Rediscovery (43 page)

Then had come men looking for help to fight a great fire, and before he left, he had heard that
Terranan
weapons had started that fire. He had heard first-hand the tale of the distance-weapons that they used. And when he expressed disbelief, they

courteously demonstrated those weapons for him.

He knew then that he needed to speak with Leonie, desperately, to find out how

the
Terranan
could do such things. He had continued to try to reach her, thinking that the barrier between them was some construct of the Keepers, and that she would soon get around it, but after a day or so he had realized that it was not something created to wall him out by the Keeper of Arilinn, but was a barrier built of some great and terrible shock Leonie had endured.

And when he returned home, he found a message waiting for him there—saying

only that for the rest of her training at Arilinn she could not be allowed to communicate with any of her kin. He would have taken oath that nothing short of death or catastrophe could have cut Leonie off from him. And now he feared that it was catastrophe which had.

He rubbed his weary eyes, and looked up, to see the last of the lords of the

Domain registering their votes.

He had won. The youngest man in the Council, and his will had prevailed. There

would be no contact with the
Terranan.
They would remain in involuntary isolation in the Hellers. He should have been thrilled, that so many older, more powerful men had bent to his will, unprompted by any word from his father.

But the taste of victory was dust and ashes in his mouth.