A Hero Is Born, Epilogue

When my sister came home I didn't recognize her. She had to walk straight into my arms before I knew who she was.

Oh, she hadn't dyed her hair green or gotten her ears pierced six places, and she was hardly any taller at all. And Godfrey rode behind her, a little thinner but otherwise his quite inimitable self. And what's more, I had heard her, heard her thinking of me a long way out without even having to listen, and right then I made an excuse to Mama and ran down to the gates to meet them, long before the lookout signaled their arrival.

But that sober, tired, able-looking sworder, lean body set off by a well-made sable satin duellist's ensemble, wheat-blonde hair in a short straightforward soldier's cut -- that distance-traveller dismounting stiffly and coming toward me with a fine dignity in her step -- that wasn't my frisky, heedless, heart-on-her-sleeve, fashion-disaster sister. It wasn't Rennie. Couldn't be. Some young noble she'd met on the way and brought home for a visit. Not Rennie.

She came straight to me, that handsome stranger, though the horns were blowing and the house people coming from every which direction. She came right straight to me to put her arms around me and her head on my shoulder. I heard disjointed fragments of my sister's thoughts stronger than ever -- exhaustion, grief, shame, worry over what Papa would say to her; but around and across and through it all, pure wondrous joy at being home -- and still I didn't realize where those thoughts were coming from. I looked around for my sister, holding that stranger in my arms without thinking because -- well, really because she was so small she didn't block my view. And then she snuggled close like a cat and said into my collarbone, "Hi, Beanie. Oh, I missed you." And that did it.

"Renate!" Somehow I couldn't call this woman (woman! she hadn't turned seventeen!) Rennie or even Ren. "Look at you! Why -- I turn my back and -- " I didn't get any further than that, because Papa and Mama took her away from me for hugs and hair-rufflings and welcomes and exclamations. She endured it like a saint, smiling, though she had an anxious, troubled look in her cloudy jade eyes that hurt my heart. Around us, the servants not busy unloading the horses stared at her and whispered to each other and smiled proudly. Aaron Wrenfall appeared out of nowhere the way he does, and measured her with his eyes as if she'd been some old sword in the armory. He seemed to approve of what he saw.

"Where is Emil? Where is my son?" Papa demanded, once it became clear Renate wasn't going to pull him from her belt-pouch.

"He was accepted into Heaven in Gereval, quite an honor indeed. He is training there. I have a letter from him for you, and he asked me to give you all his love."

"But you gave him the sword? And still he did not come home?"

I looked. Strapped to Renate's back -- she being too short to wear it on her hip -- was her own plain-hilted longsword. Then I saw Crescent Light lashed to her saddle-bow. Papa noticed too, and his face darkened threateningly. "Renate Astrid von Adler, am I to believe that you returned here without -- "

"I offered him the sword and reminded him of his duty, as you ordered me to do," she said with an undaunted poise quite new to me. "He gave me adequate reasons to refuse it, reasons I will be pleased to explain in private."

That only spurred him on. He grilled her like a river trout, questions about Emil hailing down so thick and fast she couldn't have answered them all if there had been three of her. Some welcome home. Finally I couldn't stand it any more, so I squeezed under Papa's arm, stopped Mama from feeling the cloth of that stylish black jacket, and gave my sister a proper hug, leaving my arm around her shoulders. She *had* grown, actually, if only a couple of centimeters, and she certainly filled out that jacket in a way she couldn't have before. "You've been riding all day, haven't you? You must be half-starved. Let's get you and Godfrey fed, hmm?" Mama immediately started fussing at Papa to let her feed her poor wandering child, and under cover of that I got Renate inside the manor, sitting down, eating, and above all not talking.

Her appetite hadn't changed, at least. I won't even say how much she ate, with the kitchen outdoing itself to put her favorites on the table and Godfrey passing her platters and baskets with a small paternal smile. Papa and Mama chattered at each other instead of Renate, and I have to say that I encouraged them. So did Godfrey.

"Well, Renate, my girl, let us have your story," Papa said sternly when at last she could only peck at fresh-picked early strawberries in cream.

"Yes, sir," she said crisply, clasping her hands on the table before her, for all the world like a soldier reporting to her commander. Was this really my sister? She'd never called him anything but Papa. "The journey to Vesper was free of difficulty. On speaking to Lord Hyuri, I learned that he had sold away the three treasures. He was kind enough to tell me where they were, and suggested that I first pursue the Golden Harp, since it had come to a wandering minstrel. We tracked the minstrel through the Patchwork Kingdoms to Ilium. She was entirely unwilling to give up the harp, but she knows why we want it, and someday she may be convinced to name a price. Until then, be assured it is in hands that will care for it and use it as a harp should be used. After that we sailed to Eridu, whence I found transport to Forfeit Isle to buy the bow from Whirlwind Lionheart, ruler of that place. On my return, we travelled to Gereval; by chance, it was Lachlan Vinn, commander of Heaven, who had possession of the Alekian Figurine, and by good fortune he was willing to return it."

Her voice went hoarse. "Emil has given up his name, styling himself Will Gerevannin. Nonetheless, he sends his love and his respect; but he is at a tricky stage of his training and cannot return home at this time. He did say that in a year, he will be freer to choose his path. That was the best I could do."

