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Keleios had coarden and hidden behind its wall to work her rance of roses and the song of crickets A stray frog had wandered into the garden&039;s centerpiece, a fountain It gave its shrill song alone Keleios laughed She was not sure if she had ever heard just one frog They usually went in chorus Soon herIt was strange how the presence of active old hair lay in a loose braid down her back Any host of herthat saved her was her father&039;s elven blood, which thinned her face and let Keleios look like herself She was dressed all in brown, except for the glimpse of snowy linen at the collar of her tunic She wore trousers laced close to her legs with crisscrossing bandages Boots came to her knees, hardened leather soles and soft hide Keleios knew her mother, ever feminine, would have been horrified But hertime to worry about someone&039;s opinion

Keleios touched the ss Fire had been the first sorcery she had ever called; it was still the easiest It flared like a falling star and landed in the wood The fla She placed two slightly larger sticks on top of the flame, and the fire slowed to work on the thicker wood

The world had fallen into silence Only the wind still blew through the roses

Keleios poured water in a sht kind of wood for this particular fire, so she planned to cheat She placed a fire-protect spell on her hands It glimmered briefly just behind her eyes, then she could not see it It was a matter of trust that when she picked up the fire, it would not burn her A matter of trust and confidence in her own sorcery

She scooped up the fire in one hand The blaze flared in the wind, sparking against the darkness Keleios looked at the fire, concentrating on its wavering orange-red depths, studying its heat without fearing it She concentrated, and it flared a tiny colue of ehts

She nearly lost concentration, distracted by the fire&039;s dance in the shining surface of her aruards She drew herdistracted by light It spoke of dream sickness She was vision prophet as well as dream, so she was doubly at risk

Keleios touched the fla it to her will Her concentration was pure She was ready for the levitation

It was a different sort of spell fro out of nowhere, one touched an object with nothing and lows, to let one know that one was on the right track The thing either moved or it didn&039;t

The water-filled pot floated upward, then hovered above the flaic fire it took tian to simmer Keleios reached her free hand to the small earthenware bowl She took tiny but equal arant valerian root fro water

Keleios checked the ti of the quarter hour

More waiting Keleios had had potion to ward off nightmares, nearly a week&039;s supply, but she had run out last night A potion that htened child blocked prophecy in a drea drearant valerian was poisonous, and she knew that, too She had the beginnings of dream sickness already She was easily distracted at oddto voices that were not there She was being foolish Fear makes a person foolish fro for her She was afraid to sleep, afraid to dream, afraid not to dream Keleios hated prophecy From its first touch prophecy had never helped her It was the ics

Whatever waited for her was so on her mind, not even when she dreamed of her mother&039;s death This would be worse; she wasn&039;t sure she could face it It was a child&039;s fear and she cursed herself for it, but she could not bring herself to have the drearavel pathway to cool She flung the fire into the darkness, and it vanished in a cascade of sparks She canceled the fire-protect spell Conserve sorcery -- it had been a rule druh sorcery was instant ic and powerful, it was easily depleted and left the spellcaster drained and ht of cold, the cool autumn cold that first blows near the door in November Not too cold, or she would freeze the potion solid and ruin it She wanted only to cool it

Keleios secured cheesecloth over the pot with a string and strained the liquid into the cup A little water fro

Keleios held the cup in her hands Another dreaht lay in her hands The arden in silver and grey and blackest black The toeremoon

The tallest tower soared black and perfect, velvet in the ht: the tower of prophecy It e

Keleios squeezed the wooden cup in her hands, and it cracked, spilling the potion down her hands and forearht, unguarded, with nothing but her skill to protect her Anything was better than this cowardice

Keleios rinsed the potion froolden bracers The water would not rust the Stains ran from theood piece of enchantment She half-whispered, "I aardless of what council says" Tonight the words seeo she had been a e of twenty a totally new ic poured out of her hands It was unprecedented, i body of Astrantha, had seen fit to strip her of master rank, until she mastered this new talent They had sent her back to Zeln&039;s school She was a journey years

Was one little word so very important? Did she need to be called ed her arms into the fountain&039;s bowl She splashed water on her face and gasped fro dived frantically with a wet plop

Keleios blinked up at the moon Water trailed down her neck into the linen undershirt She felt better, her mind cleared These doubts were their own poison To doubt one&039;s

She wiped the water from her eyes and smoothed some of it back into the loose braid of her hair She dried her hand on her pants It was one of the benefits of wearing the inexpensive hide She began gathering up her spell components

The second moon had risen small and dim, yellow beside the white mother moon This ti before the red reat Mother, or so soends said The All-Mother was Cia, the healer, all that was good; Ardath, she who balances the scale of heaven; and Ivel, destruction incarnate and hatred hbor across the sea, Meltaan, were countries that believed in all faces of the Mother equally They called it the law of balance If you were registered as a follower of Ivel, or one of her dark children, you could literally get aith murder

