Kero was going through her paces; one of the Shin‘a’in sword-dances. And as Tarma watched her, the Swordsworn’s heart sang with pride. Granted it was one of the simplest of the exercises, but Kerowyn performed it so flawlessly that it looked as effortless as breathing.

The girl’s a natural, she thought with a kind of astonished pleasure. Years and years of training younglings, and never a natural in the lot—and now, at the end of my days, I not only get to teach one, but she’s an adop- tee. My Clan.

She’d been waiting for Kethry to get up the nerve to ask about the girl for weeks. Keth had been vaguely disappointed that Kerowyn proved out null so far as mage craft went, though she’d admitted to her partner that the girl seemed more relieved than anything else.

Now, at last, she’d come down to watch Kero work out; and Tarma sensed that she was ready to ask the question.

“Well,” Kethry said, as Kerowyn moved into the next exercise in the cycle, this one a little harder than the last. “She looks like she’s doing all right. That isn’t Need, is it?”

“No, it’s a painted wooden practice blade,” Tarma told her. “I made it the same size, heft and shape, so she could get used to the weight and balance. Need’s up on her wall—her decision, and she says the damn thing stays there until she’s sure of her own abilities and she knows that what she does is due to her skill, not the sword working through her.”

“So?” Keth replied.

“So, what?” Tarma countered, teasingly.

“So how is she?” the mage snarled in annoyance. “Is she any good, or not?”

To Tarma’s utter amazement, her throat closed, and her eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t speak for a moment, and Kethry bit her lip in dismay.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. “When she didn’t have any mage-talents, I was sure—what are we going to do with her?”