"You'd better," Keritanima told him tearfully as he and both his sisters shared a common embrace. "I hate letting you go, brother."

"We all have our own things to do, Kerri," he told her. "And we'll never be truly apart. I'm always just a touch away."

"That is the only reason I can let you go, my brother," Allia told him thickly.

"And you were going to sneak away without saying goodbye to me? I'm crushed," the Goddess said. They all turned to look at her, and then she stepped aside. Behind her, wearing a new pair of leather trousers and a simple linen shirt, was Jula.

Tarrin opened his arms to his bond-daughter, and she flew into them with tearful eyes, hugging him tightly. "I can't believe it!" she sobbed. "I'm so glad you're alright, father!"

"I'm fine, cub," he said to her gently. "And you got here just in time. A few more minutes, and Mother would have had to bring you to Aldreth. I hope Triana leaving you behind didn't upset you too much."

"I was until Mother spoke to me," she said. "She told me to be patient and wait, and she'd come for me. She came for me," she said in wonder.

"I'm sorry about that, cub," Triana said with sincere regret. "When your Goddess spoke to me and told me about Tarrin, I completely forgot myself. I think I said some pretty nasty things to the Hierarchs before I left."

"You did," she giggled. "They were very mad at you."

"Why did you go there?" Tarrin asked them.

"They wanted to test me," Jula said. "I'm an adult now, father. I don't have to stay with you. But if you don't mind, I'd like to. I'll help you settle in and help Jesmind with Jasana. If you don't mind."

"We don't mind at all, cub," Jesmind told her with a gentle smile. "But you may be usurped by Kimmie and Mist. They're going to need a little help."

Jula looked over to them, then saw the tiny bundles in their arms. She squealed in delight and rushed over to them, looking into the tiny bundles with unbridled joy. "Twins!" she said in wonder. "Kimmie, you had twins!"

"Yes, two are more or less considered twins," Kimmie said with a sly smile. "This is Tara, and Mist is holding Rina. And we very well may ask you to stay with us a while, Jula. You know how precocious Were-cat children are. We just might need your help."

"I'd be happy to babysit for you," Jula said.

"I say, congratulations on your adulthood, Jula," Phandebrass said with a smile. "It was well earned, it was."

"Thank you," she said with a slight blush.

They gathered around Jula, welcoming her and congratulating her, but the Goddess had come up to Tarrin. She looked up at him with boundless love in her eyes, and she held out her hands to him. He took them in her paws gently, lost in the love he felt from her, totally adoring her. "Just as I promised you, kitten," she said, looking up at him with a glorious smile. "You have your reward."

Jula laughed brightly, but the Goddess fixed her with an icy stare. "Not a word!" she snapped at the female.

"Yes, Mother," she said meekly, but she was grinning broadly.

"What did you do, Mother?" he asked susiciously.

She pulled her hands from him and put her hands behind her back, striking up a pose of thoroughly insincere innocence. "Ohhhhhh, nothing," she said, giving him an outrageous smile.

Tarrin laughed helplessly. "Alright, if you want to surprise me, I promise I'll be surprised," he told her. "Just for you."

"Oh, good!" she said brightly, then she literally leaped forward and grabbed him by the neck. She pulled him down, and then gave him a loving kiss on the cheek, a kiss that burned with throbbing power that reminded him that she was very much a god. "Remember, you promised to be surprised," she told him. "Now go on, kitten. You need to get on your way."

Tarrin sighed, then he nodded. "Alright, gather around me," Jenna called, and the two groups quickly separated. Tarrin looked at those he was leaving behind, saw the wonderfully poignant smiles, remembered just how each one of them looked at that moment. Allia and Keritanima, his dear sisters. Camara Tal and Miranda, two of his closest friends. Little Sarraya, another dear friend. Binter and Sisska, so solid and depeandable. Azakar, so loyal and brave. Phandebrass, so intelligent. And Dolanna, wonderful Dolanna, who had been with him since the very beginning, the woman to whom he owed so much. She smiled at him, such a glorious smile, and then she waved. "May I come visit you?" she asked.

"Any time you want, Dolanna," he told her. "My home is always yours."

He felt Jenna's spell reach out and surround them, and he knew that would be the last he'd see of them all at once until Camara had her baby. But that was only seven months from now. To a Were-cat, that was just a blink of the eyes. He'd wake up tomorrow and realize it was time to go to Amazar.

It was not a goodbye. It truly was only until tomorrow.

And then they were gone. And a chapter of Tarrin's life had come to an end.

Aldreth was freezing.

They arrived just at dawn. Jenna had aimed them at the fallow farmland just outside the house, and she had been true to the mark. The sky was completely clear, and the scents in the air were of snow and frozen forest, with very little animal scent reaching them. There was half a span of snow in a ring around the zone of Jenna's Teleportation-the snow that had been where they were was now laying on the grass in the garden at the Tower, traded for Tarrin's party-and he looked around to see that things on the Kael homestead had returned more or less to normal. Their father had rebuilt the small barn and the brewhouse, and they had done some work to the old house. There was smoke wafting up from a brand new stone chimney, and the old roof had been replaced with one made of sturdy gray slate. The pens were rebuilt, and there were about a dozen fat sheep grazing on dried hay dumped into a trough near the barn. There was even a new chicken coop on the far side of the barnyard, and five plump chickens scratched in the churned snow for seeds scattered about into it earlier that morning. Either mother or father had gotten up to do the chores, and feeding the animals was first on that list.

"Well, let's go crash breakfast," Jenna said impishly, then she pulled her cloak around her. "And get out of this cold!"

They trudged up to the farmhouse, and an entire lifetime of memories swirled up around him. He had been born in that house, and all of this had ultimately started right here. On the Kael farm, that isolated farmstead that held the distinction of being the furthest east of any human settlement in Sulasia. Home to a pensioned Ranger and his Ungardt princess bride, and had been for the last twenty years. This was where he grew up, this was where he learned how to fight and how to hunt. This was where he began, and in a way, this was what he was. The fact that he was one of the most powerful magic-users on Sennadar meant little to him. The fact that he was a Were-cat was only a change in what he had once been, and that was a simple farmboy who happened to live in the best family there was. He had been very happy here, even when he was planning to leave. And it only seemed right that he would come full circle, and he would return here once more after it was over. He wouldn't live in this house, he had his eyes on a small meadow about four hours of human walk into the Frontier, a nice little meadow on top of a small hill that had a stream running along its southern border, at the base of that little rise. That would be his house. But this place, this region, from Aldreth to a day's walk into the Frontier, it would always be his home .

Jenna pushed the door open brashly and stepped inside in front of Tarrin. "We're home!" she shouted, startling her father, who was sitting by the fire with his hands out to it. He had just come in from doing the chores. Eron Kael looked wildly towards the door, and as he ducked under the door to come in behind his sister, he saw his mother, Elke Kael, standing over the stove he'd given Jesmind, cooking eggs and ham steaks in new iron skillets. She took one look at him and dropped her fork, her hands going to her mouth. "Dallstad's axe!" she gasped. "Jenna! Tarrin!"