Good? Oh, this was so much more than good. He had been drowning, with no land in sight. Yet, suddenly, Taver had put firm ground beneath his feet. Uncertainty that had been with him for so long it had become an uneasy part of him had been dispelled, popped like a bubble, exploded like the inflated bladder that it was. The monster in the closet was gone. And something so much better had taken its place…

Taver nodded his graceful head. :Alberich, will you trust me again?:

Alberich blinked at such nonsense. Trust him? Trust him? Trust to so pure a spirit—a being so near to the divine that he could scarcely believe there was no glow of holiness about him? Trust a being that he should, by all rights, be worshiping?

Taver shook his head and mane, and whickered a laugh. :Oh, come now, Alberich, I am not so much as all that—a servant only, nothing more.:

A servant! “As much a servant as—as the Firecat of legend!” he whispered, hardly daring to speak. “As the Guardian of the Gates of Paradise!”

:Exactly so. No more than that.: Taver bent to touch a soft—and very, very material nose—to Alberich’s ear. :Come, stand—put your hand to Kantor’s neck, and look into his eyes as you did mine. And this time, open your heart to him, as you have not yet done. Give up your walls, Alberich of Karse. Take them down, and let him inside.:

He could fight the command of one of Vkandis’ Priests—he could no more stand against the same command as given by Taver than he could have fought a whirlwind. He did as he was told.

He looked deeply into those sapphire eyes, and opened his heart. And Kantor stepped gracefully into it, and filled it, and until that moment, he had no notion how empty it had been, nor how lonely he had been.

And as all of the knowledge and understanding and revelations that had come to him in the past few moments settled into place like doves coming to rest on their proper perches for the night, he knew, truly and completely, that there was Something above them all, call it Vkandis Sunlord or any other name. He could no more understand that Something than a flea could understand a man—but it was there. He would continue to have other doubts, other fears, but that one was gone.

And there was something else, much nearer and homelier, that would also be with him as a certainty as rock-solid as the earth beneath him and undoubted as the sky above. No matter what happened, in the next moment, or moon, or year, or lifetime—he and Kantor would never be alone or lonely again.

“Chosen—” he whispered, and buried his face in Kantor’s mane.

:Chosen,: Kantor replied, with all the love that great heart could hold.