Well, that last I'd expected; Emil hadn't left on a whim, so he wouldn't come back on a whim either. Mama's faint shrug showed that she agreed with me. Only Papa and Renate, of us three children the most like Papa, had ever held out hope. Papa heard the hopelessness in Renate's words, and oh, but wasn't it dismal to see hope fade from his face too!

I snuck a peek at Godfrey while Papa and Renate were still staring drearily at each other. Though Renate had closed her mind to me, I couldn't help but guess there was more to the rest of her tale than she was saying. How could there not be? Godfrey's expression was no help at all; he only kept that proprietary, avuncular smile turned on her. I wanted to shake him.

Renate saw me looking, and cleared her throat. "I would be outrageously remiss if I did not tell you, sir, how brilliant Godfrey was throughout the trip. I owe him my life, in fact." My jaw dropped. She owed him *what*? But she didn't give me a chance to ask. "I wish I had words to praise his courage and his good sense properly, and his wide knowledge of the Silver Coast and its people was beyond price. There aren't rewards enough in Karlbotel to give him, but I hope you will find something, sir."

"The journey was its own reward, my lady," Godfrey answered, with a sincerity I couldn't fault. They exchanged a look that made me -- I admit it -- unreasonably jealous, it was so full of secrets and private accord.

Papa only grunted, still absorbed in regret for his lost son. He asked Renate a few more questions about Emil, questions she fielded with cheerless composure. Neither of our parents bit at the tempting conversational bait she'd offered. They were at a loss, Mama especially, before this smooth black swan they had sent off a fuzzy sunny duckling. I could see why. I was the one who hadn't even recognized her!

"You have done well, my girl," he said finally, stiffly. "Very well indeed. I am proud of you." He searched for something else to say, but didn't find a thing.

It was enough. Her face, weary as it was, lit up as she rose to bow to him. "Thank you, sir. I am glad that you should think so."

She went off to her room, but Godfrey stayed behind, and I was so curious I stayed too, much though I wanted to go take care of Renate. "Well, Godfrey?" Papa asked him, as Mama turned her head toward him.

"I must compliment you on a remarkable daughter, my lord, my lady. She comported herself throughout with courage, courtesy, and honor far beyond her years. She is a credit to you both and to Karlbotel."

"Hmph. What about my son?" I suppressed a sigh. Always Emil.

"Lady Renate arrived independently of any counsel of mine at the conclusion that the baronet was best placed in Gereval for the nonce. I believe her judgment in this matter may be relied upon. As may his, if I may be permitted to say so."

"Will he come back to us?" For good, he meant. As eldest son -- favored son, little though Papa liked to admit it sometimes -- and heir.

Godfrey understood him. "I do not know, my lord. Take comfort, should he not, in the excellence of your younger children." He nodded gravely at me. Papa only looked tired, the same way Renate had when she talked about Emil. He didn't want a substitute for his eldest, and Renate didn't want to *be* a substitute. Renate was trying, though; that much was clear. Papa -- he wasn't going to want to try. Nothing to do but give him time.

I kissed my parents good-night and went after Renate, beckoning Godfrey to come with me. "How much of the truth isn't she telling?" I asked him bluntly.

"All of Lady Renate's statements about her journey meet the most exacting standards of veracity, my lady," he answered.

"You two were gone for weeks on end. You saved Renate's life, she says. She talked for all of two minutes. Don't even try to tell me she told the whole story."

"All stories are incomplete as told, my lady. More could always be said."

"Fine. I'll ask her." It was sharp, but I was angry.

"Very well, my lady," he answered imperturbably.

We turned the corner on the hall where her bedroom and Emil's were. "She wasn't -- hurt, was she, Godfrey?" That look in her eyes, and the way she wouldn't open up to me, after she'd gotten over the first excitement of being home. I was worried. It felt like more than just exhaustion.

He thought about that one, lowering the hand he'd raised to knock at her closed door. Closed. The Rennie I knew hardly ever left her door closed while she was in her room, because she raced in and out like a tornado all day long. "Lady Renate has attempted to assimilate a great many singular experiences, some of them intensely disturbing, in a very short space of time, my lady. I believe she will in the end prove stronger for having done so; but I do also believe that any restoratives or small comforts we can provide her will be very welcome at present."

Which is as close as Godfrey ever gets to "yes."

"Renate?" I called, knocking on her door myself. "Do you want anything? May I come in? Godfrey's here too."

"Sure, Sabine, you're always welcome. Tell Godfrey to go to bed or I'll roast him." I looked at Godfrey, who turned and floated away without a word. I went in. Renate had bathed, and was putting on a clean nightgown. She'd added an astonishing amount of muscle since she'd been gone, and enough padding so it looked good on her. She'd never launch a thousand ships, not designed for it -- but she looked good.

"Where did you get your hair cut?" I asked her, reaching for a comb. "I love it!"

"Ilium. Same place I picked up the fancy suit. Jashain Juste original, that is, so treat it with respect." She nodded at the black outfit, elegant to the eye even just lying in the clothes-basket to be cleaned. "Oh! And I didn't forget your birthday. Now, what did I do with -- "

"It'll wait. Sit *down*, Renate, won't you? You're my birthday present, big sister, and I mean to get some fun out of you if it kills me."

