Chapter 17

        Wikuna was cold.

        The city was very far north, so far north that the city only enjoyed a few hours of sunlight a day during the heart of winter, so far north that the Skybands were a brilliant cascade of color that consumed the entire southern side of the sky.  That cold had a way of seeping into everything around it, invading homes and freezing virtually all water except for the harbor.  Despite being so far north, the immense harbor of Wikuna never froze, having to do with warm-water currents that terminated literally in the mouth of the wide harbor.  It was so warm that there was a perpetual mist of filmy fog that clung to the surface of the water, making it look like the many ships anchored in the wide basin were floating on a sea of clouds.

        They appeared in the place where Keritanima had deemed the appropriate landing area for all Teleporting Sorcerers who came to visit her, and that was a very large empty room on the top floor of the palace, which had a massive set of windows that faced the harbor.  It was the only place where it was absolutely guaranteed that there would be nobody potentially in the landing area.  Locking a door and telling nobody to go into a room only invited the curious to investigate it, so Keritanima kept the door to that locked and Warded at all times.  There was only way way into that room, and the Ward kept out the curious.

        Tarrin felt the icy chill in the room, and their breath steamed in the frosty air.  Such was the nature of things in Wikuna, where the cold was so pervasive that only rooms with a fireplace held any heat at all.  That was why so many rooms had hearths.  Eron pulled his cloak around him as Dar gave out a gasp and scrambled to touch the Weave and weave a spell of Fire around them, a dome of gentle warmth that kept that knifing cold at bay.

        “You are such a baby, Dar!” Jasana accused as Tara and Rina rushed to the window, putting their paws against it and looking out in wide-eyed wonder.

        “Dar, Camara, and me are from tropical climates,” Koran Tal told her shortly.  “This may not be cold for you, but it’s bloody freezing to us.”

        “You’re going to have a rough time of it here, Koran,” Tarrin said absently, almost in a subdued manner.  “For Wikuna in the winter, this is warm.”

        “We’re inside!” Dar protested.  “You mean it’s colder out there?”

        “Go put your hands on the glass,” Tarrin told him.  “It’s much colder outside than it is in here.”

        Dar made a face.  “Kerri just had to have this baby in the dead of winter!” he complained.  “She could have had it in the summer, but no, she had to drag us all up here in the middle of winter and freeze us all to death!  Is she mad at us, Tarrin?  Is this her way of getting even for something?”

        “As much as you used to tease her, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Camara Tal told him with a wolfish smile.

        Tarrin barely registered them, for his eyes were on the door.  On the other side of that portal lay the general Wikuni population, and their reactions to him were going to tell him how easy it was going to be to live with this change.  It wasn’t that he was so worried about how others thought about him.  It was more than that.  He didn’t belong anymore, and since he was obviously rejected by the gods, the only chance he had to find any peace, find a place to live, was to find acceptance with the mortals.  And if not acceptance, then at least tolerance.  What happened here in Wikuna would decide whether Tarrin roamed the world, or he remained hidden in the Frontier, in his house, for most of the rest of his life.  How well the mortals could accept his strangeness here, now, was going to be the deciding factor in whether or not he continued to move among them.  It wasn’t that he was afraid of what they thought, it was that he was afraid of what effect he might have.  If the Wikuni feared him, branded him some kind of monster, an abomination, they might try to drive him out.  If that was how they reacted, it might very well be how most others reacted as well.  If showing up in a city meant facing an angry mob, then it was best for everyone if he simply didn’t show up.

        The only advantage in this for him was that though the gods knew what he was, the mortals didn’t.  They only had the wings as an indication that he was not what he appeared to be, and it was their reaction to those wings, to that physical trait, that was going to decide what they thought of him.  The gods feared him because of what he was.  He had no doubt that the mortals would be afraid if they knew what he was, but it was the appearance of what he was that mattered here.  The wings were exotic, unique, and undeniably magical.  There was no easy explanation for them.

        But he wasn’t the only one thinking about that, he realized.  “Listen to me, all of you,” Dolanna called in a stern, serious voice.  “What Tarrin told us before we came here must never go beyond us.  I am sure that most of you understand that, but some of us might not,” she said, looking directly at Jasana, Tara, and Rina.  “If anyone asks what happened to Tarrin, you are to say that the wings are the result of a catastrophic magical accident caused by the battle with Stragos Bane.  Nothing more.  Do not elaborate.  Is this understood?”

        “But--” Tara started.

        “There are no buts!” Kimmie told her with heat and adamance, which rocked the cub back on her heels.  Kimmie almost never used a tone of voice like that, even when Tara was driving her crazy.  “Do you want to get your father in trouble, Tara?  Do you want to mess everything up?  Well?” she demanded.

        “N-No,” she stammered, shocked that her mother would speak with such authority.

        “Then do as you were told!” she snapped.  “I know it’s not easy to lie, but in this, cub, we all have to swallow our disgust of it and carry through with it!”  She pointed her finger at both her cubs.  “If someone asks, you say exactly what Dolanna said.  The wings are an accident of magic from when your father killed Bane.  You say nothing more.  If someone presses you for more information, tell them you don’t know.  If they still press you, get away from them and come find an adult.  Is that clear?”

        “Yes, Mama,” the twins said in unison, their heads bobbing.

        Tarrin looked down at Dolanna, who looked up at him and smiled, patting him on the arm.  Sometimes he felt truly blessed to have the friends he had.

        “Oh, Tarrin, you left the Cat’s Claws sitting on the table back at the Tower,” Jenna realized as Jula lowered the Ward on the door and opened it.  It was a very plain, generic Ward, something that any Sorcerer capable of Teleporting could unravel with ease.

        Tarrin Summoned them to him, then sent them into the elsewhere as the three cubs came from the window and rejoined them.

        “You know, we never told Kerri we were coming,” Sarraya said with an impish grin.

        “She already knows we’re here,” Jenna told her.  “Besides, I told her we were coming when I went out to see Ianelle.”

        “Why’d you go and do that?” Sarraya asked.  “We had the perfect chance to surprise her!”

        “I do not think surprise is going to be a problem,” Allia said, giving Tarrin a meaningful look.

        That was an understatement.

        He hadn’t been fully straight when he went through the doors at the Tower, so the door out of that room was an educational experience for him.  He was already so incredibly tall that he had to duck down to get through most doors, but now that he had wings that rose three more spans over his head, it made getting through any door without a little forethought absolutely impossible.  For a moment he stood at the doorway and considered how to go about this, then he wondered how he had gotten through the dining room doors back at the Tower.  He waited for the others go to through, then he thought back to how he moved the wings during the fight.  They only resembled wings, for in actuality they were mutable appendages, capable of changing their size and their shape to virtually anything he so desired.

        Tarrin stood there for a long moment.  No.  It could not be that easy.

        The wings did not have a set, immutable size.

        “Tarrin?  What’s the matter?” Jesmind asked.

        “I’m feeling just a little stupid,” he said self-deprecatingly.  “I got so wrapped up in the wings being there that I never considered a couple of simple aspects of them.”

        “I say, what do you mean?” Phandebrass asked, pushing his way back to where he could see Tarrin.

        Closing his eyes, Tarrin showed him exactly what he meant.  Though he couldn’t see it, he felt the wings respond to his command, and that command was to shrink down as far as they would possibly go.  He literally felt them withdraw, pull in, felt the living fire of them compress down as the slopes of the wings retracted towards his back, continuing to pull in, pull in, until they would go no further.  He assensed the feel of them that way, and realized, quite surprisingly, that they had pulled back until they were nothing but two elongated pools of living fire that were grafted to his back.  They did not alter the shape or slope of his back in any way at all, existing only as what would most generally resemble two long open wounds on his back, filled in with solid, unmoving fire.  The length and shape of those wound-like areas were the exact outer circumference of the wings.

        “Dallstad’s axe!” Elke swore as he heard several gasps.

        Tarrin opened his eyes and looked behind himself.  There was no hint of them at all. Retracting them taught him two critical things about the wings.  First, they they behaved exactly as they had when he was transformed.  They were not wings as much as they were extra limbs, which only took the shape of wings because it seemed proper for limbs that were attached to his upper back as they were to have that shape.  Secondly, he learned that the limbs weren’t gone, they were just as small as they could possibly be, little more than pools of that living fire that filled in the depressed, open areas of his back where the skin and flesh of his back had been burned away and replaced with the living fire that had become a part of him, where the wings had been attached to him.  There was light emanating from those two elongated areas, light from the fire, but that was the only hint of them that he could see in the way he was looking.

        “They’re gone!” Jasana gasped.

        “They’re still there, cub,” he said, turning around and showing her his back, so they all could see.  “I forgot that the wings don‘t have a set size or shape.  They can be as big or as small as I want them to be, and I can change their shape.  This is as small as I can make them.”

        “I say, that’s amazing!” Phandebrass breathed, advancing back through the door.  “It’s like they were cut off at the base of them, it is!  And here, look, here’s the living fire filling in the holes where they were!  May I?” he asked, reaching out.  Tarrin nodded, and allowed Phandebrass to put his hands on those areas.  “It still feels the same, that same warm softness,” he announced to the others, poking at the fire with a single finger.  “I say, you can’t make it completely disappear, can you?” he asked.  “I would love to see the living flesh right at the border where it joins to this living fire, I would!”

        Tarrin shook his head.  “No.  This is the smallest I can get them.”

        “Well, that’s nothing an unburned vest can’t hide,” Kimmie said speculatively.

        “Is there an upper limit to how big you can make them?” Phandebrass asked, scribbling furiously in his journal.

        “I don’t know yet, but probably,” he answered.

