Disclaimer: I really need to get a minion to do this for me. Anyway, I don't own. Velgarth and all associated are sadly Mercedes Lackey's toys and not mine. Luckily, she's a good sharer.

More reviews came in for this chapter, luckily. It occurred to me, I posted two chapters very close together and nothing was posted in the ML fandom on fanfiction between the chapters. I don't know, but did anyone accidently not read chapter 27? Because it was sort of important, so if you missed it, go back and read it.

Fireblade: I guess ate your review? Or, did you read chapter 27? As I mentioned, I posted 27 and 28 very close together, so maybe you missed it. As to longer chapters, I try to make them around six pages in word, but I usually stop where the plot wants to stop. I tend to favor quick updates over long chapters, but I'll try to make them longer.

Tenshi: Treet should definitely stay home and wait on Karissa. Also Karissa and/or Lirain should sit on him until he sees sense. Unfortunately, its not going to happen.

Wizard: Yup, forty. I'm pretty proud of that number myself, finishing this story will be a huge accomplishment. Of course, it'll leave a gaping hole in my life as well, but I'm sure I'll find a new tale to fill it in with.

Ranysong: I think Companions pretty much are the Valdemaran equivalent of saints, only more human and less saintly. Don't worry, snarky Karissa will be back in action soon.

Oceanmate: Nope, Karissa wont be riding off to rescue anyone any time soon. Lirain and their Lifebond will be key in this, though. Glad you liked my chapters.

Anyway, chapter 29 has us moving back into the familiar world of Treet, leaving Karissa to stew in her angst for a couple chapters or thereabouts. Treet has abandoned the Collegium for the moment and is riding off to see his family, who he assumes will welcome him with open arms. He is, as everyone correctly surmised, about to have his hopes rudely dashed. We shall see where this all is leading.

This chapter is mostly just a lot of exposition about how things stand with Treet and Lirain which has to be gone through before I explode everything, so enjoy as best as you can. I know it took a while to get this chapter out and I apologize. This one was very difficult for me to write, for some reason.

Again, if you didn't read chapter 27 because I posted two very close together, please do so.

Chapter 29: The Border

More than anything else, Treet remembered her face. He had been accustomed to seeing it at least once a day, although recently it had always been from afar. Since he and Lirain were apart, his mind seemed determined to supply him with an equivalent sighting at least once a Candlemark.

He tried to tell himself it was all in his mind, but he wasn't so sure anymore. She didn't look well. Her face seemed pale and pinched with worry. Worry, Treet irrationally felt, for him. Their leave-taking hadn't been the most satisfactory of things.

He had been dressed in his Trainee Greens, although he wouldn't be working at the House of Healing again for another moon. He refused to dress in Holderkin style clothing and would have done the same had he actually owned any clothing other than his Greens. Some defiant impulse had told him that he should go among them as a partial-stranger, a Healer in Training, not as the scruffy Holderkin boy they had cast off so long ago as a pair of outgrown shoes.

His Greens would also afford him protection in one of the villages outside of Holderkin lands, should he need it, or so said the little voice in his mind that told him that all this would somehow go badly wrong before the moon was out. He had been provided with the Waytokens usually given to traveling Healers and Heralds, but he had mostly been too shy to use them. He had slept rough in the woods, using the tokens for provisions as necessary only.

More often than not he had bad dreams, of the type he had not had since his first moon as the Collegium. How long ago that seemed, although it had really only been half of a year at most! He felt older, certain that should he encounter the ghost of himself riding the roads he tread upon, his doppelganger wouldn't be able to recognize him.

The evening before Treet had left, he had wandered almost aimlessly around the Collegium, secretly hoping to see Lirain. He had finally encountered her, stumbling back to her room completely exhausted. She hadn't had it in her heart to be cold to him and they had ended up talking halfway through the night, although they had not talked at all about his impending departure.

Their exchange, it seemed to Treet now, had been rather desperate. Lirain, at least, had had an air of someone trying to hold on to something slipping inexorably away from her, and Treet had had the same feeling himself. Whenever they were together the air seemed charged with tension and it had been doubly so that night, as though there was something they were supposed to see or do, something just out of their reach.

When it had come time for Treet to leave, Lirain had simply looked at him for a long moment before turning away. She wondered under what circumstances they would meet again and then scolded herself for being overly melodramatic.

