Gates Of Transformation:

Book Nine:Blue Sky

(unedited)

by Kracken

A copyrighted work. Any distribution of this work for profit, or using whole or parts of this work in any other work, will result in legal action.

BLUE SKY
by
Della Ann Boynton

CHAPTER ONE
(Under the Knife)
The scream went on, Jhan’s name shrieked from a raw set of vocal chords. It tortured the ears, that sound, that audible expression of horror. It was solid, a battering ram of weight and force that struck everyone in that room and left them feeling beaten and bruised. That sound was the perfect echo of Jhan’s despair, the cry she couldn’t utter herself. It brought her out of her hiding place like a snail forced out of its shell. It shoved her, as raw as that throat, into the world she had desperately tried to leave via madness.
“Silence him!”
The man with the knife had paused at the shout from the man holding the official papers. The sting of his first cut was sizzling up Jhan’s groin, every one of her muscles shivering like a beast feeling the sting of a fly. Go on, she willed him, finish it. She couldn’t bear to see that poised knife, blood on its edge, catch the light of the forge as eternity stretched out and made the world pause; anticipation as sharp as that knife.
In the deep shadows of that room, and the sullen red glow of the forge, Jhan saw a slave take hold of a club and bring it down, once, twice, and then pause in a new silence. The screaming had ceased. Satisfied at the results, the club lowered, but the rest of the world continued to pause.
“Get on with it!” The man with the papers barked.
Time resumed. The knife lowered. The man holding it frowned, sweat on his dark brow, as he decided the best way to accomplish the task. Jhan felt the cut and looked down in crystal clarity, unprotected and vulnerable, witness to her own mutilation. A little bit of flesh, a little pain, she thought. What was that to everything else she had suffered? Shouldn’t she welcome it? Kile, for all he pretended, didn’t cherish that part of her. Madness skittered on the edges of sanity. What would Kile do with three openings? What would she do? She began to laugh, hysterical, and the man with the knife looked up, frowning even more and unnerved.
A boy came into the room. He coughed nervously and held out a paper. He was thin and dark haired, faced pinched and green as he tried very hard not to look at anything in the room. He knew what they did there. He had been there himself, a brand on his upper arm fresh and still livid red.
The man with the papers took it and tried to shuffle it under the papers he already held. The boy cleared his throat again. The man scowled.
“At once, master,” the boy said in a very timid voice.
The man looked offended. With one eye on the boy, he took out the paper and broke the seal. “Kilme’s aren’t you? Running errands? That man has too much money! Spending so much, on a slave of your quality, for this... It’s obscene.”
“Silence!” The man with the knife pleaded with Jhan. Jhan’s laughter died instantly and she looked down at him with tear filled, blue eyes. The man was sucked into them, stunned, and he looked as if his heart were breaking. “I would buy you myself if I could, but I don’t have your price. I’m sorry.”
“He’s not to be bought, it seems,” the man with the papers swore and threw down the paper he had been reading. “It’s your luck that you haven’t cut him yet. He’s been freed, along with these others. They are to be taken to Nahar’s at once.”
The man with the knife sighed in relief and lowered his blade. “It’s his luck, I think.”
Jhan was unstrapped. Her legs wouldn’t hold her. The man with the knife grabbed her by an elbow and guided her away from the buckets and the blood on the floor, to sit by a long line of men who were being unchained. There were exclamations of relief all around and a pepper of anxious questions, none of them answered. After a slave forced a short tunic over Jhan’s head, she was led with the others up and out of that place of horrors and into glorious sunlight.
Jhan blinked, finding herself standing at the back of a building, a large pen before her holding hollow eyed men waiting their turn to be led down into darkness. She shuddered in sudden reaction and then began to sob. She could feel blood trickling down her legs and the sting of some cut already performed. When large hands closed on her shoulders, she spun, her sobs turning to wails of panic.
Kile stood before her with Jaross, Rehn, Tevar, and the mercenaries ranging behind him. Kile had patches of red, sticky blood on his scalp and seeping lumps where the club had hit him. It had been his screams Jhan had heard. He looked dazed, ready to faint, but he was striving with all of his might to make certain that she was all right first.
