Hell Hath No Fury

Epilogue

The sun had set hours ago.

The slider car raced up what should have been the valley of the Razinta River almost silently, but for the rush of wind. It was a cloudy, moonless night, cold and still … and very, very empty.

The Arcanans called the Razinta the Kosal, and they'd traveled almost eighteen hundred miles across the face of the universe they called Lamia to reach it, racing steadily southwest towards the next portal in their endless journey. From the maps Jasak had shown them, that portal lay some miles south of Usarlah, the capital of the province of Delkrath back in Sharona, almost in the center of the Narhathan Peninsula.

But this Usarlah lay almost a hundred thousand miles from the Usarlah Shaylar had visited as a young university student so long ago.

I've come almost half the distance to the moon from home, she thought, staring out into the darkness, and that's as a bird-or a dragon-might have flown it. Half way to the moon. She shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around the sheer distance involved. And we still have almost forty thousand more miles to go.

"You seem … pensive tonight, Shaylar," Gadrial said, and Shaylar turned back from the window.

The Ransaran magister sat across the small table from her, shuffling the sixty-card deck with slender, adroit fingers. She'd been teaching Shaylar and Jathmar an Arcanan card game called Old Basilisk. The rules weren't all that complex-certainly not any more complicated than several Sharonian card games Shaylar could think of-but the deck had five twelve-card suits instead of the three eighteen-card suits she was accustomed to, which made keeping track of exactly what had been played challenging. Or would have, if Voices hadn't had photographic memories, at any rate.

"I feel pensive," Shaylar admitted. "We're such a long way away from everything I've ever known. And it's so … empty out there."

"Appearances can be deceiving," Gadrial told her, looking out the window herself. "Back home, all of this is part of the Duchy of Forkasa, one of the oldest and wealthiest independent territories of Shaloma.

Of course, the factors that made Forkasa so wealthy back in Arcana don't necessarily apply in the outuniverses.

And we're still a long way from Arcana or New Andara. But the last time I checked the census figures, Lamia had a population of somewhere around three million, I think."

"Three million," Shaylar repeated. She had to remind herself that Arcana had been expanding into the multiverse for two centuries, almost three times as long as Sharona. Still, the thought that they had three million people living in a universe forty thousand miles from their home universe was sobering, to say the least.

"Well, Lamia's attracted more colonization than a lot of other universes," Gadrial said as she offered the deck for Shaylar to cut. "The distance between portals is shorter than in some, and it's all overland, which helps. And the natural tendency is to spread out to either side of the slider right-of-way, which just happens to run across some of Shaloma's best real estate. Not to mention the fact that some of the most beautiful beaches of the Western Hesmiryan are less than a hundred miles from where we are right now."

She began to deal, and Shaylar nodded in understanding. The Hesmiryan Sea was what the Arcanans called the Mbisi Sea, and Gadrial was certainly right about the Narhathan beaches. Tourism was one of Teramandor Province's most lucrative industries back home in Sharona, and Teramandor beach resorts were famous throughout the multiverse.

"Anyway," Gadrial continued, "I think every universe looks emptier when you see it in the dark. It always makes me feel like there's nothing really quite real out there."

"I've felt that way a lot, lately," Shaylar said in a low voice, and Gadrial's hands paused. She looked across the table at the other woman, and her almond-shaped eyes were dark with sympathy.

"I know you have. And I wish none of this had happened to you and Jathmar."

"We know that, Gadrial." Shaylar managed a smile. "Go ahead and deal, silly!"

Gadrial smiled back and resumed dealing cards. Shaylar watched them fall, listening to the quiet, snapping sounds the cardboard rectangles made as they landed on the table top. She would never have been able to hear that sound aboard a Sharonian train moving at this speed. Indeed, the quiet, vibrationless slider cars continued to amaze her, although she and Jathmar had noticed several weaknesses, compared to old-fashioned, noisy, vibrating railroads.

