It wasn’t going to get any easier at all, not for a long time, maybe not ever.

It was passing away from him. He had seen it coming long ago, in some ways he had willed it to come, but it was still a hard thing for Loren Silvercloak to see his burdens passing to others. The harder, because he could read in them the toll exacted by their new responsibilities. It was manifest in Kim, just as her power was manifest: a Seer with the Baelrath and the gift of another’s soul, she must be staggering under the weight of it.

Today was a day of preparations. Five hundred men, half from Cathal and half from Brennin, were to ride for Gwen Ystrat as soon as Diarmuid returned. They were waiting because Kim had said to wait. Once it might have been the mages who offered such decisive counsel, but it was passing from them. He had set the thing in motion when he brought the five of them, and he was wise enough, for all Matt’s reproachful glances, to let it move without his interference, insofar as that was possible. And he was compassionate enough to pity them: Kim, and Paul who bore the weight of the name Twiceborn, with all such a thing implied, but who had not been able to tap into his power yet. It was there, any fool could see, it might be greater than any of them could fathom, but as of now it was latent only. Enough to set him painfully apart, not enough to give him compensation or direction.

And then there was Jennifer, and for her he could weep. No compensation, or even dream of it, for her, no chance to act, only the pain, so many shadings of it. He had seen it from the first—so long ago, it seemed—before they crossed, when he had read a message in her beauty and a dark future in her eyes. He had taken her anyhow, had told himself he had no choice; nor was that merely sophistry—such, at least, Rangat’s exploding had made clear.

Which did not take away the sorrow. He understood her beauty now, they all did, and they knew her oldest name. Oh, Guinevere, Arthur had said, and was any fate more harsh in any world than that of the two of them? And the third.

He passed the day alone in untranquil thought. Matt and Brock were at the armories, giving the benefit of their expertise in weapons to the two Captains of the Guard. Teyrnon, whose pragmatic good sense would have been of some help, was in North Keep. They would reach for him that night; he and Barak, too, would have their place in Gwen Ystrat.