Jhan kept wailing, unable to stop herself. Kile saw the blood below the hem of her short tunic. Pale face flushing red, he slowly lifted the hem and looked underneath. His hand brushed at blood and Jhan started and choked as he examined her intimately. As much as he wished that part of Jhan gone, it was confusing to see his complete relief to still find it there. He dropped her hem and pulled her in close. He swayed, almost tumbling to the ground with Jhan underneath him. It was Jaross and Rehn, on each side, that caught him in time and bore him back to his feet.
“We have to go,” Jaross told them. His black hair was a knotted tumble about his bleak, pale face. His lip had been bitten hard, chewed bloody by his attempt not to beg when he had seen that boy gelded and knew that it might be his fate too.
Kile nodded. He kept his arms about Jhan and it was hard to walk locked together like that, but they managed. Kile kept murmuring to Jhan, trying to reassure her, but Jhan couldn’t stop making her pathetic noises, hysterical and beyond reason. The mercenaries glared at her weakness, wanting silence as they tried to deal with their own horror, but no one offered a word aloud. It was the growing madness in Kile’s eyes that stopped them.
A slave led them to a three story house among a collection of smaller buildings. It was made finer than any house they had seen so far. Wood columns and wide porches at every level, it had been painted white and was reminiscent of southern plantation mansions back on Earth. They weren’t taken inside. Instead, they were taken into a long, barracks type building that looked as if it had been hastily vacated by its occupants. Cots lined both walls and a privy was at one end with washing tubs and basins nearby.
“You will wait here,” the slave told them. “Those are my only orders.”
The mercenaries spread out. Jaross and Rehn lowered Kile and Jhan onto a cot. Kile curled up around Jhan and buried his face into her hair, rocking her like a fretful baby.
Rehn ran a hand through his mop of brown hair. It trembled. He was at a loss as to what to do. He finally sat on the edge of the cot and tried to get Kile’s attention. “Let me see how bad those bumps are,” Rehn suggested softly and then, when Kile didn’t respond, “Kile? You’ll hurt Jhan holding her like that.”
Kile said nothing. Jhan could hear the pounding of his heart above her sobs, and feel him sobbing silently as well.
“Get him off of her,” Darkai’s voice said coldly.
“I think we had better just let them be,” Jaross retorted quickly and stood to bar the man’s way.
“I just saved all of you from rotting in the mines,” Darkai snarled. “I think I am due respect, soldier.”
“What do you want?” Rehn asked, brown eyes defiant. “All of this is because of you and yet you expect us to thank you now?”
“You are under my orders!” Darkai reminded Jaross. “You will obey me or I will have you sent back to the slave pens!”
Tevar grabbed Jaross’s elbow hard before he could attack Darkai . “Stand back, soldier,” he warned. His hawk like face was grave and tight about the eyes. “We don’t have the advantage here.”
“Wisdom at last.” Darkai motioned to some of the mercenaries. They came forward reluctantly. Rehn was slow to step aside. Tevar took hold of his arm, insistent.
The mercenaries grabbed Kile and Jhan and attempted to separate them. Kile howled like a wounded beast and Jhan sobbed hysterically. Kile held onto Jhan with desperate strength. She held onto him until she almost cut off his air. The mercenaries, breathing hard, finally backed off, defeated and not unhappy about it.
“He won’t let go of his boy?” Yunij wondered as he approached. The man had a gash over one eye and that eye was swollen shut. He approached Kile carefully, put hands on hips, and then glared at Darkai. “He was ready to die for him when we were taken prisoner. You have to honor a man for that, even a perverted man. Leave them alone, Lord Darkai. They both look like they’ve lost their minds, and who can blame them after what just happened back there?” He shook his head in pain and spat aside. “What use can separating them be to you?”
“My business is none of your concern,” Darkai drew himself up. He was wearing a purple robe bordered in white and his dark hair was swept back in an intricate braid. He looked tense about the situation, but fresh and clean. He didn’t look like a man who had just come from saving a princess of the Alamien from the Bhuntay.
“I know that we owe our release to you, my Lord Darkai,” Yunij replied tightly, “but I’m in command, along with Tevar, while my Captain Alidae is gone missing. Alidae made Jhan a part of that command. Despite what he is, his well being is my concern until my Captain tells me that it isn’t any longer.”
