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her emotions under control or she'd never get through to Wolpan, but how was she supposed to do that with the Four Knot intent on treating her like a bratty child? She rubbed her eyes before the tears could spill, though more welled up when she caught her injured finger on her nose.

  "What do you mean?" Wolpan's voice jumped half an octave, but at least she seemed to be taking Dora seriously.

  Dora turned to glare at Wolpan, brushing aside the thought that that was probably what the other woman wanted. "What's for my own good? We'd get there a lot faster if you just came out and said it."

  "Really, there's no need to be like that, Dora." The Four Knot's tone turned conciliatory again. "It isn't my fault you're sick. I know it's not pleasant, but it's not anyone's fault, really. We'll get you sorted out as soon as we can."

  "Wolpan, I'm-" Dora cut off as Keshnu gave her shoulder a warning squeeze, then hated herself for the obedience of it.

  The Gift-Giver spoke before she could line up her sentence again. "Wolpan, something about the way you're behaving is upsetting Dora." There was heat in his voice, and Dora could feel a pressure almost like anger coming at her from that side. Was Keshnu actually angry? Was that possible? "I don't understand how or why, but you should either say your piece or leave her alone."

  Wolpan flinched as Keshnu finished. Scowling at the Gift-Giver, she said, "I'll say what I have to say when I can be sure she's listening."

  "I am listening! I've been listening all along." Dora gave into her anger, watched herself lean forward, voice raised. "I'm not insane and I'm not a child. Will you please just tell me what it is you're so fussed about?" She could feel the Sherim in her head, suddenly, clearly. The complete system, knotted into and through itself, just waiting for her to open it if she ever needed the power. Choosing not to open it was a surprisingly calm sensation. A simple decision, simply made. However annoying Wolpan was, she wasn't actually a threat.

  The Four Knot had gone white, mouth hanging open. Dora rolled her eyes. The woman simply couldn't handle surprise at all. At least she jumped back to anger quickly enough, her face contracting into a petulant scowl. "Very well. I don't want you living in Vessit when we get back. You're too much of a liability."

  "I-" What? Dora looked back at the fire, her mind cold and empty. She should be angry about that. No, the Four Knot was right, and it was her job to defend the people of Vessit. The decision probably was entirely within her remit. She could have been nicer about it. But then, Dora had pushed her to speak. She tried to nod, make some sort of acknowledgement, but she couldn't tell if it got through.

  "See?" Wolpan's words went straight past Dora, aimed squarely at Keshnu. "She's out of it. I'll see about some food."

  The Four Knot stood, straightened her skirt fussily, and walked back toward the pile of packs near the tent. Dora hunched down deeper, squeezing her eyes shut against the wind and more tears. Keshnu leaned closer, his hand sliding across her shoulder and down her back. A shiver ran through Dora, but she held herself steady.

  "I need to show you something." The Gift-Giver spoke quietly, and glanced after Wolpan.

  Dora let her eyes fall closed again, put her free hand up to cover them. She took a breath that wobbled all the way in and out. "Can it wait?"

  "I feel quite strongly that it shouldn't." Keshnu's tone, flatter and less human than she was used to, drew Dora's eyes to his face. There, too, he seemed more the Wilder, his cheekbones ever so slightly too high, his eyes shining. "I'm sorry, I know you want to rest, but it is important. It is something we both have a personal stake in."

  Rel? It had to be. What else might Keshnu think she shared a personal interest with him in? But then, the Gift-Giver had no reason to take a personal interest in Rel. Or at least, Dora hoped not. Still, if it concerned Rel, it was unmistakably part of her duties. Whatever her duties were supposed to be. Pressing her forehead into the heel of her hand did nothing to help her headache, but it did at least cover the worst of another tremor. "Alright. Where is... whatever it is?"

  "I can show you anywhere, but it would be best to avoid Wolpan seeing." That settled it, then. Rel had done something else to get himself in trouble. Wolpan had nothing but contempt for the Clearseer.

  Dora let Keshnu help her up, leant on him when the world tried to sit her back down again. Her head felt light, her attention wandering ahead of them towards the tree-line. Keshnu exchanged muted words with Wolpan, still crouched by the packs. It would be a chore lugging all that stuff, plus tent, home with them.