"Aha!" she cried, ignoring me, diving into a belt-pouch on her bedside table to pull out a little box with a flourish. "Direct from Ilium to you. Well, with a couple of detours. Happy birthday. Hope you like it."

She'd gotten me a little silver locket, cleverly made in the shape of an eagle in flight -- nobody else remembers what our name means, but we von Adlers do; we've got eagles sculpted and painted and carved all over the manor -- and she'd put a lock of her hair inside it, the length it was before she cut it. My sister, handing me her careless childhood in a little silver locket. I wanted to cry. I hugged her instead. "You sweetheart. It's beautiful. Thank you."

She grinned and climbed into her big four-poster, patting the covers invitingly; we'd always done our girl-talk in here. I hopped up beside her and combed her damp hair, which didn't take long as she really hadn't left much of it. Godfrey had shaken his head as much as I had over the silly mop she'd affected in imitation of some singer or other. Perhaps he'd managed to prevail upon her during the trip. Damn him. I was jealous again. I wanted my Rennie back, all to myself. "We've kittens in the house," I said, to tempt her. "Would you like one?"

"To keep? I don't expect I'll have time to take care of a cat."

My Rennie wouldn't have worried about that, just squealed and begged to play with the babies. "Just to sleep on your bed, silly! And what's this about time? Nobody expects you to do anything right now except rest up and be stared at."

"Oh. Well, in that case, how about two kittens? But don't get up yet. It's just such a comfort to have you here, Beanie."

Well, that was better. She cuddled up like a kitten herself, laying her shorn head on my shoulder, and closed her eyes. Without their gray-green gleam to liven up her face, she looked sallow and peaked to me, though the shoulders I put my arm around were firm as rock. "You must have had quite a trip," I said carefully.

"Less said, the better," she sighed. "It was pretty much a disaster, beginning to end."

"That isn't what Godfrey says."

"Yes, well, Godfrey never *does* say."

When I thought back, I realized Godfrey indeed hadn't said; he'd only remarked on what he thought of her, not the trip. That didn't bode well at all. "Well, you're home safe, and that's good enough for me," I capitulated, stroking her hair. She nodded against my shoulder, and in five minutes flat she fell asleep, worn out. Poor thing. I fluffed her pillow with one hand and laid her head on it, then tiptoed away. She didn't wake up when I brought in a pair of sleepy orange kittens and cajoled them into curling up by her legs.

She alternated sleeping, eating, talking, and playing with kittens -- mostly sleeping -- for three days. I didn't bother her to talk about the trip; she wanted to know what had happened here while she'd been gone. Really wanted to know, too; she wasn't just being polite, wasn't luxuriating in being home. She'd never taken the least interest before, assuming that baronial affairs were Emil's problem. She obviously didn't think he was ever coming home to stay. Well, I told her what she asked. What else could I do?

Those three days were all she gave herself before she went back to training with Aaron, displaying an intensity and ferocity that bowled the old man over -- when Renate didn't do that herself, that is. No more banter, no laughing, no tricks; Renate fought in earnest now, as she never had when she'd only been tagging after Emil. Hours she wasn't pounding and being pounded by Aaron she spent target-shooting that ridiculous catty-cornered bow until her bowstring-fingers bled, or tumbling and leaping and climbing around in the sawdust-pit, or grilling Papa about the barony's political situation and finances, or learning court etiquette with Mama, or sitting up all hours in the library reading -- histories and political treatises, not ballads or hero-chronicles.

Or learning the exacting care of Crescent Light from Aaron. She *really* didn't think Emil was coming home.

She ran herself raggeder and raggeder, desperate to be an instant baroness. I couldn't stop her. Aaron couldn't stop her. Papa and Mama didn't want to stop her, they were so charmed by her sudden diligence. Even Godfrey couldn't, though Renate's respect and real regard for him fairly shone out of her whenever I saw them together. I was just simmering, I was so jealous. I'm ashamed of it now, of course, but that's how it was.

We started hearing about Emilia Eaglebourne a couple of weeks later, when even Mama had started to make vague worried sounds over the way Renate was driving herself grimly toward collapse. I didn't quite catch the name the first time I heard it; I figured out it was important from catching a sickened expression on my sister's face at some perfectly ordinary song being sung in the stableyard. I watched her for a week, waiting for that look to turn up again -- and when it did, I heard what triggered it. Clever little imp, Renate. And she'd always worshipped Emil more than was good for either of them.

I tasked her with it. "Don't even try to tell me you're not Emilia Eaglebourne! Are those things they're singing about true?"

"I'm *not* Emilia Eaglebourne," she said flatly, disgusted by the very notion. "Emilia Eaglebourne can take a ship down a fire-drake's throat for all I care. Just leave it, Sabine. Don't even say that name around me." And that was all I could get out of her.

