Mykel turned, studying his father, trying to recapture what he had felt when he had looked at the redbird. After a moment, he could sense a warm brownish gold around Olent.

"Supper's almost ready." Olent paused. "You've been more quiet since you got back. Are you all right?"

Mykel stopped to consider his father's words and lost the sense of the aura he had felt, but he knew, now, that he could recall it. What exactly it meant or signified, other than life itself, trmt he would have to discover.

"I'm fine. I've just been thinking."

Was he fine? He'd killed scores of rebels, and that didn't include the poor and hapless debtors of Jyoha. Many of the so-called battles had been little more than massacres, and he'd succeeded by being more ruthlessthan the seltyrs. He'd been placed in a situation where he'd had little choice if he wanted to survive-and if the men under him were to have had any chance. And he still didn't really understand why, other than the seltyrs and the alectors both wanted power. Was that life? The struggle for power? Did it have to be that way? Could he change things as a majer? Or would he be pressed to create more destruction?

"You've been thinking a lot."

"I suppose that's true. Dramur changed things." He offered a smile.

"I'm probably hungry, too. It's been a long day." He turned and walked back across the empty dining porch and into the cramped inside dining room.

Following him, Olent closed the door to the porch behind them. "Let's eat before it all gets cold," he announced, taking the chair at the head of the table.

Mykel settled into the place at his father's right, across from his sister.

As he sat down, Sesalia offered a smile. Olent looked to the other end of the table at Aelya, and his wife nodded back at him.

"I think that means I'm saying the blessing," commented Olent. "I don't know why I even asked. With everyone here, it's always the same." He cleared his throat. "In the name of the One Who Was, Is, and Will Be, may our food be blessed, and our lives as well, in the times of prosperity and peace, and those which are neither. Blessed be the lives of both the deserving and the undeserving that both may strive to do good in the world and beyond, and may we always re-call that we do not judge our worthiness, but leave that judgment to the One Who Is." After a moment of silence, he looked up. "Everyone take whatever's closest."

Mykel lifted the basket of hard dark bread to Sesalia first, who served herself, then Bortal, before handing it back to Mykel. The main course was a mutton pie, heavy on early carrots and onions, that Olent passed to Sesalia.

Aelya glanced at her daughter, "I still miss the children, dear."

Olent guffawed. "Every time she doesn't bring them, you remind her.

You'll make her feel guilty for being able to eat a meal in peace.""I don't see them that often now," replied Aelya.

"You see them more often than Sesalia and Bortal get to see Mykel.

Now that he's a majer, we'll all probably see him even less."

While the others talked, Mykel took several bites of the mutton pie, enjoying it and the sweet and heavy black bread, so much better fare than he had eaten in seasons.

"Mykel... you're a majer, now? A real majer?" asked Viencet.

"Where have you been, Viencet?" asked Bortal. "Hiding in the cellar?"

"Ah... studying..."

"With that young Dalya?" probed Sesalia.

Viencet flushed. "She's smart..." His words trailed off.

"Well, he is a majer," announced Olent. "My son, the commander of a battalion, and only twenty-seven years old."

"They're saying that the Myrmidons lost some pteridons out east,"

offered Viencet quickly. "Did you hear about that?"

"People are always saying things," replied Mykel with a smile. "Who's been telling you those stories?"

"It was Trebyl, and he got it from his uncle. What he says has always been right before."

"It doesn't mean it is now."

"He claims that it proves the ancients are still around, some of 'em, anyway, because the ancients are the only thing that can kill pteridons."

"It's a good story," Mykel said. "Maybe you should become an Ancienteer."

"Nah..." Viencet shook his head. "They'll believe anything. We know the ancients existed, but soaring through the sky without a pteridon... I can't swallow that."Mykel just nodded.

"Some people," added Aelya. "They'll say anything."

Mykel took a swallow of the wine, then another bite of the mutton pie.

"You haven't said much about Dramur, and how come you got promoted to majer," Viencet pressed.

"I suppose I haven't," demurred Mykel. "There's not much to say. I managed to survive and keep most of my company alive."

"I'd wager you were a hero," said Viencet.

"No. I wasn't a hero. I was a moderately effective company commander when most others weren't. I looked good by comparison."

"Did you kill lots and lots of rebels?"

Mykel lifted the heavy goblet, only brought out for special dinners, and took another sip of the red wine. "People always get killed when they shoot at each other long enough."

"I can't believe-"

"Viencet," said Olent quietly, but forcefully, "I don't think your brother really wants to talk about it. Maybe later, when he comes home another time."

Mykel silently thanked his father. He didn't want to talk about it, but didn't want to announce that publicly, either.

