My two mothers  -  Darien, who had borne me, and Cjarsa, who had raised me  -  were almost always together and were almost always fighting. Few people had the power or the courage to argue with the Empress Cjarsa, but Darien was one of those rare souls who did.

I did not mean to intrude on their conversation that day, but I had carelessly reached too far. Cjarsa and Darien ceased talking and shifted their attention to me.

"Hai?" my mother said.

The instant Darien spoke my name, Cjarsa turned away, assuming that I was not seeking her. Losing that brief moment of attention from my Empress was like having all sunlight disappear. I knew that Darien sensed my reaction; I felt her disappointment through the magic that connected us in that moment.

What did she expect from me, the daughter she had abandoned?

If my devotion had been focused on anyone but Cjarsa, would Darien have cared at all?

Or was this just another excuse for her war with my Empress? Darien said she wanted to change the island; like Maya, she had lofty ideas, many of which I might have agreed with if I had believed her stated motives. However, as far as I could tell, what motivated my mother was not the desire for equality and freedom of which she spoke but stubborn spite.

I often wondered: If it had truly been love for my father that had driven her to commit treason, wouldn't she have been more concerned about that man's child?

"If you hate the white city and everything it stands for as much as you say you do," I asked my mother bitterly, "if you hate the Lady and her heir and Ahnmik, why do you stay there?"

Why do you stay in that land, that land I have always wanted ... that land I will never have because I was born with a cobra's blood? Why do you struggle in a place you hate, struggle and fight, when nothing will ever change? Wh y?

Why could you never just be a mother to your daughter?

"Because..." Darien tried to explain. Did she herself understand it? Or was this fight just something she had started one day and now couldn't find her way out of? "I love it as much as I hate it."

"I have always only loved it."

"I would give it to you if I knew how. I am trying, Hai. I want to change things. As long as I stay here, I have the Empress's ear. I can make things better. Maybe someday you will feel welcome in the city and will come home."

"You don't do this for me."

"I do it for you, and for the Cobriana, and Wyvern's Court, and all the thousands who died in Cjarsa's war. I cannot give you the white city, but I am doing all I can to protect the world you have. You know that Araceli would see Wyvern's Court destroyed if our Empress let her."

"Our" Empress.

Only when it suited her purposes.

Still...

The child Alasdair's scream. Blood on the hawk child's hands. Blood on my own.

"And Oliza's abdication?" I asked. "Did you know of that?"

"The wyvern's magic disrupts my sakkri."

Darien replied. "I have trouble seeing what she will do. Her abdication was as much a shock to me as it was to you. It certainly was not something I had planned."

"What about Araceli? Or Cjarsa?"

"Neither of them had a hand in it. I have enough power here to keep them from meddling... mostly." My mother hesitated. "Did they speak to you?" she asked, no doubt questioning my loyalty, as Oliza did.

"Of course," I replied. Let her take from that what she would; I owed this woman no answers. There was only one reason I wished to have her as an ally. "Regardless, my concern isn't for Oliza. I'm worried about Nicias, now that he isn't bound to her. You helped him leave the island once  -  "

I broke off, suddenly realizing that Darien was not on my side. She had helped Nicias leave the island, yes, but she had always wanted him beside her on Ahnmik.

"If you take Nicias from here..." There was no threat that would matter to my mother. I would never forgive her, but since when had she cared?

"Don't you see?" Darien argued. "Nicias has no place in Wyvern's Court  -  not now  -  and he could do so much good here. Araceli would listen to Nicias, because she wants her son's favor, and as prince, he would have power I can never dream of."

"My Empress," I said, petitioning for Cjarsa's attention. "Please, leave Nicias alone."

"It is not my will that would bring Nicias here," Cjarsa replied. "I have denied both Darien and Araceli permission to interfere with him. However, if he comes home of his own free will, I cannot refuse him his place."

"There is no free will. Not on Ahnmik."