Godfrey came down into my workroom a few days after that, while I was counting the silver. It was wretchedly hot, the hottest yet in a string of sweltering early-summer days. Shouts from Aaron and Renate sounded over the repetitive clunk of wooden swords outside; neither of them paid the heat any mind. Between attack passes they argued about deflecting two-weapon attacks. I hadn't realized Renate had opinions on the subject. Godfrey looked out the window toward the practice-yard, though part of an orchard kept it from view, and gave out with that tiny cough that indicated he wanted to speak to me about something. Of course I guessed what.

"She's going to kill herself, one of these days," I said, handing him a polishing cloth.

"Lady Renate's present self-administered course of study and exercise is indeed proving less salubrious than one might consider desirable, my lady," he said, taking the cloth and plying it judiciously on the soup spoons. Pedantic old egg-dome. I hadn't lost my desire to shake him until his too-precise teeth rattled.

"What *happened* to her out there? Why won't she say anything about it? I'm at my wits' end."

"It is my impression, my lady," Godfrey answered slowly, doing me a significant courtesy in taking my frustrated rhetorical questions seriously, "that the events and personages Lady Renate encountered during her journey have less to do with her current state of mind than the constructions she is placing on them."

"She's convinced she failed completely," I agreed. "It'd be really silly if it weren't hurting her so."

"Like many people of her tender years, Lady Renate is inclined to doubt her own prowess, to question her actions, to feel inadequate. I fear she has taken that tendency to an unhealthy extreme of late."

"But she did so well!" I sighed. "We've told her how proud we are, over and over again. Have you seen how Papa's eyes light up when he sees her? It's amazing."

Godfrey leaned to one side, but still could not catch sight of her. "You have all been generous with praise, my lady, as I have also."

He didn't say it hadn't done any good. He knew I knew it. The shouts no longer assaulted our ears; we could now hear little spurts of flying sand and sawdust as Renate practiced tumbling in armor. In the middle of the day, on the hottest day yet this summer. "You think she's punishing herself, then?"

"I doubt she would phrase it in quite that fashion, my lady, and I believe also that an understandable but perhaps regrettable desire to distract herself from memories she cannot yet face with equanimity also influences her restless pursuit of betterment, but I must say that I find your conclusion most aptly expressed."

I sighed again. "It's like her. But she's got to slow down. She's going to drive herself into nervous prostration."

"I must confess myself at a loss, my lady. I am grieved at my own incapacity to resolve Lady Renate's troubles."

I couldn't stay angry at him just then, though I'd been fuming a minute ago. That was a considerable confession for ever-competent Godfrey, and his braving my gnawing resentment to enlist my help testified to how much he had come to care for Renate. A lovable girl, our Jenny-Wren -- I know, I'm almost two years younger than she is and I still talk about her as if *she* were *my* kid sister, but that's the way it's always been -- a lovable girl, not a milliliter of harm in her. Smart, friendly as a puppy and sweet as clover-honey, honest, an instinct for loyalty. Certainly not perfect, but who is? She had a temper, and a mouth on her now and then, and she was more than a little provincial, even narrow-minded. She could be talked into mischief she wouldn't ever think of on her own; Emil was a past master at it. And you wouldn't have wanted to depend on her for anything vital because she wasn't over-responsible, though she'd always be genuinely sorry when she got caught out in some bit of heedlessness.

Seemed a lot of that had changed for the better. If she could afford the price of improvement. "Well, I'll keep trying," I said, somewhat less than entirely cheerfully.

We went on counting and polishing the silver. Dull work. I had plenty of time to think about how to tackle Renate. The training-yard went quiet; she must have come in, finally. I remember hoping she'd had the sense to get something to drink, a day like this. Then we both heard Aaron Wrenfall, somewhere outside. "Renate, lass, did you fall? Are you hurt?" A momentary silence, then a sharp and fearful "Renate!"

I'm younger than Godfrey; I was out the door first, though he might have beaten me if he hadn't stopped to put down the spoons. I nearly ran into Aaron, carrying her into the manor at his best speed. "I found her like this -- the heat -- " Her eyes were shut tight, in a scarlet face that in contrast to Aaron's sweat-dripping arms was dry as a bone; I did not have to touch her to know she was burning alive. I couldn't hear so much as a wisp of thought in her head, she was so deeply unconscious. If she'd really meant to punish herself, she'd done it.

I started working at the stiff buckles on her practice-armor, matching my steps to Aaron's as he hastened toward her room. "Godfrey. Run her a cold bath, quickly."

"At once, my lady," he said, preceding us with a speed I'd not imagined him capable of. The water was running and the bath half-full by the time we got there. I tore off as much of her armor as I could -- shield and cuirass -- before Aaron plunged her in. Godfrey, sensible man, caught her head to be sure Aaron wouldn't drown her. She was worse off even than I first thought. Her heart had gone into an arrhythmic dance worthy of the worst musical excesses of Purgatory, and she was panting fast and shallow like an overworked dog.

"Master Wrenfall. Kindly inform the Baron -- and don't let him come here." Aaron stood not upon the order of his going, darting a painfully guilty look at Renate over his shoulder. I opened my mouth to speak to Godfrey, but there was no need; he let me take Renate's fiery-hot head, laid towels ready to hand for me, and left with the discarded armor. I soaked a towel and wrapped it around her head and neck, then stripped off her greaves, the vambrace she wore opposite her shield, and her padded jerkin. I let the shirt and hose underneath be; wet through, they would help cool her. I hoped. We'd had a man die of the sun-stroke, last summer. Like burning in a fire, it's a death that Raphael cannot remedy; the body's own inner heat, undispelled, cooks the brain-pan until it can no longer house a spirit.