“Alidae is with me, as well as Princess Avrilla,” Darkai told him coolly. “I am taking Jhan to them. Does that satisfy you? It had best, because, though I am sworn to heal and to care for men, there is a larger cause at stake here, one that might call for me to set aside that oath. It is a threat, Yunij. You know I am capable of carrying it out.”
“Take them both,” Rehn suggested reasonably.
Yunij and Darkai glared at Rehn. He swallowed nervously, gathered his courage, and repeated himself again.
“Take them both. If you don’t mean Jhan any harm, why not take Kile along as well?”
Darkai didn’t affirm or deny Rehn’s assumption. He studied Kile and Jhan a moment and then grumbled, “All right! If you can’t force them apart, force them to come with me together.”
Yunij nodded to his men and the mercenaries pushed and shoved Kile and Jhan from the bed. Kile obeyed, but he wouldn’t loosen his grip on Jhan and the wild look never left his eyes. They herded him like a beast towards the door and Jhan was half dragged, half carried along.
Crushed against Kile’s chest, Jhan wasn’t certain where they went. The way seemed twisting and long. She only saw flashes of the city and a darkening as they entered a building. She was still in a full panic, her heart pounding and her sobs still audible. To know that they were leaving their friends behind, and once again being thrust into the unknown, was almost more than she could bear.
Jhan didn’t know how she suddenly became free of Kile. One moment he was a hot, sweating presence all about her and then, he was gone and she was being seated on a stool in a room full of books, tables, and oddly shaped equipment. Kile wasn’t anywhere that Jhan could see. Darkai was. He was pouring something from a flask into a cup.
“Captain Kile will sleep awhile and awake unharmed,” Darkai told her. He brought the cup over to her and placed it into her hand. “Drink that and stop your noises.”
Jhan clutched the cup, her throat dry and sore from her cries. She knew that she shouldn’t drink anything that Darkai gave her, but she was too dazed to remember why. Her thirst was stronger than a half remembered sense of danger. She sipped from the cup and found the liquid inside strongly acidic. When it didn’t quench her thirst, she stopped drinking and let the cup tumble from her fingers. Darkai retrieved it fastidiously and put it away.
The room had gone silent. It was a moment before Jhan understood why. Her cries had stopped. A definite lethargy was creeping over her. She had been drugged. When Darkai approached her and looked into her eyes, he nodded in satisfaction, slid his arms under her, and lifted her up like a child.
“You hardly weigh anything at all,” Darkai muttered as he carried her over to a table and laid her out. With a pair of shears, he cut her slave tunic from her body and then tossed the rag aside into a waste bin. The shears clattered metallically as he put them away.
“Good,” Darkai murmured to himself as his fingers pried and felt between Jhan’s legs. “My order was in time to save you some pain, I see. A little cut. Nothing serious.”
Darkai examined Jhan then, an inch at a time, pausing at dark bruises and swollen knots. The drug had robbed Jhan of thought or will to act. She was a lifeless doll, unable to even feel outrage or humiliation. The drug had made everything distant and pleasant, Darkai’s fingers an odd pleasure instead of a threat.
“Something has changed,” Darkai said with a frown. His eyes swept Jhan from crown to heel, trying to fathom what it might be. “You look more like the boy you are, more like a child, though I know that you aren’t one. Hm, it’s something more than that. Something I can’t put into words. Are you uglier, perhaps? Thinner, yes, more worn, yes, but lacking in that appeal you once had. I wonder why?”
Darkai rolled machines over to Jhan, gleaming metal with odd armatures and instruments attached to them. Everything smelled antiseptic. Jhan stared into their gleaming surfaces, seeing her oddly distorted features. Darkai fiddled with a calibration and then brought one down to Jhan’s body.
“Sleep for a time,” Darkai ordered. “Nothing is going to change. I’m not going to harm you in any way.”
A numbness began rapidly to engulf Jhan. Her head seemed to fill with cotton. Darkai was humming softly to himself. That humming echoed and vibrated down to the very center of Jhan’s being, the part of her that was screaming and fighting the drugs with every ounce of her strength. It distracted her, gave her pause, long enough for the drugs to sap all of her will away and send her falling off the edge of unconsciousness.

