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BLOOD RITES

  

 DARK BROTHERS OF THE LIGHT-BOOK I

  

  

  

  

 By JANRAE FRANK

 "The Darkness hunts us and the Light does not want us. Better to

 step willingly into the fires than to live undead. Better to die with

 honor than to take a life in the rites. Let each mon go to his own path,

 but these are ours. And these will always be ours, for this is what we

 were born to. This is the path the gods have given us, for we are the

 Dark Brothers of the Light. We are the walking dead who live, for our

 lives were forfeit with our birth. Forfeit twice over for our choice to

 live as myn, not monsters, though we are forced to dwell among the

 monsters. Set yourself apart in your words, in your deeds, in your

 silence–always in your silence, for silence is your castle. Be as still

 as the deer in the forest, and if you are fortunate the predators will

 not notice you. For when they notice you, they will eat you."

 –Creed of the Dark Brothers

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 Once there were three brothers, Brandrahoon the vampire, Isranon

 called the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits, and Waejonan the Accursed,

 first of sa'necari. Isranon defied his brothers and was destroyed, his

 descendants forced into the darkness.

 –St. Tarmus of Lorendon

  

 BEWARE THE BEAST

 Fear the night my darling child.

 The Beast-she hunts where no one walks.

 Anksha-demon of the wild.

 No mercy there for those she stalks.

 Akin to none–though human seeming,

 Beware her claw–lest ye turn pale.

 Though the Bitch of Brandrahoon's preening

 Can never hide her furry tail.

 All Sa'necari fear her well…

 She feeds alike on those, and man.

 She'll rend and tear your skin to hell,

 Or worse–your soul in mortgiefan!

 Sad met this mistress in the dark.

 Draw not close and don't be crude.

 For an erring child out on a lark.

 Shall meet their end as foul Anksha's food.

 –Lycan traditional teaching song

  

 CHAPTER ONE. CONDEMNED MAN

 The house stood in the tradesmyn's quarter, a large stone box, three

 stories high with a basement. Lord Hoon, demon-vampire of many

 names and guises, regarded the pattern of the blue rough-hewn stone

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 shot through with grey, the stark white painted frames of the windows

 and the heavy white doors, considering whether to knock. Anksha the

 Beast stood beside him. Hoon's divinator and his officers had told him

 the exiled necromantic Prince Mephistis of Waejontor had acquired a

 handful of followers from the lower classes as well as his seven

 sa'necari soon after moving into this house.

 Sa'necari, necromancers, were the only serious rivals within the

 ranks of darkness that the vampires like Lord Hoon had. They had

 stolen all of the powers and abilities of the undead that they could take

 or control, assuming them through their rites, mastering and

 perfecting them in addition to their native arcane talents. This had

 been gained at a price, for they also had the needs and cravings of the

 undead, the unnatural appetites for blood. After generations of

 sa'necari being created in the rites, their very genes had altered until

 more and more of their descendants began to be born sa'necari with

 those appetites and powers manifesting in puberty. their rites of blood,

 rape, and death had become merely the means for increasing their

 powers through the shattering of souls.

 Hoon moved with a polished elegance and spoke with an oldfashioned

 precision as crisp as if it had come from the pages of a

 book. His shoulders were broad and his hips narrow. The glow from

 the street lamps glinted on his black hair, grazed the points of his ears

 and gilded his olive skin with golden highlights. A dangerous

 sensuality lay in the depths of his large eyes, exposed itself on the

 chiseled planes of his cheekbones with their hollows, and settled on

 his full lips. A sword hung from his hip in a black and silver scabbard.

 "What do you think, Anksha? Can we do this ourselves? Teach him a

 lesson?"

 Her eyes narrowed in a sleepy feline expression, broken by a faint

 showing of her fangs. "He's taken the bit in his teeth and thinks he's

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 free."

 Hoon laughed softly. "Next time he should wear a check rein,

 perhaps?"

 "Let's knock on the door."

 Hoon smiled and did so.

 A servant answered. "Lord Darmungaard!"

 Hoon inclined his head at his alias. "I must see Prince Mephistis

 immediately."

 The servant showed them into a parlor, indicating that they should

 sit. "The prince is engaged in a magical working at the moment."

 "Mortgiefan?" Lord Hoon inquired, watching the servant flinch

 from the word. "I know what he is and what his proclivities are. We

 are old friends, are we not, Anksha?"

 "Oh, yes," Anksha said, swishing her robes with her hands in a

 seductive little turn. He had dressed her for an outing at the theater,

 like a fine lady in silk and satin, fit to accompany a high lord, and it

 brought out her beauty. The tiniest bit of fur, so sleek as to be

 indistinguishable from the skin of her face, throat, and hands, showed

 beneath the edge of her neckline. A small, tightly curled tail poked

 from the back of her skirts. Except for that it was easy for her to pass

 for human.

 Through countless centuries she had been known as 'the Beast'

 because no one knew exactly what she was, not even Anksha herself.

 She proclaimed herself by her deeds, 'troll-tamer', and 'demon-eater.'

 Lord Hoon had found her as a toddler in a forest and raised her as his

 pet. Anksha had the instincts of a cat that liked to play with its food

 and steal nestlings out of trees as well as claws, fangs, and a taste for

 blood and flesh–especially the blood of the powerful.

 "Please," the servant gestured at the couch again. "They will finish

 presently."

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 Hoon wagged a finger at the servant with a feral smile. "No. You

 will take us to them now. Otherwise I will return with my people and

 be even more insistent."

 "My Lord Darmungaard, please…"

 Everyone here respected or feared Hoon–or more often both.

 "Now."

 The servant walked away without a word. Hoon and Anksha

 followed. The servant made a tiny gesture at a door and kept going.

 Hoon grinned at Anksha. The vampire put his ear to the door and

 heard chanting. He turned to Anksha, his grin spreading wider. Very,

 very carefully he opened the door and they crept down.

 Mortgiefan indeed.

 Three bleeding tables stood in the center with victims bound

 spread-eagle to their surfaces while three sa'necari busily sated their

 appetites upon them and four more watched hungrily. The middle one

 was Mephistis, cursing and moaning, gripped by the ecstasy of

 mortgiefan, matching the movement of his cock in the dying woman's

 body with each thrust of the blade into her flesh. "Anksha. Anksha.

 Die you stupid Beast!"

 Anksha's lips writhed back from her fangs at his words and she

 licked them as she slipped up behind him without anyone noticing her

 presence: they were all too caught up in the rites. Hoon drew his

 sword and came to stand behind the watchers.

 "Wishing she were me, O randy prince?"

 Mephistis shrieked, climbing the corpse beneath him and rolling

 over, nearly sliding off. "Anksha!"

 She smiled at him with honeyed poison and he edged away with his

 hands on the altar. Anksha studied the dead woman, brushed back a

 string of blond hair matted with blood. "Pretty. Send the body to my

 sanguiner to be properly drained for my bottles."

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 "Is this the creature?" A sa'necari cried, raising power to strike at

 Anksha.

 "I wouldn't," Hoon said, prodding him with the point of his blade

 and making his presence known. He extended his free hand, letting his

 secondary nails emerge from beneath his primaries like claws,

 dripping Lemyari venom. The watchers whirled, noticing the vampire

 lord for the first time.

 Anksha did a turn on the balls of her feet, making her skirts swirl

 and triggered her primal scent glands. She hit the one who had

 suggested attacking her in the face with the full force of her

 pheromones.

 He dropped to his knees sobbing and writhing, "Bite me! Bite me."

 "Not yet." Anksha bent and stroked his face. "Soon. What is your

 name?"

 "Gareth." He opened his tunic, offering his neck, his expression full

 of longing.

 Mephistis watched her, his eyes wide with terror. She was tearing

 apart his little coven and there was nothing he could do to stop her.

 Her nearness had set off the Presence Pain and he hurt throughout his

 being, his nerve endings, his muscles, his neural and mage nets–all of

 him hurt, burned and ached. He released the altar and eased off it,

 doubling over as his souring stomach felt ready to spew its contents

 on the floor.

 "Kill one for me, Mephistis," Anksha said, her casual tone belying

 the savagery with which she snapped the dominance-link awake in his

 mind and body. The dominance-link, which she had placed within

 every fiber of his being with her first bite months past, blazed like fire

 in his veins, his neutral and mage nets. She could bring him to heel,

 break him entirely, or persuade him to acts he normally found

 unthinkable.

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 Mephistis' eyes glazed, and his lips parted, allowing a trickle of

 stolen blood to run from the corner of his mouth. He seized the nearest

 sa'necari before the mon could move, dragging him close. The prince's

 fangs extended and he sank them into the hapless sa'necari's throat,

 sucking the blood, life, and stolen souls out of him. His victim

 convulsed in his grip, and then stilled. Mephistis let the corpse fall

 against the table and slip to the floor while he eyed the others, ready

 to turn on them also should Anksha command it.

 Anksha smiled. She strolled past the rest, regarding them, wafting

 her Circean fragrance across them as she passed. The littlest one

 collapsed, whimpering like an abused puppy before her conquering

 sensuality. This would not be a gradual game. There would be no

 more talk of rebellion. She sniffed them, nostrils flaring, smelling

 their power. When she had determined which of them was nearest to

 Mephistis in strength, she rubbed against him smiling. He shivered,

 his body reacting to her power.

 "What is your name?" she asked, her eyes meeting his. Her breasts

 tilted invitingly, the nipples hard and erect against the silk. She

 enjoyed the way he had to fight his impulse to reach for them.

 "Bodramet," the sa'necari answered, breathing hard, his thick

 member shoving against his pants.

 "That is a nice name," Anksha purred, pressing herself against him,

 rubbing his hardness with her thigh. "Would you like to walk with me

 tomorrow?"

 Bodramet trembled, his eyes growing large with lust and need.

 "Yes. Yes, I would like that."

 "Come for me at Lord Darmungaard's at noon. Do not be late."

 Anksha smiled like a cat with a small bird between its paws. She

 would have her fangs into him and the dominance-link set before

 sunset tomorrow.

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 "I won't be."

 "Wear something without a collar," Anksha told him, stroking her

 finger along his neck. "I want your neck to present nicely."

 "I will. I promise."

 Hoon smiled at the rest of the sa'necaris, "Please continue. I would

 not wish you to suffer from an unfinished rite."

 The others began to work themselves up again. Two climbed

 nervously onto their victims, and Hoon laughed.

 Anksha returned to Mephistis. "We need to talk." She crooked her

 finger at him and they left the basement. "Show me your rooms."

 Mephistis led her upstairs to his suite on the second floor, opened

 the door, and stepped aside. "You're going to take them all, aren't

 you?" Mephistis's voice shook.

 "Yes," Anksha replied, stalking past on the balls of her feet. "One at

 a time they will all beg me to bite them and I will. One is missing.

 Where is the one you call Isranon?"

 "He's gone to the theater with friends."

 "Then I will get to him later."

 "Not Isranon. Please not Isranon." Mephistis caught at her arm, an

 edge of desperation cracking his voice. "Please, not Isranon."

 Anksha cocked her head at him, her eyes filling with an odd mix of

 curiosity and anger. "Because you love him?"

 "Yes. I love him. He's my only friend."

 Anksha growled. "Don't beg. It's too late to beg. I should take him

 now, simply because you love him. I should make you watch while I

 tear him apart. Do not anger me and I will leave him for last. Because

 he is the weakest in magic. I did not like what I found you doing."

 Mephistis knew that other sa'necari noticed Isranon, just as Anksha

 did, the burnished shine of his skin and the heavy curling black hair

 that the youth caught casually at his neck. It was impossible not to.

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 The sa'necari were an arrogant lot, but there was no arrogance to

 Isranon, just a simple stubborn pride. He held to himself, spoke to

 none, and went about his business, yet he stole the notice from the

 others. Those were some of the reasons that Mephistis loved him.

 Mephistis trembled violently, knowing what was coming. She

 might take blood or sex or both. His body was not his own. She could

 separate his mind from the rest of him so that he became a

 disembodied cock and no matter how terrified he became his erection

 would not fail. He was no longer a mon, but a toy, a plaything,

 something she would destroy when she tired of it. It was that way with

 all of her blood-slaves.

 His loins came to attention even as fear shivered through the rest of

 him and his stomach soured. Anksha had him perfectly conditioned to

 her will. A table and chairs stood to one side, boasting a bottle of fine

 wine and three glasses. The broad bed, with its slightly rumpled red

 and green covers, lay under the window as if daring someone to see

 what the occupants were doing from the street.

 Anksha smiled approvingly as Mephistis disrobed without being

 asked and stretched out in the middle of the bed to await her pleasure.

 She poured herself a glass of wine, tasted it, and, deciding the vintage

 was acceptable, drank it down. Then she rummaged through his

 dresser and found a silk sash to stuff in his mouth. No need to terrify

 the others with his screams since she planned to take them all in a few

 days.

 The Beast climbed onto the bed and straddled him, shifting him

 around inside her until she hit the nub of pleasure just right. She had

 heard the Sharani built toys that worked as well and did not get tired.

 She would ask Hoon to buy her one. She had also heard that some

 Sharani had a power over the male body with which they could force

 the toy to stay up until they had ridden it to their satisfaction. Anksha

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 wished there were some way to steal that power, it would make life

 much more pleasant.

 He started to weep as soon as he came. Anksha shoved a corner of

 the sash into his mouth. "Oh troublesome prince, if I had not caught

 you killing a mon in my name, wishing she were me, I would not be

 nearly as rough with you now."

 She flexed her claws and let her large, tearing fangs slide from their

 sheathes.

 * * * *

 Isranon and his friends, the lycans Nevin and Olin, walked through

 the quiet streets of Charas, returning late from seeing a comedy

 performed. He loved the comedies and had begun learning how to

 laugh freely at last. Nineteen years old, the young sa'necari had spent

 most of the first fourteen years of his life running and hiding from his

 own kind, and the past five struggling to survive among them as the

 prince's mon.

 They had started out laughing and exchanging pleasantries, but the

 nearer they came to the mansion, the quieter Isranon became.

 "What are you thinking about?" Nevin asked, the light of the street

 lamps casting an orange glow along an ugly scar traversing Nevin's

 face from his forehead, across a broken nose to his upper lip that was

 half-split from a wound that had failed to heal properly. A second

 long scar crossed his right cheek from the outer corner of his eye to

 the edge of his jaw. Only runed-silver and kenda'ryl could do that to a

 lycan. It gave his words a sibilant quality.

 "That I hope Mephistis' rites are over. The vibrations always leak

 out. The cellars aren't shielded enough." The terror, suffering, and

 deaths of the victims in Mephistis' rites always caused Isranon

 physical, mental and emotional pain, therefore he tried hard to avoid

 being present when they were being held.

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 Nevin gave a snort. "There would be no rites to pain you if we

 returned to Claw's Valley."

 "I would like to go home, but I can't. Mephistis needs me."

 "Being with the prince grows more dangerous by the day, Isranon.

 His fate will overtake you if you do not leave him."

 "When my fate comes for me, it comes. I will accept it like a man,

 unflinching."

 "That's your father talking. You should shed yourself of it," Nevin

 growled in his coarse lycan brogue.

 "My father was a good man."

 "Your father is a dead man. The three of us should return to the

 valley."

 "I can't go home. I can't leave Mephistis. I owe him my life."

 "He's been taken by the Beast. You've known it for months. The

 battle is lost. Let go of it."

 "No. I will never leave him. He is my prince and my friend. If fate

 decrees that I must die beside him, then I will not flinch from it. I will

 meet fate with my honor intact."

 "Take hold of life with both your hands and not surrender to fate,

 my brother."

 Isranon started to answer and stopped as two familiar figures

 stepped out of the house. He froze.

 "See to your prince," Hoon said. "Anksha was a bit rough."

 Anksha laughed, bouncing along beside him.

 Then Isranon was running. He found Mephistis, lying badly torn in

 the middle of his bed. Isranon immediately started to cut his wrist and

 offer it to the prince, but Mephistis stopped him.

 "You must flee… Anksha… she's going to take you all. All my

 sa'necari."

 Isranon felt chilled and hollow, yet that simple stubborn pride that

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 Mephistis loved squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. "No. You

 are my liege-lord. I will stand beside you until death parts us."

 "Isranon, be reasonable…."

 "I am being realistic, my prince," said Isranon, going very formal to

 stress his obstinacy.I have nowhere to run to. The Beast would merely

 hunt me down. No one escapes her for long. Nevin and Olin would die

 trying to defend me. I could not bear that. The Darkness hunts me and

 the Light does not want me.

 Mephistis sucked in a ragged breath. "I have been a fool. She

 caught me riting a mon in her name. This is how she intends to punish

 me. Anksha… she wants you especially… because I love you. Forgive

 me."

 "Always." Isranon cut his wrist, put it to Mephistis's mouth and the

 prince drank. Isranon remained beside him until the prince slept and

 then went downstairs where Nevin and Olin waited. They barraged

 him with questions, but he simply shook his head.

 So it has come to this? That all my hopes are ashes.Isranon felt

 empty. He built the castle in his mind, withdrawing into it, into the

 silences, ordering himself not to think about his fate. There he

 centered and grounded himself with deep breaths that brought calm

 and stillness to his core. He was the last of his kind, of his name.

 There would be no more Dark Brothers of the Light. No more

 descendants of the Dawnhand. His life wound toward its end and there

 was no way to prevent it. So he took refuge in acceptance, which was,

 after all, part of the silences. The creed of the Dark Brothers, sa'necari

 heretics who had rejected the rites of blood, rape, and death, echoed

 through him.

 "The Darkness hunts us and the Light does not want us. Better to

 step willingly into the fires than to live undead. Better to die with

 honor than to take a life in the rites. Let each mon go to his own path,

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 but these are ours. And these will always be ours, for this is what we

 were born to. This is the path the gods have given us, for we are the

 Dark Brothers of the Light. We are the walking dead who live, for our

 lives were forfeit with our birth. Forfeit twice over for our choice to

 live as myn, not monsters, though we are forced to dwell among the

 monsters. Set yourself apart in your words, in your deeds, in your

 silence–always in your silence, for silence is your castle. Be as still as

 the deer in the forest, and if you are fortunate the predators will not

 notice you. For when they notice you, they will eat you."

 Isranon had been Prince Mephistis of Waejontor's sworn Mon since

 he was fourteen. Mephistis, in turn, had allied himself with Lord Hoon

 against the Sacred King. Hoon had proved a treacherous ally, ordering

 Anksha to take the prince as her blood-slave to make certain of his

 loyalties and cooperation.I hate you, Hoon.

 * * * *

 Isranon sat in the garden, playing his flute in the darkness. The

 heart had gone out of him. The music emerged listless and

 melancholy, resigned and sad. He could not play his way out of his

 depression, his grief. He found himself thinking about his father. The

 elder Isranon had not fought back when the sa'necari came for him.

 He had attempted, instead, to reason with them and buy the others a

 chance to get free. Only Isranon and his sister–whose name he had not

 spoken in years–escaped. The teachings had failed his father and his

 people. So Isranon, playing his flute, found no solace in the teachings

 either.Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow, sang the notes from the flute.

 He felt like an old mon with many memories and no tomorrow,

 looking always backwards and never forwards. He remembered the

 words of a ghost to him after he killed the sa'necari, Troyes. He had

 pursued Troyes expecting to die.

 Over a year ago, Troyes had tried to carry off a lycan clan-princess,

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 Merissa, Isranon's childhood playmate. Isranon had left Troyes

 stretched dead across the altar of dark magic where he had intended to

 rite Merissa. Claw, Merissa's father, found them there and accused

 Isranon of riting Troyes. In the end, rather than feeling triumphant and

 courageous for having rescued Merissa, Isranon felt ashamed and

 humiliated.

 The only positive thing that happened was the ghost that had

 emerged from Troyes' hellblade and told him that one day he would

 walk with kings and Gods of Light to Ildyrsetts to find the staff of his

 ancestor Isranon the Dawnhand, his namesake. He had clung to that

 foreseeing as a raft in rough waters. Now that was gone. He had

 listened to tales of the staff called Warrior, while sitting at his

 grandmother's knee.

 When he had boasted at eight years old that he would reclaim the

 staff from the sa'necari who had stolen it, his father had rebuked him,

 saying 'You are too full of yourself, it is not proper, and it is not our

 way to seek conflict.'

 Nevin had overheard this and placed a blade in his hands, telling

 him, 'This is how you win back the staff.' Then Nevin and his father

 had quarreled. Now Isranon had to put all that behind him.

 No one ever escaped the Beast once she decided to take him as her

 blood-slave. She was swift, relentless, and matchless in her ability to

 track her prey. Not even horses could outdistance her. Anksha's power

 and influence over her blood-slaves was built in complex layers:

 knowing this did not aid him. When Anksha chose a victim, she

 overwhelmed their reason initially with sexual allure based upon an

 intense pheromonal wash and compounded by supernatural means;

 when they opened their minds and veins to her, she bit them and

 drank, establishing the dominance link in their bodies, minds and

 souls–afterward they could refuse her nothing. Finally there was the

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 Presence Pain, being around her for a sustained period without

 feeding her made it worsen into sheer agony. It was rumored that

 some of her blood-slaves had perished from going untouched for too

 long while in her presence. How much more there was to Anksha's

 power and nature, no one knew for certain unless it was Anksha

 herself and Lord Hoon.

 If Isranon ran, she would descend upon him before the sun set the

 following day. And she would kill anyone she found with him as

 punishment for his flight. Isranon had seen her do it to others. He

 refused to spend the rest of his life running in fear of his fate the way

 his father's people had. He would accept it like a man when it came.

 "What bothers you?" Nevin asked, settling on his haunches beside

 him. His black hair reflected his coat color in wolf form, with a bit of

 grey in it.

 Isranon shook his head. He had withdrawn into his castle, his

 silences, retreating even from his clan-brothers.

 "What did Mephistis say to you?" Olin growled. His hair, like his

 coat in wolf-form, was white spiked with black. He stood a few inches

 shorter than his cousin Nevin.

 Isranon lowered his flute. "Fate has come to call."

 "We need to leave here quickly," Nevin told him.

 Isranon shook his head. "I cannot out run my fate and I will not

 abandon my prince."

 "We could head for the clan's valley," Nevin persisted.

 "No. We would never reach it before Anksha overtook us and I will

 not have you risking yourself in my defense.

 Nevin looked stricken. "My brother…."

 Isranon gave Nevin a resolute glance. "No. Fate cannot be denied.

 When it comes to call, it can only be faced with fortitude and honor."

 "Damn your pride… Damn your philosophy. Stop sounding like

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 your father." Nevin dragged Isranon into an embrace and held him.

 Isranon could not bear to be within sensing or hearing distance of

 others' suffering when he could do nothing to affect it. There was so

 little he could do to affect it. Mostly Isranon chose his dead father's

 path of passive resistance among the monsters, as he did now, but he

 would defend himself if forced–in that much he differed from his

 father's beliefs and he had that from his guurmondru, the lycan

 lawgiver, Nevin.

 "Acceptance of fate leads to peace and serenity," Isranon quoted

 back at Nevin. No defense existed against Anksha. She would track

 him down if he fled, strike him with her pheromones, and render him

 impotent to resist her. It was as simple as that. He would not have

 time to draw a blade in the flash of an instant in which she struck.

 And, he was as tired as an old mon of running and hiding.

 "No, my brother," Nevin shouted at him. "It leads to death."

 "Yes." Isranon heaved a sigh as he thought of his father.My father

 did not fail in his teachings, yet his teachings failed him,he thought.

 Then he shoved the thought away from him, disturbed by it,

 remembering things he wished he would not.

 Isranon stopped in his tracks, seeing a nibari, arms raised to

 protect his head, crouched beneath a rain of blows from an older

 sa'necari wielding a whip. Isranon did not fear pain, yet witnessing

 the suffering of others always made his stomach clench. He could

 taste the nibari's pain through the same psychic awareness that other

 sa'necari used to feed upon terror and anguish. He stepped between

 the next blow and its victim, taking the full force across his face.

 At that moment, his friend Dane appeared at his side, grabbed the

 nibari and ran with him down the corridor.

 Isranon met the raging sa'necari's eyes calmly. Fangs bared, the

 sa'necari fetched Isranon a series of hard blows that would have

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 made a nibari howl and beg. Isranon gave him no sounds, no taste of

 fear to savor. The youth merely regarded him with stone-faced pride

 and righteous indignation in every angle of his bearing. He made no

 move towards his blades. No other sa'necari carried swords; they

 carried the runed hellblades and bane blades for the rites at their

 belts. Only the vampires of Dane's unit and the human soldiers of the

 prince carried swords.

 The sa'necari hesitated, trying to figure Isranon out. The younger

 sa'necari refused to respond to violence with violence, holding himself

 there with stoic composure and giving no sign that he had even felt

 the blows. This was where his reputation for liking pain had

 originated; the rumor was untrue.

 With a snarl, the older sa'necari withdrew.

 When Dane returned, he stared at the bloody tears the whip had left

 in Isranon's clothing. "You've done this before?"

 Isranon refused to look at him, staring at a point over the vampire's

 shoulder.

 Dane caught his elbow, turning him about. "What if he had killed

 you?"

 Isranon's voice went chill as the stone around them. "They always

 stop."

 Dane snarled, drawing his lips back from his fangs, which were

 larger and more impressive than those of the sa'necari. "There will

 come a time when they will not stop. I begin to think I know your

 brethren better than you do."

 Isranon shook him off, took two steps, and staggered, almost

 falling.

 Dane caught him. "Shit, the prince will think…"

 He carried Isranon to his chambers, and encouraged him to feed

 from Rose. Isranon took only as much as he needed, then pushed her

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 away, and gingerly stripped off his shirt.

 Dane stared at the multitude of old scars on the youth's body. For a

 sa'necari, blood would heal nearly anything. Some said that they had

 stolen that trait from the vampires, while others held that the vampires

 had acquired it from the sa'necari.

 "What made these?" he asked. "Kenda'ryl?" The magic metal often

 left hideous scars when it failed to kill. "Runed weapons?"

 "He's not sa'necari," Rose interjected.

 Isranon stiffened, the line of his mouth going tight. Dane regarded

 him and Rose, waiting for an answer. Instead, Isranon drew his flute

 case from around his neck and placed it in Dane's hands.

 Sa'necari hated flutes. They were the sound of life and, the more

 deepened in death they became, the more intensely the sound of one

 appalled them.

 Dane glanced at Isranon. At the youth's nod, he took the flute out of

 the case.

 Isranon watched the realizations passing across his friend's face

 with interest.

 The vampire turned the flute lovingly in his hands, recognizing

 what a fine instrument it was. It was silver and runed with a pattern

 glorifying life. Struck by the presence of such a thing in a sa'necari's

 hands, he read them to himself. His head jerked up. "Isranon, son of

 Isranon, son of Isranon…. This is Dawnhand's flute."

 At another nod from Isranon, Dane put the flute to his lips. He blew

 softly and low so that the sound would not bring the sa'necari

 screaming. Isranon smiled in bliss at Dane's delicate mastery of the

 instrument.

 "I have never taken a life in the rites. I have never crossed that

 line…." Isranon said. "My father always told me, when the craving for

 blood arrived with puberty, that so long as I could play that flute and

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 enjoy it, I would never become a monster."

 Dane lowered the flute. "Then one day the others will kill you."

 "To die for one's beliefs is a fine death."

 * * * *

 Soldiers led by Anksha arrived at dawn and moved Mephistis and

 his sa'necari into Hoon's mansion. they took their weapons away.

 Isranon felt naked without his blades, but as always, he said nothing.

 Under Anksha's sway, Mephistis had agreed to this disarming. The

 only way to serve his prince and remain by his side had been to obey.

 Once at the sprawling mansion of Lord Darmungaard, they were

 limited to a certain section of it on the third and fourth floors. They

 were not allowed to leave it.

 The mansion covered most of the north block forming a half moon

 around the Hall of Words where the Charisian ruling council met.

 When viewed from the highest tower, the ebony-gray, cut stone and

 mortar palace of Lord Darmungaard spread across the thickly planted

 grounds like a dark gray bat with open wings. Abutments surmounted

 by tall pinnacles stood at intervals along the building to receive the

 weight of the flying buttresses, which channeled rainwater into the

 leering mouths of the gargoyles on the lower roofs. It was rumored to

 have several levels of crypts and underground reaches, but no one

 knew for certain. If anyone had ever known, they had not lived to

 speak of it.

 The high, machicolated outer walls enclosed elegant gardens and

 courtyards, planted to the edge of wilderness for Anksha's games. The

 Lord's private solar occupied a central section, set off from the rest,

 reached only by a single corridor and included a roof top garden, as

 well as a study, bedrooms, chapel and private audience chamber.

 Isranon kept to his rooms with his flute, finding it harder and harder

 to remain centered, the lycans ever at his side. Black pants and a

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 wraparound robe that closed with a sash had been sent to all the

 sa'necari, which was how Anksha dressed her blood-slaves. Anksha's

 symbol of a claw gripping an A rune was on the left shoulder. No one

 in Hoon's household could mistake what he was destined for.

 Isranon separated from his two companions only when Hoon

 ordered him into a room without them. He felt certain that Hoon's

 command lay behind Anksha's decision to take them all. And, he

 waited for it with the discipline of his people, waiting for it as for

 death come calling. When his turn came, he would show her no fear.

 The first afternoon, a despairing scream came from the upper floor.

 The lycans glanced; Isranon did not, saying in a resigned voice,

 "Anksha has taken Bodramet." Then he began to play again. He felt

 grateful that Anksha had allowed the lycans to come with him,

 although that increased his concern for them.

 "Why?" Nevin demanded.

 "I don't wish to discuss it. You'll understand in time."

 Nevin watched him with a look that Isranon could not decipher, a

 still sorrow, and something else. "She always kills her toys…."

 Isranon thought of Merissa, the lycan Chieftain Claw Redhand, his

 wife Aisha and all of the others he had known in Clan Redhand

 Valley. Merissa was Claw and Aisha's daughter. He and Merissa had

 been lovers. When Claw learned of their relationship, he had sent

 Merissa away. Then Isranon looked up, pausing in his playing, the

 flute settling in his lap. "You will tell them I died well; that I stared

 fate in the eyes and showed no fear…. And Merissa… tell her I loved

 her."

 Nevin's hand tightened on Isranon's shoulder with understanding.

 "You're destined for her? The Beast is the fate you spoke of?"

 "Yes." Isranon studied the scarred wolf, thinking of how much he

 had loved him since childhood. Nevin had always been his patient

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 older brother and mentor. An image flashed across his mind of Nevin

 laying dead, slashed apart by Anksha's claws and then another of him

 taken by her, which was even worse, swept through Isranon's vivid

 imagination and he shivered. He could not allow that to happen. better

 for him to simply surrender to her and not draw his spirit-brothers in

 any further, than to put them at risk.

 "It isn't fair."

 "Fate comes in whatever form it chooses."

 Isranon had made the same request of Dane Jayce when he was

 seventeen. He writhed inwardly at another memory.I have not kept

 the teachings. I have killed. My father would be ashamed of me. I am

 sliding into the darkness. I am a monster.

 Three hours later, Anksha ordered all of the sa'necari branded and

 collared. Yoris screamed himself sick when the hot iron was pressed

 into his shoulder, the others groaned loudly, but Isranon bore it in

 silence.

 * * * *

 Isranon turned and twisted in his sleep, unable to escape the

 anguish of his memories, which would not release him in his dreams.

 Torches burned in black iron sconces along the walls of the

 circular Great Hall of Dragonshead. Branches of candles on the

 tables scattered throughout amid the chairs and couches produced a

 garish light, throwing patterns of shifting shadow into every crevice

 and nook. Two high backed chairs sat upon a central dais. Many

 sa'necari enjoyed feeding publicly on nibari in the Great Hall,

 showing off the quality and training of privately-owned stock.

 The Great Hall was, in essence, an orgy room–although Mephistis

 had so far refused to grant his sa'necaris one. Isranon paused at the

 edge and judged the room. Rose was part of the common herd, which

 Mephistis had smuggled in over the years to satisfy the needs of the

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 lower ranks. Sometimes the upper castes fed from that herd also.

 Isranon could not bring himself to ask favors of Mephistis: he did

 not like asking anyone for favors as a matter of pride. Instead, he

 simply worried whenever one of the others chose Rose. If he had had

 rank and power, which he would never have because of his beliefs–his

 determination not to cross the line into the darkness–then asking for

 her would have been a small thing.

 The youth went down the three tiers into the chamber to cross it,

 watching for her. Two sa'necari rose from chairs and approached

 him. One was Bodramet, who was rumored to be second in power

 only to Mephistis. He was a sturdy man who wore his hair slicked

 back and woven into dozens of tiny braids at the base of his skull. The

 other was Troyes, a sa'necari of middle rank, lighter haired and

 skinned than Bodramet. They intercepted Isranon in the middle.

 Bodramet regarded Isranon speculatively, running a finger along

 the youth's cheek. "Do you play nibble games, Isranon? Troyes is of

 the opinion that you do."

 Troyes grinned, moving closer to Isranon.

 Isranon sucked air through his nostrils. "No."

 "That's not the rumors, Isranon," Troyes said. "We've all heard you

 feed the vampires. That you bend over for Dane."

 "You're a fine looking tidbit," Bodramet continued to stroke

 Isranon's face.

 Isranon shoved between them, his heart hammering. Troyes caught

 his arm. Isranon drew his knives, putting one to Troyes's throat, the

 other at his gut. "Let me be."

 Troyes's eyes lowered to the blades and then lifted to Isranon's

 face, "Another time, perhaps?" He released the youth.

 "Never." He swept his gaze across their faces and repeated,

 "Never."

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 Isranon sheathed the blades and strode away, refusing to run or

 give the smallest sign that they had shaken him. Their laughter

 followed him. Isranon found Rose with Dane in an adjacent chamber.

 He hungered for a taste of his Rose, but the encounter with Bodramet

 and Troyes had left his stomach clenched up and a revulsion for what

 he was lodged in his throat. Dane walked them to the circle of rooms

 his own people occupied. It required two glasses of wine before

 Isranon could relax enough to feed from Rose. When the little nibari

 fell asleep, Dane had his nibari put her to bed while he and Isranon

 talked.

 "My father did not believe in violence, even in self-defense,"

 Isranon said, allowing Dane to pour him a third glass. "Nor in

 vengeance."

 "Yet, I saw you draw those blades you wear on Troyes."

 Isranon looked up sharply at Dane. "You were watching?"

 Dane nodded. "You know how to use them. We've practiced

 together."

 "My godfather Nevin is lycan. Every time we had to scatter and

 flee, I was sent to Nevin in Claw Redhand's valley. He taught me."

 Godfatherwas the closest Isranon could come, with his limited

 knowledge of the common tongue, toguurmondru, the lycan term for

 his relationship to Nevin who was only twelve years older than he.

 "I've heard of it. It's a waystation for sa'necari sneaking through

 the Sharani-occupation zone and then south. I've never been there."

 Dane opened another bottle, refilled his glass, and settled opposite

 Isranon. He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "You

 should ask Mephistis to send you there."

 "No. I am my prince's man." Isranon met Dane's eyes squarely. "I

 will stand by his side until death parts us. I will step between it and

 him if I can."

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 "You do not belong here among the monsters."

 "I am a monster. I was born a monster." Isranon's voice became

 devoid of emotion. "I keep my father's teachings as far as I am able.