        “I say, well, let’s talk about--”

        “Later!” Camara Tal said sharply.  “Bug, seal up his vest so those burning holes in his back are hidden.  It won’t burn through the vest, will it?” she asked him.

        “I say, if it were that hot, I wouldn’t be able to touch it,” Phandebrass reminded her.

        “With you, mage, there’s no such thing as an assumption,” she said bluntly.  “You’d burn off your finger just to see what happened if you did.”

        “Since when did I become a seamstress?” Sarraya protested.

        “You can seal up his vest, or look for all your missing teeth,” Camara Tal threatened, taking a hand from the bundle that was her infant daughter and balling it up into a fist.

        “Alright, alright, don’t get a draft up your skirt,” Sarraya said grumpily, flitting off from Tarrin’s shoulder and tending to the task at hand.

        He looked at Jesmind, who had a look of profound relief on her face.  The wings had obviously bothered her, but he had the feeling that it was more of their physical presence than the change they represented.   He still needed to have a long talk with her about quite a few things, but for now, it seemed that the main point of worry for her had been lifted.

        For himself, for that matter.  As Sarraya sealed up the holes in the back of his vest, Tarrin himself felt a wave of relief wash over him, a relief that now what he was, the wings that signified the change in him, were concealed from the mortals.  They would accept him as a mortal because they simply would have no idea that he was something other than what he appeared to be.  He would know that he was different, but there was no obvious mark on him to give the Wikuni, or anyone else, a physical indication of that difference, and thus give them reason to fear him.  There would be no episode like there was in Torrian long ago, when a newly turned Tarrin had to walk down those stairs and face the humans for the very first time, to show them what had happened to him, what he had become.

        It did ease the turmoil within him somewhat, but did not change the stark reality of it all.  Though he could hide the wings, they were still there.  They still represented the dreadful change in him, the painful truth that he was no longer a mortal, yet not a god, and thus did not belong in either world, and he was still angry and bitter over what the Elder Gods had done to him, which had put them on his back.  There were still many issues for him to work out over all this, still many wrinkles in his life to iron out.  But for what it was worth, knowing that he did not have to step out that door and display that change to the world brought him a considerable measure of comfort and relief.

        For now, during the first hours of his adjustment to the change in his life, he could step out that door and pretend.

        “Well, there goes the need for explanations,” Jula noted clinically, but she had a wolfish smile.  “I take it now we have no comment?”

        “None,” Dolanna agreed.  “The only ones whom we will tell about this are Keritanima, Rallix, Binter, Sisska, Azakar, and Lord General Darvon.  All others have neither the need nor the right to know.”

        “So it’s a secret?” Tara asked.

        “Yes, cubling, it is a secret,” Dolanna agreed with a smile.  “And we all know how good you and your sisters are at keeping secrets.”

        “I can!” Tara said enthusiastically.

        “Me too!” Rina cried out, which made Dolanna look at her in surprise.  Rina had called out in Sharadi.

        “She’s got a few tricks, Dolanna,” Tarrin told her absently.  “She knows bits and pieces of about six different languages.”

        “You teach her languages?” she asked in surprise.

        “No, she hears me speak them and then asks what I said.  She just has a very good memory.”

        Rina absolutely beamed.  “Jula and Papa are teaching me Duthak,” she announced proudly.

        “That’s true enough,” Jula chuckled.  “She’s a fast learner, too.  Just like her father.”

        “You and I are going to discuss Duthak, dear one,” Dolanna told him primly.  “But we digress.  Let us join Keritanima and see who else has arrived.”

        “Who else who else?” Sarraya asked as they started down the hallway.

        “Sapphire,” Kimmie answered her.

        “Shiika,” Tarrin added.

        “Shiika?” Camara Tal said in surprise.

        Tarrin nodded.  “She was at mother’s when we picked them up.  She said she was going to surprise Kerri.”

        “That she did,” Elke affirmed.

        “I don’t think Sapphire’s ever met Shiika,” Dar said, pursing his lips.  “It could get ugly.”

        “I doubt that,” Jenna told him.  “Sapphire’s probably not all that interested in Shiika, and Shiika would probably know better.  Sapphire’s not the kind you upset, not even if you’re a Demon.  Dragons have nasty ways of finding ways to kill you if they’re angry.”

        “Shiika’s better worry more about Kerri,” Dar chuckled.  “As much as those two have wrestled over politics, she may ask her to be there when she gives birth so she can strangle her and blame it on the labor pains.”

        That caused most of them to laugh, and it reminded Tarrin of Dar’s subtle and understated sense of humor.  Dar was incredibly funny sometimes.

        Only a few of them did not know Keritanima’s palace, so the group navigated itself without error to Keritanima’s private apartment.  It hadn’t changed since she took the throne, because it was still one of the most defensible apartments in the palace, and Keritanima was much too fond of it to give it up for the Royal apartments that her father hand once occupied.  The presence of two Royal Guardsmen at the door announced to them that Keritanima was there.  The two Wikini, a wolf Wikuni and what looked like either a ferret or otter Wikuni, uncrossed the pikes they had crossed before the door and saluted sharply to the group as they reached them.  “Margrave Tarrin, her Majesty awaits you,” the wolf Wikuni announced in a sharp, crisp voice.  “You may pass.”

        “What is a Margrave, Papa?” Tara asked.

        “A silly title Kerri gave me to make me sound important to the Wikuni,” he answered as the weasel-like Wikuni opened the door.  Tarrin didn’t miss the sly, amused smile on the wolf’s face as they passed.

        Keritanima hadn’t changed the room a bit since the last time he’d been there, some six days ago, but then again, it hadn’t changed since the first time he’d seen it.  Keritanima was there, naturally, sitting on the couch with Rallix sitting beside her, and Binter and Sisska standing protectively behind them.  He saw Azakar sitting on the couch opposite them, wearing a black doublet and breeches instead of armor.  Keritanima looked even bigger now than she had the last time he visited, her belly looking like she’d stuck that big globe that Phandebrass had up in his laboratory under her sturdy wool dress.  It was probably a scandal that the queen was wearing wool, but since she was pregnant, nobody was probably going to say all that much about it.  When a woman was that late into her pregnancy, she often sacrificed appearances for comfort.

        “Hello everyone,” she called with a toothy grin.  “Excuse me if I don’t get up, but that takes me a little while this this thing here getting in the way,” she added, patting her distended stomach gently.

        They gathered around her, Tarrin and Allia taking her hands in turn and kissing her on the furry cheek, but Keritanima was giving Tarrin strange looks.  Tarrin reasoned that Jenna might have told her at least something about what had happened when she told her they were about to leave, but he wasn’t sure.  She did her best to hug Jenna and Jula from her seated position and then greeted his parents warmly as they also greeted Rallix, Binter, Sisska, and Azakar.

        After the round of greetings, Keritanima asked Tarrin and Sarraya to Conjure up some couches and chairs so everyone could sit down, which they didn’t mind doing.  Tarrin Conjured up a nice chair for himself, sized for him, which he turned around and sat in backwards, putting his arms on the back of the chair and leaning against them.  “Alright,” Keritanima said crisply after they all got comfortable.  He felt her set her will against the Weave and weave together a Ward to prevent eavesdropping, which she set around her entire apartment.  “Now then, deshida, explain to me why you smell like you just came out of a blast furnace.  It wouldn’t have anything to do with why Jenna seemed so out of sorts when she contacted me, would it?”

        Tarrin smiled slightly as his parents gave Keritanima a rather startled look.  Keritanima rarely missed anything.  “This morning was rather, eventful,” he told her, but Keritanima’s amber eyes seemed to bore into him, and he realized that she was looking right through him and into the heart of the matter.  Keritanima and Allia could always tell when he wasn’t showing what he was really feeling.  He looked at Azakar.  “You don’t have to worry about Stragos Bane any more, Zak,” he told him.

        “I take it you met him in Suld recently?” Azakar asked.

        Tarrin nodded.

        “Is there anything left?”

        Tarrin blew out his breath.  “It came a mouse’s whisker from being the other way around, Zak,” he admitted.  “It was very ugly.”

        “What happened?” Keritanima asked quickly, intensely, her eyes narrowing slightly as she took on a very serious expression.

        “It can wait,” he told her.  “How are you?”

        “I’m fine.  Now talk,” she ordered.

        Tarrin bowed his head and closed his eyes.  “It was bad, Kerri,” he said quietly.  “Very bad.”  He opened his eyes and looked at her and Rallix, and saw that Azakar moved to their couch so he could look at Tarrin.  That put all five of them before him, and they were looking at him with curiosity and concern, even Binter and Sisska.

        “Before he begins, let it be said now that what he is about to tell you cannot leave this room,” Dolanna said immediately.  “Is this clear?”

        “I wouldn’t break Tarrin’s trust,” Rallix said mildly as Azakar, Binter, and Sisska  nodded to her.  Binter and Sisska’s discretion in the matter was as absolute as absolute could be when they nodded in understanding.

        With little emotion, his eyes flat and nearly dead, Tarrin explained what happened between him and Stragos Bane.  He didn’t embellish, forcing Keritanima to ask questions to get at the truth of the matter, but her words failed her when he got to the part where Bane stripped him of the Firestaff and revealed himself to be the horrid creation of the dead god Val.  They looked outraged when he explained quite bluntly how the gods had abandoned him to his fate, left him to face the nightmare of Val’s shadow alone, and they were fearful when Tarrin quite nonchalantly described how the sword touched his power to Summon itself to the battlefield, then revealed its power to the world, which allowed Tarrin to touch on some of the power he lost when he destroyed himself and Val.  Both Rallix and Azakar looked thunderstruck at that, but Keritanima looked very frightened.  He continued, making sure to explain that he had no idea what to do, how to use the awesome power that he had at his command, and rather ruefully related how he had blundered and stumbled up to the point where he realized the key to beating Val’s shadow and Summoned the Firestaff away from it.  After that, there was little to tell, and he finished the tale by describing how the sword had closed that door between him and his power once Val’s shadow was destroyed, which caused him to pass out.

