"Only if you refuse. I wish you would consider it. Fion needs what you can give her. She will never reach her potential without that."
        Ince, scowling, shook her head again. "You can't know that. How can you know that?"
        "I know it. Fion will enter the service. The service has need of fine riders as you well know. Fion will be adequate with the guides she has but she won't be rare without you."
        "I can't. She is the Progenitor's."
        "And so are you."
        Ince's face hardened. Only because it was Vryyh did she not make a violent response.
        "And she is mine," Vryyh said quietly.
        "Yours?" Ince's voice revealed her surprise. I, too, would never have thought it. Fion looked all of the Progenitor. Then I looked at Ince, and wondered.
        "Yes. And as 1 of Fion's givers I would like to request you as rider to contemplate guiding Fion, my child."
        Ince's face looked bleak a moment before she managed to clear it of all emotion. "Vryyh....I...."
        "I ask you only to consider it. You must not do it if you cannot, Ince. That would harm both you and Fion and leave her far worse than she would be guided by these others. I thought that I must make you aware of the difference you could make if you could see your way to guiding her. The quality of the service was once as significant to you as it now is to Fion."
        Ince could not restrain herself any longer. She stood and moved away and kept moving aimlessly about the tent. "When did Fion meet Cheryn?"