Free HM02 House of Moons by K.D. Wentworth Page B

coalesced into a tall, broad-shouldered sister, well grown and strong.
    Seashine, we welcome your strength and vision. Summerstone regarded her gravely, remembering that this sister had not yet borne her first son. She was barely out of the trees, quite young compared to the rest of the gathering, and her judgment was still clouded occasionally with ilserin excesses.
    Summerstone projected an image of the young human whom she and Windsign had once called to them, then trained in the ways of the nexus: a slender female with golden hair as pale as moonlight and eyes of the same elusive shade. She saved this world from temporal disruption when she was hardly more than a child. She textured the image with Moonspeaker’s fierce, uncomplaining strength and her former courage in the face of fear and pain. She has spoken well for the ilseri to her kind.
    The short green tendrils that covered Seashine’s head writhed with indignation and distrust. She is still one of them, and if they have not forgotten after so long, they never will. In the fullness of time, they will always come back.
    Let us examine the nexus for possible Whens, Windsign interrupted. Then we will consult our sister Moonspeaker and decide what must be done.
    * * *
    Kevisson hunched his shoulders against a biting Highlands wind as he trudged back across the grounds to Shael’donn. His wet clothes clung like a clammy second skin and his feet were blocks of ice, but much worse was the coldness he felt within. Why in the name of all that was holy had he turned on Haemas in front of the Council and half the members of the Highest Houses as well? No wonder she had left without telling anyone. Reaching Shael’donn, he jerked the huge door open and passed the startled student on duty without a single word.
    It was his damned pride; he knew that. Born of only a Lowlands House and with his dark coloring, he had always been oversensitive to the slightest insinuation that he was not as good as his fellow Andiine Masters.
    But Haemas had never seemed to see anything but simple Kevisson Monmart when she turned those pale-gold eyes on him. The image of her introspective face rose up in his mind, and he thought back to twelve years earlier, when Lord Senn had sent to the Lord High Master of Shael’donn for the best Searcher available. Kevisson had answered that summons. The charge had been to find the daughter of a High House who had attacked her father, then run away to the Lowlands. Haemas Sennay Tal had been that girl, not quite sixteen at the time. He’d found her using the ancient mind-disciplines taught by the Andiines, and in one way or another, it seemed the link he had established with her then had never been broken. He sighed. They had both come so far since those days. She was light to his dark side, a river of quiet strength and perseverance. He couldn’t imagine life without her.
    He ran into several more students on the steps, including one from the Eighth Form whom he had been tutoring personally. Ignoring their greetings, he swept by and felt their bewildered thoughts follow him up to his small room in the West Wing.
    Finally, closing the door behind him, he leaned against the varnished wood and gave into the ache; she had left without telling him, had gone away to only-the-Light-knew-where to nurse the pain he had caused. He stared around his sparely furnished room, then squared his shoulders. Myriel and Ellirt were beyond his help, but he could still do something about Haemas. Although she probably never wanted to see him again right now, it wasn’t safe for her to go off alone. She never admitted it, but the House of Moons was a sore point with the more old-fashioned Houses, especially in the Highlands where the High Lords had little interest in seeing their wives and daughters and sisters better trained and more able to decide for themselves how to live their lives. She had enemies, not the least of whom were the Killians, since she had once refused to