        “When I woke up, the Goddess came to me and explained things to me,” he said in a grating, dangerous voice.  “That’s when I found out what the Elder Gods did.  They let that thing survive, let it run around and kill people to serve as a test for me, to see if I could destroy it, and see if I had any kind of powers stemming from my condition.  They never expected it to take the Firestaff from me, and they certainly didn’t expect the sword to change me like it did.”  He closed his eyes again.  “That’s not all.  When the sword changed me back, it didn’t change me back all the way.  It--well, there’s no easy way to explain it.  I think I should just show you.”

        “Show us what?” Rallix asked.

        Tarrin stood up and pushed the chair away.  He was almost afraid to do it, to reveal his secret, and he had no idea why.  These were friends, family, trusted and cherished.  Was it that same fear of rejection he’d felt before facing the others in the Tower?  It had to be.  But there was no help for it.  Sooner or  later, they would see him, they would see his secret, they would know the terrible truth of him.  Better now than later.

        It only took a single thought.  In an instant, the pools of fire on his back flared hot enough to incincerate the vest laying atop them, and then the wings flowed out from behind him, resuming the size and shape they had held before he caused them to shrink down.

        All four gaped at him, and for the first time in his entire life, he had seen Vendari get surprised.  Tarrin spread the wings fully out, and then folded them behind him.  He let them stare at them, at him, for a long moment, then he pulled the chair back up to him and sat down on it once again, the ends of the wings bending against the floor.  “They’re permanent,” he said in a low, wan voice.  “They became a part of me when the sword changed me, so much that they didn’t go away when it changed me back.  As you saw, I can make them retract, almost like retracting my claws, but they’ll never go away.”

        They were all quiet for a long time, as Keritanima’s eyes flashed and narrowed and her brows knitted, signs she was in deep, intense thought.  “Have they affected your cat form?” she asked finally.

        Tarrin gave a start.  “I, I haven’t even tried that,” he admitted.  “Or my human form either.”

        “I say, I totally overlooked that possibility!” Phandebrass said, smacking himself on the forehead.

        “Well, let’s not experiment with it right here and now,” she said, tapping her round belly.  “I see they’re not setting fire to my rug, so you must have a great deal of control over them.”

        “Total,” he answered.  “Size, shape, and even how hot they get.”

        “Well,” she said after another moment of thought.  “I think they’re quite majestic.”

        Tarrin gave her a slight start, and Dar laughed.  “That does seem to be a consensus of sorts,” Kimmie agreed with a sly smile.

        “There’s more to it than the wings, Kerri,” he admitted.

        “I think I see most of it, brother,” she told him analytically.  “You have powers you’re not supposed to have, and since your powers are still a creation of the Firestaff, they’re powers that set you outside the control of the Elder Gods.  And that scares the pee out of them.”

        Tarrin nodded, not all that surprised.  Keritanima was a very smart woman.

        “Well, if you can’t undo it, then you’d better just live with it, deshida,” she told him.  “I’ve learned how to live with being on the throne.  I think you won’t have too much trouble with this, especially since you can hide the wings whenever you want.”  She made a slight face.  “I can’t wait to get this damned kid out of me,” she growled.  “It’s done nothing but kick me for the last two months.”

        Camara stepped up to her and put her hand on Keritanima’s belly.  “Well, I hope you have nothing planned for tonight,” she told her.

        “That soon?” the Wikuni asked in surprise.

        Camara Tal nodded.  “Your water should break sometime in the next few hours.  Probably around noon.”

        “Thank the Goddess!” she said with an explosive sigh.  “You have no idea how annoying it is not to be able to sit down or get up!”

        “Think again,” Camara Tal said with a slight smile.

        “Well, I think we got here at the perfect time,” Dar surmised.  “Just in time to visit before it happens, but not so soon that we have to wait around for a couple of days.”

        “I’m just glad we didn’t wake you up,” Allia told her in Selani.

        “You mean not like usual?” Keritanima said waspishly, then she looked at Tarrin.  “This girl has no concept of the time difference, brother!” she complained.  “She always wakes me up in the bloody middle of the night, just to talk!”

        “And you don’t wake me up in the middle of the night when you get chatty?” Allia countered.

        “I do that just because you do it to me,” she admitted with a toothy grin.

        “You know, I hate it when they do that,” Dar mentioned lightly to Tiella.

        “I doubt we’d understand what they’re talking about anyway,” she answered.

        “It’s just them being silly, Dar,” Sarraya told him casually.  “Allia doesn’t like people to think she’s silly, so she just speaks Selani whenever she does it.”  That earned Sarraya a very hot look from Allia.  “See?” she said, pointing.  “Now she’s all indignant that she got caught.  Forgot I speak the language, didn’t you?” she taunted Allia in Selani.

        “Did we have to bring her?” Allia demanded of Tarrin caustically.

        “Well, not really, but she’s a friend, and you know how you have to be nice to friends,” he answered.

        “Speaking of bringing, did you bring Miranda?” Keritanima asked quickly, looking at Tarrin with a hopeful expression on her face.

        He knew she was going to be crushed, but there was no avoiding it.  He shook his head.  “She still can’t face anyone, Kerri,” he told her.  “She’s not ready.”

        Keritanima took on an outraged expression, one that quickly turned to hurt.  “But she--why can’t she be here for this?” she asked in a quavering tone.  “We won’t say anything.  She doesn’t even have to talk to anyone!”  She reached out and put her hand on Tarrin’s paw.  “I know you know where she is, brother,” she said, pleading with her eyes.  “Please, please go tell her she doesn’t have to say anything to anyone.  She doesn’t even have to see me.  I, I just want her in the palace.  I want her to see the baby at least once.  You can take it to her, she doesn’t even have to see me.  I--” she broke off, sniffling and wiping at an eye, “I just want to know she’s here when I have the baby.”

        “I--” he began, but the look of dreadful need in Keritanima’s eyes was too sincere, too urgent for him to ignore.  He put his other paw over her hand.  “I’ll try,” he promised.  “I’m not making any guarantees, and I’m not quite sure how I’m going to get her here, but if she agrees to come, I’ll think of something.”

        “Thank you!” she said explosively, reaching out and trying to pull him into an embrace.  He leaned over the chair and put his arms around her shoulders, patting her on the back.

        When he let go, he realized that the door was open, and he glanced back at it just in time to realize that the wings were still out, were more than visible.  Closing the door was a mink Wikuni with beige fur, a little shorter and not as buxom as Miranda, handsome but not cute in Miranda’s manner, and without the blond tail.  It was Jenawalani, Keritanima’s sister, who had helped her expose a plot against her life when they’d stopped in Wikuna on the way to Sha’Kari.  In the throne room when Miranda was used by Kikkalli to chastise her subjects, she had told the two of them that they didn’t have to hide behind politics anymore, and that they should reconcile.  Jenawalani was something of a fixture in the palace now, the head of House Chan but related to the queen by blood, and the two of them combined were a potent political force.  Jenawalani was very smart, ruthless, and cunning, and she often did the dirty work that Keritanima didn’t want traced back to her.  The mink Wikuni stopped dead and stared at Tarrin in surprise.  “Tarrin, what in the furies are those?” she asked, pointing at him.

        “It’s a long story, Jenawalani,” he answered mildly, but he did withdraw them back into their retracted state, if only to give her a chance to get near her sister.  “You know me.  I can’t show up around here without some kind of trick.”

        She laughed and walked boldly through the group of chairs and couches and sat down by her sister, taking her hand.  “You’re all weepy, Kerri,” she noted.  “What’s wrong?”

        “Nothing, Jen, nothing at all,” she answered.  “I don’t think a few of you have met Jenawalani.  She’s my sister.  Jenawalani, this is Dar, and his wife Tiella.  This is Eron and Elke Kael, Tarrin’s parents.  This is Koran Tal, Camara’s husband, Jula, Tarrin’s bond-daughter.  The children are Jasana, Tara, and Rina, and the annoying little insect is Sarraya.”

        “Hey!” Sarraya snapped indignantly.

        “Pleased to meet all of you,” she said with an endearing, sincere smile. “I’m Kerri’s evil sister.”

        “You are not!” Keritanima objected.

        “Of course I am,” she answered with a sly smile.

        “Have you eaten yet?” Keritanma asked Tarrin.  “I hope not.  I’m starving.”

        “It‘s coming on lunchtime to us,” Tarrin replied.

        “Good.  Let’s move this army down to one of the dining rooms, then I’ll have Jervis give those who want it a tour of the city.”

        “Not out in that cold,” Dar said adamantly.

        “You’re not going to freeze to death,” Tiella told him sharply.  “I want to see Wikuna, and you’re going!”

        “She has him henpecked already,” Sarraya noted to Tarrin.

        “Not quite,” Tarrin answered.  “This one will come down to an argument.”

        “Think so?”

        “Positive,” he nodded.

