closely, and there was more, much more, that Tre'valen had not told them. For a moment he was at a loss as to what it could be.
Then the memory of the young shaman's face, gazing up at a bird that might have been Dawnfire, suddenly intruded. He had not seen that particular expression of desire very often, but when he had, it always meant the same thing.
'You long for her, do you not?' Starblade asked quietly, and to his own satisfaction, he watched Tre'valen start, and begin to stammer something about emotions and proper detachment.
'Enough,' Kethra interrupted her younger colleague. 'Starblade is right, and I should have recognized this when I saw it. You have become fascinated-enamored. With Dawnfire. I think perhaps you may have fallen in love with her.'
'I-have-' Tre'valen looked from one to the other of them, and capitulated, all at once. 'Yes,' he replied, in a low, unhappy voice. 'I have. I tried to tell myself that I was simply bedazzled, but it is not simple, nor it is bedazzlement. I-do not know what 'love' is, but if it means that one is concerned for the other above one's own self-I must be in love with her, with that part of her that is still human in spirit.
And I know not what to do. There is no precedent.' It was one thing to suspect something like that. It was quite another to hear confirmation of it from Tre'valen's own mouth. Starblade looked to his beloved for some kind of an answer, and got only a tight-lipped shrug. She did not know what to make of this, either.
A nasty little tangle they had gotten into a worse thing still to offend ~ deity. If indeed, they were doing so.
'Do I take it that the Star-Eyed has offered you no signs?' Starblade said delicately. 'No hint as to how Her feelings run in this matter.
Tre'valen shook his head. 'Only that She has permitted us to continue to meet, either in this world or in the spirit realms. And she has granted Dawnfire the visions that I told you, the ones I do not understand, about ancient magic returning. And about the need for peoples to unite and change in some way.' Starblade closed his eyes for a moment, but no answers came to him, so he analyzed the few facts in the matter. Dawnfire was not dead, at least not in the accepted sense. But she was no longer anything like a human being. Mornelithe Falconsbane had destroyed her body, but left her spirit-her soul-alive and in her bondbird. Such a tragedy would have meant a slow fading until at last there was nothing of the human left, leaving a mentally crippled raptor to live as long as it could. But in this, there was a powerful being that had shown Her interest in the situation by creating some kind of different creature out of Dawnfire.
Dawnfire was not like the leshya Kal'enedral, who were entirely of the spirit-world, yet could, on occasion, intervene in the physical realm. And not like a mage, who could on occasion intervene in the spirit world.
She seemed to dwell in both worlds at once, and yet truly touched neither.
The Shin'a'in face of the Goddess-her Warrior face, in fact-seemed to have created her, then abandoned her. It was most unwise to second-guess a deity; what appeared to have been abandoned may have, in fact, been left to mature.
'All that I can say is that I warn you to be careful,' he said at last.
'These are strange waters that you swim in, and I know not what lurks beneath the surface. Whatever it is, is fearsome, shaman.'
'I know,' Tre'valen said at last, after a long pause. 'I know this.
The Star-Eyed marked Dawnfire for her own, but to what purpose, She has not revealed. She might not approve of my-inclinations and intentions.'
' Starblade could only shrug. 'I am not a shaman,' he pointed out.
'You are. I say only-be careful and consider first what is best for Dawnfire and those you have sworn to serve.'
'I shall.' Tre'valen stood, and moved toward the door. 'I will keep you closely informed from this moment of what I see. And-of what I feel. ' He bowed, turned, and descended the stairs quickly, but the air of trouble he had brought with him remained. Kethra held Starblade's hands wordlessly for a long time afterward.
Darkwind tossed his head, and sent his soaking-wet hair whipping over his shoulder. Sweat poured down his forehead and stung his eyes, but external vision did not matter. Internal vision did.
No matter that he had picked a quarrel with Elspeth not half a candlemark before they joined Firesong in the glade that he had made into their Working Place. No matter that he had left her without a reply to the hurtful words he had not truly meant, but said anyway. Once across the invisible boundary, he and Elspeth were two halves of a working whole, and there was no quarrel dividing them.
He frankly had not expected that of her. He had been faintly surprised when her power joined to his with no hesitation. But he could not be less than she, his pride would not Permit it.
But he wondered, in a tiny, unoccupied section of his mind, if he had deliberately quarreled with her in hopes that she would storm off, making it impossible for them to practice with Firesong driving them?
Firesong lived up to his use-name; his power-signature crackled with illusory flames, and he used music, drumbeats, to focus it. That made it easier, rather than harder, for Darkwind to follow him; all of his training as a dancer came to the fore, guiding him where he might otherwise have stumbled blindly. So Darkwind had gone Firesong one better; now in the circle he danced his magic, eyes closed, moving in place.
I am going to be much leaner before this is all over... and a better dancer.
Elspeth, interestingly enough, chose to follow his dancing with a manifestation of power he had heard of, but had never seen; lightweaving.
She created patterns of energy that matched his dancing and Firesong's drums, uniting them, in a way that he didn't understand, but fit well.
It seemed that Firesong didn't understand it either, for the first time Elspeth had woven her light-web he had been drilling them in the creation of a kind of containment vessel that was meant to contract down around something and hold itfiresong had been startled and had lost the beat-Darkwind had seen only the pattern and danced it-and the web contracted around Firesong.
