“It would be … wrong. Very wrong.” Arian felt as if she had one foot hovering over a precipice.

“She seems inviolate to you because you are half-elven, I’ll warrant,” the Duke said. “Perhaps she has special power over you … elven mageries to cloud your mind? It is said the elves can maze humans with their glamours—can they maze one another?”

“I … I am not sure …” It was hard to think, hard even to hear what the Duke said. Could the Lady have cast a glamour on her? Or on the taig? Was that why it was closed to her in Lyonya but open here?

“If it was the Lady’s anger that disturbed the taig—and if you and Kieri had done nothing wrong in loving each other, a love the taig recognized—then who is really responsible for the taig’s distress?” Before Arian could answer, the Duke had gone on. “Remember what we were taught: though others thought Falk dishonored by the work he had to do, the gods did not agree. Your honor is your own: the Lady’s honor is her own. She chose anger.”

“You are saying it is her fault,” Arian said.

“I am not part-elf,” the Duke said. “So I have no loyalty of blood. I neither like nor dislike elves, except as they show themselves to me. Those I have met have been no more perfect than humans. The Lady, I will venture, may be mistaken, and moved by her own desires rather than wisdom.”

Arian’s father had hinted at this, but she had not believed him … could not, with what she now discerned in her own mind. As if a physical veil were ripped and blown away on a clean wind, Arian’s mind cleared. “She put an enchantment on me,” she said. “She locked my taig-sense—she wanted me to think it was my doing.”

“Do you think she also enchanted Kieri?”

“I do not know,” Arian said. “But he was angry with her—he did not act as if he believed her.” Joy rose in her heart, along with shame that she had been fooled. If indeed the taig had not withdrawn from her—if it had been the Lady’s doing—she could return, and pray that Kieri would understand.

“Will you return?” the Duke asked.

“Of course,” Arian said.

“And if the Lady lays another enchantment on you? Because I think she will try. Have you the strength to hold her off?”

The joy faded. “I … I do not know.”

“Do not go into battle without a plan,” the Duke said. “Even though such plans are never perfect, it is better to have one. Tell me, how much experience have you had in battles?”

“Little,” Arian said. “A few skirmishes with poachers, a daskdraudigs or two.”

The Duke shook her head. “Forgive me for presumption, as I am younger in years than you—though not much—but I have experience you might find useful. Let’s start again: call me Dorrin, Arian, and we will be sword-sisters, two Knights of Falk on campaign, shall we?”