White Road

understood this time and let out a soft, bitter laugh. “You’re not bad. You’re not anything, except … Except …”
    “Are you crying?”
    He forced a smile as he looked up at Silma. “No, I just had something in my eye.”
    He got Sebrahn’s other boot on and quickly distracted the children by proposing a contest to see who could do the most somersaults to make the longest path in the snow.Sebrahn copied them, and once he’d mastered the basic movement he was off, rolling like a wheel, blond braid flying. Faster than any natural child could go. The others looked slow and clumsy compared to him. The thought filled Alec with a mix of revulsion and guilt. What did he feel for Sebrahn, really? Was it love? Could you love such a creature? Or was it just neediness on his part? Pity? Duty?
    Silma came back and squatted down beside him. “You’re sad.”
    Alec wished the child wasn’t quite so perceptive. “Maybe a little.”
    She reached out and took his hand in her snowy mittened one. “How come you and your little boy has yellow hair? Are you Tírfaie?”
    “I’m half Tír. My mama was ’faie.”
    “Is she dead?”
    Alec nodded.
    “Did you cry when she died? Mynir cried and cried and
cried
when his mama died, and his father cried, too.”
    “Uh, yes.” He’d cried after the vision of her death.
    “What clan was she?”
    Alec was spared answering when a woman in a shawl came hurrying down toward them. “Silma, you come in now.”
    “But I’m playing!” the girl whined, still holding Alec’s hand.
    The look her mother gave him made Alec gently free himself and stand up. “You’d better do what your mama says,” he advised.
    “Can we play with your little boy again?” asked Silma.
    “That’s enough of that, Silma,” her mother said firmly. “The rest of you, come with me. There’s hot honeyed milk for you in the kitchen, and apple tarts.”
    Sebrahn came up the hill with the rest of them and started to follow them to the house.
    The woman cast a meaningful look over her shoulder at Alec, half frightened, half warning. Alec wondered what she’d heard, and how.
    Alec sighed, sitting there in the midst of the birds andpaths the children had made with him. “Sebrahn, come here.”
    Sebrahn squatted down next to him.
    “It’s all right. We don’t need any hot milk, do we?” But it would have been pleasant to join the others in a warm kitchen with women bustling around, fussing over them. He missed Kari Cavish, maybe even the way he would if he really were her son. He wished again, more strongly than before, that Sebrahn was really the sort of child who got invited into warm kitchens.
    He was sitting there, just staring out at the waves on the lake, when he heard the crunch and squeak of boots on snow behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Seregil coming toward them, bundled up to his chin and carrying a steaming mug in each hand.
    Alec relieved him of one and took a careful sip. It was honeyed milk, with a generous lashing of rassos. He gave Seregil a grateful look. “Are you done with the elders?”
    “Yes. They want to speak with you next.” Seregil paused. “I saw what happened with the children. I thought you could use a little company first.”
    “You thought right.” Alec held the cup in both hands, watching the reflections of clouds drift across the milky surface.
    “Don’t take it too hard, talí. People are protective of their children.”
    As I am of Sebrahn
, he thought.
But if he’s no child, then I’m no father
.
    It made his head hurt. Taking another long sip, he asked, “So, what are the elders saying?”
    “So far I’ve done most of the talking. Some of them aren’t convinced there’s no risk, having him here.”
    Alec’s heart sank a little lower. He’d felt accepted by many of Seregil’s kin last night, and thought he might make a few friends here, too. He was going shooting with Kheeta and some others later that afternoon. “I thought we were going to be welcome here.”
    “We are, for now. But some rumors are spreading already.” He pointed at Sebrahn, who’d already worked hisway out of one boot again. “We have to be more careful. The more ordinary we can make him seem, the easier it will be.”
    “Ordinary? He never will be that. Not ever. He’ll always be exactly as he is.”
    Seregil gave him an odd look.
    Alec set his cup in the snow and lashed the boot more securely onto Sebrahn’s foot. The rhekaro didn’t resist, but he