"Loved, slow down so I can understand what the Dark you're talking about — ""So much for a whole night's sleep," Lang muttered under his breath. Putting his knife away under the rolled-up cloak that was serving them as pillow, he lay down again. "Wake me up when they're finished?" "If necessary," Segnbora said, rubbing his shoulder ab-sently. The gesture was more for her comfort than for his. Her underhearing was wide awake, bringing her the hot coppery blood-taste of Herewiss's fright as if it were her own. Herewiss was talking fast. He had yanked a shirt out of the blankets and was struggling into it, while in his lap Khavrinen kept on blazing like a torch."It's angry as anything," he was saying. "And It's going to work the worst mischief It can, by putting pressure on the Royal Bindings that have been keeping It in check." He started feeling around for his britches. "For seven years no one's reinforced the Arlene half of those Bindings, and they're wearing thin—"Freelorn glanced away from Herewiss. Segnbora put her hands behind her and leaned back, closing her eyes and brac-ing herself againstthe gut-punch of grief and anger she knew would come from Lorn. When his father had died on the throne, and the Minister of the Exchequer, Cillmod, had taken the opportunity to seize power, Freelorn had fled for his life with a price on his head. Now Lorn would wonder again whether staying in Arlen to see to the bindings, and possibly getting killed as a result, might not have been the more noble course.It was an old midnight pain that Segnbora had come to know as well as the arthritis in Harald's right knee, or Drill's self-consciousness about his weight. Indeed, no Precinct-trained sensitive could have helped underhearing her sur-roundings as Segnbora did. It was the gift she would have been happiest to lose when she gave up her studies. She had enough trouble dealing with her own pains. Those of others were an unwelcome burden.
