Magic's Price

He began the trek back to the Palace, dusk thickening around him, his head throbbing in time with his steps. Friendship. Oh, certainly. Havens, Van, he chided himself. You know very well that you're just looking for excuses to see more of Stef.

Now, finally, a breeze blew up; a stiff one, that made the branches bend a little. He had warmed up quite a bit just from the long walk, but although the cool air felt good against his forehead, it made him shiver. Well, there's no harm in it, except to me. I'm certainly exercising all my self-control. . . .

The depth of his attraction to the Bard bothered him, and not only because he felt the lad was still pursuing him out of hero-worship. As night fell around him and the lights of the Palace began to appear in the windows, he realized that over the past few weeks he had become more and more confused about his relationship with Stefen. Stars appeared long before he reached the doors to the Palace gardens, and he looked up at them, wishing he could find an answer in their patterns.

I don't understand this at all. I want to care for him so much-too much. It feels like I'm betraying 'Lendel's memory.

He turned away from the night sky and pulled open the door, blinking at the light from the lantern set just inside it.

He entered the hall, and closed the door behind him. Great good gods, the boy should be glad I'm not 'Lendel, he thought, with a hint of returning humor. 'Lendel would have cheerfully tumbled the lad into bed long before this. Gods, I need that headache tea -

Evidently the gods thought otherwise, for at that moment, a page waiting in the hallway spotted him, and ran to meet him.

“Herald Vanyel,” the child panted. “The King wants you! Jisa's done something horrible!”

The child couldn't tell him much; just that Jisa had come to Randale's suite with Treven and a stranger. There had been some shouting, and the page had been called in from the hall. Randale had collapsed onto his couch, Shavri and Jisa were pale as death, and Shavri had sent the page off in search of Vanyel.

An odd gathering waited for him in Randale's suite; The King and Shavri, Jisa and young Treven, the Seneschal, Joshe, and a stranger in the robes of a priest of Astera. And a veritable swarm of servants and Guards. By this time, Vanyel was ready to hear almost anything; a tale of theft, murder, drunkenness - but not what Jisa flatly told him, with a rebellious lift of her chin.

“Married?” he choked, looking from Jisa to Treven and back again. “You've gotten married? How? Who in the Havens' name would dare?”

“I did, Herald Vanyel.” The stranger said; not cowed, as Vanyel would have expected, but defiantly. As he raised his head, the cowl of his robe fell back, taking his face out of the shadows. It was no one Vanyel knew, and not a young man. Middle-aged, or older; that was Van's guess. Old enough not to have been tricked into this.

“I wasn't tricked,” the priest continued, as if he had read Vanyel's thought. “I knew who they were; they told me. No one specifically forbade them to marry, and it seemed to me that there was no reason to deny them that status.”

“No reason -” Vanyel couldn't get anything else out.

“The vows are completely legal and binding,” Joshe said apologetically. “The only way they could be broken would be if either of them wanted a divorcement.”

Treven put his arm around Jisa, and the girl took his hand in hers. Both of them stared at Vanyel with rebellion in their eyes; rebellion, and a little fear.

Randale chose that moment to turn a shade lighter and gasp. Shavri was at his side in an instant; and in the next, had him taken out of the room into their private quarters.

“No reason,” Vanyel repeated in disbelief. “What about Treven's duty to Valdemar? What are we going to do now, if the only way out of a problem is an alliance-marriage?”

He addressed the priest, but it was Treven who replied. “I thought about that, Herald Vanyel,” he said. “I thought about it quite a long time. Then I did some careful checking - and unless you plan to have me turn shaych, there isn't anyone who could possibly suit as a marriage candidate, not even in Karse - unless there's some barbarian chieftain's daughter up north that nobody knows about. Of the unwedded, most are past childbearing, and the rest are infants. Of the wedded who might possibly lose their husbands in the next five years, most are bound with contracts that keep them tied to their spouse's land, and the rest are the designated regents for their minor children.” Despite his relatively mild tone, Treven's expression boded no good for anyone who got in his way. “I didn't see any reason to deny ourselves happiness when we know that we're lifebonded.”

“Happiness?” Shavri's voice sounded unusually shrill. “You talk about happiness, here?” She stood in the doorway, clutching a fold of her robe just below her throat. “You've put my daughter right back in the line of succession, you young fool! Do you have any idea how long and hard I fought to keep her out of that position? You've seen what the Crown has done to