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behind when the wagons leave. And I’ve never known you to miss a meal yet.”
    Ria sighed and crawled out. Sometimes it wasn’t altogether handy to have a powerful mage for a foster mother. She climbed onto the bed and folded her arms, eyes stubbornly averted, too angry even to speak.
    Lady Rivkah sat down beside her.
    “Cyril told me what you said to him,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s a little late for you to balk and act outraged now? You’ve been betrothed to Cyril for more than a decade.”
    “Mostly what I remember from that ceremony was being kept in my room because of the roll I threw,” Ria scowled. “Nobody ever told me what it meant, not in words I could understand.”
    “But I’ve talked to you about your duties and responsibilities when you’re married,” Lady Rivkah said patiently. “We’ve talked about it dozens of times.”
    “Well, ‘when you’re married’ means married someday when I want to be married to somebody,” Ria protested hotly. “It doesn’t mean married when I’m sixteen to Cyril, whether I want to or not!”
    “Ria.” Lady Rivkah reached over and patted her shoulder. “Your betrothal to Cyril has never been a secret. It never occurred to me that I’d need to sit down and say, ‘Ria, you’re expected to marry Cyril.’ You’ve read the histories I wrote of our time in Allanmere, or you should have, at least, to understand that the two of you were always intended to marry. If you’ve remained ignorant all these years, it’s because you’ve wanted to.”
    Ria scowled silently. It couldn’t be true. She had read the histories—well, some of them, anyway, mainly the exciting parts about the battles and Lady Rivkah’s accounts of what they’d seen in the elven village. She’d sort of skipped the rest. How could anybody be expected to read every single word of such boring stuff? She’d done much the same with Lady Rivkah’s instructions on her future and her duties; she hadn’t precisely ignored what Lady Rivkah had to say, but usually her mind had been filled with more interesting things and somehow a good bit of those talks had—well, just drifted by somehow without too much of it lingering in Ria’s mind.
    Ria glanced again at Lady Rivkah and then away again, grinding her teeth. Somebody should have talked to her, plain and straight, in words a child could understand. But even so, would it have made any difference? Ria thought not.
    When it became plain that Ria would not answer, Lady Rivkah sighed and shook her head.
    “Ria, you’ve met many of the noble families in Cielman. You know how the marriages of their daughters are arranged, usually almost from birth. Most of those daughters are married far younger than you. Emaril was only fourteen when he married Vesana, and she was only twelve. By your age Vesana had already borne her first child.”
    “But he wasn’t her foster brother,” Ria said sullenly. “And nobody made you and Lord Sharl marry somebody you didn’t want before you were ready.”
    Lady Rivkah laid her hand on Ria’s shoulder, and her voice was kind.
    “So far as I know, no humans have ever been given an elven child to foster,” she said gently. “The eastern elves in their cities are a remote and aloof people who’ve never given us a chance to learn much about them. But Sharl promised your mother that you’d be married to our firstborn son. Besides that promise, a marriage between our House and one of the elves is the best way to make an alliance between the city and the forest. The elven clans may not want to deal with the humans of the city, but they may consent to negotiate with an elven High Lady and the daughter of an elf who helped save the forest. I believe, and Sharl does too, that that’s why your mother chose to give you to us.”
    “Then let Cyril marry some other elf,” Ria said sourly. “One who wants him.”
    “If the elves won’t talk to humans, I think it’s fair to expect none of them are going