The First Gift

by ciaan

Takes characters and plotlines from XMFC and translates them onto Darkover. Charles is a young noble lord whose psychic abilities manifest in a dangerous fashion. When he's captured by a bandit he meets Erik, a young man with a powerful affinity for metal and magnetism, and together they must attempt to free themselves and defeat the seemingly undefeatable bandit. Slash.

Title: The First Gift

Author: ciaan

Fandoms: X-Men First Class/Darkover crossover fusion AU

Note: Takes characters and plotlines from XMFC and translates them onto Darkover.

Pairing: Charles/Erik, references to other pairings

Summary: In the time that will later be known as the Ages of Chaos, many strange new mutations and powers are arising. Charles is a young noble lord, and when his psychic abilities manifest in a way that is dangerous for both him and those around him, he is sent away for healing and captured in transit by an evil bandit. He and his fellow captive Erik, a young man with a powerful affinity for metal and magnetism, must attempt to free themselves and defeat the seemingly undefeatable bandit. Meanwhile Charles's foster-sibling Raven seeks to track him down. What new shape will Charles's life have when all this is over?

Warning: Contains scenes of physical and psychic violence and references to sexual assault.

Thanks: to livewareissue, elf, and ilyena_sylph for betaing

Art: .

Charles Alton stood in front of his mirror dressing for dinner. It was his birthday and tonight was to be a special celebration, for he was turned fifteen years and a grown man now.

There was a light knock at the door and he turned toward it, leaving his shirt unlaced, recognizing the brush of thoughts just before someone entered. "Raven!" Charles scolded, for his foster-brother was still in riding leathers. Then he saw that Raven was carrying something. "What do you have there, preciosu?"

"It's for you, dear brother." Raven held out the carved wooden cage, revealing the small songbird within it, a brightly colored little thing from the plains of Valeron. The bird fluttered its wings and hopped nervously around inside the cage as Charles stepped closer. Raven set the wooden contraption down on Charles's dressing table and leaned in toward it. "Don't be afraid, little singer, my brother won't hurt you." He whistled, a high, sweet trill, and the bird settled and cooed in response.

Charles's mind flashed to the first time he had seen Raven, when he was twelve and had snuck out to ride alone along the edge of the forest. Suddenly his horse had shied out of his control and plunged toward a strange figure who emerged from the trees, sniffing the being's outstretched hand. Charles had slid from the horse's back and dropped to his knees at the sight of what stood before him.

"Child of light, you lend us grace," he remembered murmuring. Before him had been a strange girl-child dressed in flowing white silks, almost as tall as he yet clearly quite young, her eyes bright molten gold. A mass of flame-red hair fell around the delicate, strange features of her face, skin pale and thin enough that the blood showed through, like a layer of ice on a lake, blue under white. She reached toward him, six slender fingers touching his cheek, staring at him, shy and curious.

An image flickered into his mind from hers, a swirl of birds flashing through a forest, dark shadows winging over a battlefield, crowding down to enjoy the spoils of war. And then a question, clear yet wordless.

"Charles," he replied. "Charles-Francis Xavier Alton y Hastur, of the blood of Hastur and Cassilda." He had never expected to see a legendary chieri, even if her coloring indicated her only a half-chieri child, and though supposedly drops of chieri blood flowed through the veins of all the Comyn lords, including his own. The mysterious, powerful beings who had inhabited the world before humans were generally thought to be gone now.

The girl's fingers dropped away from him and a wave of sorrow emanated from her as she tilted her head to the side. He knew without her speaking that she was alone, and that she had nowhere to go, no family and people she could find.

"You will come with me," Charles said. "My parents will keep you at Armida. They never refuse me anything, and they cannot turn away a child of the yellow forest. You can be my sister." He was alone at the estate, for all his parents' other children had died in infancy, and there were currently no other noble children fostered there.

The small six-fingered hand had slipped into his and the girl had smiled up at him brightly, his horse whuffing at her hair.

Over the next few months Charles had taught his foster-sister to speak and she had quickly picked up both casta and cahuenga. She had learned to ride, and to eat at a table with utensils, and to wear decent clothes and play the rryl and embroider. And then she had declared that she did not like dressing as a girl and following the rules of polite feminine behavior and that she was a boy now. After a few days her nursemaid had told everyone that it was true: the strange child with the strange name of Raven was indeed a boy now.

And so, after three years, the gentle, wild young girl-child Charles had first seen had become his foster-brother, a boy who seemed only slightly younger than Charles himself, tall and slender now as he straightened up from the cage on the table. The bird began to sing, a beautiful rush of notes, and Raven grinned. His face with its high cheekbones and small features always seemed somber in repose but lit up when he was happy.

"Thank you, bredu," Charles said, smiling back. The reverence he could dimly remember feeling that first day seemed strange and impossible to him now, made foreign by these years of living together. Though Raven still looked alien in many ways, those brilliant gold eyes were as familiar to Charles as his own blue ones, or as his mother's and father's, and Raven as exasperating much of the time as any younger sibling.

Laughing, Raven brushed a grubby hand through the mop of red curls falling around his face to his shoulders. "And now I will go clean up and dress myself nicely before you kill me for ruining your party!" Charles cuffed him lightly on the shoulder, and Raven turned away to leave, stopping for a moment to allow Charles's body-servant to enter. The man carried the ornately embroidered tunic Charles was to wear.

Charles opened his mouth to speak and the whole world disappeared behind a wall of blue sparkles, colors running and dripping and swirling.

He felt himself fall, all sensation dulled as if through insulating silk and gauze, crashing to the floor, his body convulsing and his head pounding against the floor tiles as his spine arched. From a million miles away he could hear the body-servant yelling, "Dom Charles!" and Raven calling for help. Then other people were in the room, more servants, guardsmen, his mother and father, the household leronis Ysabelle.

Charles could sense Ysabelle reaching out with her laran to monitor him, and something inside him rose up to meet her as her mind touched his. She screamed inside his head, a choked echo that was quickly cut off as all her thoughts were stripped bare to him. Flashes of her memories dropped through his, sinking like stones into the swirling mess inside his mind, images of her childhood, her years spent in the Tower, her lovers, watching Charles himself as a child and testing him, testing his laran and finding potential yet unmanifested. Threshold sickness, he heard her think, convulsion and crisis and late-developing laran, and Charles had long thought he had but little telepathic gift.

He reached to touch her mind and she screamed again, her thoughts dissolving like mist now beneath his own, until they were quiet and he couldn't feel her anymore. But he could see now, through the slashes of color that still obscured his vision, see her body crumpled to the floor beside his, and his mother kneeling to check her pulse.

"She lives." The words meant nothing to him, mere sounds.

"Her body lives," and that was Raven's voice, warbling nonsense like when she had first come to stay with them, "but her mind is gone."

