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By Root 415 0

“But that’s giving Firesong no credit whatsoever for any kind of feelings, honor, or decency; that’s assuming that he is as shallow and light-minded as he would like us to think. That is not fair to him, and you know better. For that matter, so do I.” She took his chin in two fingers, and angled his face towards hers so that he had to look into her eyes. “Ke’chara, he is a Healing Adept. Don’t you realize what that means? Of all people, you should. For all that he seems light-minded on the outside, he cares, more than anyone I have ever seen. He cares for you, and I think he has surprised himself by how much he cares for you. He has put a great deal of himself into the Healing of you, and he will literally empty himself for you if you let him, right down to the dregs. He is as decent and honorable as any Herald I know, and that is the greatest compliment I could give anyone.”

An’desha swallowed slowly past the great lump in his throat. “I—”

“He has his faults, plenty of them, but failing to care about you and what happens to you is not one of them. He and I are rather alike when it comes to matters of the heart. Maybe it’s the blood we share, I don’t know.” She looked very stem, and he was forcefully reminded of Need. “Give the man some credit. He has the capacity for great love, and he’s not going to risk great love for something trivial. It was nothing more than a game. He would never, ever jeopardize anything having to do with you.”

He had to believe her. She knew; she knew people, and she knew Firesong and Darkwind. He blinked, his eyes feeling gritty and sore, and nodded. Then his fear rose in him again, worse than before, when he realized what he could have done for no cause. Somehow that made it all worse.

“But Fal—” he began, with a wail of despair.

She cut him off with a look and a finger placed against his lips. “Falconsbane had nothing to do with the way you reacted. Being far too ready to think yourself hurt did, but not Falconsbane. He is gone, and good riddance.”

“No,” he replied, with heat. “This time you don’t understand! Even if he’s gone, he’s still a part of me, he’s corrupted me, he’s gotten into the way I think and react and—”

“Hell, no,” she said firmly. “Horseturds. For one thing, I doubt that Mornelithe Falconsbane ever cared enough about anything or anyone to ever feel jealousy! In order to become jealous, you have to care for and value something besides yourself, you know.”

That took him aback; it was something that had never even entered his mind. He had to nod cautiously. Falconsbane had certainly never cared for anyone—only valued them as prizes.

She smiled grimly. “As for your own reaction and how strong and irrational it was—perfectly ordinary people have moments of jealousy as terrible as anything you just experienced. It happens all the time.” Her smile turned into a grimace of pain. “Unfortunately, Heralds see the aftermath of that kind of jealousy all the time, too.”

“I’m not ordinary,” he began.

“No,” she agreed readily. “You aren’t. Ordinary people do not have the ability to rend people limb from limb with little more than a thought. But ordinary people do have the ability to rend other people limb from limb, period, if they are angry enough. It just takes a little more effort on their part, and as I said, Heralds see the aftermath of those episodes of jealousy and rage all the time. The gods know that in this city alone there are plenty of beatings and knifings and other kinds of mayhem inflicted every day to prove that perfectly ordinary people can be driven to kill over jealousy. The only difference between them and you is that they will use perfectly ordinary physical means against the object of their rage.” She coughed and rubbed her nose. “It’s horrible, it’s tragic, but there it is.”

“But my point—” he tried to interject.

“What makes you different from those stupid, ordinary people,” she continued inexorably, “is that you stopped yourself from acting. You controlled yourself. You were horrified by the very idea you could have hurt Darkwind, even though you were already