"I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "I don't really understand what's

happening to us. Modred always understood more about this than we did; he was

always stronger, more intuitive. He was closer to them."

"What do you mean was?" she said.

"Is," Wyrdrune said, quickly correcting himself. "I mean is."

"You don't think he's dead!"

"Damn it, Kira, I don't know!" he said. He squeezed his right hand into a

fist.

"I just—don't—know. Maybe that's what this is all about," he said, bringing

his

hand up to his forehead.

Involuntarily Kira stared down at the blue light in her hand, a cold feeling

of

dread building inside her.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I can't believe that. He couldn't be dead.

I

mean... we'd know it somehow. We'd know it for a fact. We'd feel it."

"I hope you're right," said Wyrdrune. "But even if we were dead, we'd still

have

to go on somehow. There's far too much at stake for us to think only of

ourselves. The important thing is the link that we can forge together, and I

don't even know how strong that link can be now. We've never tried it without

Modred. Maybe we can't even do it without Modred, and if that's the case, God

help us. We may not be completely in control of what the milestones can do,

Kira, but we can still control ourselves, and the point I'm trying to make

here

is that we mustn't allow our individual feelings to overcome our greater

responsibility. You see that, don't you?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I guess I do. But, damn it, no one ever asked me how I

felt

about it! I never even had the option of a choice!"

"Neither did I," said Wyrdrune. "Neither did Modred, for that matter. But

even

though we may not always have choices about what happens to us in our lives,

we

still have choices about how we're going to handle it. I didn't really have a

choice about you coming into my life, and maybe I didn't have a choice about

loving you, either, but I think that when you love somebody, you shouldn't

put

conditions on it. I just wanted you to know that. However things turn out."

They stood there looking at each other for a long moment, then she came into

his

arms and they held each other tightly.

"I'm scared, warlock," she said.

"So am I, kid," he said. "So am I."