        After dinner, Keritanima went to go rest for a while, and their large group broke up.  Most of the others went with the floppy-eared rabbit Wikuni, Jervis, on a grand tour of the city, being conducted by three large, grand sleds, each pulled by two massive horses with shaggy fetlocks on each ankle.  It had indeed come down to an argument between Dar and Tiella, which ended in a compromise.  Dar went, but he also cheated by using Sorcery to keep himself and Tiella warm.  Tarrin, Allia and Allyn, Camara Tal, and Dolanna did not go, however.  Keritanima’s siblings, Allyn, and Dolanna had seen Wikuna many times, and little Shaul needed to be put down for a nap, so Camara Tal remained to watch over her daughter.  She allowed Koran Tal to go along with the others, though, for he was quite excited about the idea of visiting the fabled Ministry of Science, the compound of several buildings where the largest collection of artisans, inventors, and technological adherents gathered to pursue breakthroughs in science and technology.

        Tarrin had weightier concerns, and he also was reminded of a promise he needed to keep to Keritanima.  He went to the apartment that Keritanima had permanently set aside for him, the same one in which he and Kimmie had stayed when they had visited Wikuni on the way to Sha’Kari.  Long ago he had spun out a new strand and ran it through the room, specifically so he could do what he was about to do now.  He sat down on the bed, the strand touching him, going through him, then quickly and effortlessly lifted his consciousness up into the Weave.  As always, he was drawn directly to the Heart, and it was from there that he cast out his awareness into the Weave, sending his power through the entirety of it, searching for that faint echo of power that was Miranda.  That was how he kept track of her, because since she was an Avatar, she had a specific and subtle sense of presence, a slight effect on the Weave that left a distinct mark.  He knew exactly what he was looking for, so that allowed him to find such a light and delicate presence within the uncountable strands of the Weave.  Sometimes it took him quite a while to find her, sometimes even hours, but he always started in the last place where he knew she was and radiated outward from there.  The problem was that the topography of the Weave did not correspond to the geography of the planet, and the technique of radiating out from that point in the Weave may take him halfway across the world from where Miranda really was.

        It took him about fifteen minutes until he found that sense of presence.  Once he had a lock on her, he spun out a very simple spell that allowed him to locate her physically, creating an Illusion of a map within the Heart and showing him where she was.  To his surprise, she was in Abrodar.  She was only about half a longspan from the Raintree Tower.

        This caused a moment of debate in him.  He could go see Miranda.  She was half a longspan from a place where he was grounded, where he could Teleport.  He didn’t have to project to her, he had a chance to go see her, touch her, smell her, to be there.  He very much wanted to see Miranda, but he also remembered the pleading in her eyes when she asked him not to follow her, not to interfere.  He had promised to stay away from her.  And though he kept track of her, he had not contacted her, not interfered.  He was about to break that promise, but on the other hand, he was confident that Miranda wouldn’t take him to task for it.  After all, this was a rather important reason to make contact with her.

        No, it would be wrong to go visit her, even if he wanted to do so.  It wasn’t even right to project out to see her.  For this, he had to be discreet, to break his promise but not be blatant about it.  So he wove a simple spell that would project only his voice out into the real world, and would allow him to hear from the point of focus of the spell as if it were his ear.  He’d hear her and everything around her, but he would not be able to see her.  He activated the spell, and heard quite a few voices in the background, all of them speaking Sharadi.  She was in a public place.  From the sounds of it, she was in a tavern or inn.  It was night in Abrodar right now, so he doubted she was in a marketplace.

        “Miranda,” he called.  “Miranda, it’s Tarrin.  Just speak, and I’ll hear you.”

        “Tarrin?” she called in surprise.  “Where are you?”

        “I’m projecting my voice from Wikuna so you can hear me,” he answered.  “I can’t do this long, my friend.  It’s a very tiring thing to do.”

        “If you’re going as far as to talk to me, then something serious must be happening.  What’s wrong?”

        He felt a sudden urge to tell her what happened to him, but he quashed that.  He was doing this for Keritanima, and he didn’t have long to talk before the effort of sending his voice halfway around the world caught up with him.  This was a trick that only the most powerful da’shar could manage, and it would even tire out a sui’kun relatively quickly.

        “Nothing’s wrong, old friend.  I’m sorry to break my promise to you, but I had to let you know that Kerri’s about to give birth.  She’s asked me to find you and beg for you to let someone bring you here.  She wants you to be in the palace for the birth, old friend.  You don‘t have to be in the room with her.  Kerri said you don’t ever have to see her or anyone else.  She just wants to know that you‘re here when she has her baby, and she wants you to see it.”

        There was a long silence from her.  “I, I don’t know if I’m ready to face her, Tarrin,” she said quietly, morosely.  “I don’t think I can.”

        “You never have to face her,  Miranda,” Tarrin said.  “I can bring you to the palace, and you can hide in a room the entire time.  Nobody will see you but me.  I can bring the baby to you so you can see it, then I can put you right back in Abrodar.  Kerri just wants you to be in the palace, in Wikuna, when she has the baby.  That’s all she wants.”  He closed his eyes, though she’d never see it.  “You don’t have to face anyone but me, and you already know how I feel about the matter.  Can you manage that?”

        There was a long, protracted silence.  “I,” she started in a quavering voice.  “I don’t know if I can,” she told him.

        He could hear the anguish in her voice, could sense her fear and trepidation at the thought of it.  In that moment, he knew that she was not ready to return to Wikuna.  And he would not force it on her.  This time, for once, Keritanima would need to accede to Miranda’s wishes.  If it made her bitter, so be it.  If it truly bothered her that much, then perhaps Keritanima had truly never learned her lesson to take her best friend more seriously.  If she couldn’t understand that it would not be good for Miranda to return, then perhaps it was best Miranda if never returned at all.

        “I understand, Miranda,” he told her in a gentle voice.  “At this moment, my dear friend, I understand better than you could ever imagine.”

        He heard her sniffle.  “Thank you, Tarrin, but you can’t understand what I’m going through.”

        Tarrin felt keenly the wings on the back of his image, which had transferred into the Weave, had become a permanent part of the self-image which defined how he appeared within the Heart.  Even here, where how he appeared was a function of how he imagined himself to be, he could not get away from the wings, could not forget what they meant.

        “Miranda,” he said in a low, poignant voice, a voice that overflowed with the subtle power of his emotions, “someday you’ll know how wrong you are.”

        He killed the spell before he heard her response, and then retreated back to himself, overwhelmed by the power in that statement.  Miranda was suffering a crisis of identity, unsure of who she really was and what she was supposed to be, lost and overwhelmed because she had discovered that she was not what she always thought she was.

        How much would he give to have her problem.

        Opening his eyes, feeling suddenly entrapped and insecure, Tarrin set his will against the Weave and used the spell of Teleportation to send himself out and away, far away, to the ruins of Mala Myrr.  It was dusk there, the desert sky painted in brilliant shades of red and pink and purple, the sun’s fading light shining through the top of an approaching sandstorm, illuminating it in a breathtaking array of shifting colors.  The desert was starting to cool, was in that perfect time when it was not cold, not hot, not bright, not dark.  Perfectly in the middle.

        Without thought, he brought the wings out, allowed them flare out to their normal size, brought them partially around himself to protect against a sudden wind, the winds that tended to kick up in the morning and evening as the air cooled or warmed.  He stood there, in the center of that ruined arena, standing on the sand-covered floor of it near the pile of rubble which he had used in his battle with Jegojah, eyes half closed and feeling very lost and alone.  He put a paw on each opposite shoulder, almost hugging himself, staring out into the sunset with empty eyes, then he bowed his head and lost focus on what he was seeing, ignoring the ground before his eyes as they turned inward to focus on the conflict within.

        Miranda didn’t know who or what she was.  He would love to forget who and what he was.

        Demigod.  Not a mortal, not a god, trapped between the two.  Belonging to neither group, feared by one, hiding among the other, knowing that those who understood him feared him, those that did not understand him would also fear him should they know the truth.  And the worst of it all, knowing that nowhere anymore, nowhere did he truly belong.

        He did not belong among the gods.   He was not one of them, was a creation of the Firestaff, and would forever be considered an outsider, an interloper…an abomination.  They feared him, feared him because they could not control him, and forever would they look down on him as nothing other than less than what they were.  He would find no equal among them, even if they came to accept his existence on Sennadar.  To them, he would always be a demigod, that one being out there that might understand some aspects of the truth of their existence, but not enough for them to treat him as anything other than less than themselves.

        But he also did not belong among the mortals.  They would not understand him, could not understand him.  The very reasons the gods would not accept him would make the mortals reject him as well.  He was different than them, but instead of being less than them, he was more than them.  They could never treat him as an equal either.  Those that discovered his truth would fear him.

        He was…alone.  He was the only one of his kind, a singular being who would never find a place among either the mortals or the gods.  All he had were his friends and his family, the only ones who he felt could look past the truth of him and accept him.  And they were all the comfort he would find in this world.

        Who was Tarrin Kael?  It used to be such a simple question, with a simpler answer, but not anymore.  In reality, there was only one answer now.  Who was Tarrin Kael?

        Alone.

        But it would not be lonely being alone.  He would be forever different from the people around him, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t find comfort, enjoy those few who could accept him for what he was, and everything that came with it.  Though he would know that he was different from them, he could still find contentment.

        What now, Tarrin Kael? he asked himself.  What now indeed?  Hard as it might be, there had to be a what now, a continuation of life after such a dreadful revelation.  He could not run away; it would not help him.  His Were-cat nature wouldn’t allow that.  It demanded that he face things head-on, fight tooth and claw, challenge life and best it in the daily duel which was survival.

        What now?  What would have been had it never happened.  That was the Were-cat way.  Fight on, live life, and enjoy the simple pleasures which made it worth living.  And in time, as the memory of it all faded into the past, it would not seem quite so bad.

        That too was the Were-cat way.

