"This is Nikki we're talking about, Khyel." And he fol- lowed with the image of Mikhyel as he'd seen him, kneeling beside the pool, eyes glowing like the ley itself as the liquid caressed his cheeks. Fey. Magical. Not quite human.

The embodiment of Nikki's most cherished, poetic dreams.

"Good . . . gods . . ." Mikhyel whispered, and Mirym patted his hand. "You saw that?" he asked her, and for a brief time, they sat there, side by side, hand in hand, before she patted his again, and reached for the glass at her side.

And all Deymorin got was a buzz in his head. His brother, whom he'd thought he was finally beginning to understand, was growing stranger by the hour. But he wasn't about to let him drift again, not without a fight.

"Why, Mikhyel?" he asked. "Why'd you take the risk?"

"I . . . Somehow, I think I knew there was no danger.

Or, perhaps, I just expected it to part, the way it did for Nikki. The way it avoided our feet when we walked."

"But you're not certain."

Mikhyel shook his head. "Honestly, Deymio? I'm ashamed to admit I had no real control over my own ac- tions. But Nikki"

"Did it deliberately. I almost wish it had eaten a fingertip or two. Would have served him right."

"You don't mean that."

"Don't I? I suppose not. But Nikki's still living in some fantasy otherwhere. That he took such a risk"

"Perhaps he had no more choice than 1."

"You know better, Khyel. You saw his face. It was open defiance of common sense."

Kirstin entered then, a footman carrying a tray of pots and towels in her wake.

Mikhyel stood up. "Will you be all right?" he asked

Mirym, who nodded. "Then I'll say good night."

Good night? Where do you think you're going?) My room.} What about dinner?} I'll eat in my room.} What about Nikki? What should I tell him?l

Mikhyel paused at the door, turned, and said, "Not a damn thing."

Chapter Two.

". . . and then Mikhyel put his hand into the pool, and his skin didn't melt! When he raised his hand, it looked like he held a rainbow! And then the rainbow touched his cheek and covered his face, and then . . . it talked to him!"

Nikki gripped Lidye's hands, squeezing until she protested softly. He relaxed his grip and raised her hands one at a time to kiss them. "I'm sorry, darling. My only thought was . . . Go to Lidye. Lidye will understand."

"Understand what, sweet Nikki?"

"It talked to him, Lidye. I heard it. Felt it in his head, and it was wonderful. And I wanted it to talk to me, but when I put my hand in the pool"

She exclaimed softly and turned her attention to his hands, turning them one way and another.

"It's all right. It . . . rejected me. No matter where I reached, the ley moved. It was . . ." His voice cracked, useless, as his mind was useless to find words to express his humiliation and pain.

"Poor Nikki," she said softly as she touched his cheek.

"You do so want to learn, don't you?"

"Of course, I do! And the hell of it is, Mikhyel doesn't.

All Mikhyel wanted was for Deymorin to get him away.

It's . . . It's not . . ."

"Fair? No, darling, the ley is never fair. The ley just . . . is."

He balled his hands into fists, but there was nothing to hit.

"I fear there were times that Nethaalye would have echoed your feelings. But Rhomatum wanted me, not her.

Therefore, I am here and she has returned home in disgrace."

Put that way, he couldn't remain angry. It wasn't Mi- khyel's fault he was too cowardly to appreciate the gifts offered. But knowing couldn't take all the hurt away. He'd been right to come here. Lidye was sympathetic, as he'd known she'd be. And his brothers' thoughts couldn't reach him here. Couldn't confuse his thinking.

"You, at least, are not in disgrace, Nikki. I love you. I love the fact that you want to know."

Soft skin brushed his tight knuckles and slick, manicured fingernails slid inside, urging them open.

"I love the fact that you risked so much to learn. Thank the blessed ley it didn't accept your challenge."

"Challenge?"

"Some people can touch the ley and live, Nikki. That's the way of life. Mikhyel is evidently one of those. It is a physiological protection. Something he was born with. It doesn't make him more or less than anyone else. When it avoided your touch, the ley was protecting you, my darling.

It didn't want to hurt you."

Put that way, the ley's actions didn't sound at all terrible.

He smiled at her; she smiled back and raised his hand to her cheek, which seemed to him an altogether agreeable compensation for the ley's rejection.

"What did you mean, Nikki?"

"Mean?" he asked, watching the reflection of the rings in her eyes.

