Reothe gave a mock bow. “I would expect no less.”
Tulkhan watched him climb the ladder out of the windowless cell, taking the only light with him. Alone in the cold dark Tulkhan faced his own mortality. And he cursed the day he made Imoshen swear not to use her gifts on him.
Imoshen woke to find a hand on her mouth and a body pressed to hers in the darkness.
She recalled huddling in the bed crippled by the mental blow Reothe’s lock had dealt her. Sleep must have overcome her. She glanced over to the fireplace but the baby had not stirred.
“Imoshen?”
“Tulkhan?” Her heart rejoiced in his familiar scent, the rasp of his whispered voice. “How did you get in here?”
“I slipped in by sea. They’re all out watching the entrances to the town.”
She nodded. That made sense, and Reothe’s lock was to keep her in, not someone out. Hugging him she ran her fingers through his silky, dark hair. “I missed you so much. I never thought to see you again.”
His lips were achingly familiar, his kisses so sweet. She wanted to drink him in. Tears of joy stung her eyes and slipped unheeded across her cheeks. He kissed them away, as loving and gentle as she knew he could be.
His ragged breath spoke of such longing she could only respond to his touch. An impossibly savage surge of desire ignited her. They had been parted, faced death, and now were united. It was only natural to want him like this.
“Wait, we must escape—”
“Everyone’s gone, watching the roads.” He caught her hand, guiding it inside his shirt. She could feel his pounding heart under her fingers. Her own heart thudded erratically.
His free hand undid the drawstring on her gown and pulled the neckline down. His palm pressed over her heart. She covered his hand with hers, just as she had done that morning when they swore their bond. She felt her heartbeat steady to thud in time with his. Words weren’t necessary.
Silently she tugged at the laces of his breeches. When he moved to take over she pulled her nightgown above her head and tossed it aside, looking up to see him magnificently naked before her in the light of the larger moon.
Extending one hand she drew him down onto the bed and pulled him to her. Tomorrow they might die but tonight they had each other. She wanted him fiercely and wanted him to know it.
He hesitated. She welcomed him with a subtle tilt of her hips. When she felt him fill her a shudder of repletion shook her. His body trembled in sympathy.
It was beyond her control. Her body’s needs overcame all thought. Her lips sought his, their breath mingled. The urgency in him spurred her on. If only he would let her touch his soul. She longed to make that final contact.
Threading her fingers through his hair she drew his face to hers.
“General,” she whispered, “if we die tomorrow, know that I love you.”
He froze. She felt his fingers dig into her shoulders. His hands moved up through her hair as his mouth took hers. It was a brutal kiss, but she welcomed it because she wanted to shut out everything else, to imprint this moment forever.
Again tears burned her eyes and her throat grew tight.
Then she felt it, the faintest whisper of cool contact, brushing the fevered plains of her mind.
Impossible. But it was there and she recognized that sentient sensation. Dawning panic took her.
Like a great blue-white sun, she felt Reothe’s essence rise above the horizon of her perception. The mountains she built could not keep him out and he blazed forth across her mind, searing her with his presence.
Turning her back on that intense coolness, she tried to escape.
Wordlessly he sought her. Imoshen, let me love you.
It was a plea from the heart. It demanded nothing.
She was already caught.
A spasm of desire rolled through her. She lost the perception of where her body ended and his began. Rippling waves of passion built around them, sweeping her ever closer to the edge, driving her to clutch him as they were swept over.
When she found herself again, she clasped him close. He was her only solid point in the chaos of her heightened perception.
Stunned, she turned her face away and the tendrils of intermeshed awareness parted, prickling all over her body. At last he was just a cool, soothing presence in the dark stretches of her mind. There was no room for thought, no words for what she had experienced.
Time seemed to stretch. He demanded nothing of her, seemingly content to linger in contact. And she, who had never known the intimacy of such contact, marveled.
Was this what it was meant to be like with one of her own kind, a sharing of complete trust?
But he had tricked her.