  The sky overhead was dropping swiftly through shades of blue found nowhere else in nature, blending seamlessly and cloudlessly to orange to the West. Dora held her blanket tight around her shoulders, but nothing could stop it snapping in the wind or snagging on the low branches of the young pines at the edge of the wood. Stepping in among the trees changed the quality of the air completely; the wind splintered to nothingness, leaving the scent of needles hanging heady around them.

  Something skittered away under a bush, the sound lost as soon as heard under the constant rustling of foliage. Dora peered after it, but the gloom got the better of her, sunset afterimages dancing against the delicate ranks of leaves until her sense of what really was a part of the First Realm threatened to shatter yet again. She blinked, dimly heard Keshnu say something. It took her a moment to realise he wasn't talking to Wolpan again.

  "Sorry?" She turned to look at him, found him shrouded in shade.

  "Your attention was wandering again." Dora was so used to Keshnu sounding perfectly human that the flatness of his voice seemed stern. Either something had weakened him, and there'd been no sign of that earlier, or he was seriously distracted by something. He went on, "The less focussed on the First Realm you are, the more activity I see in your Sherim. Practice concentration."

  Dora gave him a tired frown. "Easier said than done."

  "Yes." Keshnu's smile didn't quite connect with the rest of his face.

  Dora glanced back toward the fire. Wolpan was leaning over it, fiddling with something. She turned back to Keshnu. "What do you need to show me?"

  The Gift-Giver's face went completely blank, so still it could have been a mask. Sure sign that he felt uncomfortable about something. Or he simply didn't know how a human would feel about what he was about to say. His motions awkward, he lifted a hand in front of himself and twisted it in the air. As he did so, a ball of gold appeared, cupped in his palm.

  She recognised it even before she saw the faint, tightly-closed edges of the petals. "It's... you." The image leapt out of memory from the last moments before she'd blacked out, her fingers straining to reach the battered flower of Keshnu's consciousness, to rescue him from... whatever had been attacking them.

  "It is our child." Keshnu's sole lingering concession to humanity was the way his voice dropped almost to a whisper. Dora didn't dare look at his face, hovering as a pale blur at the edge of her vision. The orb - the child - seemed to float separate from the reality behind it. She put her hands up to the sides of Keshnu's, too afraid to touch either him or the child.

  "What do you mean?" She whispered.

  The Gift-Giver brought his free hand up to hers, his touch wooden but so careful Dora found herself fascinated. "When you reached out to me just before you lost consciousness, some clash of our logics caused a neonatal shear."

  "I saw you split..." Very faintly, she could feel the warmth of the neonate on her skin. Why hadn't she thought of that when she saw it? She'd thought she was seeing double, but Wildren reproduced by splitting off copies of themselves. She hadn't meant to cause a shear in Keshnu, but she hadn't been in control of her actions at all.

  "It should not have been possible, in the First Realm."

  "But I'm a Sherim." The shiver that ran through Dora wasn't cold, not this time. "What do we do now?"

  "I have no idea." A little of the life came back into Keshnu's voice, but, thinned by the strain, he sounded ancient. She found the courage to look up at him, and if the calm in his face was f
ixed and awkward, she read the light dancing in his eyes perfectly. "I feel that the child should live in the Second Realm, but my kind may know no more than yours."

  Dora shifted her hand to hold Keshnu's. "Your kind will know more than anyone I can think of. I'd sooner trust the child to them. But... you will allow me to be there when it chooses a name?"

  "Of course!" That, finally, seemed to snap the Gift-Giver back to himself. "You're the father, after all."

  "Mother." The correction came automatically. Maybe she was getting better.

  Keshnu smiled. "No, I thought about that. In humans, the child is attached to the mother before birth. The analogy fits better this way around."

  "I suppose it does." Dora watched as Keshnu repeated whatever trick he'd used to hide or store their child. So strange to have no name, not even a gender, for the little one. She held onto the Gift-Giver's other hand long enough for another smile.

  ***

  About the author

  R. J. Davnall has been telling stories all his life, and thus probably shouldn’t be trusted to write his own bio. He holds a PhD in philosophy and teaches at Liverpool University, while living what his mother insists on calling a 'Bohemian lifestyle'. When not writing, he can usually be found playing piano, guitar or World of Warcraft.

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