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"I don't know. Are you suggesting we triad?"
"If it would make you happier. Yes."
"That would make me happier." Talons blinked, feeling dizzy, like the wine
had gone to her head. She turned and her feet slipped, throwing her against
Bryndel. He caught her.
"I think you've had one too many," Bryndel told her, smiling oddly almost
smug.
"I guess I have." Did he put something in the wine? The medicine? Talons'
found her mind sliding away into an unfamiliar giddiness, her awareness
blurring. Then she kissed him.
* * * *
Dree moved into Josiah's old room. She stayed in human form, as she needed to
be able to communicate with the others and her cat form no longer offered her
any protection since Margren knew where she was: she had sensed Margren's
awareness of her the moment she left it. The catkin in their cat forms
could not be scryed by anything short of a full oracle, and those people were
rare: Her sons were safe from scrying so long as they remained kittens. But
should they take human form, they could be found. Hah'nah, her clanmother, had
promised to prevent their changing until they could be brought to safety in
Vorgensburg or somewhere else along the northwest coast. Normally they learned
to change in the same way that a human child learned to walk, by natural
experimentation. Dree missed her kittens; they had just opened their eyes when
she had to leave them. Another young mother had taken them to nurse with her
own kittens. Dynarien used magic to dry up Dree's milk, concealing the
existence of the kittens from Aejys' household.
Aejys had gotten her a lute and she sat in the middle of the bed, playing
soft, melancholy tunes, waiting for them to fetch her for the meeting of
Rowanhart's council. Rowanhart. Dree liked that name. She had seen the new
livery design, three rowans and a bounding, broad-antlered hart, and she liked
that too. Aejys was everything Dree had once believed she had found in
Margren: strength, steadfastness, and compassion. Thinking about it made her
even sadder and her chording reflected it. Either those things had never been
there and she had imagined it in her emotional neediness; or she had simply
not been able to give Margren enough love and so she had changed; or Margren
had deceived her and she had fallen for the deception. Her thoughts and
feelings danced through those possibilities like her hands across the strings.
The first two brought feelings of shame and the last of anger. She could not
hold onto any one of them for long. Hah'nah told her she would sort it out
eventually, that such things took time, but Dree found that advice to be poor
comfort.
A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.
"Come in," Dree said.
Omer stepped in. "They're ready for you, Dree."
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Dree settled the lute among the pillows and slid off the bed.
"That was awfully sad music," Omer said.
Dree nodded. "That's how I feel."
"They're not going to hurt you."
Dree shook her head. "Wasn't what I was thinking about."
She followed Omer down the hall to the main meeting room.
Aejys sat at the head, flanked by Josiah and Skree. Taun sat between Skree
and Omer; Becca sat beside Dree on Josiah's side of the table.
Skree started the questions: he wanted to know everything leading up to
Dree's finally revealing her true nature. Dree began by telling of the horrors
of Dragonshead as she had witnessed and experienced them. By the time he
finished interrogating her, Dree was in tears.
"I think we should break," Becca said, putting a comforting arm around Dree.
"We don't punish the victims here."
"But we need to know they are indeed victims," Skree responded.
"Dynarien would not have sent her if she was a threat," Aejys pointed out,
rising from the table and joining Becca at the end. The paladin took Dree into
her arms and held her a long time, letting her cry herself out. "I know what
you're feeling. I once loved Margren, also."
Josiah sat down beside Aejys.
Aejys looked up at his touch. "I want you to take her to the Willowhorn. I
could not enter, but Dree can. You stay with her, every minute. You can enter
also."
"That's going to add two more days to our departure."
"I know. But Dree needs to work some things out before she will be the kind
of help we will need on this little sally."
"Okay."
"Go now. Don't waste a minute."
"This will help me?" Dree asked.
"Yes."
"One horse. I'll take cat form so Margren cannot track us."
"Smart girl," Josiah said.
Dree wiped her tears, slipped from Aejys' arms, and dropped to the floor. Her
form shimmered, went transparent, then solid. The little calico cat was back.
* * * *
Josiah rode hard this time with Dree perched on his shoulder. They reached
the Willowhorn by early afternoon. The priest was sitting in the glade,
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weaving a necklace of flowers and grass.
She took them to a small scrying pool behind the waterfall. With a wave and a
word, a picture appeared and a story unfolded. They saw Margren and Aejys, the
former just six years old, the latter ten. They saw them playing with other
children in a snow castle. Aejys decided to play something else. Margren
begged them to stay in the snow castle, but Aejys won out and the children
followed her off leaving Margren behind.
An older child appeared, a boy of about eleven. He had not been with the
original group. He held Margren for a while, and then led her off into the
shelter of a wayward pine. He nuzzled the little girl's neck. His fangs
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