After days of riding through unfamiliar territory, Treet had been riding long enough that he might actually encounter some areas he recognized. He wasn't sure how to feel about this. When he looked around and saw the brightly colored market where he had met Herald Karissa for the first time, he felt a curious sense of not exactly homecoming, more like affinity. He had only been there once, but it had turned out, unbeknownst to all, to be the gate to Treet's new life. A turning point, so to speak. He had ridden in on a common Holderkin horse, plain as the grass she ate, and ridden out on a Companion. How many could boast that?

As Treet thought that, he sat bolt upright in his saddle. The horse! What had he done with the horse? It hadn't occurred to him in all of the moons of getting settled into his new life but as he remembered he realized that he had entered the market with a horse and exited without one. He smiled a little wryly. That certainly wouldn't have endeared him to his Father, who had probably been more peeved at the loss of the horse than at the loss of his fairly useless and rather unmanly son. Treet laughed to himself. He had been too shocked at being picked up and carted off by a Herald to worry about the horse, and Herald Karissa wasn't exactly the type to care.

He entertained a brief thought of running down to the marketplace and asking after his horse, but he soon dismissed that as a foolish notion. He doubted that anyone would remember one leftover horse at the end of a day many moons previous. The poor thing had probably been taken and sold off by some trader. He only hoped she was being well cared for, wherever she was.

Treet continued to ride. He wished he could just think of nothing in particular and let the naggingly familiar scenery pass him by, but his mind was running in insistent circles from fear to anxiety to elation to excitement and back again.

On one hand, he felt more secure in his identity than he had ever been before. On the long lonely journey he had had a lot of time to think. At first, he had been unsure if he ever wanted to return to the Collegium. He had remembered how he had felt after Healing Karissa, how uncertain in his own abilities he had felt. What if all of that power was too much for him to bear? What if he hurt someone, or failed to Heal someone who needed it? How would he live with himself?

He had tangled with that idea for a few days, and it had been a long and lonely struggle. He tortured himself with hundreds of scenarios, trying to decide how he would react to letting someone down, to causing pain and suffering when he was trying to help and Heal.

It had occurred to him one night like a hammer to the head, only without the corresponding concussion. He might fail, he might do harm, but there were two very good reasons why he should continue anyway, two reasons which outweighed a hundred reasons to leave. First, no matter how much suffering he inadvertently caused, and he would work his hardest to minimize that, it would be feathers weighed up against the amount of good he could do, good which might not be done otherwise.

The other reason was that Treet had, literally, a Gift for Healing. In his time at the House of Healing, even when he was only washing out empty potion containers or cleaning out animal cages, he was immersed in a work that he loved, a work which called out to him as nothing in his life ever had before. No matter how much hardship that life brought him, how could he give it up knowing the level of satisfaction and fulfillment it gave him as well?

He was going back. This was his place, this was where he belonged. It was hard for him to believe now that he had even briefly considered throwing it all away. He simply hoped that his father would be proud of what he would be able to do with his life.

It was in this optimistic and enthusiastic state of mind that Treet entered the lands that had once been his home. As he passed through the fields, they were emptier than he remembered. The few who were working, all males, which surprised him after so long at the Collegium, turned their faces from him and pretended not to see him.

Treet couldn't help being somewhat disheartened by this. 'I guess I assumed they would all welcome me,' he thought. He knew that it had been foolish. In his moons away, he had somehow forgotten how the Holderkin were, had written off or forgiven all of their actions with the aid of a memory blunted by time and distance.

He wondered if he had done the right thing, coming back. Maybe it would have been better if he had simply let go of his past, as almost everyone had urged him to do. He pushed that doubt out of his mind. He was here now, and he would meet whatever came. He would see his mother, at least. She had always cared for him.

As he reached the collection of buildings where he knew he would find his family, his stomach flipped and he felt vaguely sick. Obviously someone who had seen him riding through the outlying fields had run ahead and informed his father of his imminent arrival. He told himself that it was far too late to turn back now, but seeing that more people than just his father awaited him, Treet rather wanted to.

