a place of dread. She bound it on her brow after they built the Anor for her, and she stood in that tower by the sea, a light like a star on her brow, to show Amairgen the way home from Cader Sedat.”
“And he never came.” Kim’s voice, though she whispered, felt harsh to her own ears. “Eilathen showed me. I saw her die.” The Circlet, she saw, was purest gold, but the light set within it was gentler than moonfall.
“She died, and Pendaran does not forgive. It is one of the deep sorrows of the world. So much changed… even the light. It was brighter once, the color of hope, they said when it was made. Then Lisen died, and the Wood changed, and the world changed, and now it seems to shine with loss. It is the most fair thing I know in all the world. It is the Light against the Dark.”
Kim looked at the white-haired figure beside her. “Why is it here?” she asked. “Why hidden underground?”
“Raederth brought it to me the year before he died. Where he went to find it, I know not—for it was lost when Lisen fell. Lost long years, and he never told me the tale of where he went to bring it back. It aged him, though. Something happened on the journey of which he could never speak. He asked me to guard it here, with the two other things of power, until their place should be dreamt. ‘Who shall wear this next,’ he said, ‘after Lisen, shall have the darkest road to walk of any child of earth or stars.’ And he said nothing more. It waits here, for the dreaming.”
Kimberly shivered, for something new within her, a singing in the blood, told her that the words of the dead mage were true prophecy. She felt weighted, burdened. This was getting to be too much. She tore her eyes away from the Circlet. “What are the other two things?” she asked.
“The Baelrath, of course. The stone on your finger.”
Kim looked down. The Warstone had grown brighter as they spoke, the dull, blood-dark lustre giving way to a pulsating sheen.
“I think the Circlet speaks to it,” Ysanne went on. “It always shone so in this room. I kept it here beside the other, until the night I dreamt you wearing it. From that time I knew its hour was coming, and I feared the wakening power would call forces I could not ward. So I summoned Eilathen again, and bound him to guard the stone by the red at the heart of the bannion.”
“When was this?”
“Twenty-five years ago, now. A little more.”
“But—I wasn’t even born!”
“I know, child. I dreamt your parents first, the day they met. Then you with the Baelrath on your hand. Our gift as Seers is to walk the twists that lie in the weave of time and bring their secrets back. It is no easy power, and you know already that it cannot always be controlled.”
Kim pushed her brown hair back with both hands. Her forehead was creased with anxiety, the grey eyes were those of someone being pursued. “I do know that,” she said. “I’m trying to handle it. What I can’t… I don’t understand why you are showing me Lisen’s Light.”
“Not true,” the Seer replied. “If you stop to think, you will understand. You are being shown the Circlet because it may fall to you to dream who is to wear it next.”
There was a silence. Then, “Ysanne, I don’t live here.”
“There is a bridge between our worlds. Child, I am telling you that which you know already.”
“But that’s just it! I’m beginning to understand what I am. I saw what Eilathen spun. But I’m not of this world, it isn’t in my blood, I don’t know its roots the way you do, the way all the Seers must have known. How should… how could I ever presume to say who is to bear the Circlet of Lisen? I’m a stranger, Ysanne!”
She was breathing hard. The old woman looked at her a long time, then she smiled. “Now you are. You have just come. You are right about being incomplete, but be easy. It is only time.” Her voice, like her eyes, was gentle as she told her second lie, and shielded it.
“Time!” Kimberly burst out. “Don’t you understand? I’m only here two weeks. As soon as they find Dave, we’re going home.”
“Perhaps. There is still a bridge, and I did dream the Baelrath