Owlflight

I like it here, he thought, with yearning, as he watched Ayshen’s back. I wish I could stay.

If only there was some way that he could! When things got back to normal, would anyone at Errold’s Grove ever want him back? Was there the faintest chance that the Hawkbrothers would want him with them?

And what if things never got back to normal? What if no one wanted to go back to the village? Would the Hawkbrothers be willing to give him a home?

Last night Snowfire kept calling me “little brother.” Is that just something he calls every boy, or -

“Dar’ian!” Wintersky popped up behind his back, and he yelped in startlement, dropping the bowl he’d been scrubbing back into the water. Wintersky jumped with amazing agility right out of the way, and didn’t even get a single drop of water on himself. He laughed, and clapped Darian on the back. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to creep up on you like that, it’s just habit. Snowfire wants you for a moment, if Ayshen doesn’t mind.”

“Not at all,” the hertasi said without turning. “He’s done twice the work of any of you clumsy-handed louts. He can consider his work done for the day.”

“Why, Ayshen, I am crushed!” Wintersky mocked, and threw Darian a towel to wipe himself down with. “Come on, this won’t take long.”

Wondering what Snowfire could want, Darian followed the younger Tayledras with increasing curiosity. He became even more puzzled, and a little uneasy, when Wintersky brought him down a very narrow path into a part of the encampment where he had never been before. It was heavily overgrown, cool, dim, and so quiet he could hear himself breathing. The path ended in a place completely overshadowed by the branches of the oldest and largest willow Darian had ever seen, with the usual log hut built right up against the trunk of the tree, which was easily as big around as the hut itself. No grass could possibly grow here, but that lack was more than made up for by the thick moss carpeting the area. Sitting on a bow perch beside the door was a handsome cooperi hawk, watching everything with alert, reddish-yellow eyes.

Waiting for Darian were Snowfire and Starfall. The Adept looked very tired, as if he had been working all night, and Darian wondered if he had gotten any rest at all. They must be taking me seriously enough that Starfall is working himself as hard as he can to keep those people from getting at the magic. That was oddly reassuring.

“Dar’ian, I understand you have been a great deal of help to us,” Starfall said, by way of a greeting.

Caught off guard, Darian shrugged. “I guess so. Have to earn my keep, don’t I?” He winched a little, inwardly, for his words didn’t sound very polite, but Starfall didn’t seem offended.

“We do expect all of those in our own group to do their share if they are not disabled,” the older man said gravely. “We are not so well-equipped that we cannot use another pair of hands. In fact - “ he cast a glance at Snowfire,” - we could use that pair of hands on a more permanent basis, if that would suit you.”

Darian stared at him, quite certain that his new-won ability to understand Tayledras must be faulty.

Starfall persisted, grave but earnest. “Our impression is that you do not feel any truly strong ties to those of your people that remain. Is that impression true?”

He shook his head a little, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. Was Starfall making the offer that he thought? Starfall was clearly waiting for an answer, and Darian was startled enough to give him stark, unvarnished truth. “Uh, I’d say they’d probably be happy to see the last of me right now,” he admitted, shamefaced. “With no Master, I go back on the village to care for, and I don’t think any of them would care to apprentice me now.”

Bet they could find all kinds of excuses not to, in fact, he thought with sudden bleakness, for how could Starfall take that as any kind of a recommendation?

“Then, would you care to remain with us?” Starfall asked, watching his face intently. “Snowfire has offered to take you as his younger sibling, and that is all that I need as Elder.”

“But there is a condition,” Snowfire said warningly, before Darian could burst out with an astonished and immediate acceptance. “You must agree to - to ‘apprentice’ to me, in the matter of magic, at least for as long as I have the ability to teach you. You may outstrip me; I do not yet know how strong your Gifts may be, and if that happens, you must go to a real teacher, Starfall, by preference.”

“And we shall be gone from our home Vale for some time, several years, perhaps, working to establish the ley-lines and nodes all through the northern part of Valdemar,” Starfall added, watching him closely. “So you will not actually see our Vale until our work is done. If you were hoping for exotic surroundings, well, our surroundings will be less and less exotic all the time that we are out. That is another reason for us to want you with us. It would be good to have someone who has a native’s command of this tongue at our disposal.”

Darian stood rock-still, thinking furiously. So, that was to be the price of being given a place here - that he must continue the tedious study of magic. Of all the things he wanted to learn, surely that was the last on the list!