Storm Breaking

She couldn't begin to imagine how Rusi and Severn could bear to stay back there in what was left of their village. Granted, there was plenty of material to make more than one of the houses sound and weather tight again. And granted, they were well-equipped to do just that. But the aching emptiness of the abandoned village would have sent her screaming for Valdemar within a week.

It was more than she could bear to think about right now. I've done a great deal that people think is brave, but I'm not that brave.

But that was also assuming that the land around the village was as deserted as it looked. When the mage- storms created killing weather and murderous monsters, would it have been safer and smarter to fortify the farmsteads and stay where the food was, or to come into the village and trust in numbers and weapons but chance the food running out? It wasn't a decision Elspeth had ever needed to make, and she hoped it was one nobody in Valdemar would be forced to face.

For that, all their hopes rested with that tiny group in the middle of the Dhorisha Plains, in the ruins of Urtho's Tower. If anyone could find an answer, it would be them. Although Elspeth and Darkwind were both Adept-class mages, Elspeth was relatively untutored and Darkwind had abandoned magic for so many years that despite his considerable prowess he still considered himself out of practice. As mages, they were of no help to the researchers who had gone to the Tower. They might be of some use with the Imperials, and they would be of great use as envoys.

She knew that Queen Selenay had debated long and hard before deciding to send Elspeth and Darkwind as envoys from the Alliance to Tremane. The Queen hadn't wanted to send Elspeth, but Elspeth was the only logical choice—she could make autonomous decisions, she had been trained both as a Herald and to wear the crown herself—she was the next best thing to Selenay when it came to being able to think for Valdemar. Elspeth had proven that she had good judgment, and because she was no longer the Heir since her abdication, she was of little value as a political hostage. Moreover, she had been trained by Kerowyn to defend herself against assassins; she could take care of herself in an ambush or an even fight, and she was as suspicious as even that redoubtable woman could have wished.

Then there was magic, in which she was an Adept; Tremane was no more than a Master, though of a far different magical discipline than the one she had been trained in. Very few of the Heralds of Valdemar were mages at all, much less Adepts, and although their Companions would be able to help them to some extent in matters of magic, it was no substitute for being mages themselves.

All that might not have been enough, except for Darkwind; he was an Adept as well, and of longer standing than she. He had been a Tayledras scout, which made him something of a fighter as well. He would have refused flatly to accompany anyone else; he was not a Herald, and his loyalties were to her, not Valdemar. Whereas she would hardly have gone anywhere without him, of course, and together they were a formidable pair.

Between her own qualifications and Darkwind's, there simply was no one as 'right' to go on this mission as Elspeth, and if she had been anyone else's daughter, Selenay would not have hesitated for a moment to send her.

To give Mother credit, she didn't hesitate long. Elspeth was actually a bit pleased at that; Selenay had been treating her less as a daughter and more as—as an adult, and Elspeth had gotten the feeling, more than once, that when the Queen forgot to think of her as her daughter, she acted naturally. In a way, given the Queen's behavior of late, Elspeth had been a little surprised that her mother had given second thoughts to the mission. I wonder if some of what has made her hesitate in the past was more guilt than anything else.

Could it have been? Elspeth and her mother had never been comfortable with each other. No matter how hard she tried, she always saw my father in me. In so many ways, I was more Talia's child than hers. Now Selenay had the twins, children she could give her whole heart to; could she be feeling guilt that she didn't have that same maternal bond with Elspeth? Was that why she had always overreacted when Elspeth did something that might put her in jeopardy—because she felt as if she should have been more worried, more emotionally involved than she was?

An interesting theory, and one I'll never learn the truth of. I certainly couldn't ask her that, and the only other person who would know will never tell me. Talia would never betray anything she learned of Mother's heart, and rightly so. Elspeth gave herself a mental shake. Did it matter? Not really. Except that—if that was indeed the case, she wished she could convince her mother that it didn't matter. The last thing that the Queen of Valdemar needed was one more thing to feel guilty about. She already carried enough guilt for twenty people.

And I would rather be Queen Selenay's friend and fellow Herald than her daughter.

But the thought did present one explanation for some of Selenay's contradictory behavior, and it was certainly worth keeping in the back of her mind. She could watch for evidence of her own, and it would be interesting to act on that theory and see what happened.

Meanwhile, there was a long and difficult job ahead of her, and there was a danger they might all freeze to death before they even got to it if they didn't find some Hardornens soon.

'How much farther do you think this town is?' she called back over her shoulder. She glanced back to see— what was the Guard-Captain's name? Vallen, that was it—to see Vallen shrug, the movement barely visible beneath his multiple layers of fur, sheepskin, and wool.

'Soon, I think, but that is just a guess,' he replied. Despite the scarf he wore about his face, his words came clearly over the muffled hoofbeats of their various mounts, over the creaking of the packed snow beneath those hooves. He gave his horse a nudge with his heels, and took the lead position as Elspeth and Darkwind moved aside