Then there was that odd incident with Keren, right after he’d damn near collapsed. She’d bullied her way past the Healers the morning Kris and Talia had left, while he was still fairly light-headed with fever, and had delivered a vehement lecture to him that he couldn’t quite remember. It was maddening, because he had the shrewd notion that it was important, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to confront Keren again and ask her what her diatribe had been all about. But if what vague memories he did have were not totally misleading—and they very well could be—she’d spoken of lifebonds, and more than once. And she’d gone on at some length about what an idiot he was being, and how miserable he was making Talia feel.

Besides all that, he had had some very frightening dreams that he didn’t think could all be laid to the fever, and had been entertaining very uneasy feelings about the whole expedition from the moment he had learned that Talia and Kris were gone. If something were to go wrong, he wanted to know about it firsthand. And he wanted to be in a position where he could do something, not just wonder what was happening; although in the kind of shape he was in, he was not too sanguine that he’d be able to do much.

Technically, he was still an invalid, so he was sent to the rear of the company before the baggage animals, to share Skif’s bodyguard duty on Elspeth. Skif’s Cymry had foaled in early spring, and the youngster was just barely old enough to make this kind of easy trip.

Elspeth was anxious, and Dirk had a notion that he and Skif were the best possible company for the young Heir; the antics of Cymry’s offspring and Skif’s easy patter kept her spirits up, and Dirk was more than willing to talk about the one subject that overwhelmed her with guilt and dominated her thoughts—Tatia.

Selenay had given Talia’s note to Elspeth when the Heir had searched for the Queen’s Own without success and had finally demanded to know what her mother had done with her. She had recalled her promise of many years’ standing with heartfelt remorse almost as soon as Talia had turned her back on her and ridden away. “I’ll never get mad at you,” she had pledged. “No matter what you say, unless I go away and think about it, and decide what you told me just wasn’t true.”

And a great deal of what Talia had said that night, though harsh, was true. She hadn’t thought past her own pleasure and her own wishes. She hadn’t once considered her “affair” in the light of the larger view.