In fact, he confided, he had been thinking of asking her to consider becoming a member of the High Council.
She left him more convinced than ever that staying in Arborlon was the right thing to do. But when she returned to her cottage—the one that once had seemed so welcoming and safe, filled with Arling’s presence and the warmth and closeness the sisters had shared during the year she had been researching the Elven histories—she encountered an oppressive emptiness and silence, and wondered how she would ever manage to fill it again.
She was just about to fix herself something to eat when there was a knock on the door. When she opened it, Woostra was standing there.
“Seersha told me you don’t intend to come back to Paranor,” the scribe announced without preamble. He was nervous and fidgety, and his white hair was a wild tangle. “I wanted to hear it from you.”
“Come in,” she said, stepping back. “We can discuss it.”
They sat at the little table where she and Arling had discussed things so often in the past. It was the first time she had spoken to Woostra alone since her return, and it felt immediately uncomfortable.
Perhaps he sensed it, too. “I want you to know I am sorry about Arling. Even if it had to happen, even if there was no choice, it is still a terrible tragedy. I wish it hadn’t happened.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
He nodded curtly. “That said, if you are thinking of leaving Paranor and the Druid order, you are making a terrible mistake.” His face was stern. “Have you thought this through?”
“I think so.”
“Then you must realize you are betraying every vow and breaking every promise you made when you joined the order. You were never meant to take those promises and vows lightly, and I don’t think you did when you took them. Now you seem to have decided otherwise, in spite of the fact that your sister did for your people exactly the same as she would expect you to do. She sacrificed herself for the greater good. Is it possible you don’t understand that this is what’s being asked of you?”
“I don’t know that anything is being asked of me. I’m doing what I believe to be the right thing.”
His mouth tightened into a knot. “Right for you, perhaps, but not for everyone else. It is certainly not the path Arlingfant would have followed. It is not the path Khyber Elessedil would have taken. It is the path of least resistance, and a nod to the self-pity you are feeling and the effort you are making to avoid having to deal with a much harder reality than you’ve had to face up to before.”
“Which is?” she said.
“That, without you, the order will fail and the Druids will vanish. Perhaps not forever, but long enough that everything that’s been accomplished since the time of Walker Boh will be lost. You think I exaggerate. You think I am an old fool, rambling on about the good old days. But I’m talking about the future, Aphenglow. The future the Druids can either help to shape or leave to its own miserable fate. Khyber chose the former; she gave her life to that effort. She would have expected you to do the same—even though your sister is gone, even though your life is in upheaval, and even though it may prove to be difficult and perhaps even costly beyond any price you’ve paid up until now.”
“You make it sound so inviting,” she snapped, suddenly irritated.
“I’m making it sound like the truth. It isn’t up to me to persuade you that Druids in the future will have an easy time of it or that things will improve now that the Forbidding is restored and those creatures are locked away again. None of that is up to me. You should be making these arguments yourself. But you’re not, so I have to say what I think.”
He rose. “Now I’ve done so, and I’ll leave. If it’s to be Seersha and myself, then that will have to do. Maybe the shape-shifter daughter of Pleysia will come along. She seems to know what I’m talking about.”
He walked to the door, opened it, and stopped, looking back at her. “But it won’t be the same without you. Nothing will. You think on it. You remember what the others gave up for the order. Do the right thing.”
Then he was gone.
Afterward, she made her dinner and ate it alone in the privacy of the cottage she had once shared with Arling. Although her sister was gone, her ghost remained, a silent watchful presence that inhabited every room and every memory. Aphen almost couldn’t bear it, but then told herself she must learn to, that it would never change, never get better. Nor did she think she wanted it to. Arling belonged here more than she did. Missing her sister was a fact of life. She must learn to get used to it. Even a ghost could offer a small bit of company.