42 pages, comb bound, white cardstock cover
Poetry by Jessica R. Lerbs. Art by Kiri Namtvedt; Angela K. Scott; Anne Staszalek. Cover by Marian Crane.

CHOOSING by Jonna Coombs
    A small speckled dog paused for a moment at the summit of a short, grassy rise, alternately panting and raising his nose to sniff at the chill morning air. The shadows of night still lay heavy on the land, blurring objects into indistinct forms of grey on black. The poor visibility did not disturb the little dog, though. He, like all of his litter mates, had been bred to track scents swiftly and unerringly, even on moonless and overcast nights. That, combined with his greyhound-like swiftness and silence, made him well suited to his current task.
    He ran on, periodically scenting the air and the ground, in search of a single distinctive smell-a smell of metal, leather, oil, and the musky odor of human perspiration. The scent was growing steadily stronger as the small dog neared its source, and his mouth began to water in anticipation of the tasty rewards he knew his master carried for him.
    He found her a short distance farther, in the midst of a small knot of people...one of many such that he could smell nearby, all crouched tensely in the grass. He wriggled into her lap like a puppy and thrust a cold, wet nose into her hand. She murmured praises softly to him, reaching into the pouch at her belt for the rolled suet she kept there.
    "Here it is," she whispered, fishing around for the small pocket sewn into the dog's collar. She handed a tiny piece of parchment to the woman crouching beside her. Leth, Second-in-Command of the mercenary group that called themselves the Comets, took the paper. In the dark, she located the three holes punched in it, noting their arrangement. Leth looked at the young man kneeling in the grass a few feet away. "Okay Jonas," she whispered, "it's time."
    The Comet's young Firestarter gave a salute, barely seen in the dim light. Then he swiftly rose to his feet, looking out across the grasses towards a tight cluster of tents camped within bearing on the plain.
    Bare moments later, that camp dissolved into chaos.

JUST A SLIGHT MISUNDERSTANDING by Anne Staszalek
    Rhiannon pulled the white tunic straight, nervously smoothing its plain lines. After a grueling internship, she was finally back in Haven. It felt strange to have her own room, to hear the movements of other Heralds and trainees as they passed her doorway. Her mentor, Herald Gannon, had been stern during her circuit, but spoken proudly for her on their return to the rest of the Heraldic Circle. Relieved and thrilled at her full status, she now had but one worry.
    Kyros, her Companion, caught her unease, even out in Companion's Field. He sent her the mental equivalent of a hug, then thought at her, his tone tinged with mock severity. Rhiannon grinned, in spite of herself.
    :Heartsib, you should at least try to make more friends. All this worry for one tiny Shin'a'in? Keep it up and they'll decide you are far too emotional to be a proper Herald.:
    She sighed, feeling her calm fracture at his offhand remark. Turning from the mirror, she sat on the edge of her bed and looked to see if there was anything she could clean or fix in her near-empty room. Brooding and inactivity truly irritated her, but the growing worries about seeing her friend again irritated her more. This was one time her Companion's humor was no balm to her nerves.
    Not seeing Devrin for two years had raised deep fears in the young Herald that they could no longer be friends. She knew that she had changed, and was not sure how these changes would be accepted by the young Shin'a'in. After facing some censure from the younger trainees when she admitted her preference for women, Rhiannon was not up to a rebuff from someone she thought of as a sister.

IF I'D BEEN YOU by Jessica Lerbs
    Ceilyn didn't come to Valdemar voluntarily. But then, Ceilyn never went anywhere voluntarily. That was what it meant to be a slave.
    Of course, no one called him that, here. But he knew nothing had changed, even if he only wore chains when his master was angry. He even got to go to market with his master, explained away as a nephew. He shuddered, quickening his pace to catch up as the man turned a corner. At least this one wasn't a mage like the last one. That had been a blood-pather, and it had been Ceilyn's blood and pain that fueled a lot of the spells. Aside from that, the man had been rather fond of him, letting him sleep by the fire and eat scraps right from the table; he'd even liked girls. But the mage had lived beyond his means and Ceilyn was sold again.
    He'd been lucky so far; his first place had been as playmate for some noble's son. But the boy had died, and he'd been sent to the mage. His current master was some kind of potion-maker wanting an errand-boy. At least, that was all Ceilyn had been for his first three days.
    He nearly cried out in fear when his master's hand closed on his shoulder, pushing him behind a stall. He peered around the man as unobtrusively as he could, but all he saw was a white-clothed rider on a white horse bearing a dark-haired little boy. Ceilyn shrugged, automatically suppressing a stab of jealousy; that could almost have been him on that horse, high above the crowded streets, protected within loving arms, safe from this man pulling him back to the house.
    But it wasn't. He was still Ceilyn, still a slave, and there were no horses in his future.