"Rennie, Rennie, please stay with me," I begged her under my breath. "Please, big sister." I opened the tub drain to let out the water already heated by her desperately feverish body, running more in as fast as the pipes would let me. Godfrey returned in good time with a bucket of ice from the manor ice-house; I wrapped a chunk in a wet towel to lay against her forehead, and floated the rest in the bath.

We waited, then, a wretched helpless time, Godfrey silent as a priest of Uriel while I listened with every nerve I had for any sign that Rennie might regain consciousness. The bathroom's hard tile floor hurt my knees terribly after a while. Godfrey bent to lay a folded towel where I could kneel on it instead. He did not bother to speak to me, nor did I trouble to thank him.

It seemed an age of the world before her overtasked heart slowed, and the furious red faded from her skin enough so I could touch her without practically burning my fingers. I still could not hear even the ghost of a thought from her. We let her lie in the cold water a while longer before Godfrey handed me a knife, a light sleeveless linen shift, and a pile of fresh towels and left the bathroom, still silent. I cut Rennie's sodden clothing off her while the tub drained, dried her, and put the shift on her. My heart, what a little thing she was still, for as strong as she was.

Godfrey returned precisely when I'd got her decent to help me stand up -- my knee-joints didn't want to straighten out -- and carry Rennie to bed. He'd closed her window-shutters against the sun, though the day was clouding over and fugitive breezes through the laths carried a smell of rain. A pitcher of apple cider in another bucket of ice stood on her bed-table for when -- if -- when she should awaken. I laid cool damp cloths on her still-feverish forehead and her arms; I wanted to hold her calloused, overworked little hand, but I didn't dare do anything that might raise her temperature the slightest bit.

Outside it got darker yet, and thunder growled as the storm that would break the deadly heat came in. Godfrey opened the shutters for the sake of the capricious winds. Even when the spitting rain started, even when it came down in torrents, we left the shutters open, let the rain and the wind fly in unhindered -- anything, anything at all, that might revive her. Oh, Ren -- Rennie, sweet Jenny-Wren, you can't have done anything to die for!

The storm finished its business with Karlbotel and rumbled off, leaving a dramatic sunset behind I'd no heart to admire. All this time, and no interference from anyone. I looked at Godfrey. "Why haven't Papa and Mama come? Aaron isn't known for persuasion."

"I as well told them that Lady Renate was not to be disturbed, my lady. It seemed wisest, while the outcome remains -- in doubt." I put my hand over my mouth to hide how my lips were trembling, but Godfrey knew. He added gently, "And in my estimation you are doing all that can possibly be done, my lady."

Exactly what I needed to hear to keep working and hoping. "Thank you, Godfrey," I whispered.

"My lady." The same distant deference as always. Just then I found it comforting. If Godfrey wasn't panicking, I could manage not to as well.

I lowered my hand to change the cloth on Rennie's forehead. Was that -- did I just feel a flutter of dream, a moment's stifled awareness? "Rennie? Ren, love, can you hear me? It's Sabine. Here is my hand. Press it if you can hear me." Nothing. Had I imagined it?

No. No, I hadn't. There, again, stronger. And again. Strange, troubling images: an arena surrounded by crowds in a public square, a knife amongst pulsing lights, the deadly whisper of razor-wire unreeling over a dark city street, an army-tent pitched on Karlbotel green. I couldn't usually get all this from someone. Perhaps it was that she couldn't think in words yet. "I think she's coming around," I said faintly. "She'll probably be a little disoriented, but she's coming around."

"May Raphael be praised, my lady. That is excellent news indeed," Godfrey said, with all the relief in his voice that I was feeling myself. I rooted out every green shoot of jealousy from my heart and burned them on the spot. He loved Ren too. If she was not to do this to herself again, she needed all the love we could give her.

"Have we got a potion handy? No telling what damage she's done to her heart and her lungs with this."

"On the table, my lady, behind the ice-bucket." He did think of everything.

Then Rennie's eyes snapped open, trained by chance on me. "Sabine? Is that you, Sabine?" she asked in a dusty whisper.

"Yes, Rennie. Yes, Ren-love, it's me. Here, drink this." I poured her a glass of cider.

She knocked it out of my hand and seized my arms with enough force to bruise, shaking me hard. "When? When is this?" she cried. "Are you really Sabine? When *is* this? What's happening?"

I didn't know how to reassure her. I tried. "Yes, of course it's me," I said as calmly as I could, with my mind as well as my voice. "It's the fourth of Sixthmonth, Rennie. You made yourself ill in the sun."

That wasn't what she wanted to know; she shook me again as a white-hot burst of frustration and terror erupted behind her eyes. Godfrey came to my rescue, prying her steel-strong fingers loose from my arms. "My lady. Renate. Listen to me. You are not in the mists. You are home, and this is now, 1993, the fourth day of Sixthmonth. You left the mists behind, Renate. You are truly home, my lady, truly home."

