"It was in the unsettled times in the early centuries after the Cataclysm. Bands of brigands were not uncommon on the highways. But Arelas assured me that we'd be safe in the small group that we traveled with."

Miral dipped his head and seemed to be struggling to breathe. Tanis was fascinated by the narrative, yet he wished he had not asked the mage to relive what was obviously a painful experience.

Finally, the mage sighed. "Arelas was wrong. We sailed safely from Caergoth to Abanasinia, and we traveled inland without incident for a week. Then, a day's ride out of Solace, near Gateway, our small group of fellow travelers was attacked by human brigands. We killed one of the highwaymen, but they slew the guards who traveled with us."

"Arelas?" Tanis asked. Through the door, he heard impatient footsteps; he could only guess it was Tyresian, come to get him for archery lessons.

"There was an… an explosion," Miral said softly, stepping back another pace as the door began to open. "Arelas was badly hurt. I did what I could. He told me to come here, that his brother would find a place for me in court. You see, even Arelas, fond friend that he was, knew that I wasn't a good enough mage to find a position on my own."

At that moment, Tyresian crashed through the door, shouting, "Tanthalas Half-Elven! I have waited…" He saw the two and stopped, then evidently dismissed the mage as beneath his notice. "You are late!" he snapped at the half-elf.

Tanis ignored the angry elf lord for the moment. "And so you came here," the half-elf said to Miral.

Miral nodded. "And I've been here ever since. I've been happy-happier than I would have been in Silvanesti, I suspect. I do miss Arelas. I still dream about him."

As Tyresian fumed silently behind him, Tanis watched in sympathy as the mage padded back up the steps.

"Keep your head up," Tyresian snapped. "Hold this arm straight. Plant your feet thus. Don't look away from the target while you're aimed at it. By the gods, do you want to kill someone?"

Off to one side, Lady Selena laughed. She was a regal-looking elf lady with violet eyes and dusky blond hair, but there was an unsettling hardness to her features. Still, the great wealth she would inherit upon her parents' death added a great deal to her attractiveness in many elf lords' eyes.

Tanis had spent two hours firing arrow after arrow into several bales of hay that Tyresian had ordered set up in a block against a blank wall of the huge courtyard. "That way, we'll be relatively sure you won't send an arrow into some passing courtier," Tyresian had said, prompting more laughter from Litanas, Ulthen and Selena. Porthios sat on a bench, watching his half-elf cousin with an intensity that almost guaranteed Tanis would miss the target nine out of ten times.

"Can't you ask your friends to leave?" Tanis had asked Tyresian, whose blue eyes narrowed.

"Do you think they'll clear a battlefield for you someday, half-elf, just so you'll feel at ease with no critical eyes upon you?" the elf lord retorted loudly. Litanas snorted, and Tanis felt his face go red. With the exception of Porthios, the group seemed to find Tanis's performance remarkably entertaining.

Tanis's arm ached, and his fingers were numb. Nerveless hands dropped an arrow on the ground, and he flushed as the crowd behind him found merriment in his efforts to pluck the arrow from the moss with fingers that refused to do what he wished. Actually, what his fingers wished to do was wrap themselves around Tyresian's corded neck and tighten, and Tanis fought to hold his temper in check. Lady Selena had a particularly irritating laugh, too-a giggle that trilled up the scale and gurgled back down to the starting note. It was enough to make his hair curl, but Litanas and Ulthen seemed to find it enchanting.

"It does little good to be skilled in defending yourself against an enemy in the distance if you are vulnerable to an enemy standing before you," Tyresian said self-importantly.

No kidding, Tanis thought, but grimaced as the elf lord thrust a heavy steel sword into his hand. The half-elf was forced to lift it in a hasty parry against a fiercely grinning Tyresian. Deftly, Tyresian edged one foot behind Tanis's and shoved his adversary's chest with the flat of his sword; Tanis fell over backward in a flurry of arms and legs, narrowly missing his own sword as he landed.

He lay there, panting, stinging from the shrill laughter and the force of his fall but refusing to look at the elven nobles chortling on the stone bench.

Suddenly, Selena's screech rose above the clamor. "He's split his breeches!" she shrieked, and dissolved in giggles. Tanis looked down; his sword had, indeed, slit the right side of his breeches, and his fall had split it wider, leaving an expanse of unbecomingly hairy thigh exposed to the gaze of Porthios's friends. Finally, a new voice joined the others, and Tanis saw Porthios wipe tears from his eyes as he rose and, shaking his head, led his friends back into the palace through the steel doors. Tyresian leaned over and, with one easy movement, swept up Tanis's sword, saluted the fallen half-elf with it, and stepped after his friends. He paused at the door, however, holding it open with one strong hand. "See you tomorrow, half-elf," he said, and grinned.

From inside, Selena's laughter trilled back at Tanis.

Chapter 5

Laurana was waiting in the courtyard the next morning when Tanis arrived with his bow and arrows, his mood matching the glower of the overcast skies. Miral had given him the morning off, and he resolved to practice his weaponry until Tyresian could find nothing to criticize.

But there was the Speaker's daughter, attired in a hunter-green gown with gold-embroidered slippers, her long hair loose except for a thick braid on each side of her face. She sat, legs swinging, on the edge of a stone wall, managing both to hint at the alluring woman she would become and to show the indulged child she was now. Tanis groaned inwardly.

"Tanis!" she cried, and hopped down from the wall. "I have a terrific idea."

The half-elf sighed. How to deal with her? She was only ten years old to his thirty, a mere baby compared with him; the age gap was similar to that between a five-year-old human child and a fifteen-year-old.

He was genuinely fond of the little elf girl, even though she was a touch too aware of how her cuteness affected people. "What do you want, Laurana?"

She stood, arms akimbo, in front of the half-elf, her chin pert and her green eyes sparkling with fun. "I think we should get married."

"What?" Tanis dropped his bow. As he stooped to pick it up, the child tackled him and, giggling, pulled him to the moss. Gravely, he kneeled, set her on her feet again, and then stood. "I don't think it would work, Lauralanthalasa Kanan."

"Oh, everybody uses my full name when I'm in trouble." She pouted. "I still think you should marry me."

Tanis prepared to aim for the mutilated target, which still leaned against the high stone wall, but Laurana danced before him, getting in his way. "Do you want to get hurt?" he demanded. "Sit there." And he pointed to a bench off to his left, the same bench that Lady Selena and the others had used yesterday. Laurana, amazingly, obeyed him.

"Why not, Tanis?" she chimed as he released an arrow that missed the target, clinking against the stone two feet above the padded hay and falling harmlessly to the ground.

"Because you're too young." He nocked another arrow and squinted at the target.

She sighed. "Everyone says that." This arrow hit the hay bales, at least, though it was about three feet to the right of the dragonseye. "How about when I'm older?"