Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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"Not bad. I spent some of the evening thinking about you." Megan turned on her side, propping her head
on her elbow. The half open tent-flap let in the night breeze with the odor of drowned fires, canvas and
tramped grass.
"Uh-huh. C'mere, Hook." A long smooth arm pulled the more-or-less compliant cat, still purring, under
it, and stroked the folded wings.
Wanting to talk as much as she wants latrine duty. Megan signed. "Is there anything bothering you,
Sovee?"
"No. I mean yes, well… I mean no, aside from how can't there be whenkhyd-hird's missing?"
"I just thought you seemed disinclined to talk to me much, and I wondered, that's all."
"Sorry,zhymata . No, nothing's bugging me. She'll come back. I mean, if she died, wouldn't you be able
to… tell? Withmanrauq ?"
"Not necessarily. Mymanrauq isn't that shape; we all shared minds on the ice last year only because of
someone else'smanrauq . Sometimes it comes back, in extreme emotion; sometimes it doesn't. And she
might be too far away."
The girl said nothing to that. There was nothing for Megan to do but respect her right to keep her own
counsel. "Koru hear you."
Megan lay still with her eyes closed, but even though she was dog-tired, sleep wouldn't come. The moon
brightened; wind rustled the leaves of a nearby copse, and someone in the next tent over tossed and
murmured. Her mind ran in circles; she was too tired to stop it.
"Zhymata," came a tiny whisper, after a long while. "You're still awake, aren't you?"
"Yes." The words had been pitched not to rouse her, were she asleep.If she was planning to sneak
out … "How could you tell?"
"Right after you fall asleep, you usually have the twitches for a while. Like, I should sayas if something
inside you was having a fight. But now you're lying still. You're worried aboutkhyd-hird , aren't you?"
"Yes." It was true enough.Worried about whether she can do it, and in time …
"I'm sure she'll be all right and come back because she's too tough to get killed and Koru help her and
I'd never mean her when I said this, but… some people who go missing are never found, are they?"
"Some, yes."
"So their family never know whether they're dead or alive, do they?"
"It happens."
The girl was silent for a time, hard in thought. "That would be really terrible," she said finally.
"I'd rather know for sure she were dead than never know what happened," Megan said. She knew both.
Mourning is black, for a time. Uncertainty is grey-black, forever .