She went slack, her eyes flickering between Godfrey and me as we eased her gently onto her pillows. "I'm really home," she quavered. "Saints and angels. I thought we'd lost." Her face twisted and she began to sob weakly, so parched still she couldn't even cry real tears.

I comforted her, despite not having the least idea what had just happened, as Godfrey dealt with broken glass, spilled cider, and the leavings of the rainstorm we'd let in. While he carried the joyful news to Mama and Papa, I gave Rennie that potion and poured the entire remaining contents of the cider-pitcher down her dry throat a cup at a time. He came back with another full pitcher, a tray of dinner for me, and a bowl of cold cherry soup for Rennie -- Mama's family recipe, and Papa joked it had been her dowry. Rennie couldn't manage more than half, as the sun-stroke had left her a queasy stomach, but at least it made her smile a little.

She fell asleep shortly after dinner -- an honest sleep, not a faint -- and I leaned back in a chair by Rennie's bed, almost as limp as she was. Godfrey handed me the last cup of cider, and I drained it. "Mists?" I asked him.

"The only way to travel to Forfeit Isle is through the Sea of Possibility, my lady, which we mortals experience as clinging mists that give way to sundry exemplars of what the philosopher calls an 'alternative cosmos derived from hypothetical branchings of the prime experienced time-stream.'"

I parsed that out slowly. "So... Rennie saw her future. Or a future. Not a good one."

"Partly, my lady. From what she has revealed to me, she seems to have seen one event that we now know did not happen in quite the fashion she saw it, one that will not happen at all, and one that yet may. Lady Renate found all three most harrowing, my lady, and if I may venture to speculate, when she awoke not understanding what had happened to her, she thought she was experiencing another alternative cosmos."

I couldn't dispute that. It made sense of the utterly senseless. I rubbed my bruised arm. "I'll have to ask her to get details, won't I?"

"I believe it most proper that you should hear the tale from her, my lady. Pray forgive me my obstinacy on this point."

I didn't press him. I caught his drift; it wasn't so much the story that mattered as Rennie exorcising her memory by telling it to me. So I said, "There is no fault to forgive, Godfrey. May the Four Archangels bless you for helping me save her life. That's twice now she owes you for."

"It is my honor and my pleasure to serve, my lady." He bowed his head to me, a little accolade. "May I say as well, Lady Sabine, that your skill and presence of mind in this crisis have been remarkable indeed, and I took the liberty of mentioning as much to the Baron and Baroness. Lady Renate has you to thank for her life, unquestionably."

I waved an imaginary white flag by way of admitting my fault. "Truce? Or will you insist on outright surrender?" I asked.

"I was not aware of any warfare between us, Lady Sabine," Godfrey lied handsomely. "Do you wish to retire now, my lady? I will be pleased to stay with Lady Renate as long as required."

"I'll split the night with you. I *will* go to bed now -- I'm beat -- but come and get me around midnight. Sooner, if anything seems wrong."

"Very good, my lady."

He came for me shortly after sunrise, as I knew perfectly well he would; if I'd asked for sunrise, he'd have let me sleep until noon. Godfrey is a fine man, none finer, but he takes managing. I doubted Rennie had learned the trick of it. "The Baroness is with Lady Renate now, giving her breakfast," he told me as I sat up and stretched; there's nothing so refreshing as the lovely cool of a morning after a heat-wave breaks. "Lady Renate slept quietly through the night; I woke her briefly twice to have her drink a glass of water. Her fever diminished with the hours, and she now seems remarkably improved, considering the severity of her illness yesterday."

"Good. Wonderful, in fact. Thank you, Godfrey; well done. But she isn't to get up today; I'll need your help keeping her in bed, I suspect."

"I shall endeavor, my lady. Your breakfast is waiting outside. One moment while I fetch it." He didn't have to bring me breakfast in bed, not after a full night watching Rennie. But he was just showing me in his stiff way that he was grateful to me. I smiled and thanked him.

Rennie was pale and a little subdued, but seemed herself otherwise; the dangerous fever was indeed gone. As I came in, she met my eyes with a silent but urgent plea to rescue her from Mama's suffocating blandishments, which I duly did. "Well, what now, sis?" I asked once Mama had gone.

"How about this: I love you very much, Sabine; thanks for keeping me alive, and I'm sorry I was such a big idiot." She held out her arms to me, and I hugged her with all my strength, tears in my eyes, completely speechless. I'd almost lost my sister, yesterday. Was this choking, fear-laced guilt what Rennie felt when she thought about Emil? Poor girl, I hoped not. That really wasn't her fault, whatever Papa said.

"I love you too, Rennie, I forgive you, and if you ever do anything like that again it'll kill me," I said when I could speak again. I kissed her forehead. "You're staying inside today, Beanie's orders. What can I do to keep you amused?"

"I figured, so look -- I haven't changed out of my nightgown. Bring me something to read, maybe? I think I left a history of the Samurai on the reading-table in the library." Perhaps I wouldn't need Godfrey tag-teaming me to keep her in bed after all. Pointless contrariness had never been her style anyway; her dogged insistence on training herself to death in spite of everything we said to her had felt like an aberration. Nice to have my familiar, obliging big sister back.

