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that Iceshadow’s fears would be hard to lay to rest.
    And yet, the real damage that power had done had all been beneath the surface. This Vale had looked to her—and still did—like a little corner of the Havens itself, the realm of the gods. She looked about her, at the luxuriant life of the heart of k’Sheyna, at the incredible beauty of the flowering bushes and vines everywhere, the fluted, sculptured rocks surrounding the hot-spring-fed pool—
    Then her senses took in the things that did not fit in a scene from a Valdemaran fantasy or Bardic play.
    The huge trees, each supporting as many as a dozen ekele, the Tayledras treehouses. The silver-haired mages and mottled-haired scouts taking their ease in the warm waters of the pool, their exotic birds in the branches above them. Hummingbirds drifting by and hovering. The Kaled’a’in, who were clearly some kin to the Tayledras, but of more diverse breeding, some with round faces, some with green or brown eyes instead of silver-blue, and here and there a blond or a redhead. The swirl of silk and the hushed scrape and creak of well-worn leather amidst the calls of immense birds of prey.
    And last of all, the gryphons lounging about in the warm sun—gryphons gray and golden-brown, peregrine-patterned and cooperi-striped, purring or cooing, and talking with Hawkbrothers—
    She had a sudden feeling of disorientation, and shook her head. If, a year ago, anyone had told her that she would be soaking in a pool with a half dozen Hawkbrother mages, numbered as a Wingsister to a Hawkbrother Clan, and watching the antics of a score of legendary gryphons, she would have been certain that whoever asserted this had been severely intoxicated.
    If they had told her she would be instrumental in the overthrow of a marauding evil Adept, and have a Hawkbrother lover—while her fellow Herald Skif would have an even stranger lover, the half-feline Nyara, daughter of that Adept—and that this same Nyara, and not Elspeth, would be the holder of Elspeth’s sword Need—
    I would have carefully caught that person off-guard, tied him up, and put in an urgent call to the Mind Healers, that’s what I would have done .
    But MindHealing comes in many forms and experience is the best of them. Time had passed. She’d experienced all of that and more, and still the future was wide open.
    A blazingly white figure appeared at the far side of the pool, just at the edge of the spray from the tiny waterfall that cooled one end.
    And right on cue, a beam of sunlight penetrated the clouds and illuminated Elspeth’s Companion Gwena, framing her in a rainbow’s refracted light, making her look like a horse from the home of the gods, or a Companion-illustration in some book of tales.
    Several of the Hawkbrothers gazed appreciatively. “Good entrance,” Firesong laughed, approvingly. “I could not have managed better myself.” Silverfox chuckled, and continued to braid the man’s waist-length silver hair in an elaborate Kaled’a’in arrangement. Firesong spent most of his time with the Kaled’a’in, and surprisingly, not all of that was with the Kestra’chern Silverfox. Evidently, the Kaled’a’in had explored the usages of magic along much different lines than the Tayledras, and what he was learning from them both excited and fascinated Firesong. Among other things, they had learned how to build Vales without needing a Heartstone; old chronicles spoke of this, but the Tayledras had lost the knack. Elspeth was interested in learning this trick as well, since if it could be managed in Valdemar, it would be possible to create some very comfortable safe-havens in inhospitable territory for, say, Healer’s enclaves.
    Or Heralds’ Resupply Stations . . . what a lovely thought.
    â€œYou look fine today,” Firesong continued. :Thank you for the compliment, mv dear,: Gwena replied, winking at the