CHAPTER TWO
(Beasts)
Jhan awoke in a soft bed with embroidered down comforters. Two lanterns illuminated a cozy room with a painting of flowers on one wall, a small table and chair of dark, rich wood at its center, and a green oval of carpet under that. The bed was against a far wall, a covered chamber pot next to it. A low side table held a pitcher of water, a bowl for washing, and a cup for drinking.
Jhan’s hands slid over the embroidery on the comforters. The needlework was done in gold thread; paisley like designs and concentric circles on a rich purple background. She lost herself in it while she tried to orient herself and remember where she was.
Kile softly opened the door. He was balancing a tray of food in one hand while he negotiated the knob with the other. He managed to get the door closed and locked without mishap. Concentrating on the tray, he didn’t see that Jhan was awake as he set it down on the table and then slid into a the chair with a depressed sigh.
Jhan stared at him. He was still dressed in his battered red uniform, his gold curls hanging loosely in his strong face. His clear, blue eyes were almost hidden under the frown of his gold brows. Ugly bruises marred those handsome features and they gave him a tragic, abused appearance. He took a bit of meat and tore it apart in his big hands, lost in his bleak thoughts.
Jhan couldn’t find the strength to speak. She didn’t want to know what the situation was, she realized. She couldn’t find the courage to face anything. It was good, sitting in silence, pretending that time had stopped and that nothing bad could happen as long as she didn’t move to break the moment.
It was Kile who broke it. He turned his head, maybe noticing at last a change in her breathing. He saw her awake and concern replaced depression. He flicked the shredded meat from his fingers, wiped those fingers on his ragged uniform, and rose to walk over to the bed.
“Little Love?” Kile whispered.
“I hope you’re not blaming yourself?” Jhan whispered back, finding her throat as dry as a desert.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Kile picked up a rag, wetted it in the bowl of water, and then sat on the bed beside Jhan. He patiently bathed her face with it. It felt very cool and soothing.
“We went a little mad,” Jhan sighed, reaching up to close her hand over his. They both held the rag for a moment and then Kile drew away, expression heavy with guilt. “We both did and said things best forgotten.”
Kile turned his face away, frowning even more. Jhan folded back the covers.
“Get in.” Jhan felt a moment of panic when Kile didn’t move, but then he was slipping off his boots and getting in beside her. Jhan wrapped her arms about him and pillowed her head on his chest. Kile smoothed her black curls from her forehead in gentle strokes, but continued to say nothing.
Jhan was naked. Thin as a blade, a bit of flesh and skin stretched over bird bones, she had only small breasts and a faint curve of hip to mark her as other than a young boy, that and a woman’s face that could break hearts. This close, Kile had never been able to resist feeling her skin, cupping her breasts, or running fingers over or between her hips. Now, he did nothing, and that stillness frightened Jhan. It was as if the spirit had been sucked out of him, the passion that had always risen for her gone.
“What’s wrong?” Jhan wondered, reluctant and frightened to hear the answer.
“I don’t know,” Kile admitted, knowing what she was asking. “Darkai told me that he didn’t touch you. He said that he couldn’t. After he drugged you, you curled up on your side and sucked your thumb. He was confused. He told me that, before, it had been easy to think of using you for his purposes. Now, it’s unthinkable. Something’s changed. He couldn’t put it into words very well, but I knew what he meant. When he brought me to you and I took you in my arms... It was like holding a different person. It’s still like that. You’ve always made me burn until I thought I would go mad for wanting you. Now...”
“Now?” Jhan echoed dully and felt a stab of pain in her heart.
“It’s just different,” Kile replied with difficulty. “It’s not something you can put into words.”
“It’s gone then,” Jhan said softly and remembered a stray dream, or had it been a dream? The burning feeling of ‘wrong’ when her very DNA had been changed by Dagara had reappeared in that dream. It wasn’t a feeling that could be imagined. It was beyond experience, a rape deeper than any a physical body could manage to perpetrate. “You don’t want me any more,” she affirmed. “My glamour has finally worn off or been taken away.”