Charles tried to call Ysabelle back to him, to ask her for help, she was a leronis and she could help him, but every time he probed toward her he met only silence.

"Merciful Avarra!" one of the serving women whispered, and a guardsman standing beside her made a warding gesture. Charles felt Raven cupping his head, fingers cooler than a mere human's. Raven's voice trilled again and the world dissolved fully.

The mists rose and faded and rose and faded around Charles's mind, until finally they flowed away and he could see again, the pale sea-green crescent of Kyrrdis shining high in the violet sky, the only moon showing, and the great bloody sun hanging low in the west off his right side as he jounced along. He was wrapped in a travel blanket and lying in the bottom of a wagon. He could hear horses' hooves clopping along the road below his head and the low voices of men talking around them.

He turned his head and gasped. The leronis Ysabelle was lying beside him, her eyes closed and arms folded over herself. Her chest rose and fell with low breathing. He remembered feeling her thoughts, remembered them crumbling away beneath him, and Raven's voice speaking words that hadn't made sense at the time but jumped back to him now, sharp with meaning. "Her mind is gone."

The clopping hooves of a horse dropped back to the side of the wagon and Charles looked up to see Eamon, the captain of his father's guards. "Good to see ye awake, m'lord," Eamon said, touching his brow respectfully.

"Where are we going? What happened?"

Eamon frowned slightly. "We travel to Neskaya Tower, where the vai leronis is from, in hopes that the matrix workers there can do summat to aid her, and ye as well."

A rush of anger and embarrassment flushed him. It was his birthday, he was fifteen, he was supposed to be preparing himself for the journey to Thendara, for his first season as a cadet in the Garduin, the city watch that he would one day command as an Alton. Instead he was sick and being carted along to a Tower like a piece of luggage, not even able to ride manfully.

Charles levered up on his elbow enough to glance around. The other three men riding in formation around the wagon were all soldiers who had been at Armida for years, men whose families had long been pledged to the Altons. Eamon himself had taught Charles swordplay when he was a child.

All of these men, loyal strong men, were leaking fear. Behind him, from the still body of the leronis, there was nothing. The Altons were typically strong telepaths, skilled in rapport, but Charles had never been so. He had never been able to send thoughts to anyone or read their mind, unless someone stronger was broadcasting to him, and then he could pick it up. From Raven, or his parents, or a trained laran worker. He had thought that since the ability had not developed yet, at this age, it never would. Now he could taste the men's fear, stale and metallic, in the back of his mouth.

"The men fear me," Charles said.

His face was blank and stoic, but Eamon's hands twitched slightly at his reins, and the horse tossed its head. "Aye, m'lord," he answered. "They fear for ye."

"No." Charles shook his head, flipping his hair from his eyes. "And you, Eamon?"

The guardsman didn't answer, which was rude, but probably his wisest choice at the moment. Charles didn't need an answer. He could sense the man's fear deepening, sharpening, and the laran inside Charles's mind stirred, wanting to reach out, wanting to have more. Charles was afraid, too. He had invaded and ripped away the mind of a trained leronis like it was nothing, like all her years of learning to defend and shield herself had never happened. He could still see her memories in his thoughts, still feel her screams as he had torn her apart and pushed her under his power.

He tried to hold back but his power was reaching out toward Eamon, brushing the edges of his mind, catching on the fear, fear for Charles, yes, but also of him, of this damned sorcery, and then-

Then there was an arrow blooming from Eamon's throat, a spurt of blood, a rush of pain and darkness in Charles's head as the life left the mind he was touching, as the guardsman's soul slipped away. The horse reared and whinnied under the dead weight and the other men drew their swords, and a crowd of rough-dressed bandits poured out of the trees around the road.

Charles was unarmed, his body barely responding to him, but he raised a hand to the matrix pouch at his throat and flung his laran at the nearest bandit, feeling the man's mind give way before the assault, his battle-greed swirling in the eddies of Charles's power as his body dropped to the ground.

There was a bright prick of pain and Charles glanced down at the dart protruding from his shoulder, felt the rush of some hot drug through his veins, his mind suddenly covered as if by insulating silk. The men seemed distant, silent figures now, another pair of bandits falling to sword blows and then his last three guardsmen gone, taken down by arrow and sword.

It was like a dream, insubstantial figures laughing and congratulating each other as they surrounded the wagon. His senses increasingly muzzy again, the sun slipping too fast behind the horizon, voices buzzing like bees around him, scratching at his skin, hands hauling him up roughly and smoke in his nose.

When the smoke cleared Charles was sitting in a wooden chair by a fireplace, his body heavy and useless, gazing before him at the main hall of a small keep, dirty rushes on the floor and billowing torches on the stone walls. There was a low voice in his ears, a man's presence behind him, his left hand resting on Charles's shoulder. The hand moved, callused fingers sliding up the nape of Charles's neck and fastening into his hair, drawing his head back. He gazed up into the man's sleek, cruel face.

The man's right hand lifted, holding a vial to Charles's lips. "The sedative should be wearing off now. Drink the kirian." He pressed a thumb between Charles's teeth, forcing his numb mouth open, and poured the sickly sweet kirian down his throat. Charles swallowed, because he didn't know why a bandit lord would give him a drug to enhance laran and lower inhibitions, but that was the only weapon Charles had at the moment, so...

Instead of dull, dim, and quiet the world seemed to leap into sharp relief, the light too bright and the noises louder. The man dropped the vial to the floor and stroked Charles's hair back from his face, turning his head to the side.

Ysabelle's bare body lay sprawled on the floor, her red robes torn away, a knife jutting out of her bloody chest.

Charles felt sick. Regardless of what these men had done to her, he was the one who had truly killed her. The only mercy was that she had been gone before they had gotten their hands on her. He scrabbled behind him, reaching for the man with his laran, which was now surging high within him on the sweet waves of the kirian.

The man laughed, sharp and mocking like a bird of prey. "That will do you no good, lad." He was correct. Charles couldn't get hold of his mind; it felt as slippery as a piece of wet soap, and as slimy, twisting away from the grasp of Charles's powers. The man whistled and two of his men strode into the room, coming up short before them with neat salutes. "These killed your guardsmen and your leronis. Take your revenge on them."

Charles narrowed his eyes and reached for the first man's mind. It gave way easily to him, no barriers at all. He wrapped himself around and through the man's thoughts, saw his recent memories of Ysabelle and Eamon, who had trained Charles- the pleasure the man had taken in-

It was easy to tear him apart, crumble his soul into blackness, let his body drop to the dirty floor. It was so fast and easy that the man hardly felt it.

