The pool chamber glittered in reflected light from the skylights to the mirror tiles covering the walls to the intricate floor mosaic of inhuman dancers, rainbow hues against pure white. A hot artesian spring fed the pool, making it comfortable year round. Zyne sat beside it, her legs curled beneath her. Her eyes traced the pale, intricate tiling.

"Where is Anksha?"

Hoon studied her from the couch opposite the pool, dabbing blood from his lips with a handkerchief. A small, nude body lay on the floor at his feet, crumpled in the final stillness. The little nibari had been delicious. Timon would be unhappy to learn that he had killed another one. Timon had a strange set of ethics for a vampire. "With Timon."

"And where is Timon?" Zyne probed, rising and walking to the edge of the pool. She squatted with her wings fanned out behind her and stirred the water with her foot.

Hoon frowned, returning the handkerchief to his sleeve. "On one of my estates."

"Which one?" Zyne eyed him coldly. "I want to know as I may want to go there."

"You do not need to go there. Our concerns are in Minnoras."

--Anksha is a threat, Zyne. When she sees how much power and beauty you have she will be jealous. You must make Hoon bring her here so we can destroy her,--whispered the voice in Zyne's mind.

"I am lonely," Zyne wheedled, leaving the pool to pace. "I miss Anksha and Timon."

Hoon's head tilted and his eyes narrowed. "When the work here is done, I will send for them."

Zyne sighed heavily. Once Hoon would have embraced her, but he had held his distance since her rising. She no longer shared his bed. Instead, nibari warmed it. Was he afraid? The voice in her head kept telling her that she was more powerful than Hoon. "When do we start the work?"

"Tomorrow night in the Poor Quarter."

"Can I at least get some air?"

"So long as you do not leave the manor grounds, yes."

Zyne stretched her wings, flexing them. She craved flight as she had once craved the ocean's depths. She left Hoon and soon found herself standing alone on the rooftop in the night shadowed silence, above the peacefully sleeping city that could not imagine her existence. Standing there felt as right as darting among the fishes with her spear had once been. A craving for solitude had laid hold of her and dragged her out. Hoon did not trust her, did not want her to have any time alone for her own devices--she did not trust him.

The chill breezes swirled her hair; but she did not feel the cold. The coolness rose from the nearby Idar River and settled over Minnoras with wisps of silver fog. She studied the city from her perch: the palace with its spires at the center; wooden houses pressed tightly together, sharing walls in the Poor Quarter; the stone and brick mansions of the wealthy along the north end with their gardens; and then she spied the abandoned wizard's tower, damaged over twenty years past in the Great War when Zol invaded northward. That building would fit her needs nicely.

--I am the Mother of Power,--whispered the voice in her mind as if reciting a practiced cant. --I am the ancient queen. I am the dark eternal Queen of Night. Destroy me a thousand times and I will always return. Night always returns no matter how often it is banished by the day. I will rise from my box. My box, which anciently my worshippers kept upon my altar in sacred places until I was thrown down in petty jealous wars with Bellocar's other wives, the ones who perished at the hands of Tala and Aroana in the early days of conflict. My worshippers hid my box and released me in secret. But I had been damaged. And Willodarus hurt me further. Will you help me regain myself, Zyne? Will you help me become a god again?--

Zyne wavered before the seductive voice. Her own people worshipped a banished god from before the coming of the foreign gods, the young Gods of Light, who had answered Ishla the Tinkerer's call and crossed the void with their legions.

Galee sensed this: Zyne could conceal nothing from her.--I have sought to build or seize a kingdom to gain enough power to crack open the Gate of the Hellgod, to release my mate and his surviving wives. One of these is the god of your people.--

Zyne sank to her knees, wrapping her wings around herself, shaking. Except for that slight movement, she might have been a crouching gargoyle. "I am no longer seiryn. I am something else."

--You would belong to me. I would love you. I would be your god. The sa'nekaryiane. As I was meant to be. As I was for the nekaryiane in centuries past.--

"We sent her power with our prayers and sacrifices so she would be freed."

--She will be free. I swear it.--

Zyne had gotten a child from Josiah Abelard to steal his genes for her parasitical race and produce a generation of powerful mages. The tritons had captured her after the abortive assault on the Sacred King, forced the unborn from her body, and prepared to execute her the next day in a rite to Nerindalori, God of the Waves. Hoon and Anksha had rescued her. Standing there, listening to promises of greatness from the voice in her head, she felt no obligation to either of them. "I am yours."

--Hoon wishes to use you to gain a kingdom. I will have a kingdom instead.--

She shivered. "What is it you wish?"

--A body. I must be reborn as sa'nekaryiane.--

"How?"

