Those of pure-human blood—and especially those with magelord strains in their families—were most impatient with elven strictures, most annoyed by elven “arrogance,” and most interested in foreign trade. They wanted change, growth within and without. And yet, Kieri saw quickly, these had little experience outside Lyonya, and their notions of how other realms thought and acted were as naive as those of the part-elven.

His elven relatives themselves were little help. They were, as Kieri judged them, just as impenetrably arrogant as many humans thought them. Convinced they were right, without being willing to explain why, quick to take offense if they thought they were not sufficiently honored, and at root pleased with the division between human and elven.

“But you marry humans sometimes,” Kieri said to his uncle Amrothlin.

“Humans are … irresistible at some stages,” his uncle said. “Some of them. It’s the very insubstantiality, knowing that they will fade and die in a day or two—as it seems to us. To share that vibrant life for the short time of their spring—it is a great pleasure. But then they’re gone and we are still here. It is as you with flowers. You plant them, cherish them for the few days they bloom, and then remember them fondly.” He smiled as if remembering some liaison of his own, and then shook his head. “Though flowers are not as demanding. But you see—for us, bearing children is a rare and wonderful event. With a human, it is easier.”

“Except when it’s deadly,” Kieri said, thinking of his sister, who had died too young of early childbearing.

“That angered us all,” Amrothlin said. “Our Lady was so wroth the taig trembled and all the trees in the Ladysforest dropped their leaves in sorrow at the perfidy of humans.”

“And did you never consider that if you had told Aliam Halveric more plainly what you already knew about me, if she had known she had a brother—however unfit to rule at that time—she might not have felt the need to bear children so young.”

Amrothlin jerked back, as if Kieri had hit him. “It is not our fault!” he cried. “She would not listen to our Lady; she was warned. It was those humans—”

“Have you visited her bones, Uncle?”

Again Amrothlin flinched. “Bones—we do not do that, as you surely know. She should not be there, hidden in stone: she should be set free—”

“She was half-human, as I am,” Kieri said. “I have visited her bones, and I say it is not human fault alone that led her to her death. She grieved for her mother, who had left her to take me to see the Lady, and she grieved for me, the older brother who should have protected her. She was angry with you—with elves—because you cost her both mother and brother.”

“We did not!”

“No—but think. She was reft of more than half her family, for something that would have seemed—to a small child—no reason at all. All the work was left for her, all the care. She loved her father—he was all she had left—but you, I have no doubt, considered him as lightly as you do all humans.”