Changing the World: All-New Tales of Valdemar

“At least the sheep and the goats have already been brought back down to the town green,” she said at last. “And the traders won’t fear to bring the grain supplies up here now, so we’ll be able to winter the animals well enough.”

The captain nodded, her eyes considering the young woman seated beside her. “We should think about increasing the grain stores this year, just in case. How are your harvests coming? Josette says her bones are telling her that it’ll be a long winter and a hard rainy season.”

Shia smiled fondly. “No one would ever dare suggest that Josette’s bones are telling her that she’s too old to spar with the youngsters. Calli and Pira have helped me gather, though, and Calli is allowing me to experiment with growing some plants in the sunny room next to the chapel. It’s close enough to the kitchen fires that I think it will stay warm enough to keep some of the hardier stock alive all winter.”

She didn’t add that she thought that Josette’s bones were right, and that she had already prepared for a long and hard season away from the mountain’s wild herbs.

Drawn by some unnameable call, Shia opened the side door off the Stadres’ kitchens and glanced out over the garden. As she expected, the rain was pouring down, creating lakes and rivers where in summer there were plant beds and paths. No sane creature stirred out of doors during the unpredictable flash rains, yet here she was, somehow knowing that she needed to be somewhere other than tucked securely in Calli’s tiny spare room, where she had spent the winter tending her experimental plants. Tugging her cloak up around her ears, she darted out through the sheeting rain and splashed around to the front of the house, finding a spot just under the eaves that was a little less wet. Not knowing why she was standing there, she stared down the main road for long, cold minutes, until she saw movement that was not falling rain coming towards her from the edge of her vision.

Mud-spattered, worn out, he was everything a Companion on Search shouldn’t be—nothing like the gaily caparisoned mare who had come for Teo. He was so drenched, it was impossible to tell where the lathered sweat ended and the cold rain staining his coat began. He didn’t even look white anymore, just a muddy dark gray. Yet he was unmistakably what he was—even to the bells on the soaked harness, though their ring could not be heard above the rain pounding on the roofs.

This time, Shia was the only one who stood in the square, rain running in rivulets down her face. Light glowed out of the windows around the square, and she suddenly hoped that no one was even looking out to see this bedraggled colt slogging through the fetlock-deep mud.

And then he was standing before her, his sodden nose brushing her cheek, his glorious, impossibly blue eyes swallowing hers.

:I’m sorry you had to wait so long for me, Chosen.:

Tears mingled with the rain on her face, streaming warm with cold, and Shia collapsed heedless to her knees in the muck, weeping out the agonizing emptiness of the last four years.

The Companion—Eodan, she knew without words—folded his forelegs and lay in the mud beside her, curving his neck around to draw her slight form against his steaming side, his warmth seeping into her bone chill.

:I came as soon as the King’s Own Companion said I was ready—although he warned me about the spring rains in Breyburn.: There was a note of self-deprecating amusement in his rich MindVoice. :You will learn that patience is not natural to me.:

“What about Pira? She’s Gifted, I’m sure, so shouldn’t you be for her . . .” Shia finally managed to get words past the rawness in her throat.

:Her Companion is more patient than I—Pira is still a little too young to begin the training. You, my Chosen, should never have had to start this late.: There was a strange note of regret coloring his MindVoice as it echoed in Shia’s head. :It would have been different if—: he cut off his thought, then abruptly changed the subject, nudging gently against her shoulder.

:Come, Chosen, it’s a good thing you’ll soon be wearing Trainee Grays, for those leggings are unsalvageable.:

Shia gave no response to his jest, lost in the wonder of Eodan’s presence, and yet baffled by the forlorn ache still within her, deeper than the presence of Eodan beside her—even part of her—could reach. Without words, she knew that Eodan knew, and regretted, that it was there inside her, that dull pain, that lost feeling of incompletion.