--Find a woman, close to term. I must build a body from that of an unborn child to house my soul. There is a tower on the far side where those who wait for me gather. I have heard their prayers, sensed their offerings. Tell no one. Especially Hoon. Take four or five men to help subdue and handle her. We will eat them afterward.--

As the short winter days lengthened toward spring, the estate began to blossom with activity. The horses were already beginning to shed their winter coats and Anksha had chosen to send her blood-slaves to help in brushing them down and combing them out. Bodramet stood half in shadow, attempting to deal with the last animal they had assigned to him. The proud-cut gelding, a difficult beast with a stallion's instincts, kept shoving into Bodramet as he attempted to brush him. Bodramet snarled at the animal, baring his fangs. At least they had not put him to mucking out stalls like Gareth and Petros. Nor would they so long as he continued to do a superior job with the nasty creatures. This was a nibari's work or servant's--not a sa'necari's. He resented it.

Satisfied with his efforts, Bodramet stepped back from the horse, and saw Timon and Ephry enter the stables with Nevin. They headed for Isranon who was leading a fine chestnut mare towards the doors. Isranon. Isranon. Always Isranon. They were courting the lowborn half-a-mon, he was certain of it. Bodramet strained his ears to hear what they were saying. The horse crowded him again. Bodramet slapped it on the rump, and then exited the stall. He closed the door and slipped nearer to the four myn, pretending an interest in the tack hanging from some of the supports.

Timon had wooden practice blades under his arm. "Nevin tells me you are good with a blade."

Isranon paused and his expression brightened. "He trained me. My skills are good enough that they have kept me alive."

Ephry laughed. "Considering the world you have survived in, you must be good indeed. Ask him, lover," he told Timon.

Timon smiled, caressing Isranon with his eyes. "We thought you might go a few rounds with us in the salle."

Isranon shook his head. "I am not finished here. Anksha said--"

Ephry's lips spread in a sensuous expression of delight. "I have already asked her. She says if you wish to, you may."

Isranon glanced from one to the other. "I wish to."

Bodramet ground his teeth in frustration. If they had to pick a favorite, why pick the half-a-mon? And then, again, why not? He had been trying to get Isranon into his own bed for five years. Isranon, with his broad shoulders, narrow hips and handsome face, had always stirred Bodramet's appetites. Isranon had refused him even the smallest taste of his body or his blood. The single time he had come close to forcing Isranon, Mephistis had arrived and attacked him. Then, to add insult to injury, Anksha had disciplined him for breaking the estate's rules concerning non-consensual sex. He would never forget how badly she had torn him that day. Yet, his hate had not been enough to shield him from her power in Charas, to prevent her taking him as a blood-slave.

Bodramet started for the double-doors. He reeked of horses and sweat.

"Where are you going?" called the nibari hostler.

Bodramet's lips curled in a grimace of irritation. These nibari were always getting above themselves with him. "I am finished. I wish to eat."

"Go on, then. But if that last horse has not been done proper, I'll have you back out here."

Bodramet gave him a tiny bow. "I'm sure you will."

He strode briskly across the courtyard and down the broad cobblestone walk toward the mansion. Only one of his four companions had finished in the stable: Yoris glanced back at Bodramet before stepping into the foyer. Bodramet's tongue flicked across his fangs as they came down. He was hungry, but not for slop on a plate, he wanted blood and a body writhing beneath him. The nibari who fed him a small drink from their veins in the evenings refused him sex. They allowed the sa'necari blood only once a day. "Once a day is not enough," Bodramet growled.

Bodramet overtook Yoris at the far end of the foyer. The mon had paused to stare through the doorway into the Great Hall with longing eyes. Only the guests, vampires, and lycans fed there on the multitude of couches in all the little stylistic alcoves. Nibari, wearing soft, accessible garments that easily opened to facilitate sating their master's appetites, served food on the scattered tables for those who ate such things and knelt with wrists crossed behind them to serve the blood from their veins to the others. Standing there and watching the vampires feed, twisted a knife of bitter resentment in Bodramet's gut. He and his companions had been forbidden to do more than pass through the room without pausing on their way to the rear gardens--unless invited and they had not been. However, he had caught sight of Isranon there on more than one occasion, sitting with Haig and his exquisite nibari, Nainee, talking about philosophy.

He clamped his hand round Yoris' wrist, startling him. "Since I cannot have a nibari for my nibble games, I will have you."

Yoris whined for an instant at Bodramet's roughness, which earned him a shake.

"My rooms, Yoris. Don't make me unhappy."

Once upstairs in his rooms, Bodramet dragged Yoris through the sitting room and tumbled him onto the bed. "Undress."

Bodramet regarded Yoris' effeminate, flabby body with distaste made worse by the spreading signs of withering, the red splotches marring the skin. Yoris' blood had begun to taste more acrid and sharp, less of copper; but it was still blood. This was not what he wanted at all. A firm young female or a hard muscled young male would be more to his preference, someone whose blood had a full-bodied flavor like fine wine.

