Aurelius stiffened. Aton had not told him about the forest nymph before. The matching procedures of the Families did not deny the need for love; rather, they insisted upon it. The ritual of the hvee guaranteed it. Aton could not marry without his father’s approval, but he did not have to accept a woman he did not love.

“Show her to me,” Aurelius said at last. He could not yield more. If Aton could bring home his nymph, she would be approved; if he could not, he was honor bound to give the arranged betrothal a chance.

•  •  •

Twenty-one, and the music for which he longed came once again. It was fleeting and haunting, but clear enough to his eager listening. He made for the forest, cruising through the several fields as rapidly as he could without damaging the hvee.

Aurelius signaled from a nearby field. He was not able to work outside every day, but this time he had arranged it. He intended to meet the nymph, and Aton had in effect agreed. Aton waited in an agony of impatience for his father to catch up.

It was the broken song, bending the very trees to its enchantment. It swelled, chord and descant, stirring Aton’s blood with its ultimate promise. This time, this time—

It ceased.

Aton sprinted for the glade, hurdling the well, leaving Aurelius behind. He burst upon it.

Too late. It was empty.

He stood absolutely still, listening for the sounds of her departure, but he could hear nothing above the noise of the man behind. She was gone.

Aurelius came up, panting and staggering. But his eyes darted around the glade, fixing on the stump, the ground, the circling trees. He pointed.

The dry leaves had been scraped away from one side of the rotting stump, exposing the spongy loam below. Symbols had been inscribed on the ground, hastily and crudely done by some pointed instrument.

Aton studied them. “M-A-L-I-C-E,” he spelled out. “What does it mean?”

Aurelius eased himself down upon the crumbling stump, scrutinizing the mystic letters. His breath grew ragged and his hands trembled; Aton realized with unacknowledged compassion that the strenuous exercise had intensified the man’s ague. “I was not sure,” Aurelius whispered, his tone oddly apologetic.

Aton turned a questioning gaze to him.

Aurelius wrenched his eyes from the ground. He spoke with difficulty. “It is the stigma of the minionette.”

Aton stared into the sky of Hvee, upset and confused by the nymph’s flight. What had frightened her? Was she actually a creature not for the eyes of the skeptic? “Minionette?”