represents. Is there anyone you can turn him over to, for a day, at least? Long enough for you to get some rest and a chance to think?''
A white square of linen appeared just when she needed it. She mopped at her eyes with the handkerchief he offered, and blew her nose. 'Under any other circumstances I'd just let any of the others spell me - but I don't know, Andy. A lot of them still think he's responsible for all this. Even if they shield - with Gifts like his, what's he going to pick up? You of all people should know how leaky we all are to a new, raw Gift, even when we aren't stressed.'
Andrel sighed. 'Dearheart, I don't think you have a real choice. You'll just have to hope that if surface thoughts leak past, he won't be able to understand them yet. If you don't get some rest, you're going to collapse, and even a novice Healer would be able to tell you that.' She bowed her head, feeling the weight of all her years and all her sorrows falling on her back. 'All right,' she said, acting against her better judgment, but unable to see any other option open to her. 'See if you can round up Tantras for me, will you? At least he didn't know poor 'Lendel all that well.'
Vanyel woke from a dream in which Tylendel was alive again, and had teased him gently about how much he had been grieving. For a confused moment after waking, he wasn't certain which had been the dream, and which the reality.
Then he opened his eyes, and found that he was in his own bed, and his own room, now illuminated by carefully shaded candle-lanterns. And there was something odd about the room.
After a long moment, he finally figured out what it was. The feeling of 'Tylendel,' the sense of his being there even when he wasn't physically present, was missing.
That told him. He swallowed a moan of despair, and closed his eyes against the resurgence of tears - and just in time, for the door opened softly and closed again, and he felt a new presence in the room with him.
He froze for a moment, then sighed, as if in sleep, and turned onto his side, hiding his face away from the light.
He was hearing things - like someone talking to himself, only - only, inside his head, the way Yfandes' voice had been inside his head. It hurt to listen, but he couldn't stop the words from coming in. And from the feel of that mind-voice, he knew who it was that was sitting by his bedside, too; it was one of the Heralds that had been with Savil, the one called Jaysen.
And Jaysen did not in the least care for Vanyel.
Vanyel could feel brooding eyes on him, and the words in his head came clearer, more focused
Vanyel cringed beneath the pitiless words, and the vision of himself that came with them; arrogant, self- centered, self-serving. Using Tylendel, not caring for him. And worse; worse than that, feeding him what he craved, like feeding a perpetual drunk the liquor he shouldn't have.
Without thinking about it, he reached beyond his room; it was a little like straining his ears to hear a conversation in the distance, and the pain that came with the effort felt like muscles pulling against a broken bone, but he found he could catch other snatches of - it must be thoughts - that touched on him.
They could have been echoes of Jaysen's thoughts.
He pulled his awareness back, as a child pulls its singed hand from the fire that has burned it. There were only two creatures in all the world that he could be certain cared for him despite what he was; Tylendel and Yfandes. Neither were to be trusted to know the truth about him. The second was besotted by whatever magic had made her Choose him; the first was -
The first was dead. And it was his fault. Jaysen was right; if he'd really cared for 'Lendel, he'd have stopped him. It wouldn't even have been hard; if he hadn't agreed to get those books, if he hadn't agreed to help with that spell, Tylendel would be alive at this moment. And if he hadn't seduced 'Lendel with his own needs, none of this ever would have happened.
Bad on top of worst; now he was a burden on the Heralds, who hated him, but felt honor-bound to take him in Tylendel's place. And he could never replace Tylendel, not ever; even he knew that. He had none of Tylendel's virtues, and all of his vices and more.
He listened to the mind-voice of the one beside him with all his strength, ignoring the pain it cost, hoping beyond hope that the Herald would somehow give him the chance to get away - get away and do something to make this right. If the Herald would just - go away for a moment, or - or better yet, fall asleep -
Jaysen was tired; though he'd done less magic than Savil, and had more time to rest, he was still very weary. He'd set himself up in the room's really comfortable chair; the one Tylendel had sometimes fallen asleep in. Vanyel could feel Jaysen's mind drifting over into slumber, and held his breath, hoping he'd drift all the way.
Because he'd gleaned something else from those minds out there -
Because the Death Bell had rung for him, despite what he'd done, Tylendel was being accounted a full Herald and tomorrow would be buried with all the honors.
Tomorrow. But tonight - he was in the Temple in the Grove. And if he could get that far, Vanyel was going to try to right the wrongs he had done to all of them, atoning with the only thing he had left to give.
Jaysen's thoughts slipped into the vague mumbles of sleep, and in the next moment a gentle snore from the chair beside the bed told Vanyel that he was completely gone.
Vanyel turned over, deliberately making noise.
Jaysen continued to snore, undisturbed.
Vanyel sat up, slowly, taking stock of himself and his surroundings.
About a candlemark later, he was dressed; even if he had not needed to move slowly for fear of waking the