The second man, however... His stance faltered as he turned to look at his comrade, then back to his master and Charles, and then he actually tried to flee the room. The man behind Charles sniffed disapprovingly and Charles felt the same disdain. The man's fear drew his power like a beacon and Charles pounced on it, taking over the impulses in his nerves and stopping him in his tracks. This man had a chance to know what was happening to him, this man had a chance to scream as Charles slowly shut down his body, clamped down on his heart and lungs until the man spasmed and collapsed. Even then Charles held the man's mind under his own for as long as he could, held him there in the dead brain, until the man's screams were ringing so loudly that he finally pushed him away into nothingness.

One hand drew long, cool fingers over his forehead and down his cheek to cradle his jaw and neck, pulling his head back again as the other hand stroked through his hair. "Ah, you are magnificent, chiyu," the man said in his smooth voice. Charles stared up into his pale eyes. "The things I will be able to do with you. For now I think I will put you with my other pretty little toy."

His eyes were hypnotic; Charles felt himself falling into those grey depths. Everything swirled and swirled around him, the man's voice and his touch growing distant, until they faded away into a grey haze.

The hands on him were solid again.

Charles reached up to ward the person away as someone's hands felt over his torso. He tried to catch at the arms and fight off the attacker, opening his eyes, his head feeling clearer but still pounding in pain. At least he could move his body.

The hands disappeared as the person slipped away from Charles's grasp and moved back. A voice said quickly, "I am not him! I am your fellow prisoner."

Levering himself to sitting, Charles looked at the youth kneeling beside him. He was around the same age as Charles, with sandy-brown hair cut roughly short, stubble on his strong features, and brilliant blue eyes. The motion made Charles's head pound even harder, and he frantically reached up to grasp the cord around his neck. It was still there. Even though he could feel the hard shape inside the pouch, he still drew it open, reached inside the insulating silks, and unwrapped his starstone. The small matrix, which before had been dull and made him vaguely sick to look into, was now a clear blue, and gazing into it helped calm his head, though only a little. Feeling less desperate, he replaced it and tucked the pouch under his shirt. He realized that he was wearing only his shirt, trousers, and stockings. The trousers were the same formal embroidered pair he had been dressing in for his party at home.

He was in a small room made of wood, like a peasant's hut. There was a small window opening in front of him that showed tree branches and mid-day light in the sky. Charles glanced around. The room was strange and wrong. It had another window but no door anywhere, and none of the furnishings he would expect even in the rudest hovel. He was sitting on a quilted blanket on a pile of straw, and the other boy was settled just out of reach of him, also bootless, though his leather trousers and woolen tunic looked warmer. In one corner was a wicker tray with two wooden bowls on it. That was everything.

A gust of wind blew though the branches, and the room shook and swayed with it unlike anything Charles had felt. He shivered.

"What is this place? Who are you?" Charles asked.

"My name is Erik, and this is my cell." He stared at Charles boldly and directly. He spoke perfectly-inflected casta though with a trace of rough mountain accent.

Charles drew himself up straighter. "I am Charles, Heir to Alton." The youth did not seem impressed. Charles clutched the folds of the quilt tighter. Suddenly the cruel man's words returned to him. "Oh! Are you what he meant when he mentioned putting me with his other toy?" His voice faltered on the last word.

At that Erik's gaze did drop and he flushed. "Yes," he said softly, lashes fluttering against his sharp cheekbones as he blinked his eyes closed for an instant. "He styles himself Lord Sebastian of this, Shaw Keep. But he is merely a bandit who... There was also a woman, a leronis, but I have not seen her for over a month. I don't know if she escaped, or if she's dead, or worse."

He looked up again and when his eyes met Charles's, Charles could feel his laran stirring, reaching out. He struggled to hold himself in check but his mind still brushed Erik's, riffling through the man's memories. Almost two years ago Shaw's men had attacked the mountain village where he lived, killing Erik's parents and many other people. Charles could see the younger Erik screaming, using his own laran to wield the metal implements in the vicinity, turning them on the attackers. And Shaw, striding untouched through the maelstrom, everything Erik threw bouncing off him, until he had reached the boy and knocked him unconscious. After that there had been only this captivity, Shaw and his men, and rough use. Shaw, forcing Erik to aid his attacks. The men, forcing-

Charles shuddered and shied away, yanking himself out and back into his own mind, panting from the effort. He felt a flood of relief that he had been able to control it, that he had not accidentally torn Erik apart as he had Ysabelle.

"How dare you..." Erik growled.

Embarrassed, Charles glanced away from him. Despite everything Erik was certainly not subservient. Charles swallowed heavily. "I apologize," he said. "I don't have much control. He gave me drugs, had me kill two of his own men that way."

"He is rather free with their lives sometimes, though he always finds more." There was a slight pause. "I saw it in your mind."

Charles still couldn't look at the other man. Instead he levered himself shakily to his feet and crossed toward the window. He didn't know how much Erik had seen in his mind, and Erik probably couldn't say exactly what Charles had seen. Charles wondered if he had broadcast his thoughts to the other minds he had touched. There was no way to ask, as they were all dead now. He shivered.

When he gazed out of the window the view he saw matched the vague images still swirling through his head from Erik. The small room was built between the branches of an enormous tree, high above the ground, made solely of wood and other materials lacking in metal. There were two guards standing at the base of the tree, just small circles of the tops of their heads visible. Shaw had been unable to restrain Erik in his keep without suppression drugs since there were elements in the stone walls that Erik could manipulate. It was the fact that Shaw seemed as impervious to Erik's power as he had to Charles's that had allowed him the time to figure out how to control the captive child with isolation and drugs. Charles knew that Erik had imagined jumping and ending it sometimes but his desire for freedom and vengeance was much greater than those shameful fleeting thoughts. There was something else, though, another image flickering though his mind and wisping away before he could grasp it...

Having gotten himself under control Charles now turned around. An early spring day was not the time to be standing in an open breeze in his shirtsleeves. His eyes lit on the tray in the corner that he had not paid much attention to before. One of the bowls on it had porridge and the other milk. Charles suddenly realized how hungry and thirsty he was, his mouth watering and his stomach clawing. Erik noticed his attention and gave a small mirthless grin. "That's your portion." Charles opened his mouth to ask the question but Erik answered sooner. "They delivered you yesterday evening. You've been out of it all night."

Charles sat himself down wrapped in the quilt again, scooping up porridge with his fingers and drinking milk straight from the bowl. "He can't think to take me with impunity. My family will search for me."

"No one has yet found this place in these trackless wastes." They were even further north in the hills, almost to the Hellers, and Charles could easily believe it. But he was a telepath now; there must be some way to get a message to his family or to one of the Towers, or someone. Unless... If Shaw could block that too...

He finished the porridge quickly though it was lumpy and tasteless. He could still feel Erik as a mental presence, more than just the warm sound of his breathing.

"Are you Hastur-kin?" Charles asked.

