Brightly Burning

He sat on the edge of the canopied bed, the only furniture in the room, and waited for her reply. 'At her age, they're the same,' Ilea responded, giving vent to her agitation in pacing back and forth in the confines of the little room, but never taking her eyes off her husband. 'Well?'

'Well what?' he asked, reasonably, he thought, but she rolled her eyes upward, as if asking the heavens for help with his denseness.

'Well, what are you doing about it?'

'Nothing. She's not likely to confide in any mere male, and especially not her father,' he pointed out. 'And it wasn't my idea to bring her along, it was the King's, and Jedin's; they only know that she's Lan's friend and they want friends around him to keep him sane. The fact that she's a Mind-Healer was just that much more reason to send her. I'm hoping now that in constant contact with Lavan, she's going to wear out her passion against his indifference. Or failing that, she'll take one look at the battlefield and beg you to take her back home.'

Ilea relaxed a little, as if he'd put at least one of her fears to rest, and stopped pacing. 'You're sure he's indifferent?' she asked—begged, rather.

Pol sighed again, shook his head, and patted the top of the bed beside him. She accepted the silent invitation and sat beside him, pulling her legs up onto the quilted coverlet and curling up against his shoulder. 'Lan couldn't be anything but indifferent to Elenor—or any girl, for that matter. He's already life-bonded. To his Companion,' he added, to cut through any more questions.

Ilea squirmed around and looked into his face, her own features a mask of incredulity. 'You aren't joking!' she exclaimed, stunned, and even a little shocked. 'Oh, no! Poor Elenor!'

'And poor Lan, and poor Kalira—that's his Companion—' he replied. 'Herald-bond and lifebond? They're never out of each other's heads, and if anything happens to Kalira, Lan just goes—crazy—' He shook his head. 'When she was hurt, he couldn't think of anything else, and it was no use attempting to get him to try. No one his age should have to cope with a full lifebond. It's not healthy. He doesn't even know who he is, yet, but now he's inextricably bound up with someone who isn't his age, his sex, or even human.'

'But apparently in his case, it's necessary,' she brooded, putting her head back on his shoulder with a sigh of her own. 'If what I've heard is true. She's the controlling force on his Gift?'

'Exactly, and I'm not sure she could do that if they weren't lifebonded. But he's never going to be himself, whole and entire, and he's never going to be independent. Is he?' he asked her doubtfully, leaning back against the pillows and making them both more comfortable.

'Ask Elenor. I'm not the Mind-Healer. Or, rather,' she corrected hastily, 'don't ask Elenor. I'd rather she didn't take him on as a Cause; there's nothing more certain of cementing misplaced infatuation into permanency than being Needed.'

Pol heard the inflection that turned the word into an icon, and he agreed with her. 'I talked with her back when I first saw this happening,' he said, hastening to let her know that he hadn't shirked his parental duties. 'I tried—I really tried to make her understand that she—she couldn't hope to compete—I tried—'

Ilea wrapped her arms around him, and he relaxed into her embrace. Gods, it's so good to be with her again—

'I know you did, and I know you didn't try anything as stupid as flatly opposing her,' she said into his ear. 'Nothing feeds romance like opposition, and you know it.'

Thank you for that, my love, and for your confidence in my good sense.

'She'll talk to me about it, sooner rather than later, I think,' Ilea continued, as her hair tickled his nose and he tucked it under his chin. 'I don't know what else I can do, but at least I can keep track of how she's feeling.'

'Satiran reminds me fairly often that parents can't cushion the blows our children set themselves up for,' he murmured into her ear, breathing in the warm scent of herbs that always clung to her.

'I'm not going to think any more about it until tomorrow,' she said firmly.

He was perfectly willing to go along with her on that score.

*

MIDMORNING, and they were less than half a day from the Southern Border and the war, and yet there was no sign of the conflict here other than the wear on the roads. They were no longer on the main roads; this was the way that Ilea had passed coming up here, and they were all returning to report to the main quarters of the Lord Marshal. This was a pine forest, a very old one; the scent was fantastic in here, but the boughs all overhung the road, completely blocking the sun and leaving them in half-light no brighter than twilight.

Pol led the way, unburdened for once. Ilea was up behind Lan, and Elenor behind Tuck. Ilea was a perfect passenger, actually; she was friendly and made intelligent conversation; Lan much preferred her to Elenor.

'We moved the Headquarters to White Foal Pass just before I left,' Ilea told him. 'That's why this little road hasn't been trampled to bare dirt yet. It looked to the Lord Marshal as if the Karsites were going to make a big push there. It would be the logical place to go with as large a force as they have. White Foal is the only pass where they get big numbers of men through quickly.'

'Not to mention the value of pushing us back at White Foal Pass,' Lan replied grimly. 'There's an awful lot of symbolic significance there if even I can see that....'

Ilea nodded. He felt her hair move against his shoulder. Then, before he could continue his thought—

—something dropped down out of the tree head of them.

Frozen between shock and total terror, Lan jerked on the reins, and Kalira shied sideways.

It—no, he—landed on the pillion behind Pol, knocking Satiran sideways with the unexpected weight. Hooves skidding on the icy road, Satiran shrieked as his hind feet slid out from underneath him, but the black-hooded man grabbed Pol around the chest and shoulders and pulled him sideways. They tumbled to the ground together, Pol fighting to get his arms free and shouting, Satiran scrambling to get his feet under him