She tried to ease away from the mental contact. He held on, passive but determined. Fear made her heart lurch and he reacted with a soft breeze allaying her fear.
“Reothe?”
He covered her lips with his fingers, cool, calming, calculating.
Calculating?
Then she felt it, the familiar pinprick as new life flared within her. It was a tiny starburst of sensation so intense she gasped.
She felt his flash of triumph. Fury engulfed her. She chased him down a long tunnel. His blazing essence escaped her and his own walls sprang up. This time she pulled back before she hurt herself. The transition was so abrupt her head reeled with impressions and nausea threatened.
“Imoshen?”
But already she had scrambled across the bed away from him.
“Imoshen, don’t do this.”
“You tricked me!”
“Yes. The drug was in the food, disguised by the spices. It was three days until the night you were fertile, not three days before your General arrived. His arrogant Ghebite pride won’t let him accept you once he knows you carry my child.”
“It was him I took in my arms, not you!”
“Not in the end.”
That was true. A flood of sensation rolled over her, memories so intense she gasped. She felt raw. “So this is what you promised?”
He was a pale form glowing on the bed. In her heightened T’En state all surfaces gleamed with an inner radiance.
His hands lifted in a pleading gesture.
“You did wrong to trick me, Reothe.”
“Sometimes you must do a little wrong to achieve a greater right.”
She snorted, rejecting this utterly. Chaotic impressions rushed her.
“Reothe!” Imoshen pressed her hands to her closed lips, fighting nausea as her head filled with sensations. “What’s happening to me? I feel strange.”
His touch was reassuring. She sank into his arms and he cradled her against his chest. The unnerving sensations passed. His cool essence was so calming she had to fight to remind herself he had betrayed her.
“Oh Reothe,” she whispered, “why did it have to be this way between us?”
Tulkhan lifted his head and blinked. The single candle flame seemed brilliant after the dark.
It was Reothe again, descending the ladder.
“Come to gloat?” Tulkhan tried to goad him. Anything was better than hanging here like a piece of butchered meat waiting to be served up to his half-brother.
Reothe crossed the stone floor and stepped close, wordlessly offering the inside of his wrist to Tulkhan, holding it just below his nostrils.
“Do you smell her on my skin, Mere-man?”
As he said it, Tulkhan experienced a flash of jumbled sensations. He felt Imoshen’s body under his, felt her quicksilver passion ignite.
He wanted to deny them, but the impressions were too vivid to be a he. Devastated, he turned his face away.
“The next time you see her, know this: she carries my child. As her true mate I have awakened her T’En potential. Whatever she may have felt for you will be colored by this. Once she might have loved you, but can you bear to be pitied?”
It was the final blow. A groan escaped Tulkhan.
“Accept your fate, General,” Reothe whisper
ed, satisfaction strong in his voice. “You were outclassed.”
Stepping back Reothe called, “He’s ready.”
Tulkhan turned to see several armed rebels descend the ladder.
“It is nearly dawn,” Reothe told him. “At the Vaygharian’s signal from the cliff-tower Gharavan’s ships made a night crossing with the wind behind them. There is only the exchange to get through, General, then you go home to your people and die.”
Suddenly Tulkhan was overwhelmed with a longing to see the brilliant sun of his homeland, the brightly dressed people in the markets, the proud Ghebite men riding at one with their horses.
When they released him Tulkhan rubbed his wrists and stretched to loosen his stiff muscles. One of the rebels moved forward with a chain but Reothe waved him off.
“There is no need. Come, General.”
They walked side by side towards the ladder. Three of the rebels climbed up first. Tulkhan thought briefly of forcing Reothe to kill him, but his rebels might simply maim him, and besides, he had discovered a nub of resistance deep within him. He would not go down without a fight.
Yet why did he feel so useless?
It was Reothe’s doing! It had to be.
“Climb.” Reothe gestured to the ladder.
Tulkhan obeyed. When they were on the next floor the ladder was pulled up and a stone slid over the opening of the cell to create a living tomb.
