But. Blessed Agnira, I’m a cold-hearted bitch. I ought to be on my knees with thanks that he’s in love with me, or thinks he is. Instead, all I can think of is “how can I pry him loose?”

  On the other hand, Tarma was right. There is no way I would ever be allowed to marry him-

  Not that I’d want to.

  Tarma’s entrance broke into her ruminations, and she looked up gratefully at her teacher. All this thinking is making my head hurt. Daren, who had been reaching for her arm, stiffened, and pulled away a little, and Kero breathed a sigh of relief.

  Tarma’s eyes flicked toward Daren, though she gave no other sign that she’d noticed him moving. “I think you’re ready now for something a little more serious,” the Shin‘a’in said gravely. “It’s about time you both got used to handling the weapons you’re going to fight with. Not that you’re going to practice all the time with them,” she added, holding up a long hand to forestall any questions, “But you’re going to be working out at least a candlemark every day with them. I can approximate the weight and balance of your real weapons with your practice swords, but I can’t duplicate it—and your bodies will know the difference.”

  She handed Daren a long-sword, two-edged, but with a point as well. The blade was magnificent, and the jewel in the hilt, a ruby so dark as to be nearly black, was worth Kero and all of her family combined.

  For her part, she took up Need with a certain amount of trepidation. Although she felt a kind of tingle when she first set hand to hilt, the sword showed no other signs of life.

  Which suited her very well. Over the course of that single night, she’d had her fill of being the tool instead of the wielder.

  “Tarma,” she said, hesitantly. “Is this a good idea? I mean, I thought I was supposed to be learning swords- manship, but if I’m going to use Need—”

  Tarma chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. First off, you’ll be bouting aginst me, not Daren, and she won’t let you harm a woman. Secondly, she works in peculiar ways. Now that you’ve established your talents as a swordswoman, she’ll never help you fight again. Ah, but magic now, that’s where she’ll protect you. So far as I know, there isn’t a magicker in the world can harm you while you hold her.”

  “So that’s how it works,” she murmured without thinking.

  “Exactly. That’s why she did both for you when you went after Lordan’s bride; you were neither fish nor fowl yet.” Tarma grinned. “Now, since she’s no more than a very good blade in your hands—defend yourself, girl!”

  Blessed Agnira, it’s been a long day. Kero hung her sword in its rack, pulled her armor off and draped it over its stand, and stretched. Tarma was right about having to get used to Need’s weight and balance. There’s a distinct difference between her and that practice blade. She stretched again, reaching for the ceiling, feeling shoulders pop. That hot bath is going to feel so—

  She started for the bathing chamber—and realized she was still holding her sword.

  That’s odd. She frowned. I could have sworn I hung her up.

  She turned back toward the wall rack, and tried to place the sword in its cradle. Tried.

  She couldn’t make her hands let go.

  “Oh, no you don‘t,” she muttered. “You’ve done that to me once. No more.”

  She put the sword in the rack, and concentrated on freeing her left hand, one finger at a time.

  Let. Go. Of. Me. She stared at her hand as if it didn’t belong to her, concentrating until she had a headache, a sharp pain right between her eyebrows.

  One by one, she loosened her fingers; one by one she pried them off the scabbard. As she released the last of them, she felt something in the back of her mind stretch, and snap.

  She pulled her right hand away, quickly, before the sword could take control of her again.

  “I’ll thank you to keep your notions to yourself,” she told it frostily, ignoring the incongruity of talking to an inanimate object. Then she turned, and walked deliberately back to the bathing chamber. She “heard” something, as she “heard” thoughts, faint and at the very edge of her abilities to sense it. It sounded like someone grumbling in her sleep ... disturbed, but not awakened.

  She ignored it and drew her bath.

  Whatever it was, it went away while she was undressing, and by the time she slid into the hot water she wondered if she’d only imagined it.

  But as she lay back, relaxing, she began to feel a kind of pull on her mind, as if something had hold of her and was trying to tug her in a particular direciton.

  Since the direction was her bedroom, she had no doubt who that “someone” was.

  She ignored it, and it grew more persistent; then painful, like a headache in the back of her skull. Stop that, she thought sharply, sitting up in the bath. The pain eased off, but the tugging was still there. She sat back and thought for a few moments, then she put up her very best shields, the shields even Warrl had not been able to break through.

  The tugging stopped. She waited for several moments, but whatever the sword was doing did not seem to be able to penetrate the shielding.

  You ruled my grandmother, sword. You’re not going to rule me. She closed her eyes, leaned back again, and let the bath relax all her muscles for her.

  Finally the water cooled, and she felt relaxed enough to sleep. She opened her eyes and stared at the wall, thinking. I can’t keep shields like this up forever. If I‘m lucky, I won’t have to. If I’m not, though, this is going to be an interesting little power struggle.

  She lowered her shields, slowly, waiting for the sword to resume its insistent nagging. You may be older, with all manner of magic behind you, she thought at it, but I’ll bet I’m a lot more stubborn than you are.

  Nothing.

  It’s a good thing Daren was too tired after practice to be interested in bed games tonight.