It had taken them a while to realize just how big a disadvantage the absence of engines was. There was no doubt that the fact that each slider was self-propelled made the slider cars far more flexible, but the price for that flexibility was high. Each slider required its own spell accumulator, and for all their luxury, they were much more lightly built than Sharonian rolling stock … for reasons which had become obvious as they'd watched the Gifted technicians recharge the accumulators at the stations where they'd stopped. The spells which propelled the sliders were obviously complicated, and it took quite a while to recharge each slider's accumulator. And as Gadrial had explained, when they'd finally asked her about it, there was a reason the cars were so light. The sliders relied upon a variant of the levitation spells used by the cargo pods dragon transports often towed, and those really weren't very efficient on a tonnage basis. From what she'd said, Jathmar (who knew far more about railroads and steam engines than Shaylar did) had calculated that the Arcanans would be lucky if one of their slider cars could transport a quarter of the tonnage one of the TTE's freight cars routinely carted across the multiverse.

It's nice to think we have at least some advantages, she thought moodily as she gathered up her cards and began sorting her hand.

She glanced across the compartment to where Chief Sword Threbuch and Jathmar were engaged in a game the Arcanans called battle squares. It was a complicated, highly stylized wargame using eighteencarved pieces on each side, played across a gameboard that was nine squares wide and nine squares deep. Jathmar had turned out to be surprisingly good at it, and he was pushing Threbuch hard while Jugthar Sendahli kibitzed. She could feel his concentration-and enjoyment-through their marriage bond, and it was obvious that Sendahli was amused by Threbuch's predicament.

Shaylar was glad Jathmar was enjoying himself, but even that was flawed for her tonight. She could feel his concentration and enjoyment, yes, but not as clearly as she should have been able to. Their wedding bond was definitely weaker, and when they'd stopped for the last accumulator charge, Jathmar had tested his Mapping Talent.

It was weaker, too.

In a way, Shaylar was almost relieved. Even in Sharona, marriages and relationships sometimes proved less enduring than the people involved in them might have wished, especially in the face of unexpected stress or anxiety. Very few people could ever have been under more stress than the two of them, and she'd seen more than one marriage bond simply wither and die as the partners drifted apart. The thought of that happening to her and Jathmar was more than she could have borne, and she was almost desperately glad that there was some other reason for what was happening. But even so, the implications of their weakening bond and Jathmar's weakening Talent were nearly as frightening as the thought of losing Jathmar might have been.

They had no idea what was causing it, and Shaylar looked up from her cards. Gadrial's head was bent as she sorted her own hand, and she failed to notice the intense, almost plaintive quality of the look Shaylar gave her. The Voice wished with all her heart that she and Jathmar could discuss what was happening to them with someone, and the most reasonable someone would have been Gadrial. But Jathmar was right.

They couldn't mention this to anyone-not when it was possible that the effect could be deliberately induced, even used against other Talents, by a sorceress who figured out what was happening.

Gadrial looked up, and Shaylar quickly banished her worries from her expression, if not from her emotions.

"Ready to bid?" Gadrial asked.

"Sure," Shaylar said, with a cheerfulness she was far from feeling. "Fifteen."

Afternoon sunlight slanted in through the narrow, barred windows as the outside door slammed open.

Two Arcanan guards came through it, dragging a limp, semi-conscious body between them, and a third guard followed behind them, with one of their repeating crossbows cocked and loaded in his hands. The armed guard stood back, weapon ready, while one of the other two unlocked the cell door so that his companion could toss their burden through it.

Namir Velvelig moved quickly, catching Company-Captain Silkash before the all but unconscious Healer could hit the cell floor. Silkash cried out in pain as the regiment-captain caught him, and Velvelig's eyes could have frozen heart of any Arpathian hell as he glared up at the guards.

One of them sneered at him, obviously amused by his glare, and made a taunting gesture with one hand.

His mocking expression and obvious satisfaction at Silkash's broken, bloodied condition was almost enough. Almost. Yet Velvelig's iron expression never even twitched. Only those frozen eyes spoke of the fury blazing within him. The time would come. He already knew that much. The time would come when he would finally make his try and die.

But not today. Not until the moment was right and he could count on taking at least one of them with him before the bastard with the crossbow shot him down.

The guard who'd mocked him snorted with contempt, spat on the floor, then slammed the cell shut and locked it. He said something to his companion, and all three of the guards sauntered out.

Velvelig eased Silkash down on the pallet he and the other officers in their cell had put together, and the Healer twitched, hissing in anguish as Velvelig's gently testing fingers found fresh breaks in his ribs.