Erik looked at him blandly with merely one eyebrow arched. "Did you not see? My father was a mountain blacksmith, and my mother an orphan raised as an innkeeper's fosterling, hardly among the Hali'imyn. Although, she did used to tell me that her own mother was a disgraced leronis and her father a Comyn lord. But I always thought those only pretty stories for a child's bedtime."

"Mayhap they were more than that." Charles had always been told that all those with laran were of the blood of Hastur and Cassilda. His own mother was part Aldaran, and they ruled in the mountains. But then, Shaw had laran too, and Charles liked it not to think of him as a kinsman.

His stomach began to claw at him in another way and Charles stood, walking to the other corner of the room and relieving himself through the small hole in the floor there. Sadly, the guards knew well enough not to stand close by that spot.

Then he eyed the window again. "How did they get me up here?"

"On a stronger rope through the same pulley that brings up the food," Erik replied. "You were very undignified." He joined Charles at the window with a small laugh as Charles frowned at that. "The rope is long gone now. Shaw was there, and he would cut such a thing if I had tried to use it and let us both fall." Now Charles saw the new image in Erik's mind, though it hurt his brain to attempt even such a light rapport.

"He's not here now," Charles replied. "I can feel you but not the guards. How close would you have to be to use your laran? Halfway down?"

Erik turned, his shoulder brushing Charles's, and stared at him. "It's a risk. Even more with the extra weight."

"But you are not alone, not any longer. I think it was a mistake from his view to put us together. I will do what I can, though my head is still raw from the drugs and his... his..."

"Yes," Erik said softly.

Charles looked down at the drop and then back at Erik.

"Not alone," Erik whispered. He glanced around the bare room behind them. "Now?" Charles nodded. Erik didn't waste even a moment then. He clambered up and balanced himself precariously on the edge of the window hole, legs dangling out into space, then beckoned. There wasn't much room to move without knocking them off too soon but Charles managed to brace himself between the wall and Erik's shoulder and get up there as well. His stomach curdled as he looked down again. The drop seemed much higher from this position. Erik wrapped his left arm around Charles's waist and Charles clung tightly to the other's neck.

"Aldones protect us," Charles muttered and then Erik yanked him into the air.

They dropped like a boulder and Charles shut his eyes to block out the sight of the approaching ground, though he couldn't block out the wind bursting past him. He reached out with his Gift and could sense the edges of Erik's mind as he gathered his own powers to him. Below Charles could just begin to discern the faint sparks of the two guards' minds when he was wrenched to a halt, his arms tightening around Erik's neck, Erik's mind blazing now with power. Charles opened his eyes and they were suspended in the air a few bodylengths above the guards, dangling from Erik's other arm where he gripped the pommel of a sword that was floating above them.

The two guards looked up and shouted in surprise and the other sword whipped its way out of the man's scabbard and curved a great arc through the air that sliced both their throats open. The two bodies dropped to the ground with twin spurts of blood. Charles felt their minds flicker and wink out as they left the world.

Then Erik lowered them the last length to the ground. It was all over so quickly, the fall and the killings.

Charles's legs were still jittery after the drop though his feet were on solid ground now.

Erik stood over the two corpses with a small satisfied grin twisting his features. Charles remembered the rush of pleasure he had felt himself at the deaths of the men who had captured him. And these two guards had been with Shaw a long time, were among the ones who had killed Erik's family, who had violated Erik's person and his honor.

Then he knelt and began searching the bodies, stripping off their boots and handing a pair to Charles before pulling on the other himself. Charles shuddered slightly but put them on. They were a little too large yet fully necessary. Erik also removed the cloaks and padded tunics from the men, setting them aside before even more blood could get on them. Charles swung a cloak around himself, trying to ignore the stain of blood near the fastening, still damp but quickly cooling. Neither man had any money though one had a small pouch of dried fruit and nuts and a skin of water which Erik took. Lastly he handed over a sword belt to Charles, sliding the sword he had been holding into the scabbard.

As soon as Charles buckled the belt on the very weight of the sword against his left hip and the knife on his right brought a flood of reassurance along with it. He felt complete again.

Erik stood and buckled the other belt on, the second sword wiping itself on the grass as it flew to him. "Will you come with me to fight Shaw?" he asked Charles.

"If you face him now, Erik, he will kill you. He will kill us both. Your Gift cannot touch him any more than mine can. Come with me to Alton and we can tell my father of Shaw's atrocities and gather a force to defeat him."

"I do not want to wait any longer," Erik said, eyes narrowed and face steely, hand on the hilt of the sword.

Charles wavered cold inside. To face Shaw now was suicide, but to attempt to cross the Kilghard Hills alone and without supplies was equally so. Even with two of them the journey would be very difficult. Mayhap it was better to perish honorably fighting the bandit than to do so ignominiously fleeing through the forest.

"I will not make it through the hills alone," he said slowly, "so I will follow you even to death if you go after revenge. But if you come with me, I will do all I can to aid you against Shaw at a better time, I swear it. My life is in your hands, bredu." Charles had not known he would say the word until he heard himself doing so. But he would not take it back now even if he could. It seemed right so soon to swear friendship and brotherhood. He had never felt drawn to anyone this strongly and suddenly before, no man or woman. Only Raven, and they had been children then, and it was different. But he caught his breath, not knowing how Erik would respond.

Clouded blue eyes widened in surprise and then Erik's lips parted. He sighed and swallowed heavily. "Then I will take your advice... bredu." He grinned wide now and Charles responded giddily, pulling the knife out of the sheath to set it traditionally alongside the one Erik drew, hilt to blade and blade to hilt. It did not matter that this knife had only been in his possession for a moment before he exchanged it. As he slid the metal that had been in Erik's sheath into his own now it symbolized everything they had risked and done together in this short time.

Erik slid his hands up from Charles's wrists and they clasped each other's forearms, staring into each other's eyes for a long wordless moment.

Then finally they broke apart and slipped away together into the forest.

Each step they took through the woods lightened Charles's heart somehow, still filled with the glow of Erik's words and presence, though he knew logically that they were headed into danger as much as away from it. The trees here were tall and spread into a solid canopy above which left an easy clear space for walking beneath them in the mulch and infrequent undergrowth. "Do you know where we are?" he asked after a few moments.

"Not precisely," Erik replied. "But after we're further from Shaw's keep we can turn south and then pass eventually from the hills to the plains." Erik was striding ahead with full confidence, cloak swirling around him, and Charles trusted that he knew the way from his prison hut to Shaw and was taking them in the opposite direction. "We must at some point come to a road or a landmark, yes?"

Charles nodded hesitantly. He glanced around but the light down here was dim and he couldn't see the exact position of the sun. The shadows and rays seemed to come from everywhere at once. Nor could he tell, in this unfamiliar location, which way downhill led or where the prevailing winds were from. Erik was leading them perpendicular to the slope of the hill at the moment. "If we can manage to stay heading south and not wander in circles."