He shuddered.
“Come take your place in history, General,” Reothe said.
They were escorted out of the gates of Northpoint Citadel and into the township. It was the darkest part of the night, before the dawn. The small moon had already set and its larger mate was waxing. Tulkhan looked down to the bay where a low fog clung to the water. Few of the town’s inhabitants were stirring.
Reothe and their escort marched silently down through the curving streets to the wharfs. Incongruously, the smell of freshly baked bread made Tulkhan’s stomach rumble with hunger.
A large bonfire burned on the stones of the wharf. Reothe lifted a brand and waved. Tulkhan saw a man return the signal from the ship. He could not pick the Ghebite flag, but then the Ghebites would hardly advertise that they were supplying rebels to a Dhamfeer prince in exchange for the black sheep of their royal family.
The cruel irony of it tortured Tulkhan.
Imoshen woke from a troubled doze with a start. Ashmyr slept in her arms. The baby had woken after Reothe had slipped silently away. She had refused to speak to him, turning her face to the wall. All her perceptions of herself had been overturned, and she had felt too confused to confront him, her dearest and most dangerous enemy.
Now a sense of foreboding made her anxious. She slipped out of bed. The room looked normal. Instinct took her to the window. The bay was still dark but a bonfire burned on the wharf.
Its leaping flames drew her gaze, reminding her of something. Before she could pinpoint the memory several figures stepped in front of the bonfire. Amidst them was a broad-shouldered man, taller than the rest. Even from this distance she recognized Tulkhan.
Without a thought for the consequences she willed him to think of her.
Something cool brushed her perceptions and she realized Reothe was on the wharf with Tulkhan. The General must be Reothe’s captive, yet he seemed unharmed—unarmed, yes, but not restrained. She couldn’t imagine Tulkhan giving up without a fight.
It was so strange.
No time to wonder . . . this was her chance.
Eagerly Imoshen darted back to the bed to collect Ashmyr. Barefoot, her hair loose, dressed in nothing but her nightgown, she hurried to the door. With Reothe down on the wharf intent on the General, she could risk breaking his lock.
Experimentally she ran the fingers of her free hand over the door. There was nothing, no tingle, no pain waiting to cripple her mind.
Amazed, she concentrated on the mechanism within the lock chamber. Suddenly the door swung open.
There was no T’En lock keeping her in, only her belief that it existed. Hot shame flooded Imoshen. Reothe had fooled her. He must have remained outside the room ready to rebuff her first attempt on the lock, blocking it so firmly that she would not dare try again. She had played right into his hands.
Furious with herself, Imoshen ran down the dark corridor with Ashmyr in her arms. Nothing was going to stop her. No one would see her. She willed herself to move beyond the edge of the perceptions of those she passed. But there were few, for the tower rooms were almost deserted. She had no trouble finding her way out and into the township.
Tulkhan shifted as mist flowed around his boots. It drifted up from the water to creep across the wharf around him and into the streets. He had heard there were times when the buildings of Northpoint were shrouded in fog and only the Citadel tower rose above it.
He could hear the gentle slap of waves hitting the approaching boat’s prow, mingled with the creak of the oars. Tulkhan watched the evidence of the boat’s passage toward them. The mist swirled around it so that at times the heads of the men looked like disembodied shapes. A rope sailed up toward them and was made fast.
His captors stepped up onto the wharf.
“Kinraid!” Bitterness closed Tulkhan’s throat.
The Vaygharian made a mock bow. He turned to Reothe. “Three boatloads of mercenaries are ready to disembark, and the rest when the Ghebite traitor stands on the mainland. I’ll take him off your hands now.”
A surge of despair gripped Tulkhan.
No! This was not his emotion. Reothe was manipulating him.
Suddenly the pall that had settled over him lifted. He heard Reothe gasp and the Vaygharian curse.
The rebels stepped back, muttering uneasily amongst themselves. Tulkhan turned to see what had startled them.
