Jareen left the council. The details did not interest her, and she only felt out of place. She had never cared for administration. Once, Arch Sister Noreen had offered her oversight of all the apprentice sisters. She had refused. Better to care for the Departing in the gutters of Nosh than dictate in the Wards. Noreen had still made her take her own apprentices, though.

Coir and Faro approached her house just as she did. She looked across the clearing. The prisoners were gone, though a few sentinels remained, staring into the trees.

"What did you do with them?" she asked.

"I sent them home."

"Is the council dispersed?" Coir asked.

"No," she replied. He nodded and headed toward the pavilion, his cane like an extra limb, giving his gait a triplet rhythm.

Jareen opened the door to her little house. "Come," she said to Faro. "I have asked them to bring us some food."

He followed her inside, and she poured cups of water. The odd flavor of the stream had weakened, or else she'd gotten more used to it. He sipped, but set the cup down. The harp rested nearby. Sitting, he lifted it onto his lap. His hardened hands scraped along the bone body of the harp. He grimaced at the sound. Jareen tensed as she watched. Cradling the instrument, Faro tried to set his fingers upon the strings, but they rasped, and when he tried to pluck them, it was clear his fingers did not bend to his will. The melody was broken, full of metallic squeaks from the hardness of the calcifications on his fingertips. She could see his frustration. She wiped tears from her eyes and looked away.

She should have shown joy when he'd tried to play for her before. When he'd brought out the harp, she'd seen Tirlav in him, and that vision had overpowered what she should have seen: the flash of that old youthful joy, the Faro she had raised in Vireel's glade, who explored every plant and tree and stood in the falling rain with his mouth open. It was taken from him too soon. All she wanted was to protect that childlikeness for as long as she could, but it was stolen from her—from him.

Faro gritted his teeth and stood, raising the harp as if to throw it, his face twisted.

"No!" Jareen shouted. It startled him. "Don't." She raised a hand, her voice softening. "You will regret that."

He looked half-surprised at his own outburst and sat back down, clutching the harp to his chest. He covered his eyes with his hand and wept.

"I had just found it," he said, his voice broken. "I'd only just found it."

Jareen slipped from her chair and knelt next to him, wrapping her arms around him. Tears flowed down her face, but she would not wail. She felt the sobs wrack his frame and held him. Thus they remained as the storm passed, and Faro lapsed into silence.

It had grown dark in the little house. The evening sounds of the camp and forest were faint outside.

"What sort of vien was my father?" he asked.

Jareen pulled away in surprise. She was not prepared for that question.

"You know who he was," she said. "He was a younger scion of Aelor, and he became High Liel when the Malady took his family."

"I know, but that's not what I meant." He looked her in the face. "You loved him, didn't you?"

Jareen faltered.

Loved? Surely she would have said so, then, but no one had asked her. Those nights were full of fireflies and someone to speak with, someone who for whatever reason wanted her. Intoxication she might call it—besotted with the moment's elixir before the last shards of youth fled and the bitter aftertaste set in.

"It was a long time ago," she said at last, as if that was any answer.

"Why? Why him?"

Jareen rose, pressing up from the ground with her hand on her thigh. It was far more difficult to rise than it had been. Her joints often ached. Within the little house, her possessions were few. A couple robes, her bag of supplies for the giving and taking of blood, her tinctures and the tools she used to make them. . .

She had no attachment to these things. But there was something she had taken long ago. It lay at the bottom of her little satchel, and she found the tenae and handed it to Faro.

"This is all I have of him."

Faro set the harp on the ground and took the tenae, carefully removing the cap and drawing out the withered paper. Gently, he unrolled it. The letter grown so thin and frail, yet the calligraphy was still young. The graceful hand, often hurried in eagerness to pursue the thought, had never changed. In that hand she could almost see him again—not as she had ever seen him, but as he was before the Synod turned him into a killer and a slave.

Faro's eyes moved across the leaf. Jareen watched him as he read it once, again, and then a third time. At last, he looked at her with reddened eyes.

"That is who he was at his best," she said. "Before the Synod took him."

Faro carefully rolled the letter, replacing it in the tenae.

"Thank you for showing me." He offered the tenae back to her.

"No," she said, holding up her hands. "I could recite it from memory. I want you to have it, now."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

It was true she could recite it, though she hadn't read it in some time.

Faro lowered the tenae to his lap.

"Do you still love him?"

She sighed.

"No," she said. "But I love who he was. I suppose he will outlive me, and then I will dwell in his memory as I was, like he does in mine."

Faro flinched, as if the thought was startling.

"What?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Nothing." He raised his hand to his temple.

"Tomorrow we should leave," Jareen said. "We must decide whether we go alone, or with the others."

"Surely you would not leave Coir?"

"Of course not," Jareen said. "He is the closest thing we have to a Tree, now."

"It will be hard for him to travel. Are you sure you would leave all these who look to you?"

"You are my first concern. I have done much for them. We aren't beholden." Even as she said it, she felt guilty. Without her, people would die. How could she just leave?

"You have done much," Faro said. "Go find some corner, some place to be safe, but I would rather you take these people. They will protect you as best they can. They owe you life."

Jareen hesitated.

"What do you mean, Faro?"

"I'm not going with you, mother."

"No. You are coming with me. We have to get you away from the Synod. We'll figure out a way to take ship."