 What happened in the hall…. That is merely their nature, like lions of

 the forest. It does not have to be my nature."

 "Why not?" Dane persisted, trying to drag it back around.

 "Because all of Dawnhand's lineage is different."

 "You tell yourself you are different, but are you really?"

 "They enjoy violence. I don't. When I resort to violence, I feel as if

 my heart, soul, and honor have been soiled."

 "Not even in self-defense?"

 "Not even then. Violence is the law of the brute. Kindness,

 compassion, and gentleness are the law of the spirit."

 "That's no way to survive."

 "The Dark Brothers tried to teach and reason with the predators.

 They all perished, except for me. I am not very good at keeping the

 teachings, but I try."

 "What happened to your sister?"

 Isranon's eyes dropped. "They made her a monster. she stepped

 into the flames."

 "You mean she killed herself?"

 "Yes."

 "Was she living or undead?"

 Isranon was far too young for what showed in his eyes. "Undead.

 They killed her, knowing she would rise…." Isranon sucked air,

 seeming every bit his mere seventeen years, all vulnerability. "Should

 I rise or somehow be forced into the rites, I will step into the flames as

 honor demands–as she did." Isranon hesitated, his expression

 troubled. "Should I perish here, Dane, I would judge it a kindness if

 you would carry word of it to Nevin. And tell him I died well."

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 "I swear it, Isranon." Dane clasped the youth tightly in his arms

 and then released him. "If I had had a son of my body before I was

 turned…Isranon, I would have felt honored for him to have been like

 you."

 * * * *

 In the guise of establishing an embassy, the Sacred King of

 Rowanhart had entered the city in pursuit of Hoon and Mephistis. For

 two years she had bested them at every turn. Tonight Hoon had

 learned that the rabble had risen to her banner and Isranon wondered

 how that might affect matters.

 Anksha had taken Gareth a week ago, Petros three days past, and

 last night she had taken Ennis. Now there were only two of them left:

 Isranon and Yoris. Isranon suspected that if the king turned in this

 direction, she would simply take the last of them in a single night of

 frenzy. Nonetheless, Isranon consistently refused to quail before her.

 Hoon sat in his favorite chair in his study, cupping a glass of wine.

 "Abelard is alive?" He had already been answered twice and the

 repetition made the minion kneeling before him nervous. Abelard was

 the Sacred King's husband.

 Anksha had Ennis on the floor behind the potted plants, worrying

 him by the throat like a dog with a rat, as she drank. His screaming set

 the other sa'necari on edge. She had promised not to kill any of them–

 yet. She would let them heal themselves with blood afterward.

 "The wards are down, the tower is empty. All the rooms we could

 never find are open and have been emptied." The lesser blood

 vampire, an Ylesgaire, cursed.

 Hoon set his glass aside, and steepled his fingers, regarding the

 lesser blood with arrogant contempt. Three of his 'royals', Lemyari

 vampires like himself, flanked him standing; Anksha moved to curl at

 his feet running her gaze hungrily across Mephistis and his sa'necari

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 who were seated on the couches. From the corner of his eye, Isranon

 saw a nibari kneel and offer the sobbing Ennis her wrist to drink from.

 Isranon sat across from Mephistis, as impassive as stone, while the

 prince huddled on a corner of the couch, breathing in rapid catches,

 fighting an attack of panic. His stomach hurt, a desperate spasmodic

 clenching; yet he was far better off than his prince who struggled not

 to send his body's expression of distress spewing across the soft

 carpets in a stinking acidic mess.

 Hoon drummed his long fingers on the clawed arm of his chair. "If

 you had not mismanaged Abelard's death and turning, those things

 would have been ours."

 Isranon remembered his father trying to reason with the sa'necaris

 attacking their small compound, how he tried to persuade them to

 cease their assault and so buy time for the others to escape. In the end

 only Isranon and his sister had won free. He felt vaguely like his

 father, sacrificing himself for what he believed in. Yet, what was he

 really doing? Was it truly devotion to his prince?

 "Why didn't you turn Abelard the first time?" Mephistis snapped,

 his eyes wild.

 Hoon gave him a furious glance, hot and contemptuous. "Kalirion

 marked his first incarnation. The last Abelard was of his bloodline but

 was not marked. My blood taints his body. That should have left a

 nasty surprise, though I have not heard. Willidar can be turned if I can

 catch him again. According to the rumors of the times, there were

 artifacts of great power and incomparable spell books in those rooms.

 I want them. And I do not want them turned against us. If the Sacred

 King discovers how to use them, she will."

 "Then we take Thorn Hall." That was where the Sacred King

 resided.

 "Easier said than done. I will need to bring a divinator into play.

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 Hell knows what might have been in those rooms."

 "Margren was one of the best, but she is gone." Mephistis turned to

 look at Hoon as he spoke. His moods had become shifting and fragile.

 It troubled Isranon to watch him.

 "She was unstable. Nearly useless," Hoon said, disparagingly.

 Isranon listened uneasily. Anksha had insisted on having all six

 sa'necari present for this little gathering so she could play games with

 the last two. Mephistis and the other four wore neither shirt nor tunic,

 so that their scars from her feedings would show. She no longer

 bothered to stifle their screams: she made Isranon and Yoris listen and

 watch each time she did it, like with Ennis just then. Witnessing it

 sickened Isranon. But so did the constant stream of muffled

 whimpering coming from Yoris.

 "Do not take that tone with me, Brandrahoon!" Mephistis snapped

 in an unexpected flaring of temper, which only the name of his dead

 wife, Margren, or mention of his lost sons could bring on.

 Anksha snarled, nostrils flaring, and Mephistis subsided.

 "I apologize," Mephistis said, his gaze sliding over his sa'necari.

 Anksha rose and walked slowly around the chairs, smiling in a

 calculating fashion, her hands behind her back like a child planning

 naughtiness. Isranon suspected his prince's outburst had provoked

 something in her.

 Isranon felt detached from all the people speaking around him, no

 longer putting names to voices. Words were empty things. He

 watched Yoris blubber, trembling uncontrollably as Anksha picked

 Bodramet and pulled him down, dragging him over to Yoris' feet. The

 sa'necari were accustomed to having cattle, not being cattle. They bred

 and kept nibari herds, genetically altered humans, to satisfy their

 arcane appetites. This made finding themselves as the cattle all the

 more difficult and terrifying to endure.

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 "Watch, Yoris," she purred. "Watch closely. See what I intend for

 you."

 Yoris cringed away from her, his eyes saucering in panic,

 whimpering like a small creature pinned beneath a cat's claws.

 "What I intend to do…." Another royal spoke somewhere to the left

 of Isranon.

 "Anksha, I can't stand it any longer," Yoris wept brokenly, opening

 his robe and shoving his chair away as he sank to his knees beside his

 compliant fellow. "Bite me, I beg you. Get it over with. You'll do it

 anyway. Please, do it now. I can't stand this waiting, this not knowing

 when…or if I'll be next."

 The Beast shoved Bodramet aside, sending him back to the couch.

 Isranon experienced a sharp surge of contempt for Yoris'

 cowardice, the first emotion to break through his walls completely. He

 would not go down like this, sobbing in terror.

 Yoris had always survived at Mephistis' court by playing one

 person off against another. Isranon understood the pattern of Anksha's

 depredations: she had taken the strongest of them first, working her

 way through their ranks to the weakest in power and the weakest of

 them all was himself.

 Had he believed it would achieve anything, he would have offered

 himself in their places; but it would not have helped matters any. It

 might even have angered her further.

 "Are you certain?" Anksha asked, flashing her fangs. "Will you die

 for me? Can I take all I want? Can I drain you to death?"

 "Yes. If that's what you want. Only do it now. Please," Yoris

 gibbered.

 "I will." Anksha leaped onto him.

 As her fangs tore into him and her power swept through him, Yoris

 screamed as shrill as a woman gone mad, "Noooooo!" Then he wet

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 himself.

 Mephistis closed his eyes until the screaming stopped. Yoris curled

 up in a tight, moaning ball when she finished with him.

 Isranon decided it was time to make an end of it with all the

 courage he could muster, show himself to be a mon like his father,

 unafraid of pain and death. He opened his robe, and knelt. The young

 sa'necari drew in a fortifying breath, folding his hands together behind

 his back.

 Hoon paused in his speaking, staring at the multitude of scars on

 Isranon's body.

 "Since there is no escaping my fate, Anksha," Isranon said. "Then

 let me meet it well, rather than whimpering like the others."

 Anksha looked at him curiously, taking in the calm stoicism, the

 proud tilt to his chin, shoulders and back straight. From her

 expression, the fact that his body bore the many scars of others

 feedings, had registered in her mind; yet she did not question what she

 saw. "You I could like," she said.

 "No!" Mephistis shouted. "No, please, Anksha. Not Isranon. He is a

 good mon. He isn't like the rest of us." Mephistis crossed the room,

 dropping to his knees and pushing between them. "Please. Don't do

 this! Hoon, please ask her not to do this."

 "Move aside," Anksha hissed. "Or I'll not just take him, Mephistis,

 I'll kill him." She twisted about, tearing her claws deeply across

 Isranon's chest, gouging him. He bore it well, making not the smallest

 sound.

 Hoon turned his back. "Take him and be done with it, Anksha."

 "Do not plead for me, my prince. Do not dishonor me," Isranon said

 calmly. "Let fate find me a man who does not fear it."The Darkness

 hunts me and the Light does not want me.He centered himself in the

 serene acceptance of the teachings, waiting for her with his head tilted

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 now like a nibari's before a hungry master, exposing the favored vein.

 A stoic stillness framed his utter surrender.

 Mephistis withdrew, burying his face in his hands.

 Anksha asked Isranon the same questions that she had Yoris, which

 he answered and then she took him more savagely than the others,

 tearing him further with her claws as well as her fangs. Isranon's

 sphincters tightened and his body went rigid with the pain. He fought

 to stifle the groan that felt as if it were climbing up his throat inch by

 inch until it escaped past his clenched teeth despite his efforts.

 Yet, he did not scream.

 All his hopes and dreams died as his blood welled into her mouth

 and her power swept through him in a roaring presence, claiming all

 of him–body and soul. She snapped the dominance-link into place,

 jerking him hard and then slashing through him with the blade of her

 mind, cutting him heart, mind, and soul; lodging her links agonizingly

 in every fiber of his being. She was an inferno in his awareness, an

 existential anguish beyond anything he had ever believed possible.

 Anksha shattered his barriers, blasted the castle of his will into dust,

 and left him utterly broken like a doll dismembered by a hostile child.

 Isranon's eyes closed, and he crumpled to lay unmoving before her.

 Mephistis cried out in sheer wretchedness, his arms straight down

 and fists tightening until his knuckles paled. "No…." He stared at

 Isranon's chest, trying to catch the slightest movement to suggest his

 friend still breathed: none of the others had been rendered

 unconscious by the impact of Anksha's power.

 Before Isranon slipped from consciousness, his and Anksha's minds

 touched fully. She let out an anguished shriek of total desolation,

 circling him in a crouch, tearing her hair and keening his name,

 "Isranon, son of Isranon, son of Isranon."

 Hoon spun around, stricken by comprehension. He snatched

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 Anksha up, pressing her face into his shoulder to stifle her noises.

 "Take Isranon upstairs," the Lemyari ordered his royals as he carried

 her out. Mephistis followed, his eyes wide.

 "Hush her quickly. Please. If the others figure out what she means

 they'll kill him," Mephistis said. "I discovered him by accident. He's

 been my only real friend. Every time another sa'necari stumbles on

 those of his lineage, they kill them. But they are too proud to change

 their names. It's probably the only decent thing I ever did. Why did he

 have to join me at your estate? I told him to stay away."

 Hoon's eyes closed briefly. His son, Timon, acting on his orders,

 had altered all of Mephistis' letters. Hoon's plots had just doomed the

 last surviving male carrying his brother's name in unbroken

 succession. For generations they had been forced to become sa'necari

 by performing unspeakable acts with their families held hostage to

 their compliance. Eventually they began to be born sa'necari. Then the

 killing started as they refused to continue. They fled and disappeared.

 Hoon assumed they had all been slain at last. Yet here was Isranon

 and Hoon had ruined him. Bloody tears ran down his face.

 "For many years I tried to get close enough to pull them from the

 House of Waejonan's grasp. By the time I was able to, they were gone.

 As little power as he possesses, he'll wither and be dead within a

 fortnight." Hoon stalked off, carrying the still weeping Anksha.

 * * * *

 Mephistis followed the royals bearing Isranon to his rooms. He had

 barely managed to hold himself together until they had gotten Isranon

 onto the bed. The prince could see how badly Anksha had torn him.

 She had punished Isranon because Mephistis had tried to intervene,

 clawing his chest as well as biting deeply into his neck.

 "Get out! Get out all of you!" Mephistis' voice began to crack with

 grief and shame even as it rose with rage. When the royals did not

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 move fast enough he threw a chair at them, then he collapsed on his

 knees, falling forward, bent at the waist, his shoulders pressing

 Isranon's side. His breathing came in sobs and gasps, tears streaming

 his face. "It's my fault. It's my fault she hurt you. It's my fault she

 owns you."

 Mephistis pressed his forehead against the edge of Isranon's chest

 as he wept. Fingers brushed his face.

 "My prince?" Isranon's voice was weak and faint. "The bite of the

 blade… is nothing… compared to this."

 Mephistis raised his head and seeing that Isranon's eyes were open,

 he slit his wrist, pressing it to the injured sa'necari's mouth. "Drink,

 that's my command." Mephistis had never willingly fed anyone in his

 life.

 Isranon drank and the sheer potency of Mephistis's blood closed the

 wounds in his neck and chest, leaving only scars. Although the blood

 healed him swiftly, he would still need more.

 "I was going to be free. A ghost promised me…." Isranon's voice

 came out jagged, beaten, and haunted as he finally released himself to

 despair. "She promised I would walk with gods and the kings of light

 to Ildyrsetts. That…that they would give me the staff of Dawnhand….

 Now, I'll never be free! Never! She's a roaring noise in my head! Oh

 gods, it hurts so." Isranon covered his head, balling up and rolling into

 the corner, pressing himself into the wall as if he had lost his mind.

 Anksha had not simply taken him, she had broken him.

 The strong, stalwart Isranon, that Mephistis had known for years,

 was gone, destroyed beneath the psychic claws of the Beast: the old

 Isranon would never have been weeping in a corner like this. It hurt

 Mephistis to see it.

 Anksha did not feed simply on the blood of her slaves, but upon the

 entire bio-alchemy of their beings, including their magic; and that was

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 what caused the withering. It was also why those with less magic died

 sooner than those with more. It was the reason for the agony of her

 bite. The only worse death that Mephistis could think of would be in

 the rites themselves. Yet, the anguish of the rites was short compared

 to the lingering death that was Anksha's gift to her blood-slaves.

 "The pain will lessen with time. At least you met your fate like a

 man. Better than the rest of us. And you were right. She would have

 come for you eventually. Anksha left you for last, not because I cared

 for you, but because you were the weakest magically."

 A knock preceded Nevin and Olin's entrance. They came close,

 glancing from Mephistis to Isranon. "What?" Nevin asked.

 "Anksha took him. She was angry. To punish me, she shattered

 Isranon's psyche and his sense of self."

 Nevin's eyes hardened as he listened to Mephistis.

 Mephistis went very still, his arms around Isranon. "When Anksha

 tires of her toys she kills them," his voice grew ever softer. "Isranon

 may be an exception to this, but Hoon's words were 'I've doomed him.'

 I don't like the sound of that. It does not bode well for any of us who

 have been bitten. I have heard that even those she does not kill

 outright wither and die from simply being in her presence. Hoon says

 he'll wither and die within a fortnight. Olin, find a bottle of Sanguine

 Rose. Maybe if we could get some of that into him…."

 Olin obeyed and, when he returned, they dosed Isranon. Sanguine

 Rose was a cocktail of powerful drugs and herbs in a troll's blood

 base. Troll's blood had an intense effect upon those who lived upon

 blood, passing along some the creature's regenerative qualities for as

 long as it lasted in the imbiber's system. It was not a healing potion for

 humans. Coupled with the drugs that laced the blood, Sanguine Rose

 eased pain, brought sleep, encouraged healing, and, in very large

 doses produced hallucinations.

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 As soon as the Sanguine Rose had drawn Isranon into slumber,

 Mephistis turned to Nevin. "What is this about a staff?"

 "Warrior the staff of Dawnhand. Your ancestor, Waejonan, stole or

 ordered stolen," Nevin growled. "As a child, he pledged himself to

 recover it from your people."

 Mephistis nodded, his eyes downcast. "We do not have it.

 Waejonan took it… or rather one of Dawnhand's people betrayed him

 and stole it at Waejonan's orders. It was stolen from us. No one knows

 where it is. I could have told him that had he asked."

 "Isranon learned to keep his own counsels young."

 Mephistis nodded again and left them. Then the two lycans, in wolf

 form, slept with Isranon. He drifted in and out of drugged slumber,

 weeping for his loss, but by morning he had built his castle again and

 withdrawn into it, finding that armored center of reason, acceptance

 and discipline. He hurt, but he would wall himself in and survive.

 * * * *

 Nevin woke in the night, changed, and sat beside Isranon, watching

 over him with a deep poignant pain in his chest. He stroked the young

 mon's dark hair with touches so feather light that Isranon did not wake

 to them. The wolf had always believed he would lose him eventually,

 yet never dreamed it would be this way. Isranon had been eight when

 his father first left him in Claw's valley, hidden away among the lycan

 while he searched for a new refuge for his people. Nevin had loved

 Isranon from the start, but fallenin love with him when the boy was

 fourteen and first starting to run with the wolves to hunt. He had never

 said anything, and he would not now. He had taught him to hunt and

 fish, to track and trap, to ride like a lycan. He had taught him to fight,

 to use his blades. It was wrong for the mentor to fall in love with the

 student, especially with such a difference in their ages. So he would

 love him in silence. Isranon would wither swiftly. When he died…

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 when he died, Nevin would return to the clan and write a song about

 him. They would howl his name beneath the full moon; add his name

 to the list of those great-hearted who had dwelled among them. Then

 Nevin bent, and gently, oh so gently, kissed Isranon without waking

 him.

 "I'll raise your child as if he were my own. I swear it. I will take

 your body home and bury it where you were happiest, near the cave

 where you and Merissa trysted."

 Nevin wished they had told Isranon about the child Merissa carried,

 which had been the true reason that Claw sent his daughter away.

 Now it seemed wrong to do so. It would give Isranon one more thing

 to mourn for: the child he would never know.

  

 CHAPTER TWO. A VERY STRANGE SA'NECARI

 Midnight. The soft breezes of summer that should have been

 pleasant at that hour smelled of storms–and they were not the storms

 of nature. Five thousand years ago the prophet, Ishladrie, had built her

 home here and proclaimed that the City ofMagic would rise in this

 place, only to fall on the morning after it snowed at mid-summer.

 Yesterday it had snowed in the early evening, but only over the city

 of Charas. Heeding the omen, Lord Hoon was sending some of his

 people to safety before the battle with the Sacred King broke, slipping

 them out into the night with a small guard.

 Isranon lay curled onto his side in pain upon the large bed with its

 thick black posts that rose almost to the ceiling. Tasseled ropes held

 the emerald bed curtains open. Isranon clutched the heavy blanket in

 his fist in the strange cold that had fallen over the city in the night.

 Nevin and Olin confronted Anksha, who stood growling softly deep

 in her throat. Her black hair had bits of leaves and twigs caught in it.

 She wore tight, black leather breeches with her tail sticking out and a

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 black blouse buttoned to her neck. Her eyes were wary, yet

 undeterred. Anksha, all four foot nine of her, was the deadliest one in

 the room despite the lycans' greater size.

 "You betrayed us, Anksha," Nevin growled. "We trusted you,

 befriended you." They had romped with her like two huge dogs and a

 feral child since spring. The two lycans had hoped that by forming a

 bond with her, however tenuous, they would be protecting Isranon. In

 the end it had all been for nothing. The tall, scar-faced lycan stepped

 between her and Isranon.

 Anksha cocked her head at him, frowning slightly in a blend of

 perplexity and irritation at being opposed. "I did not touch you or your

 cousin Olin."

 Nevin remained intransigent, his hand upon his sword. He could

 draw and change to his hybrid form, increasing his strength and speed,

 but it would probably do no good against her. His clan had lived in

 fear of 'the Beast' for generations. The Beast was a law unto herself,

 deferring only to Lord Hoon, precariously balanced between sapience

 and instinct. Nevin had been the lawgiver of his clan until he and his

 cousin followed Isranon to Charas in a vain effort to protect him. He

 knew all the lore of the Beast that his clan possessed. "He is my
spiritbrother.

 I raised him. I taught him."

 "Be grateful I have not ordered you sent off," Anksha growled.

 "I am. That doesn't change anything."

 The demon-eater brushed him off. "I am hungry. Tomorrow there

 will be battle. Lord Hoon refuses to allow me to feed from my other

 blood-slaves."

 With haunted eyes, Isranon uncurled, pushed himself up on the bed,

 and opened his black robe until all of his neck and chest were

 exposed.. "Fate, I am ready."

 Olin, standing to the left of Anksha, turned away, closing his eyes

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 as he ran his fingers uneasily through his black and white hair.

 "Isranon…" Nevin moved closer to him.

 Anksha snarled, her lips writhing back from her deadly fangs.

 "It is too late for this, Nevin." Isranon gestured for him to move

 aside.Please don't provoke her, Nevin. Please. "Don't dishonor me."

 Nevin's eyes went soft with concern and understanding, as he

 looked at the nineteen-year-old. Yet when he turned his gaze back to

 Anksha, his eyes had gone hard again. He straddled a chair near the

 bed and gripped Isranon's hand firmly, knowing what was coming,

 imagining what his spirit-brother must go through each time.

 Isranon waited for her. Stoic acceptance shoving aside the distress

 in his eyes. He straightened his body and turned his face to the side,

 giving her the best angle on his neck. His hand tightened on Nevin's.

 Anksha straddled Isranon, her knees in the opened robe lying to

 either side of him. "So many scars," she remarked, staring down at his

 body.

 Thoughts of Mephistis flooded his mind suddenly. "My prince… I

 don't want to go without him," Isranon managed to exhale the words.

 Anksha snarled at him. "Just you."

 "Please…."

 Anksha hissed. "Don't beg. I hate beggars. You will do as you are

 told,slave ."

 Slave.Isranon's face twisted briefly and he forced it to smooth out.

 He had thought he would be there for Mephistis, but instead he had

 deluded himself. He was merely a blood-slave and slaves had no

 choices.

 "More," Anksha growled softly. "Show me more neck."

 At least when she is drinking from me, she is leaving my prince

 alone. Isranon swallowed and then tilted his head to his shoulder,

 bowing the angle of his throat. "Enough?"

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 "Yes."

 A low whine escaped from Olin.

 She smiled and her fangs, always large and tearing, grew larger

 still. Anksha was fully capable of severing the spine of even the

 largest demon with the strength of her jaws and the sharpness of her

 fangs. Then she darted her face down and took him in the neck.

 The breath caught in his chest and his body went rigid. Isranon

 struggled to repress the sounds of pain, to catch a scream in his throat

 and imprison it behind his gritted teeth. Her power burned his psyche

 and resonated like thunder and the sizzling crackle of lightning

 striking all the nerves in his body. Her claws dug into his arm and

 shoulder to hold him still as his muscles twitched involuntarily in

 reaction. She drank his blood, his life-force, his magic, and all the
bioalchemical

 sources in his being. Isranon's chest heaved up and he

 made a shallow gasping sound. His hand tightened convulsively upon

 Nevin's for an instant before his eyes rolled up in his head and he went

 limp.

 Anksha continued to feed from his unconscious body, snatching

 glances at Nevin from around Isranon's head. When she had her fill,

 Anksha lifted her bloody mouth, licked the wound closed, and wiped

 her lips upon a corner of Isranon's robe.

 Nevin continued to hold Isranon's hand in silence.

 Anksha left the bed and prowled around him. "Have him ready to

 ride in three hours."

 "That isn't enough time," Nevin growled. Isranon would never be

 able to sit a horse that soon after being dined upon, yet Hoon's people

 intended to travel fast and whoever could not go ahorse was being left

 behind.

 "Have him ready." Anksha walked out.

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 Olin headed toward the door. "I'm going to see if I can gather a few

 things to strengthen him. Some Sanguine Rose."

 Nevin nodded. "Bring every last bottle of it."

 His cousin departed.

 With no one to see him, Nevin allowed his emotions to show. Grief

 was chief among them, a narrowing, down turn in his eyes and a

 tightness in his mouth. Anger lent a glitter to his pupils, darkening

 them to shining black.

 Nevin foraged in the dressers for a bit of cloth and cleaned the

 oozing blood from Isranon's arm and shoulder. The Beast had been

 rough and savage with him, which rankled Nevin. He bandaged the

 tears. Isranon was fading fast. Anksha was killing him.

 "Once there were three brothers: Brandrahoon the vampire; Isranon

 Dawnhand speaker to spirits; and Waejonan, first of sa'necari,

 accursed be his name forever…." Nevin murmured and then shivered,

 refusing to say the rest of it.

 * * * *

 Anksha woke them. Isranon lay shivering, chilled to his bones,

 although the night was warm. Her nearness gave him a savage

 headache, her power and presence roaring in his mind, disrupting his

 ability to center and withdraw into his inner castle, which still lay

 shattered in the rubble of his psyche. He stared at her glassy-eyed,

 unfocused and struggling with the physical shock of the earlier

 encounter. The effect she had upon her other sa'necari blood-slaves

 was magnified fifty times over in Isranon.

 Like all the Dark Brothers before him, Isranon had crippled himself

 magically and physically compared to the other sa'necari by never

 crossing into darkness with the rites, which intensified their powers,

 enhanced their ability to heal themselves with blood, and–eventually–

 made them nearly unkillable by ordinary means. Isranon had their

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 gifts and talents, but only in far lessened degree. He could repair

 himself by taking blood, but not as well as those steeped in the rites.

 None could fight the kind of damage that Anksha wrought upon

 them; it was something neither blood nor magic could even begin to

 address. All present knew this and it colored their concern.

 She leaned close to Isranon, sniffing, and caught the scent of

 Sanguine Rose on his breath.Why were they giving him Sanguine

 Rose? Was he that frail? That damaged by her feeding?She had never

 seen that happen before.

 "Get him up," Anksha ordered Nevin. "The horses are ready."

 Nevin nodded, eyes still conveying his feelings that she had

 betrayed them. Anksha spun on her heel, striding out and leaving

 Nevin to get Isranon downstairs. The lycan shifted into his transitional

 form, wrapped Isranon in a blanket, and carried him out. "Don't know

 how she can expect you to ride, when you can barely stand."

 A bit of Isranon's old stubborn strength crept into his voice as he

 said, "I'll…manage."

 "I put your father's flute in my saddle-bags, Isranon," Nevin told

 him. "You won't be playing it with all these sa'necari about."

 "Thank you." The flute was safer with Nevin. It was the only

 surviving heirloom of Isranon's ancestor, Isranon the Dawnhand and,

 therefore the only tenuous connection to all that Dawnhand

 represented to him. Isranon did not want to see it broken or damaged.

 Nevin knew its importance to him, beyond the intrinsic comfort it

 offered. Once a sa'necari had taken a life in the rites, they found the

 melody of a flute at best discomforting and at worse an agony. Over

 the years many sa'necari had threatened to break his flute, but Isranon

 and his companions had always prevented it.

 Nevin stepped to their horses, settling Isranon into the saddle. The

 sa'necari bent forward over the pommel, the reins in one hand,

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 clutching the blanket with the other. It was evident that he would have

 a hard time staying in the saddle.

 Mondarius the divinator Hoon had placed in charge of the march,

 approached as the lycans mounted up near Isranon. He wore long

 black robes with a belt of strange ritual tools, a length of chain

 wrapped around his waist with the end hanging to his knees,

 spellcords ready at his waist to bind a mage–any kind of mage–from

 accessing his gifts. The divinator reached up from where he stood and

 stroked Isranon's cheek. "I want you, Isranon," he murmured softly.

 Isranon stared at him, too tired and ill to respond, wrapped in the

 drifting dreams of Sanguine Rose, the potentially addictive troll's

 blood cocktail of drugs and herbs. It made the world look sharply

 lined in colors close up and misty farther back. Too much of it caused

 hallucinations, yet since the day Anksha had taken him he had begun

 to rely more and more upon it as his Prince had. It dulled his mind to

 Mondarius' words, but not the menace in them.

 The divinator stroked him with words as well as touch, his voice a

 deep and hungry purr. His finger traced the line of Isranon's jugular. "I

 want to taste you. I want you belly-down on my table."

 Belly-down? Rape or the Rite?In mortegiefan, they placed the male

 victims on their bellies and the females on their backs. Isranon tried to

 draw away from him, but that made his seat feel uncertain. Instead he

 folded forward more, over his hand on the high pommel, clutching the

 blanket tighter. He felt sick, his muscles aching and weak. His feet

 were in the stirrups, yet he could not grip with his knees and legs.

 Always, he had been proud of his strength, his skill with his weapons

 that made up for his miniscule grasp of the dark magics–and now that

 had all been taken from him by Anksha. Before this he would have

 put a blade under Mondarius' chin and ordered him to back off

 whether it was a struggle he could win or not. The Sanguine Rose

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 could not entirely mask the bitter bile rising from his stomach into his

 throat.

 Mondarius was an ugly man. Some said he was not human. He had

 a large mouth with full lips that dominated the elongated rectangle of

 his face. His prognathous jaw and long, hooked nose suggested an

 insect grown to human proportions. His forehead was broad and high

 with a conspicuous widow's peak of ebony hair over deathly pale flesh

 reminiscent of the underbelly of a fish. Mondarius continued to stroke

 him. "Then I will open you up, last of your lineage, and make a

 powerful spell from your death."

 Isranon shivered beneath the touch of those silken fingers, feeling

 soiled and threatened.My people have become so creative in the uses

 and ways of death.

 Nevin brought his horse closer, causing the divinator to smile and

 move away. "What was that about?" he asked.

 Isranon shook his head, unable to shake off the cobwebs and think.

 Sanguine Rose made twisted images dance in his head and blurred his

 grasp of Mondarius' words. The only thing emerging clear was a sense

 of being endangered by the divinator. "Keep him away from me,

 Nevin."

 "So be it." The old wolf would have asked more, but Mondarius

 had reached the head of the van, mounted and was now signaling

 them to move out.

 They rode from Lord Hoon's compound through a postern gate,

 heading for the east side of the city, away from the imminent conflict.

 Already sounds of fighting and flames from burning buildings could

 be seen in the west. It had begun, but not yet reached the place where

 Lord Hoon intended to make his stand.

 In the darkness, Isranon's thoughts drifted back to Mephistis. "My

 prince, please be safe. I don't want to leave you."

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 * * * *

 Lemyari, the highest royalty among the lineages of vampires, led

 the march, twenty strong. Daylight never bothered them, holy

 symbols–even backed by faith–could not touch them, their strength

 and skill with the blades they carried was tremendous, and beneath

 their nails were secondary nails that emerged like claws to inject a

 terrible venom for which no antidote existed.

 Behind their first rank rode the sa'necari of Mondarius, the

 divinator's precious necromancers. Many of them had been made in

 the rites, but most of Mondarius' inner circle had been born high-caste

 sa'necari.

 Lycans in wolf-form ran ahead of the force as scouts. They were

 considered the royalty of the wolven skin-changers because they

 always bred true and changed at will. Most of their clans lived in the

 northern forests, comprising battle-clans and settled clans who

 farmed. The most powerful of the settled clans was Red Wolf in

 Waejontor, the clan from which Nevin and Olin came.

 Their destination was Hoon's estate near Minnoras. They took the

 north road, which was little used and largely overgrown by brush and

 a thickening canopy of oak, red, white, and black, with shagbark

 hickories throughout in smaller clusters. Five hundred years ago the

 dominant tree had been lofty chestnuts, many of them more than

 twenty feet in diameter that littered the ground each autumn with their

 nuts. The majority of them had been burned off during the wars of that

 time and their territory overwhelmed by the oaks, the birches, and the

 hickories. Charas did not trade to the north and little traffic came

 down this road.

 Despite the shade and the freakish snowstorm–that could only be an

 enchantary working–on the hottest day of summer, heat simmered

 along the road. Isranon felt the heat more strongly the further he got

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 from the moment of Anksha's feeding. At midday the company

 paused to rest the horses. Isranon dismounted, sliding and falling from

 the saddle as both his grip on the pommel and his foot in the stirrup

 gave. Instantly Nevin was beside him, supporting him, holding him a

 moment more than was necessary as if fearing to let him go.

 Isranon blinked, sucking in a breath, and found his feet. "I'm all

 right…." The words came out in a hissing of breath. He wanted to fall

 to the ground and curl up, but his pride would not allow it. So his will

 asserted itself and he straightened with an effort.

 A surge of power cascaded across the ground as a wave of ghosts

 crested over them, which only Isranon could see. Ghosts hated

 sa'necari and hid from them, lied to them, and stood beyond their

 powers to compel. Yet, they made Isranon an exception: he possessed

 his distant ancestor, the Dawnhand's gift of speaking to spirits. They

 came in a long, sustained rush as if thousands of years of rites had

 been broken, releasing their shattered pieces to wholeness. It was too

 much for him to bear; in his fragile physical condition, the impact on

 his senses staggered him to his knees. He collapsed in the dirt, rolling

 onto his side and clutching the tears that Anksha had left in him hours

 past. The company struggled with their mounts as the animals reacted

 to the presence of the ghosts.

 Nevin crouched over him, trying to shield him from things unseen.

 Some ghosts paused, looking at Isranon. He felt strange beneath their

 gaze. They reached for him in a cacophony of voices that he could not

 sort out. His horse's reins slipped from his fingers.

 "What do you want?" Isranon asked the spirits, pulling the blanket,

 which he had barely managed to retain, tighter around him.So cold .

 He felt as cold as death.

 The ghosts parted, pointing to a pool of water beside the path.

 Isranon could hear the vampires shouting to him as if from a great

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 distance as he crawled toward it.

 "What is it, Isranon?" Nevin asked, following him.

 Isranon knelt, peering into the waters. An image formed.

 His friend, the mage Josiah Abelard screamed at the Sacred King,

 Aejystrys Rowan, to get out, that it was a trap. Prince Mephistis

 shoved a blade into Josiah's back and Hoon thrust a blade into his

 chest. For an instant the blades suspended him. Then Hoon and

 Mephistis jerked them out; and he crumpled, his arms pressing in

 across his wounds as he fell to lie unmoving on the ground.

 A red-gold haired yuwenghau screamed in rage and grief as Josiah

 fell. Aejys charged into the ranks of the undead, scything through

 them like a storm out of Haven. The yuwenghau drew his golden

 sword even as he lashed out with power. green leaves and vines of

 energy whipped through the chamber, destroying the undead with a

 touch, cutting a path for Aejys to reach Josiah, preventing the

 pressing hordes from reaching her from either side. Only the living

 went untouched. A ha'taren, paladin of the god Aroana, leaped into

 the room, engaging the nearest sa'necari, screaming "Aroana!"

 Isranon knew nothing of the God of Light, Aroana of the Walled

 Cities. He had craved the knowledge of these gods and of their

 yuwenghau, divine knights-errant, all his life. Growing up in the dark

 realm of Waejontor, he had never had access to such knowledge.

