"I didn't do it on purpose! I do not normally have magic dreams."

"It must be related to the - other thing, then." Leareth glances at Vanyel. "I think we were about to have an important conversation, but–"

"I mean, I'm very curious," Vanyel says. "Also it's not like this is a huge secret anymore, that's kind of the whole point. If you know who she is and she isn't just some random person, I guess she can hang out while we talk. It just might be boring. Or gross. Or generally un-fun." 

"I'm not a random person, he knows who I am," confirms Belrun slowly. "And I can abandon a conversation I'm not getting anything out of but I'm not squeamish, so, uh, converse away, I guess. ...it's nice to meet you?"

"Short version is I did blood-magic at an important battle because I was dumb and was going to die otherwise and I kept it secret from almost everyone but then there was a different scandal and someone leaked it and I just went under trial with the Heralds' Court about it and they ended up deciding it was fine but I don't know if they were right," Vanyel says all in one breath. 

Belrun Fetches over a heap of snow to sit on. Opens her mouth to say something, pauses, glances at Leareth, subsides.

Leareth makes himself a seat as well and puts a heat-spell up between them. "Well, do you think that what you did was reasonable and justified?"

"...Yes," Vanyel says, with some obvious reluctance. "I mean, everything I did leading up to having to do that was stupid, but - given that I was in that position, I can't see that not doing it would've been better?" 

"What were your considerations?" Leareth says. He glances at Belrun. (He's weirdly tempted to offer to drape some of his cloak around her, but Vanyel is going to give him such a weird look if he does that.) 

"They were enemy soldiers and they were trying to kill me and I would have killed them anyway except I was out of magic. Due to being an idiot. I - don't see that it's really worse to have killed them for power?" 

"Ignore me if I'm just retreading context you both already have but is there even a treaty in place between Valdemar and Karse forbidding wartime blood-magic?"

"I would assume not given that the Karsite side was using it copiously," Leareth says dryly. 

Vanyel nods. "It's against Valdemar's Laws, and - the rules that apply to Heralds around acceptable use of Gifts, I mean. It's obviously not against Karsite law although Queen Karis might be trying to change that." 

"So the issue has absolutely nothing to do with the effect on the victim, and instead people are worried about - moral injury? Public relations? Isn't your Companion supposed to handle both of those for you, I thought that was what they were for."

"I think the concern is about - precedent, basically? Yfandes didn't repudiate me over it, obviously – she was mad but she also got it, she was there with me. But, the thing my aunt said is that it means something real that Heralds aren't supposed to do that kind of thing. Aren't supposed to even be capable of it, because our Companions would repudiate us if we were bad people. So everyone's really confused about what that means. Also the King is furious with me for not telling him two years ago when it originally happened, which is on me, I - thought nobody knew and what was the point, but I should've guessed there was a good chance it'd come out eventually in some giant scandal." 

"But Yfandes didn't make you tell him either, or tell all the other Companions herself?"

"No. I mean, my aunt knew because she was there, I talked it out with her, but - I guess Yfandes didn't want to deal with the fallout of telling the Groveborn either, even though she admits now that it probably would've been wiser."

He shakes his head. "I guess the thing is that Companions aren't morally perfect, they don't always know the right answer and when they do they can't always bring themselves to do it, if it's scary. But - Valdemar is sort of built on this assumption that they are perfect, and so...everyone's really confused and upset when something like this happens." 

"Wow. Okay."

"...I think the point everyone's coming to agree on now is that there shouldn't have been such a hard line against it in the first place, because - well, Yfandes doesn't think it was monstrous, neither does Rolan. Or, no, that's not it exactly - they agree it was pretty monstrous but so is fireballing a thousand Karsite soldiers from fifty miles away and nobody blinked an eye when I did that during the war, and this...wasn't less justified. And no one's ever thought that having a Companion means Heralds can't kill enemy soldiers." 

Shrug. "No one's talking about making it legal. I don't think anyone, including me, wants Valdemar to become like Karse was during the war, even though – gods, I can understand why they did it? They were desperate because they were up against me, and in the battle of Sunhame they sent out a bunch of recently drafted priests and priestesses - kids, really - with mage-gift and probably a day worth of training in throwing blood-magic around. Wasn't enough to hold us off but I get why they tried and I don't see what other options they had at that point. Anyway. That's kind of a ramble. I don't know." 

"Sounds bad all around, I'm sorry that happened to you."

"Er, thank you, I guess?" 

"I am still confused what you think the Court did wrong," Leareth says. "It sounds as though they realized some previous thinking had been unreasonable, and shifted it." 

Helpless shrug. "I'm worried they - did it for the wrong reasons? It'd be one thing if I thought people actually understood why I made the choice I made, how I was thinking about it. But I'm kind of worried they just...thought they had to come to a verdict that let them keep me around as a Herald. For political reasons, because I'm a war hero and they need me. I don't want it to have been decided that way because they - think I'm special and different." 

"So if some other Herald had done this what would they have done instead - kidnapped their Companion and exiled the Herald to the Pelagirs or something? I don't think there's actually a system for de-Whitesing a Herald whose Companion is right there endorsing them."

"I mean, no, that has literally never come up before."