Poor child, I wonder what will happen to her. And Francisco, growing up under Valdir’s tutelage . . .

Recalling his thoughts to the present, Regis kissed his wife on the forehead. “You are right, of course. Danilo spouts similar wisdom at me on a daily basis.”

“As well he should,” she replied with an impish smile. “Perhaps the two of us will accomplish what neither one of us alone can. Getting you to see sense.”

“I?” Bemused by her playful turn, he raised one eyebrow.

The light in her eyes dimmed and Regis knew she was thinking of Kierestelli. In response, he said aloud what was in his mind, that he would go directly from Nevarsin to the Yellow Forest and bring their daughter home.

Linnea summoned a smile. “I’m sure you will try.”

“What do you mean?” Regis shivered inside, as if a gust from the everlasting snows touched his heart. The Storns were an old mountain family and undoubtedly had Aldaran blood. Linnea had never said she possessed the Gift of foreseeing, but . . .

Regis thought of his daughter, slim and graceful as a chieri,among the towers of Thendara, the raucous life of the city, the strangeness of the Terran Zone. He thought of men with blasters, with swords. “Are you saying it is not safe for her?”

She turned away. “Let it rest, love. We have endured more sadness in this last year than many people do in an entire lifetime. Go, bestow this last gift upon your brother, and know I will be waiting for you.”

Brother Valentine, once called Rinaldo Felix-Valentine Lanart-Hastur, was laid to rest in the burial area dedicated to those who had given their lives in holy service. The entire monastic community attended, except for one or two elderly monks too frail to make the journey. They climbed the rocky slope, following a path between the arms of glacial ice. Chanting, they shared the weight of the rough wooden coffin. Those who were young and strong took longer turns, but even the lame carried their brother in imitation of the Holy Bearer of Burdens.

The ceremony, conducted by the new Father Master, a tall, soft-spoken man named Conn, was brief. Regis found himself unexpectedly moved. After all that had gone before, he feared the traditional words might ring hollow. The priest recited the prayers with such tenderness that even Danilo had tears in his eyes when the final “May it be so”drew the mourners together. Afterward, Regis waited with Danilo as each monk and novice paused to say a word of consolation. Some had barely known Rinaldo, but others remembered him as a youth, a child, a teacher, a friend.

How they loved him,Regis thought with a heavy gladness. I should never have taken him away.

He and Danilo were in light rapport, as they had been almost continually during this pilgrimage. Danilo said aloud, “Do not take that sorrow on yourself, bredhyu.A hundred things might have happened differently. Old Lord Hastur could have educated him as befitted a Comyn or else buried all record of his existence, leaving him to a life of contemplative prayer. Rinaldo himself made many choices along the way.”

Rinaldo could have resisted Valdir’s seductive offer of power and Tiphani Lawton’s delusions as well.

“Sometimes I think the saddest thing in this whole affair is how few people in Thendara will remember him in the years to come,” Regis sighed. The procession of monks was already winding their way down to the monastery. Although it was still full afternoon, a frigid wind swept down over the ice.

They stayed that night in the monastery’s guest house, warmed by a fire, hot food, and thick blankets. Neither felt the need for speech. When the fire had died into glowing embers, Regis lay in his single bed, waiting for sleep, listening to Danilo’s breathing.

I shall never return to Nevarsin.

Once he could not wait to be free of this place, its harsh discipline and creed of chastity, not to mention its climate. Now he thought of all he had been given, not just the education of books and writing, but the struggle within himself, the clarity to discern the truth and the strength to act upon it. The condemnation of homosexuality had all but destroyed him, and yet, was he not a stronger, more honest person for having wrestled with it? If he had not come to terms with his feelings for Danilo, would he have had the resolve to insist upon a wife for whom he felt genuine love and respect?

For a tenday, Regis scoured the hills in search of the Yellow Forest, and he did so alone. Danilo had been reluctant to allow Regis to ride off by himself, but Regis refused to explain what he was doing or why he must go alone. Kierestelli’s safety no longer depended on no one else knowing where she was hiding, but in all likelihood, the continued existence of the chieridid. Regis in no way distrusted Danilo, but the secret was not his to divulge. The Yellow Forest, sanctuary for a dwindling and near-magical race, had been revealed to him alone.

Revealed once, but not now. Every time he thought he recognized a hillside, a mountain or grove of green-leafed trees, the path led only to more of the same. The Yellow Forest had turned invisible, its entrance just beyond human senses. He called out until his throat was raw as he trotted his horse up and down the place where he thought it must be.

Nothing.

Nothing, like an echo that betrayed something.

Each passing day fueled his anxiety. He imagined Danilo, waiting for him at the village on the far side of the Kadarin, fretting and fearful. Imagined Linnea back in Thendara, her heart aching for the loss of her daughter, and then that strange resignation.

Had she known what would happen?

She would never ask, never cast even a whisper of blame on him. She understood, as he was only now beginning to, that Kierestelli, like her namesake, had never belonged to the world of greed and betrayal, hatred and manipulation, the world that kidnapped children for dogmatic ends. The world that so callously obliterated the brightest of hopes.

The world he must return to and serve as best he could.

When Regis arrived home, he learned that Valdir and Francisco had departed for Serrais, but not Bettany. Her kinswoman, Istvana Ridenow, had come to Thendara, packed up the girl and her belongings, and taken her back to Neskaya Tower.

“Really, it was Danilo’s doing,” Linnea told Regis.

Danilo, coming into the parlor where breakfast was laid out, mumbled that he deserved no credit.

“It was kindly done,” Regis said. “From what you’ve told me, no one at Serrais cares about her.”

“Or is equipped enough to deal with such severe mental trauma,” Linnea put in. “Did you know she’d survived a Ghost Wind? Danilo suspected, and Istvana confirmed it. There’s strength in that young woman and more than a trace of empathy.”

“I couldn’t stand by and see her life thrown away,” Danilo said.

“You have feelings for her?” Regis asked, surprised.

“No more than for any human creature in pain,” Danilo explained, “although Bettany fancied herself in love with me. Poor thing, with no one to love. She’d been rejected and betrayed so many times, I couldn’t turn my back on her.”

“Danilo was marvelous,” Linnea said. “She wouldn’t have anything to do with me, but he kept her talking—”

“—and crying,” Danilo added.

“—until Istvana came. Kinswoman or not, when Istvana sees a poor lost chick, she swoops in like a mother hen. We trained together for a time, and I know. Bettany ate up all that attention as if she were starving.”