  She waited for a moment, then left the shields down and climbed out of her bath. This is too easy. It’s not going to let me off this easily. She dried herself, and went back into her room to lie down on the bed. If I were Need, what would I do? A straight-on attempt didn’t work ... anytime she starts on me again, I can bring my shields up and block her out. So the next logical move would be to try something subtle.

  It occurred to her, as she pulled the covers up a bit tighter around her ears, that it was possible she had inadvertently weakened the sword’s hold on her by not using it during the first few moons she’d owned it.

  Those books of Grandmother‘s—they had something about soul-bonding in them. I think I still have them, in fact. She sighed. The bed was so warm—and the room was already getting chilly. And she was so awfully tired....

  Still—I need the information more than I need the sleep. She gritted her teeth and flung back the covers resolutely, flinching as she swung her legs over and put her feet on the cold floor. At least the Tower was heated a lot better than the Keep. There, this deeply into winter, she could put a mug of water down beside her bed, and it would be frozen all the way to the bottom by morning.

  She wrapped herself up in a robe, groped for the candle on the table beside the bed, and took it to the fireplace. She scraped away enough of the ash to expose a coal and lit her candle at it.

  The books were right where she thought she’d left them; pushed into the corner of the bookcase next to her desk, ignored in favor of the volumes on the history of warfare and strategy and tactics that Tarma had given her to read. She’d been working her way through them with the interest and enthusiasm she hadn’t been able to muster .for the books of poetry and history her tutors had assigned her.

  I think it was the red one, she decided, studying them as she tried to recall which one held the information she wanted. But—oh, never mind. There’re only three of them. If there was one thing that studying under Tarma had taught her, it was never to discard a book. You never knew when something in it—even in so innocuous a volume as a book of poetry—could prove useful.

  She pulled them out and scurried back to bed with them, putting the candle-holder beside the bed, and pulling the blankets up over her legs.

  She began leafing through the first book, looking for the section on enchanted objects and soul-bonding. It was where she remembered it, and she read it carefully this time, paying special attention to anything that might apply to Need.

  Finally she closed the book, put all three of them on the table, and blew out the candle. She turned over onto her side and watched the embers glowing in the hearth, while she thought about what she had read.

  It seemed that, by her determination to learn sword- work on her own, she had inadvertently weakened the blade’s hold on her. According to several sources quoted in that book, the first few moons were the critical ones in a soul-bonding. Close physical proximity was required after the inital contact, as well as frequent use of the object in question.

  So by hanging her on the wall, and not touching her, I kept her from getting the hold on me that she had on my grandmother. And probably everyone else that had her over the past however-many years.

  So the soul-bond had been set in, but lightly. Had Kero been a magic-user, this could have been an unfortunate situation. It might even have been a disaster, depending on how much the magic-user in question was likely to depend on the sword’s ability to take over and provide fighting expertise. It was probably just as well that Kethry had been deeply soul-bonded to the thing, given some of the stories Kero had heard from her, and from Tarma.

  But to protect Kero from magic, it simply needed to be in physical proxmity to her. Which meant it probably didn’t need to be bonded to her at all—

  Except that it wants to know just who it’s fighting for. And it probably needs to have some kind of bond to make sure it can protect the bearer at all levels. But it’s got a light bond, so to protect me, now, it’s got everything it has to have.

  It probably wasn’t going to like that, though. Given what Kethry told her about the way the sword had behaved in the past....

  I’ll bet it’s going to fight me, trying to get what it wants. I’m not going to give in. Now, I wonder—should I give this thing up?

  If I can....

  Kethry had never said anything about the sword deciding to switch owners before the present owner was ready to lose it.

  It could happen. All it would have to do would be to decide that it doesn’t want to protect me right at the moment some sorcerer has me targeted. Well, that was true enough—except that would also be violating the blade’s own purpose.

  Given that it’s refused to work against some fairly nasty characters simply because they were female, I don’t think it’s likely to drop me in the middle of danger.

  That still didn’t answer the question of whether or not she wanted to be rid of the thing.

  I don’t think so. It’s too valuable. And—I don’t mind paying for that value with a little altruistic work now and again. Truth to tell, it’s something I’d probably do on my own anyway. The sword is just going to tell me when it needs to be done, and who needs help.

  It was getting harder and harder to keep her eyes open, especially since there didn’t seem to be a good reason to stay awake any longer.

  But as she drifted away into sleep, she couldn’t help but wonder just how much of a fight the sword was going to give her. And who was going to come out the victor.

  The next four weeks were a constant reminder that a potent Shin‘a’in curse was, “May your life be interesting.”

  The moment she fell asleep at night, she dreamed. Vivid, colorful dreams of women in peril, in which she rode up, and put their peril to rout. Dreams of a life on the move, in which all innkeepers were friendly, all companions amusing, all weather perfect—in short, a life right out of the ballads.

  Finally, on Warrl’s advice, she took the sword down off the wall, and unsheathed it. With it held in both her hands, she thought directly at it, unshielded.

  I’m not thirteen, and you’re not going to gull me with hero-tales, she told it firmly. Save them for minstrels and little children.

