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Category: Fantasy
Description: Herald Enna didn't want to return to her home village, didn't want to see the people who would remember her from when she was a young girl, and especially didn't want to see Bard Jordie Ambersen again. But Heralds go where they are sent, so she didn't have a choice; she had to face her past.
eBook Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, 2003 Stars
AllShortStories.com Release Date: July 2010

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [21 KB], ePub (EPUB) [40 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [17 KB], Portable Document Format (PDF) [220 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [18 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [68 KB], Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [89 KB], hiebook (KML) [75 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [51 KB], iSilo (PDB) [15 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [19 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [53 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [30 KB]
Words: 5947
Reading time: 16-23 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

I didn't want to come here; I really did not want to see this town ever again. There was nothing to bring me back to Cheverford, after all -- my parents were gone, my brothers all with the Guard or dead, and as for friends, the less said about them, the better

But I didn't have any choice. A Herald goes where she's sent, especially now, when we've lost so many. Truth to tell, I thought that even though I didn't want to come back, I could handle it. I thought I had my emotions neatly tied up and stuffed down into a box.

But when I topped that last hill and looked down into the river valley where Cheverford lay, I could feel my stomach knotting. And nothing that Keria said to me made it any different; this was me place where my life had begun and ended and begun again, and I still wasn't sure that the choices I'd made to end that first life the right ones. Oh, certainly, I had Keria, I was a Herald now, and had all that went with it -- but all of the might-have-beens broke the bonds I'd put on them and reared up like accusing ghosts to surround me.

We trotted down the hill, Keria and I, trailing a cloud of invisible regrets and heartaches. Poor Keria; she didn't deserve to be saddled and bridled with my troubles.

:Your troubles are mine,: she said smoothly, sounding serene, quite as if nothing ever troubled her. Well, I always was the emotional one in our partnership. Nothing much ever seemed to upset Keria -- not that she wasn't sympathetic and deeply empathic, it's just that she never let emotions rule her the way they ruled me.

Just as well, really; we wouldn't be an effective partnership if both of us were ruled by our emotions.