Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey Page A

someone as a patient, she often noticed small things. He stood a little to the left, leaning. His dark eyes and pale skin gave him a sallow look. “Come here,” she said simply.
    “She won’t need to sing the lament if you’re here,” he said.
    An odd response. She licked her lips, watching him. Was he happy about that, or sad?
    Rhiannon began the song again.
    Dionne stepped toward him.
    He backed away, one step for her two.
    She held out her hand.
    He stood for a long moment, his head cocked, listening as Rhiannon’s voice swelled all around them.
    Dionne took another step toward him, surrounded by Rhiannon’s song, which held him in place. She took his hand. Power filled him, dark, but roiling and misty, as if his very own purpose fought against the man he had become. She touched his energy lightly, trying to understand him.
    He flinched.
    She looked at him, daring him to pull away.
    He didn’t.
    She glanced at Rhiannon, who winked. That was enough to let go, to trust the situation. They would live or they would not. At least they were together. She took a great, deep breath and closed her eyes, swaying. She grounded, pulling on the strength of the earth and the forest. She let the energy build up around her and in her, and then she sent him some.
    He seemed starved. Energy drained from her faster than she expected, driving her dizzy. His pain overwhelmed her, filling her. Perhaps she had done the wrong thing, trusted too much. Maybe she would die here after all.
    Rhiannon began a new song, one she had written for Dionne when they were both nine, the year before they started their training. It spoke of healing and joy and helping, and as Dionne poured her energy freely into him, he suddenly began to shake, finally dissolving into tears. He knelt on the ground in front of Dionne. “Now I know why that song called me so much.”
    Deckert and Ciena had come up on either side of the threesome, and her sister’s captor withdrew his hand from Dionne’s and said, “I am sorry. I will go with you.”
    Dionne blinked. Could they trust that?
    Inside her head bloomed a single word. :Yes.:
    So that was what a Companion sounded like. Beautiful.
    The Heralds led the man who had surrendered to them away, Deckert speaking softly to him while Ciena bound him securely.
    “How did that happen?” Dionne asked.
    Again, the voice. :Your sister’s voice has worked on him for almost a week. Rhiannon taught him what he had become, and your Healing showed he needn’t stay that way.:
    Dionne glanced at the keep, which now looked no more imposing than some of the Valdemar border keeps, a large, square building with a lookout turret on each corner, few windows, and a stout wooden doorway. There would be buildings and storage rooms inside, and whoever else the mage had kidnapped.
    She started toward it, Rhiannon at her side. Along the way, Rhiannon continued the song of joy.
    “What will happen to him?” Dionne asked.
    Deck smiled. “We’ll let him go far away from you two. Valdemar is uncomfortable for mages now, and he is truly changed. Someone so young should have a second chance.”
    Dionne smiled agreement, and Rhiannon said, “Yes, he should.”
     
    Bard Breda and Master Healer Gavin both wore solemn faces as they listened to the twins’ story for the second time. They were in a small classroom they’d commandeered for the purpose, Rhiannon and Dionne sitting in student chairs while the two teachers sat at the front. At the end of their story, the girls sat with their hands folded in their laps. Breda was not particularly fooled; they were not as meek as they were pretending to be. In fact, she was pretty sure they’d get up and walk away from their callings if she told them they would have to finish out their years apart.
    The girls twitched and fidgeted lightly, a foot here, a little finger there. Clearly, they thought it at least possible that Breda and Gavin would force them to separate again.
    Breda had decided Gavin