another of my LONG time fantasy faves.....just such excellent writing by Patricia McKillip ~

the books:
1. The Riddlemaster of Hed
2. Heir of Sea and Fire
3. Harpist in the Wind

an excerpt ~

"The sheets are rough..." Then he closed the door and said, "Raederle."

Her blood froze in her veins.

In the soft, shifting light of the candles, his face was a blur of spare lines and shadows. He was taller than she remembered; the stained white robe that had not changed with his shape-changing was puckered and strained across his shoulders. A wind shift stirred the candlelight, pulled the flames toward him and she saw his eyes. She put her hands to her mouth.

"Morgon?" Her voice jumped uncontrollably.

Neither of them moved; a solid slab of air seemed wedged like stone between them. He looked at her out of eyes that had stared endlessly into the black, inner hollows of Erlenstar Mountain, into the rifts and hollows of a wizard's brain. Then she moved forward, through the stone, touched and held something that seemed ageless, like the wind or night, of every shape and no shape, as worn as a pebble runnelled with water, tossed for an eon at the bottom of a mountain. He moved slightly, and the knowledge of his own shape returned to her hands. She felt his hand, light as a breath, stir her hair. Then they were apart again, though she did not know which one of them had moved."

--excerpt from Heir of Sea and Fire