        Wings on his back there might be, the soul of a god he might have, but he was still a Were-cat.  The revealing of the divine spark within changed nothing so far as that was concerned.  He was still Were, still had the instincts…he just a Were-cat with wings now.  Wings, and a non-mortal soul.

        Wings.

        Maybe Dolanna was right.  Maybe the divine spark within had granted him the wings to allow him to fly.  He so loved to fly, to be high above the ground and look down and feel that immeasurable sense of freedom that came with it.  To be free of gravity, to look down upon the land and know that one had escaped from its prison.  There were few feelings that could compare to it.

        Slowly, Tarrin raised his gaze from the sand before him to the sky above him.  Was it possible?  Well, anything was possible.  Memories from the fight with Val’s shadow told him that the could fly while he was so transformed, and that the wings somehow had provided the power of that flight.  They didn’t flap like bird’s wings, instead they had held within them a magic that had allowed him to defy gravity, to move through the air with the utter freedom of movement enjoyed by his Air Elemental.  He’d had no idea how he was doing it, but he had done it.  The wings were different now, though…he could sense it.  Was that same magical power within them, or was it too something that he could only manage when in that transformed state?

        He remembered parts of that battle, and the wings.  When he used his power, they expanded, increased in size, almost as a physical indication of the power he was bringing to bear.  Did they work the same now?

        He shook his head.  He shouldn’t experiment.  Not now, not yet.  He should give himself time to acclimate himself to their being there.  In time, with rest and reflection, perhaps he’d get an idea of what they did, how they worked.  The touch he’d made on that power within told him that it was a compliant power, and would obey him.  The trick of it, he’d already discovered, was making it do both what he wanted it to do and what it was capable of doing.  It was much like the All in that regard.  If it wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted it to do, it did what it thought he wanted it to do, and that could be rather dangerous.  He’d already discovered that part of this newfound power was the ability to create fire, and his wings could radiate the kind of heat one would expect from a blast furnace.  Those are two things he’d discovered quite by accident, and they could be deadly.  As to what else it could do, he could do, it was going to be a matter of exploration, and trial and error.  The power may be obedient, but it didn’t communicate to him how it worked and what it did.  It was up to him to learn this power, to unlock it.

        And perhaps, he really would discover he could fly.

        It was the trade-off.  He remembered, long ago, the Goddess telling him that the Were-cats were altered in the Breaking, and that they had gained their Were regeneration and strength in all their forms, but the trade-off was that the human shape became painful for them to hold.  This power seemed no different.  In order for him to use it, it had forced upon him a change, had put the wings on his back, which were the price he had to pay in order to gain access to that power.  And just like with the Were-cats, there was no going back once that change had been instituted.

        Alone.  Could he live with being alone?  He climbed up the pile or rubble and stood atop it, looking around, his eyes inevitably drawn to the pristine tomb which held Faalken’s body.  Everyone was alone, when it came down to it.  Nobody truly understood anyone else.  They were all alone, sharing that loneliness with one another.  It was harsh truth that he would never find a place, would never belong, but with work and keeping his friends around him, he could learn to deal with the hollow emptiness that that knowledge would put inside him.  He would never belong, but in a way, he would belong with them.  They would be his crutch, his link back to the mortal world, a world that was truly no longer his.

        They would also be his comfort.  Jesmind and Kimmie and Mist, his parents, Triana, sisters and friends, they wouldn’t abandon him.  With them, he would always find acceptance.  And so long as he had their acceptance, did it truly matter if there was no place for him on this world?

        There was a place for him after all…with his family.

        Tarrin turned his face into the wind, spread out the wings to catch the last glimmers of light from the setting sun, then folded them behind him, feeling his tail bump up against their inner edges as it swished behind him.  It was going to be a long and lonely road, but so long as he remembered that he always had his family, then it wouldn’t seem quite as bad.  He just had to remember that he would always belong with them, that he was a part of them.  He may have to stand on the outside looking into a world that was no longer his, but they would always be there to hold open the window for him.

        And what of the gods?  He looked at the lower half of the sun through the top of the sandstorm, and he could still see Shirazi’s eyes.  They were staring right at him, and there was fear within them.  He could sense seventeen other spectral observers, seventeen other gods, and four of them were Elders.  They were too far away from him to see, looking down on him from above.  He didn’t deign to acknowledge their presence by looking up, kept his eyes on the sun.  It was another indication of the irrevocable change in his life, the fact that his eyes were now open to that other, hidden world which lurked behind what the mortals could see and touch.  He could see it all around him, sense the lingering presence of the gods, the mark they had left on the world, but it was hazy and indistinct, like a badly formed Illusion.  Only the gods themselves were what he could see with clarity.  That was the proof that he was no longer mortal, but the fact that he couldn’t see all with perfect clarity was the proof that he also was not a god.  He could sense their fear, their hostility towards him.  Most of those who looked upon him now wanted to destroy him, but he could sense the fear involved in that idea.  Ayise could not simply destroy him with a thought, and neither could the other Elder Gods.   They would have to come down into the mortal world and fight him, bring about their power in a direct manner and use it to attack him and expose themselves to attack in return, and that reality terrified them.  They did not want to put themselves at risk.  They were afraid, the same fear that had prevented them from destroying Val, a fear of something that they could not utterly control.  It wasn’t the fear of bringing ruin to the world, as they had always told him, it was nothing more than a fear of the possibility of being defeated.  They could have sent Niami down into the world to fight and used their power to contain the devastation as they had done when he had fought Val, but they had not.  Niami represented magic, a force that was not absolutely vital to the world, and she had told him more than once that her power, the threat that the Elder Gods would send her to destroy him, had been what had kept Val in check during the battle at Suld.  Why could they have simply done that before?

        The answer was tied up in another statement Niami had made to him long ago…that gods were not perfect.  In fact, they were rather childish, for they had no one around to make them grow up.  It was their arrogance, their fear, which had stayed their hand against Val.  That Niami’s loss to the world while she recreated her icon meant, at the most, a temporary loss of magic to Sennadar.  That was something from which the world could have recovered.  But even that was too much for them to consider.  They wanted Val gone, but they were afraid to do it themselves.

        They had been afraid.

        And when Tarrin came along and understood what had to be done, they simply stepped back and let him do it.  After all, they weren’t going to be put at risk.  That was what he was for.  He was the expendable mortal.

        And afterward, when he managed to survive the destruction of his body and divinity, they allowed Niami to revive him not to reward him, not because it was what was only fair, but because he could be of use to them.  He could be a second Guardian, help Spyder take care of the dirty work that the gods wanted done, but didn’t want to do themselves.  Again, to use him for their own needs.  And Val’s shadow…Tarrin suppressed the urge to level a few city blocks.  They had allowed that monstrosity to survive just so Tarrin could fight it, to see if he was worthy.  What an incredible load of dung.  He was a sui’kun and a Druid.  He was trained by the best warriors on Sennadar.  He was one of the most powerful people alive, and they hadn’t thought that was enough?  It was ridiculous.  They’d let him go up against Val with less than he had now without a single word.  No, they set up that little stunt just to see if he had any kind of divine capabilities, and for no other reason.  They set that up fully knowing what Stragos Bane really was, and they let him stumble blindly right into the spider’s web.

        That was no test.  It was a trap.  And if Tarrin was killed…well, that really wouldn’t matter.  At least to them.

        And when their game went horribly wrong, they had the nerve to be afraid of him and want to destroy him, regardless of the fact that it was all their fault.  But the Elder Gods didn’t take responsibility for things like that…not when the only thing in the balance was the life of a single mortal who didn’t happen to be quite so mortal anymore.              Now they all had to live with it.  But they certainly got their answers.  He hoped they choked on them.

        He really should get back.  Jesmind was probably looking for him, and they needed to have a long talk.  He needed to…but he did not want to.  It was so beautiful in the desert, the rosy hue of the sandstorm fading into a dark, dusky red as the sun set, as Shirazi’s eyes dipped below the horizon, as the warmth of the air slowly bled away and left behind the chill of the desert in winter.  Even though he felt a little better about everything, he still felt strangely reluctant to return.  There was a strange sense of peace here, one that he was reluctant to leave behind.

        Going back to Suld wouldn’t be fun.  No doubt Jenna had left behind instructions for Ianelle about what to do with the crater of absolute destruction left behind in the battle between Tarrin and Val’s shadow.  He’d done some serious damage to Suld, and then they all disappeared, ran away from the scene of the crime--or so Arren might believe.  He needed to go see Arren personally and explain what happened, apologize to him and offer to help set things right.  It seemed something of a pattern where he and Arren were concerned.  Tarrin destroyed Arren’s holdings, then paid him to rebuild it.  Tarrin had destroyed Torrian, and now he’d devastated a sizable chunk of Suld.  Next thing he knew, he’s be obliterating all of eastern Sulasia.

        Destruction.  Fire was a destructive force, but in a way, it also brought life by renewing the land, enriching the soil.  Phoenixes were said to rise from their own ashes when they died, renewed and reborn, recreated even in their own destruction.  Sometimes he felt that way.  He’d destroyed so much in his life.  Lives, buildings, city blocks, local geographical areas…and yet things always seemed to come back.  He’d burned Torrian to the ground, but it had been rebuilt, larger and better than before, and now they were building city walls of stone instead of wood.  Maybe that was why he was aligned with fire.  He was a destructive force, but a force that renewed in its wake.

