Kieri frowned. Of all the reasons he’d thought of, in his furious pursuit, this had not occurred to him.

“I have more experience of humans than the Lady,” Dameroth said. “And in this matter, though I am partial, I am not blinded by anger. I saw true love in you, when you stood with her.”

“Yes,” Kieri said. “And I swear to you we felt the taig rejoice when we spoke together.”

“Trust her,” Dameroth said. “Her love for you is genuine; her sense of the taig is unerring; her loyalty to the realm is unbending. If she comes to feel that the taig truly rejoices in your marriage, she will come back. But for her, a half-elf, to place her taig-sense above that of the Lady whom we all revere and serve, to risk injury where she has been sworn to healing—that she could not do in an instant.” Dameroth paused, but Kieri could think of nothing to say. Dameroth went on. “The Lady would tell you that I have no sense of duty, and I do not pretend that Arian inherited that from me—that is all her mother and her mother’s teaching. But you should know that Arian will expect the king to do his duty, whether she is there or not.”

“She is testing me?”

“No … not you. She is testing herself, her sense of the taig’s need. But she will expect you to show the same diligence, the same loyalty, that she herself values and shows.”

“You are not … putting a glamour on me …”

“No. I could, of course, but you are the king, and it would be discourteous.” He paused, hummed, and then went on speaking. “That was to reset the boundary that let me come here without the Lady’s knowledge. I hope. I want your kingship to succeed, and not only for Arian’s sake. There are those who do not, even now. You are like a harrow that stirs the soil, bringing stones up … long-buried secrets will rise from the depths, and some will break on their hardness, elf and human, Earthfolk and folk of the air.”

“Secrets?”

“Not mine to speak of. But you’ve already made changes in the relationship of elves and humans.”

“They need to work together—”

“Of course. Most understand that, though they may not know how, or wish it were not necessary.” He turned to look Kieri directly in the face. “I have said I want your kingship to succeed, and I do. I hope, as others hope, that it does not require too much of me. Can you understand that?”

“In a way,” Kieri said.

“Your paladin—that yellow-haired girl—”

“Not my paladin,” Kieri said firmly. “She’s Gird’s, or the High Lord’s. And her name is Paksenarrion.”

“I know. She meddled in forbidden things. Places. Unwitting, at the time, but she did. And it is in those things the great change began, both the change to this age and the change to come.”

Kieri scowled. “I have no idea what you mean.”