He missed his father's estates in Waejontor, and his privileges: the table set with everything he could possibly wish for; the sycophants and nubile youths so willing to warm his bed and his veins with their flesh and blood. But the estates were laid waste by the Sharani; his father and brothers either slain or fled during the months that Bodramet had followed Mephistis south to conquer new lands. Now here he was a blood-slave with nothing to his name, watching a lowborn half-a-mon stealing all the favors.

"Isranon," he growled softly to himself. "I'd like to put a blade in your ribs and my cock up your ass."

Stretched out on Bodramet's bed, Yoris glanced up at him. "What did you say?"

"If you didn't hear, I'm not going to repeat it," Bodramet growled as he shrugged out of his dirty robes and dropped them on the floor before joining Yoris on the bed.

Yoris levered himself onto his side. "I want to help you. I have always been willing to help you. What did you say?"

Bodramet shoved Yoris' face into the coarse black thatch between his legs. "Shut up and suck me. I will tell you when I'm ready. Otherwise you'll be tattling to someone." He allowed his thoughts to drift enough to imagine it was Isranon's lips around his cock.

Soon after Bodramet finished with him, Yoris fell asleep, exhausted by the rough handling.

The Presence Pain roared up in Bodramet and he could sense Anksha's nearness as she walked down the hallway despite the walls between them. Part of him wanted to go to her and beg her to feed and relieve it. He stifled that.

"I hate you," Bodramet groaned. He needed more freedom, less watching. He examined Yoris' wither marks without waking him.

Then he stroked his side with a tiny touch of his power, too subtle to be detected. Red welts and streaks appeared. Bodramet grazed the surface with his fingers and they disappeared. Then he brought them back again and left them.

Nibari still did the household chores in his chamber, changing linens, sweeping, dusting, and filling his bath. Bodramet left Yoris drowsing in his bed and went off to select the nibari he wished to discover his "condition." He chose those in charge of bathing supplies and requested that a bath be drawn. When he returned to his suite, he settled on the window seat and considered his performance. Two nibari appeared with buckets of steaming water and he stood observing them, waiting for the right moment.

One of them turned toward him. Bodramet grabbed his side, swayed, and crumpled to the floor. A nibari's eyes saucered and she dropped to her knees beside him. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Dizzy," Bodramet gasped. "I hurt." He indicated the place along his ribs where he had placed the false marks.

The nibari opened his robe and checked. "You're withering. It looks advanced."

"No. Nooooooo!" Bodramet screamed, doubling over and clutching at his ribs and stomach. "I'm not ready.... I'm too strong. This can't be happening now."

"Anksha can quicken the withering if she wishes. No one is too strong," said the second one as he joined the first.

Yoris, awakened by Bodramet's scream, stood blinking in the doorway. He stepped aside as the second nibari helped Bodramet to rise, and with Bodramet staggering hunched over, got him into his bedroom and laid him down. Yoris followed, his eyes narrow and considering. Bodramet lay with his robe open and the covers folded away from the marks on his body. It looked worse and more progressed than Yoris' own.

The first nibari went for help. Pippa, the elderly nibari who had diagnosed the withering in Yoris, arrived and did the same for Bodramet. "I am surprised it came on this fast and sudden, unless Anksha did it deliberately. But I have seen several go this way. I will ask Timon to give you a few days rest before putting you to work again."

"I am sick," Bodramet protested. "I cannot work."

"Timon will work you till you die," Pippa said. "I'll buy you a few days to get used to it, but only because of the severity and speed with which it came on you."

Pippa poured him a cup of tea and left him a small steaming pot of it on the nightstand, then departed the rooms.

"Bodramet.... "Yoris started to speak.

"Go away," Bodramet growled, his voice strained like rage drained through a sieve of anguish. "I want to sleep."

Once Yoris had gone, Bodramet folded his hands behind his head and smiled. Yoris believed it every bit as much as the nibari; hence he would spread it around, probably starting with Gareth, maybe a message to Hoon, and possibly one of Isranon's people. Yoris would play all the angles to see what he could gain from this, and he would gain far less than he expected when Bodramet made his next moves.

If the foolish Lemyari here thought they were all half-dead from the withering, they would let their guards down further. He would talk to the others.

Zyne sang, standing on the wooden, gambrel roof of a house in the Poor Quarter. She sang softly, wanting it to carry only a few blocks. Her voice rose and fell, weaving a summons in the eerie notes of a minor key. It would only affect the males, but there were other ways to bind the females to her in worship. The sound spoke of promise, of hunger and need, laden with a seiryn's compelling eroticism. Only Anksha could match her in allure. But Anksha could only take one at a time, while Zyne could take many.

"Give up your will to me," she sang and the human males answered.