Imoshen! Fog curled its insubstantial tendrils around her. She was illuminated by an eerie inner radiance. With her silver hair loose and her white gown floating around her, she seemed to be carried on a sea of glowing mist.
The Vaygharian and his companions made the sign to ward off evil, calling on their gods to protect them. Even the rebels backed away, mouthing something in High T’En.
Tulkhan’s teeth ached and his tongue registered the metallic taste of power. For an instant he thought he read fear, quickly masked, in Reothe’s features.
“Imoshen.” The T’En male stepped forward, his hand extended in welcome but when she made no move to accept it he let it drop. “The General was just leaving. The events of this last summer have been set to rights. Soon Fair Isle will belong to the T’En.”
Tulkhan could not bear to look on Imoshen. Her choice was clear—she had renounced him for her own kind. How could he hope to stand against the last of the T’En united in purpose?
Though he felt the intensity of her gaze he shut himself away from her, too proud to let her discover the blow she had dealt him.
This accursed isle had stolen everyone he had ever loved but it would not take his self-respect. He would return to Gheeaba and restore his honor by killing his half-brother.
Imoshen shivered. Tulkhan would not meet her eyes. Reothe must have told the General she had given herself to him willingly. No wonder Tulkhan despised her, but it was not true.
Desperately she reached out for him but Tulkhan jerked away, obviously repelled by the thought of touching her.
His revulsion ate into her flesh like acid. The pain of it made her gasp and stagger. Reothe supported her, taking the baby, as a wave of dizziness swamped her vision.
All along she had known the General found her Otherness unnerving, but she had believed they could overcome that. Now she knew he did not merely hate her, he was disgusted by her.
It was cruel to learn the truth.
“Take him away,” Reothe gestured to the boat.
She watched in stunned despair as Tulkhan stepped un-coerced into the boat. When he sat down the mist closed around him, shrouding all but the crown of his head from sight.
Imoshen could not beli
eve he had repudiated her.
But he had.
The Vaygharian made to leave.
“No.” Reothe stopped Kinraid. “You will stay until the last mercenary stands on this shore. I know how the Vayghar fulfill their bargains.”
Kinraid hesitated, resentment coloring his features. “So be it. Push off.”
The rebels uncoiled the rope and tossed it to the boat.
“Here. Take the traitor’s brat with you!” Kinraid tore the baby from Reothe’s arms and threw him into the mist.
Imoshen gasped. The white cloth of Ashmyr’s gown fluttered like useless wings as he sailed out and down into the fog-shrouded sea.
She screamed, calling on Tulkhan with every shred of her being to catch their son.
An ominous small splash filled the void left by her cry.
Shouts came from the boat. Men yelled. Several large splashes followed. It sounded as if the boat had overturned.
Imoshen spun to face Kinraid. Rage seared her soul.
Drawing his sword, he stood ready to fight. Behind him the bonfire roared like a rampaging beast eager to consume. Imoshen recalled her vision of his death.
“You will die by your own hand in flames of agony,” she told him, hardly able to speak for the fury which closed her throat.
Terror engulfed his features. Against his will he turned to the bonfire. As though fighting every step he took, Kinraid dropped his sword and ran clumsily, leaping into the flames. His screams rose on the night, piercing, utterly abandoned.
The confrontation had taken no time at all.
Imoshen ran for the edge of the wharf. White noise rushed in her head.
Reothe caught her, absorbing the impact.
“Ashmyr’s dead, Imoshen. I felt his life flicker out!”
No. She could not believe it. Frantically she twisted in Reothe’s arms but he knew the T’En breaks and holds as well as she. At last he caught her body to his, using his superior strength to pin her arms.
“He’s dead, Imoshen. Believe me!”
She stiffened in refusal.
“Imoshen?” He cupped her face in his hands. She felt him probe. It was too much. Instinctively she snapped back, retaliating against his intrusion, the strength of her gift unleashed by desperation. He gasped and staggered. Even as he crumpled to the wooden planks she leapt over him.
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