He blushed—all the more because he knew damned well it was true. “Kero—” he protested.

“Are we friends again?” she said abruptly.

He blinked, his eyes once more filling with tears, and this time he did not try to pretend they weren’t there. “Yes,” he said. “Although why you’d want a fool like me for a friend—”

“Oh, I have to have someone I can borrow money from,” she said lightly—then reached across the intervening space between them and hugged him, hard.

And when she pulled away, there were tears in her eyes as well.

“Just you take care of yourself, you unmannered lout,” she whispered hoarsely. “I want you around to lend me that money.”

“Mercenary,” he replied, just as hoarsely.

She nodded, and backed her horse away slowly.

“Exactly so, my friend. Exactly so.” She halted the mare just out of reach, and waved at him. “And you have places to go, and people waiting for you, Prince Daren.”

He turned his horse and urged it into a brisk walk, looking back over his shoulder as he did so. He halfway expected to see her making her way toward the Tower, but she was still sitting on her horse beside the path. When she saw him looking, she waved once—more a salute than a wave.

The departing salute he gave her was exactly that. Then he set his eyes on the trail ahead. And never once looked back.

Kero waited until Daren was out of sight, then turned her horse’s head toward the Tower.

I’m not sure what was more surprising—him developing good sense, or me developing a silver tongue. She hadn’t quite known what she was going to say, only the general shape of it. She certainly had not expected the kind of eloquent speech she’d managed to make.

One thing that was not at all surprising; she was already missing Daren—but she wasn’t as miserable as her worst fears had suggested. Which meant, to her way of thinking, that she was not in love with the man. Deep in the lonely hours of the night she’d had quasi-nightmares about successfully sending him away, then discovering she really couldn’t live without him.

She sighed, and Verenna’s ears flicked back at the sound. “Well,” she told the mare, “I guess now it’s my turn to figure out exactly what I’m going to do with my life.”

And Need chose that moment to strike.

Kero had a half-heartbeat of warning, a flash of something stirring, like some old woman grumbling in her sleep, just before the blade began exerting its full potential for pressure. She managed to keep it from taking her over entirely, but she could not keep it from disabling her.