To Light A Candle

was so very powerful that before long Idalia had found her eyes stinging with unshed tears. It was full of a deep sadness and inarticulate longing. There was a sense of things left unfinished, not because they had been abandoned willingly, but because abandonment had been forced.

Even the ending cried out with emptiness that yearned to be filled.

Idalia swallowed down the lump in her throat, and said, thickly, “It’s very— beautiful.”

Jermayan set the harp aside, and replied, almost casually, “I wrote it about you. And for you. After you left Ondoladeshiron.”

But then, before she could manage to stammer anything in reply to that astonishing statement, he turned, and the gentle smile he graced her with took her breath away.

“I shall have to write something happier now.”

—«♦«♦»♦»—

THE next thing Kellen knew was that someone was shaking him, and watery morning light was streaming through his windows.

“Sometimes I think you’d sleep through a unicorn stampede! Wake up, slugabed!”

“Idalia?”

Groggily, Kellen sat up and stared at his sister.

She was still wearing the dress she’d worn last night. Hadn’t she been home?

“Council meeting in less than an hour. You’ve barely got time to get up and dressed—and I’ve got to change, too.”

Kellen abandoned the question of where Idalia had spent the night in favor of more pressing issues. He really didn’t want to go to the meeting.

“Why do I—?” he began.

But Idalia, seeing him awake, was already leaving the room.

If he wanted to argue his point, Kellen realized, he was going to have to be up and dressed to do it. He flung back the covers, shuddering at the chill of the air, and grabbed for his bedrobe. Wrapping it firmly around him—and wondering where his house boots had gotten to this time—he hurried over to the clothes-press. Grabbing the first things that came to hand—it really didn’t matter much, since all his Elven clothing was suitable and becoming—he dressed quickly, dragged a comb through his now almost shoulder-length hair (thankful that he’d taken the time to unbraid it last night before going to bed), and hurried into the outer room, boots in hand.

When he came out of the bathroom, Idalia was ready. She was wearing Elven clothing today instead of her usual Wildwood buckskins: boots and tunic and a knee-length coat in several shades of violet.

“Ready? Good,” she said.

“But I haven’t had breakfast,” Kellen complained.

“Then you should have gotten up earlier,” Idalia said implacably.

“And I don’t really see why I have to go at all,” Kellen added mutinously. “I don’t know anything about… whatever the Council is going to talk about.”

“Then it’s time you learned,” Idalia said, reaching into the cupboard and handing him a chunk of yellow cheese, a small loaf of bread, and an apple. “The Council will be discussing its plans. Attending meetings like this is something Knight-Mages do, so you’d better get used to it. Besides, you might even be helpful.” She reached up and patted him on the shoulder.

Kellen made a rude noise, and bit into the cheese. Since he could hardly say he wasn’t a Knight-Mage, he supposed he’d better go along to the Council meeting. At least the afternoon promised to be more interesting. He’d be meeting Jermayan for his first formal lessons in knightly practice then.

Jermayan had taught Kellen all he could on the way to the Barrier, and the fact that Kellen’s Wildmage gifts lay in that direction helped a great deal. But that was no substitute for training and practice—a lot of practice— under conditions that Jermayan simply hadn’t been able to reproduce on the trail. Kellen was looking forward to continuing his education.