  Was it her imagination, or did she hear a sigh of disappointment as she hung the blade back up on the wall?

  In any event, the dreams ended, only to be replaced by darkly realistic ones. Night after night, she was witness to all the evil that could be inflicted on women by men. Abuse and misuse, emotional and physical; rape, murder, torture. Evil working in subtler fashion; marriages that proved to be no more than legalized slavery, and the careful manipulation of a bright and sensitive mind until its owner truly believed with all her heart in her own worthlessness. Betrayal, not once, but many times over. All the hurts that could be inflicted when one person loved someone who in turn loved no one but himself.

  This was hardly restful.

  And during the day, any time she was not completely shielded, the sword manipulated her emotional state, making her restless, inflaming her with the desire to be out and on the move.

  But she wasn’t ready, and she knew it. Even if the blade didn’t.

  Every day meant fighting the same battle—or rather, mental wrestling match—over and over; the sword saying “Go,” and Kero replying “No.”

  And to add the proper final touch, Daren was all-too-obviously becoming more and more infatuated with her. And infatuation was all that it was, Kero was pretty certain of that. She had a long talk with her grandmother about the differences between love and lesser emotions, and to her mind, Daren did not evidence anything other than a blind groping after someone he thought was the answer to all his emotional needs.

  Or as Tarma put it, much more bluntly, “He’s barely weaned, and you’re a mature doe. In you, he gets both mate and mama. I hate to put it that way, child, but emotionally you’re years ahead of him.... Young Daren isn’t in love with you, little hawk, he’s in love with love.”

  Kero hadn’t said anything, but she’d privately felt Tarma had wrapped the entire situation up in one neat package. Daren would make someone a very good husband—when he grew up. She was fairly certain that when he did so, it would happen all at once—but he’d have to be forced into the situation.

  Meanwhile, he wasn’t going to. Not with someone like her around.

  He was making some hints that had her rather disturbed, hints she hadn’t confided to anyone.

  Hints that he would be willing be actually marry her, if that was the only way he could keep her. As if he thought she could be kept! That was keeping her awake at night as much as the dreams were.

  Then, one night, he did more than hint. He told her that he would talk to his father about ennobling her if she’d just come with him to the Court. And there was only one reason for him to make that offer that she knew of. He was serious about her.

  And she didn’t love him. She liked him well enough, but her answer to the question “Could you live without him?” was most decidedly “yes.” If he left tomorrow and she never saw him again, she would miss him, but she’d go right back to her sword-practice without a second thought, and her sleep would hardly be plagued by dreams and longing.

  She got up early the next morning, after a particularly bad night, to pace the cold floor and try to get herself sorted out.

  It was at least a candlemark till dawn, but she just couldn’t lie there in bed anymore. She lit the candle and got dressed in the chill pre-morning air, and began walking the length of her room, pacing it out as carefully as if she was measuring it.

  I like Daren, she thought, rubbing her arms to warm them. He’s clever, he’s intelligent, he’s flexible—he’s not bad in bed, either. He wouldn’t ever hurt me deliberately.

  But the sword had filled her few sleeping hours with some fairly horrific scenes. And if she married Daren, there was no way she could do anything about problems like the ones the sword was showing her.

  The prince’s wife just can’t go riding off whenever the mood takes her. In fact, I doubt very much that the prince’s wife would be able to enjoy half the freedom Kerowyn does.

  That’s really what it came down to: privilege, or freedom? The relief of being “like every other girl,” or the excitement of being like no one else, of setting her own standards? Power and wealth, or the ability to, now and again, right a wrong?

  If she married Daren, she would never again be able to totally be herself.

  If she didn‘t, she’d spend the rest of her life keeping her head above water, and wondering if the next sword thrust, the next arrow, was Death’s messenger.

  Security, or liberty?

  It was enough to give anyone a headache, and she had an incredible one, when, in the pearly-gray moment of pre-dawn, someone tapped lightly on her door.

  She nearly tripped over her own feet in her haste to answer it; she was expecting Tarma, but it was Daren.

  He was white and shaking, and from the tear streaks on his face and his reddened eyes, he’d been crying. He tried to compose himself, his upper lip still quivering as he tried to breathe more calmly.

  Kero stood, frozen, with her hand still on the door latch. She couldn’t even begin to imagine why Daren would look this way; surely he hadn’t been upsetting himself that much over her, had he? But his next words told her everything she needed to know.

  “Kero—” he said, hoarsely, as tears began to trickle down his face once again. “Kero, it‘s—my father’s dead.”

  Ten

  For one long moment, she couldn’t seem to do anything but stand there stupidly, staring at him. Then his shoulders began to shake with silent sobs, and she reacted automatically, pulling him inside, taking him over to the bed and getting him to sit down on the side of it.

  “What happened?” she asked, bewildered. Last she’d heard, the King was in excellent health, and Prince Thanel had been safely married off to the Queen of Valdemar. Dear heavens, that was over a year ago. Closer to two. Daren expected to be called home then, but it didn’t happen, and that was when he started making hints about getting me ennobled. Have we been here that long?