Owlknight

Shandi was too logical, and fired off her arguments too quickly for Keisha to respond. She felt a headache coming on, a shaft of pain coming from her temple, even as she felt flushed and very uncomfortable. Why wouldn’t Shandi just drop the whole subject and leave her alone?

Now Shandi changed her tone to one of coaxing; she lowered her voice and cocked her head to one side. “Keisha, just because you get involved with someone, even marry him, that doesn’t mean one of you has to get swallowed up by the other. Darian doesn’t want that - if he did, trust me, you’d know it, and you have a good sense of self-preservation; you’d be running away as fast as a dyheli could carry you!” She laughed.

Shandi certainly did that, when Mother tried to swallow her up. . . .

But Shandi didn’t make that comparison, which was probably just as well. “You say that you and Darian are apart more than together now that you’re both taking on your full responsibilities - well, things change, and you have to change with them, you ought to know that by now! You’ll probably have to work some things out, maybe make some alterations in how you work, but - ”

Me? Why should I be the one to have to change? “I don’t think it’s fair for me to have to make all the compromises!” Keisha said - and cringed when she heard the whining tone in her own voice.

“So don’t! When I said ‘you’ I meant both of you!” Exasperation crept into Shandi’s voice. “Listen to what I’m saying, and don’t keep jumping to the worst possible conclusion! You make some compromises, he’ll make some, you’ll work out what’s acceptable to both of you. But don’t undermine your own happiness because you think you haven’t got anything to offer him, and don’t drive him away just because you’re afraid of a commitment!”

I’m not afraid! Keisha wanted to snap - but she knew, instantly, that it would be a lie. So she didn’t say anything at all.

Fortunately, that seemed to be the end of Shandi’s lecture. Shandi left her alone then; she didn’t ride ahead or lag behind, but she didn’t say anything more. Finally Keisha thought of something to say.

She couldn’t help it; she sounded sarcastic. “How did you become such an expert on - on - ”

“On romance?” Shandi looked over at her, and winked, taking her question at face value and ignoring the sarcasm. “Forced into it. Between all the boys that chased after me in Errold’s Grove, and all the Trainees who came to me with boy- and girl-problems, I got to be an expert fairly quickly.” She sighed heavily. “Everybody goes to an Empath for a shoulder to cry on.”

“Don’t I know it!” Keisha said involuntarily, thinking of the number of times that Shandi’s disappointed suitors had done just that to her - and that broke the uncomfortable stalemate. They both laughed, Shandi heartily, Keisha weakly.

By unspoken consent they did not discuss anything remotely uncomfortable after that. Shandi changed the subject to something completely innocuous. They spent the rest of the ride talking about trivialities, nothing that used up an awful lot of brain power, which was just as well.

Shandi had given her a great deal to occupy her thoughts.

Darian woke in the late morning feeling just as much turmoil and confusion in his mind as he’d had when he went to bed. In fact, he hadn’t really expected to sleep, but his exhausted body had decided otherwise. He turned himself out of the hammock he’d awakened in, in one of Silverfox’s workrooms, and found (as he’d expected) a fresh set of his own clothing waiting for him beside the window. And cleaned boots.

The hertasi were busy this morning.

Getting dressed, he hurried up the staircase to Firesong’s ekele above, certain that he would find his mentor there, probably engrossed in a magical text.

He was not wrong; Firesong looked up as soon as he poked his nose in the door. “Get over here,” Firesong ordered, pointing to a low chair. In a moment, his teacher had Darian sitting down with food in front of him. Firesong turned his apparent attention back to the heavy book from which he was making notes.

“Don’t say anything just yet,” Firesong cautioned, without looking up. “Eat first.” And he sat there with his arms folded across the pages, drawing delicate diagrams, while Darian did just that. Darian obeyed him, even though the food had no more taste than old leaves, and kept catching in his throat.

When he’d finished enough to satisfy the Adept, Firesong allowed him to set the tray aside and get down to a serious discussion.

“I’ve been doing some research, but I haven’t found anything that was of much use. Charting the Change- Circle against our maps put it on a proper arc, in line with others we knew of already, but since no one has yet been able to find a provable correlation between source and destination Circles when they change places, I have no prediction of where what was initially in that Circle went. I also did a little more work this morning, when I was fresher, with Starfall’s help,” Firesong told him. “Unfortunately, we got pretty much the same result. Your father is somewhere north and west of us; how far, and in exactly what direction he is, we simply can’t tell - except that it’s a long way. Farther than a hawk would fly in a week.” He sighed. “There still isn’t enough clean, clear power about for us to be able to point to him with any more accuracy than that. Best scrying we can do at present gives us a general “feel” within a quarter compass, at this distance. It is like target shooting in a dense