"I'll latch it again," Lelldorin said, throwing back the covers and stumbling across the chilly stones of the floor.

"How longs it going to keep blowing like this?" Garion asked peevishly. "How's anyone supposed to sleep with all this noise?"

Lelldorin closed the door again, and Garion heard him fumbling around in the darkness. There was a scraping click and a sudden bright spark. The spark went out, and Lelldorin tried again. This time it caught in the tinder. The young Asturian blew on it, and it grew brighter, then flared into a small finger of flame.

"Have you got any idea what time it is?" Garion asked as his friend lighted the candle.

"Some hours before dawn, I imagine," Lelldorin replied.

Garion groaned. "It feels like this night's already been about ten years long."

"We can talk for a while," Lelldorin suggested. "Maybe the storm will die down toward dawn."

"Talking's better than lying here in the dark, jumping at every sound," Garion agreed, sitting up and pulling his blanket around his shoulders.

"Things have happened to you since we saw each other last, haven't they, Garion?" Lelldorin asked, climbing back into his own bed.

"A lot of things," Garion told him, "not all of them good, either."

"You've changed a great deal," Lelldorin noted.

"I've been changed. There's a difference. Most of it wasn't my idea. You've changed, too, you know."

"Me?" Lelldorin laughed ruefully. "I'm afraid not, my friend. The mess I've made of things in the past week is proof that I haven't changed at all."

"That will take a bit of straightening out, won't it?" Garion agreed.

"The funny part about it all is that there is a perverse sort of logic about the whole thing. There wasn't one single thing you did that was actually insane. It's just when you put them all together that it starts to look like a catastrophe."

Lelldorin sighed. "And now my poor Ariana and I are doomed to perpetual exile."

"I think we'll be able to fix it," Garion assured him. "Your uncle will forgive you, and Torasin probably will, too. He likes you too much to stay angry for long. Baron Oltorain is probably very put out with you, but he's a Mimbrate Arend. He'll forgive anything if it's done for love. We might have to wait until his leg heals up again, though. That was the part that was a real blunder, Lelldorin. You shouldn't have broken his leg."

"Next time I'll try to avoid that," Lelldorin promised quickly.

"Next time?"

They both laughed then and talked on as their candle flickered in the vagrant drafts stirred by the raging storm. After an hour or so, the worst of the gale seemed to pass, and the two of them found their eyes growing heavy once more.

"Why don't we try to sleep again?" Garion suggested.