She half woke from the hard dreams. She was in the King’s House in Morvran. She couldn’t possibly have stayed another night in the sanctuary. With Jaelle gone, with the armies returned to Paras Derval, the Temple was Audiart’s again, and the triumph in the eyes of that woman was more than Kim could bear.
Of course they had won something. The snow was melting everywhere—in the morning it would be gone and she, too, would set forth, though not to Paras Derval. There had been a victory, a showing forth of Dana’s power to balk the designs of the Dark. The power had been paid for, though, bought with blood, and more. There were red flowers growing everywhere. They were Kevin’s, and he was gone.
Her window was open and the night breeze was fresh and mild with the promise of spring. A spring such as never before, burgeoning almost overnight. Not a gift, though. Bought and paid for, every flower, every blade of grass.
From the room next door she heard Gereint’s breathing. It was slow and even, not ragged as before. He would be all right in the morning, which meant that Ivor, too, could depart. The Aven could ill afford to linger, for with the winter ending the Plain lay open again to the north.
Was everything the Goddess did double-edged? She knew the answer to that. Knew also that, this once, the question was unfair because they had so desperately needed this spring. She wasn’t minded to be fair, though. Not yet. She turned over in bed and fell asleep, to dream again. But not of Kevin this time, though his flowers were there.
She was the Seer of Brennin, dreamer of the dream. For the second time in three nights she saw the vision that was sending her away from everyone she knew. It had come to her two nights ago, in Loren’s bed, after a lovemaking they would each remember with gratitude. She had been inside this dream when Jaelle’s voice, mourning the death of Liadon, had awakened them.
Now it came again, twisting, as such images always did, along the timeloops of the Tapestry. There was smoke from burning fires and half-seen figures beyond. There were caves, but not like Dun Maura: these were deep and wide, and high up in the mountains. Then the image blurred, time slipped through the lattice of her vision. She saw herself—this was later—and there were fresh lacerations scoring her face and arms. No blood, though, for some reason, no blood. A fire. A chanting all around. And then the Baelrath flamed and, as in the dream of Stonehenge, she was almost shattered by the pain she knew it would bring. Worse, even, this was. Something monstrous and unforgivable. So immense a blazing to so vast a consequence that even after all that had come to pass her mind cried out in the dream the racking question she thought had been left behind: Who was she that she should do this thing?
To which there was no answer. Only sunlight streaming in through the window and innumerable birds singing in the light of spring.
She rose up, though not immediately. The aching of her heart cut hard against the flourish of that dawn, and she had to wait for it to ease. She walked outside. Her companion was waiting, with both horses saddled and ready. She had been planning to go alone, at first, but the mages and Jaelle—united for once—had joined Aileron in forbidding this. They had wanted her to have a company of men, but this, in turn, she had refused. What she was doing had to do with repaying a debt and not really with the war, she told them. She hadn’t told them the other thing.
She’d accepted one companion because, in part, she wasn’t sure of the way. They’d had to be content with that. “I told you from the beginning,” she’d said to Aileron. “I don’t follow orders very well.” No one had laughed or even smiled. Not surprisingly. She hadn’t been smiling herself. Kevin was dead, and all the roads were parting. The Weaver alone knew if they would come together again.