Storm Rising

coaxed the conversation into the dangerous grounds of emotional obsession, jealousy, and anger. This was very dangerous ground, in fact, since it might lead to other deductions.

Firesong restrained growing anger—not at Silverfox, but at the impossible, intolerable situation.

'It doesn't matter; there's nothing I can do about the situation, so I might as well just endure it with proper Tayledras stoicism,' he lied, trying to steer things off that precarious ground and hide his own feelings.

'Ah, but it does matter,' Silverfox countered. 'You are a mage, and as such, your control is dependent on your emotional state. As a Healer-with-knives should not practice when his hands are unsteady, a mage should not practice when his nerves are unsteady. You know that well enough to teach it!'

Firesong's muscles knotted again under Silverfox's hands, betraying his temper to the kestra'chern. 'I do know that, and my nerves are steady enough,' he replied, 'I know what I'm doing. And to tell the truth, at the moment my skills are not needed anyway.'

'Oh, my friend,' Silverfox sighed, releasing him. 'Your body tells me a different story.' He slid around to his former position, and his expression was dead sober. 'The chiefest language of the kestra'chern is that of emotion; his chiefest skill is in the matters of the heart rather than of the mind or spirit; we leave the former to the Scholar and the latter to the Priest. That is what we do, but there comes a point when we cannot do our work without cooperation.'

Instead of getting off that dangerous ground, they were now firmly atop it. Firesong feigned incomprehension and stifled alarm. 'Why would you need my cooperation for anything more than you already have?'

But Silverfox frowned. 'You already know the answer to that question. I do not know all, by any means, but I do know a few things. You are lonely and profoundly unhappy here, you live in a bower built for two but you are alone in it, you tense with anger when Karal and the artificers are mentioned, you tense with pain when An'desha's name comes up. Your heart and your mind must of necessity reflect both your heart and body. Even an apprentice in my art could put those facts in their proper order.'

'What, is that all you have deduced?' Firesong retorted, more sharply than he had intended.

Silverfox looked directly into his eyes with unveiled candor. 'There is more, but those are the things I can do something about, and only if you will talk about them.'

'Oh, you can, can you?' Firesong hoisted himself up out of the pool abruptly, wrapping himself in an enveloping robe so that his body would not betray his thoughts any further.

Silverfox heeded his example, and followed him when he headed for the stairs to the ekele. 'Yes, I can, and it is not a boast. That is my particular avocation, and I am as skilled in it as you are skilled in your avocation of mage. I have been studying and practicing my art for as long as you have.'

Firesong remained silent for the time it took to climb the stairs, but turned angrily to face the kestra'chern when they both reached the top. 'I suppose you can do something about the way that An'desha has turned away from me, then? And you can silence that interfering sprout, Karal, so that An'desha gets no more stupid ideas, no more obsession with mysticism? Things between us were perfectly adequate until he came along! If there is anyone to blame here, it is Karal! An'desha depended on me, not on some idiot priest from a land that considers the Star-Eyed's people to be barbaric eaters of raw meat!'

Too late, he realized that his mouth had run away with him again; he flushed, turned away, and flung himself sullenly onto the couch. He stared out the window rather than looking at Silverfox. It should be easier to keep a tight rein on his mouth if he wasn't staring into the kestra'chern's eyes.

If only it were possible to keep a tight rein on his emotions.

Outside the window an interlacing of stark, leafless branches against the snow reminded him of clutching talons.

A soft shush of fabric told him that Silverfox had taken a seat nearby, but not on the couch itself. 'An'desha is not your lifebonded mate, and you knew that the moment he began to turn away from you. You also must know that nothing you could have said or done, nothing that was said to him, could ever make him into something he was not,' the kestra'chern pointed out with cool logic. 'And as for the way he no longer depends on you, is that as a result of meddling by Karal, or as a result of things you yourself did? You are a Healing Adept, Firesong—your own heart surely told you that such clutching dependence as you have described to me already was not healthy. You yourself must have set in motion the course that eventually led him away from your side; you could not betray your own avocation. Heal he must, even if it leads him away from you.'

Firesong flushed again, and before he could stop himself, he had turned to face Silverfox once more, his anger smoldering within him and threatening to burst out. 'But Karal's interference ruined everything! Where he led An'desha was not the direction I intended to take things!' he stormed. His voice rose, and his throat tightened as he clenched both his fists with barely restrained rage. 'Damn him! He has no idea of my forbearance—a hundred times I could easily have killed him to get him out of our lives!' His rage rose into a killing thing. 'I still could!' he shouted. 'I wish I had!'

Across the room, Aya shrieked, and simultaneously, a vase shattered.