heading into a monumental growth spurt, and we will find you six inches taller by morning.” He turned to more serious matters. “I came to offer myself as an imperfect translator. They are going to tell Gabrielle’s story—how she was lost as a baby, and how she refound her mother’s people—and it is a tale not to be missed. Unless you know it already?”
“No, I’d like to hear,” Derkh said. “I accept your offer, with thanks.”
The story was told by an auburn-haired woman of commanding presence—”Gabrielle’s great-aunt,” Danaïs whispered—whose clear voice held the entire gathering spellbound. She told of a healer named Wyndra, who set off adventuring with her Human husband and new baby girl and was never heard from again. But Wyndra’s child survived to have adventures of her own, and they had led her, through perilous and unlikely paths, back to her beginnings. When Gabrielle was finally called forward, laughing and crying at once, to be embraced by her great-aunt, the Elves burst into song. “It is the naming song we sing for infants,” Danaïs told him afterward, his own eyes shiny with tears. “We sing it for her again, for this day she is adopted back among us. Come up now and wish her well.”
And Derkh did, grateful for the chance to shake off his usual constraint and hug her tight. He had never known a goodbye so painful, unspoken though it was. But Gabrielle had been rejoined with her people. It was time—past time—for Derkh to rejoin his.
“AT LAST A day that is ours to spend as we please. I am at your service.” Féolan executed a perfect court bow and spoke now in Elvish: “Is there some wish in your heart you would follow?”
Gabrielle realized there was. She was shy to mention it—it seemed a foolish whim, set against the drama of war and death and love and healing they had been living—but it had whispered to her since the day she had first seen the relationship of Elves to animals.
“I don’t know if...” She stopped, daunted by her own doubt: perhaps she would not be capable. Human and Elvish traits mixed in unpredictable ways, Orianne had said. She had been blessed with the gift of healing. There was no reason to expect there would be more.
“Tell me.”
“Oh, Féolan, do you think you could teach me to t
alk to Cloud? Talk with her, I mean, like you do?”
He was laughing at her. “A day with her lover, and she wishes for the company of a horse!”
“You’re right,” she apologized, flustered. “I don’t know what I—”
“Nay, my love,” he waved away her embarrassment. “I am only teasing. I’m sure you can do it, and I would love to help you.”
Soon Gabrielle found herself in the stables, standing in front of Cloud and feeling foolish.
“What do I say? Should it be in Elvish?”
“The words are not important,” said Féolan, “though she will learn to recognize many words, in time. It is her mind, or maybe more truly her heart, you must speak to with your own. You need to send her the image, or feeling, of what you are saying.”
Gabrielle stroked Cloud’s nose, gathering her thoughts. What did she want to tell her horse? Cloud nuzzled at her, as if to say, Well, aren’t you going to groom me or feed me or ride me? Gabrielle stepped close to Cloud’s ear and whispered, “Cloud, thank you for our years together.” Cloud’s ear twitched at the tickly sensation, and that was all. Gabrielle gave a humiliated little laugh. “Féolan, I haven’t the slightest idea how to do this.”
“I think you do!” he insisted. “Gabrielle, forget the words. Maybe they get in your way. When you use your gift of healing, your mind touches your patient’s body in some way, does it not?”
“Yes,” said Gabrielle. Suddenly it was obvious. “Yes,” she said, excited now.
“This must be similar. But instead of the body, you are touching another responsive, aware mind. That night we found each other after the raid, could you sense the comfort I tried to give you?”
“Yes.”
“Not just from knowing how I felt about you, but directly from my heart to yours?”
“Yes, I felt it. From Danaïs once too.” She noted Féolan’s quizzical glance. “When you first left Verdeau. He helped me get through that awful goodbye,” she explained. She hesitated, then added softly, “I felt I was about to break into pieces.”
Féolan’s finger traced the line of her cheekbone and grazed her lip. “The hardest thing I ever did was to leave you that day. But see, you already have the skills you need. You just need to direct them differently.”
Gabrielle laid her head against Cloud’s neck and twined her finger’s in the horse’s dark mane. She quieted her mind, focused in, and her awareness slipped into the powerful body. But now how to...? She remembered how she had once tried to reassure Justine’s unborn baby. Cloud? Looking now not for injury or disease, but for a flicker of awareness, she gathered her affection for this gentle creature and sent it out.
A startled flash flared back at her, and she laughed with astonished excitement.
“Easy,” cautioned Féolan. “Do not frighten her.”
She tried again: Cloud, it’s me. It’s all right. This time warm recognition rushed back at her. From Cloud’s generous heart she read love, and loyalty and submission, and this last pained her beyond words. Friend, she offered. I would be your friend, not your master.
Gabrielle’s eyes were bright with tears when she opened them and spoke again to Féolan. “I didn’t know,” she murmured. Cloud’s velvet charcoal muzzle whiffled her hair, and she laughed and stroked the horse’s long nose. “So much I don’t know.”
“And so much you do,” said Féolan. “It’s amazing what you have already learned on your own.” He smiled down at her. “You may be half-blind and clumsy as a toad, but there is nothing wrong with your mind.”
“Nice. Insult the woman you claim to love.” Now it was Féolan’s turn to become penitent, until Gabrielle laughed and reminded him, “You deserved that.”
