In the morning, a candlemark or so after dawn, Wingsister comes to the tree to see if Promise is awake. 

She is! She's drawing one of the local trees. "Good morning."

"Ready to go back?" Wingsister holds up a sealed letter. "I've got a note for you to bring to Leareth, too." 

"I'm ready." She pockets the letter.

Wingsister leads her across the gardens to the Heralds' temple where she generally does her Gates, not speaking. She looks tired, like she was up half the night, but a lot less tense than before.

"Wanted to thank you again," she adds. "For everything." And she raises a Gate for Promise. 

"You're welcome." And through she goes.

A different Guard meets her at the Gate-point this time and waits with her. 

Within five minutes one of Leareth's mages has a Gate up to the message location to bring her back north. 

And she goes north and finds Leareth to hand him his letter.

He opens it on the spot and reads it. 

"- Oh. Good. They still want to do the Truth Spell meeting, on general principle, but they are thanking me for returning Woodlark and for taking good care of him while he was here, and - expressing that they see this as a significant update toward my friendliness." He smiles at Promise. "Thank you. Hopefully I will not need to send you hopping back and forth to Haven again, and can handle the rest from here. Do you wish me to come update you once the Truth Spell meeting has happened, though?" 

"I'd like to know what's going on."

"All right, then, I will keep you updated." 

"When everything is calmed down there's something I'd like to talk to you about. It'll keep though."

Leareth nods. "I will inform you once I judge things have calmed down, then." He's curious, but if it can wait it can wait. 

Promise amuses herself with her usual pastimes while she waits for everything to settle down.

Leareth brings an update two days later.

"I think things cannot be described as settled down yet, but will be soon. We did the meeting and Truth Spell questioning today." He grimaces slightly. "The Herald they sent to question me was an incredibly frustrating person. I suspect they selected him for it because he is not important and does not know much information of strategic value, and so I would obtain little if I broke the agreement and kidnapped him for interrogation. They gave him a script and he followed it, though, and I believe I 'passed' all of their tests here. I am waiting for a response from Valdemar's leadership." Pause. "I did receive a message saying that Woodlark is doing much better." 

"Oh, that's good. His Companion got over... whatever?"

"It seems so. The message did not include any details on what his Companion's difficulty was or how it was resolved. I am curious, but I think it is up to Woodlark whether he wishes to tell me." 

"Yeah, that makes sense."

"I will let you know once the Heralds tell me if they are satisfied with this." He waits to see if Promise has anything else to add. 

It doesn't seem so!

Then Leareth will head back to his usual work and leave Promise to her gardening. 

It takes several more days and half a dozen more letters before he judges that things are 'settled', and heads up to give Promise an update. 

Sewing herself a new dress out of hawthorn leaves. "Hi."

"I came to let you know that, in my judgement, everything is now calmed down! The Heralds still seem to be somewhat stunned by recent events and needing time to absorb it; I cannot really blame them, it is a major change. They are convinced I am not going to invade, though. I offered to send them a dozen of my people who have been learning sorcery, to teach it in Haven, and they accepted. They are working out the logistics of transporting people who are elderly or have chronic incurable illnesses to a central location and were wondering if you would be available for periodic visits to heal and de-age them, since none of my people are advanced enough yet." 

"Sounds fun."

"All right, I will let them know, and we can arrange Gates for you. Hopefully we can actually switch to doing a single Gate directly to Haven, since they trust me enough now to give some of my mages a tour. In the long run we ought to figure out something more efficient than that, though. I know how to build permanent Gates between two locations, which have their own power supply and thus can be used by any novice mage; this is a forgotten technique in most of the world. There is also the fairy kind of gate, which does not need ongoing power at all but does require a sorcerer. I wanted to ask: if you make a fairy gate between here and Haven, and keep it closed most of the time, are you the only one who can open it or can any sorcerer do so if they know it is there?"