Throughout the Poor Quarter, they put aside their meals; put down their tools and ceased to work; ceased their rutting; ceased their songs and drinking in the taverns: all things, all tasks, all needs and desires went forgotten. They emerged from the buildings, gathering below her, their eyes drawn in solemn worship of their new dark god. Zyne felt intoxicated, inhaling the vibrant energies of their adoration. Zyne was meant to be served; her god was meant to be worshipped. She was the embodiment of her god, waiting to birth her back into living existence.

"Males, give up your will to me. Poor weak sex. Tomorrow at this hour, bring me your women." She flew down, choosing a young carpenter. She pulled him into her arms. "The rest of you, go." She carried him off to the roof of the mage tower and let him scream deliciously as he died. Then she lay atop the corpse for a long time, licking the dried-out, withered face with her sharp pointed tongue.

--Reach out, Zyne, reach out with your thoughts for the lesser bloods, the Ylesgaire. We must summon my minions from the north and the east. Those who are scattered in far realms such as Creeya and the remnants of Waejontor.--

There came a scratching like a thousand rats. Zyne rose and peered over the edge, looking down into the hungry faces of dozens of lesser bloods. The Ylesgaire looked upon her with adoration in their twisted faces, travesties of what they had been in life. Most wore the rotted remnants of their grave clothes hanging in tattered shreds upon their cadaverous forms. Their huge tearing fangs overlapped their lower lips. These had already been in the city. They had belonged to Hoon, controlled by him and his necromancers. But that was no more. The Queen had come.

"Mine," she said. "You are all mine."

Throughout the city people emerged from their homes and businesses their eyes drawn to the abandoned mage-tower and listened to the screaming like an omen of death and desolation. It should never have carried so far, yet it had.

"What is going on, Mama?" a young girl asked, clutching at her mother's arm. She wore a patched brown dress with gingham edgings; the hem brushed her calves and clung to her black stockings, which descended into worn brown shoes. Her eyes were large in a narrow face and her dark brown hair hung in twin braids down her back.

"I don't know, Seri. I don't want to know." She grabbed her daughter and retreated into her house to close her windows and lock everything.

A gaunt, old priest, in the forest green and sienna of the Temple to Davera, who had been standing near Seri and her mother, turned to the two younger men at his sides. "It has started. We must leave."

"But Father Levis--" Cyril protested, shaking his dark hair back.

"We must pack tonight." Father Levis's tone was firm.

For weeks, the priest, like many in the other temples had been warning the populace of the city-states to flee, but few listened. The citizens' lives were bound up in their cities. Most thought the walls would protect them; or their armies and their kings. It was unimaginable to them that anything could be worse than what had happened during the Great War and they had weathered that--so they did not heed their priests. Many children had come of age in the peaceful years after the war ended and, therefore, had no sense of danger--the sense of immortality of the young bounded their existence.

"I should order you all away," Father Levis said. "My warnings fall on deaf ears."

"Don't be foolish," one of the younger priests said. "It cannot possibly be as bad as you've predicted. Waejontor has fallen. No more dark realms exist."

"There can always be another one," Father Levis said, his voice going low and dark. "I fear that it is our city that the dark ones have chosen for it."

Isranon thought about the rose garden, which was thick with fresh spring growth, delighted at having the sheltering green at last. It had been difficult to find any privacy during the height of winter. Nevin and Olin always found him when he took refuge beneath a pine or other evergreens. Now the tanglewoods that were Anksha's haunts would become a veiling sanctuary. He had always had time to himself growing up, the entire valley of the Claw's people had been his to roam with no one at his back or shoulder. The constant supervision had been driving him crazy.

He dreamed of laying on his back alone in the grass, watching the languid clouds drifting by with no one to interrupt his thought, no constant checking on him, or asking if he was all right. To achieve that he would have to outwit and out run his mentor. Nevin would be on his trail the minute he vanished. It would be fun to try outwitting Nevin. He had never managed to do that as a boy. To steal a few hours alone would be a treat.

Nevin had gone down to see about some lunch and would be returning soon. He would, doubtless, be using the kitchen stairs that most of the servants used. Therefore Isranon ran down to the main stairs through the great hall and slowed only slightly as he crossed, so as not to draw people's attention. He reached the gardens and sauntered into the rose gardens. He found a bower that was not in use and climbed through it.

Once on the other side, Isranon darted into Anksha's thickets. He moved at a walk to deal with the dense vegetation in various places, the tangles of trees and vines that Anksha loved to slither through. Looking it over, it was no wonder she always had leaves and twigs in her hair.

The soft padding of feet alerted Isranon that he was close to being found, so he dashed through a thicket to the fountain, slipped into the fountain and waded across it with such finesse that he made no noise: Nevin had trained him well. Then he ran into a dense cluster of trees.

He found a tree that had fallen in the winter and rolled underneath it, where he remained for several minutes. Nevin's legs stalked past him and disappeared. Isranon stifled a sound of triumph.

If Nevin could not find him, then no one could.

