[Elora]

Vanwe awoke with a start, realising that she had slept far too long indeed. She gathered her buckets and headed back to the horse pasture nearby. With night falling, she needed to get the horses in. Guiltily, she began the process of returning horses and ponies to their stalls in the stable, dreading bumping into Aman, Cook or Derufin and having to explain her whereabouts all day.

The sky had not completely darknened, but it was late. Had they seen her sleeping when she should have been working? Vanwe bustled through her work now, remorseful and guilty. Transfer the horses, place blankets over them after rubbing them down. Fresh feed, grain and water for the night. Clean out the grain and fodder troughs at the corral. Vanwe completed it all as though someone with a whole whip stood over her shoulder. She lit the lantern that Derufin kept at the back of the stables for the evening and made sure she had not forgotten anything.

As she surveyed the horses, her gaze snagged on Kaldir's. He'd not been seen all day since she found Lespheria that morning. She needed to check up on Lespheria, but Vanwe was not entirely willing to march back up to face Amandur's difficult questions just yet. Her hair was wild, there was dirt on her hands, face and dress, and besides that Cook and the others who would also want answers were likely inside.

No, not just yet. Vanwe decided that she needed to wash up first. She took one bucket to the well, partially filled it with water and returned to the stables. She climbed into the loft nimbly, despite her burden, and poured water into a bowl that stood on her dresser after lighting the candle she had taken from the stores the night before.

Pre-occupied with cleaning up, Vanwe did not notice at first the clear evidence that someone had been in the loft. It wasn't until she had pushed open the hay doors so that she could see the sky, and the Watcher as Silvanis had named that star, and turned back that she realised her loft had had a visitor. Whoever it was had tried to tidy up. It looked like they had been on her bed, though. The blanket was slightly rumpled there. Vanwe saw wood shavings swept against the sloping roof nearby on closer inspection. Had someone been in her loft, working on wood?

She looked up at the roof and made out recent work on the holes that she had been using to watch the sky through. Perhaps Derufin had patched the holes, Vanwe thought. Speaking of holes, she really needed to do something about the new hole in her dress that had appeared when one of the horses had tried in ingest part of her skirt.

Vanwe pulled her dress over her head and wrapped the blanket from her bed around her shoulders. She sat by the candle, found her needle and waning supply of cotton, and set to work patching. It would not be easy. The material was so worn it was starting to unweave itself, as if the threads were too tired to hold together anymore. Her hair, no longer tangled, fell smoothly down her back over the blanket that was draped around her shoulders, and her eyes were trained on her needle as she made it dance to patch yet another hole.

Naiore, who had sat in the trees all day cursed Kaldir for his wariness and herself for her overeagerness. Perhaps he had sensed her. She moved with caution, confidence held in check until she could get a better view of the stable. Vanwe could be glimpsed in the loft through the open doors, candle light soft on her bent head and giving her a golden cast that belied the grey horse blanket her daughter had chosen to wear. The girl was a beggar, Naiore thought, but still was too much of a threat. If someone, anyone, showed her just what lay within her Vanwe could bring her lifelong work to an end. This was why she watched, and this was why she held back for another threat could also undo her. Kaldir, wherever he was, was proving to be as cagey as wolf. But she could outwait him.

Let him move, and she would have them both where she wanted them. She could wait. Vanwe's needle rose and fell, dipped and swooped, as candlelight flickered over her.