"I do."

"Then shall I continue to try to surprise you some more?"

"Like you did that first night in Arishaig?" She smiled, then leaned in and pressed her mouth against his, taking her time, making sure he understood what she was feeling. Then she broke the kiss, cocked an eyebrow, and grinned. "There. I feel much better. Now I'm going to sleep."

She rolled into her travel cloak, shifted on the Sprint's cushions until she was comfortable, and started to drift off. Her last memory before sleep took her was of his voice saying, "I feel pretty good, too."

They rose at dawn and flew throughout the day, over the vast stretch of the Tirfing. By nightfall, they had just passed its northern fringes. Though they could have kept going through the night and made their destination by dawn, exhaustion claimed them shortly before midnight, so they once more made camp.

When Aphen finally brought out of the blue Elfstones the following morning and summoned their magic, she no longer had to stop and think about what she was doing. By now she was familiar with the process and prepared for the magic's response. When the tingling began in her fingers and the heat washed through her body and out again in swift, insistent waves, she was neither frightened nor intimidated. She didn't even bother with closing her eyes when she conjured the image of what she wished the Elfstones to find for her.

She might have chosen to focus her efforts on the silver seed that was the object of their search, but she chose instead to find the two people who had taken it. Her memory of their faces was clear enough that she was able to visualize both easily, and she could tell from the magic's response that it recognized what it was she was looking for and knew where to find it.

Thus, she was carried out of her body and across the countryside, through woods and over grasslands, down roadways and paths to where the buildings of a tiny village were scattered in either singular isolation or tiny clumps all about a cluster of shabby businesses that included a stable and harness repair, a blacksmith, a mercantile and grocery store, two taverns, a tiny inn, and a meeting hall. Men and women moved through the shadows of trees canopied overhead, and horses stamped and nickered softly in their traces where they were hitched to posts.

There, right in the midst of it all, the man and the woman who had found Arling and taken her to the Federation walked beside their little wooden cart and donkey on their way up the road and out of town.

Aphen dismissed the magic and the images. "We have them," she announced, a grimness to her voice. "Let's get flying."

They flew on throughout the morning then, somewhat past midday, set the airship down in at the edge of a small clearing. Leaving it safely tucked into its leafy concealment, they set out on foot.

The afternoon was winding down by now, shadows lengthening as the gray day threatened to bring more than brief showers, dark thunderheads beginning to form to the west and move in their direction. They picked up their pace in response, walking more quickly, anxious to reach the shelter of the village before the worst of the storm caught up to them. Hoods lifted, and the collars of their cloaks pulled tight, they bent their heads against the wind and rain and slogged on through the deepening dark like wraiths, as faceless and voiceless as the shadows through which they passed.

Aphen managed to keep them moving in the right direction, even after the road had disappeared in a muddy smear and they had to reach the village by following a cow path that wound upward through the surrounding hills and came down on the far side. She began searching for the cottage she had seen in her vision, the one the couple had been traveling toward. Sora, she remembered suddenly. That was the man's name. But she couldn't remember the woman's, only the sound of her voice-kind and filled with concern.

She darkened her heart against such feelings. These people had taken Arling and given her to the Federation. They had stolen the Ellcrys seed.

They were not entitled to any consideration.

They were perhaps a quarter mile outside the village when they came upon the cottage Aphen had been looking for. Leading the way, she entered the yard and walked up to the door. She was aware of how poorly constructed the house was, how shabby the few outbuildings. She looked for farm animals and saw several chickens and the donkey looking out the door of a small shed. She saw a tiny vegetable garden.

These people had very little. They were just barely getting by on foraging and whatever they could grow.

She felt her dislike softening.

She knocked on the door, and heard a voice call out to her. "Coming!" When the door opened, the woman with the kind voice was standing there. She was wearing an old dress and apron, and her hair was done up in a farm wife's bun.

"Oh!" she gasped in genuine shock. She took a step back and then caught sight of Arling peering at her over Aphen's shoulder. "Oh, my goodness, child-it's you! Are you all right?"

Arling nodded, smiling uncertainly.

"Thank goodness! I'm so sorry for what we did. We didn't know. Sora said you needed medical care and we didn't have any to offer. Not even here, in our village. No Healer, not even a midwife. But look at you! You seem fine. And your sister and her friend have bought you safely back. I'm so relieved." She glanced from face to face. "Come in, come in. I have hot tea on the stove."

