Ilondrel tilted her chin up, puzzled, and sniffed at the air. Kell sniffed too, but it was just fresh and a little chilly, carrying a hint of apples baking somewhere.
“I’m sorry,” Kell said. “I’ve disturbed your peace.”
“The Repose is for healing,” Ilondrel replied. “If skin grows over infection, it has to be lanced. You have done no wrong in healing, Kell Redsong. You are welcome to rest.”
“I can’t.”
He didn’t have time to drift around healing. His crushed heart had to beat. Saeldian had fled into the truewild, and with thosefeelings racing through them? Fear? Guilt? Shame? The truewild would bend itself to be the perfect place for those feelings. They would run straight into whatever their feelings said they deserved.
He picked up the pack Saeldian had abandoned and set off.
“Wait!” Dylstra caught his arm. “You’re not in your wisdom, Kell Redsong. You’re in the heart of the tangle, and the wrong step will make the trap spring shut.”
Kell stared. “Why do I know you? Where did I meet you before, even though I only met you this morning?”
She dropped his arm and stepped back. “Be careful. Be wise. The webs and the weaves are layered by choices. Each strand has a purpose, but understand me: Each strand placed was placed with purpose.”
“Why do I know you?” Kell repeated.
“I tell you what you must know,” Dylstra said. “Don’t be distracted. I can’t stop you from running to the one who cannot love you, but be wise, Kell Redsong.”
He couldn’t ask a third time. That would be rude, and she would have every right to answer an insult. He knew her; she wouldn’t say how. “I will.”
The air shivered, hearing.
Ilondrel stepped forward. “One last word, my guests.”
Ilondrel was all in white, bedecked in glittering icy gems. Her armor gleamed silver between tiny enamel snowflakes, and cold glowed all around her.
There was no time. Kell held still and nodded. “The starless days are here?”
“When the night falls, the sky will be empty,” Ilondrel said. “But I would have words.”
The gem was in the side pocket of his pack. The drawstrings could be poking out of it. Saeldian was running farther away every moment.
Kell bowed his head to listen.
Ilondrel pulled out the sword whose hilt poked over her shoulder. She leveled it at each of them, and Kell’s heart jumped screaming into his throat.
The blade swung and pointed at Jubilee, who quailed underthat point. “Jubilee Righthoof. There is a difference between a rogue and a criminal, and you know where that difference lies in your heart.”
Jubilee nodded.
“Trust your sense of where that line falls. Never step over it again, and healing will come. Lorzok.”
Lorzok squared himself toward the blade. “Yes, my lady.”
“Belonging in a place is the dance of what you give to it and what it gives to you, not a list of the actions that will make you fit. Where you are the most yourself, where you feel safe to be corrected when you’re wrong, where you feel giving to that place and its people brings you joy—that is where you belong. Be purely yourself, and healing will come.”
Lorzok bowed his head.
The blade swung to point at Kell. “Kell Redsong.”
Kell lifted his chin, clearing the way for the point of Ilondrel’s blade. “Yes.”
“The truth is a balm. But do not fall to the belief that pain is healing, Kell Redsong. The truth lies in your heart. Listen to it, and healing will come.”
She didn’t know. Kell bowed to accept it.