"And none of the Dramuran women took a liking to you?" teased Sesalia, after a moment of silence.

"I saw very few, almost none," Mykel said with a laugh, "except from a distance. Most of those were trying to stay out of our sight." He wasn't about to mention Rachyla, especially since he would never see her again, and since she'd hardly been the friendliest toward him. But then, had their situations been reversed, he doubted that he would have been all that friendly, either."You must have been busy," offered Bortal. "Corylt says that his captain never has a free moment."

"We're always busy." Nodding absently in agreement, Mykel looked at Sesalia, heavy with the child to come, seeing not one aura, but two, the second almost a ghost of hers, but growing stronger, he knew. That had to be a part of his talent, the talent that had started with his being able to aim and fire a rifle more accurately than almost anyone, and now seemed to be growing. What else could he expect? Was that the talent that the ancient soarer had told him to find? Or was there something else?

"Mykel? Mykel?"

At Sesalia's voice, he almost jumped, but managed a smile. "Yes?"

"You were looking at me so strangely."

"Oh... I'm sorry. I guess I'm still more tired than I thought." That wasn't it at all, but better to say so than what he thought. Where would that talent lead him?

He forced a smile. "Are there any sweets?"

112.

Dainyl and Lystrana lay side by side in the darkness of their bedchamber, warm covers over them. Dainyl's fingers twined around hers.

"When do you go to Alustre?" she asked, her voice soft, but not sleepy.

"On Duadi."

"Do you know what the Highest truly wants?"

"He hasn't said. Not exactly. He wants my impressions about Submarshal Alcyna. He has something else in mind."

"As he did with your briefing the Duarch. You're still upset about your meeting with him, aren't you?"

Dainyl thought about dismissing her concerns, but Lystrana would see through him. She always had. "Yes. There's tremendous Talent there, but...""But what?"

"It's as though he wears a blindfold about some things. I tried to point out the problems with lifeforce, and how the landers and indigens just don't understand the way the world works, and he kept talking about how we needed to increase the lifeforce and how fortunate we were to have a child, and how Kytrana would see the transfer of the Master Scepter here to Acorus. One moment he was smiling, and the next it was as though he were ready to turn his Talent on me, especially when he talked about Zelyert and Shastylt."

"He told you not to trust them. Was that unwise?"

"No. We know that." Dainyl took a deep breath. "But... I don't trust the Duarch, either I feel that his heart is better than theirs, but that-I said this before-he is blinded. He will do anything to bring the master scepter here."

"The loyalty imprint," suggested Lystrana. "That is why those who seek power do not wish to be Duarch."

"I feel as though I'm trapped between two sets of masters. The Highest and the marshal see the world as it is, but I don't trust what they have in mind, even if I don't know what it is. The Duarch-he would do the best he could, so long as it does not conflict with what the Archon requires. He has great Talent, but how he might use that Talent is hampered because the imprint does not allow him to see all that is before his eyes. Both would destroy those who disagree with their visions." Dainyl turned and reached out with his free hand, letting his fingers touch the cheek and jawlinc of his wife.

"So you must not show any disagreement. That has always been so for a prudent alector. What you have seen changes nothing."

Dainyl laughed, once. "I had hoped that seeing more would provide greater hope, not less. Matters need to change. Even the ancient soarer said something like that."

"Was she talking about you, or about all alectors?"

"I had thought she was speaking to me, as I told you the other night, but now... I don't know.""You are submarshal, and someday you will be marshal. That will give you the opportunity to change matters."

"Nothing changes quickly."

Lystrana turned toward him and brushed his cheek with her lips. "We can only do what we can."

"I didn't tell you everything about the Cadmian captain," Dainyl said slowly.

"I had thought you held something back."

"He has Talent. He used it to save me. The Highest told me that landers with Talent had to be destroyed."

"That has always been the policy," Lystrana said softly.

"I couldn't do it. I kept thinking about how he nearly died to save me, so that I could come back to you and Kytrana. He's so young, not for a lander, I suppose, but..."

"You think that the marshal will discover your failure?"

"No. Talent can emerge at any time."

"Then why do you worry? He serves the Duarchy. It's not as though he happens to be a wild Talent, like that one in Hyalt."

"I still worry. He did more than I did to stop the revolt in Dramur."

"You succeeded in the end."

"But... without the captain I would not have. Are we too frightened of Talent in landers? Or am I too frightened to make the hard choices?"

Lystrana's fingers squeezed his. "You made the choice, and we will live with what comes of it."

Dainyl looked up into the darkness. He had made the choice, an alector's choice.