Tenar informs the king's men that she cannot reveal Ged's whereabouts, and they accept the situation and depart. While at Re Albi, Tenar is confronted by the local lord's wicked mage, Aspen, who attempts to put a curse on her, but is initially thwarted. He accepts Tenar's offer to return to Oak Farm to manage things there in her absence and once more takes up life as a goatherd. She nurses him back to health, but when the new king Lebannen sends envoys to bring him back to Roke to resume his duties as Archmage, Ged cannot face them. Ged – once the Archmage of Roke – has spent all his wizard's powers in sealing the gap between the worlds of the living and the dead created by the evil wizard Cob. A few days after Ogion's death, Ged (also called Sparrowhawk) arrives on the back of the dragon Kalessin, unconscious and near death. After his death, she stays on at his cottage, assisted by a local witch called Moss and a simple village girl called Heather. He instructs her to teach Therru, but his instructions are vague, and hint at her being more than she seems.

She stays with Ogion, tending to him in his last days. On the way, she encounters a group of ruffians, one of whom is Handy, who was involved in the original attempt on Therru's life, and claims to be her uncle. She sets out to visit him at his house outside the town of Re Albi, taking Therru with her. Tenar learns that Ogion is on his deathbed and has asked to see her. Tenar adopts her and gives the child the use name Therru, which means 'flame' in Tenar's native Kargish language. Tenar helps to save the child's life, but the child is left with one side of her face permanently scarred and the fingers of one hand fused into a claw. She is brought a severely injured child, born of wandering vagabonds the child's natural father had pushed her into a campfire and left her for dead.

Tenar lives on her own at Flint's property – Oak Farm – and is lonely and uncertain of her identity. It is mentioned that Ged was a bit disappointed in – and did not understand – Tenar's choice of a life.Īt the book's outset her husband is now dead and her children grown up. Instead, she married a farmer called Flint with whom she had two children, called Apple and Spark, and became known to the locals as Goha. For some time she lived with Ged's old master, the mage Ogion – but though fond of him, rejected Ogion's offer to teach her magic. She had rejected the option of life in aristocratic Havnor, and instead arrived on Gont. Tehanu begins slightly before the conclusion of the previous book in the series, The Farthest Shore, and provides some information about the life of Tenar after the end of The Tombs of Atuan.

Tehanu le guin