LOVE AT FIRST WHITES by Rebecca Sims
    The juggler was in the midst of swapping an odd assortment of knives, fruit, and balls from hand to hand. One of the fruits was an apple; every so often the juggler would take a quick bite out of it and put it back into play, without missing a beat.
    Hmm…pretty impressive, but Father hired better for Telly's birthday parties. I guess Teira just isn't much of a connoisseur.
    Then the juggler executed a perfect spin in the middle of a toss, and still didn't drop anything.
    Annellan blinked with surprise, and the crowd applauded.
    All right, so I could be wrong. I've never seen anyone do that trick. She watched the juggler more closely, or more precisely, the things he tossed. Thus it was that when he took another bite out of the apple, Annellan ignored him and saw what she'd suspected. Some of the objects wavered, and seemed to disappear for a second, then reappear in the same places.
    She leaned closer to her Companion's ear. "Teira, can you See if he..."
    "Hark, ladies and gentlemen! We have been joined by two honorable guardians of the realm!" The juggler was grinning and nodding in their direction while he juggled, as people turned and looked at the trainees. Rennan and Annellan smiled back.
    We're just trainees and the imp knows it, Annellan thought, a bit pleased nonetheless.
    "Apples for your noble mounts!" the juggler called, tossing two apples from his set as he spoke.
    Annellan cried out, lunging towards Rennan--That thing's heading straight for her head, she can't see it--who threw her hands up in front of her face, and caught the apple perfectly. Annellan turned around just in time to catch her own. By the time she'd recovered, the crowd was applauding and breaking up, and the juggler was nowhere in sight.
    "Are you all right?" Rennan asked.
    "Except for heart failure, I'm fine! What was that idiot thinking about, throwing them like that?!"
    "I'm sure he didn't mean any harm. Not everyone knows I'm blind. Besides, I was using Farsight."
    Annellan hunched her shoulders. "I'm sorry for yelping. I just saw that thing coming at you…"
    Rennan smiled and shook her head. "It's all right, I was startled myself. But I did catch it, after all."
    Annellan had been about to tell Rennan of her suspicion that the juggler had an active Fetching Gift, but changed her mind when Rennan made that statement. She thinks she caught it on her own, and she's pleased about it. I don't want to ruin that. As long as that fellow isn't hurting anyone, I suppose it's all right. And I may have been wrong.
    :What were you going to ask me, Chosen?:
    "Nothing, Teira. I changed my mind."

LOST AND FOUND by Anne Staszalek
    "Lost? How in all the names of the Goddess can we be LOST?!" Rhiannon fidgeted in her saddle, Kyros snorting irritably beneath her. She twisted to look at the Shin'a'in warrior mounted on the battlemare behind her. Devrin juggled between appearing either aloof or sheepish. Deciding on aloof, she shrugged. Rhiannon counted, slowly, to ten in Shin'a'in, then exploded.
    "Oh, SPARE me the silent warrior routine. It hasn't worked since the first time I met you. I repeat-how in all the tiny things that make up life are we LOST! You're a fully trained Shin'a'in warrior of the Dhorisha plains! You ride a bloody battlemare! Doesn't that account for anything?"
    The warrior ignored the histrionics of her friend, twisting about to get her bearings. Standing in her stirrups, she looked over at the stand of trees nearby, failing to see any recognizable landmarks. Dropping back into the saddle, she folded her arms across her chest and squinted again at Rhiannon, eyebrow heading well into her intricately braided and beaded ebony forelock.
    "YOU'RE a fully trained Herald, on a leshya'e Companion, and YOU'RE lost. Add to that the fact that you grew up in this part of your country. Doesn't that account for anything? We were warned the Pelagirs were full of twisted paths and ancient magicks. I hardly think what we ride accounts for anything right now. What we need is a way back out of this sheka befouled land, hai shala?"