"You said you heard the ley talk to Mikhyel. What did you mean? What did it say?"

"It called to him. It wanted him."

Her smooth brow tightened and her eyes flashed, an angry look that vanished in the next breath. "But Mikhyel rejected its advances, you said?"

Nikki nodded, and Lidye smiled gently.

"Ah. There, you see? The test of a man's character is not what Talent he's given, but how he uses it."

Which seemed, somehow, derogatory to Mikhyel, when she said it, and Nikki looked away, escaping the flash of silver in blue eyes. But her hands drew him back.

"How did it talk to him, Nikki? What did it sound like?"

"I heard it . . . felt it . . . in my head."

"In your head?"

He paused, thinking caution at last, but too late. Lidye cupped his face in her soft hands and brushed his lips with her thumb.

"It's all right, my darling. If there are secrets, you don't have to tell me, but how can I understand? How can I help, if I don't know all there is to know?"

Defiance filled him. His brothers still didn't trust Lidye, because his brothers didn't bother to understand Lidye, as they didn't bother to understand him and this great need to be one with the ley.

"Deymorin, Mikhyel . . . I can hear them in my head, sometimes. And they can hear me."

She nodded, a calm acceptance that rather disappointed him. He'd thought to amaze her. She must have guessed, because she laughed gently. "Dear Nikki, of course, I'm not altogether surprised. I've seen what Anheliaa does . - .

did. How she invaded innocent minds and manipulated them with pain and fear. That you and your brothers speak to each other in this way is, it would seem to me, a kinder, more civilized use of that ability."

Nikki thought of the night Anheliaa died, of Mikhyel's mind, like a fist holding him immobile, and wondered if Lidye would consider that civilized, but he was embarrassed that he'd not been able to break that control, even to pro- tect her honor, and so he said nothing.

"Poor Nikki," she murmured enigmatically, which made him wonder if she could read his mind the way his brothers did. "When did it first happen? Can you tell me that?"

Which she wouldn't have to ask if she could. "I think the first time I felt . . . part . . - of them was on my birthday.

When Anheliaa tried to force Deymorin to accept a bride of her choosing."

Her eyes dropped to her hands, resting now in her lap.

"The night she leythiated him away?"

"You know about that?"

"Of course. Anheliaa told me everything. She was very frightened of your brother, and very fearful of leaving me in his control."

"You weren't here yet."

"But she'd already seen me in the rings. She knew she wanted me for you and she very much feared Deymorin would make life difficult, if not dangerous, for both of us."

"That was stupid of her. Deymorin would never hurt anyone."

The fingers of her left hand began kneading the knuckles of the right, pulling, twisting, a gesture vaguely familiar, but one he couldn't quite place.

"He hurt her badly that night," she said.

"Deymorin? How?"

"His defiance. "The blockade against her that the three of you formed."

"Oh, that. Well, that was her own fault, wasn't it? If she'd left him alone, she wouldn't have had the problem.

In fact, if she'd left him alone, none of this would have happened."

The knuckle-kneading paused, and her blue eyes gazed rather wistfully at him.

"None of it? Would we have been wed?"

He couldn't answer that. Not truthfully. If Deymorin had been here, he might well have talked him out of marriage to someone like Lidye. But apparently his silence was an- swer enough.

"Then I can't be altogether sorry it happened, Nikki. I wouldn't want us not to be wed."

"Even though it almost killed him?"

"It wasn't our marriage that almost killed him, Nikki.

Please don't equate those two events. It was your family's bullheadedness pitted against itself. And even at that, it brought Mauritum's invasion to our attention. It allowed Anheliaa to stop that lightning machine before it reached Rhomatum. Is that bad?"

"Yes . . . I mean, no . . . I1 suppose . . ."

"And Deymorin wouldn't have his Mauritumin mistress.

I don't think he would prefer that, do you?"

He frowned. She was twisting things around. Confusing him.

"I'm sorry. Nikki dear. But it's important that you under- stand. Events involving the ley happen for reasons. The ley knows what it needs, senses dangers we cannot imagine, and protects itself and so us from those dangers, if only we will listen and not resent the minor prices we must pay in the process."

Suddenly, that absentminded joint-kneading struck a chord: Anheliaa. Not a day had gone by in the Tower that he hadn't seen her dbing that, trying to ease the pain of the swollen joints.

"What's wrong with your hand?"

She biinked, glanced down. "Nothing, really. Habit, I suppose."