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351 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published July 3, 1990
”If I die, I’ll either take him with me, or leave him so crippled he’ll be not threat. So help me, I will protect Valdemar with my last breath, and if there is a way to protect her after my death, I’ll find it.”
”You are quite alone, Herald-Mage Vanyel.”
”There’s only one way you ever disappointment me and–I don’t know, Van, but–it just doesn’t seem that important when you stack it up against everything else you’ve ever done.
”I can’t not help. Not anymore, anyway. And it doesn’t matter if anyone knows what I’m doing or not; I know, and I know I’m doing my best. And because of what I’m doing, things are better for other people. Sometimes a great many other people.”
“I only know that without you, no rank or fame would be worth having.”
***
“As long as I can be with you”
►►► STORY & CHARACTERS:
If he’d been the marble statue he resembled, his isolation would likely have been a good thing.
But he wasn’t. He was a living human being, and one who would not admit that he was desperately lonely.
To the lowest hells with that. If he doesn’t find somebody he can at least talk to besides Savil, he’s going to go mad in white linen one of these days. He’s keeping everyone else sane, but who can he go to?
Nobody, that’s who. Medren gritted his teeth. Well, we’ll see about that, uncle. If you can resist Stef, you’re a candidate for the Order of Saint Thiera the Immaculate.
Vanyel was as beautiful as a statue carved from the finest alabaster by the hand of a master. But thanks to that absolute control, he was also about as remote and chill as that same statue.
Which is the way he wants it, Medren sighed. Or at least, that’s what he says. “I can’t afford hostages,” he says. “I can’t let anyone close enough to be used against me.” He doesn’t even like having people know that he and I are as friendly as we are—and we’re related. He thinks it makes me a target. . . .
That’s my only hope; court favor. And it’s a damned good thing Medren kept me from losing it before I even had a chance at it. Being a Bard is better than being a beggar, but it’s still a risky profession to be in, with no real security. A Healer can always rely on the Temple to care for him if something happens to him, and if a Herald ends up hurt or ill—Havens, most of them end up dead—there are always places for them here, at the Palace. But a Bard has only himself to rely on. If he loses his voice, or the use of his hands. . . .
The harsh reality was that Stefen had come from the streets, and if something happened to him, the streets were likely where he’d end. Unless he built himself some kind of secure future.
Otherwise—
No. He got up, and stared for a moment out his window, at the Palace, the heart of all his hopes. No. I’ll do it. I’ll make my own luck. I swear I won’t go back to that. I won’t end up like Berte.
“You’re beautiful today, love,” he said aloud.
:Huh.: She snorted, and shook his hands off. :You say that every day.: But he could tell by the way she arched her neck that she was pleased.
:That’s because you are beautiful every day,: he replied.
:Flatterer.: she said, tossing her silver waterfall of a mane.
►►► ACTUAL SPOILERS AND OPINIONS:
►►► OVERALL:
“Bards are supposed to be so cursed good with words,” Stefen said unhappily, looking into Vanyel’s eyes as if he was looking for answers. “Well, all my eloquence seems to have deserted me. All—all I can tell you is that I think I’d love you if you were a hundred years older than me, or a deformed monster, or—or even a woman.”
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