The regiment-captain had cuts and bruises in plenty of his own. The last two times they'd come for Silkash, Velvelig had stood in front of the Healer. He hadn't launched a single blow, hadn't threatened the guards in any way, but they'd had to club him out of the way before they could get at the Healer.

Not that it had done any good in the end.

"Sir?"

He looked down at the faint, thready voice. Silkash's left eye was open; his right was swollen shut. He'd lost several teeth along the way, as well, and his speech wasn't very clear.

"I'm here, Silky," Velvelig said quietly. "You don't look too good."

"Well, I don't feel so good, either," Silkash got out, and Velvelig's eyes burned at the Healer's feeble attempt at humor.

"Tobis?" Velvelig asked after a moment, and Silkash shook his head.

"Don't know, Sir." The bruised, bloodied face twisted. "That son-of-a-bitch was still working on him when they dragged me out."

"Whoreson!" somebody snarled behind Velvelig, but the regiment-captain only patted Silkash gently on the shoulder.

"All right, Silky. Take it easy. We'll take care of you."

"I know, Sir," Silkash whispered, and his eye slid shut.

Velvelig held up one hand, and one of the other prisoners handed him the scrap of blanket they'd soaked in their water bucket. The regiment-captain began cleaning his Healer's face, and his touch was as gentle as any woman's, while black murder seethed in his heart.

Hadrign Thalmayr's sadism had a certain brutal cunning. There was no doubt in Velvelig's mind that he was going to kill Silkash and Makree in the end, but he was in no hurry to end his entertainment.

Perhaps it had begun as some sort of punishment, vengeance for the "torment" he believed the Healers had deliberately inflicted upon him. If that was how it had started, though, it had gone far beyond that by now. Vengeance might have offered him the pretext, but the truth was that he enjoyed what he was doing.

He was pacing himself, rationing himself … giving his victims time to recover between sessions. Yet Silkash and-especially-Makree were growing steadily weaker, and no one seemed to care. Certainly no one was offering them the magical healing which had saved Velvelig's own life. However spectacular their healing powers might be, the Arcanan healers were obviously content to watch their Sharonian counterparts being slowly and brutally beaten to death without raising a finger to repair the damage.

"I don't think Tobis can take much more, Sir." Silkash's voice was a little stronger, which only made the despair in it that much clearer. "It's worse for him. It blasts his Talent open. Makes him Feel how much the son-of-a-bitch enjoys what he's doing to him."

"I know, Silky. I-"

Velvelig broke off, and his belly muscles tightened in anticipation as the outside door opened once more. But it wasn't the guards dragging Tobis Makree back into the brig, after all.

Velvelig straightened, and the fury in his heart redoubled as he recognized the wiry redhead. Thalmayr was bad enough, yet at least he appeared to genuinely believe his captors had deliberately tortured him when he was in their power. The Arcanan standing outside their cell now, looking in that them, had no such excuse, and Velvelig knew that if he would only come within arm's reach of the bars … .

He wasn't that stupid, unfortunately. He only stood there, glaring at the prisoners, his face tight with hatred as he drank up the extent of Silkash's injuries. Then he turned around, as wordlessly as he'd come, and stalked back out.

Namir Velvelig watched him go, then knelt slowly back down beside his Healer and started wiping blood off his face once more.

Therman Ulthar closed the door very carefully behind him, then stood on the walkway outside the brig.

His left hand dropped to the hilt of the short sword sheathed at his hip, and his knuckles whitened with the force of his grip.

He refused to let himself look at the administration block. He couldn't, because he knew what was happening in there right this moment. He didn't have to hear the blows, listen to the gasping screams, to know what Hadrign Thalmayr was doing, and if he let himself think about it, let himself feel, then-

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

You're an officer in the Union Army, godsdamn it, he told himself despairingly. You can't just stand here, whatever Iftar said! If you don't take a stand for something, then what the fuck use are you?

There was a sickness spreading through the garrison of the captured Sharonian fort, radiating from the man who'd been placed in command, and Ulthar was afraid. Afraid of where it would end, who might find himself added to the list of Hadrign Thalmayr's "enemies." Someone had to do something, yet Ulthar was only one man, and a man Thalmayr obviously dustrusted as much as he loathed him.

