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abruptly, left him without looking back.
She walked in the gardens, blind with thought beneath the red-leafed trees and the dark pines. After a while Tam came to her, quietly as a forest animal and slipped his arm around her waist, and she started.
“Is it true?” he whispered. She nodded.
“Yes.”
“I do not want to leave.”
“Then you will not.” She looked at him, brushed with her hand the pale hair he had gotten from his mother’s family. Then she sighed a little. “I do not remember being so hurt before. And I have forgotten to talk to Gyld.”
“Sybel.”
“What?”
He struggled for words. “He said—he said he would make me King of Eldwold.”
“He wants to use you, to gain power for himself and his family.”
“He said men would be looking for me to sell—to sell me to my father, and I must be careful. He said Sirle would protect me.”
“With what, I wonder. They lost to Drede at Terbrec.”
“I think—with you, Sybel, he said there were places for us both, high places in that world below, if we chose to want them. I do not know how to want to be a king. I do not know what a king is, but he said there would be fine horses for me, and white falcons, and—but Sybel, I do not know what to do! I think I will be something different than the one who herds sheep and climbs rocks with Nyl.” He looked at her, pleading, his eyes dark in his face. When she did not answer, he held her arms and shook her slightly, desperately. “Sybel—”
She covered her eyes with her hands a moment. “It is like a dream. My Tam, I will send him away soon and we will forget him, and it will only have been a dream.”
“Send him away soon.”
“I will.”
He loosed her, quieting. She dropped her hands and saw him suddenly as for the first time: the tallness of him, the promise of breadth in his shoulders, the play of muscles in his arms hard from climbing as he stood tense before her. She whispered, “Soon.”
He gave a little nod Then he walked beside her again, but apart from her this time, nudging pinecones with his bare feet, stopping to peer after hidden scurryings in the bracken. “What will you do about Gyld’s gold?” he said. “Did he get all of it?”
“I doubt it. I shall have to let him fly at night.”
“I will bring it—Nyl and I—”
She smiled suddenly. “Oh, my Tam, you are innocent.”
“Nyl would not take his gold!”
“No, but he would not forget it, either. Gold is a terrible, powerful thing. It is a kingmaker.”
His face turned swiftly. “I do not want to think about that word.” Then he stopped to peer into the hollow of a tree. “Last year there was a nest here with blue eggs... Sybel, I wish I were your son. Then I could talk to Ter Falcon, Cyrin and Gules and no one—no one could take me away.”
“No one will take you. Ter Falcon would not let Coren take you, anyway.”
“What would he do? Kill Coren? He killed for Aer. Would you stop him from it?” he asked suddenly, and she did not answer. “Sybel—”
“Yes!”
“Well, I would want you to,” he said soothingly. “But I wish he had not come. He is—I wish he had not come!”
He ran from her suddenly, swift and quiet as a cat among the high peaks of Eld Mountain. She watched him disappear among the trees, and the autumn winds roared suddenly at his heels. She sat down on a fallen trunk and dropped her head on her knees. A great, soft warmth shielded her from the wind, and she looked up into Gules Lyon’s quiet, golden eyes.
What is it, White One?
She knelt suddenly and flung her arms around his great mane, and buried her face against him. I wish I had wings to fly and fly and never come back!
What has troubled you, Ogam’s powerful child? What can trouble you? What can such a small one as Coren of Sirle say to touch you?
For a long moment she did not answer. And then she said, her fingers tight around the gold, tangled fur, He has taken my heart and offered it back to me. And I thought he was harmless.
Sybel sat