"That is something else we could potentially ask him about in the dream. I think he will both have a fairly good sense of how trusted he is at this point, and also will be honest about it; is that also your impression?" 

Nod nod.

Then they have several things lined up for the next dream discussion, and can get back to other work while waiting for it to arrive. 

Which it does, about a week later. Leareth, as usual, appears in the dream with his previous face. 

Vanyel waves and starts trekking out toward them from the mouth of the pass. 

"Hello!" she says, shuffling up. "How's it going?"

"Oh, you know, mostly fine except for having too much to do." He starts building a snow-shelter around them. 

"Is any of it at least fun?"

"Oh, mage-work is usually fun. Especially if it's with Savil. I'm just really, really tired of politics. It was actually nice getting a break from politics when there were several scandals in a row about me. Now I'm back to having to be Vanyel Demonsbane at the Council and it's really tiresome." 

"Be Vanyel Demonsbane at them? Is politics often - operating on a level where councilmembers are usefully intimidated by your battlefield experience?"

"I think it's - not about whatever specific things I learned from fighting a war, that would be less stupid, it's more - I don't know, the extent to which everyone knows who I am? That I supposedly singlehandedly won the war with Karse and am a national hero with a lot of terrible songs about me and so I - intimidate people. Which is mostly awful but sometimes it's useful when those people are lords on the Council who just don't listen to arguments they dislike. But people listen to everything if I say it." Sigh. "I may be even more intimidating after the blood-magic trial, ironically enough. Leareth, is politics always awful like this?" 

"Not always to that extent, but name recognition is generally a factor, yes." 

"- I think I got your eyebrows wrong," she muses, peering up at Dream Leareth. "The new eyebrows might be better though."

"Oh, right, I keep forgetting you don't look the same anymore. It's probably going to be really weird when - if, I guess - I ever see you in person." 

"I got pretty close, I think! But I can't look at him in real life at the same time so I have to do it from memory."

"Right, of course. But you were trying to get him back to looking more similar?" He makes a bit of a face. "It's - weird, thinking about doing your body-modifications work on people. I don't know why it's weirder than with animals though." 

"It's kind of weird, yes. Though the animals complain about it a lot more and can't comment on what they think of it so on the whole I think it's preferable, it's just if you're going to make a mistake it'd better be on a mouse."

Vanyel nods. "You probably still kill fewer mice than Shavri did with her research - er, she was usually trying to study systemic ailments and sometimes that involved giving them to mice so they could test what helped, whereas yours wouldn't necessarily kill the mouse even if you did make a mistake?" 

"Right. Some of them are born deformed though, which is sort of like mistakes killing them, just a ways upstream."

Vanyel nods. 

“We wished to ask you,” Leareth says, when it seems Vanyel isn’t going to say more, “if you have any particular context on why the Council is so up in arms about the lack of an heir. Is there any precipitating factor that explains the timing?”

Vanyel frowns. “Hmm. I - hadn’t really thought about it. I’ll try to think now.”

He falls silent.

While they wait she will build a snow castle.

"We had in particular wondered if the news of Randi's illness has either been announced or has leaked," Leareth prompts finally, when it's been a minute or two.

"...Hmm. No, we haven't announced it. It's - starting to be a bit noticeable that he's unwell, so we're talking about announcing it, but obviously it's just going to make all the uproar there even worse. And there aren't any good candidates. We have to go to second and third cousins before there's anyone Chosen - the closest relative of his who's a Herald is in his sixties, the next-closest is - not temperamentally suited to be Queen and wouldn't want the job. Going out further than that is basically picking a random Herald anyway. There are a lot of children among his closer relatives, who may end up Chosen eventually, but it's starting to seem problematic, here, to just wait and hope..." 

Leareth glances sideways at Belrun. "This system of partially hereditary monarchy combined with a candidate being Chosen and considered suitable is - complicated."