[Belin]

The butterfly was light on the wing, following the wind away toward the sun as she began back toward her own home. Home is where you sleep, thought Hithduiniel, not where you start. Home is where the sun finds its way back into the clouds in the west where Orome lived. Home is —and she watched the newly conscious joy of Livia’s face with a slightly bitter feeling of disapproval— home is the future, not the past.

Home is always far away.

She was just coming out of her reverie when she heard Lenilos, probably under the influence of that sharp-faced woman, volunteering to guide the family part of the way back toward Garolin—“that is, if none of you mind.”

“Oh, yes, let us come with you, Livia!” she put in, suddenly, in the sweetest tones of which her voice was capable. “I’ve never seen a city of Men before.”

Lenilos sent her a sharp glance. That tone usually meant trouble, in his experience, but, as always, she accompanied it by an eager smile that could not possibly be questioned.

Remdil groaned. “How many guides do we need?” he said irritably. “Haven’t there been enough adventurers wandering through our lives—no offense, you know, greatest gratitude in fact, but really, we’re not less intelligent than any old dog that can find its way home.”

“He means,” added Eolinda, more diplomattically, “that of course we’ll have you as guides, with our thanks, if you’re really so little eager to be off home yourselves.”

“It’s hardly worth seeing though,” remarked Livia, startled by Hithduiniel’s eagerness. “And it certainly isn’t a city.”

But the decision had been made, somehow, although it hadn’t been quite what anyone had expressed wanting. They traveled slowly for a day or two, often quiet, often speaking, often surprised at each other’s remarks.


Livia, despite her insecurity at the prospect of Hithduiniel seeing the small, rowdy inn in which she’d grown up, was glad that the elves were with them. Completely aside from her initial awe at the figure who had stood above the slashed-open bag in the thunder and the rain, holding a knife and setting her free, she had come to like Hithduiniel’s wild grins and her silly jokes, as well as the ability of Lenilos to recount any story she’d ever heard in ways that made her father scowl and correct him.

“What do you mean, they were cats?”

Lenilos shrugged. “They were cats. There were hordes of cats that came against the others, and Lenwe said—“

“Who told you this?”

“Everyone knows it,” said Lenilos, with a sideways glance at his inattentive sister, who did not know it.

Livia smiled. Lenilos would certainly have been welcome as a guest at the inn; it would be like the old days, before it had become a place for duels and drinking, before she’d been leered at by barbarians.

Carathon, on the other hand, she was less certain about. He spoke little, and she sometimes forgot that he was there, but when she turned to look at him, he was often watching her. It made her uneasy, in a way.