"I could easily leave," he said, "but I'm not going to."

"You're not well."

"Our people are not well. You have done much for them. I have not."

"It isn't your responsibility."

"Should I live knowing our people are slaves?"

"That witch has given you delusions. These are her words, not yours. We aren't responsible for everyone else." A growing dread was building in her stomach.

"You didn't raise me to abandon our people."

She hadn't? Jareen had fled more than once before, and she could do it again. She tried to think back. How had she raised him? To what purpose? It must be that witch. Jareen did not instill such ideas in him, did she?

He must have seen her distress.

"Do you remember the stories you told me about Nosh?"

Jareen shrugged. She didn't want to be distracted right now. He had pestered her for stories. Sometimes, even Coir got tired of talking. She'd told him about the Voiceless Sisters, about the human city and its trade with far lands, about the plague, and how she had first met Coir.

"You left home and sailed to Nosh," he said, "and served the humans and cared for their dying in the filth of their slums."

"I ran because I was an Insensitive."

Faro shook his head.

"I don't think so."

Jareen wanted to ask why he thought he knew more about it, but she held her tongue. The last thing she wanted was to drive him away. Her anger could wait, as it so often did.

"You wanted to do something," Faro continued. "I think you wanted a purpose, and you found that. Even when they brought you back here, you helped."

"You are my purpose, now," Jareen said. "You're the only purpose I want."

"I can't be your purpose, anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because I have a purpose now."

"What?"

"The one you taught me. To help."

"Then we'll go somewhere together and help."

"The help I can give is not your kind of help." He leaned forward, pressing his hands together. "Listen to me, mother. You have to find a new purpose. Promise you'll find a new purpose."

"I don't have the strength or years for something new. I don't want anything new. I'm. . . I'm old, Faro."

"Promise me you'll try."

Jareen shook her head.

"If you love me, promise me!"

"I'll try," she said, seeking only to appease. "We can speak with Coir. We can figure something out. Tell me what you are planning."

Faro lowered his head.

"Don't ask me again, please."

Across from her sat a vien marred by the Change. If she had seen him in an enclave, she never would have guessed he was not yet forty. She could almost hear Coir's voice: "In Nosh, he would have grandchildren."

"I love you, Faro," she said, her throat tightening. "I'm begging you, please. I'm your mother. You can tell me."

Faro slipped from the chair and knelt in front of her, hugging her legs and resting his head on her lap. She laid a trembling hand on his head and stroked his hair. There were streaks of yellow and viridian in it, now. Her hand was wrinkled and pale against it.

"You can tell me," she whispered.

"I am weary, mother," he said. "Sing me something."

He had always asked for songs that told of the ancient days of Findeluvié or the explorations of Fana of Talanael, but she had no stomach for stories now. There was a lullaby she had sung him, before he could talk or dream of great deeds.

Il'volien na tir, na tir . Il'terame na tovel tir. Fil'nerev el na tir. Na tir fil'nerev ní'n glasome-mir.

We'll climb the hill, the hill . We'll leap the hill so high. Together dancing on the hill. On the hill together dancing in the eventide.

Il'volien na fel, na fel. Il'sus ní'n tovel fel. Fil'nerev ní'n fel. Ní fel fil'nerev ní'n teromel.

We'll climb the tree, the tree. We'll swing in the tree so high. Together dancing in the tree. In the tree together dancing in the morning.

The lullaby drifted on and on, in the winepress, through the river, upon the waves, and in the lights of the setting sun. When at last her voice dropped into silence, Faro's breaths came even, his head still resting upon her lap. She thought he slept, and with her fingers in his hair, she closed her eyes as the candle burnt out, leaving a trail of wisping smoke.

Her babe was no babe. She had born him into a world she could not inhabit. She would do all she could to persuade him, but she could no more control him than she could grasp the Current.

Without him, what was left? She had no dreams, no hopes. Faro would go, and soon Coir would go as well, not by choice but by the doom of his bones. She may linger a few more decades, Coir for a few more years. That faithful human had stayed with her and Faro even as his life slipped away. He had given up his own dreams. He had not found Vah'tane.

She still doubted Vah'tane was real, but Coir was right; she had thought there were no Currents, either, apart from those in the sea. She had thought many things with such confidence long ago in Nosh.

As she rested her eyes, her babe once more on her lap, she became aware of something deep within her. It reminded her of nothing so much as discovering she was pregnant with Faro. This was less certain, but no less unsettling.

It was a maybe. A glimmer of faith or hope or whatever it was that Coir had in such abundance.

Vah'Tane might be real.

Even as she realized the presence of the seed, it sprouted and grew like the plants the sorcerers called forth. A wave of the old familiar disbelief washed over it. It wilted and withered back down to a tiny thing.

Was her doubt any more true than her faith, even what little she had of it?

It was possible. She could no longer deny that Vah'tane was possible. If there was a chance, didn't she owe it to Coir to search. Neither of them had much time left.

Faro had asked her, but she couldn't bring herself to want anything more for herself. But if she could give something to Coir. . .

Maybe the thought of Vah'tane would capture Faro's imagination. Somehow, she doubted it. This moment with her babe upon her lap might be her final happiness. She had known this soul who slept in her lap, and the odd faithfulness of a human from across the sea. She would not have chosen this life, but she could not regret it.

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