"I will not take him from you," my Empress assured me. It was a cold comfort, and she knew it; she probably would not need to. "Be strong, quemak'nesera." she bid me, the words a dismissal.

My mother said nothing as I severed the magic between us so abruptly that I fell into the sound of Nicias's screams.

Oliza's child, Keyi, was laughing, her red-blond hair rippling around her cherubic face. Her eyes were bright and as golden as a hawk's, but her eyelashes were pitch-black, an eerie contrast to her otherwise fair features. Her hands and arms were stained by twisting indigo magic that contorted and heaved across her flesh, but the child paid it no mind.

Keyi laughed. She was too young to understand ruin.

Sive Shardae wore not a mark upon her skin, but she was as still and silent as all Brysh's realm as Araceli lifted Aleya into her arms.

Sive's baby began to wail. "You can't take Aleya!"

Keyi giggled as Nicias protested and struggled to reclaim the only surviving heir to the Tuuli Thea. The falcons had taken

Salem's son Zjenle; they couldn't take Aleya.

Araceli's Mercy held Nicias back, two of them gripping each of his arms. Araceli held the baby as gently as porcelain, looking sadly into its frightened eyes. "I will return her to the avian throne when the time comes," she assured Nicias. "Be grateful ... my grandson... that I do not have the heart to slay my own blood." She dropped her gaze to Keyi, who had begun to hum a little song. "Care for that one, if you wish. I will leave to you the decision of when she must be given back to Brysh."

"No," he pleaded.

Araceli turned with Aleya in her arms, and again Nicias shrieked, tearing into the guards holding him physically and magically. They knocked him to his knees as black-red slices of power rent his skin, leaving him shuddering on the ground. He could only watch as the falcons carried the little child away.

All of Nicias's monarchs were gone. Aleya and Zenle, taken. Oliza Salem, Sive, Zane, Danica, Irene... The faces of the dead marched through his pained memory.

Keyi still laughed, though her hands--those tiny pink hands - were stained with the blood of thousands. She giggled, reaching for things only she could see: birds and butterflies, faeries and nymphs, raindrops, snowflakes, anything but the steel-hard sky, bleached as white as bone. I dragged myself from the vision, choking on screams as I struggled back to shore. Don't cry, my love; you do all you can.

I wept as I lay on the beach, too exhausted to move.

I'll do what I can, for you.

Someone nudged my shoulder, roughly checking for life, and my body shuddered and began coughing up water, seeking air instead of raw power to sustain us. Velyo Frektane looked at me with distaste. One of the two competing alpha wolves in the area, Velyo despised weakness. Nearly drowning in still water probably did not strike him as strong.

"I've heard that falcons can do that  -  just stop moving, eating, drinking," he remarked.

"But I didn't know they could stop breathing."

"Breath belongs to Mehay."

I replied, drawing in the air nonetheless. I could sustain myself for years on nothing but Ahnmik's power, as I had in the Halls of shm'Ecl before Nicias had taken me from there, but if I wanted to escape from that last vision, I needed to ground myself back to the world. "Ecl has no use for it."

The wolf let out a disdainful snort. ""Well, sorry to interrupt your melodramatic expiration, but I thought "Wyvern's Court might object to a dead cobra in our woods." I would be shocked if they noticed.

But I accepted the wolf's help as I stood. When I touched his hand, I tried to ignore the images that it conjured. Oliza and her mate had each crossed paths with Velyo in the past.

"Do you need assistance back to Wyvern's Court?"

"I can make it."

He watched me skeptically as I wrung water from my hair; surely I looked less than capable to him, with my hair and clothes still dripping and my hands and arms streaked with dirt from my lying on the ground.

I was content not to earn the high regard of Velyo Frektane. He was a man who was used to power and getting his way even if it meant abusing those beneath him. I was too much a falcon to tolerate intimidation by or force from a wolf and  -  though I cringed to think it  -  too much a serpent to forgive the crimes he had committed in his past. After I'd chosen to ignore Araceli's hinted requests that I begin a war in Wyvern's Court shortly after I first woke here, it would have been a pity to start one accidentally by killing a wolf king.

