answered.
Kestrel pulled on clothes, grabbed his message tube, and opened the door. Giardell stood across the hall, as polished and prepared as ever. Kestrel was glad to see him; Giardell was solid and reliable, seemingly incorruptible in his devotion to his duty, which was guarding Colonel Silvan.
Kestrel made one needed stop, and then the two of them crossed the military base to the office building that raised Kestrel’s hackles.
“Messenger Kestrel has arrived,” Giardell announced as he leaned in the doorway of Silvan’s office, then opened the door wide in response to an unintelligible comment from within, and Kestrel entered the office. Silvan stood behind his desk, looking as grandfatherly as before, a gentle smile on his face.
The window shades allowed narrow slates of light to fall in slices across the floor; for just a second, Kestrel had an irrational feeling that they were jail bars, and he was about to be trapped in a cell.
Silvan came around his desk and walked out to greet Kestrel. He shook his hand, then held out his other for the messenger tube. “Kestrel, it’s quite a surprise to see you back like this,” he examined Kestrel’s ears and eyebrows carefully, then looked into his eyes. “I hope you’re at peace,” he said, “and if you’re not, I’d like to help you find your peace.
“Have a seat,” he motioned, towards the chairs at the desk, then walked around the desk and opened the tube. He began to read the message within before he had even sat down, leaving Kestrel to fidget as he absorbed the contents.
“Have you had anything to eat this morning?” he asked as he looked up suddenly.
“No sir,” Kestrel replied.
“Why don’t you and Giardell go to the commissary and grab a bite of food, and please bring a jelly cracker back for me,” he gave a slight grin as Kestrel rose and left the room.
“Let me guess, we’re supposed to get a jelly cracker for Silvan?” Giardell asked as Kestrel reemerged.
“I can get some breakfast for myself too,” Kestrel grinned. “You could too.”
The commissary food was basic but filling, and Kestrel found that he was too nervous to eat heartily, so after a few minutes at a table with a partially filled plate, they returned to the office building. When Kestrel walked into Silvan’s office to deliver the pastry and resume the interview, he found that Alicia was waiting for him as well.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath at the sight of the elven maid who had deceived him and operated on him.
“I’m sorry to see such a reaction, Kestrel,” she said, lowering the hand she had raised to shake with. “I really like you. No one else has ever fought for me the way you did, and no one else will ever introduce me to sprites and imps the way you have!
“May I approach and examine you?” she asked as he slowly stepped over to give Silvan his jelly cracker.
“Yes,” Kestrel said in a quiet voice.
“Will you attack her or harm her if she approaches?” Silvan asked.
Kestrel sat in a chair. No,” he replied. She started to walk towards him. “Probably not,” he qualified his answer, and she stopped in her tracks, a flicker of fear on her lovely face.
“No,” Kestrel, clarified, pleased to see she took his anger seriously. She was so beautiful, so exotic in appearance, but she had so grossly violated his trust that he looked upon her with all the wariness of a wounded animal watching a hunter approach.
Carefully she approached him, and knelt down beside him looking at his ear, then gently touching it. “Can you feel my touch?” she asked calmly.
“Like a stinging wasp,” Kestrel answered.
She circled around behind him and looked at his other ear, then touched his eyebrow. “Do you feel this touch?” her finger gently massaged his forehead.
“Yes,” he told her. She stood up and walked back over to Silvan’s side. “Everything is as if nothing had ever been done. There’s complete nerve regeneration, and not a sign of scar material anywhere.
“How often did you apply the healing water?” she asked.
“Just three or four times when my ears started to regrow, and those times I didn’t even put in on my ears. A couple of times I just got it on my hands while I was applying the water to someone else,” he told the two of them. “And then after that I used it to heal the things the goddess did.”
“May I, may we, see that, please?” Alicia asked.
Kestrel stood with a stolid expression on his face, and wordlessly removed his shirt. They both came around the desk this time, looking him over with the most meticulous attention, as he stared at a spot on the distant wall.
“This is where the goddess touched you?” Alicia asked, her hand settled into the scarred handprint on his back.
“No, she touched me here,” he motioned towards his chest. “But her powers went all the way through me to my back.”
They both bent and tried to decipher the writing on his chest. “It’s written in human,” Alicia commented. “I can’t read it.”
“Kai’s champion, Estone’s Champion, Humanity’s Champion,” Kestrel told her, remembering the words Belinda had spoken.
“Are you?” Silvan asked.
“I am who I am. That is what a goddess has named me,” Kestrel replied.
“If we offer to return your ears to human form, will you go off on the mission we assign you to, or will you go off to live life among the humans as one of them because that’s what you want to do?” the colonel asked shrewdly, coming around to face Kestrel, as Alicia continued to look closely at his chest mark.
“I’d try to carry out the mission,” Kestrel answered.
“It looks like there’s a little bit of a scratch along it right here,” her finger drew a line on his chest.
“I was hit by an arrow a couple of nights ago. That’s probably from the spot where the arrow bounced off,” Kestrel said.
“It protects you from arrows?” Silvan asked in astonishment.
“It cannot be penetrated,” Kestrel confirmed.
“Astonishing,” Alicia murmured.
“Do you want to go on this mission, the one we had planned for you, to go to the human nations and learn about their war plans against the elves?” Silvan asked.
“But not to do any harm to Estone’s people?” Kestrel clarified.
“Estone has done us no harm, so we have no intention for you to fight against them,” Silvan agreed.
“I accept the assignment,” Kestrel answered.
“Alicia, go prepare yourself,” Silvan said.
“Do you have any more of your healing water?” she asked Kestrel.
“No, not here with me,” he thought of the skin of water he had given to Belinda for her husband. “But I can go to the spring and get some more,” he added.
“How long will it take?” Silvan asked.
Kestrel wasn’t sure whether Dewberry would interrupt her honeymoon for him, although she had come to him once already when it suited her. “Possibly a couple of hours, possibly a couple of days,” he answered cautiously. “Give me some water skins and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Ah yes,” Silvan said as he realized Kestrel’s intent. “You do have some extraordinary resources to call upon, don’t you?
“Go get some skins and return here when you have the water. We’ll carry on from there,” Silvan decided. “You’re both dismissed,” he addressed both Kestrel and Alicia.
Stiffly, Kestrel left the office and went down the stairs, heading to the quartermaster’s depot to get his skins. “Kestrel, wait, please,” he heard Alicia’s voice behind him. He reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped without turning around.
“Will you ever forgive me?” she asked as she hurried down the stairs to catch up with him.
“No,” he said flatly.
