"I can see you. Why isn't that enough?"

She shook her head. "You-your choices are so simple, Aranur. Raiders

ride, and you draw your sword and cut them down if you can. I must choose to lift my hands to the blade, or lift my hands to heal. I hold the decision of

life and death, not in clear defense as you do, but in cold rationality. I cut off one side of myself in order to loose the other. So I am a healer, but I killed my own son. I am a swordswoman, but I heal my victims. Look at me, Aranur. Tomi isn't mine-he still dreams of his real mother. And Olarun rejects me for Danton's death. I am a mother without children-and a child without a mother. My world is life and death without balance, and it's tearing me apart."

"And if you ride away, what do you think to find? Danton's soul? A mother for yourself? A sword that magically doesn't kill, or a healing technique that does? Why not just ask the Aiueven for a stepping stone to the stars?

Even that's more likely than balancing the things you've lost."

"It's not just that." She clenched her fists. "Don't you see? I've lost more than my sons and myself. I'm too close to the wolves and too far from all of you. I've lost my own humanity. Staying here won't give me back that."

"Balance, wisdom, humanity... " He gestured sharply, angrily. "They're not out there, Dion. If you find them at all, they'll come out of yourself."

"And in my heart, I know that's true," she agreed.

"But you're still going to go."

Dion's voice trembled. "Dammit, Aranur, I don't want to breathe here. I don't want to see or hear the ghosts. I don't want to eat. I don't want to live."

"And out there, you will."

"I don't know," she almost cried out. "But I do know that here, I cannot survive Olarun's blame, nor yours, nor my own."

"Then take someone with you."

She almost laughed, but the sound was harsh and without humor. "A bodyguard? A nanny?"

"Me."

"It's your blame I'm trying to escape."

"I don't blame you-"

"Don't you? Isn't there some tiny, hidden part of you that says, 'If Dion hadn't taken them out in the meadow, Danton wouldn't have died'? We don't touch anymore-our hugs are perfunctory, not desired. We barely speak or eat together. By the moons, we don't even sleep together anymore.

I'm like an alien in my own home. And why is that? Can you honestly say that there is not some part of you hating and blaming me even now?"

His voice was harsh. "You confuse what I feel with what you think you deserve."

"But you don't really deny it, do you?"

Aranur couldn't answer.

"I'll ride with the wolves," she told him quietly. "They've always been company enough."

"They're the past and the present, Dion, not the future. You need something more than that to become yourself again. " He paused. "Your future is here, with me, with your family. You'll not find it by running away."

But from the forest Hishn's ears flicked as the wolf read Dion's resolve.

The Gray One howled deep into Dion's mind, and the sound echoed into the void of her emotions. For a moment Dion almost believed that the packsong could fill that void. Then the mental howl faded, and what it left

was emptiness.

Aranur watched her eyes unfocus and focus, and he knew that Hishn was with her. His voice was almost desperate when he spoke. "Have you forgotten the raiders? They're active as worlags in fall right now, and even the wolves can't protect you from them. You can't expect to outrun them- you still limp like a lame worlag. You've got a sword, a bow, that blade

hidden in your healer's circlet, the knives in your boots... But none of that can stand against a single surprise attack."

She couldn't meet his gray gaze.

"Don't even think it, Dion," he snarled. "Letting yourself be taken or killed

will not absolve you of the guilt you think you deserve, nor will it bring Danton back. It would merely strip Olarun's mother from him more permanently than your running away does now."

"That isn't fair," she whispered.

"But it's what you were thinking, wasn't it?"

She looked down.

"Take someone with you. Take Gamon or maJenia or maTrawek."

She shook her head.

"Take Ruttern, then. He's good. Or neBraye."

"No."

"At least take Tehena. The way she's been hovering over you the last three

months, I can't believe she would let you ride out alone anyway."

"I sent her to get some things from town."

His face hardened. "So she doesn't even know that you're going."

Dion shrugged.

This time when Aranur grabbed her, she didn't flinch. He dug his fingers into her arms as if to force her to feel him. "You'll take someone with you.

Promise me, Dion. If you love yourself at all-if you love me even a fraction anymore-take at least one rider with you."

She stared at him for a long time. His face was gaunt like hers, she realized.

There was no shadow of stubble along his chin, and she found herself wishing he had one to soften the hard line of his jaw. Without it, he looked bleak. Lost. She reached up and touched his cheek, then dropped her hand to his arm. His lean muscles bunched beneath her touch.

"Take Kiyun, " he said desperately.

When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. "I will wait while you get him."

Something in Aranur's eyes seemed to die, but he nodded, a short, sharp

movement. Then he took the reins from the post and mounted her dnu. He

wheeled and gave the dnu its head, letting it thunder out of the courtyard.

Dion looked across to the forest that hid Gray Hishn. "Kiyun, Tehena... "

she said softly. "It doesn't matter who it is, or how many there are. It will not make a difference."

Aranur rode hard, by instinct more than by sight. His urgency drove him to drive the dnu, as much to tire it so that Dion could not ride far on its back as to dull his own thoughts. He didn't wave at those he saw on the road. He didn't pause at his uncle's house even though his aunt was on the porch, looking up as he rode by. Instead, he pushed the dnu's pace through the first city hub, then the next, until he reached a long, vaulted structure.

When he dismounted, he stood for a long moment before entering the building. The wide, arched porch was more like what one would see on a library than on a house, and the doorway, arched and pillared with intricate growths of aircoral, belonged at a museum, not a home. He couldn't help noticing, as he paused in the entryway, the two sculptures that decorated the entrance.

"Kiyun," he called out. His voice was harsh, and he felt his lips tighten automatically.

"Back here," a voice echoed distantly from within. Aranur stepped through into the main hall of the home. It was a vaulted room lined with paintings. They were not of recognizable shapes and figures, but were rather splotches of color, shades that shifted from one monochromatic palette to another. Dion had bought them one by one but had never brought even one of them home. Instead, she had asked this man here to hold them for her, building this collection. Did she think this swordsman's hands could appreciate the delicate touch of the brushes that had applied the colors here? Did she think this man's blood-weary eyes could find philosophy in the aggressive bursts of paint? The sculptures that stood between the paintings or in clusters of two and three were twisted figures, human and otherwise. Kneeling together, clinging or struggling, the figures echoed pure emotion. And Dion had asked Kiyun to hold them.

Aranur stared at the man who was sitting, sipping a mug of steaming rou, but as he entered, Kiyun got swiftly to his feet, setting down the mug. The two men eyed each other for a long moment.

Kiyun was as tall as Aranur, but his hair was brown where Aranur's was black, and his shoulders heavier with muscle. His hands were thick where Aranur's were lean; but his face, though strong, appeared almost soft compared to Aranur's hard expression.

"How is Dion?" Kiyun asked finally.

Aranur's voice was flat. "She's running away."

"You want me to... " Kiyun's voice trailed off. Want me to talk to her, he

wanted to say, but the look on Aranur's face killed the thought.

Aranur made a show of looking around the hall. "You keep, what, twelve of her sculptures now?" he asked instead.

Kiyun did not nod. "Twenty-two paintings, twelve sculptures, three art-

message rings."