nudged the line she carried toward the stone. It wavered uncertainly, but she waited, dimming her own radiation bit by bit until the fine line quivered and with an almost audible snap fell into place, finding the stone and settling, sinking into the earth, drawing the energy-haze with it.
Now separated from the support of the tiny tendrils of power drawn from the fog, Stardance staggered as a drain-headache blossomed into full power, drumming the insides of her skull. Kir launched to a nearby tree, chittering her concern, but Stardance kept her from calling to any nearby bondbirds. Moving slowly, keeping to paths that were as out of the way as possible, she stumbled, she hoped unseen, back to the Vale, barely able to climb the stairs to collapse onto the bedroll in her ekele. “Are you sure?” Winternight leaned forward, one hand twisting over the head of his staff. “None of the students were Healing Mage-talented, so far as we knew.”
Dayspring nodded. “It was a ley-line and what resembled the beginnings of a node. I’m not sure why I scanned the safe areas we were crossing as we returned to the Vale, but I’m glad I did. It was tiny, but must have been formed by an external influence, not the natural gatherings of power in channels. There hasn’t been enough time for the magic to settle so cleanly. And this was the only place where I saw such a thing.”
“We need to know who was in that area. We need that student, that Gift. K’Veyas has never had many Healing Mages, and now that Silverheart is the only one left, well, she’s wearing herself out.”
“I never noticed signs of Mage Healing in any of the students I taught,” Silverheart added, her voice soft. She was too young for the lines that had creased her face in the last few days, strained not only by the Mage Storms themselves but by the demands of attempting to restore some balance to the power around the Vale. “But neither did I work with all of the trainees.”
“My apologies for my lateness,” Windwhisperer said, brushing aside the curtains at the entrance to Winternight’s ekele. “There was a Change-Creature in the area I was working in, which delayed our return until we had dealt with it.” He shrugged off the questions. “Not magical, so the scouts will be better equipped to relate the details. My younger son had an interesting tale, too, from his work in the safe area, but we can discuss that later. First, why the summons?”
Winternight gestured to Dayspring, and the younger Mage spoke.
“You assigned the students this morning, didn’t you?” Windwhisperer nodded. “We need to know who was in the area that went east toward the cliffs, between the stand of tallpines and the slope just before the meadow. There’s a ley-line and a node there, and they weren’t there when we went out this morning.”
Only a close observer would have noticed the flicker in Windwhisperer’s eyes before he leaned back, his face as calm and still as ever.
“There were three students in that approximate area, but as it happens I know who created it, for my son observed her. Stardance.”
The other three Mages inhaled sharply.
“I never taught her . . .” Silverheart murmured at last.
Winternight was silent for a moment, studying Windwhisperer’s face. “Is your son near?”
Windwhisperer nodded and bent his head toward his kestrel bondbird, who hopped off her perch and darted out the open window. “I thought you would want to speak with him, so I asked him to wait below and said I would send Tria when we wanted him to come up.”
A moment later, the young scout tapped at the entrance, then pushed aside the curtains and entered the room.
“Welcome, Nightblade,” Winternight nodded at a seat next to Windwhisperer, and the new arrival sat. “Your father tells us you were paired with Stardance in the searching of the safe areas today.”
Nightblade lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug. “Not so much paired,” he replied after a moment’s thought. “I thought it would be best for the oldest scout to stay nearest to the youngest Mage student.” His voice left a subtle shade of emphasis on the fact that he was the oldest of those assigned to work in the safe areas with the students, hinting that he felt he deserved to be out with the rest of the fully trained scouts.
Winternight chose to ignore the implication. “What did she do?”
“As we left the Vale, Stardance made it clear that she did not wish for me to be immediately near her, so I went farther into the forest and watched her from the trees, or through Miel’s eyes. She was diligent, tracking back and forth so that she covered every bit of her assigned area of the forest. She finished in a clearing, and it was there that she seemed to be working magic, although I don’t have enough Mage Sight to know for sure. At times she moved her fingers, very slowly, like she was working with something fragile that was held between them. A couple of times she tilted her head, as though she were listening to something or someone. Then she walked to the stone at the edge of the clearing and held her hands over it, not quite touching it, for a long time. After that, she nearly collapsed and barely managed to stagger back to her ekele. I made sure a hertasi would take care of her and found my father, to tell him.”
Windwhisperer nodded confirmation, while Silverheart leaned forward. “Did she say anything? Anything at all?”
“She talked aloud to her bondbird a couple of times, and I think she said something about ‘seeing if it works.’ Other than that, nothing that I heard.”
When there were no other questions, Windwhisperer nodded a dismissal, and his son slipped out. The Mages turned to Silverheart, waiting for her thoughts. The only Healing Mage in k’Veyas, this was her field, her expertise.
Silverheart leaned against the wall of the ekele, her eyes half-closed in thought. “Stardance. She was the one more or less adopted by the hertasi who was caught in the Change Circle, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So. Hurt, angry, lonely, and, from what Windwhisperer said of her last night, stubborn. Not the ideal time for any of us to ask her what she did, and why. And how.”
“She would not refuse the direct command of the Elders,” Windwhisperer said thoughtfully, “but I agree that she would not respond well.”
“I need to watch her do this, to see how she is working. But we can’t send anyone extra out with her, or she might not do anything. I wish I could use Mage Sight through Cede’s eyes!”
“But you can through mine,” Windwhisperer replied. “I realized today that I’m getting a little old and weary to keep up with the scouts,” he continued with a wry smile. “You can link to me, and I can watch her with Far Sight.” He paused, considering. “Is it likely that she could harm herself, or anyone else, if she experiments on her own?”
Silverheart thought for a moment. “It is possible that she could become too absorbed, too focused, and forget to come back to herself. But if we are watching her, even from a distance I should be able to recognize the signs, and we can use a bondbird to shock her out before she gets lost.” She shrugged. “The magic is so diffuse, so faint, that there is little risk for injury. There just isn’t enough power for her to do anything significant.”
The Mages all nodded in agreement. Even in these few days after the Storms, magical accidents had been fewer. And smaller.
Stardance woke, blinking and rubbing her eyes to shake the last traces of exhaustion-headache from her mind. It took a moment for her to remember how she had gotten so drained, and then the images flooded back over her. The magic-haze, the tendrils, memories of Triska . . . She almost murmured the hertasi’s name, waiting for the ache of loss to build, to overwhelm her with emptiness as it had every time she’d thought of Triska in the days since the last Mage Storm—and was stunned when it seemed a little muted, as though she was a tiny bit less raw inside. She would have considered it further, but a hungry Kir was already protesting how late she had slept.
As morning drew on, once again she gathered with the other Mage students for Windwhisperer’s instructions. Each day they were to expand their search farther away from the Vale, as the scouts and full Mages widened the range of the safe areas.
Stardance was surprised to be glad when Windwhisperer told them to take areas just beyond those where they had searched the day before. She would have the chance to see what had happened overnight to her little runnel. A tiny bubble of unexpected anticipation welled up within her, not dimmed even when the young scout (Darkmoon? Nightdark? No, Nightblade) again paced his steps to hers as they left the Vale. Today, he seemed less angry, less resentful of his assignment, but she was still relieved when he drifted away from her, farther into the forest.
When she was sure he was out of her hearing, she slipped between the trees into the clearing where she had threaded the little line together. It was easier today to make the shift in her mind to See the more diffuse