 Mephistis seeing the Sacred King come for him, turned to flee.

 Hoon shoved Mephistis into the path of her scything blade.

 With one lunging swing, Spiritdancer severed Mephistis' head. It

 rolled to Hoon's feet. Hoon fled through a window.

 Spiritdancer… Isranon knew that blade could only be Spiritdancer,

 healer of souls. When a sa'necari died by that blade, all the souls he

 had taken in the rites were finally released. He had never seen the

 Sacred King before, but he recognized her from her descriptions, for

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 she had feathered wings of azure, tipped in scarlet. And still the

 images rolled across the water.

 White mist with sparkling silver motes of power flowed forth from

 the bloody gushing stump of Mephistis' neck. The chamber filled with

 ghosts, crowding it, flowing out into the corridors. A wail went up

 from the sa'necari and they fled through the windows.

 The ghosts murmured in a thousand voices. "Beware the Sacred

 King, Dark Brother. And the allies of Hell besides. The Darkness

 hunts you and the Light does not want you."

 "It's too late for me," Isranon sighed, caught up in feelings of utter

 desolation as deep as death itself. "The Darkness has taken me and I

 will never be free."

 Still the ghosts of the victims of a million unholy rites continued to

 pour from the prince's corpse. They streamed around Aejys as she

 knelt, gathering Josiah in her arms.

 "Did…did you…get them?" Josiah asked, his voice a hoarse,

 struggling whisper.

 "Mephistis. Hoon got away."

 Josiah touched the spot of wetness gathering in the corner of her

 eye. "Don't cry for me." Then his hand fell away and he was gone.

 Both of his friends were dead.

 His life was a painful dichotomy wrought of his father's pacifistic

 teachings and the lycan ways of honor and strength that Nevin had

 tried to instill within him. He knew it. He acknowledged it in random

 moments. Yet he rarely acted upon it, except fleetingly. He believed

 that he had been closer to Mephistis than to Josiah, yet seeing

 Mephistis fall, the name he spoke, the one that sent the most profound

 rush of grief and loss through him was "Josiah." He could not

 understand it, since he had known the mon so briefly.

 "Isranon?" Nevin shook him gently, seeing his eyes start to close

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 and his head fall back.

 Isranon rallied for a moment. "My prince…. He's dead."

 Then his eyes closed and he lost himself.

 * * * *

 Anksha crouched beside Isranon, her gaze flicking from his still

 face to those of Nevin and Olin. "Mephistis is dead?"

 "That is what he said," Nevin snarled at her.

 Anksha turned inward, reaching for Mephistis and found only an

 empty spot in her awareness where he should have been lodged. "Yes,

 he is dead." She sighed heavily. "And I didn't get to send his body to

 my sanguiner to be drained."

 Nevin cradled Isranon in his arms, calling his name. Resentment ate

 at the wolf. Three weeks was all that Isranon had gained with his

 prince by refusing to abandon him; and in exchange, Isranon had lost

 his freedom and was losing his life.

 Stretching her arm out, Anksha tentatively stroked Isranon's curly

 black hair. Then she saw the gathering crowds watching them and she

 hissed like a cat. "Help him."

 "Why should you care?" Nevin growled, wolf and lion eyeing each

 other with unspoken threat.

 "Because I do," she said and brandished her claws in his face.

 "Get him moving or I'll have him put down!" Mondarius shouted,

 stalking toward them. The divinator had a hungry look in his eye as he

 regarded Isranon.

 "He's mine," Anksha hissed, her tone bordering on that of a spitting

 cat. Her nostrils flared and she caught Mondarius' scent, which made

 her shake her head twice as if she had come upon a skunk. He stank of

 odd things and she needed to sort it out, to identify it.

 "AndI am in charge here." Mondarius stood over them.

 The vampires formed a half moon behind her, while Mondarius'

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 sa'necari retainers cautiously eyed them and others in the mixed

 company; Hoon employed a wide range of talents in his scattered

 holdings. Charas had contained the most diverse selection of retainers

 of all of them, because the City of Magic tolerated such things. Nevin

 lifted Isranon into his arms, nodding at Olin to mount, and handed the

 unconscious sa'necari up to him. Anksha subsided in her hissing. She

 preferred to ride crouched upon her pillion pad behind Lord Hoon, but

 Hoon was not here so she rode mounted alone instead.

 "Don't like this," she hissed at Nevin, sliding into her crude

 childhood dialect out of habit. "Mondarius smells funny."

 Nevin grabbed the reins of Isranon's horse, tying them onto his

 saddle. The barriers he had raised between them since the evening that

 she took his spirit-brother eased back. "Funny as different species, or

 funny as you catch moods?"

 "Like you can smell fear? I can do that and yes, that kind of funny a

 bit."

 "You know what it is?"

 Anksha shook her head, sending some of the leaves and twigs loose

 from her long black hair. Then she bounded onto her horse.

 "Just what kinds of folk does Hoon have?" Nevin had watched

 many different folk appear and fall in with them along the way since

 leaving Charas. It made him suspicious and uncomfortable. "Are you

 certain all of these are his?"

 "Galee is gone. Mephistis is gone. Many leaders gone." She

 continued to hiss intermittently.

 "My point. A lot of masterless sa'necari, vampires, and worse."

 Anksha did not answer immediately: she was thinking. "Once there

 were three brothers," she muttered under her breath. "Brandrahoon the

 vampire; Isranon the Dawnhand, speaker to spirits; and Waejonan the

 Accursed, first of sa'necari."

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 Had she known that Isranon was the last descendant of someone

 she had loved above all others, she would never have touched him, no

 matter what Hoon wished. How many people had Hoon told of

 Isranon's lineage? Eventually she would have to learn whether Nevin

 knew what he truly was. Isranon baffled her. His powers were no

 more than a child's and he smelled off. Sa'necari, yet not sa'necari.

 Things that baffled her made her uneasy, and uneasiness frequently

 made her cross. And what made her cross…. Well, sometimes she

 killed and ate them.

 She had no memory of her family or tribe, nothing to tell her

 whether she was or was not the last of her kind. Hoon claimed he had

 thoroughly searched the island where she had been found, and

 promised to take her there eventually, yet in all these centuries he had

 never done so.

 "This Isranon is not that Isranon…. This Isranon is not that

 Isranon," Anksha whispered her tiny chant far back in her throat as if

 to reassure herself that what she was doing to him was not wrong. She

 did not understand why her blood-slaves withered and died, and why

 the lesser ones in power lasted only a short time.

 * * * *

 Sanguine Rose distanced Isranon from the present, but increased

 his tendencies to dream and to relive the past in its embrace. The drink

 was both seductive and terrifying with its effects. Sometimes he

 forgot what he had remembered in the night and sometimes the

 images lingered to haunt him. Sanguine Rose kept him alive, made the

 pain bearable, and tormented him. In its grip that night, Isranon

 dreamed of Josiah in pieces of fragmented images. Hoon had held the

 mage captive for a week, torturing and placing compulsions in his

 mind, bending him to his will like a dog. Isranon had cared for him

 and provided for his needs in the attic of a house near Rowanhart.

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 "I've brought you some dinner," Isranon said, setting the tray on a

 small table near the window. Sunlight slipped through the thin linen

 curtains in slender beams along the edge of the worn dark wood.

 Josiah turned on his side, regarding him with tired eyes. Isranon

 helped him to rise, got him seated, and took the other chair. They

 watched each other silently, both wanting to speak, but not quite

 knowing what to say. Josiah ate slowly, reluctantly.

 "I'm sorry," Isranon said suddenly.

 "For what?"

 "That they are doing this to you."

 A tense silence settled. When Josiah had finished eating, Isranon

 helped him back to bed.

 Isranon took Josiah's wrist, extending his senses through his body.

 The amount of damage shook him, and the natural power of the mage

 impressed him. This was the terrifying mage who knocked down the

 ruins at Dragonshead, who split the gate to arrive at the topmost altar

 in the Chamber of Hecatomb to rescue Aejystrys Rowan.

 Zyne, Josiah's lover, had spellcorded him as he slept and given him

 to Hoon. Such treacheries deepened Isranon's hatred and terror of

 Hoon. Were the mon well, he could easily have stood against

 Mephistis. His prince's power was not natural: it had been built

 through the Legacy by centuries of horrific rites. How incredible to

 have simply been born with it, a gift of the gods and natural order like

 Josiah. Even Isranon, as isolated as he had been growing up and as

 oblivious as he had chosen to be among the sa'necari, had heard of

 Josiah Abelard. In his previous life he had been a mage-paladin of

 Kalirion, a mon of unbelievable power; yet in this one he had been

 damaged beyond repairing–the mon was dying, even without the

 added stress Hoon placed upon him by feeding on him and tormenting

 him. Hoon had brought Josiah here to break him.

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 "How did this happen?" Isranon asked. "The damage?"

 "The magic was burned out when I was a child," Josiah said,

 impulsively trusting him. "It came back sideways, but only when I

 drink."

 Isranon nodded. He had heard of that being done to sa'necari who

 displeased King Baaltrystan. "But that cannot be all of it."

 "It isn't. I cast a dangerous spell to save my mate."

 Isranon remembered how he had felt in going after Troyes to save

 Merissa and identified with the mon in that instant, sensing a kindred

 soul in Josiah. "You knew what it would do to you?"

 "Yes."

 The mage's devotion to his loved one shamed Isranon. Josiah had

 far more courage than he. Isranon had not fought Anksha and Hoon

 for his prince.

 Mephistis came in and reached out to touch Josiah.

 "Mephistis…." Isranon said.

 "I won't hurt him. I'm not ready to die. I just want to know what

 kind of duel we might have had had he been well. Hoon holds both of

 us, Abelard. With different leashes." Mephistis closed his eyes as he

 Read Josiah. When he finished, he nodded. "Impressive." Then he left.

 A few minutes later a scream echoed from the stairs.

 Isranon went very still. "Anksha must have seen him leaving. He

 was told not to come up here."

 "That was Mephistis screaming?"

 "Yesss!" Isranon sucked in a deep breath. He wanted to rush to

 Mephistis' side, but he had been ordered to remain in the attic;

 disobey and they would hurt his prince. "I wish that I were not

 sa'necari, but merely Waejontori so that I could tell your people what

 has really gone on in my lands. The secrets. But if I were not

 sa'necari, I would not know them. And then, because everyone kills

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 first and asks questions later, in the end the truths are lost. The

 knowledge gone."

 "You are a very strange mon."

 Isranon snorted. "No. I am a very strange sa'necari."

 "Why do you stay with them?"

 "Because so long as Anksha holds my prince in thrall, I will never

 leave. They will have to kill me to take me from his side."

 Isranon stirred in his bedroll and woke. He stared at the ceiling of

 his tent in the darkness. "Both dead." His voice sounded dull and

 worn. "Letting Josiah go would have been a better sacrifice and I

 didn't do it. Father, I have been a fool. I wanted to be worthy of your

 memory and I have failed. My prince is dead. My sacrifice has been

 for nothing. Ancestors forgive me."

  

 CHAPTER THREE. THE QUEEN IS COMING

 Isranon slept upon the ground, wrapped in both his blankets and

 Olin's. The wolf stretched out beside Isranon, whose hand rested upon

 Olin's black furry ruff. One of the lycans was always with him. He

 shifted without waking, clinging to Olin like a child desperate for the

 comfort of physical closeness, shattered even in his dreams.

 He woke, feeling her nearness first as a pounding in his head and

 then a raging agony in his body, followed by searing pain through his

 veins and nerve endings. Not even large doses of Sanguine Rose could

 suppress it entirely. Mephistis had told him that the Presence Pain

 would lessen with time, but so far it had not. The passage of the

 ghosts and the viewing in the pond had left him fragile. She curled

 against him, looking down into his eyes. Her eyes were dilated like a

 cat's to take in more light and glowed green in the darkness. They

 would go slitted in the brightness of daylight.

 "You've come for me, Anksha?" Isranon asked. He opened his

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 black blood-slave robe, and waited for her. He did not know whether

 she had come for blood or sex, but she owned him through the

 dominance-link.

 Anksha chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. "Isranon? I want to talk

 to you."

 Talk.She wanted to talk when he hurt so bad he wanted to weep

 like a child. He wondered suddenly why she made him think of

 Juldrid. "Anksha, the link… it hurts. Feed. Then talk."

 She frowned curiously. "Once I've fed it doesn't hurt as much?"

 "Yes." Isranon resisted the sharp urge to twist up into a ball: to do

 so would shame his pride. He clutched at Olin as Anksha climbed on

 top of him.I will be strong. I will be strong. I will be a man, like my

 father. I will not give way to fear.

 The lycan gave a sympathetic whine, pushing his head tight against

 Isranon's side, eyes closed. She took him hard and Isranon writhed

 under her, one foot slipping out of the blankets to dig at the soil

 convulsively until consciousness fled and he lay still.

 The corners of Anksha's lips drooped as she regarded him. It had

 been two weeks and Isranon still fainted. He was not as strong as the

 others she had taken, which made her sad. She felt as if she were

 hurting Dawnhand. She had said that to Hoon, but he had refused to

 understand her feelings. Sometimes Anksha believed that Hoon loved

 her; other times she thought he had never loved her at all.Dawnhand .

 Dawnhand had been different and she never questioned the fact that

 he had always loved her. And, in all the centuries that had passed

 since his death, she had not stopped missing him.

 Anksha cradled Isranon's head in her lap and sat chanting his name,

 stroking his face, and waiting mournfully for him to wake. "Isranon,

 son of Isranon, son of Isranon, son of Isranon, Dawnhand. Dawnhand,

 Dawnhand, Dawnhand." Then she kissed him, weeping. "This Isranon

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 is not that Isranon…. This Isranon…."

 * * * *

 Isranon sat upon a square of stone surrounded on three sides by

 bushes. The concealment comforted him, lending him an illusion of

 safety. If he allowed himself to think about it, he would lose the

 illusion, so the youth worked hard at maintaining it. He built castles

 in his mind to wall out his awareness of what went on around him in

 order to stay calm and centered. Anger was his frequent and

 unwanted companion living among his own people, whose violent

 ways he detested.

 His flute helped him get past his anger at his people. So he sat and

 played. The first songs were sad and troubled, but slowly the music

 lifted him out of it and the notes changed until they were as pure and

 sweet as birds.

 The sounds of a lute came from nearby. Isranon raised an eyebrow

 at that, but did nothing. He continued to play and now he could hear

 the minstrel coming nearer. From the corner of his eye, he saw

 Juldrid sitting. He gave her a small nod. Isranon did not want to

 frighten her away by attempting conversation: She knew what he was.

 They played together in silence until dark, then she rose and left him

 without speaking.

 * * * *

 Isranon became aware first of the feather light touches of her hands

 and then the roaring noise in his psyche and pain in his body,

 somewhat lessened. His neck and shoulder hurt. The other pain,

 Mephistis had called it the Presence Pain, had dimmed. Isranon

 opened his eyes.

 "Is it better now? Is it better?" she asked, anxiously, between

 rounds of crooning his name.

 "Yes, Anksha, it is better." What did he see in her and why did it

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 touch him? Was it because of a child-like concern in her voice? Or

 because it appeared so unexpectedly and unlooked for by him?He

 could neither decide nor place his finger upon it.

 He had seen what she had done to the others, especially his slain

 prince. His entire sense of reality had been built upon Prince

 Mephistis, the most powerful sa'necari who had ever existed…

 Mephistis who had been his protector and his friend, concealing his

 traitorous lineage and heretical beliefs. It had all been shattered when

 he was forced to watch Anksha tear into Mephistis while the prince

 cowered in a corner unable to fight back. As those images ran through

 his mind, he silently repeated the creed of the Dark Brothers to raise

 the inner castles in his mind against his fear of her.

 The Darkness hunts us and the Light does not want us….

 His father had been right. By giving his allegiance and love to

 Mephistis as his prince, Isranon had emerged from the protective

 shadows and the predators had noticed him–and pulled him down like

 a deer beneath the lion's claws. He had no choice now, save to see the

 lion as she was and try to make the best of it.

 He finger-combed the leaves and twigs from her hair and touched

 the angles of her face as if seeing her for the first time. Anksha had

 shed her clothes: Isranon knew she wore them with great reluctance.

 The creature was actually pretty. Her soft fur, which covered her from

 her collarbone to her wrists and ankles, felt finer than the most costly

 velvet; and was a trace more ivory than her fair skin. The dark areolas

 of her erect nipples on her firm, pointed breasts tempted him in a way

 Isranon felt they shouldn't. The long, black, and exquisitely silken hair

 veiling her loins called out to him to part it and he forced his mind away.
She did not seem like a monster then; more like the feral child

 who had romped with Nevin and Olin last spring.

 The feral child, whose innocent capacity for joy, caused him to shift

 from hatred upon learning the true nature of her relationship to his

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 prince to a difficult swirl of alternating patterns of amusement and

 animosity. Hatred did not come naturally to Isranon, which made it

 harder for him to continue feeling hostile toward her. With a few

 people, like Bodramet, he worked hard to keep his guard up around

 them, to maintain his anger as a shield because he knew they would

 come back at him at the first sign of weakness. Sometimes that served

 him well and frequently it failed him, leaving him open to those who

 would use or abuse him. He wondered which way it would go with

 Anksha.

 If he could find a way to sooth her as he had Juldrid, who had been

 like a shy forest creature herself, then she would be less of a danger to

 Nevin and Olin.

 "I didn't know the link hurt." She snuggled around him. "Unless I

 meant it to."

 "Mephistis told me it would lessen in time. Perhaps it's just me,"

 said Isranon, taking responsibility for his own suffering, as he always

 did.

 "Perhaps. There are too many sa'necari in camp. Mondarius is in

 charge. Do you know what he is?"

 "No." Isranon knew there was something he should remember

 about Mondarius, an exchange of words, yet he had been too weary

 and lost in the grip of Sanguine Rose to hold onto it; so it hovered

 along the edges of his mind as if he could touch it if he tried and he

 had not the strength to try. All that he had left of it was a gripping

 terror of the mon. Two years past the ghost of a murdered Sharani

 farmer had told him to 'learn or die', yet by the time he learned….

 Isranon closed that thought out, reaching for his father's teachings to

 grant him a calm center once more.

 It had become hard to hold onto his center and withdraw into his

 inner castle of serenity for more than a handful of moments. It had

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 been easy when he had been free and strong, carrying the sword at his

 shoulder and two blades at his hips: Nevin had trained him in them.

 His father had disapproved of Nevin's teachings; Nevin had

 disapproved of his father's; and they had trapped him between them.

 Yet his father had trusted Nevin enough to send Isranon to him every

 time the Dark Brothers were forced to flee again.

 "He's a divinator. Cuts people open while they're alive…." Anksha

 hissed and spit like a cat, sliding through a dozen dialects as she

 struggled for the right words.

 "Vivisectionist priest," Nevin said, slipping into the tent. Isranon

 caught a glimpse of Olin crouching nearby, guarding them. "Living

 the kind of isolated life you had with your father's people; keeping so

 much to yourself once Mephistis found you, you would not know

 about them. We don't speak of them among the clans."

 "They read entrails?" Isranon asked. He extended his hand to

 Nevin. "A little of the Rose?"

 The lycan pulled the bottle from his shirt pocket and passed it to

 Isranon. Nevin did not allow him to keep the bottle for fear that he

 would stay continuously under the influence of the Sanguine Rose or

 take enough to kill himself. Isranon took several swallows and passed

 it back.

 "Worse than that," Anksha said.

 "Much worse," Nevin's voice took on the tones he had used as the

 lawgiver to Clan Redwolf. "They seal their spells up inside them, time

 their deaths, and call it sealing a prophecy. When the victim dies the

 curse cannot be turned or altered in any way. Some times it is

 something they've seen in the victim's entrails. Other times it's

 something they've foreseen and they alter the prediction to suit them.

 They seal it so folks can't find a loophole in the prediction and alter it

 themselves as sometimes happens in prophecy."

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 "Yes," Anksha hissed. "Nasty mon."

 "In all the Waejontori temples, the bodies are sealed in the

 masonry, the basements and foundations. That's why the Sharani don't

 find the bodies, don't know the divinators exist. It was a tenhecatombic

 rite of the divinators, presided over by Aurean, that laid

 the curse on Shaurone."

 "Why are you telling me this?" Isranon asked, feeling chilled.

 Exhaustion ate at him and he struggled to respond, to think. The

 Sanguine Rose caused his thoughts to drift, adding to the confusion in

 his mind.

 Nevin sighed. "Anksha thinks Mondarius wants to use you for one

 of those rites."

 "Why?"

 "There's an ugly prophecy and he wants to make certain that his

 side wins. One part has already come to pass. Kalirion already has his

 sacred king and we've reason to believe that the twisted child–or the

 blessed child–depends on your point of view, has been born. This pup

 is both sa'necari and life mage."

 "Sa'necari and life-mage?" Isranon sat up, startled. "Is such a thing

 possible?"

 "Must be. It has Mondarius spooked. You know why he wants you?

 You're Dawnhand's last surviving descendant."

 Sa'necari and life-mage. Both sides of the coin of existence. I wish

 it were me. Then I would be strong enough to fight. Isranon forced the

 thought aside as a foolish fantasy. He would never be free. It was too

 late for dreams. His father had been right. He should have found

 himself a hiding place and stayed there. Now he was a blood-slave

 and blood-slaves had no future save death.

 "You are mine, Isranon," said Anksha. "No touches you, but me. I

 will rip anyone who tries."

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 "You must tell us if he approaches you," said Nevin. "If he says

 anything to you, you must tell us."

 "I will." Isranon wished he could remember exactly what

 Mondarius had said. Then he noticed how closely Anksha and Nevin

 were cooperating and hoped it meant they might be able to repair the

 crude relationship that had existed before he was taken by her. It

 would ease his concerns about Nevin.

 * * * *

 Sanguine Rose sang through Isranon's blood, bringing the

 memories rushing through his dreaming mind as it always did. He

 could not control his grieving for his prince and it colored his dreams.

 Isranon ran hard, darting through the bushes and trees with his

 bow at his shoulder and his skinning knives at his hips. Panic gripped

 him. His heart raced. Breathing was a lance of fire in his lungs and

 chest. He could hear the sa'necari coming closer, riding him down.

 There must have been twenty or more of them. Nevin had told him not

 to hunt this side of the river, to stay on the clan lands. Yet, the buck

 had been too beautiful not to bring down. Such tremendous antlers! At

 fourteen, Isranon prided himself on his hunting skills. He had been

 straddling the stag with his knife shoved into its throat to finish it

 when the sa'necari appeared out of nowhere; making leering remarks

 about riding and riting him. Isranon cut one of them and got loose,

 fleeing.

 The woods ahead of him thinned and he could see the bridge that

 would take him onto clan lands where his pursuers could not go

 without permission–which the clan chief, Claw Redhand, would never

 give them under the circumstances. He burst from cover into the path

 of four horsemyn he had not realized were there because of his

 concentration on those chasing him. Strong hands caught him by the

 collar and yanked him off his feet, dragging him across a saddle.

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 Isranon twisted and thrashed. The horse sidestepped uneasily. A fist

 clipped his head in an admonitory thump.

 "Be still, boy!"

 Isranon looked up into a thin, almost effeminately sensual face with

 a tiny goatee of silken black hair. "Let me go! Nevin and Claw

 will…."

 "Are you lycan then?" The mon frowned, touching his face lightly.

 "I'm here to buy horses from Claw."

 Isranon's hair stood on end as the mon continued to touch him. He

 felt the shivering goosebumps along his arms that betrayed the touch

 of the mon's power. Isranon screamed. The mon was Reading him

 and, in a moment, would know what he was.

 "Sa'necari," the mon hissed. "And not blooded in the rites or your

 powers would be stronger."

 Isranon squared his shoulders the best he could despite being

 draped head down. "Kill me and be damned. I do not fear death."

 The mon laughed. "You were running away from it fast enough."

 The boy's pursuers drew rein around them. One rode forward,

 bowing low in the saddle to Isranon's captor. "I see that you caught

 him, highness."

 The mon tilted his head with a thin, indolent sneer. "Caught who?"

 "The heretic. We planned to rite him when we caught him."

 "There is no heretic here, only my young friend," the mon snarled

 and then whispered to Isranon, "what is your name?"

 "Isranon," the boy whispered back.

 "There is only my young friend Isranon here and he is not a heretic.

 Furthermore, he is under my protection." The mon's voice took on a

 dark, venomous tone. "Touch him and I will destroy the lot of you."

 Isranon goggled at the way they all started fading back into the

 forest without contesting further. "Who are you?"

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 "Prince Mephistis Coleth de Waejonan."

 * * * *

 The gray wolf sauntered into camp just as dawn broke, sniffing for

 signs of the ones she sought. She moved with the easy step of youth,

 picking out the various scents with swift sureness: Isranon. Darianna,

 called Daree, had been excited when Merissa asked her to carry the

 news to them about the child instead of one of the older wolves. She

 had reached the Minnorian estate without trouble, only to find that

 they had moved on and then spent months tracking them. Darianna

 trotted along the edges of the camp until she picked up Isranon's scent,

 but it was mixed with the scent of the Beast, which made her hackles

 rise.

 Darianna nosed along the edges of several tents until she found one

 that smelled so strongly of Isranon that she guessed it had to be his.

 The scent of the Beast was easily as strong, if not stronger. The low

 groan of a male in pain emerged. Dread rose up in her and she stifled

 the instinct to bolt from it in order to stick her head inside and look.

 The Beast straddled one of her blood-slaves, feeding noisily. The

 groaning mon stiffened, his chest rising sharply as he writhed beneath

 her, his hands clawing reflexively into the blankets he lay upon, his

 feet digging at the ground and then went still. She recognized him and

 the wolf he clutched at convulsively before he lapsed unconscious.

 Backing away, she turned to run–had she had tears to cry in this form,

 she would have–and found herself facing Nevin. The scarred lycan

 grabbed at her, but she eluded him.

 "Daree!" he called after her, changing to chase her down.

 He caught her, rolling her across the ground. She snapped at him,

 but Nevin was larger, stronger, faster and had her by the throat before

 she got far. Darianna stilled beneath him, signaling surrender, and he

 released her.

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 "Blood-slave!" Her voice cracked with the first words from her

 throat as she changed. "How could you allow this to happen?"

 "The prince is dead."

 Daree's young eyes filled. "To be taken by the Beast is to die."

 Nevin did not reply to that, knowing she was right. "What word?"

 "The child is a boy. Merissa has named him Darmyk. For her

 grandfather."

 Nevin considered that. "Tell them I will stand as father in my

 brother's place when we return."

 "You intend to see it to the end?"

 "I cannot leave him to face this alone. I will bring his body home.

 He should be buried where he was happiest."

 "You are stronger than I, Nevin. I will tell them."

 * * * *

 Anksha cleaned Isranon's neck with her tongue, tending the wound

 she had left, making certain that it was completely closed. She paused

 in her ministrations to listen to him murmuring a name over and over

 without regaining consciousness. "Josiah…. Josiah." She frowned.

 Sometimes it was Josiah and other times it was Mephistis. She knew

 that Hoon had had something to do with both deaths, sensing it

 through her link with Isranon. However, she had hesitated to ask

 Isranon how he knew and what he knew. Hoon would tell her when he

 overtook them.

 Isranon watched Josiah, who lay staring at the crossbeams of dark

 wood in the attic room of the stone house on Sophren Bay. The mage

 glanced at him and Isranon knew the mon was wondering about his eyes.
Sa'necari eyes became amaranthine without pupils, irises, and

 whites after their first act of mortgiefan. Isranon's were the same as

 he had been born with: black.

 Nevin and Olin lay on the floor at Isranon's feet in wolf-form. They

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 had helped him change the mage into clean clothing.

 "Why did that sa'necari keep calling you half-a-mon?"

 Isranon felt drawn to Josiah. If he could have let him go, he would

 have. So he answered. "Because I have never committed mortgiefan,

 or any of the other rites. I have never taken a life out of appetite. Only

 in self-defense or the defense of others. There are so many things I

 wish I could tell you, all the secrets of the sa'necari."

 "Don't endanger yourself."

 "The Darkness hunts me and the light does not want me. If you

 swear not to betray me to the others I will tell you what I am."

 "You have my word, Isranon."

 "I am Isranon Dawnhand's last descendant, Isranon son of Isranon

 son of Isranon for generations. We need the blood to survive, but we

 take no lives. I am the last Dark Brother. The sa'necari have slain the

 rest of us."

 Isranon twisted in the dreams as he had so many times, trying to

 wake and finding that he could not. His best efforts simply dragged

 him to another scene, another memory, another nightmare. It was the

 price he paid for a taste of Sanguine Rose, for the only thing that

 could ease him waking and let him sleep at night.

 He dipped the cloth in warm water, squeezed it out and bathed

 Josiah's face, gently cleaning away the blood and vomit from Hoon's

 most recent session with the mage. Josiah stirred, opening his eyes

 under Isranon's ministrations. Isranon carried the basin back to the

 small table across from the bed.

 The residents of the house had changed. People came and went

 constantly as Hoon brought his army secretly into position around the

 city. Isranon thought the house was empty that late afternoon. Then he

 heard the door open and looked up.

 "Hello, half-a-mon. So this is the great and terrible mage that

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 leveled the ruins at Dragonshead?" Bodramet stepped across the

 threshold with a spell on his lips to snare Isranon before the mon

 could reach for his blades, wedging him into a corner. "I've come to

 pay Mephistis back for humiliating me when all I wanted was a little

 taste of his catamite. Give me what I want and I'll leave you alone."

 Isranon struggled against the spell imprisoning him as Bodramet

 ran a finger along his inner thigh. "No."

 Josiah levered himself up. He dragged the whiskey from the

 nightstand, taking a long pull from the bottle. Over Bodramet's

 shoulder, Isranon could see the change in the damaged mage as his

 power flared.

 "Josiah!"

 Bodramet released Isranon. He threw a snaring web of dark magic

 at Josiah and drew his blade. Isranon, freed in that instant, seized

 Bodramet's blade hand. Bodramet whipped back on him, angrily,

 shoving the spell in Isranon's face and the blade in his gut. Then

 Josiah was on him. The wasted, puny drunkard came like a tiger, his

 magic searing through Bodramet. The sa'necari screamed as he was

 thrown backwards, hurled from the room and down the stairs.

 Isranon slipped to a sitting position between the dresser and the

 wall. Josiah drew the blade from his body and began that strange

 spell of his, shared life, giving from his own wasted body to strengthen

 Isranon's. Isranon's sa'necari constitution received the blood

 differently from ordinary humans and the wound closed. He felt odd.

 Something was changing inside and he could not say what.

 Josiah screamed, losing control of his spell and flooded Isranon

 with pieces of himself. Isranon broke the contact, shoving Josiah

 away. Hoon stood over them.

 "I told you, you were not to touch anyone in this building!" Hoon

 shouted.

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 Josiah writhed, clutching at his head and sobbing.

 Hoon must have hit Josiah through the link of compulsions he had

 set. "Bodramet attacked us," Isranon said. "He was trying to rape me

 and then cut Josiah."

 Hoon spun. "Anksha! Punish Bodramet."

 She scampered out with Hoon following behind her.

 Again the scene shifted in Isranon's dream and became three days

 later.

 He cradled Josiah, trying to get a little broth down him. The mage

 had become so weak that he could no longer rise to dine at the table.

 "What did you do?" Isranon asked.

 "Shared life…random factor. I don't know. I'm not a Reader."

 Josiah closed his eyes, turning his head into Isranon's shoulder.

 "Josiah, please don't pass out. Please." Isranon shook him gently.

 Josiah stirred again. "Isranon, don't tell them… what I did… I

 was… only trying to help."

 "I know. I won't tell them."

 Isranon finally freed himself of the tangling folds of his dreams

 when he heard a voice call his name. It came as clear as if he heard it

 aloud rather than with that inner spirit-ear of his gift. Since he had

 been dreaming of Josiah, Isranon thought at first it would be his

 friend's ghost. He was wrong. This was the ghost of a different friend.

 "Isranon."

 He rolled onto his side by digging his fingers into the earth. Anksha

 slept beside him with a contented expression, his blood rimming her

 mouth. He felt half-dead. His neck on both sides was such a mess of

 healing wounds that she had begun to feed from his shoulders. He

 knew, also, that he had partaken of far too much Sanguine Rose than

 was good for him. "What is it?" He looked and then he stared at the

 ghost. "Mephistis?"

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 The ghost seemed sad. "Hadjys has me in his hells."

 Isranon shuddered. He had heard stories about the Nine Hells of the

 nethergod Hadjys the Dark Judge, to whom the souls of those who

 had harmed others were consigned upon their deaths. The sa'necari,

 worshippers of the hellgods, always prayed that their souls would not

 be captured by Hadjys, but go instead to their liege-god Bellocar.

 There was no way to know how many of their souls had been caught

 by Hadjys, rather than Bellocar.

 "For my one good deed, I am given time to speak to you. Hadjys

 has spoken to Ishla the Tinkerer, who made Anksha's kind. You must

 be like the water, yielding and accepting, see her as she is, not as

 Hoon has made her. She is a chaos tool; she can be turned either way.

 She is a cat that likes to play with her dinner. If her master is good,

 then she is good, and if her master is evil? If you do not fight the pain,

 the roaring in your mind, it will ease more quickly. Rest and sleep,

 slide into it and do not fight it. And someday, Isranon, if she lets you

 and you are brave enough, bite her back. You will be surprised at

 what happens."

 "Will it free me?"

 "No. No way exists to free one who has been taken by Anksha, save

 death." Inexplicably, Mephistis smiled. "But it will surprise hell out of

 Anksha. She's never been bitten. Ishla said to tell you to bite her if she

 asks you to. They told me it would not free you, but it would surprise

 her. Only that." Mephistis's ghostly form wavered. "I am called back

 to Hell. Remember that I loved you, my friend." Mephistis vanished.

 "Had I a god to pray to, I would pray for you, Mephistis. But I will

 never turn to Bellocar."

 * * * *

 Nevin wrapped a blanket around Isranon, who was shaking with

 chills, lifting him easily in his transitional form to carry him to the

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 waiting horses. He dared, for a moment, to press his cheek against the

 semi-conscious mon, resenting the way the feedings left him ill, a

 necessary evil once Anksha had bound him. With only a single bloodslave

 in the van, Anksha was feeding daily from Isranon's veins and

 leaving him fragile. She did not feed from the nibari, the geneticallyaltered

 herds of the hemovores, because they did not possess the

 magic and intense bio-alchemy that Anksha required.

 Olin was already mounted. They could not risk Isranon slowing the

 march with Mondarius looking for any reason to have him abandoned

 so that someone could sneak back and rite him or put him down like a

 broken animal. As Nevin started to give Isranon to Olin, a mon

 touched him on the shoulder to get his attention. Nevin turned to

 discover they had been quietly surrounded by royals, most of them

 female, in an odd uniform, tightly tailored short tunic over long tunic,

 slate over murrey, the long under sleeves blousing beneath the

 sleeveless over tunic. They were newcomers, who smelled odd, yet

 distinctively of vampire; Nevin had never seen any of them before.

 One stepped forward with a small bow of her shoulders.

 "I am Zulaika of the Ymraudes, the Proud Six Hundred. I have ten

 of my sisters here and our nibari. We do not trust Mondarius. Let us

 help you." Zulaika must have come from Treth by the look of her, or

 Jedrua; she was tall, black-skinned with a cap of nappy hair that

 bloused on top and hung in beaded braids to the small of her back.