You don't even have a platoon anymore, Therman, he thought, and it was true. He had exactly five men, the other Andaran Scout wounded POWs who'd been left behind here with him and Thalmayr, under his

"command." Thalmayr had been careful not to assign him to anything which might have required more men, and Ulthar knew exactly why that was.

He also knew all five of them would have followed him into any open confrontation with Thalmayr … for all the good it would have done.

I can't take them with me, he told himself yet again. I don't have that right. But, gods, I've got to do something!

At least the Healers Five Hundred Vaynair had left behind were refusing to go along with Thalmayr. No doubt the other prisoners didn't understand, but if Thalmayr had had his way, the Healers would have repaired the damages he inflicted on a daily basis … so that he could inflict fresh damages on a daily basis. But they'd refused. They couldn't stop him from torturing his prisoners, but they could refuse to become his accomplices by helping him do it.

Ulthar snarled in frustration. How pathetic was it when the best he could find to say was that the Healers wouldn't heal someone?

Something snapped down inside him at that thought. The iron self-control he'd forced himself to exert slipped, and he spun on his heel and started stalking across the parade ground towards the office block, unsnapping the retaining strap across his short sword as he went.

"Fifty Ulthar?"

The voice reached him even through the red haze of his fury, and he paused, looking over his shoulder.

He didn't really know the man who'd called out to him. He'd seen him around the fort, but he wasn't an Andaran Scout, and Ulthar had been too focused on what Thalmayr was up to to pay him much attention.

"Yes?" Ulthar's one-word response came out sounding strangled and strange, even to his own ears, and the other man grimaced.

"I think we need to talk, Fifty Ulthar," Commander of Fifty Jaralt Sarma said.

Commander of Two Thousand Mayrkos Harshu sat in his tent at the foot of the precipitous cliffs and pushed the last few bites of his supper around the bowl with a spoon. A glass of wine sat largely untasted at his elbow, and his expression was unusually grim.

The sentry outside the tent called out a challenge to someone, and Harshu raised his head, looking towards the entrance. A moment later, the sentry lifted the flap and looked in at him.

"Thousand Toralk is here, Sir. He says you're expecting him."

"I am, Sword. Send him in, please."

"Sir!"

The noncom snapped a salute and disappeared. A moment later, the flap rose again, and Klayrman Toralk came through it.

"You wanted to see me, Sir?"

"Yes, please. Have a seat."

Harshu gestured at the camp chair floating on the far side of the table, and Toralk settled himself onto it.

The thousand never looked away from Harshu as he sat, and Harshu smiled sourly.

"I've just received some … interesting dispatches, Klayrman."

"Sir?" Toralk's eyebrows rose as Harshu paused.

"One set is from Carthos," the two thousand said. "That's the good news, such as it is. He's detached Hundred Helika's strike. We should see Helika in about three more days. The only bad news from him is that I'd asked him how much transport he needed to move his prisoners to the rear. If I were the Sharonians and I had the capability, I'd try pushing down the secondary chain before I tried to fight my way down these cliffs. I don't think they do have the capability, but if it turns out they do, there's no way we can reinforce Carthos enough to hold against a serious attack. The best we can do is to keep the approaches picketed and make sure they don't manage to get past him and sneak up on us undetected from the rear. So I thought to myself we should send his POWs back to Five Hundred Klian so he could move quickly, without any encumbrances. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about that."

"What do you mean, Sir?" Toralk asked, his expression unhappy, when Harshu paused once more.

"I mean he doesn't have any prisoners. Not one. Apparently-" Harshu met Toralk's eyes levelly across the table "-every single Sharonian died fighting rather than surrender."

Klayrman's Toralk's belly muscles tightened. It wasn't really a surprise, of course. And a part of him couldn't help feeling a sudden surge of fury directed not at the distant Thousand Carthos but at Two Thousand Harshu. It was just a bit late for Harshu to be feeling upset with anyone over violations of the Kerellian Accords after he'd sown the seeds for everything Carthos had done by what he'd allowed Neshok to do!

Something of the thousand's emotions must have shown in his face, because Harshu's jaw tightened. But then the two thousand inhaled deeply and made himself nod.