        Holding out his paw, palm up, he watched without much interest when a small lick of flame, like a candle’s flame, appeared over the pad of his palm.  It was created by the power within him, a very simple and easy trick, something that he found he could do without even thinking about it.  Mother said that he would find joy in his wings, in this newfound power…but he could not imagine why yet.  Until he could separate this power with the dark manner in which it was thrust upon him, he didn’t think it was going to happen.  The wings were manacles, an eternal reminder of the fickle cruelty of the Elder Gods.  Aside from Niami, his beloved Mother, he couldn’t give a whit about them now.  And he’d be damned if he worked for them.  He’d help Spyder if she asked him, but because it was Spyder asking him.  He respected her and he felt obliged to her, and he would help her whenever she asked it of him.

        Thinking of the Elder gods caused that small flame to suddenly erupt, become a bright fire that inundated his entire paw.  He felt the fire licking at his fur, ghosting across his pads, flit between his fingers.  He felt its heat, and found the feel of it pleasing, after a fashion.  He watched the fire for long moments, watched the orange-yellow flames undulate around his paw, his green eyes distant, his expression unreadable.

        Then, with great slowness, he closed his paw into a fist, and the fire died away.

        He wondered if that little display worried the seventeen--no, eighteen now--gods who were watching him.  Could they sense his thoughts?  Could they feel his anger?  Could they detect his towering resentment and hurt at how he had been treated at their hands?  He didn’t know.  He did know that Mother knew how he felt, and it probably stung her quite deeply.  She was one of the Elder Gods, and he had some righteous anger in him at her at the moment.  But the difference between her and the others was that he loved her, and that love would smooth over everything else.  She he would forgive.  She he would accept.

        Strange that he thought so about gods, but in a way, he had no reason to fear them anymore.  They couldn’t destroy him like they could just about anyone else.  Niami once told him that she could kill any mortal on Sennadar with but a thought, and he remembered his talk with the Elementals, when they told him that the hand that created could destroy that creation.  That was what set him apart.  He was no longer a creation of the gods, but a creation of the Firestaff.  That meant that they couldn’t simply wipe him out with a thought.  No, they would have to come down to Sennadar and fight him, do actual battle, put their precious little selves at risk.  That, he knew, they wouldn’t do unless they were so desperate that they could overcome their fear, their cowardice.

        And if they did do that, they would send Niami after him.  They would send her, because he loved her and would have tremendous difficulty fighting back, but he knew she would have just as much trouble attacking him.

        Triana.  He could sense her looking for him.  She was out of that extra-dimensional place, and probably knew what was going on, or had at least talked to someone who did.  He could feel the All searching for him at Triana’s behest.

        “She is not the only seeker of you, Tarrin Kael,” a feminine, choral voice called, and the speed with which it had appeared, and the sense of divinity that accompanied it, told him that it was an Elder God.

        Tarrin whirled, his eyes igniting from within with the greenish aura that marked his sudden anger, but that was not the only thing that happened.  His wings snapped out, flared open, and the light from them suddenly brightened, and the air around him became noticeably hot.  Were it Niami, his Mother, he would not have reacted so, but this was an unknown voice.

        The speaker was someone he had never seen before.  This was a dusky-skinned woman, her skin a strange cross between brownish and gray, like ash, and her hair was long, billowing, and a brilliant shade of red.  Her eyes glowed like his own, but hers were red where his were green, and she was garbed in a slinky gown that looked like it was made of solid fire…just like his wings.  It showed off her generous cleavage quite appealingly.  Tarrin could sense that this was not an Avatar.  Whoever this god was, she had brought her icon--this was the animated icon he was facing, not a spirit-form.  So, either she was there to do battle, or she was there, bringing her icon, in an act of trust.

        “Down, boy,” she said with a slight smile, crossing her arms beneath those generous breasts, taking a non-threatening posture.

        “Who are you?” he demanded, bringing forth his black-bladed sword from the elsewhere, then pointing it at her.  “Leave.”

        “Who am I?  Don’t be stupid,” she told him dismissively.

        That was a rather stupid question.  A dress made of solid fire?  And an Elder Goddess?  This was Ahiriya.

        “He does have a brain,” she stated with a sly smile.

        “Why are you here?” he asked in a dangerous tone, the paw holding his sword starting to show licks of flame around it, threatening to explode into fire at any moment.

        “Why not?” she asked in a maddeningly calm tone, turning her back to her.  “Lovely sunset.  Shirazi certainly outdid herself today.”  She glanced at him over her shoulder.  “She’s one of mine, you know.  And so are you.”

        “Yours?” he said in a dangerous manner, lowering the sword.

        “Shirazi is the Younger Goddess of the sun, and all that it encompasses, which is light and fire.  You are a god of fire and duty and protection, and a little bit of revenge to boot, but your aspect of fire makes you one of mine.  One of my subject gods,” she told him, glancing at him again.  “Simply put, Tarrin, Niami may be your mother and your patroness as a Sorcerer, but when it comes to all things divine, I’m your boss, not her.”

        “You?  Command me?” he snorted, sending the sword back into the elsewhere.  She obvious wasn’t here to fight.

        “Certainly,” she answered.  “If you want to fit in on Sennadar, prove yourself as no threat to the Balance, and be left in peace, you’d better learn the first rule.  That rule is, sweetness, Elder Gods make the rules.  You’re not an Elder God.  You’re not a Younger either, but you’re not an Elder.  That means that you’re a subject god.  The Elder God with the most in common with you becomes your patron.  That’s me, sweetness.  You’re my problem now.”

        Tarrin regarded her with narrow eyes, and then the illumination faded out of them.  He drew himself up and folded his wings, crossing his arms before him.  .

        “Rather than risk an all-out war and level a continent or two, the Elders have decided to give you a chance.  You’d better thank Niami for that the next time you talk to her,” she told him levelly.  “She personally vouched for you.  She put her butt on the line for you, so you’d better not mess up.  Niami is my favorite sister, and if she gets in trouble because of you, I’ll spank you.”

        “Try,” he said in a low, dangerous tone.

        “Don‘t tempt me, sweetness,” she told him with a quirky kind of smile.  “Niami told me all about you, Tarrin.  I know how your mind works.  You may not like me, but you know my power.  I am a god.  You may think we’re all cowards,” she said with a sly smile, “but you still can’t deny my power.  Power is everything to a Were-cat, you know, and guess what?  I’m stronger than you, sweetness, and we both know it.  I can make you do what I want, but I’m not going to force you.  I don’t have to, you know.  Look me in the eye and deny I’m stronger than you.  Come on.  Do it.”  She boldly stepped up to him and looked up at him, her glowing red eyes challenging him.

        Tarrin stared down at her with narrow, dangerous eyes, his mind racing and trying to overcome a little confusion.  This Ahiriya wasn’t anything he was prepared to deal with, as far as a god was concerned.  She seemed utterly fearless, willing to bring her icon right to him, daring to step within reach of him while challenging him in a way that would usually provoke a violent reaction out of him.  But it was her offhanded, almost casual manner of treating him, a kind of intimate manner he wasn’t used to dealing with from strangers, that was confusing him, keeping his mind off balance.  She had no fear of him at all; indeed, she seemed to have a keen understanding of how his mind works, no doubt supplied to her by Mother.

        “It’s not how much power you have, it’s how much you can use against me,” he answered her calmly.  “You may know my mind, but I know your secret.  You can’t bring all your power to bear here in the real world, and what you can bring makes us almost equal.”

        “Almost,” she said winsomely, reaching up and tracing her finger under his chin.  “We’d level a few mountain ranges, create a few new seas, and wipe out several kingdoms, but I’d eventually win.”

        “We may find out someday if you’re right,” he warned.

        “I doubt that,” she replied dismissively, waving a hand towards him as she stepped away and looked at the approaching sandstorm.  “You don’t want that to happen any more than we do.  Admit it.”

        “I’m not a fool,” he agreed.

        “Well, sweetness, now that we’ve established a mutual preference to avoid fighting, maybe you can stop posturing and start listening.”

        “I have no reason to listen,” he said bluntly.  “I’m not a god.  I don’t have any power.”

        “And these are a figment of my imagination?” she asked crossly, pointing at his wings.

        “I don’t do anything,” he told her in a little aggravation.  “Like this, these wings are the only thing I have.  Why even bother?”

        “Because you have the power to do something,” she told him with a sudden intensity.  “It may only be a fraction of the power of any other god, but it is there, and that means you have certain responsibilities.  For the rest of us, it deals with how we use that power.  For you, it means how you don’t use it.”  She glanced back at him.  “Because, as you said, the way you are now, you really don’t have any power.  Not compared to one of us, you don‘t.  It‘s when you do have that power that it becomes important.”

        “You don’t understand how it works,” he told her.  “I don’t choose when that happens.  The sword does, and I already get the feeling that it won’t change me unless it has a good reason to do it.  Look at what happened with Bane.  It didn’t bring itself to the battlefield until it was the only option I had left.”

        “That’s irrelevant,” she told him.  “It happened once before, so logic dictates that it’s going to happen again.”

        “Logic?  From a female god?” he said scathingly.

        “Niami said you had a tongue,” she said with a laugh.  “Good!  I like a little defiance out of my subjects.  Fire is a force of strength and power and is hard to control.  I’d think less of you if you were a tame little campfire, sweetness.  I like those under me to have all the strength and wildness of an inferno.  It’s a matter of style.  It shows the other gods that you treat us with respect and care, else they get burned.”

        Tarrin looked at her, then snorted.  “I thought semantics were confined to the mortals.”

        “Phaw,” she said with a sly smile.  “Sweetness, you have not even begun to see semantics.  Gods are a childish lot, as I’m sure your Mother’s told you.  We work hard to establish reputations and impress each other with our power and our stables of faithful mortals.  The Elder Gods act with a little more decorum, but behind the scenes, we’re even worse than the Youngers.”

        “Children leading children,” he sighed.