 Amiri, one of Zulaika's companions extended her arms to take

 Isranon. Nevin glanced at Anksha who was de facto leader since she

 owned Isranon. Anksha nodded. Nevin relinquished Isranon to Amiri.

 Olin gathered their horses, tying them together.

 "Wolf form both of you, Nevin and Olin," Zulaika said, surprising

 them with their names, showing that she had been watching them.

 "We will need your scouting and spying skills. We royals are not

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 fools. Look around you."

 They did so and saw that a wall of royals had formed; a line was

 being drawn in the sand between the sa'necari, their allies, and the

 royals. Mondarius would try to take Isranon at his peril.

 Amiri rode with Isranon cradled in her arms. She had knotted her

 reins and dropped them to rest against her horse's neck, controlling the

 animal with her knees and voice alone. The Ymraude held him like a

 child, pressed tight to her chest, refusing to allow him to free himself

 of the enveloping folds of the blanket as the day wore on and he

 slowly roused. "Rest is what you need. Rest is what you will get. Do

 not tire yourself by trying to climb out of my arms. Lie against me and

 be still. At the next city or village we will get a wagon and Mondarius

 be damned."

 Isranon felt strangely safe in her arms. He could not explain exactly

 why. His pride demanded he try to ride, but he did not want to–he

 wanted to stay in those comforting arms. Amiri's golden-haired nibari,

 Randilyn, moved her horse closer to ride beside them and smiled at

 him.

 "If anyone can help you, it's my master Amiri," Randilyn said,

 using the Sharani form of address, which was to apply male titles to

 both genders.

 Help me. Can anyone help me?Isranon relaxed against Amiri,

 worried that they would think badly of him for it and grateful at the

 same time.I did this for my prince, and my prince is dead. Nevin…

 Nevin is alive because I didn't let him intervene. I have not completely

 failed.

 * * * *

 A set of lanterns lit Mondarius' tent, throwing the shadows of his

 four lieutenants large against the canvas sides. Their outlines shifted

 in the flaring light as the night breezes slid through the flap to tease

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 the wicks. Mondarius sat upon his pallet with his four lieutenants

 sitting on cushions around him. He wore only a loin clout and a

 vibrant tattoo covered his livid skin with splashes of color. A nibari

 lay nude on her back between them, her head in Mondarius' lap and a

 limb gripped by each of the sa'necaris. He had spelled her to silence so

 there would be no screams in the night as they fed. The female came

 from one of Hoon's best bloodlines, bred for the superior taste of their

 blood. Mondarius intended to explain her loss as an accident along the

 way; however, he wanted to serve up something special for dinner in

 light of the revelation he was about to make. His fangs and teeth were

 triangular and shark-like, suggesting the seafolk, tritons or seiryn in

 particular. He waited to bite into her. The sa'necari could sip, but his

 teeth were made for gashing open his prey so that they bled out

 quickly.

 Mondarius cast his gaze across his companions, calculating their

 reactions. "The Queen is coming," he said to them.

 "You are certain?" asked his first lieutenant, lowering the nibari's

 wrist from his lips. He took out a handkerchief and dabbed at the

 edges of his mouth.

 "Yes. We will reach Minnoras ahead of Hoon and I will make a

 death to reveal when she will arrive and where she will come from."

 The second lieutenant inclined his head with a thoughtful

 expression and pursed lips. "Is she Zyne? I have heard that Hoon has

 ambitious plans for her."

 Mondarius shook his head. "No, it is not she. Zyne will summon

 the queen."

 The sa'necaris smiled to each other, fastening onto the nibari for a

 few more sips.

 Mondarius smirked with venomous pleasure. "Once the queen has

 come, we shall have large herds of the best nibari. Our sanguiners will

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 have only the best blood to make their blends from."

 "Delicious," said the third of his lieutenants.

 The first lieutenant raised his head, his mouth smeared with blood.

 "And Isranon?"

 "The prophecies say he must die. All three lineages must perish, but

 Dawnhand's must end first."

 "Hoon will drain the lot of us, if he finds out."

 Mondarius laughed. "Hoon will either give Isranon to me or drain

 the half-a-mon himself. Once the queen has come, there will be

 nothing that he can do." Mondarius bent his head and thrust his fangs

 into the nibari's carotid artery. He ripped her open and fastened his

 mouth over the wound.

  

 CHAPTER FOUR. STEALING ANKSHA

 Mondarius reacted as they had predicted, striding through with a

 dozen of his sa'necari when he saw the wood-enclosed sigurni wagon

 arrive. His black robes swished, the chain and leather belt holding his

 tools clinked and jingled, and his eyes flashed with the rhythm of his

 movements. "What is this? This will slow us down."

 Zulaika faced him with her sisters in a skirmish line. Anksha

 squatted beside her grinning. "Isranon needs to ride in a wagon.

 Anksha's feeding leaves him ill."

 "No other sa'necari was affected this severely. He is defective. He

 should be put down. I will take him and see it done... humanely."

 Mondarius swept his arm at them, sending his sa'necari toward Amiri

 who held Isranon in her arms. "He is holding us up. We have plenty of

 blood and meat for you, Anksha. You will not miss this one."

 Isranon tried to slip to his feet and Amiri crushed him to her chest.

 "Be still," she hissed in his ear, turning to cover his movement.

 He closed his eyes and laid his head against Amiri's shoulder as if

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 asleep.

 Zulaika gestured and a group of Lemyari closed ranks before

 Amiri. Amiri faded back with Isranon as Nevin, who was driving the

 wagon, turned it around and joined her behind the royal wall.

 Randilyn arrived as well, her neck showing two faint bruises from

 Amiri's feeding. If handled delicately, nibari tended not to scar and

 evidently Amiri had the knack for it.

 "Mutiny, Anksha?" Mondarius demanded.

 "Treachery, Mondarius?" Anksha laughed, rolling onto her back

 and kicking. Then she sprang up, bouncing onto her the balls of her

 feet. "I am Anksha. I am a law unto myself. I am the troll tamer, the

 demon eater."

 A frown deepened the folds of Mondarius' jowly face. "Hoon

 placed me in charge."

 "In charge of the march, yes, but not of Anksha's meat," said Haig,

 the Lemyari came to stand beside Zulaika. He was a large, thickbodied

 mon and hairy, the perfect embodiment of the bear whose skin he wore as a
cloak, with a growly bass voice. "Royals do not take orders from divinators
and sa'necari concerning our private matters. Anksha is our pet. Our pet and
her meat is our private matter."

 Isranon stirred at the sound of Haig's voice. "Haig."

 "Hush, be still," Amiri commanded. "Haig fetched us and many

 scattered Borealysyn. We regret not reaching you sooner."

 Randilyn stroked his head. "Just rest. Don't worry. Poor Isranon,

 we'll make it right somehow."

 "We'll try," Amiri said, seeming less convinced than her nibari.

 "The king pursues us," protested Mondarius, sweeping his gaze

 across all present to emphasize his point. "There is need for haste."

 "Is there?" Zulaika inclined her head. "Our lycan scouts assure us

 that she does not." Her voice softened with implied threat. "The only

 one riding swiftly to overtake us is Hoon. Why would you want to run

 from Hoon?"

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 "Hoon said to make all speed to Minnoras."

 "Then we are not running from the king, now are we?"

 Haig laughed and, as if that were a signal, all the royals laughed,

 closing tighter together, further blocking Mondarius's view of Amiri.

 She settled Isranon into the wagon, and Randilyn climbed in after

 them. He pushed at Amiri, trying to sit up.

 "Don't," Amiri admonished him with a whisper. "Rest as much as

 you can. We know what you are. We Ymraudes. Ask no questions.

 The more often the Beast feeds on you the sooner the contact and

 Presence Pain will diminish to a bearable level. That is harder for you

 than for others. The Beast was never intended to take one of so little

 power and so much humanity as you."

 Olin jumped in, lying down next to Isranon.

 "Watch him."

 Olin barked an affirmative.

 Amiri climbed out. She saw Mondarius still arguing with Zulaika

 and Haig, getting nowhere. Amiri joined Zulaika. "Go to him,

 Anksha, we'll handle this."

 Anksha considered her words and then scampered.

 Haig folded his arms, taking a spread-legged stance with his head

 thrown back. "We're riding at our own pace, give Lord Hoon a chance

 to catch up with us. You go ahead and get your twisted divinator ass

 on up to Minnoras however you want. I've got no respect for folks

 who take souls. I've never killed for appetite or pleasure, but you

 sorely tempt me."

 Mondarius scanned the assembled royals. "Does Haig speak for all

 of you?"

 A chorus of "ayes" went up. Mondarius snarled and spat at Haig's

 feet before spinning on his heel and stalking off with his sa'necari.

 They broke camp and departed swiftly, leaving the vampires and their

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 allies behind.

 * * * *

 Isranon could feel Anksha's nearness by the way it hurt him even

 though she was not inside the wagon. He dug his fingers in Olin's

 coat, pulling at it, finding comfort in the warm furry body. He waited

 for what seemed an eternity for her to come and she did not. The only

 way to ease the pain was to endure it.

 "Anksha! Anksha, come here. Anksha, I want to talk to you."

 Anksha's head popped in through the little door behind the driver's

 seat in front of the wagon. None of her captives had ever asked her to

 come to them before, so she felt startled and curious.

 Isranon shifted, hearing the little door open. "Come here, Anksha.

 Come to me." Gods, the closer she came, the worse he hurt. Her

 presence was an insane roar in his mind. He wanted to curl up and

 scream. And the pain–it was agony. He began to force air into his

 lungs, determined to take Amiri's advice. "Come here and let me

 touch you."

 Anksha frowned, crouching low, her head and neck inclined toward

 him as she crept close. Finally she settled beside him.

 With one hand clutching Olin for comfort and support, he reached

 for her with the other, stroking her hair. "I like you, Anksha. You are

 rather pretty, you know. Not at all the monster I thought you were."

 Anksha blinked. "Is. Ra. Non?" She made a little uncertain chant of

 his name, sounding perplexed.

 "I want you to feed now. I am ready." Where he got the courage to

 say this, Isranon did not know, for he felt certain that all the courage

 had been sucked from his being. All that he had left was stubbornness

 and stubbornness had never failed him.

 Anksha shook her head, starting to draw away from him. "You are

 very strange."

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 "Please."

 Anksha sighed. "You make me feel sad."

 "I want you to bite me. That is why I called you here." He

 wondered what he could offer her. Juldrid had responded to his flute;

 what would Anksha respond to? In so many ways, she was a child.

 "Do this and later I will tell you stories."

 Anksha perked up, wiggling all over with pleasure. "I will do it."

 She climbed on top of him. Isranon lay back, willing himself to relax

 as much as possible, to simply let it happen. Then her fangs sliced into

 him like searing blades. He clenched his teeth against the pain, his

 body writhing beneath her despite his efforts, heels digging at the bed.

 His fingers clutched convulsively at Olin and then he lay unmoving;

 his consciousness vanished into the darkness.

 Anksha released him when she felt him still, withdrew her fangs,

 and licked the wound thoroughly to close it. No matter how hard she

 tried to be gentle with Isranon it was always too rough because he was

 too nearly human.

 Her eyes filled at the thought of hurting him, but her mere presence

 hurt him if she did not feed on him frequently enough.How much

 longer did this have to go on before they could just sit and talk?

 Anksha gave a series of hiccupping sobs.

 Olin licked her face. Anksha rolled away from Isranon, burrowed

 against the wolf, and cried herself to sleep.

 * * * *

 Nevin had adjusted things until Isranon could ride propped in a

 corner of the peddler's wagon, his head bumping the shelving, still

 resting on the bed with pillows to his back. On a trunk lashed tight

 across from him, Anksha curled like a cat her arms wrapped around

 her knees, her head laid sidewise on them, eyes watching him as if he

 were a bird – her next meal.

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 "Merissa was a princess," Isranon began the promised the story,

 sipping the glass of Sanguine Rose Nevin had forced into his hand

 minutes before. He spun Anksha a modified account, lengthened here

 and shortened there, designed to please a child, of the tale of Merissa

 and Troyes. "She lived in a manor house in a distant lycan village

 hidden away from all the chaos of the wars. One day two strangers

 arrived at the manor and asked for shelter through the winter because

 the passes were closed. One rode in from the north and the other from

 the west."

 Anksha's eyes brightened with interest. "Was one of them a bad

 mon?"

 "Oh, yes, Anksha. The one from the north was a very bad mon. He

 was a very powerful and evil sa'necari."

 "I would have bitten him and ripped him." Anksha gave an

 emphatic shake of her head.

 Isranon smiled. "I am sure you would have. Now let me continue."

 Anksha gave him a nod and went silent.

 Isranon described how Troyes courted Merissa, even though her

 father disapproved.

 Anksha listened patiently for a time and then interrupted again.

 "But what about the other mon? The one from the west?"

 "Well, the one from the west was very special. You see, he was a

 prince in disguise who had heard of the beautiful lycan princess and

 come seeking her hand. But seeing her already courted by the

 sa'necari, he held back and did not yet present his suit."

 Olin put his paws over his muzzle at one point and whimpered in

 embarrassment as Isranon waxed especially inventive.

 "A prince!" Anksha clapped her hands. "I have only taken a single

 prince. Mephistis. Hoon doesn't want me taking princes without

 permission."

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 Isranon faltered in his story, thrown off balance by memories of his

 prince.

 Anksha schooled the dialect out of her voice and asked in perfect

 Waejontori, "Does it hurt you when I mention him?"

 Isranon lifted his head and looked her in the eye. "Yes, it does. He

 was not just my prince, he was my friend."

 Anksha dropped her gaze. "I'm sorry."

 In the tale he wove, a prince, not a lowborn sa'necari heretic named

 Isranon, rescued Merissa from Troyes. Spirits talked to the prince and

 with their aid, he vanquished Troyes, saved the princess, and lived

 happily ever after with her.

 Olin sighed heavily when Isranon finished.

 * * * *

 "She will kill him," Haig said disconsolately. His heavy shoulders

 were hunched and he pressed his palms together as he sat by the fire

 with Nevin. Nibari, built the fires each night. "If only I had come

 sooner. If only I had not become embroiled in other matters…. He

 shames me, accepting my apologies as if nothing had happened to

 him."

 "You did all you could, mon," Nevin growled softly, throwing more

 branches into the flames and watching them lick up. "You did all you

 could."

 "Perhaps Anksha will not," Amiri said, joining them. She twined

 her fingers through the thin, beaded braids of her cornrowed hair.

 Then she shook her head and the beads clacked softly together. Some

 of the beads were wood and others ceramic.

 "Can you free him?" Haig demanded sharply. "Nothing else will

 prevent her killing him."

 "He cannot be freed. Such cannot be done," Amiri said, her voice

 filling with sadness. "But there are other solutions. Leave me to work

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 on them."

 "What else is there?" Nevin growled lower. "Haig is right. She will

 kill him–she is killing him."

 Amiri shook her head hard. The beads clacked louder. "Trust me. I

 have come to turn the Beast. If she can be turned, then she will not kill

 him."

 "She ripped through him… there is very little left of him," Nevin

 growled. "Mephistis said she shattered his psyche and sense of self."

 A sharp squeal of alarm turned all their heads to Amiri's nibari,

 Randilyn, who swiftly blushed a deep red. She was blonde and pale as

 butter cream frosting except for those moments when she looked like

 a cherry. "A mouse… it ran across my hands…"

 Haig laughed and then the others did so. Amiri grabbed Randilyn's

 arm, shaking her head ruefully, and brought the nibari to her feet.

 Randilyn's flinch and shriek reaction to startlement and fright amused

 everyone except Amiri. Some of the others, including Haig, liked to

 set Randilyn off, just to watch her go into conniptions.

 "I swear, Randilyn," Amiri muttered, leading her away, "If I didn't

 love you so much, I'd suck you dry just to shut you up…."

 Randilyn kissed Amiri on the mouth and teased her with a turn of

 her neck to expose the favored vein. "Not."

 Nevin stared off into space, remembering something that happened

 the winter before last, remembering Isranon as he had been.

 "Isranon!" Nevin knocked on the door and entered, drawing a chair

 close to his young friend and straddling it. He studied Isranon's face

 for a long time, his expression thoughtful. Nevin was hisguurmondru:

 brother, friend, teacher. The easiest translation was godfather, but it

 was a vastly inaccurate one.

 He had known Isranon since the youth was eight and now he was

 eighteen. The last four years Isranon had dwelled in their valley only

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 intermittently, following his prince more often than not, and they had

 missed him. Especially Nevin. He had taken Isranon under his wing

 when the boy first arrived in the valley, and remained so until

 Mephistis had discovered the boy's nature and carried him off at six

 months past his fourteenth birthday–the coming of age birthday, at

 which Nevin had given him the blades he wore and cared for so

 diligently. The lycan had trained Isranon to fight, even as Isranon's

 father had once taught the youth to hide. Nevin had knowingly created

 a dichotomy in Isranon, a conflict of which path's teachings to follow.

 Isranon lowered the flute. "Hello, Nevin."

 "They treated you hard, pup?"

 Isranon shrugged. "They are sa'necari."

 "Just because you were born sa'necari, Isranon, does not make you

 one of them."

 Isranon turned his face to the window. "I know that."

 "How long will you be here?"

 "Until my prince sends for me. Troyes is supposed to continue on to

 King Baaltrystan."

 "That is well," Nevin growled deep in his throat. Had he been in

 wolf form, his hackles would have risen to match the sound. Then his

 visage softened. "Have you spoken to Merissa?"

 "A little." Isranon sounded uncertain.

 Merissa, Claw's daughter, was a year younger than Isranon. When

 they were children she used to say she intended to marry him when

 she grew up and chase him through the woods trying to kiss him. If

 she could not catch him on two legs, she would change shape and

 chase him on all fours. Isranon had always considered that unfair and

 shinnied up the nearest tree quick as a squirrel, where he would sit

 until an adult came to end the game. Last time he had come here,

 Merissa had chased him in a different fashion, teasing and playful

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 with seductive looks and words. There had been none of that so far

 this time. Merissa seemed to be ignoring him.

 "Have you and Merissa fallen out?"

 Isranon tried not to open up on that subject, tried to hold back,

 even though Nevin was the person he had always gone to growing up.

 The scarred lycan regarded him closely, leaning over the back of

 the chair he straddled. "Talk to me. I read you like a book."

 Isranon managed a small unhappy smile. "I fell in love."

 "And you didn't bring her with you? Or him?"

 Isranon lowered his head. "She's dead."

 "Ahh, boy. I'm sorry." Nevin rose from his chair and wrapped his

 arms around Isranon. That unleashed the flood that Isranon had been

 holding in for two months and he wept into Nevin's shoulder.

 * * * *

 "What Hoonknows about Anksha would not put piss in a cup,"

 Amiri told Isranon, Reading his body thoughtfully. She took a small

 package wrapped in paper from her pouch, shoving it to his side. "Call

 the Beast and give her some when I'm gone."

 "What is it?"

 "Candy. There's no magic to it. At least not in and of itself."

 "I hope you're keeping some candy for me," Randilyn said, poking

 her head through the door. Amiri shot her a disapproving glance.

 Randilyn's sweet tooth was a thing of legend.

 "Amiri–" Isranon began. He disliked feeling manipulated. With his

 prince dead, part of him wanted to rebel. An argument formed in his

 thoughts and he bit it back.

 "No questions. Just keep your promises. Do what I tell you. When I

 feel you are ready to know more I will tell you. Do not speak of what

 I tell you except to your lycans. What I tell you of the Beast must

 never become known to Hoon or his people."

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 Isranon stiffened at the sound of shouting. "Hoon has overtaken

 us." Anger flared and then subsided back into weary resignation. He

 hated Hoon, but there was nothing he could do about it. The image in

 the melting snow of Hoon shoving his prince into the path of the

 Sacred King's blade rankled. Hoon had set Anksha upon him as surely

 as he had set her upon his prince. He would follow his prince into

 death and Hadjys would have his soul simply because of what he had

 been born. When the craving for blood had come upon Isranon at

 puberty, he had been appalled and distraught. His father had taught

 him to feed lightly and infrequently upon their nibari. Haig had

 offered to share one of his nibari with Isranon, but the young mon had

 refused. For the moment he was content with the troll's blood base in

 the Sanguine Rose.

 "Say nothing of these conversations." Amiri left the wagon.

 Candy.Was she asking him to befriend Anksha? Was that the

 secret to Anksha? Had none of her other blood-slaves ever befriended

 her? Or had they all been so caught up in resentment and anger at

 being trapped by her that they lost themselves to hatred? If so, was

 there some lonely core to her, some loss that she had never recovered

 from that others were unaware of? That started him remembering

 Juldrid and how he had befriended her through his music. He didn't

 like thinking about someone being terribly lonely, for he knew how it

 felt.

 Isranon heard the soft, sad strains of Juldrid's lute before he had

 walked far into the dense woods near the hunter's trace that led from

 the bluffs to the valley. He wondered what Margren had done to her

 this time… or had his prince done it? A sick anger coiled in his

 stomach as he lifted the flute to his lips and began to play. Isranon let

 the music announce his presence so that he did not come suddenly

 upon her and frighten her. He shouldered his way through a tangle of

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 trembling aspen and a tighter knot of evergreens until he could see

 her.

 Juldrid wore the black of mourning, which made her look very pale.

 He wondered what she was mourning over. Rose crouched beside her,

 listening and, from time to time, patting her shoulder comfortingly.

 Rose's reassurances had gone a long way toward persuading Juldrid

 to talk to him. Isranon settled cross-legged a short distance from

 them. He found the rhythms of the song she played and joined her in

 them. Juldrid gifted him with a small, sad smile and nodded. Then she

 began to sing. Isranon's grasp of common was limited since it was

 rarely spoken in Waejontor, yet after awhile he realized it was a very

 old song about rape and grief, suicide and the fall of houses. It made

 him shiver.

 As always they played until dark when Juldrid rose to leave. This

 time Isranon took a chance and caught her arm. She flinched, her eyes

 widening with fear, but he did not let her go until he could get the

 words out. "Mephistis raped you, didn't he?"

 "Yes."

 Isranon released her arm and Juldrid fled. He prayed he had not

 ruined their tentative relationship. He dropped back to the ground,

 feeling numb as he retreated into the silences. Having his fears

 confirmed did not make it better, if anything it made it worse. Rose

 crept up to him and laid her head in his lap.

 "All sa'necari are like that," she said. "But you are not sa'necari."

 Isranon lowered the flute again. "I know that. A lion must be a lion,

 or the others devour him… and yet… I feel for her." In Waejontor

 women were property, except among the sa'necari whose women were

 sometimes strong enough to eat their mates.

 "She carries his children. Two sons for your prince."

 Two heirs for his prince, what a wondrous thought! But such a

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 tragic way to get them. Isranon pitied Juldrid. He put the flute away.

 Rose turned her head to the side, waiting for the touch of his fangs.

 Instead he began to undress her.

 "If I got a child on you," Isranon said. "By law, they would not be

 allowed to harm you." Sa'necari born were too rare. They were

 fortunate to produce three in the course of a long life and only their

 longevity made up for it. He hoped that, having not crossed the line in

 the rites, he would prove more fertile than the others. And taking a

 non-sa'necari increased the chances. "Will you allow me to try?"

 Rose arched up, presenting herself to him and shrugging out of her

 dress. "You are the only one who bothers to ask…. I have had many

 sa'necari inside me, whether I wished it or no. I love you, Isranon."

 "And I, you." Isranon realized that he was trembling as he opened

 his own clothing and Rose's soft, gentle fingers closed on his cock.

 Abruptly Isranon balled up. "Damn you all! Damn every one of

 you." His throat tightened and he pressed his face into his pillow. A

 sob forced its way up and Isranon finally released the expression of

 his grief, for Rose, for Josiah, for Mephistis… and at the end himself.

 He had made too many mistakes and he saw no way to repair them.

 "Father…."

 The little door at the front opened and Nevin slipped inside. Isranon

 fell silent, swallowing back the sounds in his throat. Nevin sat on the

 edge of the bed and drew Isranon into his arms.

 "Let it out, pup. Let it out. There is no shame in it."

 "My father…. Was a good mon."

 Nevin's eyes half-closed as he nodded. "Yes. I don't often say it, but

 he was. He was kind and compassionate. Everyone in the valley liked

 him."

 "Why didn't we simply stay in the valley?"

 Nevin lowered his head. "Because it meant too much danger for my

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 people. Your father always moved on after a season or two. You didn't

 always go with him. It is easier to hide one small boy, than an entire

 community."

 "He knew you were teaching me."

 "Yes. He was ambivalent."

 Isranon inhaled sharply. "I unpacked my blades once while I was

 living with him. He caught me. He said that the only way I would ever

 be able to keep the teachings would be to die."

 Nevin looked disconcerted. Anger breathed across his face and he

 mastered it in a flash. "When was this?"

 "I was eleven. It was the summer before they killed him."

 "No one could keep those teachings and survive, Isranon. There

 might be a few realms civilized enough that you could live that way.

 However, that gift is bought with the lives of others, their armies."

 Isranon turned halfway around in Nevin's arms, staring at the red

 painted door of a cabinet over his head. "No way at all?"

 "None."

 Isranon fell silent.

 Nevin let go of him and sat back with his arms at his sides. "It was

 a cruel thing for him to say."

 Isranon shook his head in a distracted fashion. "It was an honest

 thing. Unlike my father, I can kill. I have killed. I am stained by it."

 Nevin turned Isranon around. "No. You had every right to defend

 your life and that of others. You did the right thing."

 "I want to believe that."

 * * * *

 Hoon walked through the camp, slapping his riding gloves

 impatiently across his leg while Anksha bounced beside him. While

 he had lost those few of his own sa'necari he had kept with him, he

 had been chagrined to find that Mephistis's five had managed to

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 escape out the windows of the council chambers in the first moments

 after their prince died. They had seen what he did, but said nothing,

 the spectre of Anksha hanging in their minds. They followed behind

 him, watching her uneasily, Bodramet leading.

 "Where is Mondarius?" Hoon scanned the camp.

 "Said we were not riding quickly enough to suit," Haig answered,

 walking to his left with Zulaika. "It's the wagon. Anksha needs it for

 Isranon."

 Hoon's eyebrow lifted. "You are traveling him in a wagon, my

 pet?"

 Anksha's eyes were large and guileless as she nodded, "He doesn't

 mend fast when I feed, Hoon. Makes him sick."

 "Still?" Hoon frowned. "He's the frailest sa'necari I have ever heard

 of."How can my brother's descendant be so fragile? He shook the

 thought off, not wanting to go near it.

 "Mondarius wanted to have him put down. Some of us suspect he

 wanted to rite him," Haig said.

 Hoon froze, crumpling the gloves in his hands. "You did well,

 Haig. I will commend you to Timon."

 When they had gotten fresh horses, Hoon went looking for Anksha,

 expecting her to mount and ride behind him as she always did,

 crouching on her pillion pad. He found her on the wagon next to an

 Ymraude driver. "You are not riding with me?"

 Anksha shook her head. "With Isranon."

 Hoon wondered at that, but chose not to make an issue of it. He

 turned to one of his lieutenants standing at his elbow, "Bring the

 blood-slaves up and have them ride behind Anksha's wagon with a

 guard. She hasn't had time to break in them in properly and I don't

 want any incidents between here and Minnoras."

 The mon nodded and left with a precise stride. Anksha trailed after

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 him.

 Hoon watched her go with a shiver of unease. If anyone could drive

 a wedge between himself and Anksha, it would be a descendant of his

 brother. People had always respected Hoon, but they had loved

 Dawnhand: Anksha most of all. Hoon would never have allowed

 Mondarius to rite Isranon, yet he hoped the young mon died quickly

 before he could become an influence upon Anksha. Since Isranon was

 so weak that he required a wagon, then the odds were that he would

 not reach Minnoras alive. "I loved you, Dawnhand," Hoon murmured

 so low no one could hear him. "Yet I betrayed you to your death. You

 were not the first nor were you the last. I will survive these setbacks

 and I will win. Your last descendant will not steal my best weapon

 from me."

 As Hoon strode to the front of the van, where servants were

 saddling his re-mount, he saw Ymraudes sprinkled among the rest of

 his vampires. He had not seen any in centuries.Where had they come

 from? And, why?He would have to find out.

 * * * *

 As soon as Hoon had gone, Isranon's hand tightened on the wolf

 beside him, Nevin this time as he heard and felt Anksha creep into the

 wagon. He reached into the bag of candy at his side and pulled out

 several. "Anksha, I have something for you."

 Isranon extended his hand and opened it to reveal the honey candies

 wrapped in twists of wax paper.

 Anksha blinked and licked her lips. "I'm not allowed candy. Hoon

 would be unhappy with me."

 Isranon wondered at that. "Why? What harm can there be in

 candy?"

 Anksha's head lowered and she said in a very soft voice, "Hoon

 says all I get to eat is blood, flesh, and lives."

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 Hoon… how much of Anksha has been formed by Hoon? "I thought

 you were a law unto yourself."

 She stiffened and straightened. "I am."

 "Then why shouldn't you have candy if you want it? Do you want

 the candy?"

 "Yes, I want the candy." She snatched it from his hand as if afraid it

 would be taken away, unwrapped two of them quickly and popped

 them into her mouth. She crunched them with a blissful expression

 and laughed when she finished them. "Dawnhand gave me candy. He

 hung a little bag of it around my neck."

 Dawnhand? His ancestor Isranon the Dawnhand? What did the

 Ymraudes know?"You knew him?"

 Anksha froze like a small creature caught in the sudden glare of a

 lamp. "I was a baby."

 "Don't you remember anything? Can't you tell me something,

 anything?" Isranon searched her face desperately. "All my life I have

 wanted to know more about him."

 "I was a baby…." she growled.

 Isranon sighed, his brief hope extinguished. "There should never be

 a reason for you to give up the things you enjoy, Anksha. There is far

 more to life than blood, flesh, and the taking of lives. Come here." He

 patted the bed.

 Anksha sucked in a breath and started shaking her head at him

 furiously. "Don't make me sad."

 "I am not asking you to feed."

 With a sigh of relief, Anksha went and sat next to him. "What do

 you want?"

 "To touch you. Just that." Isranon stroked her shoulders. "You are

 very soft and I enjoy touching you. Simple things, Anksha. Simple

 kindnesses. Simple beauty. The color of the sky, the shine of the stars,

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 spring leaves and summer flowers. There is far more to enjoy than

 you are allowing in your world."

 "You sound like Dawnhand." Anksha clapped a hand over her

 mouth and fled.

 * * * *

 Hidden at the back end of the wagon, Yoris peered through a crack

 in the rear door. He had heard the entire conversation. Here might be

 something he could use. His family had been landless, of the lowest

 caste of sa'necari, living off the leavings from others tables. He

 blinked, rubbing his pale, almost colorless red-violet eyes. One of the

 ways to tell the strength of a sa'necari's powers was the richness of

 their eye color. Yoris had taken less than a hundred deaths, all given

 to him in exchange for the gossip and information he carried to those

 of higher rank. His diminutive stature and lack of status had always

 invited bullying, which gave him another reason to place the powerful

 in his debt in any way that he could. Information was his most

 powerful tool.

 He would think about who best to carry this to, and the best way to

 approach them. Yoris felt certain there must be a way to resist the

 promised withering, and the gratitude of someone who knew would

 go a long way toward preserving himself.

 Two guards walked past and Yoris straightened quickly, smoothing

 his robes. He ran his finger under his slave collar and then scratched

 around the brand on his shoulder. Yoris remembered how it had hurt

 when the slave-master put the hot iron to him. The shame of the brand

 and collar burned his soul and he grew angry.

 He saw Bodramet was mounting up behind the wagon. Yoris went

 straight to him. "Isranon is in the wagon."

 Bodramet's eyes, so dark they were almost black, flashed in rage.

 "So he's here. I had hoped, when I didn't see him, that he was dead."

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 "I am always helpful," Yoris said, his tone obsequious. Bodramet

 had been one of his greatest patrons when they were freemyn.

 "Yes." Bodramet squeezed Yoris' shoulder.

 * * * *

 Amiri favored Zulaika with a thin smile, not wanting to be too

 public with her thoughts as they watched Anksha refuse Hoon's

 request that she ride with. Randilyn and Zulaika's Willa stood nearby

 in case they should be needed or wanted.

 "It has begun," Amiri said. "Isranon is stealing Anksha from

 Hoon."

 "Begun, but only begun." Zulaika settled her five javelins in a

 booted sleeve on her saddle and turned. "If Hoon detects it or realizes

 the true reason we are here, he will kill Isranon outright and turn on

 us."

 "Then Anksha will turn on him."

 Zulaika shook her head. "Not if he does it before the bond has time

 to shift firmly and settle. As for ourselves, it is too easy to misstep and

 lose our pretense of mercenaries in search of work."

 Amiri's expression remained confident as she insisted, "We only

 need to reach the Minnorian estate. Hoon's son is a more reasonable

 person."

 "Hoon isn't stupid and Timon rarely defies his father outright. I

 would not count on Timon to provide safety for either Isranon or

 ourselves, Amiri."

 Willa followed Randilyn, leading their masters' packhorses and

 their own riding animals. Randilyn was giggling about some trifle,

 which irritated Willa, who put a hand over her mouth. Both of them

 bore healing bruises to show that they had spent part of the morning

 feeding their vampires. Nibari had been bred to recover from such

 treatment faster than normal humans. The Ymraude nibari were even

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 stronger than the others. Willa and Randilyn moved with a free,

 confidant stride absent in non-Ymraude nibari.

 Amiri gave Randilyn a push when Willa released her and Randilyn

 grabbed at her hand in an impertinence that would never have been

 seen in the non-Ymraude nibari. Amiri ignored it, turned, and

 continued her conversation with Zulaika. "The more he reminds her of

 Dawnhand; the more she thinks of him as Dawnhand; the more deeply

 she becomes his and not Hoon's."

 "I've known that for awhile," Zulaika replied. "I've watched them

 together the few times Isranon has found the strength to emerge from

 the wagon."

 "So, I would say that I have turned the Beast," Amiri's tone was

 smug.

 Zulaika went back to her original arguments, "Not yet. The bond is

 still fresh and tenuous. If Isranon dies before we can remove her from

 Hoon's influence and reach, she will simply settle back into the bond

 with Hoon."

 Amiri thought on that and nodded. "There is the matter of keeping

 Isranon alive. Period. We still do not know why the Dark Mother

 wished to destroy all of the descendants of Dawnhand, what threat he

 might have been to her."

  

 CHAPTER FIVE. UNDERSTANDING

 Isranon's father had always told him that gentleness and kindness

 could tame the most savage of animals given time; because

 underneath all savagery was a need for love and acceptance. He did

 not know whether to think of Anksha as a person or as an animal, she

 seemed to be something in between. Isranon felt driven to understand

 her, and his father's words ran loud in his contemplations.

 His ability to think and center had begun to creep back in tiny

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 increments and all of it focused on Anksha. He kept thinking of the

 sorrow he saw in Anksha's eyes just before she took him each time

 since the march began. It affected him: he did not like seeing people

 cry. It made him yearn to improve their situation, especially when it

 derived from himself. He thought of how she laughed at his stories,

 how she crunched the candy, how soft she was. He remembered

 watching her romp with the lycans before she had taken him. Nevin

 and Olin had begun to warm to her again.