Erik glanced at him and grinned. "Losing your nerve after you convinced me to do this?"

"No," Charles said fiercely.

"I know where south is." Erik pointed left up the rise of the hill. "The forces that allow me to control metal flow always in the same direction through the world."

"You can sense the planetary magnetic field?"

"If that's what you call it."

Charles adjusted the cloak across his shoulders. "I have never heard of a Gift such as yours." Through his shirt he clasped his hand over the pouch at his neck that held his matrix. "And you wear no starstone. If you had one, what more could you do? In the Towers they mine and refine ore using high-level matrices and many mechanics working in concert."

"I know almost nothing of the Towers. The leronis Shaw used to have, he would control her by her matrix. He could hurt her by touching it and drain her energy."

Shuddering in horror Charles clutched his own tighter. He sped his step and they walked in grim silence for a time. Shaw's powers were also of a type Charles had never heard of before, as were his own. Altons were strong telepaths, and the Hasturs were skilled with matrices and working with others in a Circle, and so his parents' marriage had been arranged to combine those abilities further. It had been a disappointment when it had resulted in only one living child who had seemed to have no laran.

But the way that Charles could take someone else's mind now was an unheard of weapon...

If he could control it.

He could remember how it felt, the power inside him, almost separate from him, wanting to reach out and devour... Could he, would he want to, contain it if it rose again? Charles still felt numb and overwhelmed from all he had been through. If he focused Erik was like a spark of warmth beside him.

Warmth growing, coming clearer, laran rising like bile in Charles's throat with a choking need as Erik's thoughts grew more audible, fluttering around the edges of his mind, freedom and revenge and fear and joy. His power reached out, even as he tried to reel it in, and he swayed from the effort, the world flashing black and white like a clap of lightning.

Through the ensuing grey mist he could hear only Erik's soft mental voice calling to him.

Charles? Can you hear me?

I... I thought this was finished.

There you are! You had a seizure.

Threshold sickness.

Erik felt closer now, stronger. I'm holding the electro-magnetic currents in your brain in a stable state at the moment, tamping down the overload in your circuits. But you probably have a better idea of how they should be. You ought to take over.

Charles realized what Erik was suggesting. I don't want to hurt you.

You won't.

Even now, restrained, his donas, his Gift, still hungered, wanted to uncoil and pursue the mind so close to his own. I might. I...

No, you won't. Charles, I am already there. I could fry you before you can touch me. But you won't lose control. That statement shouldn't be reassuring, because once Charles was in his mind, Erik wouldn't be able to follow up on the threat. But it was anyway, because Erik trusted him, and Charles trusted Erik.

Reaching out, drawing closer, and Erik's mind opened for him, unlike any of the times he had forced his way into someone. Charles still just wanted to possess, but Erik's very acquiescence meant that he didn't need to take, and so he could indeed control himself and his powers as he sank in. There were no flashes of memory now. There was Erik's worry and concern, the deep spreading warmth of connection and rapport, and through it, Erik's powers...

Charles was still blind and deaf, insensate, floating in a haze, but he could clearly see, as the only solid objects in the world, burning bright through the mist, the swords and knives they bore, the metal clasps of their cloaks, the flecks under the ground on which they walked. They were beautiful. Below that was a singing hum, the magnetic lines Erik had mentioned, a clear directional grid against which he would never be lost. And then zooming in on the smaller level, the quick sparking patterns in Charles's brain. And in Erik's own brain, too.

I have never done anything... delicate like this before. Erik's words echoed, as if Charles was both hearing and saying them.

Neither have I. Tearing something to shreds was much simpler than fixing it. Quick flashes of remembrance and acknowledgement in both their thoughts. Charles could see the energy darting as different areas of the brain lit up, and he could feel his own and Erik's emotions, but he imagined it would take years of study to know exactly how these things all mapped together, the mental experience and the physical manifestation.

It didn't take much knowledge, though, to recognize the excessively strong and chaotic impulses fleeting through Charles's brain and know those were the seizures that were a part of threshold sickness. Some of them were just behind his forehead and others were at the nape of his neck.

Charles laid his mental hand over Erik's, as if he were making a correction to a sword move or calligraphy, and guided the other youth's power in a gentle glide over the key areas of his brain, smoothing out the excessive flares.

He felt less sick now, his mind and donas settling to a more stable pattern, and he began to come back to his body. He was leaning against something solid and he could hear his heartbeat pounding in his throat.

There are other energies, as well, Erik added. I can feel them in my own body but not in yours or anything else.

As Erik focused on his own Charles noticed them and could follow the same flows in his body. Energon channels. I see them. His were wild, backwashing in his groin and chest, glowing far too bright between his eyes. But Erik's... Oh, bredu, you're twisted.

All of Erik's channels were clouded, energy stuttering along through pathways warped and clogged, flowing out of pattern. If Erik was operating so well under such constrained abilities, what he could do at peak performance... Without thinking or really knowing what he was doing Charles reached and slid their pathways together, the overflow in his own breaking through the barriers in Erik's, straightening and aligning both their flows, as they breathed deeply, into smooth channels and even rhythms.

I don't know what you just did, but it felt good.

A slow warmth spread through him and Charles separated his energies from Erik's again with one last surge, released Erik's mind, and came fully aware back to his own body. They were propped against a tree trunk, Charles leaning his weight on Erik's chest, Erik cupping Charles's face and head in his hands, looking down at him.

It was utterly comfortable and yet also unsettling all at once.

Charles pulled away, flushing, dropping his hands from Erik's shirt and dropping his gaze to the ground.

"Are you better now?" Erik asked softly.

"Good enough," Charles mumbled awkwardly. He turned in the direction he still knew was south and walked quickly up the hill. Erik followed in silence.

The hills here were not as high and craggy as the mountains behind but they could still be steep. A few more hours of hiking and clambering left Charles exhausted and starving. The sunlight was dimming and would soon drop quickly into darkness. They had crossed no roads, seen no landmarks, and surrounded always by forest they could get no view of what lay around them. Possibly the hills were becoming lower but Charles would not swear to that being anything other than wishful thinking on his part. And he knew exactly how far wishful thinking had ever gotten anyone. The world would go as it will, not as he would have it.

However, he did not want to be the first to admit to weakness nor to think that he had made a mistake. They were alive and free. If they had gone against Shaw they would certainly be either dead or recaptured by now.

Then Erik spoke out. "Hold a moment. I will take a look above." He fastened both his hands around the pommel of his sword and rose into the air. As he disappeared above the leaves of the trees Charles slumped to the ground to rest. He had not thought of Erik scouting in that fashion.

His friend slowly returned to the land a few moments later.

