Three years. And after that, there would be another assignment. And another. Cursors in service to the Crown rarely spent much time in one place.

He already missed her. Worse, he hadn’t told Gaius about the bond and what he feared it might do to Kitai. He had never explained his suspicions about the bond to the First Lord. Beyond a formless anxiety about the notion, he had no sharply defined reason why-but his instincts told him that he should be very wary about revealing anything Gaius might see as an ability to influence or manipulate one of his Cursors. Tavi had grown up on the frontiers of the Realm, dangerous lands where he’d spent most of his life learning to listen to his instincts.

Gaius watched the expressions play over his face and nodded, perhaps mistaking Tavi’s concerns for romantic regrets. “You begin to understand.”

Tavi nodded once, without lifting his eyes, and carefully kept his emotions in check.

Gaius blew out a breath, resumed his disguised form, then headed for the door. “You’ll do as you wish, Tavi, but I trust your judgment. Start packing, Cursor. And good luck.” Unseasonably rough weather slowed the pace of the Knights Aeris bearing Rook to her master in the south, and it took her nearly five days to make the trip. That time had been pure torture for her. She had no talent for windcraft herself, which meant that she could only sit in the enclosed windcraft-borne litter and stare at the package of folded documents sitting on the seat opposite her.

Nausea unrelated to the litter’s lurching through rough winds wound through her. She closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to look at the bundle of missives she’d secretly copied from official documents in the capital.