"You're right, Klayrman. It is my fault. And if I'd listened to you in the beginning, it wouldn't have happened. But it has, and it's going to be a hell of a lot harder to stop it than it would have been simply too never let it start."

He shook his head, then leaned back in his chair with a smile that was even more sour than before.

"Of course, there's always that second set of dispatches to help distract me from the Carthos situation."

"Second set, Sir?" Toralk asked cautiously.

"Oh, yes. The set from Two Thousand mul Gurthak."

"From Two Thousand mul Gurthak?"

Surprise startled the repetition out of Toralk. Mul Gurthak had been oddly silent ever since the Expeditionary Force began its advance. In fact, as far as Toralk was aware, he hadn't sent Harshu a single message in all that time.

"Indeed," Harshu told him. "It would appear that Two Thousand mul Gurthak is most distressed over the way in which I have misinterpreted his desires and grossly exceeded his intentions."

Toralk's eyes went wide. He couldn't help it. He'd read most of the official instructions and memoranda mul Gurthak had sent forward to Mahritha before Harshu launched his attack.

"But, Sir, that's rid-" he began.

"Don't say it," Harshu interrupted. Toralk closed his mouth with a click, and Harshu grimaced. "Given a couple of things he said in his dispatches, Klayrman," he said very quietly, "I think he probably has his own eyes and ears out here, keeping him informed. It might not be very wise to … express your opinion overly freely in front of anyone besides myself, if you take my meaning."

It was Toralk's turn to sit back, and his jaw muscles tensed as the implications began to percolate through his brain.

"That's better," Harshu told him. The two thousand picked up his almost forgotten wineglass and sipped from it, then set it back down again.

"According to Two Thousand mul Gurthak, it was never his intention for us to advance beyond Hell's Gate. And, in fact, he always regarded the use of force to retake even Hell's Gate as an action of last resort."

"Sir," Toralk said, despite Harshu's warning, "I don't see how any reasonable individual could have interpreted his instructions to mean anything of the sort. Certainly not in light of the verbal briefings he gave both of us before he deployed us forward!"

"Klayrman," Harshu said chiding way, shaking a finger at him, "you're letting your opinions run away with you again."

Toralk clamped his mouth shut, and Harshu snorted harshly.

"The interesting thing is that if you read his written instructions without those verbal briefings of his, they can actually be interpreted exactly the way he's interpreting them at the moment. While I would never wish to imputes duplicity to a superior officer, I find that I can't quite shake the suspicion that the discrepancy between his current very clearly expressed views and what you and I understood his instructions to be isn't … accidental, shall we say?"

"Sir, I don't like what you seem to be saying."

"I'm not overjoyed with it myself. In fact, the thing that bothers me most right now is that I can't decide whether mul Gurthak is simply trying to cover his own ass now that the shit's hit the fan, or if he deliberately set us up-well, set me up, at least-from the start. Did he simply shape his written instructions this way so he'd be covered if something went wrong, or did he want us to do exactly what I went ahead and did, but clearly-for the record, at least-without his authorization?"

Toralk started to open his mouth again, but Harshu's raised finger stopped him. Not, the Air Force officer reflected a second later, that it was really necessary for him to say what he was thinking.

But why? Why would mul Gurthak want us to start a shooting war out here "without his authorization"?

He's still the senior officer in command, even if he did delegate the field command to Harshu.

Ultimately, surely the Commandery is going to hold him responsible for what happens in his command area. So why go to such elaborate lengths?

The thoughts flashed through his brain. He had no answers for any of the questions, but he was sinkingly certain that if he'd had those answers, he wouldn't have liked them.

"Of course," Harshu continued in a lighter tone which fooled neither of them, "Two Thousand mul Gurthak is not yet aware that we've managed to kill the heir to the Ternathian Crown, is he? That's going to be just a bit unexpected, I imagine. As is the way the Sharonians are going to respond to it."

He showed his teeth in a smile which contained no humor at all, and Toralk winced. Unlike Harshu, he'd actually met the senior Sharonian officers at Fort Salby. There wasn't much question in his mind about how the Ternathian Empire, at least, was going to respond.

He looked across the table at Mayrkos Harshu and wondered if he looked as sick as he felt.