The air blew chill across the latest mark Anksha had left upon his neck and teased along his slave collar chilling it against his skin. Isranon shivered and considered going back after a cloak. He doubted he would elude the lycans twice in the same day, so he relaxed in his hiding place. When he was certain that they had gone somewhere else to look for him, Isranon rolled from beneath the tree and stole through the thickets to his favorite spot: a boulder by Anksha's Gate. It was the only unguarded gate on the estate and that was because only Anksha could open it.

He ran his hands over the gate's wrought iron lions as he always did, feeling the wildness of her spirit in them, the cleanness of a predator that killed from instinct, rather than for pleasure. Stretching out on the ground, Isranon began to cloud watch and tell stories in his mind to match the images he saw there. Perhaps he would write a song for Anksha. Something new that the clouds inspired.

He spent the day enjoying the aloneness and returned in the evening, grinning.

"So where have you been?" Nevin demanded as he trotted back into the rear gardens behind the manor house.

Isranon decided to make a game of it. "It's for me to know and you to find out."

Yoris rushed to the third floor, ignoring the inquiring looks he received from those he passed. It had taken him weeks to gain the nerve to come here. When he reached the corridor of Lord Hoon's wing, he saw no one: nearly all of Hoon's retainers, nibari, and other servants had gone with him. Those that dwelled here rarely left this wing, because Timon's folk gave them short shrift whenever Lord Hoon was absent. Three doors before reaching Lord Hoon's presently unoccupied suite, Yoris stopped and knocked loudly.

The door opened and a slender, female Lemyari named Zinzi stood there, brushing her wheaten hair. "Hoon's little rat in the walls. What do you want?"

Yoris glanced back down the way he had come as if he feared he had been followed. "Can I come in?"

"I suppose." She stepped aside and let him enter, motioning him to a sofa. "This had better be important or I'll rip a piece out of you. I was preparing to feed."

Yoris' eyes scanned the room, taking it in in a single sweep. The sitting room was twice the size of his own. A writing desk stood in the corner near the window where there was also a broad window seat with brocaded satin pillows and cushions. Two equally elegant and opulently upholstered sofas and four chairs surrounded a long, low table.

Settling on a sofa, Yoris wondered how she merited it. She must be held in high regard by Lord Hoon, and that made him nervous. His hands writhed over each other in a washing motion. "I must send a message to Lord Hoon. He said I was to come to you."

Zinzi strolled over to the low table and dropped her brush on it. She gave her long hair a quick twist and shoved a large, sharp pin with a sapphire head through it to hold the twist in place. "I have several of his birds. I warn you, it had better be important. Lord Hoon does not suffer fools and cravens lightly."

"It is. I assure you, it is."

She nodded and patted the desk in the corner near the window. "Everything you need is here." She opened the center drawer and took out several small pieces of paper that she casually placed on top of several sheets of stationery. "Write it on this. I've given you more in case you're shaking too much to write clearly."

Yoris rose and stalked to the desk, feeling belittled and angry.

Zinzi backed away to give him privacy and watched how hard he bore down on the quill in his irritation at her. When Yoris had finished, she let him follow her into the next room, where there were huge cages of various large birds. She chose out a moonhawk and slipped the message into the tiny canister on its leg band. "Lord Hoon will have it by nightfall. If this has proved to be a trifle...."

"I know," Yoris said wretchedly. "I'll be punished. It isn't."

"A nibari will be sent to you tonight. Try not to make as much of a mess of her as you did the last one. We had to place coercions in the last one's mind to stop her panics."

"I will try."

"Now, get out."

Yoris ran into the corridor and past several doors. He stopped and leaned against a wall, recovering himself a bit. When he started moving again, his walk had taken on the tiniest swagger. He passed people in the outer hallways without wincing from them and headed down the backswept stairway to the second floor where his rooms were. Gareth, dirty and bedraggled from working on the estate's latrine, stared at him. Yoris went to him and whispered in his ear, "Bodramet is withering."

Gareth grabbed his arm as Yoris started to go on. "The hell you say."

Yoris stopped in his tracks. He was not as afraid of Gareth as he was of Bodramet, yet caution was his nature. "Anksha can quicken it early."

Gareth stroked his chin. "If Bodramet goes down first, I rule our brotherhood of the winepress."

"I assure you, Gareth, that I will help you as I may."

Zinzi went back to the desk, opened the drawer, and took out a piece of charcoal. The stationery, which she had deliberately left on the desk, was thin onionskin and easily took an imprint. She held a sheet up to the light and saw Yoris' message to Lord Hoon was mostly there. The charcoal drew out the words as Zinzi brushed it across the imprint.

"Bodramet and I withering. Isranon not. Potions preventing it."

She sighed and followed it with a snort. This would get Timon in trouble with Hoon. Zinzi knew how Lord Hoon felt about Isranon's extras: he wanted him dead. Only Anksha prevented it. She suspected Timon of being as fond of Isranon as the nibari were.