He recognized some faces. It hadn't been that long since he had left. His mother was absent, he noted sadly. In fact, there wasn't a single woman in the crowd, except for one, standing with his father. She was hardly old enough to be called a woman, at least by Treet's standards, but he knew she was probably old enough to get married. The subject of girls had always been a fairly abstract one for him. It wasn't that he preferred those of his own sex – they held little attraction for him either. There were a few of those among his village, he assumed, and at least one that he knew of for sure. It was simply as though nobody he had ever met held the type of attraction for him that he was looking for. Almost nobody, anyway, but Treet wasn't going to think about that.

He dismounted as he reached the crowd and someone took his horse. It wasn't a comforting gesture; it simply reminded him that he had no road of escape.

His father looked exactly the same as he always had. He looked like everything Treet had never been. He was strong and sturdily build, where Treet had never been. Everything about him exuded confidence and command, as well as a certain air of brutality, which came as an unpleasant reminder to Treet of exactly how much he had suffered in this place.

As he approached his father, he had a sudden urge to kneel or bow or something, as well as a sudden certainty that wrath was about to descend – probably on him. His father didn't exactly look pleased to see him.

"Tretin!" He boomed, as soon as Treet was close enough to grab. "What on earth do you mean by coming here in that girl's outfit, boy?"

Treet supposed that from far away, the bruising clasp his father had on his arm might have seemed friendly.

"Boy, perhaps if you change instantly into something befitting your gender, rather than debasing yourself, and behave yourself adequately at your wedding ceremony tonight, I shall omit to punish you for this infraction. Whatever ungodly habits you learned among those heathens shall stop tonight, or I shall give you such a beating as you've never had in your life!" This last sentence was hissed into Treet's ear, accompanied by flecks of spit.

Treet tried to wrench away, the impact of his father's words not quite sinking in. "No, you don't understand, I'm only visiting. I came for my holidays. I have to go back to the Collegium next week."

Treet's father smacked him across the face. "Never mention that abominable place here again. I am responsible for your fate, not you. Just because some unworthy Herald of Valdemar, and a female one at that, or so the letter we received told us, chose to kidnap you and seduce you to her wicked ways, does not mean that you will be allowed to bring shame upon us all by living in Haven, that heart of depravity."

Treet stopped struggling, as every time he moved his father simply tightened his grip on Treet's shoulder, and Treet had a feeling that soon something might break.

"Now, I present to you your Firstwife, Bessa. She came with a substantial Brideprice. Of course, I shall provide you with land to start your own Steading."

A small, pinch-faced girl was then ushered forward for Treet's inspection. He couldn't help comparing her to Lirain. There was no merry twinkle in this girl's eyes, no glimmer of good humor. She held herself stiffly and refused to meet his gaze. His heart cried out that she was only a child. Her mind was as blank and dead as stone, there was none of that instant communion he felt with Lirain, or even the presence he felt from the other Trainees. When he cautiously extended his empathy, he was shocked not only by the atmosphere of hostility around him but by the utter despondency present in his supposed betrothed.

Treet had almost stopped being shocked by the situation he had found himself in. He had no thought left for shock or betrayal or even anger – he simply reacted.

"I won't marry her! I wont marry at all! I thought you understood!" The last, ripped from him almost involuntarily, earned him another openhanded slap. Treet's eyes stung, not entirely from physical pain, although he knew that tears would do his cause no good.

"You are a disgrace to the Holderkin. We are trying to bring you back from your depravity, but I can see that you have already been too far corrupted. You will marry this girl, you may as well become accustomed to that idea." Treet's father growled at him before pushing him away roughly.

"Will he not marry the girl, then?" Another man, who Treet vaguely recognized and who looked a lot like Treet's father, asked in a rather hostile fashion.

"Oh, he'll marry her," Treet's father assured him. "He'll marry her if I have to drag him to the altar myself."

With that, Treet's father picked Treet up bodily and carried him into their house. Before closing his eyes and refusing to look anymore, Treet saw most of his brothers standing so as to get the best view and he was almost grateful for his father's bulk between them and him. He also caught a glimpse of his mother; her face was almost blank except for a telltale shine to her eyes.

Treet's father unceremoniously threw him down the stairs to the storage cellar, where Treet did a rather neat head over heels and landed in a pile of vegetables. Head spinning, he didn't even try to get up, barely hearing his father telling him that he'd be back before the wedding to beat some reason into him if he hadn't seen it by then.

Treet only had one last thought before everything faded into blackness. "How did everything go this badly wrong?"