"I see nothing but forest and hills, though we shall reach the plains eventually if we continue. The sun is setting. It would be better to make camp before dark."

Charles nodded.

"Shall we risk a fire?"

"Can you make one?" They had no striker.

"Oh, aye." Erik grinned.

It would be cold tonight and a fire would be good against the snow. Charles did not think they were deep enough into the hills to meet trailmen or catmen. His party had not gotten that far from Armida yet. He thanked all the gods that they were much too low for banshees and that it was early in the season for the Ghost Wind. That would be walking themselves into the cookpot, indeed. However they would still have to take great care that a fire set in the open woods did not spread.

"If you will lay suitable tinder I will seek out an appropriate flint starter." Erik hardly waited for Charles's agreement before vanishing away amongst the trees.

Charles very carefully dug down through the layers of wet leaf mulch until he was satisfied that he had reached dirt and cleared a large area for a break to place the fire within. Then he set about gathering dry branches and laying a fire. It took a while to finish these tasks, and he was starting to wonder and worry that Erik was not yet returned.

When Erik did finally reappear he was smiling widely. He carried two dead rabbithorns in his hand. "They can escape a typical arrow, but..." The knife darted out of the sheath at his waist and flew through the air wildly, turning sharply past Charles and returning to Erik. "Harder to outrun that."

Charles's mouth began to salivate at the thought of food. He took the animals that Erik set down and watched Erik bend to the firewood, taking a flint and striking it against the blade of his knife until it sparked and caught alight the dry leaves and smallest twigs inside the placed branches. The flame began to grow and eat the wood, catching at the larger pieces. Charles flinched at the damage to the edge of the blade until Erik passed his hand gently over it and the metal returned to its former sharpness.

There were so many fascinating aspects to Erik's laran, so many uses for it, that were amazing in general and very gladdening to have in this situation in particular. Despite all else Charles felt his heart fill with joy that he had met Erik.

He set to skinning and dressing the meat as Erik tended the fire. "I found a small stream nearby, as well. It seems to be flowing in the correct direction for us to follow."

"Very good."

The light was fading through dull red to dark as they roasted the rabbithorns on green twigs over the fire and ate them heartily along with fresh water from the stream. The temperature dropped after dark and the fire was quite welcome, but eventually they decided to douse it as they slept. Forest fires were one of the greatest dangers to everyone in the hills and they both had a healthy fear of such an event.

Charles wrapped himself in his cloak and settled on as dry a patch of fallen leaves as he could find. Erik approached and dropped down beside him. "We will be warmer if we share." That was true, so Charles let Erik spread one cloak under, and one over them together.

Erik lay down next to Charles. He tried to calm himself for sleep, but he could hear Erik's soft breathing, feel his warmth and solid presence, and his mind and body were responding to that in a way that was not conducive to rest. He didn't know whether Erik wished to share that form of friendship with him. Some of the things he had seen in Erik's memories... Charles tried to move away, not wanting to upset Erik.

Then Erik turned over, his face right before Charles's in the dark. "Is that how you want it, bredu?" Charles could feel Erik's breath warm and soft against his mouth and cheek.

"I..."

Slowly Erik drew his hand along Charles's side, dropping it between them to work his fingers under the edge of Charles's shirt, press callused skin against Charles's belly. His shields lowered as he shifted closer.

Charles could feel his laran reaching out again, the same urge to take everything, and he shuddered. But he was able to control it now, because of what he and Erik had done together earlier in the day, though he still did not entirely understand how they had done it. He could hold himself back from taking over and allow the give and receive of rapport. Their lips met, mouths opening, and Charles welcomed Erik's tongue with his own.

In the end was only a single shared thought: Yes, bredhyu.

The next morning, they awoke to the trees dropping the overnight snowpods from leaves and petals, and they shook the last of the frost off their cloaks as they stretched. Charles's heart was light and happy, wrapped in Erik's arms. Erik grinned at him in the grey-pink blush of dawn and rolled them over.

Eventually the sunlight brightened and Charles said, "I want a bath." They ran down to the stream for a reviving splash in the cold waters.

After a meager breakfast they began their trek again. They were lower in the hills now and the trees were smaller, the undergrowth thicker, the walking more difficult. As the morning progressed a strange tickling started creeping around the edges of Charles's mind.

He wasn't hearing anything, he wasn't feeling anything... It was rather the very absence of feeling that kept seeming strange. As if something was missing that ought to be there. But he couldn't place it. He could still sense Erik walking next to him, and everything about the forest seemed normal, the breeze rustling though the trees and the animals muted at their passing. It felt a bit like the pressure before a storm, but the weather was fine.

Then Erik reached out and grasped his elbow just as Charles heard a sound in the leaves around them.

Pushing through the branches to stand in front of them came Shaw, and drawing in all around them six of his men. Now Charles could sense the men's presences, but Shaw was still a void. Charles couldn't even feel his shields. He was completely absent mentally.

He did not want to be under Shaw's control again.

Erik's fingers were digging painfully into Charles's arm. The other six men stepped closer to them as Shaw grinned viciously. Charles looked at Erik and as their gazes met a spark of shared understanding passed between them.

Charles started with the man nearest him. As he grabbed and froze the man's body and mind Erik reached out and captured the biomagnetic energies in the man's brain, as he had Charles's the previous day. Only this time there was no caring and no finesse, merely an explosive bolt through his cells that made him crumple to the ground. Charles released him before he was fully dead, before he was finished falling, and moved on, taking the next two at once. Shaw threw back his head and laughed.

These two Charles dispatched himself without waiting for Erik. He opened his mind and consumed them, tearing the patterns of their thoughts to shreds, thrilling at the taste of their fear even while trying not to see or feel as their memories poured through him. But he couldn't entirely control the flashes of pleasure and hunger that arose in him from some of their memories of Erik.

Two of the other men turned and ran. They halted with shocked expressions as their blades jerked away from them and each man died with the other's sword through his throat.

Shaw gestured the last man forward. "Go on, take them."

He stepped shakily towards them and Erik ripped his sword from his hands and flung all six of the scattered blades at Shaw. Those all dropped to the ground, energy spent, as they touched him, leaving him entirely unharmed.

"Oh, Erik." Shaw shook his head. "You know better. You know where you belong."

Charles rushed him. If laran didn't work... He swung his fist up and punched Shaw in the jaw but it felt more like punching himself, the force of his blow pushing him back and leaving Shaw unmoved. He stumbled and barely managed to regain his footing as Shaw smirked at him.

"It would have gone smoother for me if I hadn't put you two together, hmm, little bredhyin? But no matter, all your efforts are futile."

The last of the bandits reached out to grab Charles.