They stepped inside, where the girls were ushered to seats at a tiny kitchen table. There were only three chairs, so Cymrian declined the offer of the third and said he would stand, moving off to warm himself in front of a small stone fireplace. The woman poured them each a mug of tea and then joined the girls at the table.

"Sora had business at the tavern, but he should be back soon." She seemed genuinely pleased that they were there. "He will be so surprised. How did you find us?"

Then she saw something in Aphen's face and hesitated. "What's the matter? Something's wrong, isn't it? That's why you've come. Something's wrong."

Aphen nodded. "My sister was carrying a silver stone when you found her. It was taken while she slept but before she was given over to the men on that Federation warship. Do you have that stone?"

The woman stared. "A stone? No. I never saw a stone. It was taken, you say ..."

She trailed off abruptly, and right away Aphen could tell what had happened. "Your husband has it, doesn't he?" she said.

The woman was trembling. "He's a good man, really. But he thinks things should belong to him just because he's found them. He's been trying to sell something in the village for several days now. When he left today, he said he thought he had a buyer. I don't pay much attention to that sort of thing. Mostly, it never comes to anything, even when he thinks it will."

She shook her head, flushed and angry. "But stealing! I'm so sorry. I would have made him give it back if I had known."

She was crying freely now, her face streaked with tears.

Aphen and Arling exchanged a quick glance. Arling looked at if she might cry herself.

Not so Cymrian. "Where can we find him?" he asked.

The tavern was a single room with a bar, some stools, a few tables and chairs and not much more. It didn't even have a fireplace. What heat there was emanated from a small wood-burning stove in one corner and from the bodies of the men clustered about the tables and pressed up against the bar. Tankards of ale were being passed around, and voices were loud and insistent.

But the voices died into mutterings and the eyes of the patrons shifted to the doorway when the Elessedil sisters and Cymrian entered. They were Elves in a community populated mostly by Southlanders who had drifted west to find a better life and only found more of the same. There was a Dwarf in one corner, bent over his drink. There were a handful of Rovers at another table. But no Elves.

A Borderman leaning against the bar a few feet away from her took one look at her black Druid robes, pushed away from the bar, and left without a word. Another, a hunter dressed in leather, followed him out.

At a table near the back of the room, Sora was seated with a pair of men. Another four stood just behind the two in what appeared to Aphen to be a protective circle. As she watched, Sora counted coins from a stack that had been shoved in front of him, taking his time, not even bothering to look up from his task when they entered and the noise level dropped.

But as Aphen and her companions started across the room, one of the men seated said something to Sora, who looked up, saw who was approaching, quickly produced the leather pouch in which the Ellcrys seed had been placed, and shoved it across the table to the man who had spoken. The man snatched up the pouch and tucked it into his jacket.

"There, now," Sora said, rather too loudly, "our business is concluded! I must be on my way. A pleasure seeing you."

He scooped the coins off the table and into his pockets and rose hurriedly, nearly tripping over his own feet as he tried to move away.

Cymrian was on top of him before he'd taken his second step, seizing him by his shoulders and shoving him back down into his chair. "Your business isn't quite finished," the Elven Hunter said, reaching down and extracting the hunting knife from Sora's wide leather belt and flinging it across the room.

"Don't move," Aphen said to the men seated at the table, her hand stretched out in warning. Her eyes lifted to take in the bunch clustered at the back of the table. "Don't any of you move."

She tried to keep Arling behind her, out of harm's way, but Arling had other ideas and pushed forward. "Where is the seed you stole from me?" she snapped at Sora. "While I was injured and unconscious, you took it. Where is it?"

The big man squirmed. "I was owed something for saving your life," he snapped. "You would have died without Aquinel and me!"

"You were owed much for saving me, but you had no right to steal what wasn't yours," Arling persisted. "Give me the seed!"

Sora's mouth tightened. "I can't. I sold it to this gentleman right here. He's the lawful owner now. You'll have to take it up with him."

He tried once again to get to his feet, and again Cymrian shoved him back down. "He is not the lawful owner if he bought stolen property," the Elven Hunter pointed out, eyes fixing on the man in question.

Arling's gaze, white-hot with anger, shifted to the man with the pouch. "Give it back to me."

The man was not intimidated. He was long and lean and had the look of someone who had not willingly given up much in his life. "What about my money? I paid for that silver orb. I'm owed."