Lenardo considered. "Was this ghost-king one of your ancestors, Aradia?"

"I'm not joking."

"Neither am I. Someone like you, both Adept and Reader-"

"No!" She wrenched out of his embrace, shoving hard against his chest as she jumped to her feet. "No. There cannot be any life separate from the body. The legend of the ghost-king is meant to warn of the folly of such nonsense."

Reading how upset Aradia was, Lenardo recalled what he knew of savage beliefs. No dieties, no afterlife. "Life is the greatest value," Aradia had once told him. She believed that there was nothing more than her physical life; he remembered that the subject was particularly painful to her because her mother had taken her own life, the worst thing a savage could do. He decided that it was best to change the subject.

"You will understand more as your abilities increase. There's nothing to fear, and we have joyful plans to make."

"Indeed we have. Lenardo, let's not tell anyone yet. I want Wulfston to know first."

"And Julia."

"Julia," Aradia said. "Oh, my. Do you think she'll accept your marriage?"

"You do see the point precisely. As long as she is assured that she will not be losing me but gaining you, I have no fear that she will object. However, there is the matter of explaining to a literal-minded child my seeming hypocrisy. I told her that Readers never marry."

"In the Aventine Empire," said Aradia. "And most Readers are married off, if I understand the system, to produce new Readers. What seems wrong, though, is that only second-rate Readers reproduce; where do Readers like you come from?"

"My parents were, as you put it, second-rate Readers. I don't remember them very well."

"Has there never been an instance of two Master Readers having a child?"

"Male and female Readers are rigorously segregated."

"But you Read each other."

"Yes."

She put her hand along the side of his face. Ill fell in love with you before I could Read you, but now there is so much more. Lenardo, how can man and woman touch minds like this and not desire to join bodies?//

//They do. That is why the marriages arranged for those who do not reach the top ranks of Readers are generally successful. But for those who remain in the Academies, the mental union with other Readers far more than suffices for physical touch. Aradia, you need not touch me now.//

Ill want to touch you!// Her fingers slid into his hair, and she bent to kiss his mouth possessively. Fire stirred in his veins, and she laughed. //You see? You excite me, Lenardo, and now it will be even more exciting to touch, to make love-//

Passion threatened to overwhelm his control, but he forced common sense to prevail. "I love you, Aradia," he said aloud, "but I don't think we want to announce our intentions to the world by having Helmuth or Arkus walk in on us like this."

"Very well, then," she said wistfully. "Later."

But later, although she moved into Lenardo's room and into his bed, Aradia did not want to make love. Now that she was open to Reading, Lenardo knew that it was not teasing, that she wanted him but felt compelled to wait. He could not find the reason without invading her privacy, but he sensed that she was waiting for something she both feared and longed for.

But when he tried to ask her about it, she avoided the subject, again demanding that he try to exercise Adept power. ' 'Fire talent is the most common and the easiest of all even for the Lord Adept," she told him. But although he tried to 'cooperate and then at her insistence tried to make the silken hangings move, all he achieved was a tension headache. He wondered idly if that was what she had intended.

Three days later, Julia arrived home with Wulfston. When Lenardo lifted his daughter down from her horse, he did not resist her embrace but squeezed her in return, enjoying her happy surprise at his leniency. He could feel her trying to Read him, knowing that something important had happened while she was away.

Wulfston, too, was brimming with curiosity. As soon as they were all together in Lenardo's room, he demanded, "Now, what scheme are you two plotting?"

"No scheme," Aradia replied. "Just happy plans."

Wulfston looked from one to the other and said, "I think I can guess."

"In the Aventine Empire," said Lenardo, "I would have to ask your permission, Wulfston, as Aradia's nearest male kin. Here, however, Aradia is her own mistress."

The black man nodded. "I've been expecting as much ever since fate dropped a man of appropriate age and endowments into Aradia's path. In fact, I feared this very development at first. Aradia, are you certain?"

"I'm certain. Lenardo and I have agreed to marry, unite our lands, and rule jointly. We wanted you and Julia to be the first to know."

Julia was wide-eyed. "But Father, you said-"

"It is not always possible for us to follow the customs of the Aventine Empire," Lenardo said. "We must seek the right way for Readers to live here, child."

"Julia," said Aradia, "won't you be my daughter, too?"

"Lenardo," Wulfston added, "This makes us brothers. Julia, I'll be your uncle. Can you stand so much new family all at once?"

Lenardo hoped that Aradia did not Read that Julia was uncertain about her new mother but delighted to be suddenly related to Wulfston. Searching carefully for the right words, the girl said, "I think it will be very nice. Are you going to have a real wedding, like Arkus and Josa?"

"Indeed," said Lenardo, "and you shall witness for me."

"When does the great event take place?" Wulfston asked.

"As soon as possible," Lenardo said, but Aradia objected.

"We've just had a festival, and we must draw up all the agreements between us. Better to fight it out now than after other parties are involved."

"But Aradia," Lenardo began.

Wulfston let out a burst of laughter. "Oh, you are off to a fine start. You haven't even agreed on a date?"

"Midwinter," said Aradia. "It will be a marvelous excuse for a party at the dreariest time of year."

"Surely we can make it sooner," said Lenardo.

//We're discussing only the formal ceremony,// Aradia told him without thinking.

Julia gasped, and Aradia's shock of realization of what she'd done rang through all three Readers.

The only one unaffected, Wulfston, said, "Julia, when two people fall in love, it's normal for them to want to marry as soon as possible."

"But she- But they-"

Wulfston realized then that Julia had Read something to upset her. "What has happened? Lenardo? Aradia?"

Julia, remembering that nonReaders sometimes projected a thought at a Reader without saying it aloud, stared at Aradia. //Can you Read me?// she demanded.

There was a long moment's suspense before Aradia admitted it. //Yes, Julia, I can.//

Wulfston looked from the girl to the woman and back, then to Lenardo. "Are they-"

Lenardo nodded. "Aradia has learned to Read."

"By the gods," Wulfston whispered, the Aventine oath of his childhood slipping out in his astonishment. Then he grinned. "I was right. I never dared to believe it, but I've suspected all along. It is all the same power-the difference is in how you are trained. Aradia, how did you learn?"

She blushed. "I don't really know how I learned," she replied finally. "One morning I just woke up Reading."

"I can't explain it, either," Lenardo added.

"What about you?" Wulfston demanded. "Have you mastered Adept powers now?"

"Not in the slightest," Lenardo replied. "Wulfston, I think Aradia inherited both abilities from her father."

"Of course she did. But I ought to have both powers, too, even if Nerius was my father only by adoption."

"Wulfston," said Lenardo, "none of us, not Aradia in all her studies, not I in my years at the Academy, ever heard of one person exhibiting both Reading and Adept powers… except Nerius."