        “When you’re a god, who can tell you ‘no’?” she asked with a wink.

        “Mother told me that once,” he said with a rueful chuckle.

        “So long as we keep the Balance, we indulge ourselves,” she admitted.  “But when work time comes, as you’ve seen, we’re all business.”  She turned and looked at the sandstorm again.  “I’m here on business, you know,” she told him.  “My only real command for you is to try not to let the sword change you if you can help it.  As long as you stay like this, the Elders aren’t that afraid of you.  We’ve already figured out that if we threaten you, the sword is going to respond and turn you into something that can fight back, just like it did with Val’s shadow.”

        “I still can’t figure out why it waited so long,” he admitted aloud.

        “Because it represents everything you represented as a god,” she answered.  “Fire is only one of your aspects.  Remember that.  You also were a god of duty and protection, and to a lesser extent, revenge.”

        “I don’t understand.”

        “When Val’s shadow took the Firestaff and tried to destroy you, the sword didn’t change you right off because of the risk to the civilians,” she told him.  “Its duty was to try to save them, duty to your king to try to protect his subjects, so it held off until the last possible instant, until the need to protect you overrode its duty to king and kingdom.  You are Sulasian, sweetness, and deep inside, you have fealty to your king.  The sword respected that fealty by trying to do as little damage as possible.  But when it became necessary to save your life, it changed you, so you could protect yourself, and protect Suld from that monstrosity.  It was also your duty to destroy it.  You were ascended specifically to destroy Val.  When you were faced with a remnant of your enemy, it became your duty to destroy it, to finish what you started.  It’s also why you never once thought of anything except destroying Val’s shadow, even when you had the option and the ability to run away.  So you see, sweetness, everything that happened makes perfect sense when you look at the big picture.”

        Tarrin put a finger and thumb to his chin, considering her words.  It did all make sense.  After all, the sword could have simply appeared and changed him immediately, the instant Val’s shadow abandoned its mortal shell, but it did not.  It waited, waited until the need for him to protect himself overrode its duty to try to prevent destruction in Suld.

        “Jesmind is about to have a conniption and Triana is getting angry that she traveled all the way to Wikuna only to find you‘re in the desert, so you’d better go back,” she told him.  “And I have things to do myself.  I only came to introduce myself anyway, and lay down a couple of ground rules.”  She turned around and actually blew a kiss at him.  “We’ll see each other again.”

        And then she simply vanished.

        Tarrin looked towards the sandstorm in the waning light, lost in thought.  Ahiriya had been quite a surprise, and had forced him to reevaluate some of his thoughts about the Elder Gods.  He was still angry with them, but he’d found that not all of them were as cowardly as he first believed.

        But that was a problem to ponder some other time.  He had to talk to Triana and his mate, and there were several other matters to ponder and work out.  And there was also the matter of Keritanima’s coming baby.  That was what was most important right now.

        Once again, Tarrin found him explaining everything, but this time it was to a different group of people.  This time it was Triana and Sapphire.

        The pair of them had arrived almost at the same time, and Triana’s anxiety had infected Sapphire, making both of them very hard for the others to deal with.  A thousand year old Were-cat matriarch and an ancient blue dragon were extremely forceful personalities, brimming with power, and it left those around them hard pressed to calm them down, or even manage to function around them.  Triana and Sapphire both issued peremptory commands to everyone around them, and were waspish and extremely short tempered.  By the time he got back, he thought they all were going to drop onto their knees and kiss his feet.

        Triana’s relief at seeing him was one of those few overt, public displays of emotion that always set tongues to wagging, and demonstrated to the world the very powerful bond that existed between him and his bond-mother.  Tarrin was the son Triana had always wanted, had always hoped for, and she was fiercely protective of him, probably more so than with any of her other children.  Tarrin had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t favoratism that made her like that, it was the fact that she had nursed him back to health from the brink of death.  He had the feeling that that event still lingered in her mind, caused her to be quite protective of him, and pay him a little more attention than her other children.  He knew that she didn’t visit her other children half as often as she visited him.  In fact, Thean told him the last time they talked that she hadn’t seen Laren since the day he and Shayle had come to Shoran’s Fork to meet him, when he was still healing from the near-fatal Wikuni attack.

        He took both of them back to his apartment and explained what happened…again.  But this time, he went into a great deal more depth than he had for the others, explaining in greater detail what had happened, and more importantly, what it meant.  He did this because Triana and Sapphire were vastly more educated than the others, and had a keen understanding of magic and the gods, much more keen than even Phandebrass.  He told them things he didn’t tell the others partly because they could understand it better, and because he had a measure of trust with Triana and Sapphire that wasn’t quite matched by any other beings, not even his mates, sisters, and his birth parents.  Both of them took him showing them the wings rather well, but both of them seemed to see to the heart of the matter almost immediately.

        “Have the gods approached you yet, little friend?” Sapphire asked.

        Triana nodded.  “They have to have gotten over the shock of it by now.  You’d have either received either the peace offering or the declaration of war by now.”

        Tarrin chuckled without humor.  “I just got back from that, mother,” he answered, telling them what happened between him and Ahiriya.

        “I’m surprised you accepted her so easily, given how angry you are at the Elder Gods,” Triana grunted.

        “She talked to the Goddess before approaching me,” he told her.  “If there’s anyone who knows how to approach me, it’s my Goddess.  She told Ahiriya what to do and say to get past my instincts and distrust.  Ahiriya wasn’t afraid of me, and she’s got a quirky kind of personality.  She’s strangely funny.  Weird, but funny.  I almost like her.”

        “So she tells you to learn how to use the power you have, but not to allow the sword to change you,” Sapphire surmised, reaching out and touching one of his wings, which he had revealed to show to them but had yet to retract back into their hidden form.  “Do you have an idea of it?”

        He nodded.  “It seems to be very limited in scope, and it’s also weak,” he admitted.  “I have more power as a Sorcerer and a Druid than I do with this divine power.  At least like this.”

        “But this power is inexhaustible,” Sapphire told him.  “Divine power is endless.  That is its advantage.”

        Tarrin blew out his breath.  “You have no idea how strange it is for me to talk about myself like that,” he admitted to them.  “Divine power.  It’s almost ludicrous.”

        “No, cub, it’s far from it,” Triana told him.  “Since that goddess of yours pulled your soul out of that Soultrap and brought you back, I’ve been able to sense it in you.  I’ve never told you about it because I wasn’t sure if it was dormant or latent.”

        “I noticed the same thing,” Sapphire told him.  “Me and your mother had quite a few long talks about what we should tell you, if anything at all.  I even consulted other dragons on the matter, to see if their experience could bring wisdom to the situation.”

        He looked at them in surprise.  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.

        “Because it may have been nothing,” Triana replied.  “If the power was dormant, it would never have shown itself unless in a moment of extreme duress.  If it was latent, it was only a matter of time until you touched on it.  We decided that it was best not to tinker with such a delicate matter, cub.  If the power was truly dormant, then we didn’t want to do anything to cause you to express it.  We knew how the gods might react.”

        He couldn’t fault her there.  Triana was very wise to understand that a mortal running around with a touch of divine ability would make the gods very worried.

        “I see now it was a latent power.  That may be water under the bridge now, but I think we did the right thing.”

        “I say we most certainly did, Triana,” Sapphire agreed.

        “Well, the Elder Gods aren’t as wise as you two are,” Tarrin told them.  “They had to push it, and this is what happened,” he said in a growl, spreading his wings about halfway.

        “Don’t sass the gods, cub,” Triana said flintily.  “They had their reasons.  We just don’t understand them because we’re not gods.  For all we know, what they did was very important, and it’s not our place to decide if it was smart or dumb.”

        “Yes, mother,” he said with immediate submission.  But it did little to assuade his anger.

        “Well, little friend, I wouldn’t fret too much,” Sapphire told him.  “I think the wings are an improvement.  I do have to admit that I’m a bit jaded, seeing as how I have wings.”

        Triana gave her a sidelong look, then chuckled.  “They do give him a bit of a presence, and at least you can hide them whenever you want.  That’s the best of both worlds.”

        “Are you going to help me learn how this works?” he asked.

        They both shook their heads.  “It is your power, cub,” Triana told him.  “Nobody can really help you.  In this respect, you’re on your own.  But don’t think it changes things,” she warned.  “You still owe me a spell by spring.  I’m holding you to that.”

        “You expect me to--”

        “Of course we do,” Sapphire interrupted him.  “How best to come to terms with this change and return to a life of normalcy than by returning to your studies?”

        “And I expect a good spell,” Triana warned.  “No stopgap, made up at the last minute creations.  At least five layers.”

        “Five!” he said in surprise.  “You didn’t say anything about any conditions!”

        “I am now,” she declared.  “Five layers.  Keep backtalking me, cub, and it’ll go up to twelve.”

        Tarrin made a few strangled noises, then managed to clamp his jaws shut, but the look he leveled at Triana was positivly murderous.  It was going to take him months to devise a five layer spell.  That took a tremendous amount of research, experimentation, and planning.

        “I see the new power hasn’t gone to his head,” Sapphire told Triana with a slight, amused smile.  “I think between learning how his new power works and his task, he’s going to be quite busy for the rest of the winter.”

        “Quite,” Triana agreed with a nod.

        Tarrin didn’t trust himself to talk, or else he’d be trying to create a thirty layer spell.  His tail slashed savagely back and forth, and his wings veritably bristled in his outrage and irritation.

        “You were about to say something, cub?” Triana asked in an ominous tone.

        He glared at her.  “You’d better be damn happy I love you,” he blurted in a growl before he could stop himself.

        Triana looked at him, then both of them burst into laughter.

