"Have there not? How lucky for you."

The sarcasm rubbed Kieran the wrong way. "Is this how you honor your oath to the Feyreisa?" he snapped. " 'Learn to get along,' she said, yet here you are again, taunting and attacking us. After she told you to stop."

Gaelen's mouth opened…then shut. His eyes narrowed, and he bowed his head to acknowledge the point scored. "Sieks'ta, kem'jita'nos. You are right. She would not be pleased." His gaze became pointed. "That you started it is no excuse."

Kieran's face froze in midsmirk.

Kiel coughed into his hand. "He's got you there, Kieran," he muttered, which earned him a frigid glare from his friend. "Well, you did," he said, then turned to Gaelen. "Since you find our warrior skills so lacking, perhaps you could help us improve them?"

Several of the other Fey stiffened in outrage.

"Are you asking me to be your chatok?" A mocking lift of one black brow accompanied the question.

Kieran snorted, thinking Kiel was making a joke. Only warriors of the greatest skill and most unbesmirched honor became chatok, highly regarded mentors of warriors. Gaelen vel Serranis, the rebel warrior who'd willingly thrown himself down the Dark Path to avenge his twin sister Marikah's murder, was the last Fey who would ever qualify for such an esteemed position.

Kiel wasn't joking. "We lost too many masters in the Wars, and of those who survived, the greatest and most experienced gave their lives to build the Mists. War will soon be upon us again, and we cannot afford to be ill-prepared. You have skills we all need." The Water master shrugged, the gesture a graceful ripple. "So, aiyah, Gaelen, I am asking you to be my chatok for whatever levels of the Car Baruk you think I have not truly mastered. Will you grant me this honor?"

Gaelen was openly taken aback. "That was sarcasm, vel Tomar, not a serious offer. I have been dahl'reisen. I chose the Shadowed Path. I walked its bitter trails for a thousand years rather than ending my life in honor, as a worthy Fey would have done."

"That doesn't change the fact that you have skills we all need. Even the Feyreisa advised us to learn from you."

"So she did." Gaelen's lips pressed tight together. "And as I promised her, I will teach you what I know, but only as a brother Fey. I will not dishonor the chatok who mentored me by pretending I have the right to stand among their honored company."

"Then I will accept your instruction, and I thank you for your willingness to share your knowledge and warrior's skills with me." Kiel bowed smoothly, his waist-length, blond hair spilling forward like gleaming falls of sunlight.

Gaelen was silent for a moment, his black brows drawn slightly together as he regarded the other man. "You are surprising, vel Tomar. And I thought the world held no more surprises for me."

Kiel smiled, his eyes as blue and guileless as a calm sea. "I am a Water master, Gaelen. There is always much more to us than shows on the surface."

Gaelen laughed. "That I will grant you." He glanced at Kieran. "And you, puppy, are clearly an Earth master. Head hard as a rock. Will stubborn as stone. And so resistant to change, it will take an earthquake to move you once you've settled into place. Just like your father." When Kieran scowled, Gaelen grinned. "Ah, the Feyreisa will have to forgive me. Pricking that pride of yours is too much fun to give up altogether."

Kieran snarled.

Gaelen just laughed again and glanced at Kiel. "Where's vel Jelani?"

Kiel pointed towards a small copse of white-trunked, golden-leafed Shimmering Lady trees on the uppermost level. "Up there, with the Feyreisa and her sisters."

"Beylah vo, vel Tomar."

"Sha vel'mei," Kiel replied as the infamous older warrior raced off towards the shimmering trees.

Kieran punched Kiel in the arm. Hard.

"Ow!" Kiel rubbed his biceps. "What was that for?"

"'Be my chatok'?" Kieran exclaimed. "'Teach me what you know'? Tairen's scorching fire! What the Seven jaffing Hells are you thinking? You're my blade brother, and you're taking sides with the enemy?"

Kiel glanced at Gaelen's retreating form, then back at Kieran. "He's your uncle, not the enemy. Besides, the Feyreisa told us to learn from him."

"He's a dahl'reisen."

"Former dahl'reisen," Kiel corrected.

"Where do you think he's been this past week? Praying in the Bright Lord's church? He's been with them, the ones who walk the Shadowed Path."

Kiel's brows rose over eyes as deep and blue as the Lysande Ocean. "What difference does it make if he has? He is lu'tan to the Feyreisa. In life and in death, he is bloodsworn to protect her."

"You're too trusting, Kiel."

Kiel's blond brows shot up. "Me? I wasn't the one who stood there while he stripped my blade and used it against me."

Kieran's back teeth ground together. "He's insufferable."

"Admit it," Kiel said, "insufferable may be exactly what some of the masters at the Academy need to shake them up and challenge their methods, to get them thinking about new ways to train our warriors. And," he added with a smirk and a sidelong glance, "exactly what some rock-headed Earth masters I know might need as well."

"Get scorched."

Near the copse of Shimmering Lady trees that overlooked the Garreval, Marissya, Ellysetta, and the twins planted a freshly tilled flower bed with the rosebushes and flowers Lauriana Baristani had loved most. Rain's task at the Lake of Glass had given Ellysetta the idea of creating a small memorial garden: a little something of Mama to leave behind for Papa and the twins, here where Papa could sit and look out over Celieria while the twins played Stones on the lawn nearby.