Seregrian lifts our daughter, just moments after her birth, into my arms. I fold them around her, head nestled safely onto my bent elbow, and I look into the tiny, confused face with eyes that should not be able to focus yet. She rolls them about trying to make sense of the newness of light. They move onto me and stop, staring directly into my eye and a new mind touches mine....
".... melethel....”
The word is calling to me in two voices, one my beloved wife, the other a new music drifting through a childish laughter yet to echo off the walls of House Bar-en-Acharn.
"Bainiel", I whisper, and her body wiggles at the word. I see us running and playing outside the manor house, she a new Ladyship helping me find more of the man I need to be...
I plant a soft kiss on her brow and her face lifts toward me...
"...Da...", her mind whispers...
