“What did you see, as you came near?” Kieri asked Ceilar and Jostin, with a glance for each.

“That light, sir king,” Jostin said.

“You looked like the Lady,” Ceilar said. “Because of the light. But like yourself—more than yourself.”

“I will tell you what happened,” Kieri said. When he finished, he asked for news of Chaya. “Are many elves in the city now?”

“Not many, sir king,” Jostin said. “Though they come and go. Amrothlin is there, staying in that inn they favor, according to Queen Arian. What do you think they will do when they see you with … what you have?”

“I don’t know,” Kieri said. “Amrothlin told me repeatedly that it was impossible I should have this power … but I am sure he will recognize it. I hope he will help me learn to use it.”

“With branches falling into your hands and the moss opening at your hand to make a fire-pit, I would think you already know,” Ceilar said.

Kieri chuckled. “I know a little, true, but the whole … As I understood Amrothlin, an elvenhome binds elves within it to the vision of the one who generates the elvenhome.”

“And humans?” asked Panin.

“I don’t know. Do you feel bound by anything other than your oath as Squire?” Kieri looked around the circle. Four Squires looked back, serious, thoughtful.

“I am not sure,” Linne said after a moment. “I—I feel strange. Like you, sir king, I am half-elven; I feel … something … when I am inside the glow … that I do not feel outside, and it is new. It is as if the two parts of my heritage are more … are aware of each other. As if I had two persons inside me.”

“Does that trouble you?” Kieri asked.

“Not … now,” Linne said.

“I feel nothing different than I did before,” Jostin said. “Aside from the wonder of it. I admired you from the first. That’s what made me want to be a King’s Squire. But I have little elven heritage, if any.”

“What is your vision for this land?” Panin asked.

“What it was before,” Kieri said. “For this beautiful land and those who live in it to be healthy, to prosper, to flower into greater beauty as the gods give grace.”

“It does not take elven magery for me to want the same,” Panin said.

The next morning, as the Squires packed the horses, Kieri fetched a bucket of water to quench the last coals. As the first drops hissed, water rose from below, faster even than the water pouring from the bucket. The soil opened; the burnt sticks and ash swirled downward with the water. Soil closed back over it all, and moss flowed across the soil as swiftly as a carpet unrolled, leaving no trace. Kieri stared; he had not consciously asked such a thing. “Thank you,” he murmured, but whether to the taig or the gods he did not know.