"I don't owe you anything, Timon," she muttered, folding the paper and walking out. "So why in hell's name, am I going to warn you?"

Zinzi remained true to Hoon in his absence because of old business between her and Timon. During a time when Timon had turned away from love, Zinzi had fallen in love with him and pursued him, only to discover that Timon was homosexual. For the first century afterward, she had hated him, betraying him to his father at every turn. But Zinzi had mellowed toward him.

She found him in his office, reading one of those new books printed on a dwarven contraption. Eventually that would put their nibari copiers out of business and cost them a large measure of income. Fortunately the printers were not widespread yet. Zinzi only knew of three of them in the outlands.

"Zinzi, what are you doing here?" Timon asked, marking his place with an attached bit of ribbon and laying the book aside.

She extended the paper to him. "I don't owe you. But here. This went to your father today."

"Zinzi, I never meant to--"

She cut him off. "Don't start. I thought about it all the way down. I always do. The centuries aren't going to change it."

Timon gave a nod and accepted the paper. He stiffened as he read. "My father will be angry."

Zinzi shrugged. "That's what I thought."

"Thank you."

Zinzi gave a snort. "Hmpf. Don't thank me. I don't do you any favors. Call it my good deed of the century."

Timon's expression turned considering. "I haven't been giving him extras."

"Then you've been turning your back while Anksha has. I am certain of it."

"Guilty."

"You know that if your father orders me to visit him in the night, I will. I don't care what you feel toward him." She flexed her hand and brought forth her claws with their venom. "It will be over very fast and there is nothing you can do to stop me."

"Go away, Zinzi. I have had enough of this. I never meant to hurt you."

Timon sat with the paper in his hands for a long time after Zinzi left. Finally, he crumpled it up and tossed it in a woven basket beside the desk to be added to a buried trash pile beyond the walls. Now he had more to worry about and he had not even had time to verify what Anksha had told him concerning the purity of Isranon. He could not wait much longer on that. It had to be done soon. If it proved true, then he would have more reasons to offer for preserving Isranon. Reasons, justifications? What were they really? Timon wondered.

He rang a bell and a nibari appeared. Timon sent him running to summon several people. Haig arrived first and Jun soon after. Ephry sauntered in looking like a wolf that had bagged a rabbit and folded himself into his favorite chair. Zulaika and Amiri appeared last, moving with a precise military stride to the remaining chairs. Timon had begun to trust the two Ymraudes who seemed to have a vested interest of some kind in Isranon. He would inquire more deeply about that another time.

"Sit down all of you," Timon said with a sweep of his hand. His hands were large and broad, unlike his father's, for he took after his dead mother's side of the family. "I have had some disturbing news."

"What?" Ephry asked. "I'm always here for you."

Timon smiled at his mate and nodded. "Zinzi was here. Apparently my father has at least one spy in the castle."

Haig sat slightly forward as if contending with the chair that could barely hold his massive frame. "That's your father for you," said Haig in his growly voice. "We've had that talk before. You can't trust him."

Timon ignored Haig's comment, going straight to the source. "A message was sent out today. By nightfall, he'll know that Isranon is not withering due to your intervention, Amiri."

Amiri went still. After a pause, she leaned forward in her chair, and spoke with a deadly softness like a blade wrapped in velvet. "Was my name mentioned?"

"No. They think I'm doing it." Timon pushed his chair back and drew one leg up, bracing his knee against the desk. "Bodramet and Yoris are withering. It said that also. So the spy is someone who has concourse with the blood slaves."

Amiri blinked. "Withering? So soon? What did Anksha do to provoke it?"

Timon shook his head at her. "I have no idea. She has many ways. There's more. My father wants Isranon dead."

Haig's face twisted up in a grimace of distaste. "We already knew that."

Timon exhaled heavily when he got to the next part of his revelations. "There is more to it. He wanted me to prevent Isranon from getting extras. I was to hasten his death in ways Anksha would be unable to detect. She's fiercely protective of Isranon."

The room remained silent, waiting for Timon to say more. So after a pause, Timon spoke again. "Zinzi just told me that if my father gives the order she will kill Isranon. Most likely using her venom. That is her preferred way to kill. She likes the taste of it in their blood. The sanguiner makes bottles of envenomed blood for her."

Amiri stared at her hands in her lap, listening and considering, reading the voices alone and focusing on them. "How soon can she get the order?"

"A day. The birds fly fast and Minnoras is just across the Idar River from us," Timon replied.

"Do you think your father will order it?" Haig asked.

Timon ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't know. It depends on two things. One how much he still prefers discretion to expediency in this matter. And two, whether he thinks having the nekaryiane will make up for losing Anksha."

"And he will lose Anksha, if he kills Isranon," Amiri said in a midnight velvet tone.

Jun straightened his tall, rangy frame and spoke for the first time, an edge to his baritone voice. "Can we kill her?"