Keleios had coree with it There were a handful of tiht blood price in secret, because some acts were not to be tolerated no matter what land you lived in

Keleios had spent much of the last three years in research She had hunted for the reason that the goddess was one in three, three parts, but not a whole Only the legend of how the moon had broken into three pieces seeone mad with a pain in her head When the pain cleared, she was split asunder, and so was the oddess could be healed and ood thing or a bad thing

Keleios had seen the h Zeln&039;s telescope They were dead rock, nothing ht and shadows Keleios found it hard to believe that the oddess She did believe that the Mother could have split theti at the er There was freedoo to the tower and have her dream, the fear had lessened

She had discovered that h Keleois pushed the thought back before it could grow

Keleios opened the slowed softly with enchantment She had not made this but had purchased it in Meltaan The pot slipped through the i, followed by the bowl She scattered the remains of the wood and tossed the cracked cup off the path

She took the siht hand and placed it in the enchanted pouch also She unlaced each of the bracers and slipped the as the pouch appeared, but they slipped out of sight Her waist dagger and the two hidden knives followed after Luckweaver, her short sword, lay in her room Zeln had tried to outlaw knives in the keep, but there were too many other uses for the but weapons, and one reed with the rule in part There were many who had carried swords ould have been alive today if they simply had been unarmed For herself she disliked the rule, but she obeyed it

It was not Zeln&039;s rules that kept enchant rooms Dreamers had been known to do themselves, or others, haric For whatever reason enchantotten the ring of protection once but only once The tower had tried to trick her into cutting off her own finger

The opening to the leather pouch was spelled so that only her own hand could open it Regardless of as prophet keeper tonight, it would be safe fro

She had done all she could to prepare It was tih the trellised arch and passed into the herb garden The intricate beds of plants led up to the steps of Zeln&039;s castle Zeln the Just had once been a rich Astranthian noble, and the castle showed that, but Zeln had changed It was fro and a feel for equality of all people Anyone could come to Zeln&039;s school, all they had to have was talent And every student learned what it was to do manual labor Some of the noble children found that a very hard concept indeed Keleios thought it was normal

The castle towered above her in the dark Its square shape had been designed for defense, but centuries of softer living had widened the s and brought gardens up to the very door

The inner corridors of the castle were darker than the suht Keleios paused to let her eyes adjust She could see in the dark, like a cat, or a dehtseer, but she still had to wait for her eyes to adjust to the darkness

The libraries were in the center of the castle, and in the center of the libraries was the tower of prophecy Keleios walked up the narroinding stair She could taste her heart thudding in her throat She did not want this drea rooms circled an open space that held the stairs and a fireplace Here the prophet keepers kept guard

Eduard, the journeyman herb-witch, sat in front of the fire, knees clasped to his chest The fire caught vague highlights in his raven-black hair The ereen fire The tunic was the stylish above-the-waist cut, leaving hts His eyes were the crystalline blue of sapphires "Keleios the Enchanter, I aave the lie to his courtesy Eduard and Keleios had an understanding between them He didn&039;t like her, and she didn&039;t like hiuard alone, Eduard the Witch"

"My companion had to take a piss"

Keleios&039; face rearities, he would fail If soood cause, they controlled you She would never give Eduard that satisfaction again She disliked Eduard, but he had lost the ability to anger her, and that angered hiht"

Keleios kneho he est apprentice to ever be allowed at Zeln&039;s school She was five and had cohtmares that were truly powerful prophetic drea chores or studies, she was tagging behind Keleios It was sometimes bothersome to have a child in such constant attendance, but Keleios could not tell her no The child reminded Keleios of herself at five, and you must be kind to shadows of your own child hood

"Hoas she when she went in?"

He shrugged, "Nervous, but ouldn&039;t be? I hear the tower can eat a person&039;s soul"

Keleios ignored his atte room open?"

"Three"

She waited, but he didn&039;t offer to show her which were empty "Which ones are empty, Eduard?"

He pushed himself upith his arave a courtly bow and said, "It is your choice, my lovely coquette"

It was a nice word for slut, but that hat itchildish"

It was not the reaction he had hoped for "I will find soh that calm stoic face of yours I&039;ve heard rumors that you have a violent teer a child"

He caught the e that bothers you"

Keleios stepped close to hiht "If you ever find soer me, Eduard, it will mean a duel on the sands And I will kill you"

He didn&039;t htened into fists

For a ht he would strike her She let a slow s smile "As you constantly remind me, I ae any other journey a fallenher on the sands was another His anger discolored his face and lint like hard rock, but he took a step back "Take any of the rooms that you like"

"Thank you" She held out the leather pouch

He took it reluctantly "Your weapons?"