So I walked away, not upset to hear the wolf scoff as I made a halfhearted attempt to brush mud from my skin and clothes.

Wondering if I would have to walk back to Wyvern's Court, I called silently for Najat and was pleased to find that the horse was not too far away in the woods. She came to me, and I climbed into the saddle and closed my eyes to rest as we returned slowly to Wyvern's Court. Najat knew the way home, far better than I.

Chapter 8

The ride to Wyvern's Court seemed unnaturally long as I fought fatigue. I intended to tell Nicias that I had seen Oliza, and then I hoped to curl up somewhere to sleep. I jumped as the peregrine dove through the treetops and returned to human form barely a breath from Najat's side. I expected Nicias to inquire immediately about Oliza, but his first words were "Are you all right?"

I nodded, pleasantly surprised by the query. "I spoke to Oliza. She and Betia are safe with friends who would never let welcome guests be hurt on their land. Oliza asked me to thank you for your concern and assure you that she would be fine." Nicias reached out as I spoke, and brushed a streak of dirt from my cheek. The brief touch made my skin tingle.

"Thank you for going; it's good to know she is well. Are you sure you're all right?" I must have looked puzzled, because he added, "I don't know exactly what happened to you earlier, but I felt enough to worry."

"I didn't mean to trouble you. I know you have more to worry about than me," I said. He winced. "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't a criticism."

"I know you didn't mean it to be, but I do feel responsible for you, and I feel like I've neglected  -  " I held up a hand to stop him, before he could go further. "Nicias, I am an adult woman. Not a child. You pulled me from Ecl, and I  -  at least sometimes  -  thank you for that, but have you forgotten that I came back to save your life? You aren't my caretaker. And I don't want to be your ward."

I took a step back, horrified by what I had just said. Every heated word was true; of all the things I wished I could be to the peregrine, child was not one of them. But to speak that way to Nicias...

When I forced myself to look up at him again, he was regarding me in a way I couldn't quite interpret. "You're right," he said after a few moments. "You're a long way from being helpless. I know that. But I can still care about you, even if you don't need me to."

"I..." I didn't know how to respond to that. I tried, haltingly, to explain. "The visions have been more difficult to control of late. There is too much going on. People are making decisions, major decisions, and every time they do..." I shuddered. "It's hard."

"Because of Oliza's abdication."

I nodded.

"What have you seen?" Nicias asked.

I shook my head. "Nothing specific enough that you could guard against it; I shouldn't even have mentioned it without knowing more."

Nicias looked at me as if he was trying to read my mind. If he did try, he might succeed, but the peregrine was a gentleman, and his own morals kept his magic from violating the privacy of my thoughts.

I reached forward and touched his arm.

"You should rest," I said, feeling the exhaustion in his limbs and realizing that he had been awake not just one night but many. "Your body hasn't learned yet how to go so long without sleep."

Nicias nodded, and I felt him sway slightly as if accepting for the first time how tired he was.

You can invite me to join you,

I called mentally.

I wouldn't say no. I would carry you to sweet sleep ... and perhaps I could find the same in your arms, unhaunted by Ecl. Nicias pulled away as he nodded again.

"You're right. I'm no good to anyone in this shape, least of all my... king." I knew he had wanted to say my queen.

"Sweet dreams," I bid. Silently, I added, Sweet dreams, my light, my heart.

Once he had left, I did not know where to go. One of my father's traits had bred true; like a serpent, I did not do well with silent solitude. If I closed my eyes now, I knew I would see Keyi again. The child frightened me more than anything else in this world could.

I chose the candle shop on the northern hills.

Opal greeted me in the back room with a scowl, but the falcon didn't ask questions as I approached him; he never did. We didn't speak as he wrapped his arms around my waist, savoring the flavor of my magic and the scent of my skin. It was a false comfort, an illusion, like so much of