“Darkai said that he didn’t touch you,” Kile said doubtfully, trying to understand what she was saying. “I looked you over. I didn’t see any sign-”
“It’s inside,” Jhan interjected. “A thing that makes me smell, makes me glow, makes me exude ‘ irresistible'. It’s been taken away.” Jhan felt tears well up. “What do we have left now? It was the only thing that let you be with me. Now, I’m just a mutilated boy with breasts!”
Kile was angry. He shoved the blankets off of them both and surged up on his arms to look down at Jhan. “I know you don’t have much cause to think that I’m anything, but what’s between my legs, but I assure you, Love of my Life, that it takes more than a-a smell or a glow to make me stay with you. I’m a thekling for you, a boy lover, a pervert. It’s all true, and still true, and I don’t want it any other way!”
Jhan blinked, stunned, but her life had been too full of misery and betrayal to believe mere words. “Prove it,” she whispered, daring him with her deep blue eyes.
Kile didn’t move. His words were full of fear. “Do you still want me? I was going to kill you. I was afraid of what was going to happen. You had more faith. We managed to get through it unscathed, at least physically, and here we are, arguing about sex as if we were safe at home and cozy in our own bed. I would have had us making our bed in a cold grave.”
“I didn’t have more faith,” Jhan admitted, staring up at him and trying to read the thoughts behind his eyes, to know if he truly still wanted her. She knew a man could bed anything if he closed his eyes. Would she know the difference? “I thought Poltrane was going to rape me,” Jhan continued, “and then toss me to his men when he was done... if I was still alive.”
Kile sat up, shocked. “Then, why?”
“It didn’t matter,” Jhan told him emphatically. “I was willing to endure it in the hopes of getting back to you. If you had killed me, I would have lost you then and there. I couldn’t bear that.”
“How can you love me so much?” Kile wondered in anguish. “I don’t deserve it!”
“I deserve it,” Jhan countered.
Kile swallowed tears. His rough hand reached out to her and ran gently along her side. Jhan shivered under the touch, but kept still as he slowly felt her over, as if seeing her for the first time. He took a very long time coming to her navel and what was below it. He played with her breasts, squeezing the nipples and smiling nervously as she made a small sound of pleasure. That smile dropped too quickly.
At last, Kile’s hand delved between Jhan’s legs, parting her knees and laying her legs wide so that he had a full view. It was a very vulnerable position. Jhan wanted to cringe and close up like a flower, but she gritted her teeth and kept her legs open, ignoring her inner demons that remembered torture and pain in that position.
“It IS different,” Kile whispered, but Jhan didn’t have time to weep before he added, "but not too different. You are still very beautiful. Delicate like an eggshell. I just don’t have that overwhelming urge to devour you. I want... it’s quieter, my need for you, but still there. It’s you I want, not so much your body any longer. Do you understand?”
Jhan took hold of Kile’s hand and put it in the one place he was avoiding. He took hold of her and she firmed under his fingers. His face tightened into a grimace. It was such a small piece of flesh to cause such anguish, but without it, Jhan couldn’t feel anything. They both knew it. It couldn’t be taken away. Without it, Jhan would have been worse than an eunuch, had been and didn’t want to be again.
Kile chuckled suddenly and Jhan started, frowning. Kile shook his head, reassuring her. “It’s my pride that’s getting in the way and the things I’ve been taught all of my life. You’ll have to be patient with me now instead of the other way around.” He turned serious, lowering his voice as he slowly began taking off his clothes. “Woman, man, it doesn’t matter. I want the person I love no matter how my body feels about it, and that’s the honest truth.”
Maybe that had to do for them both, Jhan thought, remembering the foggy dream of Omai and how her body had known, even in the faintest manner, what it had wanted. Jhanian Kevelt wasn’t a thekling either, but love was enough to make passion where the body was uninterested. Jhan had learned that when she had first had sex with Kile. She was still using that knowledge. Her body could feel pleasure now, but it was as reluctant as Kile’s to want the body next to her.
Kile was naked and settling in front of Jhan. He wasn’t ready for her. The situation was too tense, too uncertain. Without Jhan’s glamour of sexuality, could he even respond to her? She could see that he was as unsure of that as she was.
