uneasiness was making him sweat.
'And this makes you ill at ease.' She stated it as an observation rather than a question. 'Uncomfortable in my presence whether or not I am with your father.' He sighed. 'Yes, lady. It is not just because you are a shaman, though there is something to that.' Kethra chuckled. 'Shaman make you nervous?' Darkwind took a deep breath and chose his words carefully. 'Shaman as a rule can make one uncomfortable by seeing more than one would like. That is not the whole of it, though. I do not know what to say to you, or how to treat you. You are the first of my father's lovers who has been a full partner since my mother's death. And when I am looking objectively at my memories, it seems to me that you have more patience and compassion than my mother had. And yet-'
'And yet, what of your loyalty to your true mother, now that I have come to replace her? Surely I seem an interloper. I suffer by comparison with your memory of her.'
'It is easy to regard someone who is dead as without peer,' he told her candidly. 'I have lost enough friends and loved ones to be aware of that.' He cocked his head to one side, and nibbled his lower lip. This was, possibly, one of the oddest conversations he had ever taken part in.
'Say this. I know that I can call you friend. I think if you will give me time, I can even come to call you more than that. Will this serve?'
Her smile widened, and she reached out a hand to clasp his, warmly.
'It will serve,' she told him. 'Friend alone would have served; I am pleased you think of me that well. I was not sure, Darkwind. You are adept at hiding your true feelings-you have had need to, I know. That is not unique to Tayledras, Shin'a'in, or any other people. Trust me, we shaman need to hide our feelings ourselves sometimes, to struggle through pain.' He shrugged. 'We all have needed to hide true feelings here, to one extent or another. Events have made it necessary.' She nodded. 'Well, at least you and I have looked beneath the masks, and not run from what we have found.' He smiled, impressed by her steadfast sense of humor. 'Now the unpleasant news. Your father is still far from recovered. It will not take weeks or even months to cure him; it will be a matter of years.' He took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. He felt his shoulders slumping, and remembered that it made a poor impression of strength, but he knew Kethra would see through any attempts to hide his emotions, either by words or body language. He closed his eyes. 'I had thought so, but I had not liked to believe it. Father has always been so--strong. He has always recovered quickly from things. Are you quite certain of this?' A deep, somewhat strained male voice spoke from behind them.
'You must believe it, my son,' said Starblade. Darkwind jerked his head up and turned to face him. Starblade wore a thin, loose-cut restinggown that Songwind... Darkwind had designed for him a decade ago.
The Adept walked slowly into the clearing, and now that he knew the truth, Darkwind saw the traces of severe damage done to him, physically as well as mentally.
Starblade found a space beside Kethra and joined her. 'You must. I am but a shadow of what I was. In fact,' he chuckled as if he found the idea humorous, 'I have considered changing my use-name to Star shadow. Except that we already have a Shadowstar, and that would be confusing for everyone.' Darkwind clenched his hands. It wasn't easy hearing Starblade confess to weakness; it was harder hearing him admit to such profound weakness that he'd thought of altering his use-name. That implied a lasting condition, as when Songwind had become Darkwind, and sometimes an irreparable condition.
Starblade sat carefully down beside the shaman, and took her hand in his. His left hand-the one that Darkwind had pierced with his dagger as part of his father's freeing from Mornelithe Falconsbane. It showed a glossy, whitened scar a half-thumblength long now that the bandages had been removed. 'I hope that you and I have reconciled our differences, MY son,' he said, as Darkwind tried not to squirm, 'because I must tell you that I do not trust my decision-making ability any more than I can rely on my faded powers.' Darkwind started to blurt out a protest; his father stopped him. 'oh, not for the small decisions, the everyday matters. But for the decisions that affect us all deeply-and the ones I made in the past-I do not feel that I can continue without another view to temper mine. In our Healings, I see my actions laid on bare earth, without order. As I am rebuilt, Kethra helps me to understand the motivations behind those actions. and reject those that Falconsbane engineered. It is a slow process, Darkwind.
I do not know which of the decisions I have made were done out of pride, out of good judgment, or out of the direction of our enemies.
I need you, my son; I need your vision, and I need your newly regained powers. More so: k'sheyna needs them.' Now Darkwind was numb. At the moment, all he could do was to nod. But this-this was frightening, inconceivable. Even at his worst, when Starblade had been trying to thwart him at every turn, he had been in control, he had been powerful. He had been someone who at least could be relied upon to know what he was doing, a bastion of strength. Full of certainty.
This was like hearing that the rock beneath the Vale was sand, and that the next storm could wash it away.
Kethra and Starblade both were waiting for some kind of response, so he got himself under some semblance of control, and gave them one.
'What is it you want me to do?' he asked.
'I want your opinions, your thoughts,' Starblade told him, his lined and weary face showing every day of his age. 'I need them. The most pressing concern is the Heartstone; what do you think we should do about it? You know enough to make some educated guesses about it.
We cannot stabilize it, not without help. I do not think that we can drain it, either. When we try, it fluxes unpredictably. And after you have given me your opinion, I want your help in doing whatever it is that we must to end this trouble-I want you to take my place as the key of the Adepts' circle.'
He shook his head at that, violently. 'Father, I can't. I haven't even begun to relearn all I've forgotten and-'
'The strength of your will and youth will counter that lack of practice,' Kethra said, interrupting him. 'The key need not be the most experienced Adept, but he must be the strongest, and you are that.' Starblade coughed, then settled himself, fixing Darkwind with a sincere look. 'I will explain it to you in this light, then. Your mother and I raised you to be a strong and responsible person, Scout or Mage. Now, the strength that I taught you has been taken from me. You are at least in part the vessel of my old personality. I would appreciate relearning what I was from you, and learning your strength.' Given a choice, he would have told them it was impossible; turned and fled from the Vale, back to his ekele. But he had no choice, and all three of them knew that. He bowed to their will. 'If that is truly what you want,' he said unhappily. 'If it is, then I shall.' Thank you,' Starblade said, simply. As Kethra stood up, he rose to his feet to place one hand on his son's shoulder. 'This-confession has cost me a great deal, but I think it has gained me more. I have given over wanting you to be a copy of me, and I wish that Wintermoon and I had not drifted so far apart that I cannot say those same words to him and be believed. Perhaps in time, he will not be lost to me. I do not wish you to be anything but yourself, Darkwind. Whatever comes of this, it will have
