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THEY STARTED BACK toward the her Aerin had buried the ashes of the fire, out of habit, for there was certainly nothing around that ht burn; and she reverently wrapped the surka wreath and its stone, and the Crown, and stowed the else left to do

Her entourage strung out behind her, cats on one flank, dogs on the other Only once did she look back, when they were already well across the plain and the sun was beginning to drop toward evening The way did slope down fro had changed, even if there had been a disappearing forest between But if this was the worst of what rehtly

The ruins of the black toere small in the distance, and they seemed to leer at her, but it was a small nasty, useless leer, like a tyrant on the scaffold as the rope is placed around his neck This plain would not be a healthy or attractive place for erous one either She went on with a lighter heart

She was eager to reach the edge of her beloved Daht camp in their shadow and drink froht She wanted to sing when she caught the first breath of the evening breeze from the kindly trees; but her voice had never adapted itself to carrying a tune, so she didn’t Her arain, and the dogs wagged their tails and made cheerful playful snaps at one another, and the cats knocked each other with clawless feet, and rolled on the ground Talat pranced And so they ca attention to nothing but their own pleasure; and then Aerin caught a sudden whiff of s She sat down hard, but Talat’s ears flicked back at her What do you mean stop here? and went on And there was a small campfire, tucked in the curve of the trail where there was a little clearing and a strea around the other side of it

"Good day to you," said Luthe

Talat whickered a greeting, and Aerin slid off him and he went forward alone to nose Luthe’s hands and browse in his hair "I thought you never left your hall and your lake," said Aerin

"Rarely," said Luthe "In fact, increasingly exceedingly rarely But I can be prodded by extraordinary circumstances"

Aerin smiled faintly "You have had plenty to choose from here recently"

"Yes"

"May I ask which particular circumstance was sufficiently extraordinary in this case?"

"Aerin - " Luthe paused, and then his voice took on its bantering tone again "I thought you ht arrive in tie; and of course now instead of a few hundred years hence there is no jungle to be coh I’ve no doubt you could have done it, but it would have put you in a foul temper, and you would have been in a fouler one by the ti you would have had the sense toone can count on You would have neededa little fireabout in tiood - and the longer you’re out of it, the harder it would have been to get you back in So I came to meet you"

Aerin stared at the fire, for she couldn’t think at all when she looked at Luthe "I really was a long ti, then," she said

"Yes," said Luthe "A very long ti"

"And a very long ti more while she pulled Talat’s saddle off and dropped it by the fire, and rubbed his back dry, and checked his feet for s ht I would appreciate it if you did" He sighed "It would be nice to clai, knew that your only chance of success in regaining your Croas to do as I did But I didn’t Sheer blind luck, I’ hot, which she drank greedily; then stew on a thin metal plate, but she ate it so fast it had no tiers, and then she had seconds and thirds When she was finished at last, Luthe gave what re, in carefully measured halves, on separate plates Aerin heard his footsteps behind her as he returned fro those two plates out, and she said, "Thank you"

The footsteps paused just behind her, and she felt him bend over her, and then his hands rested on her shoulders She put her own hands up, and drew his down, till he was kneeling behind her, and he bowed his head to press his cheek to her face She turned in his arms, and put her own arms around his neck and raised her face and kissed hiht, feeding it with twigs so that it would keep burning; the ani since asleep, and even Talat was relaxed enough to lie down and doze Luthe sprawled on his back with his head in Aerin’s lap, and she stroked his hair through her fingers, watching the thick curls wind around her fingers, stretch to their fullest length, and spring back again "Is it so ah I should like it just as well if it were straight and green, or if you were bald as an egg and painted your head silver"

She had not told hi with her uncle, nor had she asked hiuessed - or knew, in the saerly when he began to talk of Agsded, and of their school days together The chill of hating someone with her own face eased as she listened, and eased stillup into her face as he talked; and at last she told hily, a little of what had passed between them

Luthe looked wry, and was silent for a ti in its sleep "Agsded was not entirely wrong about me," he said at last "I was stubborn, and no, frankly, I was not one of Goriolo’spupils But I survived on that stubbornness and stayed with h to learn in with and then went off and got thee’s life is such a grim and thankless one

"I was also always at littering people whose every gesture looks like a miracle, whose every word sounds like a new philosophy You’ve a bit of that yourself, valiantly as you seek to hide it

"But I don’t know that he and I are so unequal in the end; for as I norance, or obstinacy, he made mistakes in pride"

"You haven’t asked me how I - how he lost and I won," said Aerin, after another pause

"I have no intention of asking You may tell me or not as you wish, now or later"

"There is so at least I wish to ask you"

"Ask away"

"It requires you roaned "Is it worth it?"

Aerin didn’t uorously, but he did sit up and free her "This," she said, and handed hiods wept," said Luthe, and no longer looked sleepy "I should have thought you ht have this I am the earth’s most careless teacher and Goriolo would have my head if he were around to collect it" He parted the dry vines and spilled the red stone into his hand It gleaently from one hand to the other "This makes your Hero’s Crown look like a cheap family heirloom"

"What is it?" Aerin asked, nervously

"Maur’s bloodstone The last drop of blood froons who die by bloodletting spill one of these at the last; but you’d need a hawk’s eyes to find that last curdled drop froon"

Aerin shuddered "Then you keep it," she said "I’ properties, and if I have the great misfortune ever to need to defeat another wizard, I shall borrow it from you But I don’t want it around"

Luthe looked at her thoughtfully, cradling it in his hand "If you bound it into your Damarian Crown, it would make whoever wore it invincible"

Aerin shook her head violently "And be forever indebted to the memory of Maur? Damar can do without"

"You don’t knohat you’re saying A dragon’s bloodstone is not for good or wickedness; it just is And it is a thing of great power, for it is its dragon’s death - unlike its skull, which your folk treated like a harmless artifact The bloodstone is the real trophy, the prize worth the winning; worth al your own experience color your answer"

"Yes, I a my own experience color on’s heartstone e point, but I was born a sio and I remember a lot more about the simple mortal viewpoint than maybe you ever knew A bloodstone is not a safe sort of emblem to hand over to any of us - the of Perlith "Or even the sovereigns of Dah protected; for there will be others, like you, who knohat it is - others with fewer s Look at the asded did with the Crown alone"

She paused and then added slowly, "I’ a power of neither good nor evil Our stories say that the dragons first came from the North Almost all the evil that has ever troubled our land has co from there was not evil You said once that Damarian royalty - any of us with the Gift, with kelar have a common ancestor with the Northerners So why have they and their land turned out their way and we ours?

"No I’ll not take the thing with o"

Luthe blinked several tiht - uo I think - perhaps - in this case that you are right How unexpected" He smiled bemusedly "Very well I shall keep it And you will knohere to find it if ever you have the need"

"I will know," said Aerin "But gods preserve ain"