Mienthe smiled.
“Kes is as beautiful as ever, and no more human. But… less unfamiliar, somehow. It’s strange watching her with Gereint. They remember the antipathy, and yet they don’t remember how it felt. I think they may even become friends, in time. She is the most powerful fire mage in the world now, I imagine.”
Mienthe would have been astonished to find otherwise. She nodded.
“So she has become Lady of the Changing Winds. That would have pleased Kairaithin, I think. His humor was not like that of a man, but he would have appreciated the irony. And… I’ll never like Tastairiane Apailika. Nor will he ever have much goodwill toward any creature of earth, I’m sure. But he is her iskarianere, you know. He is willing to please her, and so he is now willing to be… if not friendly, at least forbearing. I think Kairaithin would appreciate the irony in that, as well.”
Mienthe nodded again. She paused as they reached the door, her hand on the splintered wood, and asked tentatively, “How is Jos?”
Her cousin glanced down at her. “I offered him a place here. I told him that the Delta is a good place for exiles, even those without full use of both their hands… I think he will come. He owes me something, and of course we all owe him everything, and why should he not live near those of us who know it? He no longer needs to live close to fire, not when Kes can so easily step from one country to the other. I think… I am certain that she will not forget him again.”
“I’ll be glad to see her again from time to time,” Mienthe said seriously.
Bertaud nodded. He pushed open the door of the house, but turned to look once more back over the gardens. He still looked weary and grieved, and yet Mienthe thought there was a difference to the sorrow she saw in him now. It seemed deep as the earth, yet she thought this grief was not the same as the grief that had haunted him through the years. This one, she thought, might in time be assuaged.
He turned again, gesturing for Mienthe to precede him. “And your Tan? How does he do now?”
Mienthe shook her head. “The same. Kes told you? Nothing has changed. I have been sitting by him… Iaor made me leave him for the day, but I’m sure it’s all right if I take you up. Will you come?”
Tan lay, very still and pale among the bed linens, in the same tower room Bertaud had given him when they had feared he was still pursued by his enemies. Before they had known who those enemies were, or why they pursued him… it seemed so long ago. How astonishing, Mienthe thought, that it had been so short a time.
The room contained little clutter. Only the bed, and a small fire in its brazier, and a single chair framed by two small tables. The first of these held a jug of water and an earthenware cup, and the other a single glass vase from which tumbled the fragrant ivory flowers of honeysuckle in full bloom.
Iriene occupied the chair. The healer-mage was looking at Tan, though the abstraction of her gaze suggested she might not be seeing him. A heavy cloth-bound book was propped open on her knee. Geroen was leaning on the back of her chair with a patient air that suggested he might have been there for rather a long time.
Iriene did not look up when the door opened, but Geroen straightened as he glanced around—then saw Bertaud and stiffened. “My lord—”
Bertaud held up a hand to check him. “Captain Geroen. How is he?”
“There has still been no change?” Mienthe asked anxiously. She slipped across the room and hovered over the still figure on the bed. He was not breathing—oh, of course he was, only slowly and shallowly. He was so pale—“Iriene, is he worse? He’s worse, isn’t he?”
“About the same, I should say,” the healer-mage answered judiciously. She got to her feet, nodded absently to Bertaud, and said to Mienthe, “He’s steady enough, you know. Don’t you fret over the next few hours. I don’t think there’s much likely to change any time soon. Not that we exactly want this to go on, but it can, you know, for quite a long time. I’ll just go down to the kitchens and have them warm up some broth, shall I?”
She was not really asking permission. Mienthe nodded anyway and perched on the edge of the chair, gazing down at Tan’s still face.
Her cousin came to look over her shoulder, frowning. “Lord Beguchren looked very much like this, after he…” He did not complete the sentence.
“He said you could use yourself up,” Mienthe said in a low voice.
“Gereint broke Beguchren out of his long sleep.”
Mienthe nodded. “He told me. But he said it wasn’t just that Gereint was a mage, but that he was also his friend.” Tan had been away in Linularinum so long, and he was so private a man. Iriene might have healed his knee, but she didn’t know him at all… no one knew him at all. “Beguchren said this might not be the same. He said we should just wait,” Mienthe finished softly.