the grove’s depths. But he was surprised that they were running. The druid groves were only a small part of Quraite, and between the groves the land was blasted by the bloody sun, just like every other place in the Tablelands. Usually, Quraiters walked, like everyone else, unless they had good reason to run. He snagged his shirt before it drifted downstream and started to follow the bending grass toward the verge.
He hadn’t taken ten steps before Ruari burst through the underbrush, running easily right past Pavek to leap fully clothed into the pool. Zvain came along a few heartbeats later—a few of Pavek’s heartbeats. The boy was red-faced and panting from the chase. Ruari might never be able to run with his mother’s elven Moonracer tribe, but no mere human was going to catch him in a fair race: an inescapable fact that Zvain had failed to grasp. Extending an arm, Pavek caught the boy before he flung himself into the chilly water.
“Slow down. Catch your breath. You’ll make yourself sick.”
Somewhere between Urik and the grove, between then and now, Pavek had become the closest thing to a father any of the three of them had ever known, though only the same handful of years separated him and Ruari as separated Ruari and Zvain. The transformation mystified Pavek more than any demonstration of druidry, especially on those rare occasions when one of them actually listened to anything he said. Zvain leaned against him and would have collapsed if Pavek hadn’t kept an arm hooked around his ribs.
“He said it wasn’t a race—” Zvain muttered miserably between gasps.
“And you believed him? He’s a known liar, and you’re a known fool!”
“He gave me a twenty-count lead. I thought—I thought I could beat him.”
“I know,” Pavek consoled, thumping Zvain gently on the top of his sweaty head.
It wasn’t so long ago that he’d been having pretty much the same conversation with Ruari, who’d nurtured the same futile hope of besting his elven cousins at their games. Life was better for the half-elf now. Like Pavek, Ruari had become a hero. He’d rallied the Quraiters to defend Pavek while Pavek summoned the Lion-King. Then, when Escrissar’s mercenaries had been annihilated, he’d gone to Akashia’s aid, helping her to direct the guardian’s power against Escrissar himself after Telhami had collapsed.
The past two sun phases had been kind to Ruari in other ways, also. The half-elf could no longer be mistaken for a gangly erdlu in its first molt. He’d stopped growing and was putting some human flesh on his spindly elven bones. His hair, skin, and eyes, were a study in shades of copper. There wasn’t a woman in Quraite—young or old, daughter or wife—who hadn’t tried to capture his attention, and the Moonracer women were almost as eager. Ruari had grown into one of those rare individuals who could quiet a crowd by walking through it.
No wonder Zvain ached with envy; Pavek felt that way himself sometimes. The two of them were both typical of Urik’s human stock: solid and swarthy, good for moving rocks rather than the hearts of women. Zvain had an ordinary face that could blend into any crowd, which, by Pavek’s judgment, was an advantage he himself had lost before he escaped the templar orphanage. The stupidest fight of a brawl-prone youth had left him with a gash that wandered from the outside corner of his right eye and across the bridge of an oft-broken nose before it came to an end at his upper lip. Years later, the scar hurt when the wind blew a storm down from the north, and his smile would never be more than a lopsided sneer. He’d put that sneer to good use when he wore a yellow robe, but here among the gentler folk of Quraite he was embarrassed and ashamed.
Ruari surfaced with a swirl and a splash of water that pelted Pavek and Zvain where they stood.
“Cowards!” he taunted, which was enough to get Zvain moving.
Pavek hung back, waiting for the other pair to become engrossed in their bravado games before he stepped down into the pool. A stream-fed pool still unnerved a man who’d grown up never seeing water except in calf-deep fountains, sealed cisterns, or hide buckets hauled out of ancient, bottomless wells. Zvain loved water; he’d learned to splash and swim as if water were a natural part of his world. Pavek liked water well enough, provided it didn’t rise higher than his knees. And at that depth,