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— Windborn, she is such a bundle of contradictions. We have got to start talking; we hardly know anything about one anothes. Up until now, we’ve had our hands full of bandit-extermination, then there just wasn’t the privacy. But if I’d had all the world to choose a sister from, I would have picked her over any other. Goddess-oath and all, I would have chosen her. Though that Warrior of hers certainly took the decision right out of our hands.
    Kethry contemplated the sleeping face of her partner. In repose she lost a great deal of the cold harshness her expression carried when she was awake. She looked, in fact, a great deal younger than Kethry was.
    When she sleeps, she’s the child she was before she lost her Clan. When she’s awake — I’m not sure what she is. She eats, drinks and breathes the Warrior, that’s for certain, yet she hasn’t made any move to convert me. I know it would please her if I did, and it wouldn’t be any great change to do so; her Goddess just seems to me to be one more face of the Windborn Soulshaper. She seems like any other mercenary hire-sword — insisting on simple solutions to complicated problems, mostly involving the application of steel to offending party. Then she turns around and hits me with a sophisticated proverb, or some really esoteric knowledge — like know ing that mind-magic is used in Valdemar. And she’s hiding something from me; something to do with that Goddess of hers, I think. And not because she doesn’t trust me ... maybe because I don’t share her faith. Her people — nobody really knows too much about the Shin‘a’in; they keep pretty much to themselves. Of course that shouldn’t be too surprising; anyone who knew the Dhorisha Plains the way they do could dive into the grass and never be seen again, if that’s what he wanted to do. You could hide the armies of a dozen nations out there, and they’d likely never run into each other. Assuming the Shin‘a’in would let them past the Border. I suspect if Tale‘sedrin had been on the Plains instead of camped on the road to the Great Horse Fair the bandits would be dead and the Hawk’s Children still riding. And I would be out a sister.
    Kethry shook her head. Well, what happened, happened. Now I have to think about riding into Mornedealth tomorrow. Under a glamour?
    She considered the notion for a moment, then discarded it. No. I’ll go in wearing my own face, dammit! Besides, the first sorcerer who sees I’m wearing a glamour is likely to want to know why — and likely to try to find out. If I’m lucky, he’ll come to us with his hand out. If I’m not, he’ll go to Wethes or Kavin. No, a glamour would only cause trouble, not avoid it. I think Tarma’s right; we’ll go in as a mercenary team, no more, no less, and under her Clanname. We’ll stay quiet, draw no attention to ourselves, and maybe avoid trouble altogether. The more complicated a plan is, the more likely it is to go wrong....
    Kethry began formulating some simple story for her putative background, but the very act of having faced and made the decision to go in had freed her of the tension that was keeping her sleepless. She had hardly begun, when her weariness claimed her.
     
    The blizzard cleared by morning. Dawn brought cloudless skies, brilliant sun, and still, cold air that made everything look sharp-edged and brightly-painted. The cleared camp and rode off into a world that seemed completely new-made.
    Tarma was taken totally by surprise by the changeling forest; she forgot her homesickness, forgot her worry over Kethry, even temporarily forgot how cold she was.
    Birdcalls echoed for miles through the forest, as did the steady, muffled clop of their mounts’ hooves. The storm had brought a fine, powder like snow, snow that frosted every branch and coated the underbrush, so that the whole forest reflected the sunlight and glowed so that they were surrounded by a haze of pearly light. Best of all, at least to Tarma’s