"No. My father would make an example of half my estate if we killed her out of hand." And I don't think I could make myself order it. "Ephry, she listens to you. Go talk to her. Find out which way the wind blows on my father and her. I want to know what the likelihood is that my father will order Isranon's death."

Ephry rose. "I'll take care of it now before she has too much time to consider."

"Thanks." As Ephry left, Timon turned to Jun and Haig. "We need to assign people to keep an eye on Zinzi and all the likely angles she might come at Isranon from if she does decide to take him out."

"That's going to be stretching us awfully thin," said Jun. "We're already watching Isranon and the five blood-slaves. Especially with Isranon playing this little hiding game of his. There are easily a dozen ways that Zinzi could reach him."

"We must try, Jun," said Timon. "We simply must try."

"We'll see what we can do," Haig answered for himself and Jun. "And we must warn Isranon."

"I'll take care of that," said Timon, adding, "discreetly."

Isranon slept with dreams and flashbacks out of hell swirling in shifting patterns through his mind. A nibari had carried a message to him and Nevin that one of Hoon's minions, who had been left behind, might make a try for him and set them off. The nibari had refused to say where the information had come from. It weighed on his mind whether to tell Anksha. The last thing he wanted to do was to cause trouble on the estate. Anksha was as cruel as she was gentle and the innocent would die as well as the guilty if she flew into an unthinking rage.

He gripped Nevin tightly, one arm thrown over the lycan's shaggy shoulders.

Isranon sat in a chair beside his prince, Mephistis Coleth de Waejonan, in Hoon's mansion in Timbren, on the western coast flanked by Hoon's royals. Haig stood back, shifting uncomfortably as if he were aware of what was about to happen and could do nothing for it. Anksha sat nude upon a table, dangling her feet, swinging them from time to time like an impatient child.

Hoon had come into Timbren with only six myn in addition to Mephistis, Isranon, and Anksha, leaving most of their forces in the ruins of Aubrudrin. The room was small and cozy. A fire burned in the hearth. Hoon was gathering an army of undead to strike at Rowanhart in reprisal for the Sacred King's breaking of his citadel in Waejontor, building it primarily from revenants and zombies raised by the sa'necari.

Isranon had grown steadily more suspicious of Hoon and Anksha as the days and weeks wore on. He knew these "nibble games", as Mephistis labeled them were rough and he had seen how badly she tore Bodramet up.

He watched Hoon sitting before his full-length mirror. A gesture from Hoon set the surface swirling in patterns of black and silver. When it cleared, Isranon could see a mon in another room reflected there. He did not wish to be here and only half listened to the conversation, missing most of it until Hoon said her name.

"Galee, I have anticipated you. All those long talks about those infuriating twin yuwenghau, Dynarien and Dynanna. I am in striking distance of the female right now."

Galee? Gylorean Galee? Isranon felt icy nails scratch their way up his spine. The mentor of Waejonan still lived? She had created both the vampires and the sa'necari. If Hoon was allied with Galee, then they were in far more danger than he had dreamed possible. Terror gathered in Isranon's stomach, spreading through his muscles. Would she recognize the blood of his ancestor in him and order him slain out of hand?

"Are you?" Galee purred. "Well, let me inform you of the date and the time. Then we will kill them both. It must be done simultaneously so they cannot Jump to each other's aid. And how is our young prince managing?"

"Quite well, I assure you. He has made the acquaintance of my little pet and they like each other very well."

Isranon heard the honeyed poison in the vampire's words and flicked a glance at Mephistis. The prince's hands were tightening on the arms of his chair to the extent that his knuckles whitened.

"You always were my favorite, Hoon," Galee smirked.

"I suppose that is a compliment, Galee," Hoon observed, dryly.

Isranon grew more concerned, more certain that something was about to happen here. He suspected that both Mephistis and Haig knew what that was. He stopped listening to Hoon, turning his attention back and forth between his prince and Haig.

"Dynarien is in Creeya," Galee said. "I intend to kill him and this time he will stay dead. I will see that there are no pieces of his soul left for his divine father to gather up. Just be certain that you get his sister."

"I shall, Galee. I shall."

The mirror went blank and Hoon rose. Walking to the middle of the room, he turned to Isranon. "You are the only sa'necari who is truly the prince's mon, Isranon."

"Where is this going, Hoon?" Mephistis asked.

"As your mon, he should know who truly rules. Anksha, play with the prince."

Isranon started to stand only to have two royals shove him hard into his seat and hold him there. He met Haig's eyes briefly, and then the Lemyari turned his back. Isranon felt the cold bite of betrayal in Haig's action, having believed him a friend.

Anksha shoved off the table in response to Hoon's order, landing lightly as a cat, and stalked toward Mephistis grinning. The prince went pale, trying to back away from her; Isranon saw the terror in his eyes. He realized that what had been going on between Mephistis and Anksha for the past months had not been a simple nibble game. It had been something else entirely.