I brought her a few of her favorite heroes; she didn't need any more history right now. Basil Garamonde, Cain Maelgwyn, Urien Kendall, that lot. She'd eaten hero-tales up as a child; for a while they were all she'd read. I thought it would be good for her to go back to being a kid for a bit -- honestly, that was all I had in mind. But she looked through the titles and gave the books a little push away from her on the bed. "I can't read these, Beanie," she said, her eyes just swimming all of a sudden. I can't tell you what a relief it was to see those eyes actually watering. "I'm sorry. Please, take them back."

I'm not stupid. I knew that was a Lan'yarian tiger galloping by. I grabbed its ears. "Jenny-Wren, I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking." I put the books on the floor and went round the bed to climb up beside her. "Had a little too much of the hero business, haven't you?"

She put her head on my much-enduring shoulder and started to cry fit to break my heart. Only sixteen, after all, and her greatest hero had gone and abandoned her for Gereval. I got as close as I could and wrapped my arms around her tight, happy not to have to worry about her body temperature. Rennie was a snuggler from babyhood, to hear Mama tell it. Always took comfort from a hug, felt safe in someone's lap. I don't know how she managed so long with just Godfrey, who probably couldn't be convinced to hug his own mother. No wonder he couldn't help her out of this despair she'd trapped herself in. Hugs have always been my department.

I let her cry herself out, rubbing her back and rocking her slowly. One of the kittens came in and climbed the bedclothes paw-over-paw to cuddle up with her, too. Godfrey stuck his head in the door once, but I waved him away and he disappeared. "Ren, love," I said when she'd reduced herself to sniffles and gulps, "I wish you wouldn't shut me out. Whatever it is, it's not going to hurt me as badly as it's already hurt you."

So she told me. She told me everything. It took hours, what with me trying to make sense of it all -- for her sake as much as for mine -- and her stopping now and then to cry again, and me crying with her once or twice. All right, crying with her a lot, especially when it came to Emil. I missed him too.

I had to admire how she'd boiled the saga down for Papa and Mama. Fighting a dragon -- a dragon! -- and then resolutely extracting what she needed to know out of him after he'd all but killed her, living up to a maddeningly overwrought alter ego, riding coolly through a war zone, navigating a club brawl in Ilium, trading words with a murderess, wandering through one spectral horror after another to get to Forfeit Isle, bargaining with a Faerie Lord, dragging herself all the way to Gereval to face Emil's desertion, coming home to Papa feeling nothing but bitter defeat... she had had a time of it, no doubt.

"Courage, courtesy, and honor," Godfrey had said, and may the Four forgive me, I'd thought he was merely being kind to her. Yes, all of that, and all in spite of the bone-breaking doubts she was pouring out to me now. How had she done it? That night in not-quite-Gereval -- I almost asked her to stop telling me, and that was just hearing about it, not living it. But nothing stopped our Ren. She just dove right in, hauled that not-quite-Emil to his feet and gave him his life back. I couldn't have done that. I'd have wrung my hands in fear and horror until that Glitter gang came back and killed us both. But nothing stopped our Ren.

And when it turned out she'd have done better to leave him to die, so that he'd not lead the conquest of Karlbotel -- well, I couldn't blame her any more for wanting to bake her brain. What a grotesquely terrible thing. And she lived in terror now that the invasion would still happen, with or without Emil. Godfrey had been right; the "alternative cosmos" she thought she'd landed in when she woke up was one in which Emil and Heaven had won Karlbotel. She even told me some of the half-formed plans she had in mind already to stop the invasion, before she had to face her own brother at swordpoint. Not half bad thinking, either.

I found myself in awe of my own sister, my light-as-a-feather Ren, my Rennie I'd tagged after and taken care of since I was old enough to walk. She didn't have to read about Cain Maelgwyn. She might as well have been him.

My sister the hero. I couldn't get my head around it. She'd gone limp as a dishrag in my arms, the kind of lethargy that takes hold when you've cried and railed and fought all you can and you're beyond it all. Sometimes that's the best place to think from; I hoped it was for my sister. My sister the hero.

"Did you know," I began, "when you got back I didn't recognize you? I've been feeling guilty about it ever since."

She wiped her eyes and nose one more time on my spare handkerchief. "No, I didn't know. You took me in, and I knew I was home then. What's not to recognize, anyway? I mean, besides the hair and the Jashain Juste original."

I had to smile. "I'm not sure I've recognized you yet, big sister. Your first real fight, at sixteen, and you stick it out three rounds with a dragon. You charm half of Northrock, so they're still singing songs about you -- "

"Those aren't about me! They're about some dream-hero of Godfrey's."

"If they were, sis, they'd never have made it as far as Karlbotel. Enough people saw you, still talk about you by the only name they know you under, that the songs are spreading. Seeing you now, knowing what you've done, I'd say they deserve to." I let that sink in. "And Godfrey doesn't need any dream-heroes, not any more. I was jealous to nearly spitting on him, the way the two of you idolize each other. He doesn't fall for just anyone, Godfrey doesn't."

"No? You should have seen his old flame in Ilium. You'd be appalled."