Instead Erik grabbed the man's brain and, as he started to surge it, Shaw shot out his arm and closed a hand on the man's shoulder. Shaw looked exhilarated as Erik kept pulling the energy levels in the man's brain higher and higher and Charles could sense that energy being absorbed by Shaw, disappearing into his emptiness. The man twitched and shuddered between them. Erik's face was a rictus of hate, Shaw's of pleasure. Blood and mucus began to drip from the man's mouth and nose, then his ears and eyes bled as well.

"Never again," Erik grit out.

And Charles saw a way in.

He plunged into the last bandit's mind, steeling himself against the seething pain, and rode the wave of energy passing from Erik and the man into Shaw, through the phase-patterns of Shaw's laran that pulled power in rather than repelling it like shields. Instead of breaking through a wall it was like tumbling off a cliff, riding a raging waterfall down into him, being absorbed... And then, suddenly, he was in control, he could absorb Shaw.

Charles held Shaw's mind down and smiled, ready to-

No, bredu! Erik's thought reached him distantly. His blood is mine by right!

That was true. Charles couldn't deny Erik his rightful vengeance.

Shaw's rage and power were great, his shock and disbelief at the turn of events, and Charles had to struggle every instant to keep controlling him. He could see through both his own eyes and Shaw's as Erik took a step closer to him and let the other bandit's corpse fall away. The knife rose from Erik's belt and hovered before Shaw's face.

Charles felt the sharp sting as the point grazed across Shaw's cheek and then the explosion of pain as it jabbed into Shaw's eyeball.

He held on, held Shaw's body and mind in place, and did not let himself scream. If he lost control for even the shortest moment Shaw would capture them both, or kill them, or something worse. The knife twisted in the eye socket.

"This is for my parents," Erik said.

A new kind of pain as the knife pulled out, stabbed back in to Shaw's tongue and palate. Charles could feel sweat rolling down his neck, and he couldn't move, couldn't speak, had to hold on to Shaw, not lose control, not release him, not distract Erik... But it hurt so much...

The stinging tip of metal slid over Shaw's throat, his chest, parting the skin so shallowly that it barely drew blood, slow and dulled, Erik's power rusting the blade. It slipped into one lung; he struggled to breathe as it deflated, the blood rushing in, crushing his chest... Then the metal turned, losing shape and snaking its way through the body, the burn as bile spilled out inside him, intestine ruptured...

Charles still held on; Shaw was struggling, almost uncontainable- And then Erik was looking at him, calling out his name, and the knife shattered his heart, and Shaw's mind slid away into death with a cold blue flash. Charles fell after it and barely pulled himself free at the last instant, into his own body, numb at the loss of pain.

He was lying on the ground, head cradled in Erik's lap, Erik staring down at him with damp eyes, touching his face and with a hand over his heart.

"I'm sorry, bredu," Erik choked out. "If I had known I would have gone faster... You shouldn't have let me hurt you..."

Charles reached up to clasp Erik's shoulder. "It's over." But he was exhausted, weakened, unable to stand for the moment. He pulled Erik's face closer. "I am not injured." Erik kissed his forehead, his cheek, his lips. Charles held tight and kissed back. It's over, bredhyu, he repeated.

Eventually his lethargy passed and they made ready to move on.

Erik took another skin of water but otherwise they left the bodies where they lay. They could not find any horses or chervines nearby and finally abandoned the search and began walking again. They continued to head south for they still did not know the best route to take otherwise.

After a ways Charles remembered that with Shaw now no longer a threat he could try using laran to see if there were any people in the vicinity. He did not know any of the techniques used in the Towers to communicate or travel across distance, but he could attempt with his matrix and try whatever came to him.

He settled down beside Erik and tipped the starstone into the palm of his hand. The blue light glowed seductively, pulling him into it. As he focused in on the matrix his mind seemed to spread outwards along the light, past Erik's mind, past the small, incomprehensible minds of the forest animals.

And something in the far distance that was also searching noticed him and rushed towards him.

Charles!

Raven! Charles couldn't reach across the distance but Raven's mind came closer and closer, embracing his own, excited and joyful.

Oh, you're free and unhurt, thank the gods! Raven exclaimed. You're not that far. I would get there quicker but I'm not on my own. Do you see which direction to go? Good. Charles could, indeed, sense where Raven was now, and how to get there from here.

Yes, bredillu, I will meet you soon. The connection faded away as Raven withdrew.

Grinning, Charles wrapped his matrix up and turned to Erik. "My foster-brother is here with searchers. I knew they would be looking for me. We can meet up with them if we head east."

But a few hours later, when they reached the road and walked along it until they found Raven, there was no search party from Armida. There was only one horse and two people on its back.

The strange woman riding the horse was of the Sisterhood of the Sword, and behind her was Raven. Raven slid off and stepped toward him.

"Bre- Breda?" Charles stammered, his happy greeting cut short. The tight leather riding trousers and vest that Raven wore made that fact indecently clear. "How..." He switched to another question. "How did you get here, and who are you with?"

Raven made it the last few steps and plastered him- herself against Charles, arms around his neck. "I felt that something bad had happened to you, and I followed. Your parents have sent out search parties but I found you first." Charles awkwardly returned the embrace as Raven clung to him, quite aware of the new form and figure in his arms, pressed against his body.

Just because Charles knew Raven could do this didn't mean he had ever expected it to happen after all these years. Now he felt strange having a sister instead of a brother. Was Raven planning to stay this way? Or return to how he had been before?

Charles could feel Raven trembling against him and stroked his fingers through the soft curls over Raven's neck to calm him- her. "So you ran away from everyone and came looking for me on your own? Ah, chiya, that was too dangerous..." He would be devastated if anything had happened to Raven. Even just imagining it made his heart clench.

Only Raven laughed at that and drew away a little to look up at him. "I think the evidence shows that I can care for myself better than you, Charles." Charles sensed more than heard Erik's slight snicker behind him. Raven glanced at Erik, then stepped back and gestured at the other woman. "This is Moira, of the Sisterhood of the Sword. I met her while seeking you. The same bandits who captured you killed her traveling companion."

"Both men who attacked us lost their lives as well," the woman stated, stepping forward to stand beside Raven, gripping the horse's reins firmly. She had a rapid cahuenga accent. She was young and pretty, despite her short-shorn auburn hair and pierced ears, wearing her Sisterhood's loose scarlet trousers and a small knife on a cord around her neck. There was a bandage around her upper left arm.

Charles bowed. "I thank you, mestra, for aiding my... Raven." He gestured to Erik. "Bredu, this is my... foster-sister Raven. And this is my new friend Erik."

"Greetings, damisela," Erik replied. Raven looked at him consideringly for a moment then stepped forward to clasp his arms and kiss his cheek in a kinsman's embrace.

"You have looked after my brother in my absence," she stated.

"And he after me," Erik said. "You need fear no more trouble in these woods from the same bandits, for the head is cut off them. Their leader Shaw is dead and without him the rest are all cowards."

