“Your mother had six brothers and sisters, youngling,” Tarma interrupted, grinning from ear to ear at the dumbstruck look on her pupil’s face. She played with one end of her own iron-gray braid as she spoke. The tail of hair was as thick as Kero’s wrist, and as gray as the coat of Tarma’s mare. “Your grandmother and I are Goddess-sworn sisters, and I know I’ve explained that to you already.” When Kero finally nodded, she continued. “Well, what I didn’t tell you was that before I met her, my Clan was wiped out by the same bandits she’d contracted to stop.”

“It was one of my first jobs as a Jounneyman,” Kethry put in, after Tarma paused for a moment, staring off at a long cloud above the trees. “They had taken over a whole town and were terrorizing the inhabitants. Tarma followed them there, and I managed to intercept her before she managed to get herself killed.”

“Huh. You wouldn’t have done much better alone, Greeneyes,” Tarma replied sardonically, coming back to the conversation. “Well. We decided to team up. It worked, and we actually managed to take out the bandits and survive the experience. That was when we figured we’d make pretty good partners.”

“Then things got a little complicated,” Kethry chuckled, popping a grape into her mouth.

“A little complicated?” Tarma raised both eyebrows, then shrugged. “I suppose—in the same way that stealing a warsteed can get the Clans a little annoyed. Anyway, the main thing is that we got back to the Plains, she got adopted into the Shin‘a’in, and she vowed to the elders that she’d build a new Clan for me. Eventually she met and wedded your grandfather Jadrek, and damn if she didn’t just about manage to repopulate Tale‘sedrin all on her own!”

Kethry chuckled, and actually blushed. “Jadrek had a little to do with that,” she pointed out, raising an eloquent finger at her partner.

“Well, true enough, and good blood he put in, too.” Tarma stretched, tossed the braid back over her shoulders, and clasped both gnarled hands around her knee. “That’s another story. We three raised seven children, all told. When the core group claimed the herds, we added adoptees from other Clans, orphans and younglings who had some problems and wanted a fresh start. Tale‘sedrin is a full Clan; smaller than it was before the massacre, but growing. Kind of funny how many young suitors we got drooling around the core and the core-blood—but then, to us, a blond is exotic.”

“But—I don’t understand—” Kero protested. “If my uncles and aunts are all Shin‘a’in, why aren’t I? How did I end up here instead of there?”