One of the only warm spots in a bitter-cold story, that. Even in her forlorn state Renate hadn't been able to keep from giggling when she'd told me about her lunch with Mrs. Aran. "Well, he's not in Ilium, is he?" I noted, knowing perfectly well why not.

"No. He's not. I kept asking him why. All he would say was 'duty.' And I knew he was putting me on. Because Godfrey wouldn't give the time of day to someone he didn't respect, duty or no duty."

"That's right. He wouldn't."

"People kept saying -- about a thousand different ways -- they thought I was something exceptional. Only I never saw it; I still don't. Emilia Eaglebourne, she was a massive fraud, and after I got over the novelty she made me feel like one. Only now I can't get away from her. I can't figure out if I'm living her life, or she's trying to take over mine."

"You're a tough kid, sis, when you don't nearly set up your own sun-cruise away from us. I didn't realize how tough you were, more fool I. I don't think anybody's taking over your life; I don't think you'd let 'em. I think -- well, *I* think Emilia Eaglebourne was a sneak peek at what you're growing into, Renate."

"And if I don't want to grow into it? Or I can't?"

"Then you don't have to," I said, because it was what she wanted to hear. I couldn't leave it at that, though. "But I hear in your voice, in everything you've done since you got home, that you've found a direction. It'll pull at you."

"Why does everyone hear and see these things but me?" she asked petulantly.

"Oh, you're hearing them -- just differently. Any unfinished business from your trip?"

"Well, yes. If Will Gerevannin thinks he's got rid of me and Karlbotel for good, he's got another think coming."

"Same here," I laughed, hugging her, relieved that she could take that view of it. Emil really *could* have been kinder to her in Gereval, not that anything he'd done had exactly been designed to spare us pain.

"I still owe Coris and Lord Lionheart. And there's Karlbotel. And Andragar. And the harp. And Dorothy -- Dorothea du Raiden."

That wretch. I'd not so much as heard her name before this, and I hated her like poison for the way she'd plucked the plumage off my Jenny-Wren. "That's a call, Renate," I said, trying not to hiss it through clenched teeth. "You heard it."

"It doesn't feel like a call. It's just things I have to do."

"Well, I don't know what you expect a call to feel like, sis, but that's what happens when you hear one. You just go and do."

"I suppose," she said, lowering her voice. "I sort of just want to stay and not do, right now." She was ashamed of it. No wonder she'd all but killed herself. Sixteen years old, and ashamed of a well-earned rest with the people who loved her. These heroes. What can you do with them?

"You don't have to ask anyone's permission to do that, Ren love. The heroing business has long vacations, I'm told. Emilia Eaglebourne may not have a family or a home, but Renate von Adler does."

"So I do. Yes, poor Emilia, with no Sabine." She hugged me with those whip-strong arms until I couldn't breathe.

Godfrey came in to inquire after her shortly after. Rennie met him with a smile and a humble apology for taking him from his work. I could see, now that I wasn't wasting myself on envy, that he'd fallen under her spell just as practically everyone else had -- Inverness, Nightblade, that Hyuri creature, Laplace, Baron Darenton and Jashain Juste, Dorothy Durai, Eveline Aran, Whirlwind Lionheart, Lachlan Vinn, her own parents and her sister. It was new, this charm of hers, quite a change from the silly teen preening I'd never wanted to imitate and was glad she'd outgrown. Half of it, of course -- the half that isn't dignified humility and Mama's endless lessons in deportment -- is that she doesn't know she's charming you, isn't even trying. It's artless, utterly un-self-conscious, and no less dangerous for all that. More, really.

Godfrey and I took her down to lunch once she'd dressed; she'd been locked in her own room long enough. Papa met us in the little hall off the main dining room. He knelt to hold out his arms to Rennie, in tears himself at how close he'd come to losing another child. Neither of them said anything; they just hugged each other fiercely and cried. Godfrey steered me backwards out of the hall, I nothing loath, and we went in through the main dining-room doors instead. The looks on their faces when they came in arm-in-arm -- well, potions and cold baths aren't all that heals.

Rennie obeyed my orders the rest of the afternoon and evening, so I gave her her freedom the next day, curious to see what she'd do with it, ready to intervene if she did something stupid. She went out to the practice-yard; I eavesdropped from the same window Godfrey and I had been at when we'd heard of her collapse. Poor Aaron, hemming and hawing, searched his battle-scarred wits for some way to put her off; he really thought her self-destructive impulse had been his fault. But he needn't have worried. "I know I've been off my feet a couple of days," she told him diffidently, "but can I have the day off anyway? I thought I'd saddle up a horse and go riding. Been home for months, and I've hardly seen the place."

Aaron must have smiled; I heard it in his voice. "Go on, lass, go on. Enjoy yourself. Best thing for you. I've nothing to teach you that won't wait."

"Well, thanks, I'm off, then -- but one of these days I want a look at that book of yours."

Godfrey packed her a hamper for lunch and dinner, and I insisted she wear her battered straw hat, even though the day was overcast. She kissed me, thanked Godfrey, put on the hat without fuss, and leapt into the saddle lightly as a wren-wing. Managing that too-large horse confidently, riding with limber youthful grace, with a bright and eager smile on the little pointed face under the old hat, she finally looked like the sister I remembered, my Renate, home at last.