“Do you think Darkai did this to me?” Jhan wondered as Kile began touching her again, running her short, faux penis between his thick fingers. He wore a fascinated expression, and Jhan realized then that he had never really looked at the thing, acknowledged it for what it was. It had all been pretense before, or something her magnetism had made acceptable to Kile. Now, stripped of all but stark reality, it wasn’t to be lumped with her feminine body, a spice in a rich sauce. This was a dish all its own.
“I don’t know,” Kile replied tensely when Jhan thought that he hadn’t heard her. “He didn’t like us together. I can see, if he did change you, why he would have.” Kile grimaced. “I’m not about to begin to believe him now when he says he didn’t do anything to you.”
Jhan remembered the dream of Prince Hajian again, but it was all too hazy. How could it have been real? It was more logical to think that Darkai had done this to her and that his plans weren’t over yet.
“Don’t think,” Kile complained. “I’m trying to seduce you.”
“Or yourself,” Jhan replied bitterly.
“Shhh!” Kile admonished and she fell silent, lying back against her pillow and keeping the many other questions she had behind her tense lips.
Kile pressed the flesh down on either side of her erect bit of flesh, studying it, as it stood up and away from her body.
“He’s very good.” Kile said at last, meaning Darkai. “It does look like a... I don’t see any stitching or scars.” Kile became troubled. “Like a little boy.” His face turned red, disturbed by a new thought.
“I’m not,” Jhan assured him irritably. “I’m almost twenty years old, Kile, so get that look off your face!”
Kile was startled, but he nodded. “I know, but it was easier to just think of it as an extra.. well, a larger part of a woman. You know that’s what I was thinking when I... I can’t even talk about it.”
“Then it’s over, isn’t it?” Jhan breathed in anguish. “You can’t bear the thought of what I am now, can you? You’re not excited by me, not even a little. Without that trick of Dagara’s, to make me irresistible, you don’t want me! I-”
Jhan stopped with an in drawn shudder of breath as Kile leaned forward, eyes intense, and ran his tongue along Jhan’s erect penis. She shivered as that tongue lapped at the tip and then curled around to stroke the underside. He was diligent, totally absorbed in the task, intently trying to sort out his own feelings about what he was doing.
It was like being licked by a tiger, great, rasping tongue taking her with bold strokes, making Jhan’s hips tighten and tremble and her hands knot in the blankets. There wasn’t any space between Jhan’s opening and her penis. It extended inside. Kile’s tongue jammed into that opening like a warm, wet spear. The opening was numb, but the underside of her penis was alive with nerves. Kile couldn’t hide his delight when Jhan let out a tortured moan of pleasure.
Kile’s tongue stroked and lapped. “Beautiful,” he murmuring and he smiled, but it was shaky. ”You still are that.”
Jhan felt tears. “I don’t want to be this, Kile,” she replied angrily.” I am a woman. I don’t want to be both.... but I have to be. The Sahvossa always told me that I would have to accept myself sooner or later. I never imagined it would have to be as this! I’ve never been lucky, so you can understand why I can’t believe that I managed to fall in love with the one man who can accept it too.”
“Love yourself, Jhan,” Kile urge her, looking ready to cry too. “See what I see. Know how truly beautiful you are and how beautiful I find you. You will always be a woman inside, I know, but this is hardly more than that.” he touched her penis for emphasis. “A little more than a woman has and much less than a man. We CAN both accept it.”
Jhan found herself nodding, but she felt grief too. That grief was for the life she knew that she had to live as she was. It was contrary to all she had hoped and dreamed for, all she had ever wanted from her life. It was a hijacking of everything she had held dear. A miserable, mangling rape that had left her a creature she wanted to call monstrous and unnatural.
Kile was looking at her. Jhan looked back, taking in every soft line of his face, every handsome angle, and every beautiful blue glint of his eyes. Those eyes were pleading, shinning with his love for her. He was willing to attempt happiness, could she do any less?
“I do deserve you,” Jhan whispered, choking on her tears.
Kile smiled more confidently then and his eyes became sensual, needy. He took her penis in his soft, moist, warm mouth and began a rhythm that made Jhan buck and gasp. He pulled, sucked, and tormented her, hands grabbing her hips and kneading her as he brought them up to give himself more freedom.