"Until they find a new leader," Moira said.

"That is possible. There are still a few of them I wouldn't mind dispatching."

"May we return home first?" Charles said. "We can deal with them later in good time."

"Yes, bredu."

As they made their way down the road in the direction of Armida, heading for where Moira said the nearest travel shelter was located, Erik asked Raven, "Charles called you his foster-brother?"

"I am as the chieri are," Raven explained. "Not a neuter emmasca, but rather able to be male or female as I please. I changed to travel with Moira, that she might be more comfortable with me." She giggled and looked up at the other woman through her lashes as she said this. Charles was not used to his little brother behaving in such a way. He felt himself much more protective of his sister's honor. "But I have been Charles's brother for the last three years now."

"That would explain his surprise at your appearance." Erik grinned.

Raven laughed. "He did rather gape like a fish."

"I did not!" Charles protested. He had taken the surprise admirably in stride. The two of them only laughed harder at his exclamation.

They eventually reached the travel shelter after a comparably easy journey on the road, just as the sun was setting, dusky red light fading away. It was the typical small, wooden shack of all its type. Charles did not think they were yet into Alton lands again, and was not entirely sure who had the responsibility of this shelter, but whichever Domain or family it was kept it in good shape, stocked with firewood and a large ceramic pitcher for water. Even bandits did not raid a travel shelter's supplies, for they depended on there being travelers.

Erik set and lit a fire inside as Moira made fast her horse outside and brought in her travel provisions. They were almost done with their simple meal of porridge and jerky, and Charles was looking around at his companions and thinking of the future, how he would greet his parents on his return home, when he had an idea.

"Raven... Will you stay this way when we return home? If you do, you and Erik could marry, and then he would become part of the family and the Domain." It was clear that Erik was not going to swear to Charles as paxman or otherwise take him as lord and master. And this way he could have both Erik and Raven with him at Armida always and everything would be lawful and decent.

He had blurted it out the instant the idea crossed his mind and Raven broke off in the middle of her sentence as she was talking to Moira, all three of the others turning to him with identical raised eyebrows. "You forget, Charles, that I am not a lawful heir to the Domain," Raven said slowly.

Charles flushed. He knew it full well, for if she were, he could broker no such agreement with her. But she was indeed part of the Alton Domain. She was his. "The family, still. It was not so long ago that brothers and sisters were expected to share wives and husbands in common." It was a custom no longer followed but he put it out as an excuse. Erik and Raven looked at each other, gazes meeting with a flash of shared understanding that left Charles feeling quite apart and outside.

Erik stood. "If I may have a word with your sister in private? Unless you would find that inappropriate, vai dom." His courtly tones and deep bow were teasing, lightly mocking, and he took Raven's hand and touched his lips to it before helping her rise. "We adjourn, carya mea." Charles flushed deeper at the inflections, but he could hardly forbid it now. He stared at the closed door after Erik and Raven stepped outside.

He started in surprise when Moira spoke. "Are you afraid that they won't love each other, or that they will?"

"I know not," he had to admit.

She slid closer and placed a hand under his chin, turning his face to look at her. "Then let me distract you."

Say her yes, Charles, came Raven's arch mental voice. You will enjoy. When Charles tried to reach out there was a barrier and he sensed nothing more from Raven or Erik.

"And do you believe that your sister knows whereof she speaks?" Moira whispered in his ear, her breath a tickle. She had no laran but Raven was a strong sender.

Charles took her in his arms and kissed her. There was no need to touch her mind; it was a purely physical thing, as it had always been with women before. He could slake his worry in her body.

Afterward she levered herself up over him and said softly, "Charles Alton, mayhap when the time comes for me to bear a child, I will visit you, and it will be for the goddess to decide whether it is a daughter for me to raise or a nedestro son for you." Charles was overcome with gratitude for her generosity and drew her back down to him. Eventually he would marry a suitable wife chosen for him to breed and fix his Gift into the line of his Domain. That was his duty.

When he awoke in the morning Raven and Moira were bent over the fire speaking quietly together. Erik lay rolled in his cloak near Charles on the sleeping platform. Charles reached out across the short distance between them and watched Erik's eyelids flutter open and his lips curve in a gentle smile. Charles smiled back in relief and happiness that Erik would stay with him.

Charles could see the future spread out before him, a shining view like a rich valley opening up from a hilltop pass, twined through with all the turns and forks of duty and choice, like roads and rivers, and lush with blooming flowers. They would return to Armida and be greeted by his parents. And then he would go to a Tower, not for medical treatment this time, but to learn, to further master and expand his laran. Erik and maybe Raven would be with him there. The Towers did much mining, they would appreciate Erik's Gift. There would still be time to do his cadet service with the Guard soon. Someday, as Alton, he would lead them. The further into the future he looked the mistier with distance it became, fading out of view. But he didn't need to know everything now. Events would come to pass in their own good time.

The important thing he did know was that he would never be alone.

Finis.

Dictionary of Darkovan terms

chieri: a species of telepathic hermaphrodites who lived on Darkover before the first humans arrived there

casta: a language spoken in the lowland Domains, mainly derived from Spanish

cahuenga: a language spoken in the mountains, mainly derived from Gaelic

bredu, breda: brother, sister; used by actual or foster siblings and by close, sworn friends (generally same-sex friends; relationships between men and women are different); diminutive forms bredillu and bredilla mean little brother and little sister; bredhyu and bredhya are in the intimate inflection that makes the word specifically romantic and sexual, used by same-sex lovers

laran: psychic powers such as telepathy or telekinesis

donas: gift; also a term for psychic powers, typically used to indicate a specific variety of power

leronis: laran-worker, someone with strong psychic powers who has been trained in their use to a professional level; this is the feminine form, the masculine form is laranzu

donas amizu: the gifts of friendship; a term used for sexual intimacy between sworn friends (homoeroticism is considered normal for sworn friends, especially as teenagers; everyone is expected to marry and have children when they are older)

chiyu, chiya: diminutive terms of endearment, typically used by older relatives toward younger ones or sometimes in a romantic relationship to indicate mentorship and age/power imbalance

preciosu, preciosa: precious; term of endearment that can be either romantic or familial

carya mea: romantic term of endearment; along the lines of my beloved or my darling; caryu would be the masculine form

dom, domna: lord, lady; a noble title

mestra: a polite term used by the upper class to address women of a lower class

damisela: a young, unmarried woman of upper class

emmasca: a sterile and/or gender-divergent person, can be either masculine or feminine in appearance; the term is used for someone who has been surgically altered and also for the people who are born sterile, or neuter or intersex or hermaphroditic in some way (which happens at varying frequencies due to chieri blood and inbreeding)

nedestro: illegitimate but acknowledged child