        Despite his irritation with his bond-mother and Sapphire, the task they’d put on him was largely forgotten as soon as he tracked down Jesmind and took her somewhere alone.  They needed to talk, and that was going to happen before Keritanima took everyone’s attention.

        It was a long and very involved conversation, and much to his surprise, it didn’t really have much to do with the wings.  Jesmind’s overriding concern had been for him, not for the wings, and she just wanted to talk to him, to come to know how he felt about what happened, come to understand the changes that had happened.  He explained everything as best as he could, and even explained how the gods felt about it and how it made him feel…which was what she had been after in the first place.  She showed surprising intelligence and understanding about the situation, about the delicate situation between him and the gods, but it was her understanding of how alone it made him feel that surprised him.  She understood that he was a unique being now, alone on Sennadar, but she also told him--quite sedately--that his status as something other than mortal did nothing to change the fact that he was Tarrin, and always would be.  Just as Sarraya had pointed out, she told him that the wings and the power and his status meant nothing so long as he didn’t allow them to change him, or change what he wanted.  He could still live in his house and have his mate and Kimmie and have his children around him, and what he had become meant nothing.  Things could quite easily continue on just as they had, and they would so long as Jesmind had anything to say about it.  Jesmind loved him, and she had within herself a powerful capacity to deal with her instincts and overcome any kind of obstacle that might interfere with her love for him.  She’d displayed that many times in the past, and this was no different.  She would accept the wings as a part of him without question, because they were indeed a part of him, and she could not have him without accepting them as well.

        She did have one minor issue with the wings, though, and that was how it was going to affect the house, their home life, and she admitted quite unashamedly, how they would handle the bed situation.  Tarrin had felt them to be quite silly worries, especially how the wings might impact their ability to make love, but Jesmind took those kinds of things quite seriously, and he’d nearly gotten himself swatted when he laughed at her when she broached the subject.

        Tarrin felt a great deal better after the talk with Jesmind, for he knew beyond doubt that he would be truly accepted despite his change.  His mate wouldn’t turn her back on him, Kimmie wouldn’t turn her back on him.  His children still loved him, his sisters and family still loved him, and his friends still loved him. To them, he wasn’t a mighty demigod…he was just Tarrin.

        Just Tarrin.  He liked the sound of that.

        All worries about him evaporated from everyone’s mind when Keritanima went into labor.  They all gathered in her private apartment, in the common room, with her in the private bedroom beyond it, and there they all waited.  The only ones allowed inside were Rallix, the High Priest of Kikkalli, and two midwives.  Binter and Sisska were also inside, standing at the door to ensure that nobody assaulted the Queen while she was delivering.  Darvon, Kang, and the sashka came, went, came, went, came and went again, constantly checking to see if Keritanima had given birth yet.  Tarrin had no idea why they were doing this, but they obviously had a good reason.  The Queen’s labor didn’t sound like it was going very well, given how much she screamed and howled and shouted short, rude commands and comments at everyone in the room, insulting everyone within eyesight--except Binter and Sisska--and threatening to castrate Rallix for putting the kid inside her, just before threatening to use Sorcery to make him pregnant the next time so he’d be the one to have to endure what she was going through.  It was hard to keep a straight face as they listened to Keritanima carry on, and some of them didn’t even try.  Sarraya found the whole thing to be a riot, and laughed even harder with each vituperous, scathing comment that came through the door and reached their ears, then she fell off Tarrin‘s shoulder and lay helpless on the floor when Keritanima abandoned insulting the people in the room and began cursing.  It was surprising for some in the room to hear the usually urbane Wikuni curse like an unrepentant sailor, but Tarrin and Allia knew her well enough to not be too surprised.  Keritanima had an astoundingly vast vocabulary, since she could speak so many languages that Tarrin had lost count--fourteen, he thought, but he wasn’t sure--and that gave her an impressive array of swear words upon which she could draw.  They heard her swear in Wikuni, Sulasian, Selani, Sharadi, and Sha’Kar, but they didn’t appreciate the even viler curses in Ungardt and Arakite and Shacèan and Draconian with which she used to peel the paint off the walls of her bedchamber.  Ungardt was the language of choice for the connoissour of curses, as it held an impressive variety of them, and many were very offensive.  Most of them didn’t get the full effect of it the way Tarrin did, for he spoke most of the languages Keritanima was using to unleash her endless string of hair-curling expletives.

        Tarrin had to give his sister one thing.  That woman could swear.

        The full effect of labor seemed to finally hit her, and Tarrin could tell that the birthing had begun.  That announcement came when a savage string of swearwords suddenly stopped, and was replaced by an ear-splitting scream that almost made it sound like someone was in there impaling her with a red-hot poker.  The pains of the contractions were mild compared to the pain of the birth, and when that hit her, she no longer had the rational mind to do anything but scream.  While they were listening to her scream, the wolf-Wikuni maid Amber, who was now a part of Keritanima’s staff and served as Tarrin’s personal page when he was in Wikuna, quietly explained to him that Wikuni had more pain and difficulty in giving birth, because of their unique racial trait of resembling animals.  The baby’s muzzle--if it had one--was increasing the girth that had to pass through the birth canal, which made it much more painful for than if she was human or Sha‘Kar, and required the presence of midwives to help adjust the position of the baby to clear the muzzle from the birth canal without doing either the baby or the mother any harm.  She went on to tell him that if the baby had its nose into the birth canal, looking down it after a fashion, that it wouldn’t be quite as painful for her.  The only problem with that was that the stress it put on the neck put the baby in danger of suffering injury during birth, stress the midwives couldn‘t alleviate.  That was why Amber was more relieved to hear that it was very painful, because that meant she was delivering the baby crown first.  That was excruciating for the mother, but much safer for the baby.

        Not everyone liked hearing her scream, though.  Tiella looked decidedly pale, and Jenna winced with each new cry.  Phandebrass had a compassionate look on his face, and the shouting was upsetting all three drakes, making them nervous and unsettled.

        But, in a surprisingly short time, the screaming died off, and they all started standing up and waiting for news.  That came after several moments, as they obviously cleaned up the baby and the mother and delivered out the afterbirth.  It was quiet, impatient waiting as the twins put their ears to the door and tried to hear what was going on.  Both of them staggered back and nearly fell as the door opened, and a beaming Rallix stepped out, cleaning his hands with a towel.

        “Well?” Jenna said quickly as Sarraya abandoned decorum and zipped past the badger Wikuni and into the room.

        “We have a crown prince,” he announced with bright eyes.  “Please, everyone, come in,” he invited, turning back into the room as he pushed the door open.

        They filed into the room as Sarraya flitted in circles around the grand bed of the chamber.  Tarrin pushed the twins out of his way and stalked up to the bed, leaning over it to look down at his beloved sister.  Keritanima looked exhausted and her fur was matted heavily from sweat, but her weary face was glowing, and she cradled a tiny wrapped bundle in her arm.  On her face was the gentlest, most loving smile he had ever seen.

        “Congratulations,” Tarrin told her with a gentle touch on her face.  “Rallix told us it’s a boy.”

        They all gathered around the bed to see, as the twins and Jasana climbed up onto the bed and Sarraya landed on Tarrin’s shoulder, as Keritanima silently reached down and uncovered her new infant son.

        Tarrin looked down upon this new life with wonder in his eyes.  Keritanima’s son was a tiger, with red fur and black stripes touching the fur on his tiny, tiny face, and white fur under his chin.  He opened his eyes, and Tarrin saw that they were the most dazzling, translucent green he had ever seen.

        And behind those eyes, Tarrin could see a formidable power.  He could sense it within the infant, just as he had so many times before, but much more dramatic, much more prevalent.

        To his surprise, Keritanima had not just born a Sorcerer.

        Keritanima’s infant son was a sui’kun.  The tenth sui’kun.

        Keritanima looked at him with love in her eyes, then looked at Tarrin and smiled.  “Tarrin, meet your nephew.  His name is Faalken.”

        Tarrin’s eyes snapped to his sister, and he saw the glowing love within them.  She had named her son after the fallen Knight to honor him and his memory, and also to honor Tarrin’s towering respect for the man whose life and death had had so much of an effect on him.  Speechless, unable to even find the words that would convey his approval, his satisfaction, his regard that his sister would abandon the opportunity to give her child a name of her own choosing and instead choose a name that would please him more than her, he reached out and put his paw on her furry face, the most exquisitely tender and gentle of touches.  She reached up and put her hand over his paw, smiling up at him gently.

        Allia’s hand reached over and covered hers, joining them together, and in that moment he felt the powerful, indefinable bonds that joined the three of them together, made them closer than siblings, strengthen anew, and he could find no reason to worry about anything.  The same powerful bonds that had gotten them out of the Tower so many years ago, had kept them together through Tarrin’s dark change, had kept them together even after Keritanima was stolen away to Wikuna, they were unbreakable, they were eternal.  They were friends, they were family, and it would be so forever.  No matter what happened, nothing could break those bonds, nothing could change the unity that existed between the three of them.

        A Selani, a Wikuni, and a Were-cat.  What an odd and unusual combination.  But to them, there was nothing but family.

        He was with his sisters, they were all well, and they were celebrating the birth of Keritanima’s new child, the Crown Prince of Wikuna.  There could be nothing wrong in that moment, with that day, no matter how terribly it began.  There was nothing but happiness and peace and joy in that moment, and no matter what had happened to him earlier, what he had become, and what uncertainty lay in his future, he could not be anything other than utterly content and truly happy…because he was with his sisters, they were together, and they loved one another.

        Everything was just perfect.

©2000, James Galloway. All Rights Reserved.