Jhan took a lock of Kile’s gold hair and gave it a light pull to get his attention. Kile frowned at the interruption, but left off his gentle torment when Jhan slid down until they were body to body, her head just level with his chest. She remembered Omai’s breasts and felt a tingling that made her harder. She almost put it from her mind, disgusted and ashamed now that she wasn’t drunk, but then began to understand how she could use that faint echo of Jhanian to advantage. If that was the only ‘need’ that she could feel, then she had to transpose it somehow to the body her mind wanted.
Jhan’s mouth found the nipples on Kile’s chest, buried in the faint nest of gold hair that covered his wide chest. Kile stiffened, uncertain, but then he relaxed and let out a small sigh of pleasure. Jhan played there, thinking of fuller and softer breasts, but content with what Kile had. She took it a step further and imagined herself stronger, possessing Kile, but a more feminine Kile, able to conquer him and... Jhan felt her body flush with heat.
Kile felt it. He was more than ready to respond, his body overcoming his confusion at last and demanding its due. He turned her, facing her away from him and pulling her body up against him. On their sides, he kissed the top of her head, craned his head to run his tongue inside of her ear, and then pushed himself into her opening from behind.
It was an impossible stretching sensation, but not much more than that. Jhan braced herself to endure it, to have patience until it was over. Kile had other ideas. He reached around to take hold of her penis in his hand. He stroked it with slow maddening motions, while his body began thrusting in and out of her. It was a total acceptance, at last, of what she was and what he was doing.
Jhan bucked and shuddered in his gasp, impaled on an iron piston and every fiber of her nerves riveted on the place between her legs. It didn’t seem possible that such a narrow bit of flesh could take that sort of punishment, but Kile knew better. In control despite the throbbing, rhythmic motions the inside of Jhan was performing on his manhood, he held himself in check until he knew that Jhan was on the verge of a pinnacle of sensation.
In one smooth motion, Kile rolled Jhan onto her face, pulling her hips up without missing a stroke on either side of her. He rode her and pumped her with his hand, groaning like a wild beast while she matched his noise with groans of her own. She felt her toes curl and her eyes began to see shots of light.
The climax was short and sharp, a child’s, but it left a deep, warm throbbing that was all encompassing. For Jhan it was enough to make her cry out and laugh as she panted; like riding on a wave of pleasure to a far away shore. Kile was only a moment after her, shouting hoarsely and spasming against her back like a landed fish. When he quieted, he stayed where he was, playing with her until Jhan couldn’t hold that position any longer and let her trembling legs fold. She turned on her side, legs tucked up, and stared up into Kile’s face with a glowing smile.
“I love you,” she whispered with all of her heart.
Kile collapsed beside her and ran a hand along her face, smiling a sated smile back at her. “I can’t imagine why.” he gathered her against him and she snuggled and sighed.
“I’m ready to hear the rest of it now,” Jhan said in a small voice that was far from certain.
Kile was silent, maybe trying to bring himself back from the lands of ecstasy enough to figure out what she was asking him. “How we ended up here?” he understood at last.
“Are we still prisoners?”
“No,” Kile replied, but he was distant, his hands still idly caressing her.
“Kile?”
Kile was cross now. “How do you expect me to think after what we just did?”
“You can skip the ugly details,” Jhan persisted. “Just the bare bones is all I want to know.”
“We were judged enemies by the council and thrown into slavery,” Kile replied stiffly. “It’s as simple as that. The men were going to be given to the mines and the women... Bheni was given to Poltrane. Once they knew what you were, they were all eager to have you.” Kile paused and then went on, knowing it had to be said. “They drew lots for you. The councilman that won ordered you cut at once. I fought, Jhan, I thought- I thought- I did loose my mind trying to save you.”
“I know,” Jhan whispered and drew his arms around her.
Kile swallowed, his blue eyes almost hidden by his gold brows as he grimaced in mental anguish. “Darkai arrived. He was the one who saved us. He has a great deal of power here. They seemed frightened of him. They didn’t even argue with him, just let us go when he ordered it.”
“Will he let us go now?” Jhan wondered without much hope. “After all of this trouble?”
“No.” Kile was honest.