 Her reaction to his asking about his ancestor, Dawnhand, had

 gotten him wondering whether Anksha suffered from some deep inner

 pain connected to the mon. He held himself back from asking, but the

 rare mentions of his name by either of them always produced the same

 melancholy he had seen the day he first gave her the candy.

 Amiri used the trunk lashed to the wall of the wagon at the end of

 Anksha's cot as a table. Her potions, glass mixing rods, measuring

 cups and spoons, herbs leaching in bottles of strong liquor, sat on the

 trunk. She measured a sapphire potion into a glass and followed it

 with a green one, stirring them together with a slender glass rod. Then

 she poured from a bottle of Sanguine Rose into another earthenware

 cup. She helped him to sit and he took the cup, drinking from it

 gratefully.

 "We must get her to feed again. I can sense the Presence Pain

 increasing," Amiri told him, returning with a cup of the potion. "Drink

 this. It will strengthen you."

 "The pain is worsening." Isranon leaned against the wall of the

 wagon, drinking the potion. "She weeps over me."

 "Anksha is a child-woman. As innocent as the beasts of the forest

 and as wise as the oldest woman." Amiri moved to a cabinet. "Do not

 think badly of her."

 "I am finding that I can't. She was the great evil thing that Hoon set

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 upon us. Now I find myself unable to conceive of ever having felt that

 way."

 "Good. You are learning."

 'Learn or die'. That was what the ghosts had said. "I want to learn."

 "What languages can you read?"

 "Waejontori. Sharani. Common. I am not strong at common. I had a

 book once that I had found. It was written in common and spoke of

 the ways of the light. I failed to understand much of it."

 "You need to learn more. When I have time, I will teach you. For

 now, I do have a few books that you could read."

 "I will read. I will learn."

 Amiri began putting her supplies away in a large satchel.

 "Remember what I told you about dealing with the pain from the

 dominance-link when she feeds. You must use your imagination to

 visualize responses that are compatible with hers. If you visualize

 intensely enough, they will form in your magic in reciprocal patterns

 and you will handle it all better. There were books on the techniques

 once, but they are gone with the ages. I wish I could call up the ghosts

 of the past and ask them the rest. For now, we use my limited

 knowledge."

 Ghosts of the past…. A very powerful ghost of his own past

 reached across the barriers and he could see it all again in his mind.

 Troyes' powerful body draped a hidden altar in the mountains;

 Troyes' bane-blade protruding from his back where Isranon had

 plunged it to finish the monstrous sa'necari off after Merissa broke

 Troyes' spine with Isranon's sword. It had taken both of them to stop

 Troyes from killing Merissa on that altar. A strange stirring of power

 began around the bane-blade and then the hilt fell away as the blade

 disintegrated.

 "Isranon! Isranon!" Merissa shouted.

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 "What?" Isranon opened his eyes, pushing himself painfully onto

 his side, levering himself onto his elbow. Troyes had cut him up badly.

 He had expected that. He had expected to die. But he had refused to

 allow Troyes to harm Merissa.

 "Look!"

 "When I do it, this is how it happens," he said.

 A white mist emerged from the hilt, swirling motes of power

 dancing through it. A figure formed in the mist until it became a mon,

 clearly Valdren.

 She walked toward them, pausing before Isranon. "Dawnhand," she

 said, and then frowned slightly in perplexity, her head tilting. "No,

 sa'necari, yet not sa'necari. Son of Dawnhand. You freed me, so I give

 you a gift and a promise. I give a kindling of the echo to fullness so

 when you are touched by the all-talent you will have it all. I promise

 you the staff of the Dawnhand, once you have ridden with gods and

 kings of light to the shores of Ildyrsetts."

 The ghost touched him. Isranon cried out at the searing ecstasy and

 for a moment he could not see. When his vision cleared the ghost had

 departed.

 "What was that?"

 "When they die by their own blade, it destroys the blade. The magic

 being turned back on them."

 "I meant the ghost. But that too. I thought ghosts didn't like

 sa'necari."

 "I'm an exception. I am a speaker to spirits, as Dawnhand was."

 Isranon fell back, exhausted from speaking, struggling with the pain

 and the darkness sucking at him. "I'm so cold, Merissa. So very cold."

 Then the dark whirlpool wrapped around him and dragged him into it.

 "Isranon? Are you all right?" Amiri waved her hand in front of his

 face.

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 Isranon started and then flushed. "Yes. Yes, I'm all right. I got lost

 in my memories for a moment."

 "Would you like to share them?"

 He shook his head. "No."

 "Are you certain?" Amiri persisted. "Perhaps I can help you with

 them."

 Isranon sucked in an uncertain breath. Only the lycans had ever

 believed him when he told them. "I am a speaker to spirits."

 "Like Dawnhand?"

 "Yes. I have so many of his gifts…. Someone once said that I'm so

 like him that I could be Dawnhand reborn. I wish I knew more about

 him."

 Amiri gave him a smile that spoke of hidden things as she said,

 "The only one who can tell you is Anksha."

 "She refuses to speak of him. A ghost prophesied that I would have

 the staff of my ancestor and walk with gods and kings of light to

 Ildyrsetts." Isranon's fingers slipped inside his robe and traced the

 slave brand on his shoulder, emerged and ran along beneath Anksha's

 ownership collar around his neck. "But that will never be now. I think

 it was a false prophecy."

 "I wouldn't spit in the face of prophecy, Isranon. Especially when it

 comes from a ghost." Then she turned and left him.

 The staff, Warrior, to have reclaimed it would have restored his

 family's honor, which had been compromised over the generations

 that they were forced to become sa'necari with their families held

 hostage to insure that they practiced the rites. Eventually his family

 had begun to be born sa'necari as the rites altered their genes, like he

 had been. The ghost must have simply been telling him what it

 believed he wanted to hear–not a true prophecy at all. Certainly, as

 Anksha's blood-slave, he would never live long enough or possess the

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 freedom to look for it now.

 Anksha climbed in and sat looking at Isranon. "Amiri sent me. I am

 sorry."

 He shook his head at her. "You have gone five days without

 touching me. I hurt."

 Anksha crept up to him, her eyes large, and her mouth soft with

 concern in the corners. "I wanted you to rest."

 He shook his head again, reaching into a jar of candies that he had

 wedged between his pillows and the wall. "It doesn't work that way.

 Besides, I'm stronger now."

 The demon-eater smiled and climbed further onto the bed. She

 caught the candies he tossed her and crunched them up happily.

 Isranon opened his robe and let it slide from his shoulders. "To

 keep clarity between us, you need to feed." Isranon stroked her head.

 "Anksha, you are my very special friend. You must not continue to

 avoid this."

 Anksha dropped her eyes. "I don't like hurting you."

 "The longer you put it off, the worse the link hurts me." He

 gathered the little she-creature into his arms, wrapping her tightly. She

 came unresisting.

 Anksha straddled his narrow waist and stroked his scarred neck. "I

 can make it better. The scars I make, I can take away."

 "You can?" Isranon had not realized until that moment how

 uncomfortable the marks on his neck made him. They screamed

 'blood-slave' to all who saw them.

 "Yes. I can't do anything for the rest." She stroked the scars on his

 chest, moving from one to another, scrutinizing them with her usual

 intensity. "They don't go away?"

 Isranon shook his head. For sa'necari who had participated in

 the rites, blood healed such marks until nothing remained to show

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 where they had been–unless the wound had been made with

 kenda'ryl or runed-blades. Some of Isranon's scars were from

 runed-blades, sa'necari blades, but most of them were not. "At

 least my insides heal right."Until I start to wither… how long will

 that be before it begins?

 "Turn your head so I can get into your neck," Anksha told him.

 Isranon took a deep breath and tilted his head to the angle she liked.

 Anksha grasped his shoulders and sank her fangs into his neck. He

 stiffened briefly and then relaxed as Amiri had instructed him. With

 the pain came ecstasy. Either he had grown stronger or his body and

 psyche more tolerant, but he rode the energy, the pain, the link in

 ways he had believed impossible by simply giving himself over to it.

 He became like the water, flowing around the rocks of suffering that

 Anksha inflicted. He released his lingering sense of self, yielded

 entirely, and the last vestiges of pain slipped away from him. She was

 fire and he was ice and together they danced in a whirlwind of

 opposites.

 Anksha linked him to her own ability to heal and ordered the scars

 and marks she had made to leave his body. They vanished. She

 withdrew from him, licking his neck. Her eyes were glazed with

 repletion. "You satisfy me in ways no one else ever has."

 She reached down and, discovering his body had responded to the

 energy in other ways. "That too," she said, caressing his loins.

 * * * *

 Anksha woke from where she snuggled against Isranon with an arm

 around Olin's neck. She nested with the three males in a non-sexual

 manner, like the comfort nesting of the lycans where they simply

 wanted the comforting nearness of another body in the night. Their

 wild counterparts, wolves and dogs, did it also, sleeping in furry piles.

 She extricated herself and climbed out of the wagon. As her foot

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 touched the ground she noticed her other slaves sleeping behind the

 wagon. It was still dark with dawn an hour away, but Anksha could

 see them clearly. The nearest one was Bodramet.

 She could have waited to see what the nibari prepared for breakfast

 and have a share of that, but she craved more blood that morning. She

 had been taking smaller and smaller meals from Isranon's veins so as

 not to over tire him. Bodramet, however, was fresh and strong.

 Anksha sprang on him, waking him. He flailed with a snarl and she

 snarled back. "Shut up!"

 "I'm sleeping," Bodramet protested.

 "I don't care. I'm hungry." She yanked him down as he tried to turn

 over and get to his feet. Then she dragged him under the wagon.

 Anksha removed her sash and shoved it in his mouth. He struggled to

 push her away and pull the sash out. She hit him through the

 dominance-link and he writhed. His scream foundered behind the sash

 when she sank her fangs into him. He went still, panting hard as she

 hauled a large quantity of his life force, magic, and bio-alchemy out of

 him. Resistance was futile once she got her fangs in. His hands

 tightened into fists, his body tensing like a drawn bowstring. He stank

 of lust and hatred.

 Bodramet's blood was strong, his magic substantial, although it was

 nothing compared to what Mephistis' had been. Anksha found the

 taste of him pleasing, but harsher and coarser than the flavor of

 Isranon. On reaching the estate, she would send each of them to her

 sanguiner for bleeding. For now, she would have to take it straight.

 Anksha finished with Bodramet and sat back on his chest. His

 wound was already closing as she watched with no aid from her. Yes,

 he was very strong. She would get many meals from him. "I will send

 you to the sanguiner when we get back. A pint or two to blend with

 wine. You're strong enough for weekly bleedings."

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 Bodramet said nothing, staring up at her with an emotionless

 expression. Anksha climbed out from under the wagon and

 disappeared inside. Bodramet continued to lie there. "Bitch," he said

 softly.

 * * * *

 Hoon had seen very little of Anksha over the past two weeks and

 that irritated him. She spent most of her time in the wagon with

 Isranon. He turned to his aide, "I want a meeting called. That

 Ymraude captain and her shaman, Haig, Nevin," he began to tick

 them off on his fingers. "Also, Anksha, enough nibaris for all, Isranon

 for myself, and Ennis for Anksha. If Anksha complains, tell her to talk

 to me."

 He settled at his main fire and waited. Anksha came trailing behind

 Isranon. Her eyes were wide and her lips pursed. "What are you

 doing?"

 Hoon gave her a pleasant, faintly arrogant smile. "You have never

 denied me a taste before. That is all I want–a taste of him."

 Anksha growled softly beneath her breath. "Not too much."

 Hoon pointed to Isranon and snapped his fingers before pointing to

 a spot in front of him. "Do not be a spoiled child, Anksha. You have

 never been selfish with me before."

 Isranon sat down cross-legged, staring at the ground and glancing

 from the corners of his eyes as people began to arrive. Zulaika and

 Amiri took a spot beside Hoon. Haig and Nevin settled on the

 opposite side.

 "None of them were Isranons," Anksha continued to complain at

 Hoon's elbow.

 Zulaika glanced a silent question at Amiri from the corner of her

 eye and Amiri gave a short shake of her head as she pulled at her

 braids.

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 Hoon gestured at Isranon. "First position."

 Isranon inhaled sharply at the humiliation, his heart hammering.

 Disobedience was punishable by death. He opened his robe and let it

 drop, crossed his wrists behind him and inclined his head at an angle

 to expose his neck. Anksha never forced him to act the role of slave

 publicly; Hoon was doing so in front of his friends. Possibly to

 demonstrate his status to them.

 Ennis knelt beside Anksha, snatching glances at Isranon.

 Hoon began stroking his head and back like a pet dog. "I had

 wondered how you came to join my party in my absence," he

 addressed Zulaika.

 Isranon shivered, wondering how long until Hoon sank his fangs in.

 The vampire went through the motions of putting a fang-shy nibari at

 ease. Isranon had never given himself freely to anyone except

 Mephistis, until Anksha became his master. He felt cheapened being

 given to another person, especially Hoon, who had murdered his

 prince. Resentment flared and he squashed it. Slaves were not given

 choices.

 Zulaika studiously ignored Hoon's attention to Isranon. "We

 encountered Haig riding to overtake Anksha. It had come to our

 attention that some sa'necari were troubling a band of vampires. You

 know how those types of situations can go."

 Hoon nodded. "All too well."

 "Nibari rustling is becoming a problem in the south, as you

 probably know."

 "Yes, I am well aware of it." Hoon's fingers tightened in Isranon's hair
while he ran his index finger up and down his neck. "Please enjoy

 my hospitality."

 The others began to feed. Nevin sat back and watched it.

 Isranon's stomach clenched as Hoon twisted his head to the angle

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 he wanted, using his hair and his slave collar.

 "You need more training, Isranon," Hoon said. "Your posture is

 wrong." His hooked fangs scraped Isranon's neck before puncturing

 the skin and sinking into him.

 Isranon flushed with mortification interwoven with pain. Hoon had

 not bothered to blunt the pain with his gifts. Isranon suspected that

 Hoon wanted him to hurt, although he could not imagine why.

 Anksha squatted close by, watching them. "Not too much, Hoon.

 Not too much," she repeated several times.

 Hoon pulled out with a swipe of his tongue to close the wound.

 "You should speak with my son Timon when we reach my estate,

 Zulaika. He's always looking for a few more good myn."

 Isranon started to ease from his knees and Hoon's grip on his head

 yanked him around.

 "Stay. I did not give you permission to move, slave. I am not

 finished yet."

 Isranon straightened, feeling the increased pressure on his head and

 neck.

 Anksha looked worried, but said nothing more. She ignored Ennis.

 "I will consider it," Zulaika replied to Hoon.

 Hoon bit into Isranon again and sipped. Isranon was so focused on

 the humiliation and the fangs in his neck that he failed to notice Hoon

 raising a discreet amount of dark magic until the vampire lord struck

 him down.

 Anksha shrieked when Isranon collapsed unconscious. Hoon bent

 over him and closed the wound quickly.

 "He's not dead, Anksha," Hoon said, his hand on Isranon's neck

 Reading him. "Apparently, he is the most frail sa'necari you have ever

 taken. Maybe you should consider putting him down before the

 withering starts."

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 Anksha glared at Hoon. "No."

 "I will take him to the wagon," Amiri said. She lifted Isranon up

 and walked away with Randilyn following. Anksha glanced from

 Hoon to Amiri and then ran after them. A wave sent Ennis back to his

 place among the blood-slaves.

 Hoon watched them closely. If he had needed any more proof that

 Isranon was a dangerous rival, he had just gotten it. "Anksha!" Hoon

 called after her. "I want to talk to you. Now."

 Anksha shuffled her feet as she turned around and went back.

 "What is it? My Isranon needs me."

 Hoon licked his lips and took out a handkerchief to wipe around his

 mouth. "I wish you to be careful with the other five. I may have need

 of them again. Do not do anything that cannot be repaired with blood.

 Leave their minds alone."

 Anksha looked unhappy at that. "Yes. Can I go now?"

 "Of course. Choose a different favorite. Isranon will not last long."

 "He will last. I will make him last," Anksha's voice filled with

 stubbornness.

 Hoon ran his fingers through her hair. "I am certain you will try,

 pet. But I barely sipped and he fainted."

 Anksha swallowed with a nod and fled.

 Yoris, listening crouched between two tents, giggled softly with a

 hand over his mouth and then stole back to his spot behind Anksha's

 wagon.

 * * * *

 Amiri made Isranon comfortable on the bed and sat Reading him.

 Zulaika reclined on Anksha's cot. "What happened to him?" Zulaika

 asked. "I thought he was getting stronger."

 "He is. He no longer faints from Anksha's feedings. There is a

 residue here that I am not certain of. I think Hoon hit him."

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 "Why?"

 Amiri shook her head as she thought, making her beaded braids

 clack. "Humiliate him. Show us how helpless he is, how weak.

 Perhaps even to hurt Anksha. Odds are Hoon has twice that many

 reasons, but it is a start. Maybe he already realizes how much of a

 threat Isranon is."

 Isranon stirred with a groan. "I am back in the wagon."

 Amiri glanced at Zulaika with a tiny shake of her head. "You

 fainted."

 "I hurt. My head."

 Amiri shared another glance with Zulaika.

 * * * *

 They camped that night on an open hillside dominated by a

 tremendous sycamore tree with a fifty-foot crown that rose eighty feet

 above them filled with golden fruit. Anksha immediately claimed a

 spot beneath it as shelter from summer sun.

 Bodramet rubbed his horse down with a soft cloth, while his four

 companions did likewise around him beneath the shade of the

 sycamore. The beauty of it went unnoticed by Bodramet. To him a

 tree was simply a tree. It shaded him from the heat of the summer sun.

 The horses pulled at the scattered patches grass as they worked. The

 five sa'necari stood together brushing down their horses.

 He had listened to the sounds in the wagon for two weeks, certain

 that Anksha was not feeding on Isranon. First Mephistis had taken the

 half-a-mon as his favorite, and now Anksha had. It seemed as if every

 time he turned around, she was coming after him and the others. He

 had felt like a man again during the three weeks it had taken Hoon to

 overtake Anksha's company. That feeling was gradually disappearing

 and he resented it. He worked hard to hold onto to it and keep the

 others feeling it.Freedom . He could almost taste it.

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 "Slaves. Sa'necari are not slaves," Gareth grumbled, loosening his

 black hair so that it fell across the fresh mark on his neck.

 "But we are," whined Yoris, putting away his brushes. He gave his

 slave collar a despairing yank. "We're slaves. Food for the Beast."

 "We are only slaves, if we think we are slaves," Bodramet said. "No

 matter what they say, a way must exist to be free again." He shoved

 his cloth into his saddlebag.

 "She travels the half-a-mon in a wagon like he was special," Yoris

 whined. "She makes us do chores."

 Gareth shook his dusty head. "Shut up, Yoris. I see her coming."

 Anksha stalked across the camp on the balls of her feet; her fangs

 down and an angry look on her face. "I hear you've been

 complaining." Anksha licked her fangs.

 They picketed their horses and moved away from them into a semicircle

 at a tiny gesture from Bodramet.

 "Sit, all of you," Anksha said, walking into the center of them.

 Bodramet refused and stood glaring at her, which caused the others

 to take a defiant stance also. They drew strength from their numbers

 in a way they had not before, responding to Bodramet's determination.

 "You," she said to Bodramet. "You are their leader."

 Bodramet put his knuckles on his hips. "I am."

 She walked up to Bodramet. "Open your robe."

 Bodramet simply stared at her, with a dour turn to his lips.

 Yoris whimpered and cringed at the rear of the group.

 Anksha hit Bodramet through the link, twisting him up inside. The

 cords in Bodramet's neck stood out as he fought the raging chaos in all

 the centers of his being. Monsters stalked his psyche to chew upon his

 limbs in hallucinatory echoes. He groaned, his face turning pale. She

 hit him again and he screamed. His mage and neural nets burned as

 her power skittered through him like a spider wearing razor blades for

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 shoes.

 "Open your robe," Anksha repeated. "Open it."

 "Not in front of the others," Bodramet said, gritting his words out.

 "Now." Anksha hit him again.

 Bodramet dropped to the ground, curling on his side, screaming and

 struggling with the sash. Anksha caught the cloth at his neck and

 ripped through it with her claws.

 "Don't make me break me you," she hissed. "Hoon doesn't want

 your minds torn, but I'm tempted."

 Bodramet lay twisted. "I won't."

 She turned her powers through his mind. "Do you love me?"

 Bodramet blinked and his expression softened. "Yes, Anksha. I

 love you."

 "Are you prepared to die for your love?"

 "Yes. Yes, please."

 "Good." She straddled him. The way he had curled up in his

 suffering made it awkward. She sank her fangs into him and her claws

 into his arm and chest. Bodramet writhed, but did not go into the

 convulsions the way Isranon had. He was stronger in body and magic:

 he must have taken thousands in the rites to be this strong.

 Seeing what she did to Bodramet, the others opened their robes

 before she reached them. She took them one by one, deciding they all

 required more training to make proper slaves. When she reached

 Yoris he had assumed the position of a nibari. He was shaking with

 panic and trying to appease her. "I am a good slave."

 She walked around behind him and waited. "See that you stay that

 way." Then she wrapped him in her arms and took him from the back.

 "Tomorrow I will begin taking one of you each day and teaching

 you the nibari positions of submission. You are my cattle."

  

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 CHAPTER SIX. FAVORITE

 They returned to the estate near Minnoras as the first chill breezes

 of autumn stirred in the nights. A year had passed since Isranon left

 Claw's Valley for a place at his prince's side. The mansion's nibari

 followed the royals and Timon into the yard to welcome them. Timon,

 Hoon's son by both blood and flesh, was a tall, broad-shouldered

 Lemyari, dark and earthily handsome. He seemed no more than

 eighteen until you looked in his eyes, which were old with existence.

 Timon's full expressive mouth curved into a smirk when he noted the

 six wearing the ebon robes of Anksha's blood-slaves. All of those

 sa'necari deserved what had happened to them, including that strange

 one named Isranon who so disturbed Timon. Anksha gave a squeal of

 delight and rushed to Timon, leaping into his arms. He wheeled her

 around and kissed the top of her head. "I see you have filled your

 larder again, my pet."

 "Yes. Sa'necari all." Anksha ducked her head, sliding from his

 arms.

 "Filthiest feeders on death…" Timon muttered abruptly. "At least

 someone has a taste for them." His eyes were drawn to Nevin and

 Olin helping Isranon into the manor. There was no way in hell that he

 was attracted to a sa'necari. He turned away to find his officers from

 the march and speak with them as he followed his father inside. He

 especially wanted to know where the Ymraudes had come from.

 * * * *

 Haig lingered before following Timon into the manor. He had

 served as one of Timon's eyes and ears for two centuries, but not his

 father's. Timon paused at the doorway, indicating that he was

 expected to participate in this arrival briefing. Haig gave Timon a nod

 that he would be there anon and smiled as his nibari herd swarmed

 him, nine females, and a sterile male he kept for their pleasures. He

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 had ordered his herd bred last winter and early spring to a friend's

 stud, a particularly fine male of Black Cliff bloodlines, and five of

 them were already hugely swollen; including his beloved Nainee. His

 Nainee was tall and blonde, which was rare among Waejontori-bred

 nibari except among the Black Cliff stock. He kissed her, fondling her

 belly.

 "I wish I were a living mon," Haig said. "And that were mine."

 "As do I," Nainee responded. "When we learned Isranon had been

 given to Anksha, Timon confiscated Isranon's nibari, Eustyn. He sold

 him."

 Haig's face darkened. "Eustyn was my gift to Isranon. Who bought

 him?"

 Nainee laughed. "You did. I exercised your proxy."

 "Good girl."

 * * * *

 Anksha turned toward a small cluster of nibari, who had been

 specially bred for centuries as servants and as food sources for the

 hemovores. All of their estates had nibari herds. This cluster, led by

 Auclos and Eilwen, eyed her warily with a trace of dismay.

 "You took Isranon, Anksha?" Auclos sounded unhappy. "He never

 hurt anyone."

 "Isranon was good to us. Not like the others." Eilwen's voice

 trembled towards breaking. "How could you do this?"

 "He was always kind…." Molikei, the lone part sylvan among

 them, wiped a hand across her face to catch the tears. The nibari

 always spoke of Anksha's blood-slaves in the past tense–even while

 they remained alive.

 Anksha's lips parted in distress, her eyes widening just a bit before

 their protestations.

 "If you must kill him, leave him for last, please, Anksha," Jules

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 begged. He was brown-haired with delicate features and a favorite of

 Timon's.

 Anksha sucked in a deep, sighing breath. Then she fled into the

 thickest, most untamed portions of the gardens.

 * * * *

 The foyer to the manor was full of people greeting returning

 masters and loved ones. Mondarius stood apart from them. They gave

 the divinator more space than anyone else. His belt of tools and blades

 clanked a bit as he stepped forward to greet Lord Hoon.

 Mondarius and Hoon gripped forearms in a perfunctory greeting–

 they had more use than friendship between them–and walked into the

 Great Hall together. "I have many things to discuss with you."

 Hoon gave him a curt nod. "We'll talk in my private garden." He

 pointed at the ceiling indicating it would be the rooftop garden that his

 suite let out on.

 Haig shook his head at Timon and gestured at Mondarius. He did

 not want to participate in a discussion that included the divinator.

 "Later."

 Timon watched Haig walk away and started after his father and

 Mondarius. He understood Haig's reluctance and wished he did not

 have to either. They entered the Great Hall, which was divided into

 small alcoves by assemblages of couches, chairs, and tables that were

 scattered throughout the huge chamber. To Timon's right was the

 backswept double staircase that led up to the second and third floors.

 When they reached the third floor landing and started down the

 corridor that led to Hoon's suite and his private garden, Zyne came

 running, and threw herself into Hoon's arms. She wore a silk band

 around her neck to cover the puckered scar on her throat: her mother

 had severed her vocal cords with a hot knife. Lord Hoon licked her

 neck, shoving his tongue under the edge of the band and she shivered.

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 Zyne pushed away from him and signed rapidly. :Is it time yet? :

 She wore an emerald dress with the sides of the outer skirt pulled

 up and tacked at the waistband to reveal the rose colored underskirt.

 Timon's mouth settled into a hard line. It seemed as if Zyne was

 always spending more of his father's money on clothes. She always

 had something new and it was always of the most expensive cloth and

 lace she could find.

 "Not yet, my pretty one," Hoon ran his fingers through her hair, the

 black locks that had once been green; for Zyne was seiryn before

 Hoon made the tiny modifications on her body which were necessary

 for her to pass for human.

 Ornate double doors in a scrollwork frame opened at the end of the

 corridor on Hoon's large suite of rooms. Timon followed the others

 into the suite and beyond it to the curtained glass doors that entered on

 the garden. On emerging into the garden, Zyne's mouth sought Hoon's

 and fastened onto his lips for several breaths.

 Timon looked away and kept walking. He enjoyed the garden,

 which was filled with fragrant trees, shrubs, flowering bushes, and

 vines. Rows of planters formed several alcoves. Hoon had imported

 variant soil types and the scent of lilac was almost overpowering

 blending with the heathers.

 He found himself a chair at the long table in the center of the

 garden rather than watch them. Snatching the golden preserving bottle

 from the middle of the table, Timon poured himself a goblet of blood

 wine. He swirled the first mouthful around his tongue. It was a good

 blend: at least fifty percent human. He had never been able to get the

 recipes from his father's sanguiner and it was frequently an irritation

 to him. He rolled another mouthful across his tongue and made more

 guesses as to the blendings.

 Zyne hung on Hoon's arm, leaning her head on his shoulder. He

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 pulled a chair out for her at the long table and poured her a glass of

 blood wine. Zyne smiled up at him as she spread her skirts and

 petticoats around her. Hoon drew a chair close to her and sat down

 with his knee against hers.

 Timon glanced at her from the edge of his eyes, wishing his father

 had not included her. He shifted in his chair as Mondarius chose a seat

 close to him.

 Mondarius smiled faintly, his thick lips spreading across his ugly

 face. "You were very fortunate to capture these five sa'necari. I will

 have many uses for them."

 Timon resisted squirming under Mondarius' eyes. He realized that

 Mondarius was watching him from the corner of his own eyes. If

 Hoon had not been present, Timon would have handled Mondarius

 with a sharp sternness, but with his father there everything was

 different.

 Hoon tapped an impatient rhythm on his chair arm. "They are

 Anksha's. And, she has six."

 Mondarius shook his head. "No. She has five and the half-a-mon."

 Zyne laughed softly. "I don't believe he has anything between his

 legs at all. I call him not-a-mon."

 Hoon frowned deeply. "You mean Isranon?"

 "Yes." Mondarius looked uneasy as if he had said something

 wrong.

 "Don't call him that. He's my brother's descendant."

 Timon's ears perked up at that, wondering why a descendant of

 Waejonan would have named his son Isranon, after a traitor. Perhaps

 the sa'necari had hated the child or the mother had named him to

 punish his father. Whatever the reason, for a sa'necari, it was an illomened

 name. Isranon had always struck him as strange. Perhaps

 Anksha would allow his sanguiner to bleed Isranon a bit for the

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 bottles.

 "I merely want to set him apart from the others," said Mondarius.

 Hoon made a dismissive gesture. "Then we will take that as a

 given. Now what is this about the other five?"

 A scowl passed swiftly across Mondarius' face and vanished. "Only

 that they must be kept alive as long as possible. I need to milk them

 for information on the prophecies and have their help from time to

 time."

 Zyne leaned in and whispered something in Hoon's ear. He kissed

 her. "No, Zyne. Ask for something else. They belong to Anksha." He

 turned to Mondarius. "I can ask Anksha not to kill them until you are

 finished with them, however, once they start to wither, there is no cure

 for it."

 "I understand. Now about Isranon. I would like to take him back

 with me to Minnoras."

 Hoon's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why?"

 Mondarius sniffed a moment. "That should be obvious. I want to

 stretch him out across my altar."

 "No." Hoon's voice had a flat, emotionless tone.

 Zyne tilted her head with a moue. "He isn't any use to anyone.

 Except Mondarius. And I hear rumors about him and Anksha."

 Hoon threw Zyne a glare and she shrugged it off.

 "He is dying anyway." Mondarius tapped the table for emphasis.

 "The withering will be on him soon–if it isn't already. What does it

 matter if he dies a little sooner?"

 Timon leaned forward in his chair, wondering where this was

 going. It seemed entirely too much fuss over a sa'necari blood-slave.

 "No," Hoon repeated, his tone like sharp ice.

 "I am not talking about mortgiefan, Lord Hoon. I want to use him

 in a rite of divination."

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 Zyne's eyes sparkled. "Can I watch?"

 "No! It is out of the question," Hoon said. "I will not have him die

 on someone's bloody altar."

 "Very well," Mondarius said. "But, he is a dangerous one to keep

 alive. Already he influences Anksha."

 Timon glanced at his father. "What is going on?"

 "Anksha refused to ride with me. She chose instead to ride on the

 wagon with Isranon." Hoon looked away from them, staring out the

 window. "I may decide to kill him myself, but I will not allow you to

 rite him."

 "Decide quickly, Lord Hoon. I fear what would happen, should

 Anksha become too fond of him."

 "Does it really matter how he dies, father?" Timon asked. His face

 twisted in distaste. "He's just another filthy sa'necari. Let Mondarius

 have him. The fewer I have to deal with on the estate the better I'll feel

 about it." This was more Timon's estate than his father's, he managed

 it and filled it with his own people: there were no sa'necari among the

 members of Timon's household.

 Hoon stroked his lower lip. "I understand your feelings, Timon.

 However, I will decide when I decide."

 "You should reconsider letting me have him. We would gain great

 power from his death on my altar."

 "Listen to Mondarius," said Zyne. "He knows what he speaks of. If

 there is a benefit to be had from his death, then grasp it."

 "No. Suggest it again, Mondarius, and you will find yourself

 draping mine."

 Mondarius dipped his shoulders in acquiescence. "As you wish."

 Zyne shifted in her seat to regard Hoon with concerned eyes. She

 licked her lips. "You can't afford to have someone influencing

 Anksha."

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 Timon shot a sharp glance at Zyne, hearing the honeyed poison in

 her voice. Zyne made no secret of the fact that she resented Anksha.

 Anything and anyone that Anksha grew too fond of, Zyne tried to

 either steal or to destroy.

 "It has to be handled delicately," Hoon said. "If Anksha connects it

 to me or catches me in the act, she'll turn on me. Anksha is interesting

 that way…a law unto herself."

 Hoon rose and left, signaling that the meeting had ended. When he

 reached the second floor, he passed the nibari moving the bloodslaves

 into their quarters, which were much reduced from their former

 opulent surroundings on the third floor.

 The small, scrawny one with the pale eyes sidled up to him. "Lord

 Hoon, a moment, please," he murmured.

 "Make it brief," Hoon's voice sounded impatient, irritated by the

 blood-slave's impertinence at approaching him.

 Yoris nodded and bowed. "He gives her candy. She says he sounds

 like Dawnhand."

 Hoon snarled and strode away from him. He did not need to ask

 who Yoris was talking about. Yoris would get a nibari in his bed

 tonight. Hoon always rewarded his informants.

 * * * *

 The next morning, Timon summoned Anksha's six blood-slaves to

 a gathering. The vampire-prince sat at the walnut desk in his study

 and Anksha sat atop it with her legs hanging down, swinging them as

 happy as a child.

 Isranon stepped away from the clustered, vaguely defiant sa'necari,

 who made no move toward the chairs and couches until Timon had

 gestured twice. Bodramet, as always, had placed himself as their

 leader. While free he had stood as second to Mephistis. The contrast

 between Bodramet and Isranon was strong and intense. The sa'necari's

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 loose ebony robe, over matching trousers, made him look larger and

 broader through the shoulders. Yet Isranon, who was finally

 beginning to get the impressive width of shoulders, heavy muscles

 and chest his frame had promised him from childhood, topped him in

 all ways.

 Bodramet's dark violet eyes without pupils, irises or whites, ran

 along Isranon's bare chest and shoulders. His were the eyes that came

 when a sa'necari first participated in the rites that increased their

 powers, eyes of darkness. Isranon's dark brown at the edge of black

 eyes remained clear as the day he was born without the necessity of

 the artifice the sa'necari used to pass for human in the cities. Bodramet

 wore his black hair oiled back and woven into many tiny braids at the

 base of his neck. Isranon trapped his long curls at the nape of his neck

 and tied them with an unpretentious strip of leather. Bodramet always

 smelled of blood and death, while Isranon did not. There was no way

 that Timon could miss it and Isranon found the vampire's gaze

 returning to him time and again, studying him almost reluctantly.

 "We have rules for the blood-slaves here," Timon told them in

 severe tones. "You no longer feed with the masters in the public

 rooms. There is a room set aside for Anksha's little wine-jars. You

 will feed there and only upon such nibari as are assigned to you and

 only by our leave."

 An uproar started among the sa'necari, but Isranon sat in silence.

 Anksha snarled and that quieted the others. Timon focused on Isranon

 again, drawn by his troubling quiescence.

 "You will have duties and chores. They will be assigned as

 necessary. You will work until the withering becomes so acute you

 cannot be forced to stand. Then you will be allowed to lie down and

 die; or if I am feeling merciful I will have you put down. You will

 obey. Obedience is key to your continued survival. Never for a single

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 moment think you can escape the bonds Anksha has placed upon you,

 even in her absence. She and I will see you eaten."

