'I also think it would be fortuitous to bring the scrolls you took from Ciredor with you. After your grueling encounter with him, I still marvel that you had the presence of mind to take them with you,' he admitted proudly. 'I have a feeling that their meaning will become clear on this journey.'
' 'Better to be prepared than caught empty-handed,'' she quoted with a touch of sarcasm.
'Always,' he answered. 'The last thing I would advise is that you have both Fannah and Steorf accompany you.'
Tazi tilted her head and almost looked over her shoulder at him when Cale mentioned Steorf by name. She stopped herself, feeling that it would somehow be a defeat to turn. If he was going to send her off without him, then so be it. She would be on her own.
'Fannah will be much safer under your constant care,' he told her, and Tazi swelled a little at the compliment. 'And you might find that in this journey you will need a mage you can trust.'
Cale sighed wearily. Now it was his shoulders that sagged as if under a great weight.
'Steorf,' he nearly whispered, 'is a mage you can trust, Thazienne.'
With that admission, Cale turned and walked over to his chair. He stood beside it and lightly rested his hand on its arm, the same hand he had wanted to touch Tazi with earlier.
Once again, Cale had shocked her. Tazi never thought he would've recommended Steorf for anything, let alone as a comrade on so deadly an undertaking as this. She swallowed hard and turned to face him only to discover that Cale had moved away and presented his straight back to her.
'If you think that is the course of action to take,' she finally replied, 'then I'll follow it.'
'You have to do what you think is the wisest, Thazienne,' he reminded her. 'For in the end, you live only with yourself.'
'Thank you for everything,' she told him quietly.
Cale didn't turn, only nodded his head slowly in response. Tazi felt torn, wanting to go to him but also fearing to trust him, or herself, completely. When the awkward moment stretched out too long, she finally moved to go. She swung open the heavy door but paused in the doorway, not wanting to leave things between them like this.
Tazi glanced back, half hoping to find him looking at her, but Cale still presented that rigid back to her. She found the sight oddly heartbreaking, the emotions he triggered in her a surprise even to Tazi. As she turned to leave, her eyes caught sight of his pine trunk. Closing the door behind her, Tazi realized that in all these years she never had found out what he kept in there-or in his heart.
At the sound of Tazi's departure, Cale turned toward the door.
'Safe journey, dear heart,' he whispered.
Shamur Uskevren watched for a moment longer and silently slid the viewing panel shut. Once she was certain it was sealed tight, she re-lit her lamp. She was especially cautious because she knew how observant Cale could be. If neither her daughter, Tazi, nor Cale had been aware that she had been witness to their whole conversation, she was probably safe from discovery.
Though she was barefoot and dressed only in her silk nightclothes, Shamur ignored the chill. Her mind preoccupied with the events she had just observed, she made her way through the passage automatically. As far as Shamur knew only she and her husband, Thamalon, had any knowledge of the intricate, hidden routes that honeycombed Stormweather Towers. The spy portals had come in handy on many occasions when Shamur needed to test the loyalties of the various servants and guards the Uskevren hired from time to time. Tonight, they had revealed much more than loyalty.
Shamur's feet were so numb with cold by the time she returned that she hardly noticed as she crossed from the stone floor to the luxurious carpeting of her private bedroom. But she was not so distracted that she didn't observe that her fire was dying. She moved over to the ornately carved fireplace and added a log to the smoldering embers. A few moments of fanning and the wood was crackling cheerfully again.
Certain the fire was stoked, Shamur padded around her canopied bed to her wooden armoire. She let her hand slide down the left side of the chest, her delicate fingers searching the various carved figures. Using a combination known only to her, Shamur pressed several of the indentations in the designs at once. With a tiny click, a panel swung open.
She reached into the shallow compartment and withdrew the only item that was inside. Shamur held the note carefully in her hand, as if it was some precious artifact. The faintest trace of her daughter's perfume still lingered on the parchment.
She settled herself onto the settee near the fireplace and looked over the note with her keen gray eyes. There were only a few lines scrawled on it, and Shamur had read them so many times, she knew them by heart. Still, she read them aloud once more.
' 'Whatever good is in me exists because of you,'' she quoted. ' 'Ai armiel telere maenen hir. Cale.' '
As she had for so many months, Shamur once again sent up a silent prayer that she had discovered the note before her daughter had.
That night of Thazienne's grievous wounds, Shamur couldn't sleep. She had needed to see her daughter's chest rise and fall one more time to reassure herself that Tazi still lived, regardless of what the priests told her. Only then would she be able to rest. Since she didn't want to have to explain herself to anyone, let alone the servants, Shamur had quietly slipped into Thazienne's bedroom after she saw Cale depart that night.
Walking over to her daughter's bedside, Shamur was amazed to discover the sudden, romantic confession Cale had left behind, written on her daughter's personal stationary.
Shamur was slightly in shock from the culmination of events that evening, and the note was too much for her. She slid it into a fold of her robe and, when she returned to her chambers later on, she hid the missive in the hollow panel in her wardrobe. She felt she needed some time to decide what was best for her daughter.
Now, a year later, she saw that some sort of divide existed between her daughter and Erevis Cale. Obviously, he had never spoken of his feelings for her except in that note.
Perhaps he has grown tired of waiting for a sign from Thazienne, the woman who 'holds his heart forever,' she thought, before coming to a decision.
Shamur looked a final time at the Elvish words of love written to her daughter from a family servant and threw the note into the fire. As the flames licked up the paper, Shamur felt certain she had done the right thing.
She loved her daughter fiercely and would do anything to ensure Thazienne's happiness. She wouldn't have her daughter trapped in a painful union if it could be avoided. Being linked to a common servant just wasn't right for her daughter, though it had taken this sad encounter between Tazi and Cale to cement her decision. Shamur had struggled for months with what was best and took this night as a sign. With the letter destroyed, she felt certain Thazienne's long-term contentment was ensured.
A soft knock on the door startled Shamur from her concerns.
'Come in,' she said.
Thamalon Uskevren, wearing a maroon and gold robe, walked in.
'I'm not disturbing you, am I?' he asked.
For the first time that evening, Shamur smiled. With her ash-blonde hair loose about her face, she looked more her daughter's age. That fact was not lost to her husband's appreciative gaze.
'Come sit with me,' she invited, patting the cushion next to her.
A year before, Shamur would never have extended an offer that intimate to her husband, but many things had changed over the past months, mostly for the better. She didn't have to hide behind a mask with him any longer. When all was said and done, there was no one else with whom she would rather share a moment like this.
Thamalon sat down beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Shamur settled against him and let a small sigh escape her lips.
'What keeps you awake, wife?' Thamalon asked kindly.
'I'm just thinking of our children,' she finally replied. 'There are so many things that could go awry for them.'
The Old Owl, as he was known to many, kissed his wife on her head and replied, 'With you guarding them,
