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and me that she could read our true feelings through the actions of our sha’um. She was quiet for a long time.
    “We have had a moment for ourselves,” she said at last. “But I have felt it myself—the need to be active again, to continue with this task that has been so strangely set for us.” She touched the hilt of the King’s sword. “I must take this to Eddarta, as soon as Yayshah and the cubs can make the trip.”
    “Have you any idea when that will be?” I asked, perhaps a little too sharply.
    “Has Yayshah not endured enough hardship for our sakes?” she said. “Displaced from the Valley, deprived of a den, and forced to travel throughout her pregnancy? I will not ask her to move again until she assures me she is willing.”
    I bit back another sharp remark and tried to understand her feelings. “I don’t mean to push you, love,” I said. “It’s only that I have been thinking of the vineh. Because the Council controlled them and bred them for city workers, there are many more of them close to Raithskar than a natural colony would have produced. Free of the Ra’ira’s control, they’re reverting to their wild state. You remember what they were like outside of Sulis.”
    She nodded and shuddered slightly. Two sha’um and three people against twenty disagreeable, adult male vineh. We had won—barely. Thymas and Ronar, his sha’um, already weakened, had taken the worst damage and had been quite some time recovering, even with the help of Tarani’s healing sleep.
    “These aren’t quite that bad—they’re out of the habit of being nasty. The ones we ran into on the way out of town were easier to deal with than the Sulis group. But it won’t take much time before they’re a real threat to the safety of the people in and around Raithskar.”
    “I understand that you feel a loyalty to your people,” Tarani said.
    Something in her tone made me say, “They are your people now, too.”
    “I have no
people
in that sense,” she said. “Volitar trained me to a life view that allows me nothing in common with Zefra and Indomel, my true family—for which I can only be grateful. Knowledge of my heritage and this present task prevents me from accepting the comfort of Thanasset’s home as my own. I have you, and Yayshah, and now this sword.”
    I held her close for a moment, distressed by what she had said, but unable to comfort her.
    “It’s not only that I’m afraid for them,” I said. “I’m impatient because I feel responsible and committed, and because I can’t do anything for them. The next step is yours, and your movement is restricted by consideration for Yayshah. I don’t question the Tightness of it, Tarani; it just makes me uncomfortable, caught between the need to go and the need to stay, with no real power to choose.”
    She spoke with her head against my chest. “As always, it is better when we speak truly and frankly,” she said. “I know that Yayshah would be quite comfortable staying in Raithskar until the cubs are fully grown. I also know that her desire is born of the instincts and habits she has already abandoned, and she must adapt to the needs of her family—and I include us, as well as Keeshah, as her family. I promise I will judge the time to leave by when she and the cubs are fit to travel, and not by when Yayshah is ready to leave, which she may never be.”
    “That’s fair,” I said. “Meanwhile, I’ll try to control this itchy feeling and be civil to you.”
    I felt her smile. “Will you sacrifice so much?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but asked another question. “How much further to Raithskar?”
    “Keeshah has covered a lot of ground,” I replied. “I think Raithskar is no more than half a day away from here.”
    “Then let us also rest,” she said, and started rocking her body to wear a form-fitting groove in the sand. I did the same, until we lay side by side, separated by a few inches of sand, our hands joined. “A long, true sleep