 This time there was no grumbling.

 Anksha gestured at Bodramet. "Come upstairs with me. I am

 hungry."

 From the look in her eyes, Isranon suspected she intended to make

 Bodramet scream. Timon rose and walked toward the door. He paused

 for an instant before Isranon, staring into his eyes oddly before

 stalking out.

 * * * *

 Isranon came down to the kitchens late the next day, having

 drowsed through the last bit of weakness from Anksha's dining on

 him. He was trying hard to do without the Sanguine Rose to spare

 himself its visions and dreams. The nibari always saved him leftovers

 from meals when they learned that Anksha had visited him. Like

 servants everywhere they knew more of what occurred than their

 masters; and once one knew, they all did. They clustered around him,

 clucking, stroking, and patting solicitously. He failed to notice that

 two had moved to the outer doors as lookouts. His alertness had

 suffered as a side effect of the blood-slave condition.

 "No one's coming," one of the lookouts said.

 Isranon glanced. In that fraction of an instant four nibari seized

 him, shoving him into the pantry closet. His eyes widened in

 startlement as they pushed a chair to his legs and gently, yet firmly,

 pressed him onto it. They patted him reassuringly, murmuring small

 noises and half-spoken words. He felt totally confounded and

 confused. Nibari had never treated him this way before. He had no

 idea what it meant or where it was going.

 "Feed! Go on, mon," Auclos, arch-conspirator, insisted, opening the

 vein in his wrist and thrusting it into Isranon's face.

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 "We're making certain you get extra," explained gray-haired Pippa

 who ruled the kitchen staff.

 Isranon nodded, unable to ignore the blood welling from Auclos'

 wrist. They knew that his horror of becoming a monster often

 prevented him from allowing his fangs to emerge, so they were

 opening their veins before urging them upon him. He fed lightly,

 thinking that would be the end of it until another nibari immediately

 opened a vein and presented it the same as Auclos had. Now he

 understood a bit, but could not think how to react. So he fed again.

 Timon had told him that taking from nibari who had not been assigned

 to him was forbidden; yet these were insisting.

 Blood-slaves could not own anything. His Eustyn, a gift from Haig,

 had been left behind at this estate when they rode for Charas.

 Doubtless, Timon had given Eustyn to one of his supporters. The

 thought of Eustyn reduced to feeding someone who might be unkind

 to him tightened Isranon's throat. He should have asked about Eustyn

 days ago, but had not been able to bring himself to do so.

 Rapidly speaking voices made everyone pause. Then came the

 sound of nibari being pushed away from the pantry door, while more

 tried to crowd between someone who was trying to open it. A tremor

 of worry slipped through Isranon, knowing that he was about to be

 discovered breaking the rules.

 "That's enough!" a familiar voice shouted. The door opened and

 Timon stared inside. His expression shifted swiftly from irritation to

 utterly still and indecipherable. "You have a very strange effect on my

 nibari, Isranon."

 The pantry immediately filled with a rush of voices that Isranon

 could not separate as the nibari protested Timon's statement and

 defended what they were doing.

 "Anksha took him…."

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 "We don't want to lose him–and he isn't as strong as the others."

 Timon shook his head at this. "A very strange effect … on the

 nibari and upon my royals as well. We don't befriend sa'necari. You

 are the only exception."

 Vampires did not befriend sa'necari.Isranon knew that well, for his

 father had taught him this. Sa'necari and vampires were rivals in

 power, jealous and hostile. Yet, he had made friends among other

 vampires, Dane, Haig, the Ymraudes.

 "Does this mean that you will allow this?" Auclos asked.

 The tall vampire sighed. "So long as the work gets done and no one

 is injured by this, yes. It's none of my affair. You've always had your

 favorites. Only, none of them have ever been–."

 "Sa'necari," Isranon supplied, uncertainly.

 Timon's expression hardened. "Or Anksha's blood-slaves."

 * * * *

 Timon returned to his study after his discovery in the pantry and

 tried to work on his ledger entries. After two tries, he gave it up and

 leaned back in his chair with his head almost touching the heavy

 broad sword on the pegs above him. Every day the nibari added some

 new twist into their relationship with Isranon.And, yes , he told

 himself,it is a relationship . They mothered, protected, and coddled

 him at every opportunity–embarrassingly so. What hold or influence

 did this mon have upon them? The questions made his head ache.

 He remembered his conversation with his father. If his father

 carried out his threat against Isranon, Timon suspected that the

 resulting repercussions would be far more severe than his father

 realized. Suddenly, Timon wanted to know why the nibari, the lycans,

 and Anksha cared so much. He had known only one person who had

 been loved like that. "Dawnhand."

 He heard the small secret section of panel slide open and then close

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 quietly. Timon did not need to look to know who had entered: only

 Anksha used it. "Why did you take him, Pet?"

 Anksha climbed into his lap, pressing her forehead against the

 Lemyari's chest, giving him nothing beyond soft sobbing for answer.

 Timon frowned, curving his forefinger under her chin to lift her

 face up. "Why are you crying? I am not upset with you. He's just

 another filthy, sa'necari blood-slave. No different from any other

 you've taken before. Nothing to cry about." He tousled her ebony hair.

 "If it upsets you so much, let's go upstairs and put an end to him, pet."

 "Nooooo!" Anksha pushed his hand away, dropping her head and

 refusing to look at him. "Was angry with Mephistis… took all his

 sa'necari… made him watch."

 "You've done that before. Come now, pet." Timon pushed the chair

 back from his desk making more room to cuddle her. "If it's the nibari,

 ignore them. They are silly creatures."

 Anksha sniffled and began to sob again. "Dawnhand… he's

 Dawnhand."

 "Dawnhand is dead."Four thousand years dead.

 "Isranon, son of Isranon, son of Isranon. Last Dark Brother of the

 Light."

 Timon understood finally, and clutched her to him as she continued

 to cry. His voice, when words would at last come, emerged hushed

 and low, troubled, "My pet, what have you done?"

 He had loved his Uncle Isranon, called Dawnhand for the auric

 manifestation that accompanied his use of his gifts. Everyone had–no,

 not everyone. Waejonan, youngest of Timon's uncles, had murdered

 him. Timon would never forget watching it, unable to intervene,

 unable to look away lest Waejonan take that as a sign of

 rebelliousness. Waejonan's guardsmyn had driven the sharpened pole

 between Dawnhand's legs, through his body and out his shoulder. It

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 had taken Dawnhand a full day to die.

 Timon began to understand all of the strangeness surrounding this

 Isranon, last of his lineage. He needed to talk to everyone involved

 with Isranon to sort it out further. If what Anksha said was true, then

 something wondrous had been ruined. Timon sighed.

 * * * *

 Isranon lay on his bed staring at the ceiling with Nevin and Olin

 beside him as wolves. His father would have been proud of him for

 his acceptance of his fate and the stalwart way he had met it. His

 father had died because he chose to try and reason with their enemies

 rather than fight them.Violence is the law of the brute. Isranon's heart

 had always been torn between his father's teachings and Nevin's.

 When he defended himself or others with violence, Isranon always

 felt soiled afterward.

 His father would forgive him for killing Troyes and those two when

 he walked the gauntlet. Yes, he would be forgiven for that and for

 mastering the blade in the first place. He drank the small glass of

 Sanguine Rose that Nevin had poured earlier and the memories came.

 Isranon accepted the water flask from Rose, wiping a sweaty arm

 across his face before drinking. He stood bare to the waist in the early

 autumn sunlight. The first chill was on the trees and a few leaves had

 turned, although none had fallen yet. Dane sheathed his blades and

 moved to sit on a boulder. Isranon found him unusual for a vampire:

 they did not often befriend sa'necari, in fact, before meeting Dane, he

 would have said it could never happen. They were rivals in power.

 Yet, Isranon had always sensed a difference in Dane that he did not

 understand.

 Dane's nibari, Iola, lifted both a wine bottle and her wrist,

 gesturing for him to chose which he needed more after their hours of

 exercise.

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 "You are improving, Isranon. Were you human, they would call you

 blademaster."

 Isranon settled beneath a pine tree, drawing Rose into the circle of

 his arms and resting his head on hers. "My father would be ashamed

 of me."

 "This is not a time to be thinking about your father."

 "Violence begets violence he always said."

 "Yet, it did not save them. It only takes one side to make a massacre

 when the other will not fight back." Dane pointed at the wine and Iola

 poured him a glass. He sat sipping and watching Isranon's face

 closely.

 Isranon hugged Rose tighter. "I try to avoid them."

 "You should not feel ashamed of defending yourself, young one.

 Nor your mate."

 "It is not for one man to prevent another doing evil, but only to

 prevent himself."

 "High minded words, Isranon, but foolish."

 Isranon stiffened, his obstinate pride pricked by Dane's words. "If

 they kill Rose, it is their choice, their fault, and they shall bear the

 guilt of it."

 "You should come away with us, when we leave."

 "No. I am my prince's man," Isranon replied stubbornly. He owed

 Mephistis a debt, had sworn an oath, and, even more important, at

 times he thought he understood the prince. He loved him, even while

 despising what he was. It twisted his insides up.

 "Then Isranon, you must work harder than ever to learn to defend

 yourself and use whatever resources you can call on. Otherwise, both

 you and Rose are going to die."

 Rose gave a small sound of fright at Dane's words and clutched at

 Isranon's pants legs before turning in his arms to bury her face

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 against his chest. She had still not caught a child from Isranon,

 despite their efforts and hopes: a nibari lucky enough to produce a

 child with the sa'necari gene was handled far more gently than the

 others and rarely killed. Isranon's mother had been nibari, although

 he never told anyone save Rose that.

 "I will defend us both," Isranon vowed.

 Dane heaved a sigh. "Isranon, at least, do not travel alone through

 the citadel until Mephistis returns."

 "I will consider it."

  

 CHAPTER SEVEN. SHAME

 Isranon woke to a weight on his chest, opened his eyes, and saw

 Anksha sitting astride him. "Have you come for me?"

 Anksha shook her head, making her long locks dance. "Just

 looking."

 Impulsively, Isranon shifted her to his lap as he sat up and licked

 her nipple. Anksha gave a low moan. Isranon liked the sound of that

 so he caught her by the shoulders and rolled over on top of her,

 opening her legs with his knee. His hardening member bobbed against

 her loins.

 Anksha gave a screech. Clawing his arm and his chest, she

 squirmed out from under him and faced off hissing. "Male is never on

 top of Anksha. Never."

 Isranon sat up, the sheet tumbling around his nudity, with a blend

 of surprise and shock on his face. Blood ran from the claw marks. "I–I

 didn't know. I apologize."

 Anksha spat at him, and raced out of the suite, slamming the door

 behind her.

 A short time later, a soft knock at the door forced him away from

 the questions this provoked. Eilwen came in with a tray of food. She

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 wore transparent dancers pants and a blouse, with only her loins and

 breasts covered by thin bands of cloth.

 "I thought you might be hungry." She set the tray on the end table

 and pushed up her sleeve, offering Isranon her wrist while running a

 finger along her neck suggestively.

 Isranon patted the bed. He needed to relax in order to be able to

 feed most of the time. Eilwen slipped out of her clothing and climbed

 on beside him. Isranon nuzzled her neck, entering the vein as his

 hands began to fondle her. A brief wisp of thought slipped through his

 mind. His mother had been nibari, and his father had gotten him on

 her by accident. He barely remembered what his mother had looked

 like, but he remembered very clearly the sa'necari that rited her.

 Isranon almost lost it and then he calmed and began to suck.

 * * * *

 Like all the slaves at the estate, Anksha's blood-slaves had the run

 of the building once their chores were done. All of the slaves were

 branded and collared. Flight was rare because the price of trying it

 was death. Flight and defiance had been bred out of the nibari;

 coercions set deeply in the minds of the others kept them tame; and

 the dominance-link made freedom impossible for the blood-slaves as

 Anksha could force them back without touching them.

 Isranon stepped out of his rooms to look for Anksha, determined to

 apologize again in a more thorough manner. He did not want her

 avoiding him, knowing how swiftly the Presence Pain could build up.

 A few nibari passed him in the hallways and he stopped one of them.

 Isranon dressed in simple black pants and a loose robe held closed by

 a sash. Anksha had chosen to dress her slaves in this manner so that

 she could tug the sash away and the robe would fall open, giving her

 access to their flesh.

 "Auclos, do you know where Anksha is?"

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 Auclos smiled at him, turning his neck in an inviting way. "Out in

 the gardens. Is there something I can do for you?"

 Isranon responded with an appreciative slide over Auclos' body. He

 had shared Isranon's bed on many pleasant afternoons. "No thanks. I

 just want to find Anksha."

 "You're a strange blood-slave. None has ever gone looking for her

 before you."

 Isranon laughed. "I'm a strange everything."

 He started walking again when he saw Hoon coming toward him.

 He almost ducked him head and went in the opposite direction, but

 then his pride caught up to him. He straightened and started past

 Hoon.

 "Come here, Isranon," Hoon said in a preemptory tone.

 Isranon wondered that this was about, since he had been making

 every effort to stay out of Hoon's way. "Yes, Lord Hoon."

 Hoon led the way to Isranon's rooms and, once inside, closed the

 door and slid the bolt home. "Stand there and look at me."

 Isranon obeyed, noting the faint resemblance between Hoon and

 Mephistis. All the lineages of the three brothers tended to breed true

 to type physically.

 Hoon looked him up and down. "After all these generations, it

 seems incredible that a descendant looks so much like the ancestor."

 Isranon sucked in a breath. "I am proud of it."

 Hoon nodded. "That is a good thing for you. However, it is a bad

 thing for me. Anksha favors you too much. When the withering

 comes, if it hasn't started already, you will die in agony."

 Isranon squared his shoulders. "When it comes, it comes."

 Hoon closed the distance between them in a single stride, locked

 his arms around Isranon's just above the elbows, pinning them to his

 sides. The vampire's perfume smelled of patchouli and jasmine as it

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 filled Isranon's nostrils in a proclamation of Hoon's vanity. Sharp

 edges of something Hoon wore beneath his tunic pressed into

 Isranon's chest. "I do not allow competition for Anksha's affections."

 The young sa'necari tilted his head away from Hoon's, and the turn

 of his neck exposed the artery. "I am not competing with you."

 Hoon's eyes traced the carotid artery in Isranon's neck as he snarled,

 "You are stealing Anksha from me."

 Isranon sensed where this was going. He flexed his heavily muscled

 body and threw his shoulders back, shifting his weight in an attempt

 to break Hoon's hold using leverage and strength. Yet, he was held too

 tightly and too close. His strength could not match Hoon's, who held

 him easily with his hands locked together behind Isranon's back. It

 would be simple for Hoon to crack his spine. "I befriended her. That's

 all."

 Hoon exhaled in Isranon's face, showing his fangs were fully down.

 His tone was casual and unaffected by even a trace of conscience.

 "Your tampering ends now. I do not tolerate rivals."

 "I am not your rival."

 "I am not a fool. I should simply inject my venom into your heart

 and walk off, but I am feeling kind today."

 Isranon jerked and struggled, trying to pull one of his arms free.I

 am not ready to die…. Not by your hand. You killed my prince."Damn

 you."

 "Others have said that. They are dead." Hoon nuzzled Isranon's

 neck while the young mon twisted in his grasp. His large pointed ear

 rubbed against Isranon's round one. "I will enjoy the way your death

 slides down my throat."

 Isranon gathered all his magic and hit Hoon with every bit of black

 energy he possessed in a spell of undeath denial that would have torn

 the soul out of a lesser blood vampire and left them an empty husk.

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 Hoon turned Isranon's spell with a disparaging laugh that set

 Isranon raging inwardly at his impotence.

 "I hate you. You murdered Josiah and Mephistis."

 "Be still and it will end quickly with very little pain," Hoon said.

 "Continue to struggle and I will make you feel all of it."

 Isranon shifted his weight and snapped his leg up to knee Hoon in

 the groin. Hoon blocked it with his own knee and jerked Isranon onto

 his tiptoes.

 "I know all the tricks, Isranon. I am a warrior too."

 "Damn you, bastard. Damn you to the deepest hell of Hadjys."

 "I am already damned. There is nothing you can add to it."

 My blades. If only I had my blades… if only they hadn't taken them

 from me."Had I a blade, I'd shove it through your black heart."

 "I am sure you would." Hoon laughed for a moment. "A bloodslave

 caught with a blade is executed."

 Enraged, Isranon bit Hoon's ear, tore off one pointed tip, and spat it

 on the floor.

 A cry of anger mingled with pain erupted from Hoon. He shouted a

 word of command, and sent a lance of darkest energy through

 Isranon's body. Isranon cried out and his body jerked in an attempt to

 double over, but Hoon's grasp would not let him.

 "You can suffer for that!" Hoon said.

 The savagery with which Hoon stabbed his fangs into Isranon's

 neck made his eyes bulge in shock. Their brief struggle ended.

 Through the blood, Hoon corded Isranon's body in bands of power

 that held him helpless. Hoon sucked strongly with greedy gulping

 noises. Isranon had been bitten and sucked before, but never like this.

 He had never before felt his life being hauled out of him with such

 swift authority. Clearly Hoon had perfected his technique dealing

 thousands of deaths over the centuries. Hoon intended to dispatch him

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 as quickly as possible. His heartbeat became rapid and fluttering. In

 desperation, Isranon turned to the one who could take Hoon and

 gasped out, "Anksha…. Anksha."

 * * * *

 The first chill of autumn had faded the roses in the outer garden.

 The tangle of briars lingered with leaves in tight bundles over the

 arbors. Anksha paced back and forth beneath them, fuming and

 chuntering under her breath. No one had tried to mount her in

 centuries. She reserved that right for herself. The feelings of

 vulnerability brought forth by being on the bottom irritated her. The

 vampire that tried it centuries ago had paid with his existence. Not

 even Hoon had been allowed to be on top during the years that she

 slept with him before Zyne supplanted her in his bed.

 "I am a law unto myself. I rule my own," she muttered.

 Nevin, who was wandering the garden, walked up to her and

 listened for a few minutes. "What is bothering you, Anksha?"

 She snarled wordlessly and then ran through a dozen dialects before

 settling into her comfortable patois. "Isranon did it."

 Alarm passed over Nevin's face. "What did he do? Did you punish

 him?"

 "No," she said quickly. "Not much."

 "Is he okay?"

 "Yes. I sent Eilwen to him."

 Nevin gave a huff of relief. "What did he do?"

 "He mounted me. Me! Anksha the troll-tamer. The demon-eater."

 Nevin's lips curled into a tiny smile made ugly by his scarred

 mouth. "I am sure he meant nothing wrong with it."

 Anksha tilted her head in question. "You like him?"

 "Of course, he's my spirit-brother. I helped raise him."

 "He got on top of me." Anksha pouted at Nevin.

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 Nevin's smile broadened. "Did he apologize?"

 Anksha stuck her lower lip out. "Sort of."

 Nevin took her hand. "Let's go back and talk to him about it."

 They walked hand-in-hand back into the building and climbed the

 sweeping staircase together leading up to the second floor. As they

 started down the corridor, Anksha's face suddenly took on a

 frightened look that passed swiftly into anger. "Someone is hurting

 Isranon!"

 She pulled free of Nevin and bolted down the hallway. Nevin ran

 after her.

 * * * *

 Hoon's cock hardened against Isranon's thigh, aroused by the taste

 of blood and the way Isranon's life force flickered like a candle in the

 wind. The vampire rubbed his pelvis along Isranon's body.

 A thin line of blood escaped the confines of Hoon's mouth, which

 was pressed tight to Isranon's flesh, and trickled down Isranon's neck

 into the collar of his robe. Isranon's chest heaved and his breath

 stammered between his lips. "Uhn uhnnn," he groaned. His heart

 struggled and his skin began to pale. He hurt worse and worse as he

 weakened, writhing in Hoon's grip.

 Isranon relived the death of his people and his parents as the

 sa'necari rode them down as they ran; as the sa'necari burst into their

 homes where they hid; and bound them when they tried to reason with

 their attackers. He looked again from the hillside with his sister and

 saw his mother rited and his father burned alive. Father… Mother, I

 hate the monsters. I hate all of them of them… forgive me for my

 hatred… the law of the brute…

 Hoon moved his fangs to tear Isranon's neck further, and stuck his

 tongue into the wound, stroking the tendons and muscles, before

 settling into a suggestive in and out motion. The feel of Hoon's tongue

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 moving inside him made Isranon nauseous and he managed a choking

 scream.

 Hoon sucked him to the edge and Isranon's knees buckled. He

 toppled against Hoon. His forehead fell onto Hoon's shoulder. Hoon's

 grip tightened on Isranon as he sagged, holding him up. He changed

 his hold the instant Isranon became too far gone to fight him,

 withdrew from Isranon's neck, and licked the wound, closing it.

 "They tell me you liked the theater. Think of this as the

 denouement to your play. The hero dies and everyone weeps."

 Lifting Isranon in his arms, Hoon carried him to the couch and sat

 down with him in his lap, cradled like a lover. Hoon tugged the sash.

 Isranon's robe opened revealing more of his neck and the upper part of

 his scarred chest. Hoon fingered the scars. "I am ending my brother's

 lineage. I suppose I should feel something, but I do not."

 He caressed Isranon's face. "The resemblance… it is like seeing

 Dawnhand dead. I kissed his dead body hanging on the pole."

 Hoon rubbed his lips along Isranon's neck. "You gave me no

 choice, Isranon." He kissed Isranon's forehead, cheeks, and lips in a

 traditional farewell bestowed upon a corpse. Isranon could smell the

 salt and copper of his blood on Hoon's breath. "Anksha will find you

 dead and not know which of us did it."

 Lord Hoon tilted Isranon's head, turning it so that his neck arched

 and offered a decent angle for accessing the artery. He thrust his fangs

 back in and set to finishing what he had begun with no blood wasted.

 <Now is the time to die, Isranon. Let go and I will take away the

 pain of your death.> Hoon whispered in his mind.

 Isranon's head lay limp against Hoon's supporting arm, the

 vampire's silken sleeve smooth against his cheek. He moaned. The

 last, lingering vitality fled his body.

 Isranon's breathing shallowed out, and then strengthened only to

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 shallow out again as his body failed. He began to gasp for air like a

 beached fish. Isranon's skin turned bluish and clammy. He felt cold.

 His hand fell to the floor, the knuckles striking the wood loudly. Fog

 wrapped his world in the gray mists of deteriorating vision. Unable to

 see clearly, Isranon's hearing intensified and the sound of Hoon's

 sucking and slurping fell loudly on his ears. Sharp pains shot through

 his chest as his depleted heart fought to continue beating. He thought

 he heard his name called as he slipped into the darkness.

 The doorknob turned and Nevin's voice called from the other side,

 "Isranon? Open the door."

 Hoon glanced at the rattling knob. His grip on Isranon's neck

 loosened and a thin trickle of blood ran down into the black curls. A

 nibari would already have passed into death; but a sa'necari's body

 fought harder to remain alive. It was taking longer than Hoon had

 counted on. A little more and it would be over, his rival's heart would

 be stilled forever. Then Hoon could go out the window and vanish

 before they saw him.

 * * * *

 Nevin ran down the corridor behind Anksha. She darted around

 nibari and others in the hallway. Nevin simply shoved them from his

 path, sending them tumbling. Anksha stopped outside the door to

 Isranon's rooms and turned the knob. She pushed at the door.

 Nevin lifted her up by her shoulders and set her aside. She tolerated

 it without a complaint. Nevin turned the knob and then saw that the

 bolt had been shot. "Isranon! Open the door!" He rattled the knob.

 Anksha looked up at him, her face filling with concern. Her sharp

 ears picked up a low groaning and then nothing at all. "Force it,"

 Anksha said.

 Nevin stepped back and kicked the heavy, solid maple door at the

 lock. Wood cracked as the door splintered around the lock and

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 slammed open. Isranon lay unmoving in Hoon's arms on the sofa, his

 head hanging limp across Hoon's forearm, his lips parted and eyes

 closed. Hoon's face was burrowed into the ebony curls. Nevin could

 hear him feeding, loud in the silence. Hoon glanced at the lycan and

 then ignored him.

 "Let him be!" Nevin roared. He rushed across the floor, but Anksha

 was faster.

 She let out a shrill shriek. "Stop! He's mine!"

 Anksha came hissing at Hoon, claws bared. "Get out of him!" She

 jerked Isranon free and blood spurted from his neck as he fell to the

 floor, splattering Hoon's immaculate tunic. Anksha straddled Isranon,

 licking the wound closed, while glaring at Hoon. The vampire had

 made a mess of Isranon's neck and Anksha worked her tongue over it

 with great care and thoroughness to be certain that she had stopped the

 bleeding, both internally and externally.

 Isranon's blood rimmed Hoon's mouth and stained his fangs, which

 were still down as if in threat. Hoon stood up and straightened his

 blood-splattered tunic. He drew a handkerchief from a pocket, wiped

 his lips off, and returned it to his pocket with an air of casual

 indifference. "I have done him a mercy. He will be gone in moments."

 Nevin bent over them and Anksha grabbed his wrist, slashing it

 open and shoving it into Isranon's mouth before the lycan could react.

 At the taste of blood, Isranon's fangs came down instinctively and bit

 into Nevin. The strong lycan blood filled his mouth. His breathing and

 his heartbeat stabilized.

 Anger triggered the beginnings of the change into wolf and Nevin's

 scarred face became snouted and hairy as he glared at Hoon.

 "Bastard."

 Hoon shrugged. "I care more for him, than you do. I was giving

 him a better death than he is destined to die."

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 Nevin said nothing more, knowing that if he did he would soon be

 going for Hoon's throat. Fully into his transitional form, Nevin shoved

 his free arm beneath Isranon, lifting him and shouldering his weight.

 He brought Isranon into the bedroom and eased him down onto the

 bed.

 Isranon's eyes fluttered open and he disengaged his fangs from

 Nevin's wrist, licking the wound closed. "I am sorry…." Isranon's

 voice was whispery soft as he struggled to speak.

 "That you bit me? Don't be foolish."

 Isranon dropped his eyes. Exhaustion dragged at him. He wanted to

 close his lids and sleep.

 They could hear Anksha still shrieking at Hoon in the other room.

 "He's mine. Don't touch him. Don't ever touch him."

 "That cockwhoring son of a pig took you past the edge," Nevin

 growled deep in his throat. "You need more than that."

 "The Rose."

 Nevin went to the bedside table and poured a glass. Then he

 supported Isranon's head and shoulders while he drank it. The color

 came back into Isranon's face.

 "More?" Nevin asked.

 "Yes."

 Nevin refilled the glass and held the bottle up to the light: it was

 half gone and it was the last bottle left of the stock they had stolen in

 Charas. He wondered whether he dared approach anyone in the manor

 about getting more of it.

 They heard the door close as Hoon exited the suite. Anksha came

 in.

 "My poor Isranon," she said mournfully. "Hoon will not touch you

 again."

 Strengthened and eased by Sanguine Rose, Isranon found his voice.

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 "You came when I needed you." Anksha's protectiveness which went

 beyond what he had expected.

 Anksha took the glass from Nevin and helped Isranon with it. She

 stroked his curly hair and kissed his face. "You're mine."

 "Yes, I am."

 "I will fetch you some nibaris. Rest, my Isranon."

 When Anksha had left, Isranon said to Nevin. "I hate Hoon. He

 killed my friend Josiah, my prince, and now he has tried to kill me. It

 is hard to keep the teachings."

 "Then maybe you shouldn't."

 "Violence is the law of the brute…. Oh, gods, I am still so cold,

 Nevin. Hold me."

 Nevin wrapped his arms and a blanket around Isranon and held him

 until the Sanguine Rose called the younger mon into slumber.

 He settled Isranon between the blankets, went to the closet, and

 found a second one, which he threw over the sleeping youth. Nevin

 heard someone examining the broken lock in the next room and went

 to the doorway to see who it was. Olin stood there.

 A crowd had gathered in the corridor and several faces peered

 through with others struggling to see around them. Yoris stood at the

 front of the crowd, licked his lips, and then smothered a giggle with

 his hand. "Is he dead?"

 "No," Nevin snapped.

 His cousin looked up at the sound of Nevin's voice. "What

 happened? There is a crowd in the hallway."

 "Close the door."

 Olin shoved and shouted, getting the crowd to move back. Yoris

 lingered and Olin shut the door in his face.

 Nevin gestured for Olin to join him in the bedroom. Olin frowned

 quizzically and went in. He stared down at Isranon. Nevin gently

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 brushed aside the long hair, revealing the wound in Isranon's neck.

 The main three types of hemovores all had distinctive marks: the

 sa'necari were needle thin and delicate, rarely tearing or ripping the

 flesh; Anksha's canines were large, more like a lycan or a tigerkin,

 made to tear and rip; the vampires were hooked so they slid along the

 skin as they went in leaving a scrape and it took great skill for them to

 not leave a scar.

 "Who did it?" Olin asked.

 "Hoon."

 "This is a place of darkness, Nevin," Olin said. "It is without hope

 for anyone."

 * * * *

 Isranon remained in his rooms sleeping through the lingering

 affects of Hoon's assault. Anksha brought him nibari several times a

 day and Amiri came frequently with her potions. He drowsed alone

 into the late afternoon of the second day and roused to the sound of

 the door opening. He glanced at the bedroom door, expecting to see

 Nevin or Olin, but instead Zyne came sweeping into the room.

 Dressed in shades of pink ranging from a deep rose skirt to the

 palest pastel of her bodice that accented the darkness of her brown

 skin, she was a desirable statuesque woman. Zyne stood six feet tall

 with a small waist, flaring hips and large firm breasts. The low cut

 neckline of her bodice showed their rounded mounds to good effect.

 Most males at the estate would have been happy to stroke those fine

 breasts. Isranon thought she looked like a slut in comparison to the

 savage innocence of Anksha's feral nudity.

 She regarded him in a careful assessment. :So, Hoon thinks you

 dangerous enough to kill, : she signed.

 Isranon's thoughts went to the week he had spent dwelling in an

 attic with Josiah, caring for him between Hoon's daily tortures. "You

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 betrayed Josiah to Hoon."

 Zyne's lips curved into a venomous smile. :Love takes second

 place to power.:

 He wished his companions had not left him alone while he was still

 too weak to defend himself. Zyne had always disgusted him, and now

 she felt menacing.

 "Hoon killed him."

 : That's a lie. Don't try to drive a wedge between us. I know all the

 tricks. :

 "You would, betrayer. But I am not lying."

 Zyne slapped him and he caught her wrist. With the impressive

 strength of her seiryn race, she pulled free and moved further from the

 bed. :When I come into my power, I will eat you. :

 "Anksha will never let you."

 Zyne's mouth framed a laugh and no sound emerged.: I will be

 more powerful than Anksha.:

 "Get out."

 : Slaves don't give orders. :

 An image of Josiah dying with Hoon's blade in his chest flashed

 across Isranon's mind, and knowing that Zyne had betrayed Josiah

 into Hoon's clutches, sent anger rushing into him. "Get out. Your own

 mother cut your vocal cords for your treacheries."

 Zyne's eyes blazed.: Who told you that? It's a lie. :

 "And who would know better about lies, than you, Zyne?"

 :Who told you? :

 "All the slaves know it. All the nibari." He sat up, fighting back a

 wave of dizziness and lunged at her. "Get out."

 Zyne retreated with that soundless laugh.: Touch me and you'll be

 punished. I am Hoon's mistress. :

 "Because you warm his bed, does not mean you can treat me like

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 this."

 Anksha bounced through the door and into the bedroom, nude,

 streaked with mud, and her hair a mass of tangles with leaves and

 twigs caught in it. She stopped in her tracks and stared at Zyne. "Go

 away, Zyne. Leave my Isranon alone."

 Zyne curtsied and left.

 "Are you all right?" Anksha asked him.

 "Yes." Isranon sat down on the edge of the bed.

 "I used to like her. I don't anymore." She joined him on the bed.

 Isranon began to finger comb the twigs and leaves from her hair. "I

 have never liked her."

 * * * *

 Hoon assembled an audience for his rite at midnight. The six bloodslaves

 knelt on the cold stone floor, feeling the dampness through the

 knees of their pants. Timon and Mondarius stood beside the altar. This

 was the first time that Isranon had been in Hoon's chapel. The oblong

 altar was different from the mon-shaped bleeding tables that the

 sa'necari used as altars. It was subtly concave, higher on the sides than

 the middle, with holes drilled into the center, forming channels that

 opened at the bottom into spouts poised over basins to catch the blood

 and fluids spilled upon it. Behind the altar stood a carved wooden

 reredos covered in images of sporting and feeding demonic creatures.

 A retable jutted from the reredos with a statue of Bellocar bearing a

 scythe in one hand and a severed head in the other set in the middle of

 it. That poise was called Bellocar Magnificus. A small table of tools

 sat near the altar, laid out with pots of scented black pigment, oils, and

 blades of various types from tiny splinter thin to cleavers more suited

 to a butcher. Scarlet and crimson candles burned in banked rows along

 the edges on tables and upon the retable. Their flames flickered in the

 cool breeze insinuating itself through cracks in the masonry.

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 Isranon wondered what kind of rite Hoon intended.

 Zyne entered smiling, wearing a wraparound gossamer robe, belted

 with leather that Isranon's necromantic senses told him was either

 human or nibari skin. Two nibari accompanied her as attendants. She

 unfastened the belt and dropped it to the floor. One of the nibari

 picked it up. She shrugged out of the robe and they took it from her

 shoulders as it started to slide down her back. Zyne stood forth nude

 and Isranon acknowledged the perfection of her body. She carried

 herself like a queen as she approached the altar and stretched out upon

 it on her back.

 A voluntary sacrifice?Isranon wondered. That was beyond strange

 to him.

 Hoon wore neither shirt nor tunic on his upper body. A small box

 hung from a chain around his neck. Isranon noted his mangled ear

 with satisfaction. Hoon stepped forward and stood beside Zyne's head

 while Mondarius read from a book in a language Isranon did not

 recognize. The sounds made his skin crawl and set his necromantic

 awareness on edge.

 Timon lit the incense and the heady fumes filled the chamber.

 Mondarius continued to read, holding the book open in one hand

 while he marked Hoon's chest with the knife-edged rune of Bellocar.

 Hoon looked on stone-faced as Mondarius began painting symbols on

 Zyne's body from her loins to the base of her throat. When Mondarius

 finished, he returned to his table picked up a small blend of herbs

 sealed in thinly scraped nibari entrails. He parted the lips of Zyne's

 vagina and pushed them inside her. The divinator thrust a second

 packet up her ass and carried a third to her mouth. Zyne's lips parted

 to receive it and he placed it on her tongue. She swallowed it. Then he

 began to read once more.

 Isranon shivered as Hoon kissed her forehead, cheeks, and lips. He

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 remembered the feel of Hoon's lips on his face, the smell of his blood

 on Hoon's breath, as Hoon had kissed him in the same fashion.

 Farewell to the dead.

 Zyne smiled serenely. Hoon knelt beside her. Mondarius walked

 widdershins around them, reading. Zyne shuddered as Hoon's fangs

 entered her neck. Isranon suppressed a shudder of his own. He

 watched how swiftly and efficiently Hoon pulled the life out of her.

 She was still smiling when she died.

 Hoon repeated the ritual kisses and then drew a black and crimson

 gossamer cloth over her corpse before stepping back. The vampire

 gestured at the two nibari. "Wait for me in my bed chamber."

