side this time, and the intensity of his emotion was enough to bring
her awake shivering.

She rose and automatically went through her morning routine, then went
to the service panel and got a glass of milk. She sat at the desk,
then, taking occasional sips and thinking. Did she still have a
choice, or did the Empire's need of her make this a matter of honor?
Jim--no, Ranger Medart, though it was now difficult to think of him
that way--would, she knew, leave that question to her. And she was
terribly afraid she knew how she would eventually have to answer.

VIII

Medart's night was equally disturbed, though since Corina was younger
and had had a more peaceful life, his dreams were less troubling.

He saw/was Corina, about seven years old Standard, receiving her
soul-blade from an elderly Order initiate in a ritual as old as the
Order itself. He was impressing her mind pattern on the blade with a
specialized form of darlas, and her acceptance of it would signify
technical adulthood, though she would stay with her parents for some
time yet. The dagger, ideally, should never leave her while she lived,
and now he felt the reason as well as knowing it. The pattern-imprinting
made the blade literally a part of her.

Scattered memory-bits of school and family, nothing particularly
significant until her discovery of her Talent, accidentally made while
she was basking in the sun beside her favorite fountain. Although
she'd said it had been weeks before she'd learned to read thoughts not
specifically directed at her, Medart realized that she must have been
subconsciously blocking them, because that was how she'd made her
accidental discovery.

For details of Corina's discovery, see TALENT

Medart shifted his position in bed, her memory-feelings enough to push
him out of that dream but not waken him. He soon slid into another
one, rather patchy at first. Her first meeting with Thark, High Adept
of the White Order, who was impressed and pleased by a Talent she
wasn't sure she was happy to have since it had cost her the future she
dreamed of. There were later memories of them together; after she had
forced her regret into the background, they had developed a profound
regard and respect for each other, though much of it was hidden by
their formal teacher-student relationship.

Then came their breakup, in full detail. Medart experienced it all,
from the friendly greeting and Thark's comments on her ability,