we answered, "and no one will take this
road away from us."

"Your eyes," they said, "are not like the
eyes of any among men."

And suddenly, without cause for the
thought which came to us, we felt cold,
cold to our stomach.

"How old are you?" we asked.

They understood our thought, for they
lowered their eyes for the first time.

"Seventeen," they whispered.

And we sighed, as if a burden had been
taken from us, for we had been thinking
without reason of the Palace of Mating.
And we thought that we would not let the
Golden One be sent to the Palace. How to
prevent it, how to bar the will of the
Councils, we knew not, but we knew suddenly
that we would. Only we do not know why
such thought came to us, for these ugly
matters bear no relation to us and the
Golden One. What relation can they bear?

Still, without reason, as we stood there