 They bowed to him and left. Isranon guessed what Hoon intended

 for them and felt sickened. Whenever nibari participated in one of the

 rites, they were killed afterward.

 Hoon turned next to the blood-slaves. "Two of you will keep watch

 at all times in case she rises sooner than I expect."

 Rises? She's going to become undead? But why the ritual? It took

 no ritual to make undead, only the exchange of blood in the case of

 vampires and summonings for zombies and revenants. This is terribly

 different.

 "Zyne will be the first nekaryiane to exist in thousands of years."

 Isranon sucked in a fortifying breath and worked to check his

 shaking. He understood now what Zyne had meant about being more

 powerful than Anksha. Legend had it that the nekaryiane death angels

 were the most powerful undead ever to exist. Hoon was creating a

 monstrous undead thing that had not been seen on their world since

 the Burning Age, which scholars placed at somewhere between

 20,000 and 50,000 years past.What the hell is Hoon doing creating

 such a dangerous creature? It's madness.

 "Bodramet and Gareth. You will stand watch first. If she rises and

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 eats you, it will be no loss."

 Isranon glanced with the corners of his eyes and saw the way that

 Bodramet stiffened briefly before repressing a scowl. He heard a hiss

 and turned his head slightly, not enough to draw Hoon's attention.

 Anksha stood in the doorway.

 "Isranon," said Hoon. "I want to talk to you in my private garden."

 "Not without me," Anksha hissed.

 Yoris watched them closely. He exchanged a glance with

 Bodramet, who shook his head when Yoris started to rise.

 "Then come along, Anksha, and I shall talk to both of you." Hoon

 swept out of the chapel.

 They walked up four flights of stairs, and turned north along the

 corridor leading to Hoon's suite. The outer room was done in shades

 of scarlet and green, from the intricately woven carpets to the wall

 hangings depicting scenes of vampiric debaucheries. The first light of

 dawn gilded the window curtains and the delicate linen hangings over

 the glass doors that led out into the garden. Isranon glanced at the

 heavy door to the bedroom, knowing that the two nibari waited

 beyond it for their deaths.

 When they entered the garden, Hoon turned to Isranon. "Kneel in

 the corner." He pointed to a spot near a bench and a pot of azaleas.

 Isranon obeyed. The garden covered most of the roof and could be

 accessed from both Hoon's rooms at this end and Timon's at the other.

 Trees, fragrant flowers, vines of honeysuckle and pots of jasmine

 made a series of alcoves with benches, chairs and tables sprinkled

 among them. Rose bushes splashed the garden in gaudy shades of red

 and orange. Yet for all the complexity of the garden, there was only a

 single pot of azaleas and that one sat in the corner nearest Hoon's

 door. Every time Isranon saw it, he wondered what the significance

 could be since Hoon did nothing without layers of intention.

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 "I don't want Isranon keeping watch, Hoon," Anksha told him.

 "You have already ruined him. It will surprise me if he lives three

 months. What loss can it be?"

 Three months,Isranon had wondered on hearing that.Do I really

 only have three months to live? No. Hoon was guessing, just as he had

 months past when he said a couple of weeks. He had already outlasted

 each of Hoon's estimates and there was no sign of the withering yet.

 That could have been because of Amiri's potions. Isranon did not

 know.

 Anksha's eyes filled with tears. "I want to keep him as long as I can.

 It isn't fair."

 Isranon was discovering that Hoon was one of the few who could

 make her cry.

 Hoon sat in a huge chair with a flair back and clawed arms. His

 fingers tapped out an impatient rhythm. "I need six. Without him, I

 will not have six. I will have five."

 "I don't care." Anksha's lower lip jutted out petulantly.

 Hoon's next words seemed to come out of nowhere. "Have you quit

 loving me?"

 Isranon wondered how many days Hoon had spent shaming her for

 that day in his rooms. The nature of Hoon and Anksha's relationship

 became clearer to him at that moment. A large part of it seemed to be

 based upon Hoon's ability to make her feel guilty about wanting

 things Hoon did not wish her to have. Including himself.

 Anksha looked stricken, and lowered her eyes. "I love you, Hoon.

 But he is Isranon…. He is mine."

 Hoon's dark eyes glittered, his lips curling into a derisive snarl. "He

 is not that Isranon. Dawnhand is dead. We are not who we were. We

 can only be who we are. I have taught you blood and lives."

 Anksha glared at him. "Yes, you did. Are you trying to kill him…

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 again?"

 "No. I am merely risking him a bit," Hoon's voice took on a

 disdainful air. "I doubt she will rise before two full moons. That is

 what the ritual says. She will rise between one full moon and the next.

 It is unclear. I will move her long before the earliest rising noted in

 the text. However, we cannot know for certain that it will take that

 long. I do not intend to risk my own people."

 "Hoon…"

 "No. You are either with me or against me, Anksha. You cannot

 have it both ways. And you have me wondering whether you have

 become an ungrateful little bitch after what happened in his rooms a

 week ago."

 Anksha dropped her head and shoved her hand into her pocket

 where Isranon knew she always kept the candy he gave her. "As you

 will."

 "Now that is a good pet." Hoon rose from his chair to stroke her

 head and pat her.

 "Can we leave now?"

 A sneer slid across Hoon's face. "Take your withering wine-press

 and leave."

 She sprang up and grabbed Isranon's hand, urging him to his feet.

 They had not passed three doors, when Isranon tasted the terror of the

 nibari in Hoon's bedroom as the vampire began to kill them. His

 stomach clenched and he remembered the way Hoon had stabbed his

 fangs into his neck, the way it had felt to be dying.I hate you Hoon.

 Anksha ran him back to his rooms and curled up on the sofa

 looking unhappy.

 Isranon knelt in front of her. "I'll deal with it."

 "I don't want to lose you."

 Isranon caressed her head. "I know."

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 A small sob escaped her. "Hoon makes me feel bad."

 "I am sorry he treats you like this."

 Anksha nodded.

 "Have some candy." He lifted the lid of the jar and her hand shot

 into it, snatching a fistful.

  

 CHAPTER EIGHT. THE RISING

 Isranon knelt in the small, dark chapel to the Hellgod Bellocar

 across from Yoris. He had sworn he would never serve here, yet a

 blood-slave had no choices. Anksha's blood-slaves were expendable

 in Hoon's–Brandrahoon's–eyes. Should the creature upon the altar rise

 from death prematurely, she would kill them both to satisfy her

 hunger, buying Hoon time to react.

 The cold stones, moist and very cold, felt rough beneath Isranon's

 black-clad knees. He squared his shoulders, head up with a steely

 pride. To his left, he heard Yoris whine and closed out his words. Of

 the other five sa'necari, Yoris was weakest and the least in courage,

 yet they were all far more powerful than Isranon. Isranon knew that he

 had more inner strength than any of them; his pride in not allowing

 them to see the smallest weakness out of him held the young mon's

 body straight as a rod. Still, they called Isranon 'half-a-mon' because

 they could tell, from the weakness of his powers and the scent of his

 body and aura, that he had never crossed into the darkness of the rites.

 Again a worried whine came from Yoris.

 Yoris is a coward. Why am I always being paired with him for these

 watches? Nevin, you have taught me well. I am a man. Yoris is not. If

 this thing on the altar wakens and eats me, I will not die a coward.

 Yoris will probably flee out the door if it so much as twitches… and

 pretend he was doing everyone a favor.

 Isranon closed his eyes briefly, turning towards the bloodstained

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 altar. A gauzy cloth of crimson and gold covered Zyne's corpse,

 clinging to the outlines of her body like a shroud. The stone and wood

 walls were black, coated with blood, which had been applied with

 brushes like paint. Crimson candles cast a flickering light in a draft

 that entered through tiny cracks and imperfections in the stone.

 She had been Lord Hoon's agent in Rowanhart, until the Sacred

 King's spy-catchers discovered what she was. Isranon found it

 difficult to imagine that Hoon had rewarded Zyne's treacheries with

 undeath, transforming her into this creature out of nightmare legend ...

 assuming he could actually make this happen. Zyne had betrayed

 Josiah, what was to stop her from betraying Hoon once she held such

 power?

 Timon and Hoon entered silently and stood regarding the sa'necari

 a moment before turning their attention to Zyne's corpse. Hoon flicked

 back the gauzy covering and stroked Zyne's face fondly before kissing

 her dead lips, pushing them open with his own. Isranon shivered, yet

 refused to look away and betray his discomfort watching Hoon's

 sexual explorations of the corpse. Finally the vampire rose and

 covered her again, his hands moving in arcane gestures. Isranon felt

 Hoon's power rise.

 As Brandrahoon, eldest of the three brothers of darkness, Hoon had

 been a mage of great power before becoming a Lemyari of even

 greater power, adding the vampiric gifts to his magery. Hoon had

 once had secret holdings from as far north as Waejontor to as far

 south as the continent of Jedrua. King Aejystrys Rowan had destroyed

 his citadel in Waejontor; forced him to sell his his holdings in

 Shaurone before they could be discovered when her allies breathed

 too heavily along his trail, and now his holdings in Charas were gone

 as well. There was still much that had not been found; his resources

 were many and varied, held under many names and in a multitude of

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 guises. Soon he would have an incomparable weapon and it would

 give him a kingdom. Lord Hoon had decided it was time to come out

 of the shadows.

 Hoon stroked Zyne's face through the gauze. "My nekaryiane," he

 murmured, with a small tremor of fear and uncertainty in his voice

 "my sweet nekaryiane, when you rise, we will consume this sacred

 king." They all questioned whether Zyne would be strong enough to

 handle the power he had given her without going mad when she rose.

 Anksha appeared in the doorway. She spied the two sa'necari,

 recognizing Isranon and Yoris from behind. She crouched down at the

 base of the altar with her tail lashing and crept around, so that her face

 appeared suddenly in front of Yoris.

 Yoris started and then cowered with a whimper. He cringed as

 Anksha came around him, knowing what she was up to. She licked

 her fangs and smacked her lips.

 "Anksha," Isranon said, his voice steady. "Let him be." He opened

 his robe, letting it slide from his shoulders. His slender metal collar

 shone in the candlelight, illumining Anksha's name as his owner. She

 turned and Yoris fled to the farthest side of the chapel without waiting

 for permission. Hoon chuckled, walked over, and toed Yoris in the

 ribs, making him jump.

 "Isranon?" Anksha dropped to all fours, crawling to him, her head

 cocked. She pushed him onto his back, straddling him. Feeding on

 him had become almost an act of love. He was the only blood-slave

 who invited it freely and even sought out her company for

 conversation and companionship.

 Isranon trailed his fingers down her cheek, unafraid and

 welcoming, a gesture of comfort knowing how she hated to hurt him.

 He had made his peace with Anksha.

 Timon knelt beside them, touching Anksha. "My pet, the larder is

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 stocked. Would you prefer a fresh caught demon perhaps? Or some

 imps?"

 Anksha perked. "Imps? What color?"

 "Green ones. Streganari, I believe."

 Anksha leaped off Isranon, running from the chapel. "Green imps

 and ham!"

 Timon put his hand on Isranon's shoulder. "Go to the private garden

 and wait for me. Ephry's there. We need to talk."

 Isranon balled his robe up and walked out into the corridor. The

 stonewalls smelled of mold and damp in a sharp acrid blending.

 Torches in wall sconces lit the way, their flames flickering in the

 shifting air that entered through unseen cracks. The shielded

 chambers, branching off from this hallway beneath the manor, were

 places of dark rites. He walked obediently toward the stairs leading

 up.

 Bodramet appeared ahead of him in the corridor and stepped into

 his path. "Feeding the vampires again? Do you like the touch of them

 so much? Their kisses?" Bodramet sneered.

 Isranon's mouth tightened, his eyes hardening, refusing to respond

 or acknowledge the other even by a meeting of the eyes. The

 teachings of the Dark Brothers raced through him, 'Be as still as the

 deer in the forest, and if you are fortunate the predators will not notice

 you. For when they notice you, they will eat you.'

 Then anger crept in to dance a counterpoint to the strictures of the

 creed. Isranon refused to dance to Bodramet's tunes. Bodramet wanted

 him physically. Isranon had sworn that he would never bend over for

 a sa'necari, even if it cost his life. He would defy every one of the

 filthy death-eaters.

 "You are sa'necari, half-a-mon, even if you refuse the rites."

 Bodramet ran his finger along Isranon's arm. "Are you a heretic? Or

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 simply a coward?"

 "Don't touch me," Isranon growled, drawing out each word,

 wishing for the blades that were denied him as a blood-slave.

 Bodramet was the most powerful of the sa'necari currently on the

 estate. He smiled thinly. "If you must play nibble games, play them

 among your own kind."

 Isranon shivered. He had no desire to play such games–sharing

 blood during an act of sex–with Bodramet. He would not bend to him.

 "What I do or do not do… What I am or am not," Isranon gritted out

 between clenched teeth. "It is none of your business."

 "Oh, but it is. With Mephistis gone, I rule our little fellowship of

 the winepress. You will play or I will make you play. I have wanted

 you for five years, Isranon. To play the nibble games with your blood

 in my mouth."

 Isranon said nothing. After a moment, Bodramet laughed at him

 and walked on.

 He remained uncertain who he hated more–Bodramet or Hoon. It

 depended on which he had encountered most recently. They both

 disgusted him, filthy, repellant creatures with not a shred of humanity,

 decency, or compassion, always plotting; corrupting everything they

 touched.

 A flash of remembered pain and the loss of all his hopes took

 Isranon and he leaned against the dank walls as the ghost's promise

 echoed through his mind–that he would be free and have the staff of

 his ancestor Isranon Dawnhand, something that could never be now.

 Nevin had told him that no one knew where the staff called Warrior

 was.Warrior? Warrior, where are you? Who has you?

 "You will walk with kings and gods of light to Ildyrsetts to claim the

 staff of Dawnhand," the ghost had told him.

 The cycle of loss completed itself with thoughts of Merissa. He had

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 been seventeen when he and Merissa became lovers. Then Claw,

 Merissa's father and chieftain of Clan Red Wolf, sent Merissa away.

 Isranon assumed that Claw had taken offense at the thought of his

 daughter sleeping with a sa'necari. Nevin had promised to take

 Merissa word after he perished that he had died well and had loved

 her.

 He forced the thoughts from his mind. It would not do for them to

 find him standing here. While Anksha never punished him, it still

 would not be wise to test her.

 Isranon climbed the stairs, which folded themselves inside the

 tower walls at the front ell of the mansion, opening behind the

 kitchens. The smell of baking bread and strawberry pie wafted over

 him and made his mouth water. Nevin and Olin waited for him there,

 sitting upon a bench to the side near the door that led to the formal

 stairs.

 He suspected they were using it as an excuse to harass the kitchen

 nibari. Haig's Nainee, a slender and aristocratic nibari of Black Cliff

 stock, very expensive and coveted among both the hemovores, stood

 near one of the tables. She was near to term in pregnancy by a Black

 Cliff stud belonging to a friend of Haig's, and extremely swollen. Haig

 had arranged to have all of his nibari bred before he followed Isranon

 to Charas. Black Cliff nibari were said to have the sweetest, most

 savory blood of all. And they made a satisfying death in the sa'necari

 rites ofmortgiefan . She smiled at Isranon, her hands folded over her

 belly. Haig had promised her that she would be allowed to keep this

 child, that he would not sell it: her first master had always sold her

 young before they were weaned to cover his gambling debts.

 Three of the younger girls were laughing and daring the scarred

 lycan to change in front of them. Nothing would come of it. Olin

 frequently played the game of seduction with them. Nevin never did

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 more than tease since his taste ran to males. Olin remained sitting, his

 face leaning toward the nearest of the kitchen nibari.

 "Change, Nevin," said Eilwen. "It isn't as if I haven't seen a lycan in

 the–" she raked Nevin with her eyes, letting them linger on his crotch

 before raising them again.

 "What would you want with a scarred old wolf like me?" Nevin

 grinned at her.

 Olin grabbed Eilwen's dress. "Yes, what would you? I am far more

 interesting to watch and ten years younger than my cousin. And I have

 no scars…."

 Isranon grinned, because from the nuances, he suspected they were

 not talking about his shape. Then he started walking again.

 Nevin put his hands on his knees, started to rise and follow. "Where

 are you going?"

 Isranon shook his head, thumbing at the ceiling. "I've been sent to

 the garden," adding at Nevin's frown, "I'm not in trouble."

 Nevin settled again. Even if he were, there was nothing any of them

 could do about it. His spirit-brother and friends tried to go everywhere

 with him, like guardians. That was neither comfortable nor possible.

 Hoon kept finding chores for him that left him alone or nearly so.

 Isranon suspected Hoon was trying to find an opening to kill him.

 Then Isranon thought of Nainee and how much he had once wanted

 children, a family of his own. Isranon loved children. Blood-slaves of

 the Beast did not produce them. The temporary distraction provided

 by watching Nevin and Olin faded and he found himself dragged back

 to brooding.

 Isranon reached the rooftop garden and discovered Ephry there, the

 pale lycan whom Timon called his mate. The intense fragrances of

 rose, honeysuckle and jasmine, favorites of Timon's father, permeated

 the air, rising from the lush growths in the orange-glazed planters on

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 the glassed in rooftop garden, which was artificially heated to keep

 them blooming all year long. Ephry went shirtless in the humid late

 summer-like warmth that had swept in to challenge autumn, showing

 his lean perfection, his white hair loose. He glanced over his shoulder

 at Isranon's entrance, surprised, clearly expecting Timon.

 "Isranon?" Ephry made his name a sensual note of speculation,

 drawing it out.

 Isranon closed his eyes briefly, placing his hands behind his back

 with his wrists crossed as if corded: he was learning the positions the

 masters here expected of their slaves, and assuming them

 automatically when summoned. He was not certain what Ephry's

 intentions and feelings were toward him; whether he was friend or foe

 on the estate. "Timon sent me to wait for him."

 "Did he?" Ephry grinned, rose from the couch, and ran his tongue

 along his lips.

 Isranon went very still. "A disagreement in the chapel."

 "Yoris again?" Ephry sounded interested, his lips just slightly

 curving at the edges as if bemused by a secret.

 Isranon said nothing. He had never had a chance to become

 acquainted with Ephry, and had no idea what to expect from the lycan.

 Isranon doubted that he and Ephry had exchanged more than ten

 sentences in all the months since he had returned as Anksha's bloodslave.

 They had never spoken during his previous stay with Mephistis.

 It had been during that first stay that Anksha had taken Mephistis, and

 he had not known it for several months–Hoon and Mephistis had

 concealed the fact from him until later.If only I had known what she

 was before she took you…. My prince.

 "It's nearly always Yoris, you know. Anksha says so. We're not

 blind." Ephry walked around him, moving like a cat, rather than the

 wolf that he was, assessing him. Ephry had never come so close to

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 him before. "You are a very strange sa'necari, Isranon. You even

 smell different. It isn't because you are a blood-slave. Although there

 is that. Anksha's blood-slaves always smell slightly different from the

 way they did before."

 Ephry leaned in, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed and ran his nose

 along Isranon's shoulder, inhaling the odor of him. Isranon had

 dwelled long enough among lycans to become accustomed to this and

 take no offense. "Yes, you smell far different from any sa'necari I've

 ever encountered in my entire life. I don't understand it at all."

 "I am what I am." Isranon squared his shoulders, pride drawing him

 into a firmer stance, his chin tilted in defiance. He would only bow as

 far as he was forced to.

 Other lycans had said he smelled different. Surely by now Ephry

 knew the answer to that one. Ephry's clean, guileless sensuality moved

 Isranon's desires. He had always loved a mon's spirit first and then

 their body. Isranon's first sexual explorations had been with another

 boy when he had been twelve and the other thirteen. He felt some of

 that old pull as Ephry continued his inspection.

 "There are more who care for you, Isranon, than you suspect. We

 would protect you, if you would let us."

 Isranon did not answer, but his expression went colder.If, as Hoon

 believed, he had no more than three months of life left, then why

 should they bother? A thread of anger slipped through the weave of

 his thoughts and emotions.How many knew that Hoon had tried to

 kill him?A shiver swept him as he remembered the fierce stab of

 Hoon's fangs. a thread of resentment formed at how impotent he had

 been in the arms of the vampire lord and dangled, demanding to be

 added to the weave.

 "You're not listening to me."

 "I'm listening," Isranon answered with his resentment flaring hotter.

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 Ephry sighed and returned to his chair, folding his hands across his

 knee with a shake of his head.

 * * * *

 "Yoris," Hoon said. "Fetch two others to keep watch here for the

 rest of the day. Have them wait outside until we are finished."

 "Yes, Lord Hoon." Yoris bowed and departed.

 Hoon gazed after Isranon as he left; he was so very like his brother

 had been. Watching Isranon offer himself so freely in another's place

 irritated the ancient vampire. This sa'necari, always giving himself

 like some willing sacrificial victim, stinking of purity and nobility,

 virtues no sa'necari had a right to own–Isranon son of Isranon was too

 much like his ancestor, Isranon Dawnhand. No wonder Isranon was

 stealing Anksha from him. He wanted to eliminate this rival, but he

 had to do it in such a way that Anksha would not blame him for it or

 trace it back to him: for then she would turn against him.

 He had told only Timon and a very few others that Isranon's name

 was also his lineage, that he was descended from his brother; if the

 other sa'necari discovered that, they would kill Isranon. If he did not

 object so much to the manner in which the sa'necari would commit the

 deed, he would see that word was leaked to them. Mephistis had done

 only a single noble deed in his entire savage life: he had kept Isranon's

 secret and protected him. It was both a secret and a defiance in that

 Isranon kept his name and did not hide it, while refusing to answer

 questions about his lineage.

 "Father," Timon said, once they were alone, "I have never seen a

 rising take so long. Are you certain she is going to rise?"

 "No mistakes." Hoon fingered the box handing from a chain around

 his neck. "On the full moon I will open the little box Galee gave me

 and she will rise."

 "A nekaryiane. A death angel. No one even knows what one looked

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 like. Are you certain it can be controlled?"

 "Tonight I will move her to my house in Minnoras to complete the

 rite. This estate will remain secret. Zyne will not be able to find her

 way here from there. I have more resources in Minnoras to deal with

 her if she goes rogue." Hoon had never completely trusted Galee, the

 vampire that had made him–only survivor of her kind after the godwar

 that had sealed the Hellgod and his wives beyond the Katal

 Escarpment. Galee had been destroyed by a yuwenghau, one of those

 who considered themselves divine knights-errant: minor young gods

 and demi-gods; they were powerful and unpredictable. Hoon bitterly

 resented their existence–too many of his plans had come to naught

 over the centuries because of the breed. Some served the Nine, the

 elder gods, or other more powerful liege-gods than themselves. Others

 wandered, taking up causes, pitting themselves against monsters and

 demons, scattering their seed like holy rakehells, always dangerous.

 Galee had killed many of them before she fell to the twice-born son of

 Willodarus, Dynarien, twin brother to Dynanna God of Cussedness

 and Perversity.

 "Timon, let Isranon die. Stop all this nonsense of giving him extra."

 Timon frowned. "Father, Anksha will not be happy if I do that."

 "Let him die, Timon," Hoon growled. "Find a way to hasten it

 without Anksha noticing. The sooner he is dead, the better it will be. I

 do not want him putting ideas in Anksha's head. He is teaching her

 things I do not wish her taught."

 "I understand, father."

 "Do not get involved with him. Send me his blood when he is

 dead."

 "I will do what I can do," Timon said.

 "You should find an opportunity to sink your fangs into him and

 drain him. His blood has a fine taste."

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 Timon looked uneasy and Hoon scowled at him.

 "You still cannot bring yourself to drain a living enemy. After all

 these centuries, I would have thought you would get over your

 squeamishness. Killing with the blade does not bother you."

 "I am what I am, father."

 Hoon's lips curled back in distaste. "Go on, then. Keep your

 assignation with him. Just remember, I want his death hastened."

 * * * *

 Timon swept out of the chapel, thinking furiously.

 Don't get involved with him? How can I not? Isranon… I don't

 want you dead… Gods! I can't do it. What a delicate, narrow path I

 walk between loyalty to my father and devotion to my philosophy.

 What will happen when I tumble from the path? I am tumbling from

 the path.

 He had assured Ephry time and again that there was absolutely no

 way he could be attracted to a filthy sa'necari. Yet, he began to

 suspect that he was lying to himself and to Ephry. Anksha told him

 that Isranon was different, that he had never participated in the rites,

 but he had no proof of that. Well, not in regard to the rites. Isranon

 was definitely different from any sa'necari Timon had ever met. There

 was something inherently noble and honorable about the young mon

 that stirred a nameless longing in Timon.

 When Timon reached the roof top gardens he gestured for Ephry to

 leave.

 Ephry gave Isranon a knowing glance as he departed the garden.

 "Sit down, Isranon," Timon ordered as soon as they were alone,

 taking a place beside him on a low backed bench, almost touching

 him, wishing he dared to touch him.

 "You can't keep doing this for them, Isranon," Timon said, bluntly.

 "They don't appreciate it. Sooner or later they'll betray you. Even if

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 they never learn your lineage."

 "I can't watch her do it. They're all terrified of her. The bloodslaves'

 nerves settle when she's away for a few days, but as soon as

 she's back they're like mice caged with a large snake."

 "For hell's sake, mon," Timon shouted, his eyes darting from scar to

 scar, around Isranon's neck, along his arms, across his chest and sides;

 not wanting to stare and yet unable to do otherwise–Isranon wore just

 his pants as if defying him to stare.

 Did he like being bitten? These savage scars were not token marks

 from nibble games. Isranon did not seem the type to enjoy being

 casually brutalized like that. Nonconsensual biting between freemyn,

 and between freemyn and other people's property was strictly

 forbidden. Why the hell didn't he heal like the rest?

 "With all the death you've dealt. All the mortgiefan you've taken–

 how can you be…so…" Timon saw him wince and hesitated. The

 thought entering his mind did not seem possible. Sa'necari were the

 filthuest feeders on death that existed–the vampires abhorred them–

 and yet. Were the rumors true? Could he be as pure as he seemed?

 Anksha believed it. Until meeting Isranon, he had thought the legends

 of the Dark Brothers to be just that–legends. "You've never done it

 have you? Mortgiefan?"

 Isranon refused to meet his eyes, staring straight forward, a defiant

 angle to his chin, his stance proud. He distanced himself further from

 Timon in the tone of his voice, dispassionate, giving away nothing of

 his feelings though the words were, by their very nature, highly

 charged with emotion. "I've never done it. I feed only when the

 craving forces me. Although Hell Knows, they're after me all the time

 to feed since I became a blood-slave. For generations my family has

 been born sa'necari. Waejonan himself forced this on us. We bear it as

 a curse. You can Read me if you want. Or have it done."

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 Timon moved nearer to Isranon, feeling drawn to him, wanting

 desperately to touch him, to kiss him. Timon and Ephry were a not

 entirely monogamous couple. Ephry would understand. "You have

 offered yourself in place of others before?"

 "As I said, I cannot bear to watch their terror."

 "So you suffer in their place."

 "I can bear it. It is nothing to the suffering of being what I am since

 the craving came on me at puberty."

 "You are a very strange sa'necari."

 A troubled look flashed across Isranon's face, he bowed his head

 and then lifted it again. "One day they will kill me for it," irony gave

 his voice a twist of sourness, "as they did my father and his father

 before him."

 "You will not rise. Those bitten by Anksha, never do."

 Isranon gave a small bitter laugh. "When sa'necari kill sa'necari

 they do it well."

 Timon regarded him for a long time in silence. The sa'necari were a

 bi-sexual culture, although some among them were not. He wondered

 whether Isranon would welcome his advances, wanted to simply ask

 him directly, and then decided to ask Anksha. She knew the

 preferences of those she had taken. If a male wavered in the least in

 his lusts or simply had a taste for many flavors, then she could take

 him. Timon did not understand the randomness of those she managed

 to take. There had been a few males who preferred females yet were

 somehow immune to her and there had been males who preferred

 males that she had snared. She found females who preferred females a

 tasty delicacy. Her powers transcended race and species. She seemed

 somehow outside all laws and rules. Then he realized his mind had

 wandered and Isranon still sat in silence. Isranon was far different

 from anyone Anksha had ever captured before.Isranon! Isranon!

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 Timon could barely hold back.

 "The rite my father and Anksha did with Mephistis to Read the

 Legacy. Would you permit us to do that with you?"

 "Anksha can order me to do it and I will," Isranon replied, his

 fingers tracing the collar on his neck.

 "I'm not ordering anything," Timon said, his voice softening. "I'm

 asking. If what you say is true, you are one of a kind. You intrigue

 me. But I will not force you."

 Isranon lowered his head, finally meeting Timon's eyes. He

 searched their dark depths. "For you, I will do it. If you will excuse

 me, I need to think." His hand brushed Timon's as he rose and

 Timon's heart raced.

 Isranon had scarcely departed when a trapdoor opened in the floor

 and Anksha scooted out. The manor was a warren of secret passages

 known only to Anksha and used only by the demon-eater.

 Timon started at her sudden appearance and then settled again on

 the bench. He knew a few of her most frequently used secret doors

 and tended to be less surprised when she came out of them than when

 she emerged from a seldom used one or one that he had no previous

 knowledge of.

 The manor had been built by Anksha's blood-slaves five centuries

 ago as her playhouse. She bound the slaves' minds so they could not

 speak of it. They had all been dead for centuries. Eventually Timon

 and Hoon had moved in with her and taken over the use of most of it,

 but the secrets of her passages remained known only to Anksha.

 "You startled me, pet. At least announce yourself."

 "Ah kay." She curled up beside Timon's leg and popped a handful

 of candy in her mouth.

 Timon frowned and leaned close to her. "What have you got?"

 "Candy."

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 "You're not supposed to have candy. You know that. You're

 breaking a lot of the rules nowadays."

 "I am a law unto myself," Anksha growled.

 Timon shook his head. There were very few rules that applied to

 Anksha and Timon felt a sudden urge to remind her of them. "Where

 are you getting the candy?"

 Anksha looked uncomfortable. "Isranon."

 Timon shook his head. "Do you understand the risks you are

 taking? If Father learns that Isranon is giving you candy, he'll kill him

 outright."

 "Because of Dawnhand…."

 "Yes. Because of Dawnhand. And don't ever mention the staff or

 Dawnhand to Isranon. That too would provoke my father to forget

 your feelings and simply kill him."

 Tears rolled down Anksha's face. "Why does he have to be so mean

 to me?"

 "He thinks he knows best. He likes to control everything." Timon

 tousled Anksha's hair. "Just be quiet and stay out of his way until he

 leaves tomorrow. Then you can have things your way with Isranon."

 Anksha climbed into Timon's lap, wrapped her arms around him,

 and kissed him on the forehead.

 Timon suspected that she had heard the entire conversation from

 her stone covert.

 * * * *

 Hoon sat in his favorite chair on the rooftop garden under the shade

 of a potted almond tree, regarding his son who sat opposite him. The

 last of his belongings that were to make the journey to his mansion in

 Minnoras had been placed in a wagon, the horses were ready and he

 needed to depart within the hour. So he had summoned Timon for one

 more talk. "Under no circumstances are these five sa'necari to be slain

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 out of hand."

 Timon cursed under his breath. "They are a danger, father."To

 Isranon.

 Hoon shook his head, running his fingers around the rim of his

 glass of blood wine. "I need their knowledge. Mephistis' sa'necari are

 among the best trained and possessed of the widest knowledge

 available to me now that Waejontor has fallen and the Legacy of

 Waejonan has been destroyed."

 "I want to have them put down."

 "No. Ask me again after the rising. But not before."

 "But father–"

 "No. Now leave me. I wish to contemplate other matters."

 Timon left and Hoon watched him go. Anksha was distancing

 herself from him more and more each passing day. He needed to be

 rid of Isranon in a way that would not trace back to him. Perhaps if the

 other five knew what Isranon was and who he was, they would do the

 work for him. The price of heresy was death. Yet, did he really want

 his brother's descendant to die that way?

 Finally, he sent for Yoris. The blood-slave crept in, bowing and

 nodding to him. Hoon's fingers drummed the clawed arm of his chair

 impatiently. "Sit."

 Yoris eased into the chair that Timon had vacated. "Thank you,

 Lord Hoon. You are gracious."

 "Be silent and listen."

 Yoris cringed and said nothing in reply.

 "I want you to watch Isranon closely. He has many secrets. Some of

 them may interest you."

 "I will, Lord. I will."

 "Get out of here."

 Yoris fled.

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 * * * *

 The encounter with Bodramet in the hallway rankled. Isranon felt

 like a corner of his nerves had been filed away to a raw edge.

 Someone was always watching him and it all seemed to swirl around

 Bodramet. "I am not afraid of him. I will handle it."

 Sitting in the middle of his bed, Isranon enjoyed the few minutes he

 had gained alone by racing up here ahead of Nevin and Olin. Nevin

 was fetching food for the three of them. Olin had been right behind

 Isranon and would arrive soon.

 In the stolen moments waiting for the others, which dragged out

 longer than Isranon expected, he found himself remembering another

 encounter with Bodramet. It drew him rapidly in and he could not

 shake it off or thrust it away. He folded over across his arms, wishing

 he could get free of it.

 Isranon answered the knock on his door, wondering what Dane's

 people wanted now. Yoris, one of Bodramet's sycophants, stood there.

 "Your little Rose," Yoris grinned, his watery eyes glittering. His

 thin lips twitched into a snicker that emerged from his nostrils as well

 as his mouth. "She has been taken. Go to the Great Hall immediately

 or she dies." Then Yoris scampered off.

 Isranon snatched up his blades, buckling them on as he ran. He

 passed no one in the corridors. They must all be in the great hall. At

 the entrance he found his way blocked by sa'necari, guardsmyn and

 nibari several ranks deep. They were seated everywhere, on the steps

 leading down, on the couches, chairs and on the steps of the dais

 where Margren sat watching from her throne beside the empty one

 which Mephistis normally occupied. Laughter and conversation filled

 the great hall. The only silence came from those who were already

 feeding. Wine flowed freely through a thousand glasses. A cold tight

 knot formed in Isranon's stomach. Margren had declared a Sowayn

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 orgy on the night of Isranon's eighteenth birthday. He had no doubt

 that he would leave this world on the same night as his birth.

 Margren saw him and gestured with her glass. "The entertainment

 has arrived."

 A small corridor of sa'necari opened down the center, allowing

 Isranon to enter. Bodramet, Troyes, and four others waited on the far

 side with Rose. Bodramet had her by the hair, keeping her on her

 knees. He yanked the gag from her mouth.

 "Isranon, no! Go back," Rose sobbed. Her arms and breasts,

 exposed by her torn gown, showed savage bite marks, and bruises.

 They had already been abusing her.

 "Cross the gauntlet and I will let you have her back," Bodramet

 promised.

 Isranon snapped his shields tightly around his mind and body. They

 would have to get past the shields with their spells; but he did not lie

 to himself–they would not hold long. If he were lucky they would hold

 long enough for him to strike and interrupt the assaults. He sucked in

 a deep breath and started down the steps. Margren's laughter drifted

 over the room in a moment of silence. As his foot touched the bottom,

 voices rose again, making bets on how far he would get before they

 killed him.

