"What I seek is a cure, Elibi. No more. No less."

"For the wolves or for yourself?"

Dion gave her a crooked smile. "I'm not sure there's a difference, but then,

I'm not sure that matters."

"It matters to me."

"You always were a softie."

Elibi chuckled. "That's not what you said when you were my intern."

"And that's not what Asuli will say either, I wager. I think I'm going to

enjoy thinking of her stuck here with you."

The old woman put her hand on Dion's arm. "I wish you would stay, Dione.

There is so much you could do here. So much you could teach the other wolfwalkers-so much you could teach me."

Dion shook her head. "I spent the last thirteen years of my life doing that in

Ariye. They will send someone to help you. This, I do for myself, for the wolves."

But Elibi's searching gaze was shrewd. "It's not the wolves you'll be

seeking, Dione. I see something else in your eyes."

The two women exchanged a long look. Dion touched her arm, and they hugged suddenly, almost fiercely. Elibi pushed her away. "Move, Dione.

Don't stay put. Go run with your wolves in your mountains. You'll find no peace among the graves."

"I'll search where I must," she returned.

Elibi nodded slowly at the shadows in Dion's eyes. "When one has nothing

left to lose, that is when one can do the greatest good."

"When you hear the wolves... "

"I'll listen for you."

Elibi watched as the wolfwalker mounted. Gamon, Kiyun, Tehena, Dione...

The four figures rode slowly away, heading toward the mountains. Within minutes, they were barely distinguishable from the trees that lined the road.

Elibi stared after them. Her voice was soft. "Ride safe, Dione-with all nine moons above you."

It took four days to follow the mountain roads to the fork that led to the home of Dion's twin brother. There Gamon paused and asked Dion to turn off toward the village with him. She shook her head.

He touched her arm. "They are family, Dion. You need to see him, and he

needs to see you.""He knows me, Gamon." The rush of emotion almost broke her, and for a moment she couldn't see. She swallowed and hid her shock that the waves of grief could still blind her. She forced her voice to steady. "He knows already what I feel," she said. "He lives with that, as I live with his emotions. As twins, we are too tightly bound for either to be unaware of the other."

"Awareness isn't the kind of comfort you need."

"It's enough for now."

"Is it? Or is it an excuse you use to keep from facing your family?"

"That isn't fair, Gamon."

"No," he agreed. "But it's true."

"I hate it when you're right." But she didn't smile.

"You're going to have to face them sometime, Wolfwalker. You're going to

have to accept their comfort."

"It's not their comfort I'm avoiding." The older man started to interrupt her, but she cut him off. "Gamon, when I first bonded with Hishn, there was no one to guide me as a wolfwalker, to warn me about growing too close to the wolves. My father and brother-nearly everyone in my village-could see the changes I went through. But they assumed those changes were normal for being a wolfwalker. So I ran trail and learned to struggle and fight and

survive. And then I came to Ariye, and kept doing those things because you had a need I could fill."

Gamon nodded. "You were so clear in what you did-so focused and

confident. It was as if the Heart of Ariye had somehow become visible to us all, through you. All the centuries of working toward going back to the stars, and you made us believe it could happen."

She stared at him. "I never had anything to do with that part of the county. I never even thought about your goals until I mated with Aranur."

He shook his head. "It isn't that, Dion, but the other things you do that make you such a focus. You risked yourself, you sacrificed for us, and you didn't break, no matter what happened. You pushed yourself to do what was necessary, not just what you thought you could do. And simply by living, you showed us what a single scout could accomplish. Or a single healer. Or a single wolfwalker or woman." He let his gnarled hand cover hers. "It is never the big miracles that give simple folk heart: Hope is important, but it won't reach the stars like confidence will. You build that confidence. If something can be done, you do it. If it can't be done, you work around it. Aranur saw that in you long ago. It stunned him then-I remember it clearly-that you could do so much yet be so unassuming. It was as if, through your own simple focus, he suddenly saw the potential of every person he met. That is the Heart of Ariye, Dion. The potential. The dream. The ability to harness and focus that potential, and the confidence to explore it. That heart is still in you, Dion. Randonnen, Ariye-they are the same. In you, they blend together."

She stared down the trail. "And yet I feel so empty."

Gamon rubbed her hand. "I won't lie to you and say that time will heal your

wounds. But I do know it can give you other things to help fill in the void: Family. Your brother. Your father. Your other sons."

"Tomi nursed me long enough. He needs to go back to his own mate and

finish building his own home. And Olarun... " Her voice trailed off.

"Olarun needs his family as much as you do."

"You are family, too, Gamon."

"I'm his grandfather," the older man agreed. "As much as I was a father to

Aranur. But I cannot be his mother, Dion. Nor can I be the father he's just lost. Could you take someone else as your father or your twin?"

"No."

"And they would have it no other way, too. Come, Dion. Ride this trail with me."

"I cannot, Gamon."

"Why?"

"Because... " Her voice trailed off. "Because before I had children," she

said softly, "it was all right to take risks, to explore. I put no one else in danger. I gambled with no other lives. My curiosity balanced the challenges. But then I had Tomi and Olarun and... Danton." She forced herself to say his name. "And suddenly I became torn between what I was used to doing and what I must not do in order to keep my children safe. I couldn't raise them the way my father raised me-to run wild in the forest with my twin. Randonnen is safer than Ariye. And as a child, I was drawn to the wilderness by my own curiosity and eagerness. I wasn't pulled to it or forced into danger with the wolves. But my children are surrounded by Gray Ones. They are affected by the wolves in ways that I never was. And every time I turn around, the Gray Ones pull my boys to the forest. I'm so used to running with the wolves that I did not see the difference between risking the forest for myself, and risking it with my family."

"Do you really think that a child of yours would have stayed out of the forest just because it was dangerous?" He shook his head. "If you think that, you don't know yourself very well."

"I know myself too well, Gamon. And that, I think, is the problem."

"You've done your best, Dion. None of the moons could ask for more."

"I tried to do my best," she agreed. "And with Tomi, it wasn't hard-he was already half grown when we adopted him. But with Olarun and Danton... " She looked up. "They were so little, Gamon-you remember that. One day, I just turned around, and they were old enough to start running trail, big enough to ride dnu. They had little-boy bows and little knives and survival kits. They had trail boots, not just home shoes. Like a night full of shadows, there was suddenly no clear-cut boundary. When were they too young to learn to swim or climb? When were they too small to stay out overnight? The dangers I take for granted- the worlags and poolahs and lepa-those should not have been part of their lives. But I took

them into that. I led them into danger like a wolf mother who must teach her children to survive." This time, her voice shook. "Or to die."

"Dion... "

She shook her head angrily. "I'm not going to hide from the truth, Gamon. I

have lived with the wolves for fifteen years, and I can't deny that it has changed me. What Aranur saw-what you see-as the 'Heart of Ariye, ' I see as a heart of gray. I'm too close to the Gray Ones to have perspective.

I'm not wolf enough to protect my children, and not human enough to keep them out of danger. My father and brother know that as well as they know me. They've told me that often enough." Her jaw tightened. "I can face my own blame now, Gamon. But I cannot face theirs, too."

"And going north will help with that?"

"It will give me some kind of purpose."

"Purpose, Dion? Or escape? Or punishment for the pain you feel you've