She looked deep into my eyes. “I will stay here. To the end, whatever it may be, I will stay here. I ask only this of you, Nevare. Dream-walk to my father. Tell him of what has befallen us. Then come back to me, to tell me that he has said he will send help to us. Please, Nevare. Can you do that?”
“I don’t know.” Her request staggered me. Did I know my uncle well enough to attempt such a thing? It had always been easy to dream-walk to Epiny. Her abilities as a medium left her sleeping mind open to my intrusions. My close bond with my sister Yaril had let me contact her, but I wasn’t sure how much she believed her “dreams” of me. My uncle? I respected him, yes, and loved him for all he had done for me. But to enter his sleeping mind and speak to him? “I’ll try,” I said, though my heart misgave me. I doubted that I had much time, and I had desperately wished to see Yaril, to know if she was all right. It was a hellish choice; to use my time trying to reach my uncle and then return to Epiny to give her some hope, or to find out how my younger sister was faring as she faced an arranged marriage in a household run by my deranged father. “I’ll try. I’ll try right now,” I told her, and let go of her hands.
Find my uncle. Find Sefert Burvelle, Lord Burvelle of the West. He was the heir son of the old line of my family, the holder of the family mansion and the estates in and near Old Thares. My father had been the second son, his soldier-brother. When my father had served his king well in the wars with the Plainsmen, the King had elevated him to the status of a lord with a small grant of land, making him one of his “new nobles.” That had not suited my uncle’s wife. Lady Daraleen Burvelle felt that one Lord and one Lady Burvelle were quite enough, and that my father had moved above his proper position in life. That had prompted her starchy welcome of me when I came to attend the Cavalla Academy in Old Thares. She blamed me because her daughter Epiny had met and fallen in love with another “new noble” son and a poor one at that. When Epiny had scandalized her by running off with Spink, that had been the final straw. Although my uncle still thought warmly of me, my aunt regarded me as the one who had ruined her chances to engineer a well-placed match for Epiny at court.
I tried to push my dislike of my aunt aside. It was clouding my memories of my uncle. I did not want to focus on her so much that I accidentally wandered into her dream. I tried to find quiet within my soul, to ignore the nagging sense that my time to dream-walk was ticking away, and to focus instead on my memories of my uncle. I summoned up the sensory memories that linked me to him: the smell of his tobacco, the taste of his brandy, the warmth and casual comfort of his study in Old Thares. I focused on the warm clasp of his hand on mine whenever he greeted me, and the sound of his voice as he said my name.