Magic's Price

this time. There's no one to care if we're lovers! What's the difference if I'm with you or not?”

Finally Vanyel turned around; his face was set in a stony mask, and his eyes were inward-focused, as if he was trying not to see Stef, only his shadow. “The difference is that you're not a Herald, you're not combat-trained, you can't even defend yourself from one man with a sword. You're a liability, Stef. I told you when we first -”

“How am I any safer here?” he interrupted, desperately, playing shamelessly on the guilt he knew Vanyel felt over Savil's death. “Savil wasn't safe! If someone wants to use me against you, all they have to do is wait until you're gone, and take me. Anybody who can do what's been done so far could make one of those Gate-things, grab me while everybody's asleep, and be gone before I could yell for help! You said yourself I couldn't protect myself from one man with a sword - how am I going to protect myself against something like that?”

He balled his hands into fists, to keep from gouging the wood of the door with his nails. The room was much too hot, and it was very hard to breathe. Vanyel seemed to waver for a moment, the mask cracking - then his lips tightened. The fire flared up, making his face look even harsher and more masklike.

“I don't have time for this, Stef. I have a job to do, and you're only going to get in the way.” The words were deliberately hurtful, and if Stef hadn't felt a trace of contrary emotions through the bond that tied them together, he might have fled at that moment.

He's so driven - but I can crack that shell. I have to. Just enough so that he'll let me come with him . . . but it's a mistake to bring up Savil again. That's what's driving him.

“I'm coming with you,” he said stubbornly, moving away from the door and toward Vanyel. “If you won't take me with you, I'll follow you. If you set somebody to watch me, I'll get away somehow. If you won't let me stay with you, I'll ride an hour behind you.” He stopped for a moment, then made the last two steps in a rush, taking Vanyel in his arms before the Herald could evade the embrace. Vanyel held himself away, as stiffly as the night they'd first met, but Stef hid his face in Vanyel's jerkin anyway. “I don't care what you do,” he said into Vanyel's shoulder, his cheek pressed tightly against the smooth leather. “I love you, and I'm following you. I don't care what happens to me, as long as I can be with you.”

“What about Randale?” Vanyel asked in a strange, hollow voice.

“I'm not in love with Randale,” Stef replied, a little defensively. “I'm not a Herald, you said that yourself, and I don't see that I owe him anything. There're a dozen Healers that can pain-block now; three of them can do it while Randale's awake and talking. I'm just a convenience; he doesn't need me any more, and with Treven taking over full Heir's duties, he won't even have to do anything he doesn't feel up to.”

“Shavri would probably dispute that,” Vanyel said dryly, but his rigid posture was softening.

“She did,” Stefen told him, encouraged by that tiny sign. “And I told her she could force me to stay, but she couldn't force me to play. She looked like she wanted to throw something at me, but she didn't. She just told me what she thought of me. It started with 'traitor' and went downhill from there.”

“I imagine it did,” Vanyel replied with a little cough.

“She told me she'd have me demoted, that she'd have me banned from the Bardic Circle,” Stef continued, feeling that Vanyel was relaxing further. “I told her I didn't care. And I don't.” He released Vanyel a little, and looked up into the Herald's face, lifting his chin defiantly. “It doesn't matter to me. If I wanted a high position and all the rest of that, I could have gone with that gem-merchant. I used to want that kind of thing, but I don't anymore.”

“What do you want, Stef?” Vanyel asked softly, his strange silver eyes full of pain, and haunted by thoughts Stef could only guess at.

“Besides you? I don't know,” Stefen said truthfully. He'd intended to say “just you,” but something about the way Van had asked the question compelled him to the exact truth. “I only know that without you, no rank or fame would be worth having.”

“And what would you have done if Randale had still needed you?” Vanyel continued, holding Stefs eyes with his.

Stefen swallowed. His throat tightened again, and a cold lump formed in the pit of his stomach. “I d-d-don't know,” he replied miserably. “It's too hard a choice, and I didn't have to make it, so does it matter? He doesn't need me, and he told Shavri so.”

“He did?” For the first time since Savil's death, Vanyel smiled - a very faint smile, but a genuine one. “You didn't tell me that part.”

“You didn't let me get to it,” Stef reminded him, with an uncertain grin. “Randale told Shavri that he didn't need me, and that I'd only pine myself away to nothing if I had to stay. He said I should follow my heart, and that I shouldn't let you stop me. And that we needed each other.”

Vanyel's arms came up and slowly closed around Stefen. “I guess we do, at that,” he said in a whisper, and held Stef so tightly the Bard could hardly breathe.

“Will you let me come with you now?” he asked, when he was certain Van wasn't going to let go of him any time soon.