“See those trees?” Valentin raised one big hand to thrust back the messy tumble of his hair. “In a few weeks, they’ll be blanketed by snow until, together, they look like a dignified old church.”

Silver went to follow his gaze, was distracted by something else highlighted by the beams of sunlight that speared through the canopy. “Are those children from your clan or wild bears?” They were too small to be adult changeling bears. “Is that bear hanging upside down from a tree limb? I didn’t know that was anatomically possible.”

The rumbling growl beginning again, Valentin brought the vehicle to a halt and stepped out. “Small bears! Here! Now.” It was a bass drum of sound that wasn’t a yell but that carried all the same.

Five bear cubs melted out of the woods to stand around Valentin. Judging from their size and what little she knew of changeling bears in this form, she thought they couldn’t be older than seven at the most. At present, they were doing a very bad job of appearing meek while trying to sneak looks inside the vehicle.

One lifted its paw in a wave at Silver.

Valentin put his hands on his hips and said, “Eyes here.”

His tone as he gave that order was different from his initial one, and this time, every single bear snapped to attention. Crouching down to their level, Valentin began to speak. She couldn’t hear what he said—hadn’t known he could speak that quietly—but the child bears all nodded after a short minute before turning and running into the trees.

Valentin was chuckling when he got back into the vehicle. “Arkasha semi-shifted so he could hang upside down. Too damn clever.”

“What were they doing out here?”

“Being trouble. They think they’re the tiny bear version of gangsters.” Laughter in his eyes. “They wait for unsuspecting clanmates to pass underneath and jump on them.”

“Wouldn’t bigger bears scent the children?”

“The gangsters are just old enough to know how to use the wind shifts to their advantage.” He sounded proud rather than angry. “Do young Psy cause their caretakers this much grief?”

“No, not yet. Silence has certain advantages.”

Valentin’s hands clenched on the steering wheel as he got them underway again. “I was going to say maybe it does—but never having any of the young idiots play tricks? Not watching them grow into their skins in freedom, seeing the idiots become slowly less idiotic until one day they’re men and women I’d have at my back any day of the week?”

He shook his head, his hair gleaming blue-black in the sunlight that came in through the sunroof. “I wouldn’t give that up for anything.” Shifting to hoverdrive when the dirt track came to an abrupt end, he took them into the trees.

Silver watched him maneuver, and she thought of her cousin, Lillya. Currently twelve, she was on the borderland between fully conditioned and just unconditioned enough that she could be nudged either way. Ena hadn’t yet made the decision as to which way was better for Lillya. They had approximately three months before her Silence training would’ve progressed too far to be turned back without causing her psychic and possibly physical distress.

To simply stop as some parents were choosing to do—against advice from the medics and psychologists working for the Ruling Coalition—wasn’t an option, either. At that age, a child’s needs had to be carefully managed, or that child might be ruined for life when it came to their psychic and psychological health.

“I grew into my skin in Silence,” she said aloud several minutes later. “Are you implying that I didn’t grow into an individual?”

“Starlichka.” A rebuking look. “You know I’d never say that.” He brought the vehicle to a stop about fifty meters from what looked like the mouth of a large cave. Several other vehicles were parked nearby, but there were nowhere near enough to account for a full clan.

Not getting out, Valentin turned to brace his hand against the top of her seat. “But are you who you would’ve been without Silence?”

“I would be mad without Silence,” Silver said into the quiet, her words stones thrown into a mirror-still pond. “Imagine being able to hear tens of thousands of voices screaming at you inside your head. Now imagine being emotional, and as a result of a surge of shock or anger or grief, losing control of your shields. How many times do you think that could happen before your mind broke?”

“I don’t believe it,” Valentin said with a scowl. “The Silver Mercant I know wouldn’t break, no matter what the provocation—trust me, I’ve tried.”

Silver shook her head. “Prior to Silence,” she told him, “a significant minority of pure telepaths chose to end their lives, most in a way that destroyed their brains. The top choice was to put a gun in the mouth and blow off the roof of the head.”

That particular fragment of data was buried under thousands of others because pure telepaths weren’t considered a problematic designation. Telekinetics, combat telepaths, foreseers, the rare and dangerous X-Psy, they were seen as unstable and in need of extra attention and training. But pure telepaths? Seldom any issues once they learned to manage their shields. At least until they hit about sixty years of age and blew their brains out.

“And now?” Valentin’s voice was gritty, his attention so intense that it felt like a furred brush against her senses.

Silver tried to shrug off the irrational thought. “Silence changed the numbers,” she said as her eyelids began to grow so heavy it was as if each lash were anchored by a tiny weight. “Pure telepaths have the lowest rate of suicide of any designation in the entire Psy race.”

The Silence Protocol had worked for the pure telepaths, a truth that tended to get forgotten. Silver had had to point it out to Kaleb, who usually didn’t miss anything. However, because she’d drawn Kaleb’s attention to it and he’d alerted his fellow members of the Ruling Council, the educational plans being developed for pure telepaths were different from those being developed for other designations.

And her mind, it was rambling.

She realized that the same instant she realized Valentin was at her side of the vehicle and that her door was open. He was lifting her into his arms a heartbeat later, his big body a furnace. She went to protest that she could walk, but her brain wasn’t working right and that was worse than the fact her body wasn’t working right.

This was not how she’d planned to enter the StoneWater clan’s den.

Chapter 7

I want to be alone . . . said no bear ever.

—The Traveler’s Guide to Changelings (Revised Edition: 1897)

VALENTIN KEPT SILVER’S lax body tucked close to his as he entered Denhome. She’d lost consciousness a second after he took her into his arms, was now a warm but dead weight that had his heart drumming against his rib cage. He’d seen her fire dim in front of him, had felt her light flicker.

Nova, who was waiting for him near the entrance passage that was the narrowest part of Denhome, kicked immediately into healer mode. “She hurt?”

“No, medics said this might happen during the early part of her recovery.” Despite the reminder, Valentin couldn’t help it. “Check her anyway, all right?” Those other medics weren’t his sister and StoneWater’s chief healer, who he knew would never lie to him.

“Already in the plan, Mishka.” His sister whipped out a small scanner from one of the capacious pockets of her full-skirted yellow dress, ran it over Silver’s body as they walked.