“So I did.” Féolan touched her shoulder, serious once more. “Gabrielle, why don’t you ask Cloud if she would like to come for a ride with us?”
FÉOLAN PEERED OUT the doorway of the barn, scanning the path for Gabrielle. Still no sign. How long does it take to deliver a quick message? he thought, striving with limited success not to feel irritated by the wait. Gabrielle had left some time ago, just to change her clothes and tell Derkh they were going riding. He paced again to the back of the dim fragrant barn. Some of the horses shifted and champed as he passed—he was beginning to irritate them! Derkh might be still abed, he mused. It had been a very late night, and Humans seemed to feel the lack of sleep more than Elves. But no, surely Gabrielle would simply have left word.
He knew Gabrielle felt responsible for Derkh here, and he understood why. He just wished it wasn’t so difficult to steal a little time alone with her.
A few minutes later Gabrielle hurried into the barn. One glance was enough to see that something was wrong.
“Gabi, what it is?”
“Derkh’s gone.”
Misunderstanding her anxiety, Féolan said, “I’m sure he’s fine. He’s probably just gone for a walk or a swim...” He broke off, interrupted by Gabrielle’s impatient head shake.
“No, Féolan, he’s really gone. I think he means not to come back.” She held out a curl of birch bark. “He left this and all his Verdeau clothes folded in a pile.”
Féolan unrolled the white bark and stared at the brief message, crudely carved into the surface: GOOD-BYE. And underneath that: SORRY.
Fear washed through him—could the boy mean to take his own life? Then he remembered how Derkh had lingered by the food table at last night’s celebration, to the point that Danaïs had teased him for his bottomless stomach. He had been stashing food, Féolan now realized. Preparing for a journey, then, not death. In the wake of his relief came a deep regret. He knew where Derkh must be headed, and what awaited him there. It wasn’t a life he would wish for a friend.
Gabrielle was fighting tears now. Féolan liked and cared for the quiet young man, but Gabrielle, he saw, had come to love him.
“We have to go after him,” she said. “He can’t just run off like this!”
Féolan was doubtful. He draped a comforting arm around Gabrielle’s shoulders and tried to gather his thoughts. He understood the desire to follow Derkh, and since he had a good idea where the trail headed, there was a decent chance he could find it. But would Derkh thank them for it?
“Gabrielle,” he offered. “Let’s think a moment. If you meant what you said when you offered Derkh a home in Verdeau, then he is as free as anyone to go where he wishes, is that not so?”
“Yes, bu—,” Gabrielle began, but he held up a finger to forestall her.
“And if he wishes to leave without long explanations and goodbyes, much as we might wish it otherwise, is it not his right to choose?”
“Yes, I suppose—but Féolan, why would he want to?”
He could no longer hide his dismay. “I think he has decided to go back to Gref Oris. That’s why he left from here—less country to travel on his own. And if I had to guess, I’d say he felt he could never explain to you why he was going, or maybe he was afraid of losing his resolve. So he slipped away late last night, while we were distracted by your party.”
“But why?” she blurted out. “If that place is as bad as you described, why would he go back?” He felt her unspoken question as a wave of hurt: Could it have been so bad in my own home?
“I don’t know, Gabrielle,” Féolan said softly. “Derkh’s old life was very...defined. Maybe he didn’t know how to make a new start.”
Gabrielle pressed her hands to her eyes and took a deep slow breath, and Féolan felt her clamoring emotions become quieter. She stood that way for some time. “I don’t mean to stop him,” she said finally. “But I do want to say good-bye, if he’s really bent on leaving. And does he even know where he’s going? We could ride him to the border,” she suggested.
“That’s what worries me,” confessed Féolan. “I expect he’s a competent navigator in his own country. But he doesn’t know the deep forest, and if he’s making north for the mountains he’s going through miles of wild terrain.”
“You think he’s
in danger?” she asked.
“This land is dangerous for any but experienced woodsmen,” he replied. “And what I saw of Gref Oris is mostly open plain. Yes, I think he could easily get himself lost, and I doubt he has more than a few days’ worth of food. So I agree with you, after all. I’ll have to go after him.”
“We,” she corrected.
“Gabrielle, I’ll move faster without you. I really think—”
“We.”
He took in the squared shoulders, the lifted chin, and sighed.
“Pack a blanket, a change of clothes, and wear good boots. Meet me at the kitchens. I’ll have packs for both of us.”
Her grateful smile lit up the barn.
“I won’t hold you back.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
DOMINIC leaned against the fence, his hands steadying Matthieu where he balanced on the top rail. Inside the ring, perched on her fat pinto pony, Madeleine tried to follow the riding master’s instructions:
“Heels down, Mademoiselle! Always your heels down. Now, pretend you have no reins. Can you turn the horse toward me without them? Use your legs and knees to tell him where to go...”
Though Madeleine squeezed and nudged mightily with her thin legs, the pony walked stolidly on, straight ahead. Madeleine squealed in frustration, and Dominic hid his smile behind Matthieu’s back.
“Dominic!”
Tristan loped across the field to the ring. A piece of parchment flapped in his hand.
“What is it, Tristan? You look... Have you had bad news?”
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