Free No Quarter by Tanya Huff

kigh, it's really important to know where the boundaries are. I know, but it's hard to explain it to other people. With you—well, with you and Gyhard—the boundaries are really clear. His kigh is almost completely distinct from you."
    "Almost!"
    Magda blinked, a little stunned by the near panic in that one word. Her voice gentled. "It's all right." Needing to heal, she reached out to touch Vree's kigh and found herself pushed back.
    "No. It isn't all right." Vree turned and stared down at the stone between her feet. "My brother and I nearly lost ourselves in each other. Gyhard and I have to stay separate. I can't go through that again."
    "Ah." Magda nodded slowly, understanding dawning. "So that's why you're afraid to love him. Nothing tangles two kigh as tightly as love."
    "I'm not…" but there wasn't any point in saying it because the girl knew and she'd already made it clear that she thought it was the most romantic thing she'd ever heard of.

    *Vree, she's our only chance.*
    *For what? Never mind.* Getting angry wouldn't solve anything. Walking away would solve even less. Vree pleated a fold in her wide-legged trousers, her fingers leaving damp prints behind on the fabric. "Look, can we just leave it?"
    "Sure, we can leave it. But I want you to know that I only want to help. Really."
    "I know." And to her surprise, she did.
    *You trust her?* Gyhard sounded as surprised as she felt. *I don't want to discourage this, Vree, but why?*
    *Because she isn't afraid of us. Of either of us.*
    The Imperial Ambassador to the Court of Shkoder stared at the Imperial sunburst on the packet delivered the night before by the mate of the Gilded Fancy and sighed deeply. He hated opening packets that bore the Imperial seal as they invariably contained something unpleasant, but he'd delayed opening this one as long as possible. Taking a last, slow swallow of the orange juice he imported from his sister's estates in the Seventh Province, he pushed the dishes from a late lunch aside and picked at the golden wax with one gleaming fingernail.
    "I hate unpleasantness," he murmured. There had been trade difficulties of late between Shkoder and the Empire. Shkoder had been complaining for some time that the much larger country to their south had been flooding their market with cheap iron. The complaints had become more forceful, and something was going to have to be done—the Empire had no desire to cut exports. The very nature of the Empire insisted it had to keep expanding, one way or another.
    "I hate trade." The ambassador sighed deeply as he broke the seal. "It's such a lousy reason to start a war. If I'm really lucky, this will be nothing more than another Imperial kidnapping."
    The details of Prince Otavas' abduction had been under the last golden sunburst he'd received. He'd been informed only because a Shkoden bard had been involved.
    He read the thick parchment packet twice.
    The Empire had sent an assassin into Shkoder and not just any assassin, but one of the two who'd recently rescued His Imperial Highness and been released from her oaths as a result.
    Technically, she was no longer an assassin.

    Nor did she think she'd been sent.
    She was staying with the bards.
    "And just what exactly am I supposed to do with this information?" he asked himself, wondering why everything in Shkoder always seemed to come back to the bards.
    When Bannon had shared her head, it had been difficult to find where her thoughts ended and her brother's thoughts began. Their shared lives had created a tangle of hers and his and theirs. Thinking about it afterward, she'd been surprised that Bannon had been able to pull free so easily when the chance came to return to his body. Thinking about that later still, during the long days she'd spent wandering the confines of the bardic suite in the Imperial Palace, she realized Bannon had always known which parts were him. Why shouldn't he? She'd defined him all their lives.
    Gyhard was different. He was always