On the day his grandmother died, Domenic Alton-Hastur spent the morning in the solarium, reading aloud to her. Although bitter cold still clung to the shadows cast by the drifted snow, the little room with its thick mullioned windows stayed bright and warm.

Javanne Hastur lay on a couch, propped up on pillows stitched in a pattern of ice-daisies and kireseth blossoms. Against the colorful embroidery, her skin looked chalky, her lips dry and cracked. Age and constant pain had withered her flesh, rendering the hand resting on the blanket as frail as a songbird's foot.

Domenic sat in his usual place, a high-backed chair placed so that he could readily lift a goblet of water to her lips or stroke her hair if she became agitated. At twenty, he was tall and gracefully built, wiry rather than muscular, with a trace of the exquisite masculine beauty of the Hasturs in his eyes and mouth. A book lay open on his lap, one of his mother's translations of fishermen's tales and song lyrics from Thetis. The musical rhythms calmed the old woman.

It wouldn't be long now, Domenic thought with a pang of sadness. He should tell Dom Gabriel, although the old man had been prepared for his wife's death since he had brought her home to Edelweiss.

How easy it would have been to miss this time together. Domenic had every reason to resent his grandmother, and only his increasing restlessness with court life had prompted the visit when news had come of her failing health. From the moment of Domenic's conception, the old woman had set herself up as the enemy of his father, Mikhail Lanart-Hastur. No member of the family had been immune from her vicious attacks. By the time the leroni at Arilinn had identified the cause of her increasing debility, the damage to her brain was irreversible.

Another outrage to lay at the feet of the World Wreckers, Domenic thought. Minute, deadly in their slow insidious action, the tumor-generating particles had lain hidden until it was too late. What other weapons remained, waiting only to be triggered?

Domenic closed the book and brushed his fingertips over his grandmother's wrist. The feather-light touch brought a rush of laran impressions. Her life force had sunk very low, guttering like a candle in its final hour. Barely a trickle of energy flowed through her channels. Focusing his mind through the starstone that hung on its silver mounting, bare against his chest, Domenic embraced her with a wave of love and felt the faint, poignantly grateful response.

The impulse that had brought him here had been rebellion, escape from the life of courtly responsibility laid down for him by his elders, rather than any fondness for his distant, critical grandmother. Why should he care, when she had done everything she could to harm him?

And yet . . .

The first time he sat beside her and silently took her hand in his, something had changed. She had gazed upon him with pain-riddled eyes, and by some grace, some wholly unanticipated insight, he had glimpsed the young woman she had once been, tall and graceful, Gifted with laran, pressured by her family and caste to marry a man she barely knew and to bear him a host of children. He saw her wasted talent, her withered dreams, the love she had lavished upon her children, the tiny redemptive moments of contentment. Then had come the slow creeping doubts, the fears gnawing upon her like leeches of the soul, the moments of shock as her own voice shouted out venomous curses upon those she once loved. Finally, her own body turned traitor, and she had fled here to Edelweiss, to the only place she had known happiness.

That moment of compassion had touched a chord deep within Domenic. All his resentment at the demands of his rank, his restlessness with life in Thendara, his longing to choose his own path, all these had fallen away. He had seen himself in the mirror of Javanne's sacrifice, and found himself wanting.

The pulse of awareness from Javanne's mind faded. Domenic folded his hands on the closed book and bowed his head. The sounds of daily living muted, distant.

A tap on the door drew Domenic from his reverie. He set down the book and went quietly to the door. The Edelweiss coridom stood there, an anxious look upon his features. "Master Domenic, a rider in the uniform of the City Guards has come from Thendara. He insists upon giving his message only to you."

"I'll see him," Domenic replied. "Would you have one of the maids sit with my grandmother and call me if there's any change?"

Domenic went down to the gates. Even in the sheltered courtyard, the wind cut like a whetted knife. A Guardsman, his face reddened, stood holding the reins of a lathered horse.

"I was to give this to you and no other." The Guardsman held out a creased envelope.

Domenic thanked him. "Come in and warm yourself. I'll have the kitchen send you something hot to drink at once."

Having made sure both man and horse were properly attended to, Domenic took the note to his own chamber to read. He instantly recognized his mother's angular script. She had learned to read and write Darkovan as an adult, and had never mastered the smoothly looping calligraphy.

"Nico my dear," the letter began. Domenic could not help smiling at her affectionate use of his childhood nickname.

"I hope this letter finds you well, although I understand there is small likelihood the same is true for Domna Javanne. I cannot tell you how proud I am of your generosity and kindness in going to her. I hope with all my heart that you two have been able to achieve some measure of understanding on behalf of all of us. No one should end their life with such bitterness and unhealed wounds."

How like his mother, to look for a reconciliation, even when her own relationship with Mikhail's mother had never been close. Over the years, Marguerida had borne the brunt of Javanne's rages and had done her best to shield her husband from the old woman's schemes.

"As much pride as your generous visit gives us, your father and I hope that your absence will not be long."

Domenic looked up from the letter. Even the gray light that filtered through the window seemed too bright. On the surface, he read his mother's a gentle reminder that he was missed. Over the last three years, she had given him more freedom than he had any right to expect, being the heir to Hastur and most likely, the next Regent of Darkover.

"You must take all the time you need to sort out the priorities in your life," she had said the night before he left for Neskaya Tower, where he had trained for a season. "Consider this, Nico. None of us are truly free to follow our own wishes. As Comyn, we have great power to shape our world, but at the same time, our world shapes us. There is an old saying that we are as the gods have made us, but I believe the truth is that we remake ourselves in striving to fulfill our destiny."

"Your father and I look forward to seeing you well in advance of the next Council season, I shall not rest easy until I have you once again home with us.

"Your loving mother,

"Marguerida."

Thoughtfully, Domenic re-folded the letter. There was something more in the words than a mere wish to see him again or a hint that his presence was expected at Council season later in the year. He sensed, in a deep and subtle place at the back of his mind, that something troubled his mother.

Among Marguerida's psychic talents was the ability to sometimes sense the future, at least as it affected her and those she loved. She called it her "Aldaran Gift." Had she received another such premonition? Did some vision of disaster lie behind the half-spoken plea?

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© 2007 Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust