Miral interjected. "Tanis's arrow was in the creature's eye. I but raised a little smoke and fire."

Flint raised an eyebrow. "Your little smoke and fire' was far more than a mere distraction." He looked at the half-elf. "More important, the mage here also proposed an explanation for the strange deflection of your arrow.

Tanis, wordless, looked at Miral. The mage smiled. "Tylors are creatures capable of strong magic. I, as you know, am not. Yet somehow, back in the clearing, I was able to send a blast of lightning so strong that it knocked me out of my saddle and, quite possibly, killed the creature."

"Yes?" Tanis asked, not sure where the mage was leading.

Miral sat up a little straighter in the canvas chair and gestured with his left hand. His bandaged one remained motionless on the arm of the chair. "I merely conjectured whether, in the heat of the emotions of that moment, the creature released its magic and I somehow unwittingly deflected it, turning it back upon the tylor."

"Is that possible?" Tanis's face looked dubious.

The mage shrugged, and slumped again. "I don't know. It's only a guess. But if that did happen-and it's a big 'if,' I know-could that same burst of powerful magic also have deflected an arrow from its path?"

Tanis looked wonderingly at the mage. "You are saying…"

Miral drew a deep breath. "That what happened to Lord Xenoth was an accident, that you were in no way to blame." He paused to gather his thoughts. "And that, in fact, you behaved honorably and bravely in the face of near-certain death, seeking to save Lord Xenoth."

Flint stomped over to Tanis's desk and helped himself to a handful of sugared almonds from a covered wooden bowl. 'The Speaker said he will check with experts in magic to see if that is a plausible explanation," he added. "And thus, it appears, you are cleared. The guards have been dismissed from your door."

With the tension finally eased, Tanis realized he'd gotten four hours of sleep in the past forty-eight. He yawned expansively, and the dwarf and mage grinned.

"Lad, you look as though you've lived through ten years in two days," Flint said, clearly unaware of the pouches under his own bloodshot eyes.

"I have."

With no more words, the dwarf and the elven mage left then, one to his shop and the other to his rooms at the palace. Tanis moved to his wardrobe to prepare to retire. He had just shrugged out of the leather shirt when he heard a knock at his door. Thinking it was Flint, he strode to the door and threw it open, not bothering to throw anything over his torso.

A light voice greeted him, and Laurana stepped out of the shadows of the corridor into his room. She appeared hesitant, which was unusual for her but probably not surprising considering Tanis's level of undress. The only light in the room came from a lamp on Tanis's desk and the moonlight streaming through the window behind him. The lamplight glinted against the metallic strands in her long silver gown. "Tanis."

He said nothing. Tanis hoped this interview wouldn't last long. He was suddenly so tired that he could barely focus on the elven princess.

"I…" She faltered and tried again. "Father talked to me about the discussion you and he had this morning." She passed him and stepped onto the thick rug that Flint had occupied only moments before.

Tanis, shaking his head, remained in the doorway. Was it only that morning that he had met with Solostaran in the Speaker's private chambers at the Tower? How badly the half-elf needed sleep. He reeled and caught the stone door frame.

"He said you don't love me," Laurana continued. "Not the way I hoped you did." She kept her chin high, but her agitation showed in the way she kept smoothing the lace at the wrists of the gown.

What it must be costing her emotionally to force this conversation, Tanis suddenly thought. He hoped to make the discussion as short and honest as possible. "You are my sister," he said gently.

"That's not true!" Laurana protested. "Just because we were raised in the same house doesn't make that so. I can love you, and I do." She moved toward him and grabbed for his hand with her slender fingers.

Tanis groaned inwardly, yet he knew deep down that Laurana was right. She was his cousin only by marriage- and even that link was tenuous. She certainly was not his true sister. But did he even wish her to be so? He shook his head, thinking of the golden ring that lay hidden still in the bottom of his leather purse.

"Laurana, please understand," Tanis said, his voice weary. "I do love you. But I love you as a-"

"-as a sister?" she finished acidly, and suddenly pulled away from him. 'That's what you told father this morning, wasn't it? 'I love her only as a sister.' "

Only the ragged sound of her breathing broke the silence in the room. When she spoke again, her voice was bitter.

"I've been a fool, haven't I? I won't trouble you any longer, Tanthalas, my brother. I should thank you, really, for opening my eyes to the truth "

Her face was as cold as the quartz walls of the room, but Tanis saw Solinari's light reflected in the tears in her eyes.

"I could learn to hate you, Tanis!" she cried, and then shoved past him to the corridor, leaving Tanis to stare after her. Just before she disappeared down the hallway, she stopped and turned. Her voice was nearly calm again. "Throw away the ring, Tanthalas." Then she vanished.

Tanis mentally kicked himself. There must have been a better way to have handled that. He shook his head and sighed, then closed the door.

Chapter 19

A.C. 308, Early Summer

Weeks went by without any further word on the controversy over Lord Xenoth's death. A quiet funeral was held for the longtime adviser two days after his death. Truth to tell, few people in the court missed the irascible adviser, and more than one elf silently breathed a sigh of relief at not having to cross verbal swords with him anymore.

Xenoth's funeral did not prevent the general population from conducting spontaneous festivals to celebrate the slaying of the tylor. The beast had done much to inhibit the trade that increasingly formed a basis of the Qualinesti economy. The beast's horned head was displayed for a time at the southwestern guard tower, and long lines of elves, many with excited children in tow, formed to view the trophy.

Tanis found himself the focus of admiring glances by the common elves in the Grand Market, and suspicious ones by the courtiers in the Tower and palace. Both situations made him uncomfortable. In addition, Laurana was avoiding him and treating him with elaborate coolness on those instances when they could not evade each other. As a result, he spent more time than ever in Flint's shop, watching the dwarf prepare sketches for Porthios's Kentommen medallion.

"The Speaker filled Lord Xenoth's position yesterday," Tanis observed one morning as he watched the dwarf's hands fly over the parchment with a piece of charcoal.

"With…?" prompted the dwarf.

"Litanas, of course."

"I imagine that has sealed Litanas's suit with Lady Selena," Flint remarked.

Tanis nodded. "Ulthen is walking around like a lost soul, sighing and gazing at Selena like…" He cast about for an appropriate simile. Suddenly, a clatter of mule hooves interrupted his reverie, and Fleetfoot appeared in the open doorway to the shop, limpid brown eyes alight with affection. "… like a lovelorn mule."

Flinging down his charcoal with a soft curse, Flint intercepted the creature just as she placed a hoof inside the sill. Berating the animal, he led her back to the shed.

When Flint's grumbling had receded, Tanis rose and moved to the table. More than a dozen sketches, showing different views of the medal, lay on the wooden surface. Flint was working with various combinations of elven symbols-aspen leaves, of course, and other woodland elements. He'd even roughed in a caricature of Porthios that suggested both stubbornness and strength but emphasized too much the permanent glower on the elf lord's face; Flint had drawn a big "X" through the sketch. Tanis decided that a medallion showing intertwined aspen, oak, and ivy leaves was his favorite.