"Art ready, child?"
"Lady," Becca said slowly. "I am."
She stepped forward and clasped that fiery hand.
There was sun in her face. Overhead, birds were arguing; a blade of grass tickled her nose.
Becca sneezed and opened her eyes.
A young man lay stretched on his side in the grass before her, his head propped on his hand. His hair hung in a tail over one shoulder, brown-black streaked with auburn. That and his brown skin spoke of someone who had spent most of his years out-of-doors. The worn leathers suggested that he might be a woodsman.
"A fresh new day to you, Rebecca Beauvelley," he said, and his voice . . .
Becca sat up, staring down into a lean face made up of stern smooth lines. His eyes were mismatched—one blue and one green—and both focused upon her with some measure of irony.
"Meri?"
The corner of his mouth quirked in a way that she knew all too well. "In this brave new world you have made for us—aye. Meri."
What happened?
she sent, but her thought felt strangely flat, as if it had struck the inside of her skull and fallen. After a moment, she asked again.
"What happened?"
The smile this time was full, and only a little ironical. "Diathen threw down the
keleigh
and mended the world." He nodded beyond her. "Look, at what your vision has brought us!"
She looked up at an azure sky laced with the green branches of trees. The breeze was gentle, the sunlight warm. Beneath her hand, the grass was silken and agreeably damp. There was no mar upon the air, nor any glimmer of ominous forces.
Dropping her gaze, she found two horses grazing near at hand, a big grey stallion and a smaller chestnut mare, a white star on her forehead.
"Rosamunde!" she cried joyfully. "And—"
"Brume," Meri murmured. He paused, then said, hesitantly. "I have something here for you to see."
She turned back to him, blinking at the dry flower of bone in his palm.
"The sunshield," she said, remembering. "But I—" She looked up into his face.
"I do not see any threads binding it," she said slowly. "But, Meri—I cannot see your aura!"
"Nor I, yours," he said gently, and added, with an air of quoting: "
Let there be magic in small things, but let it not be subject to collection, or hoarding, or misuse . . ."
"But . . ." Tears rose; she blinked them away.
"
Kest
," Meri reminded her, "is never lost."
She made shift to smile. "That is true." She nodded at the sunshield. "What will you do?"
"Eventually, I will go to the sea, and return the gift, with thanks."
"And we—we are no longer bound?"
He laughed, slipping the sunshield into his pouch. "That, like so much, may need to be tested," he said so softly that she was not entirely certain that he was speaking to her. He looked up, and spoke more briskly. "If you are rested, Elizabeth expects us at New Hope Village. Palin has a forest to plant, and there's the matter of who will stand tree-kin."
"The Fey?"
"It may be that the High are no more," he said slowly. "Insofar as I understood your thought, that was what you wished."
Becca bit her lip, thinking suddenly of Sian and Diathen, who had been brave and honorable. Surely, there had been others and she had—
"Hold—" Meri took her hand. "They fell, if they did, honoring their service. However, before we mourn them, let us be certain that they fell, and are not simply—" he laughed—"simply!—remade." He grinned. "It is a new world, and warrants exploring, you know."
She smiled back at him. "So you will be a Ranger again."
"So I will be a Ranger, as ever I have been," he corrected, and rose, holding a hand down to her.
She let him help her to her feet, and turned around, looking at the new day.
Who hears me?
she sent.
I hear you, Gardener
, came a deep and distant voice.
My roots are deep and my branches strong. Let the world endure forever.
"What will you do?" Meri asked her as they turned toward the horses.
Becca threw him a grin and swung astride Rosamunde.
"Surely, a Gardener may be a Ranger, too?"