"Do what they ask, son, and they'll leave you the way they found you. Do it well enough and they'll give you a taste of their honey and show you the crystal palaces where they live."
"Rizcarn?"
Bro had spotted a too-dark patch in one of the trees.
The voice came from within it, but whether it came from his father-? Strange things lived in the Yuirwood-or didn't live. MightyTree storytellers preached about finding one's ancestors among the trees. Rizcarn himself had preached about waking the old gods. His mother had claimed to have seen the Yuir elves-the full-blooded Sy-Tel'Quessir-dancing by moonlight when she was a little girl. But most of the stories involving the living and the dead ended badly for the living.
"Rizcarn?" the shadow laughed. "Is that any greeting for your father?"
"Poppa," Bro said instead, checking his grip on the Simbul's knife. "Come down where I can see you, Poppa."
Branches rustled. There was a light whump as something landed on the ground. Bro strained his eyes. His father wasn't like other Cha'Tel'Quessir. His hair was glossy black, his skin, the mottled color of moss-covered bark. While he'd lived, he could disappear in midday shadows; at night he was invisible, except for his eyes. As a boy, Bro had laughed when he saw milk-white crescents glistening where his father's face should be. Tonight he remained silent.
"Don't trust me, son? I know I've been gone a long time."
"You've been dead!" Bro blurted.
The crescents vanished. Bro heard last year's leaves crunching beneath Rizcarn's feet. The sound reassured him a little: of dangerous creatures, maybe a quarter of them, had no substance and made no noise with their feet. He retreated a step, into Dancer's shoulder. The colt was calm; whatever that meant.
Rizcarn reappeared in moonlight. Everything that could be seen matched Bro's lost memories. Almost everything. He'd never seen that shirt with silvery studs along the seams and there was a knife long enough to be called a sword slung at his father's waist.
"You've changed," Rizcarn said before Bro could get his tongue around the same words. "I suppose they're calling you Ebroin now?"
He shook his head. "Bro. They call me Bro. Except for Mother-" His tongue froze again. Rizcarn-if the man-shape were Rizcarn-didn't seem to know where he'd been these past seven years. Wouldn't know what had happened to his wife two days ago. Between two heartbeats, Bro gulped down his grief, deciding to say nothing about Shali… yet. "Mother still calls me Ember."
"Mothers don't let go."
Rizcarn came closer. He stroked the length of Dancer's nose, then reached for Bro's hand, the hand that held the Simbul's knife. Without thinking, Bro brought the knife up between them.
"You can trust me, son. I am your father."
"You died, Poppa. I saw you. Your neck was broken. We dug a grave and buried you… seven years ago."
Bro watched something like shock harden his father's face for a moment, then the moment passed. He realized Rizcarn's hand was touching his.
"Sheathe it, son. Relkath wasn't finished with me. I've come back to finish what I started. I've been waiting for you."
"Here? I've never been here before. I don't even know where I am. One of us is very lucky, Poppa."
Rizcarn turned his attention to the colt, releasing his son's hand. "You've done well, son. He's strong and healthy. Zandilar will be pleased; she's been waiting for you, too."
Bro sheathed the knife, dropped Dancer's lead rope, and ran his hands though his hair, as if his fingers could massage understanding through his scalp. Rizcarn studying Dancer gave Bro an opportunity to study Rizcarn. He guessed the opportunity was no accident, but took it gratefully.
The father he remembered was a tall man. When they'd last embraced Bro's ear had pressed against his father's heart. Now, Bro was a bit taller and broader, as if his life among humans during his growing years had made him more like them, less like the Cha'Tel'Quessir.
He wondered what it would feel like, staring over his father's shoulder, his arms clutched around ribs no wider than his own. Seven years ago, he would have given anything to hug his father again.
Now…?
Now, Bro had all he could do to extend one arm. And stop short of touching his father's arm. Rizcarn's shirt was dry.
"Were you waiting long, Rizcarn?"
The older man turned. His eyes, dark circles within stark white, were narrow. "Still can't make up your mind, son? What sign do you need?"
Bro shook his head.
"What's happened to you, son? Aren't you glad to see me again?"
He tried to say that he was, but Bro had never been much of a liar. He stared at the stars, at the trees, anywhere but at the man-shape who claimed to be his father. "You left us, Poppa. You went away so many times. We thought it wouldn't be different. She thought, but it was. You're seven years too late, Poppa."
Rizcarn touched the beads around Bro's neck, pushed them aside. He touched Bro's shirt and rubbed the homespun cloth slowly between his fingers. "I couldn't find you, son. She'd taken you away. Settled you with the dirt-eaters." He released Bro's shirt and laid his hand on Bro's shoulder where it was a warm, reassuring weight. "Outside's no place for one of Relkath's. No place for any Cha'Tel'Quessir. It's her fault. Blame her, son; she's kept us apart."
Bro shrugged free. "You broke Momma's heart, Poppa, when you died. She couldn't bear the trees. Every one reminded her of you. She couldn't live in the Yuirwood any longer, so she left."
"Taking you, son. She took you away. She shouldn't have done that. You belong to the forest."
He'd said the same words countless times to Shali, but they sounded different in Rizcarn's voice, not about home, about possession. For the love and honor he held in his heart for both his parents, Bro swallowed his growing anger and said nothing.
"That's over now." Rizcarn took Dancer's lead rope. "Past. Forgotten. You're here now; that's what matters. We have much to do, son. Let's go."
Bro yanked the rope from Rizcarn's hand. Dancer shied; his front hooves lifted. Bro yanked the rope a second time and snapped the loose end against the colt's neck. It was, perhaps, the fourth or fifth time in the colt's short life that Bro had struck him in anger. Dancer might have exploded. Instead he stood rigid, just like Bro.
"Don't tell me what to do, Poppa," he said after a moment's silence. "I'm not a boy anymore. I'm not your son, ready to do whatever you told me to do, because you were gone so much. I saw my father fall out of a tree and break his fool neck. Maybe you're him come back; maybe you're not. Maybe you should ask me where I've been and why I've come back to the Yuirwood. Maybe you should ask about her."
"Her?"
"Her. My mother. Shali. Your wife! Yes, she took me with her to a village outside the Yuirwood. She met a man, a good man, a man who was there all the time, who never left her alone, crying herself to sleep-" Bro could scarcely believe the anger pouring out of his mouth, or the ache he felt for Dent. "A human man who loved her, not the forest or the trees or Relkath Many-Limbed-"
"Son… Ebroin… be careful what you say."
Bro ignored the warning. "They had a child between them, a daughter, human, with his blue eyes and a round face. She saw her father every day-every gods' curst day, Poppa. Until two days ago." His anger flagged, remembering it now as if it were still happening. He drew a deep breath, mixing anger and grief together. "Wizards came to our village. Red Wizards, blue wizards, all kinds of wizards including the Simbul herself. Everybody died except me and my sister. Dent… Dent…" Bro couldn't see Rizcarn through his tears. He saw his stepfather, though, clear as life, or death. "They'd cut him in two and part of him was gone, just gone. And Momma was dead, lying on the floor with the back of her head smashed in.