Luck in the Shadows

haven't you?"
    "More than twenty years," Kari replied. "He's part of the family."
    Alec rubbed wax into his bowstring and smoothed it over with his fingers. "Has he changed much since you first met him? Being Aurлnfaie and all, I mean."
    Kari smiled, thinking back. "It was before we'd married that I first met Seregil. Micum came and went as he pleased, just like now, but always alone. Then one fine spring morning he showed up at my father's door with Seregil in tow. I remember seeing him that first time, standing there in the kitchen door, and thinking to myself, "That's one of the most beautiful men I've ever seen, and he doesn't like the looks of me one bit!" his Kari took up a new piece of mending. "We got off to a rather rough start, Seregil and I."
    "Beka told me."
    "I thought she might have. How mature he seemed to me then. I was only fifteen. And now look at me." She smoothed a hand over her hair, where scattered strands of silver were mingled with the dark. "A matron and mother of three girls, and Beka older than I was then. Now he looks so young to me, still the handsome boy. In the reckoning of his own people he is young and will be long after I've been tilled into these fields."
    She looked pensively down at the vest on her lap. "I think it troubles him, to see Micum getting older, knowing sooner or later he must lose him. Lose us all, I suppose, except perhaps Nysander."
    "I never thought of that.
    "Oh, yes. He's lost friends already that way. But you asked me how he's changed. He has, but more in his manner than in his looks. There was a bitterness in him back then that I seldom see anymore, though he's still a bit wild. He's been a good friend to us, though, and brought Micum safely back to me more times than I can say."
    She left unsaid the fact that more often than not it was Seregil who had led her husband into danger in the first place. This boy was cut from the same cloth as they, and Beka, too, to her mother's sorrow. What could you do but love them and hope for the best?

25 Return to Rhнminee
    Alec rose before dawn his last morning at Watermead, but found that Beka was up before him. Dressed for riding, she sat mending a broken catch pin on her bow case in the hall. Beside her lay a few small packs containing all she would take with her to the Guard barracks.
    "You look ready to go," he said, setting his pack down next to hers.
    "I hope so." She worked an awl through a stubborn piece of leather. "I hardly slept last night, I was so excited!"
    "I wonder if we'll see much of each other in the city. Where we live isn't too far from the palace grounds."
    "I hope so," replied Beka, inspecting the new catch. "I've only been in Rhнminee a few times. I'll bet you could show me all kinds of secret places."
    "I guess I could," Alec said with a grin, realizing how much of the city had become familiar to him since his arrival.
    The rest of the family soon appeared and they settled down to their last breakfast around the fire.
    "Can't Alec stay a little longer?" begged Illia, hugging him tightly. "Beka still beats him a lot. Tell Uncle Seregil he needs more lessons!"
    "If he can beat your sister just some of the time, then he's a pretty fair swordsman," said Micum. "You remember what your Uncle Seregil said, little bird. He needs Alec back."
    "I'll come back soon," Alec promised, tweaking one of her dark braids. "You and Elsbet haven't finished teaching me to dance yet."
    Illia cuddled closer, giggling. "You are still awfully clumsy."
    "Guess I'll go check on the horses," Beka said, setting her breakfast aside half eaten.
    "Don't dawdle, Alec. I want to get on the road."
    "You've got the whole day ahead of you. Let him eat," chided her mother.
    Beka's restlessness was infectious, however, and Alec hurried through his porridge. Shouldering his pack and bow, he carried them out into the courtyard only to find that Beka had put his saddle on
    Windrunner. Patch shifted resentfully behind the Aurлnfaie horse, tethered on a lead rein.
    "What's this?" he asked. Turning, he saw the others beaming at him.
    Kari stepped up and kissed him soundly. "Our gift to you, Alec. Come back to us whenever you can, and keep an eye on this girl of mine in the city!"
    "You'll see me at the Sakor Festival,"
    Beka said gruffly, embracing her. "That's just over a month away."
    Kari pressed a handful of Beka's wild, coppery hair to her cheek. "As long as you remember whose daughter you are, I know you'll be fine."
    "I can't wait to