 Isranon's expression went flat as he drew his blades and sought the

 stillness in the core of his being. This was not the silences, such as his

 father had taught him, but the predator's way he had learned from

 Nevin. This was themoritausa, to walk with death, in its certainty. He

 knew Dane would keep his promise to tell Nevin he had died well. His

 gaze never wavered from Bodramet's, yet he opened his vision to the

 farthest corners of his eyes in an all-inclusive manner, and his

 awareness would catch the smallest movement around him. Nevin had

 taught him this, as well as how to use his blades, which appalled his

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 father. He tried to be every bit the man Nevin would expect him to be.

 He will be proud of me and make a song of my death.

 He left the sword at his shoulder. This was a battle of presence

 even more than power. Drawing the sword would be perceived as a

 sign of fear, whereas his belt knives, in their approximation to what

 the sa'necari carried themselves, would not be. Isranon moved

 instinctually with straight-backed, loose-limbed arrogance carrying

 the blades in his hands, but not poised to strike. Should he move too

 quickly toward Rose, that would be interpreted as weakness and they

 would swarm him. Should he stumble and not regain his feet fast

 enough or should he hesitate, the result would be the same.

 For the first two yards, the sa'necari hung back like hungry wolves

 waiting for a traveler's fire to go out before descending upon him.

 Then one of them hit him between the shoulder blades and it began.

 Isranon pivoted with an economy of motion, and kicked that one in the

 face, sending him into those pressing forward. He walked on. Three

 more hit him, coming in a small rush from the sides. Isranon ignored

 those, continuing his walk. Another sank fangs into his shoulder,

 trying for his neck. Isranon slashed that one across the face, blinding

 him. He crossed two more yards. His shoulder throbbed. Getting

 loose from that one had torn him open. blood spread through his blue

 tunic.

 Hungry noises cresendoed into a roar. More came at him. Isranon

 saw the blades coming out. The sa'necari held them low, half hidden

 in their sleeves and around the folds of their robes. The rules barred

 the use of runed blades, hell-blades that always killed, but that did not

 mean that one of them would not do so. His flesh crawled, wondering

 which direction it would come from. He controlled his fear, forced it

 away–they would taste it and, the taste of his fear could provoke

 them–even though it was fear for Rose and not himself.

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 The assaults grew more frequent, more savage. He responded with

 attacks, short and vicious, on those around him. Just enough strikes to

 make his point. Not turn it into a prolonged fight, for then they would

 simply kill him. They beat him and knocked him down. He dragged

 himself up and walked on. Then the first blade slid under his ribs with

 a twist. Isranon stifled a gasp, spinning to drive his blade into his

 attacker's throat even as that sa'necari lifted his dagger to stick him

 again. The assailant fell gurgling and clutching at his throat. Blood

 would not heal that one since he no longer had throat to swallow with.

 The others fell back from him. Each step had become an agony with

 the wound in his side. Yet he walked on.

 Bodramet's eyes flamed with lust watching Isranon, he ran his

 tongue over his fangs, and his member tented his pants. He shook

 Rose by his grip on her hair to emphasize his control of her and she

 clutched at his wrists, twisting. "Watch him die. He's lycan-reared. To

 look away is to dishonor him."

 Tears gleamed on her face, but Rose did not look away.

 Isranon stalked deeper into the crowd, reaching the midway point.

 By then his presence vied with Bodramet's for control of the room.

 Margren came down from her chair and pushed through to the

 outer edge just ahead of Isranon's advance. "Thief of his affections,"

 she muttered low.

 Two pulled Isranon down, sinking fangs into his arm and leg.

 Isranon grimaced, swallowing back a cry as he put a blade through

 their hearts, striking down through the back of one and arching the

 other knife up under the breastbone of the second. Then he rose and

 went on, limping now.

 Margren drew her blades as Isranon neared her. A putrid green

 coated the silvery metal. "'When sa'necari kill sa'necari, they do it

 well."

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 She allowed him to pass her, then stepped forward as two large

 males grabbed him. She used them to cover her intentions. A gap

 showed between them and she could see Isranon's exposed back.

 "You'll not steal Mephistis' affection any longer."

 Margren shoved both lengths of steel into his back with a vicious

 twist.

 Isranon's eyes widened in shock at the impact of the blades,

 staggering forward, struggling now for each step. The venom that

 Margren had coated her blades with burned like acid in his body. A

 sa'necari deepened in the rites might have shrugged it off. Isranon's

 will alone kept him moving. Sensing weakness, the sa'necari closed

 tighter around him. Another blade found him and Isranon responded

 by killing the one nearest him. He knew then he would never reach

 Rose. His awareness began to gray along the edges. He could no

 longer take in all of them. At least he would not rise, sa'necari always

 made certain of that when they killed one of their own.

 Isranon reached the foot of the stairs and stood looking up at

 Bodramet. He swayed on his feet, fighting to stay upright. He went to

 his knees, striking the step hard, cracking his knees against the edge.

 Four rushed him from the back and sides. A blade entered his ribs and

 fangs his neck. Isranon fell face down, twisted, and put a blade into

 the eye of the one sucking blood from his neck. The sa'necari released

 him and Isranon dragged himself forward step by step.

 Bodramet's expression turned incredulous and he moved back a

 short distance, gesturing for those around him to stop the youth. They

 allowed Isranon to reach the top and then fastened on him. Isranon's

 blades slipped from his fingers. Bodramet kicked them down the steps.

 The youth struggled briefly, making small, suffering animal noises

 and then lay still.

 Nevin entered and set the platter on the center table before going to

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 Isranon. "Are you all right, my brother?" He laid his hand on Isranon's

 shoulder.

 Isranon straightened, sucking in air and nodded. "Where's Olin?"

 "Distracted by a pretty skirt."

 Isranon nodded again, his eyes taking on a sad, distant quality. "I

 wish I had been born to the light and not to the monsters. There has

 been so much darkness in my life."

 "You are not a monster."

 "I am sa'necari. Sa'necari destroy everything beautiful that they

 touch."

 Nevin sat down beside him. "Except the Dark Brothers. They

 didn't."

 "And they're all dead!" Isranon snapped. The feeling from his

 memory lingered, making him edgy and raw.

 "Except you."

 "I am not a true Dark Brother. I have killed. And I'm going to

 wither and die," his tone turned bitter. "Then we will all be gone and

 only the ugliness will remain. Only the ugliness…."

 "Isranon," Nevin took on his lawgiver tones. "Amiri believes she

 can prevent the withering, that there is an alternative. Do not belittle

 our efforts by giving up."

 "I didn't mean to, Nevin." Isranon pulled himself together. "I

 believe in Amiri."

 "Good."

 Olin entered and shut the outer door emphatically. "Be more

 careful," he called to them. "I saw Yoris and he appeared to be

 listening at this door. He had spilled some papers in the hall, but he

 wasn't trying very hard to pick them up."

 * * * *

 Hoon could see the moon through the horizontal slit of a window

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 near the chapel's ceiling; it glowed brightly on a perfect, cloudless

 autumn night above the spreading fields and woodlands surrounding

 the tremendous city of Minnoras. He had prepared well for this night,

 having danced with death, danger, and betrayal for all of his existence,

 save for those brief halcyon years before they had fled Imralon after

 his brother murdered Melorien.

 Six male sacrifices were shackled nude along the walls, their ankles

 and wrists chained together behind their backs; a thin band of bloodstained

 iron imprisoned their necks to expose their throats. To heighten the taste of
terror for his prize, Hoon had given her captured humans instead of nibari. He
had been giving them water, but no food for days to clean out their bodies and
purify their blood.

 Red candles stood their burning watch like unholy soldiers in three

 ranks upon the two small stone tables flanking the oblong, basalt slab

 on which Zyne's body lay covered by crimson and gold gauze.

 Billowing smoke, moving in the unseen rise and fall of shifting air

 from tiny cracks in the cellar's ceiling edge, carried the scent of yew

 chips smoldering on hot coal within the braziers placed like roundbodied

 officers before the candles.

 He brooded through the hours, watching the body on the basalt

 slab. Would it be Zyne, who had trusted him with childlike simplicity,

 or something else that rose from the altar? It would rise starving and

 desperate for a kill. It would be seiryn to some incalculable degree,

 despite the changes he had wrought upon Zyne's body before her

 death. Seiryn were genetic parasites whose chosen prey was male;

 hence his choice of males for her first meal upon awakening.

 Changes in Zyne's body over the last week had alerted Hoon that

 the night of her rising finally approached. Her skin had turned white,

 her hair blood red, and she had sprouted leathery wings; but her heart

 did not beat, she did not breathe, and her skin still retained the

 clammy chill of death. Hoon folded the gauze back to her waist. The

 gills were gone from her throat, as was the scar where her mother had

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 severed her vocal chords so she could no longer work the magic of her

 song. Hoon ran his hands over her longingly, ran his fingers along the

 slit between her legs where once he had so freely sheathed himself,

 kissed her nipples and then her lips. He probed her mouth with his

 tongue, and then drew back from her with a sigh. Hoon took the little

 box on the chain from around his neck, which his slain mentor had

 given him, and opened it, laying it beside Zyne's head. Galee had told

 him that it would ensure that Zyne would rise; give her the wisdom of

 the Age of Burning; and the locations of all Galee's caches of weapons

 and treasures from the godwar, things of incomparable power.

 Hoon backed away and knelt cautiously near the door, to speak the

 last words of the rite necessary to raise the first nekaryiane, death

 angel, to exist in over twenty millennia. A blue-black vapor rose from

 the box, flowing into the mouth and nostrils of Zyne.

 The body moved, breathed.

 The gauze slipped to the floor.

 She rose, spreading her arms and leathery wings. She flexed her

 lamian claws, extending them fully from their sheaths, watching tiny

 droplets of venom–which could kill a yuwenghau–beading and then

 ran them through her hair. The creature threw her head back,

 screaming with hunger, long fangs glinting in the light of the crimson

 candles.

 Hoon's hand settled on his sword hilt and he shifted uneasily into a

 crouch.

 The nekaryiane was magnificent. He hoped he would not have to

 fight her. She scanned the room, her gaze touching him with a flicker

 of recognition, but he did not release the sword hilt. She smiled, one

 corner of her upper lip curling back, half snarling. Then she rushed the

 nearest shackled offering. The nekaryiane sank her fangs into his

 throat, sucking his life out in huge pulls like a deprived sot with her

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 first bottle in months. He died quickly. The others screamed, thrashing

 in mindless terror.

 Her flesh took on a crimson color.

 The edge of her hunger dulled, Zyne regarded them. She gripped

 the second, sinking her claws into him, gazing into his eyes as the

 venom killed him, dispassionately studying the way he died. She

 opened his belly and ate his entrails. Zyne played with the third,

 stroking, and nuzzling between splitting his skin with her primary

 nails, leaving him to anticipate when the next wound would come.

 She was no longer hungry. She simply sliced him up to watch him die.

 "Hoon," she said, her voice throaty and sensual, turning to him

 finally. "Where is Josiah?"

 Hoon had hoped that she would stop thinking about him. Zyne had

 loved Josiah in her twisted way–and Hoon had shoved a blade into

 him. "Dead… Aejys killed him."

 Zyne gave a shattering shriek and spun about, her face disfigured

 by rage. "I will destroy her."

 "He was dying anyway." Hoon watched her reactions closely.

 Josiah had, indeed been dying long before he journeyed to Charas for

 their final match, his body damaged by desperate magics and the

 torture that Hoon had inflicted upon him. He had carefully never told

 Zyne his part in it.

 "He was mine!" Zyne gave a wild, wordless howl of animal rage.

 "Destroying her will not be easy. She is the Sacred King."Yes.

 Zyne will be the perfect weapon, the most powerful form of undead,

 the problem would be controlling her.

 Sacred King. Ah, and you have given me the perfect body to

 consume one of those with, Hoon,Gylorean Galee thought,but first

 my father's box.She swished through Zyne's mind like a breath of

 instinct, unrecognized, unnoticed; for her soul, as it always did, had

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 returned to her box at her death and the gray vapor had been her

 essence that awakened the nekaryiane. Zyne quieted. She stalked to

 the altar, snapped the box closed and hung it around her neck by the

 chain.

 "The box is mine," Hoon protested.

 "Then I will hold it for you," Zyne responded. "As for the Sacred

 King. There have been many such. The nekaryiane were created to

 consume them and all others of divine power and lineage."

 Hoon listened closely to the nuances of her speech, for there was

 something oddly familiar to it and very different from Zyne's.

  

 CHAPTER NINE. THE FIRST TO WITHER

 In the dim light of dawn, Yoris turned over on his side and studied

 the nibari sleeping beside him. He had gagged her with two of

 Anksha's scarves so no one would hear her scream. Hoon had sent her

 to "seal the bargain." Her first words to him when he found her

 waiting in his bed had been, "Lord Hoon commands, do with me as

 you will."

 So Yoris had taken her at her word and brutalized her. It had been a

 sweet, satisfying night. Had she belonged to Timon's herd, Yoris

 would never have dared to be so rough, but Hoon clearly understood a

 sa'necari's needs. He flicked the sheet back and gazed at her buttocks,

 at the blood along her crack and inner thighs where he had made her

 bleed from both entrances. His gaze ran up to her neck and arms

 where he had left marks with his fangs.

 He had taken her as close to the edge as he dared, but not past it:

 she would recover. Yoris had savaged the last one Hoon sent to him

 also; therefore Hoon knew what to expect from him. Two nibari were

 coming for her in a few hours to return her to the vampire lord's nibari

 chambers. It had been wondrous to give full rein to his predatory

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 instincts for the first time in months. Even better, both times Hoon had

 sent him prime stock and not table leavings from others. This one had

 been barely blooded, no more than fourteen or fifteen, and still

 somewhat fang-shy.

 The doorknob turned, the door creaked, and opened. Yoris looked

 to see who it was, expecting the nibari escorts. Instead, Bodramet

 entered and strode across the sitting room into the bedroom. He

 stopped and stared at the sleeping nibari. "What is this? You know the

 rules, Yoris. Do you wish Timon to tear your head off?"

 Yoris winced. "She was sent to me. A token of someone's

 appreciation."

 Bodramet scowled. "And you didn't share?"

 Yoris dropped his eyes. "Forgive me."

 The nibari stirred, moaning and opening her eyes at the sound of

 their voices. Fear touched her expression with delicious delicacy and

 Bodramet smiled.

 "Who have you been doing favors for this time, Yoris?" He began

 disrobing.

 "I can't tell you. He'll kill me," Yoris whined.

 Bodramet flipped the nibari onto her back. "So will I."

 The nibari whimpered behind the gag as Bodramet loomed over

 her.

 "Lord Hoon," said Yoris.

 "I see you're still ambitious, Yoris." Bodramet grasped the nibari's

 arm and Read her. "You haven't left much for me."

 "Don't take her past the edge. Hoon wants her back."

 Bodramet did not bother to reply as he savored the tears rolling

 down the nibari's face. "Third position," he growled to her. She

 opened her legs and drew her heels up to her buttocks. Then Bodramet

 was on her.

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 * * * *

 Worn and bedraggled, Darianna trotted across the stout wooden

 bridge spanning the cataract known as the Eirlys River onto Red Wolf

 lands, which were bounded on the west by the nearly impassible river

 and the east by the place of piled boulders and six pines. Their borders

 to the north ended at the first caves of the Eiralyskali range and south

 at the broad meadows and place of fallen trees. On three sides the land

 descended into the rugged canyons and twisted valleys that looked

 like an impossible giant had ripped his fingers through the soil.

 A thick stand of fragrant white pine and cedars stood just three

 spear lengths from the bridge, with a heavy barrier of brush and briars

 offering concealment for the clan bridge guards hid there watching.

 The seven guards rushed out in gigantic wolf form as she trotted

 wearily across it. Their valley lay in Sharani-occupied Waejontor, and

 they were ever vigilant against both their old overlords and their new

 ones. Most did not know the valley existed; for the upper echelons of

 the sa'necari it had been a waystation while some of the late King

 Baaltrystan's lords still held the mountain fastnesses.

 Her gauntness displayed how long and hard she had been traveling,

 eating little in her need to reach them. Had she been a stranger, they

 would have sent for the lawgiver to explain the rules of conduct in

 their domain. Instead, the captain changed into a tall, dark haired man.

 He wore nothing, the lycans having no nudity taboos. Thick curly

 hair began as a narrow tip of a black triangle that began between his

 breasts and broadened to his hips. and asked her. A charm hung

 below his neck that could have covered him in a semblence of

 clothing, but he had chosen not to use it. "What has happened?"

 Then the other six changed. They all knew Darianna had gone to

 tell Isranon of his son by Merissa, and must have guessed that

 something was wrong, for as she transitioned, another asked, "What

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 has happened to Isranon, Daree?"

 Darianna shook her head. "I must give it to Claw and Merissa.

 What they wish you to know, they will tell you."

 Two ran ahead of her to alert Claw. She found the chieftain waiting

 for her before his great house. The nooning sun, threw a shadow from

 the dark timbers of the second story across the yard, and concealed the

 expression on his face. He was a coarse old wolf in homespun wool

 and the simple robes of his people that could easily be slipped out of

 and dropped to the ground in the moments before changing. His

 people were farmers and herdsmyn. "Is he dead?"

 Darianna shook her head. "Not yet–not when I…." She swayed

 with exhaustion, nearly toppling against him. Claw caught her, helped

 her into the house, and got her seated. Aisha, Claw's wife, rose from

 her loom near the hearth in the large central hall and sent nibari

 running for wine, which Darianna accepted gratefully.

 She tossed back her silver hair with the red streak running through

 it–like most lycans, her hair color matched her coat color–and told

 them the tale, sipping slowly on the wine and finding a bit of strength

 returning.

 Claw's eyes narrowed. "A terrible ending for a fine young man. At

 least he was not rited, which was what I feared would happen."

 "We should have told him about Merissa," Aisha said. "Knowing

 she carried his child might have kept him here."

 "Are you saying it's my fault, woman?" Claw grumbled testily. He

 had made matters difficult for Merissa when he learned that she was

 pregnant, initially demanding that she abort the child rather than see a

 sa'necari born into his family's lineage. Nevin and Aisha had

 persuaded him otherwise and they had compromised by sending

 Merissa away to bear it with her grandmother's people. Eventually he

 had thawed still more, allowing the child's parentage to become

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 known to his clan. After all, he had adopted Isranon into the clan and

 the young mon was highly thought of among them. Now he regretted

 all of it, but he was not about to say so since Aisha would probably

 shove it in his face the moment he crawled into the blankets with her

 tonight.

 "Only if you believe it is," Aisha replied coolly.

 Claw gave a wordless growl.

 Aisha walked out of the room, and headed for the stairs, forcing her

 husband to follow. "Now we must tell her what happened to him."

 Claw entered Merissa's room, finding his daughter nursing the child

 in an old rocking chair. Nude from the waist up, she continued feeding

 the infant from her milk-swollen breast when she saw her father. The

 infant pushed at her breast with his tiny hands, making contented

 noises while pulling at her nipple. She wore her ginger hair pinned up

 and her muslin skirt had two petticoats that filled the sides of the

 chair. The women of Claw's household spent very little time as

 wolves, and dressed themselves in complex manners that would have

 required more time than most to disrobe.

 The warm and cozy room befitted a princess of farmers. A quilt in

 earth tones of greens and browns lay folded over the window seat, and

 two down stuffed chairs framed the dresser. He caught the back and

 the arm to still the rocking chair, squatting beside her. "Sweetling," he

 said, his voice rougher than usual, "I need to tell you something."

 Merissa looked up from the sucking child at his tone and the

 uncharacteristic endearment. She saw her mother and Darianna

 standing, grave-eyed, just inside the door. "You found them?" The

 light in her face dimmed at the expression on Darianna's face. "He's

 dead, isn't he?"

 "He has been taken by the Beast. Nevin and Olin are remaining

 with him until the end. Then they'll return."

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 Merissa rose from the chair, settling Darmyk into his cradle by her

 bed, trying to gain some small control over her grief as she drew a

 deep breath to steady herself. "My son will never know his father."

 "Nevin says he will stand as father to the boy when–it's over," Claw

 said.

 She found no comfort in her father's words. "Leave me."

 "Merissa…."

 Aisha shook her head at him, then pushed both of them out before

 going to her daughter. She held her, laying her graying head stop

 Merissa's, pressing her daughter's face into her breasts as if she were a

 child, and listened to her sobbing.

 * * * *

 Haunted by the knowledge that her lover was doomed, Merissa's

 dreams became a series of nightmare memories.

 Merissa woke at the tug on her wrists. She had fallen asleep,

 spooned around Troyes. They had camped far into the hills. Her

 father would be angry at their running away together, but he would

 never catch them. She would have fine clothes and a high place as the

 mate of a sa'necari. She would become powerful in her own right.

 "Troyes?" She blinked sleepily, her eyes widened at what he was

 doing. She screamed. Two slender strands of spellcord–ropes woven

 of enchantary fibers, puce, ebony, cerulean, and gold– banded her

 wrists like deadly bracelets, preventing her shifting. She twisted,

 pummeling and kicking the large sa'necari. Troyes shrugged off her

 blows, striking with a word. Merissa's screams of terror turned to a

 shriek of pain and then to whimpering anguish. She curled up,

 pressing her folded arms across her abdomen, and drew her knees in.

 Troyes's fangs extended fully as he stroked her hair. "Foolish

 Merissa. I only wanted you because Isranon loves you. I rited his little

 nibari, his beloved Rose. Oh, how she screamed!"

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 She tried to speak, but her mouth would not form words.

 "Your remains will never be found because there will be none. I

 will consume all of you. I cannot begin to tell you how hungry I have

 been for a death like yours. You will make a fine death. I am tired of

 lesser humans and dared not take a Sharani."

 He carried her through the trees to the far side of a little copse. As

 they broke through she could see the tables: a large mon shaped one

 with spouts and basins poised to catch the blood that would flow

 through the grooves; and a smaller one on which he would lay his

 tools.

 There were many versions of the rite: from a brief one that required

 only spoken words before his cock and the blade entered her to the

 full rite which could take nearly her entire soul, requiring him to

 carve and write arcane symbols upon her body before plunging flesh

 and steel inside her. He might even begin to drink her blood and eat

 her flesh while he rode if he was one of those who were slow to

 climax. Those were the kind who usually chose shifters for the rites

 because shifters–like sa'necari–died hard. Troyes was one of those.

 She always had to be patient with him.

 He stripped Merissa, secured her to the bleeding-table, and drank

 the fear in her eyes. "It was only a matter of time, Merissa, before one

 of us ate you. You were always so inviting. Your blood is so rich and

 strong."

 Troyes laid his black blades on the table beside her, considering

 them. He took one and sliced her leg open from hip to knee with

 languid slowness, regarding the welling blood reflectively. The spell

 loosened, allowing her to scream. Hoof beats sounded and then

 Troyes skidded across her, spinning into the dirt beyond with Isranon

 on top of him. Isranon's horse bolted off into the woods. She watched

 them struggle for a moment. Then Isranon hurled Troyes into the

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 trees, pivoted and trudged back, staggering slowly. She could not

 understand why he had so much trouble moving. Then he faltered and

 almost fell, grabbing at the table and she saw why: Troyes's deathruned

 blade was shoved to the quillons in his ribs. Isranon

 straightened, mastered his body, and stood swaying. He drew a knife

 from the sheath at his hip and cut her wrist free, placing the hilt in her

 hand, folding her fingers over it. "Get loose and flee… I can't… hold

 him long."

 Merissa set to cutting her bonds as Isranon turned to face the

 returning Troyes. That one was truly a monster. How could she have

 been so foolish as to think she had loved Troyes! Sa'necari were hard

 to kill, but the match had been decided already: Isranon was dying

 from the runes on the blade. While their other victims who fell to such

 blades would rise undead slaves, their own kind would simply perish.

 Merissa slid the knife under the spellcord on her wrists, slicing it

 away. Instead of bending to her ankles she simply changed and tore

 free.

 Merissa bounded from the table to crouch in the shadows as they

 grappled. Her hind leg hurt. She could deal with it because she had

 to. The struggle ended quickly. Forcing Isranon's sword from his

 hand, Troyes sent it spinning into the trees. He pulled his bane-blade

 from Isranon's body, shoving it in again repeatedly. Isranon jerked

 and twisted, his legs gave and he sank to the ground. Merissa sprang

 onto Troyes' back snarling and biting. He caught her by the throat

 and slammed her into the table, stunning her. Isranon staggered to his

 feet, drew his last blade and stabbed Troyes in the back.

 Troyes laughed at them. "I have taken a hundred times a hundred

 mortgiefan. I am not an easy kill." He turned on Isranon with a word

 of power, summoning a net of death, striking him. Isranon screamed

 in anguish and fell to lie unmoving at Troyes' feet. Troyes shoved

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 Isranon onto his belly, tore his pants open, and mounted him.

 "I killed your little Rose," Troyes growled. "I rode her into death as

 I ride you." He shoved the blade in again and bent to drink the rising

 flow, preparing to swallow as many fragments of Isranon's soul as he

 could when it shattered at the moment of Isranon's death. Even with

 his immature powers, Isranon was still sa'necari: it would take longer

 for him to die than it would a human.

 Merissa fled into the trees. There she slunk through the forest on

 her belly, watching Troyes riding Isranon, taking the rite, and feeding.

 Merissa tried to look away and could not, she had to see it in order to

 scan the clearing as she tried to find Isranon's sword. She dared not

 make any more heedless rushes at Troyes. He would kill her; her wolf

 form was no match for him. But with the sword–with the sword she

 could break his spine, swinging it in her hybrid form when her

 strength and power was greatest. There. She saw it. Merissa crept up.

 Troyes was totally oblivious. He must be close to completion of the

 act. Shame and rage filled her. Her heart was breaking as she

 realized it had been Isranon she loved all along. She changed, seized

 the weapon, and reared up as she swung. The blow caught Troyes

 below his neck and she heard bone snap. Troyes stiffened, his eyes

 strange, and toppled to the side. His blade fell from his hand and his

 seed fountained over them both. She had saved Isranon's soul, if not

 his life.

 "Bitch!" Troyes' lips twisted as if to speak a spell and Merissa drew

 back, circling cautiously. She spied strips of spell cord in his belt.

 Shifting the sword to one hand, she knelt and snatched them free. She

 banded his hands in them. His broken spine had paralyzed him. Blood

 could heal almost anything, but Troyes would get no more blood.

 She turned Isranon over, feeling for a pulse. And found it. Merissa

 shouldered his arm, dragging him to the table where she laid him

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 beside it. Then she went back for Troyes. Merissa kicked him in the

 side of the head twice before dragging him to the table. He was much

 larger and, even in her hybrid form, harder to manage. She threw him

 across the table on his stomach–the position for a male intended for

 mortgiefan–and fastened him in place. The expression of terror on his

 face pleased her.

 "You always thought you'd be the taker, not the taken!"

 Merissa crouched by Isranon, opened the vein in her wrist with her

 claw, and put it to his mouth. She knew her blood would not be strong

 enough to save him, but it might be enough to waken him. Her blood

 filled his mouth, dribbling down the corners, getting no response. A

 sob formed in her throat as her chest tightened, but before she could

 release it Merissa saw him swallow and felt the brief sharp pain as his

 fangs entered her. Some of the pain left her heart. Isranon's eyes

 opened and he pushed weakly at her.

 "Don't, Merissa… I need too much." His eyes clenched shut as if

 riding a wave of sheerest agony. "Troyes?"

 "I've bound him to the table. Spellcorded. Would mortgiefan heal

 you?"

 "No."

 "No, it would not heal you? Or no, you won't do it?"

 "No, I won't do it. Death is…better. I've known… this was coming.

 Hold me."

 Merissa shook her head. "Isranon! You could have his power! And

 live! Please, there must be a way."

 Isranon's eyes slowly closed and then blinked open again. "Kill

 him, Merissa. With the blade he wounded me with. The same blade…

 must be the same blade."

 "Will that save you?"

 "Possibly. Dispel the death magics. The rest is chance…if I don't

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 get enough strong blood in time."

 Merissa nodded, and then ran to the spot where she had felled

 Troyes. The blade was not easy to find. She picked it up and could feel

 the darkness swirling in it. A soul. There was a soul in it. She carried

 it back.

 "Wait," Isranon called. "It's best I do it…. Help me up…." he

 struggled to breathe, to speak. "I don't understand why. But every

 time I do it, it works. But…but not always…for the others."

 Merissa placed the blade in his hands.

 "Dawnhand, give me strength."

 The lycan clan-princess shouldered his weight, slipping her arm

 around his waist as she helped him rise. She steadied him as he stood

 over the bound sa'necari. Troyes sensed what they were about and

 screamed curses and spells, but corded, his power would not answer.

 Isranon raised the blade and brought it down in a single skilled strike

 into his heart. Troyes stilled.

 "His throat, help me around to his throat…."

 The table was angled and spelled for the draining of the body.

 Merissa settled Isranon against the table. He leaned his head on it,

 wedged between the cold stone and the cooling flesh of Troyes's neck

 and chin. "Another minute or two, Merissa and I would have joined

 my family." His voice was soft, as if he did not quite want to say it but

 could not quite stop himself. Isranon fastened on the body and began

 sucking the fluids from it. He drank as much as he could before

 weakness claimed him and he fainted. Isranon slumped forward, his

 head pressed between the table and Troyes' neck.

 Merissa went into the cave to search for blood in bottles and

 returned to find him there. She swallowed back a cry, thinking the

 death magics had claimed him after all, but his heart beat strongly.

 She retrieved their gear, wrapping him in blankets, built up a fire and

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 made camp to watch over him. Troyes's cave was well stocked.

 Apparently he had been feeding regularly. There were many, many

 shelves of the golden preserving bottles, all labeled. She drained

 Troyes' body, leaving it bound on the table as a trophy. A strange

 stirring of power drew her eyes to Troyes's body. As she watched, the

 blade in his heart moved and then the hilt fell away as the blade

 disintegrated.

 Merissa woke from the nightmare sobbing and went to the cradle to

 gaze fondly at her child. Darmyk slept soundly, wrapped in a soft

 blanket. She resisted picking him up and waking him. She wanted to

 hold her child and cling to him. Considering how far Daree had

 traveled to reach her, her lover was either dying or already dead by

 now. "I loved you, Isranon. I will never want anyone else."

 * * * *

 "We should have killed Mondarius, Zulaika," Amiri murmured,

 leaning on her spear as she watched Isranon start up the broad swept

 stair in the great central hall. They had returned from a hunt, bringing

 meat for the nibari. "He is the treacherous priest from the prophecy. I

 swear it."

 She and Randilyn had been debating this possibility for weeks.

 Randilyn was nearly as well versed in prophecy as Amiri, even

 supplying some that information Amiri had not been aware of before.

 "We were sent to turn the Beast, Amiri. Nothing more. The

 Tinkerer would not be happy if we meddled more than ordered. Now

 behave yourself." Zulaika left to put away her weapons, bathe, and

 change.

 Amiri turned to her own tasks. She needed to check her supplies.

 Two days ago she had had another secret meeting with the little old

 mon who sold second-hand magic items to her. Dyna was a queer

 human with two lovely grandchildren. At first she had been reluctant

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 to deal with a vampire, but Amiri had shown her that she was

 godmarked by the Tinkerer and that had produced an interesting

 change of heart. Now they met at unexpected moments. Dyna would

 send her word by Pie, who would just suddenly appear in Amiri's

 room when no one was around to announce a rendezvous.

 Amiri's most recent acquisitions were glass balls of Beast repellent.

 They came in three colors and shattered easily, releasing their

 contents. Amiri had told Dyna that she did not need to repel the Beast,

 but Dyna persuaded her to take them gratis on the grounds that they

 would drive off worse things than the Beast and when she traveled she

 should always have them with her because troubled times lay ahead–

 the god, Kalirion Sun-Lord, was making prophecies again. Amiri was

 an etheric and shaman; in the Age of Burning, her task would have

 been to run the beasts. Much knowledge had been lost when the beasts

 and the Six Hundred had nearly been wiped out. One of their own, a

 male apparently–though Amiri would have sworn that there had never

 been male Ymraudes–had set off a device that split atoms inside the

 principal temple of Bellocar's third wife, the Glistening One, and

 caused widespread destruction. The handful of surviving Ymraudes

 had escaped to the cleansed lands and heard rumor that a beast might

 have survived. They had found her, but she had fallen under Hoon's. If

 Isranon continued to work and listen to them, however, they might yet

 turn this chaos tool of the Tinkerer to the purpose for which she was

 created. And then woe betide the minions of the hellgods.

 When she reached her rooms, which she shared with Randilyn, she

 found the nibari with her hands in the candy jar. "Randilyn, you're

 going to get fat."

 Randilyn blushed. "Did you talk to Zulaika?"

 "Yes." Amiri stacked her spears in a corner and started peeling off

 her hunting leathers. "She said it was none of our affair…."

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 "But it is," Randilyn protested. "The treacherous priest will slay the

 last of Dawnhand's lineage and all of our attempts to turn the beast

 will come to naught."

 Amiri sighed. "Prophecies aren't set in stone, they are many sided

 things."

 "Unless a divinator seals them in a body…."

 "You mean Isranon's?" Amiri crossed the room, sunlight glistening

 on her chocolate skin, and sat down on their bed.

 "Yes," Randilyn said and then shivered. "Think what a powerful

 curse could be sealed into the dying body of Dawnhand's last

 descendant."

 "I don't wish to. Come here, I'm hungry."

 * * * *

 Yoris shivered in his blankets, a feverish glaze in his eyes.

 Bodramet slipped into the room and watched him, certain that beneath

 the signs of illness lay a tangle of emotions that could only be called

 panic. A gray haired nibari sat beside Yoris, pointing to a cup of tea.

 "This will help," she said patiently.

 "I don't want tea," Yoris snarled. "I want blood."

 "You're not to have blood before this afternoon when your chores

 are done."

 "I'm sick." Again came a note of panic in his voice. "I can't do

 chores. I am sick!"

 The sa'necari rarely became ill; their bodies were too efficient for

 such things. Bodramet inclined his head. "What is wrong with him?"

 The nibari shrugged with a subtle smile. "The withering has

 begun."

 Bodramet's face tightened. "How many of us have…?"

 The smile on her face broadened. "Just him."

 "What about the half-a-mon? Does he wither?"

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 "Isranon? No."

 Bodramet detected a hint of smugness in her tone and it angered

 him. "What are the signs of this? Do we simply feel it inside

 ourselves? Do you Read us?"

 Yoris flinched, trying to pull away as she opened his robe and

 indicated a long red rash beneath his arm.

 "That is the first sign."

 "Why Yoris first? What are you doing for Isranon, that you are not

 doing for us?"

 She backed away from Bodramet and slipped to the doorway. He

 came after her and she laughed defiantly. "Touch me in anger, and

 Timon will have you skinned."

 Bodramet followed the nibari into the corridor. "Answer me!" he

 demanded.

 "Anksha will eat your liver while you watch." Then she ran away.

 Seeing others moving about the corridor, Bodramet returned to

 Yoris' chamber and Read the sa'necari himself. Whatever it was, it had

 spread through Yoris' body like a cancer. "Why you first?"

 "It's Isranon's fault," Yoris whimpered. "It's his fault, I know it."

 "Shut up."

 "They are giving him something to prevent it, but they won't give it

 to me!"

 Bodramet's interest perked. "Is this a fact?"

 "Yes," Yoris snapped. "I listened at the door. I heard them

 discussing it. Amiri is giving him something."

 "Soooo, they want us to die first. I wonder what that bitch has?"

  

 THE END

  

  

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