Owlsight

But she saw her mother and father making their way toward her, moving slowly through the crowd with determination on their faces, and she braced herself for what was to come.

“You are going to Kelmskeep,” stated her mother, as soon as she was close enough, in the tone that warned she would accept no other answer from her daughter.

But it wasn’t her daughter who sat the back of a dyheli, not here, not now. It was the Errold’s Grove Healer, who knew that there was a perfectly good Healer at Kelmskeep, but if she left, there would be none at Errold’s Grove at a time when one would be needed urgently. Furthermore, the Errold’s Grove Healer knew that if it came to a conflict, her place was with the other Healers caring for injured fighters, not huddling behind walls of stone, far from any conflict.

So - “No,” said the Healer of Errold’s Grove, just as firmly.

Her mother and father simply stared at her. No wonder. I may have disobeyed, but never in anything major, and I’ve never refused them to their faces. Keisha hardened her shields as well as her resolution; no matter what they said or did, she had no intention of being dissuaded.

“What do you mean, no?” demanded Ayver and Sidonie in chorus.

“I believe it’s my duty to remain either here or at the Vale, where I am needed, and not in Kelmskeep, where I am not,” Keisha replied, in a level and moderate tone. “So I will not be going to Kelmskeep.” She was deeply grateful that Kero told them all to stay mounted; the height-advantage she had gave her an advantage in authority as well.

Her father began to get a bit red in the face, himself. “No daughter of mine -”

“I am your daughter only after I am a Healer,” Keisha countered, hoping that she sounded calm and reasonable. “My first and most important duty is as a Healer. Once she’s a full Herald, you wouldn’t even think to tell Shandi to stay out of danger, would you?”

The trouble is, I’m afraid they would. . . .

Even through shields, she could tell that she had just set the spark to the tinder. There was going to be a very ugly outburst in a moment; she braced herself, cringing inside.

“Pardon,” Nightwind said, stepping in before either parent could send down thunder and lightning. “But Keisha is eighteen, is she not?” At Sidonie’s automatic nod, the trondi’irn continued. “Then by your own laws, she is two years past the age when she can legally make her own choices.”

“That she is,” Kero said cheerfully, bringing her own formidable personality in on Keisha’s side. “She can marry, be apprenticed, take on business or a debt, choose whatsoever profession she wishes, no matter what your desires are.”

“But she’s a child!” Sidonie wailed. “She can’t possibly make any kind of rational decision!”

“By your law, she ceased to be a child two years ago,” said Nightwind quietly. “By our law, she ceased to be one four years ago. And by demonstration of responsibility, she ceased to be one at least that long ago.” She smiled, a smile full of pity and sympathy. “Lady, your child is in no sense a child, and has not been so for years. She was simply too dutiful to remind you of that fact, but now her higher responsibilities have forced her to that point. Don’t force her to hurt you just to prove she’s long since grown up.”

Suddenly Sidonie’s face crumpled, though at least she didn’t burst into tears. Keisha swallowed, with the revelation of how difficult it must be to let children grow up; it was all there, in her father’s shocked and stricken look, in her mother’s heartsick eyes. She began to waver; was she wrong in standing against them?

But Kero was not going to let the situation decay. With a wicked gleam in her eye, she stepped in again. “I must remind you,” she said, in a voice as devoid of pity as Nightwind’s expression was full of that emotion, “I am in charge of this situation, and in my opinion you would be seriously interfering with the best interests of Valdemar by trying to persuade one of my Healers to cravenly abandon her post. It could even be construed as treason,” she added thoughtfully.

“Oh,” Ayver said, his face blank with shock. Sidonie took a few moments more to see what Kero was getting at, but when she did, her expression went just as blank as her husband’s.

Now it was Kero’s turn to soften, a little. “You’ve been good enough parents to raise not only a child Chosen but another who sees her duty as a Healer as more important than her own wishes. Now be good enough parents to let that child live up to her potential.”

Ayver was the first to recover. “Just promise that she’ll be taken care of!” he said to Kero, with the fierce glare of any thwarted father.

“I am Herald-Captain Kerowyn, and I always take care of my people,” Kero told him with supreme dignity. “You have my leave to inquire from any of my people how they are cared for.”

There seemed nothing more to say at that point, and with that bee in their ears, they beat a hasty retreat.