His anger churned wildly for a moment, then fell off, leaving reluctant acceptance in its place. "Good night, Lorn," Segnbora said, and went back to her bedroll. She was careful not to smile until her back was turned. Sunspark pulled itself back down into the firepit, and soon the darkness of the hall held no sound but Harald's cloak-muffled snoring. It took Segnbora a little while to get enough of the blankets unwrapped from around Lang to cover herself. That done, she lay on her back for a long while, gazing up at the smoke-shaft in the ceiling, through which a few unfamiliar stars shone. Her underhearing, sharpened by all the excitement, brought her the faint dream-touched emotions of those fall-ing asleep, and the physical sensations of those asleep already — breathing, the slide of muscles, muted pulse-thunder. It 5 a gift, she told herself for the thousandth time. Truth, however, reared its head. It was a nuisance. If her Fire was focused, as Herewiss's was, she wouldn't be having this prob-lem. . If. She exhaled sharply at her useless obsession with what she couldn't have. It wasn't focused. It would never be. She had given up. Other things had become more important now. Oaths, for example. . It had been a long time ago. All of a month, she thought— a busy month full of desperate rides, escapes, sorcery, terror, wonder. All started by a chance meeting in a smelly alley, when she had stumbled on a dark fierce little man losing a swordfight to the crude but powerful axework of a Royal Steldene guard. The small man looked as if he was about to be split like kindling. She had intervened. The guardsman never saw the shadow who stepped in from behind. Over the course of the evening, she found she had rescued family; though the tai-Enraesi were only a small poor cadet branch of the Darthene royal line, and strangers to court, the Oath of Lion and Eagle was binding on them too, and a king's son of Arlen was therefore a brother.