Rof chan Skrithik stood stiffly to attention as the haunting bugle notes of Sunset, the call the Ternathian Empire's military had used to close the day for almost three thousand years, floated out under the smoldering embers of a spectacular sunset.

It was a beautiful bugle call, with a sweet, clear purity that no soldier ever forgot. And it was also, by a tradition so ancient no one even knew when it had begun, the call used at military funerals.

The last sweet notes flared out, and chan Skrithik inhaled deeply, gazing out across the neat rows of graves. At least a third of them were marked with the triangular memorial symbol of the Triad. Others showed the horsetails of Arpathia, or the many-spired star of Aruncas of the Sword.

And out there, in the midst of the men who had died to hold Fort Salby, was the young man who had died to save Fort Salby.

Chan Skrithik reached up, gently stroking the falcon on his right shoulder. For millennia, since the death of Emperor Halian, the House of Calirath's tradition had been that when one of its own died in battle, he was buried where he fell. Buried with the battle companions who had fallen at his side, and with his enemies. Chan Skrithik would have preferred to send Janaki home to his mother. To let him sleep where he had earned the right to sleep, beside Erthain the Great. But like Halian nimself, Janaki chan Calirath would rest where he had fallen, further away from Estafel and Tajvana than any other Calirath.

And where he slept would be Ternathian soil forever.

"It doesn't seem right, Sir."

Chan Skrithik turned. Chief-Armsman chan Braikal stood beside him, looking out across the same cemetery.

"What doesn't seem right, Chief?"

"It doesn't seem right that he's not here, Sir." Grief clouded the chief-armsman's voice. "None of us would be here without him, and-"

Chan Braikal broke off, and chan Skrithik reached out and touched him lightly on the shoulder.

"It was his choice, Chief. Remember that. He chose to die for the rest of us. Never let anyone forget that."

"No, Sir. I won't." Chan Braikal's wounded voice hardened. "And none of us will be forgetting how he died, either."

Chan Skrithik only nodded.

Division-Captain chan Geraith's entire First Brigade had marched past Janaki's body. Every surviving man of the fort's PAAF garrison had done the same, and Sunlord Markan had personally led his surviving Uromathian cavalry troopers past the bier in total silence, helmets removed, weapons reversed, while the mounted drummers kept slow, mournful time.

Janaki chan Calirath's death had done more than save Fort Salby. Rof chan Skrithik already understood that. Janaki had been added to the legend of the Caliraths, and the fighting men of Sharona would never forget that the attack which had killed him had been launched in time of peace by the very nation which had asked for the negotiations in the first place.

He wasn't the only victim of their treachery. In fact, chan Skrithik never doubted that Janaki would have been dismayed-even angry-if anyone had suggested anything of the sort. Yet it was inevitable that the young man who would one day have been Emperor of all Sharona should be the focal point for all the grief, all the rage-all the hate-Arcana had fanned into a roaring furnace.

"I stand between," chan Skrithik thought. Well, you did, Janaki. You stood between all of us and Arcana.

And you stood between me and the gryphon that killed you. It's a hard thing, knowing a legend died for you. But that's what Caliraths do, isn't it? They make legends. They become legends, and, gods, the price they pay for it!

Taleena made a soft sound on his shoulder, and he reached up and stroked her wings once again.

"I know, My Lady," he said gently. "I know. I miss him, too."

Taleena touched the back of his hand very gently with her razor-sharp beak, and chan Skrithik looked across at chan Braikal once more.

"His horses and his sword are going home, Chief," he said. "And you and his platoon are taking them."

"Yes, Sir." Chan Braikal's voice was husky again.

"Tell them for us, Chief." Chan Skrithik looked into the Marine's eyes. "Tell them all. This fort, the cemetery, it's ours. He bought it for us, and no one and nothing will ever take it away from us again."

Andrin Calirath sat on her bedroom window seat, staring out into the moon-soaked gardens of Calirath Palace, and wept.

Her tears were nearly silent, and she sat very still, watching the moonlight waver through them. She wept for the brother she would never see again. She wept for her parents, who would never again see their son. She wept for all the other mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and daughters who would never see their loved ones again.

And she wept for herself.