"Blood-slave," Anksha hissed, the dominance-link clicking in. Mephistis screamed, clutched his head, and collapsed, moaning and writhing on the floor.

All the strength went out of Isranon's body at the sight. He could not move. He felt empty and impotent. The greatest power in his world: all his sense of safety and of reality had been built around the invincible Prince Mephistis, most powerful of sa'necari. He had never imagined that anything existed that could do this.

Anksha raked Mephistis with her claws while he begged her to bite him, to take him, to drink from him. She continued her exhibition, giving him a taste of what she had given Bodramet, only worse--far worse. Mephistis jerked and wept each time she drew her claws along his legs and arms, leaving long, ugly tears in his flesh.

"Anksha, please," he moaned.

"Silence, blood-slave," Anksha ordered, licking her lips.

Isranon sensed the edge of her power as she lashed Mephistis' psychic body through the dominance-link. It smelled like smoke and tasted like acid. Mephistis gave a long anguished howl that shivered up Isranon's spine. The prince's body arched and fell in rolling convulsions, his fingers dancing uncontrollably on the carpet.

"What can I do to you, oh foolish prince?" Anksha demanded in a midnight voice.

"Anything, Anksha. Anything you wish."

"And what will you do for me? Open your belly at my command?"

"Give me the blade and I will do it."

Isranon felt that lash of power again as Anksha hit the prince a second time through the link. He winced at Mephistis' scream. His stomach heaved and it took all his will power not to spew all over himself.

"Bite me," Mephistis pleaded, his eyes filled with desperation.

"This time I will drain you."

"No!" Isranon spoke before he could stop himself. One of the vampires laughed.

"Watch closely, Isranon. This little demonstration was planned for your benefit," said Hoon.

Isranon looked up and saw Hoon standing close to him.

"Remember this lesson. I brought you here to teach it to you."

"Bite me," Mephistis whimpered louder. He sobbed, moaned, and pleaded until her fangs entered his neck and then he screamed on and on and on, while she rode him.

Hoon glanced across the room from time to time. "My lineage, Isranon, is Lemyari. I am a demon-vampire." He flexed his hand and his fingers became claws, venom beading on the tips. "I am the first born of Gylorean Galee, the first vampire made since the Burning Times. I can kill a yuwenghau, if I give them all ten fingers. My venom is very potent. Be careful around me. Provoke me and I will not hesitate to stick you."

Isranon glanced at Anksha still riding his prince, her claws tearing his arms and chest, her fangs deep sunk into his neck. His eyes filled. He thought of his sister and his murdered father. He remembered Rose, whom Dane Jayce had striven so desperately to save and failed. And now Anksha had taken his prince. He had nothing left, except a psychic hollow resonating with echoes of past and present loss. The young male retreated into his father's teachings, those of the Dark Brothers of the Light of which he was the last. "The Darkness hunts me and the Light does not want me."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Isranon's eyes went soft and unfocused, his voice dropping to a whisper that was both silk and stone. "If you do not understand it, then I cannot explain it. When it is my time to die, I will die."

"I have given you a lesson in power. It is mine."

"So be it." Isranon withdrew into his inner castle of silence, wanting to weep for Mephistis, yet refusing to show weakness. "I will not forget it." Nor will I forgive it.

Anksha rolled off Mephistis, who lay too still, came to her feet, and sauntered over to Isranon. Mephistis' blood coated her face and her breasts. She rubbed against Isranon, smearing his face and clothing with his prince's blood. He flinched and the two vampires restraining him tightened their grip.

"I didn't kill him," she purred deep in her throat. "Get some blood and Sanguine Rose into him swiftly enough and he should live. Had I killed him, I would have eaten his entrails while they were still warm. I like the taste of them."

Isranon glanced at Hoon and the vampire lord nodded for his myn to release Isranon. He quickly got Mephistis up, shouldering his weight. Anksha paused in front of them as Isranon started for their bedroom. "Maybe I should take you now," she said.

"The Darkness hunts me and the Light does not want me.... "Isranon replied calmly.

"Let them pass, Anksha," Hoon told her.

Anksha stepped aside, going to where Mephistis had bled onto the carpet. She threw herself down in the puddled blood and rolled in it like a dog over a carcass.

Haig reached Isranon in the hallway and slipped his arm around Mephistis. "Let me carry him. Put your wrist in his mouth."

Isranon glared at Haig for an instant, then yielded his prince, shoved his sleeve up, and pushed his wrist between the unconscious prince's teeth. Mephistis' fangs descended without his regaining consciousness and he suckled. Isranon released a sigh, a breath he had been holding until Mephistis broke the flesh on his wrist. They walked in silence. Haig laid Mephistis into bed and Isranon turned on him.

"Get out," Isranon said, his voice full of ice.

"Isranon...."

"Get. Out."

Haig retreated to the door and left.