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HER VISION HAD CLEARED with her lungs, and just as she smiled involuntarily every tiht of things like leaves on trees, or the way theacross hisdirectionless walks through the forests of Luthe’s high valley, or strolled along the edge of the silver lake, watching tiny rainbows reflect off the water If she was absent too long, Luthe came to fetch her; he always seemed able to find her without trouble, however far she’d wandered Occasionally he came with her when she set out

She had paused, staring at a tree likeat her; each tiny, delicate, sharp-edged green oval shivered just for her when the breeze touched it; turned that she reen veins, the graceful way the ste to the branch, and the branch set so splendidly into the bole A green vine clung round the tree, and its leaves too stirred in the wind

Luthe idly snapped a s fro and then sahat it was - surka - and all her pleasure was gone, and her breath caught in her throat; her fingers were too numb even to drop what they held

"Hold it," snapped Luthe "Clutch it as if it were a nettle"

Her frantic fingers squeezed together till the stereen sap crept across her palm Its touch was faintly ware furry spider walked onto her wrist and paused, waving its front pair of legs at her

"Ugh," she said, and her wrist shook, and the spider fell to the ground and a

Luthe snorted with laughter, tried to turn it into a cough, inhaled at the wrong h "Truly," he said at least, "the poor surka can be a useful tool You cannot blame it for the misfortunes of your childhood If you try to breathe water, you will not turn into a fish, you will drown; but water is still good to drink"

"Ha," said Aerin, still shaken and waiting for the nausea or the dizziness, or soh for so nasty to result "The taste of water doesn’t kill people who aren’t royal"

"Mmm If the truth be known, the touch of the sap of the surka doesn’t kill people who aren’t royal either, although eating it will certainly ood story It’s the kelar in your blood that brings the surka’s h poor old Merth killed himself just as surely with it As you would have killed yourself were it not for your ht for being so stupid about that Galooney woerous, and worth more respect than a silly child’s trick like that"

"Galanna"

"Whatever All she uses her Gift for is self-aggrandizeuided malice thrown in Tor doesn’t realize how narrowly he escaped; a flicker more of the Gift in her and less in him and he’d have married her, willy-nilly, and wondered for the rest of his life why he was so h the prospect caused hi into her snares"

"What is kelar?"

Luthe pulled a handful of leaves off the surka and began to weave theether "It’s what your family calls the Gift They haven’tYou’re stiff with it - be quiet I’m not finished - for all you tried to choke me off by an overdose of surka" He eyed her "Probably you will always be a little sensitive to it, because of that; but I still believe you can learn to control it"

"I was fifteen when I ate the surka and - "

"The stronger the Gift, the later it shows up, only your purblind fa Gift to deal with in a very long time Your mother’s was late And your uncle’s," He frowned at the wreath in his hands

"My acy"

"My mother was from the North," Aerin said slowly "Was she then a witch - a demon - as they say?"

"She was no dee elders, who sell poultices to take off warts, are witches"

"Was she human?"

Luthe didn’t answer immediately "That depends on what you mean by human"

Aerin stared at hi her eyes with shadows

Luthe earing his inscrutable look again, although he bent it only on the surka wreath "Tioodly number of folk not huo Those ere hunored those not human when they met them, and now they " The inscrutable look faded, and he looked up from his hands and into the trees, and Aerin re-hall

"I’m not," he said carefully, "the best one to ask questions about things like hulanced at her "Tiain"

She shook her head, but her story since she had swum in the silver lake Luthe see food into her; he was an excellent cook, but it didn’t seem to have e’s business did not often extend to the overseeing of convalescents, and the interest he took in his hunity, and he was a little sheepish to discover that it wasn’t

"Aerin" She looked up, but the shadows of her childhood were still in her eyes He smiled as if it hurt him and said, "Never mind" And threw the surka wreath over her head It settled around her shoulders and then rippled into long silver folds that fell to her feet, and shivered like starlight when she moved

"You look like a queen," Luthe said,

"Don’t," she said bitterly, trying to find a clasp to unfasten the bright cloak "Please don’t"

"I’m sorry," said Luthe, and the cloak fell away, and she held only silver ashes in her hands She let her hands fall to her sides, and she felt ashaive ," Luthe said, but she reached out and hesitantly put a hand on his arm, and he covered it with one of his "There may have been a better way than the Meeldtar’s to save your life," he said "But it was the only way I knew; and you left me no timeI was not trained as a healer" He shut his eyes, but his hand stayed on hers "No h, I suppose; and we’re a pretty vain lot" He opened his eyes again and tried to sht, and its spring runs into the lake here, the Lake of Dreams We live - here - very near the Meeldtar stream, but the lake also touches other shores and drinks other springs - I do not know all their naot here, finally, I could alh you If it weren’t for Talat, I ested I give you a taste of the lake water - the Water of Sight itself would only have ripped your spirit from as left of your body

"But the lake - even I don’t understand everything that happens in that lake" He fell silent, and dropped his hand from hers, but his breath stirred the hair that fell over her forehead At last he said: "I’er quitemortal"

She stared up at him, and the shadows of her childhood ebbed away to be replaced by the shadows of many unknown futures

"If it’s any comfort, I’m not quite mortal either One does learn to cope; but within a fairly short span one finds oneself longing for an empty valley, or a h to reh to reon"

"Are you sure?" she whispered

"One is never sure of anything," he snapped; but she had learned that his anger was not directed at her, but at his own fears, and she waited He closed his eyes again, thinking She’s being patient with e since old Goriolo put the mark onin the sky And this child with her red hair looks at me once with those smoky feverish eyes and I panic and dunk her in the lake What is the ain and looked down at her Her eyes were still s with the occasional aer feverish, and their callitter had done "I followed you, you knohen you went under I - I had to ain It was not a bargain I was expecting to have to make" He paused "I’m pretty sure"

The eyes wavered and dropped She looked at her one hand tucked over Luthe’s arently, as if she ift, he put his other arm around her; and she leaned slowly forward and rested her head against his shoulder "I’hed the whisper of a laugh "I was not ready to die yet; very well, I shall live longer than I wished"

She stirred, and moved away from him, and her arms dropped; but when he took one of her hands she did not try to withdraw it The wind rustled lightly in the leaves "You prohtly

"I did Co, then"

The way back to Luthe’s hall was narrow, and as they walked side by side, for Luthe would not relinquish her hand, they had to walk very near each other Aerin was glad when she saw the grey stone of the hall rear up before her, and at the edge of the small courtyard she broke away from the h rooed in pretending to warm her hands at the hearth But she had no need of the fire’s warely stirred, and the flush on her face was froht

Over supper she said, "I have not heard anyone else call it kelar Just the Gift, or the royal blood"

He was grateful that she chose to break the silence and answered quickly: "Yes, that’s true enough, although your fath of it, not the other way round It cainally" He smiled at her stricken look "Yes, it did; you and the demon-kind share an ancestor, and you have both lived to bear kelar through enerations You need that corants you, you could not fight the dehed her whispered laugh again, and said, "One in the eye for those who like to throw up to me my status as a half-blood"

"Indeed," said Luthe, and the flicker of te whenever they discussed her father’s court flashed across his face "Their ignorance is so great they are terrified by a hint of the truth; a hint such as you are in yourself"