In the cold, still hours of the night, it was hard. She was only seventeen, and knowing that what she must do would save thousands, possibly even millions of lives-even agreeing to do what she must do-was cold and bitter compensation for the destruction of her own life. She was frightened, and despite her youth, she had few illusions about what sort of marriage Chava Busar and his sons had in mind for her.

She knew her strengths, knew the strength of her parents' love, how fiercely they would strive to protect her. Yet in the end, no one could protect her from the cold, merciless demands of the Calirath destiny. At best, it would be a marriage without love, without tenderness. And at worst-

She folded her arms, trying to wrap them around herself, not because she was physically cold, but because of the chill deep inside.

She was going to spend her entire life married to the son of her father's worst enemy. Her children would be the grandchildren of her family's most deadly foe. She could already feel the ice closing in, already sense the way the years to come would wound and maim her spirit, and she wished-wished with all her heart-that there could be some escape. That Shalana could somehow find that single, small scrap of mercy for her. Could let her somehow evade this last, bitter measure of duty and responsibility.

But Shalana wouldn't. She couldn't. "I stand between." How many Caliraths had given themselves to that simple, three-word promise over the millennia? Janaki had given his life to that promise, and Andrin could do no less than sacrifice her life to it, as well.

"Sho warak, Janaki," she whispered. "Sho warak. Sleep, Janaki. Sleep until we all wake once more. I love you."

She put her head down on the back of the padded window seat and let her tears soak into the upholstery.

She never knew how long she wept into the window seat's satin before, with absolutely no warning, her bedroom door opened, spilling lamplight into the darkened room. She jerked upright, spinning towards the brightness, but her angry rebuke for whoever had dared to intrude upon her died unspoken.

Lady Merissa Vankhal stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light. There was a chair just outside the door behind her, one which hadn't been there when Andrin went to bed, with a blanket tossed untidily across it, and Lady Merissa herself was clad in a silken sleep robe over her night dress, devoid of the least trace of make-up, her hair all awry. Andrin had never seen-never imagined-her fussy, propriety-obsessed chief lady-in-waiting in such disarray, and she wondered what fresh cosmic disaster could have driven Lady Merissa to her bedroom in such a state.

Yet before she could even start to frame the question, Lady Merissa crossed the bedroom to her and, to her utter astonishment, Andrin found herself enfolded in a tight embrace.

"Oh, my love," Merissa whispered in her ear. "Oh, my poor love. I didn't hear you-I didn't know."

Andrin felt herself beginning to crumble in that totally unexpected, immensely comforting embrace.

Lady Merissa sat down on the window seat beside her, and a corner of Andrin's brain wondered just how ridiculous they looked. She was a foot taller than Lady Merissa, yet Merissa cradled her as if she were a child, and Andrin abandoned herself to the comfort of that touch.

"There, love," Merissa murmured, stroking her back while she sobbed. "There, love."

Andrin clung to her, as if the fussy, fluffy, irritating lady-in-waiting were the last solid rock in her universe, for that was precisely what Lady Merissa had become.

And then someone knocked gently on the bedroom door.

Andrin stiffened, and Lady Merissa's spine straightened with an almost audible snap.

"Really!" she huffed. "Is this a grand imperial princess' bedroom, or is it the waiting room down at the local train station?!"

She set Andrin aside gently, then came to her feet, straightening her robe, and stalked across the enormous bedroom towards the door, muttering as she went.

"Can't leave the poor girl in peace," Andrin heard floating malevolently back from her remorselessly advancing lady-in-waiting. "Middle of the night, for goodness sake! Coming bursting in on her, keeping her awake at all hours! I'll give you a piece of my mind, just wait and see if I-!"

Lady Merissa reached the door and yanked it open. A Palace maid stood there, hands folded anxiously, and the poor young woman ought by rights to have burst spontaneously into flame under Lady Merissa's fiery glare.

"Well?" Merissa snapped at her luckless victim.

"Beg pardon, Lady Merissa!" the maid said quickly. "I wouldn't ever have disturbed Her Grand Imperial Highness, not ever! But they insisted."

"Who insisted, girl?" Lady Merissa demanded. "And what could possibly be so important that it couldn't wait until morning?"

"I'm sure I don't know what's important, My Lady!" the maid said. "But it's Privy Voice Yanamar and Voice Kinlafia. They say they have to talk to Her Grand Imperial Highness right away!"