“What does he intend to do?”
“I don’t know.” Kile kissed her. “At least he won’t change you again.”
Jhan didn’t have any such hope.

CHAPTER THREE
(The Road to Blue Sky)
They were allowed a day alone. A servant brought food, and a stack of clothes for Jhan, but he was the only person they saw. The door wasn’t locked, but Kile never went to try and open it. Neither of them doubted that there would be a guard on the other side or, failing that, someone else to bar the way to escape.
“I need a bath,” Jhan complained as she slowly peeled the shell off of a boiled egg. She and Kile were sitting on the bed, a bowl of the eggs and a plate of cold meats between them. “It seems a shame to put on clean clothes when my skin is crawling with dirt.”
“You are not crawling with dirt,” Kile replied. “Darkai must have cleaned you up.”
Jhan gave Kile a studied smile, admiring his handsome features and the way his eyes were wide and full of simple, pleasant thoughts. She knew that her own were dark and shadowed with nightmares. Jhan wondered how Kile found it so easy to look at her.
Kile relented. “Well, I suppose we could just sponge each other off. That might prove interesting.”
Jhan sighed reprovingly. “We should be making some sort of plan to escape, not giving you another chance in the pillows.”
Kile grew serious as he wetted a rag and wrung out the excess into the bowl beside the bed. “You know that’s a waste of time. We might as well enjoy..”
“The time we have left to be together?” Jhan finished bitterly.
“I didn’t want to say that, but you know it’s true.”
Kile had been wearing his pants to deal with the servants, but Jhan only had the blankets of the bed pulled up around her. She watched Kile strip and begin washing off with the rag. He was as careful as a cat, taking so long at it that Jhan began to wonder if he were deliberately putting on a show for her.
“Very nice,” Jhan growled in mock impatience as she took the rag, cleaned it in the water, and then began to washing herself. “I suppose you’ll want me to take as long as that?”
Kile lay back in the bed in all his glorious nudity. He smiled at her, already showing that he was appreciating the view. “As long as you like,” he replied with a chuckle.
Kile was disappointed when Jhan finished quickly, but he was mollified when she climbed on top of him and lay there, head pillowed on the curve of his shoulder. He pulled the blanket over them both after setting the plate of meat and eggs aside on the table next to the bowl of dirty water.
Kile ran his hands over Jhan in gentle, massaging motions, settling on her lower back and the small rounded moon of her hips, but he didn’t go any further than that and they both fell asleep clean, relaxed, and warm. The danger outside was another world. Nothing to do with them. They both determined to hold onto that fantasy as long as they could.

“I need to take Jhan home!”
Kile’s voice was frantic, unreasonable. Jhan started awake and sat up in the bed, jerking the blankets up over herself modestly. Alidae, Kile, Bheni, Rehn, Jaross, and Tevar were all standing by the open doorway. Jhan turned red in embarrassment.
“What’s going on?” Jhan shouted. It was interesting to see who hadn’t noticed that she was in the bed. Alidae was one of them, Tevar the other. Tevar had on an expression of ill concealed envy. Alidae was furious.
“You gave me your word!” Alidae shouted at Kile. He was bent over, shouting into Kile’s face, purple eyes snapping in outrage.
“I’m not under your command any longer!” Kile shouted back, jabbing a finger at Alidae and unused to having anyone cast a shadow over him. “What Jhan and I do together is none of your concern!”
“But you will still be traveling with us!” Alidae snapped back. “I will not have this disruption among my men! Tevar! You will command Captain Kile to order at once!”
Jhan recalled a night when she had seen Alidae come from the trees, arousing her suspicions. She took a chance and said, “I don’t see why Kile should follow your orders when you won’t follow them yourself... or some of your own men for that matter!”
Jhan felt a chill of fear when Alidae turned his head and pierced her with those purple eyes, his long face going bloodless. “You are not Alamien. You don’t understand. There are... difficulties.” He paused, trying to find the words. He decided a denial was clearer. “I am not Human. I can’t mate outside of Readiness. I feel nothing outside of that.”
“I know what I saw,” Jhan persisted.
“You may see it again,” Alidae told her coldly, “but it will not be what you think it is.”
“One of your men seemed pleased to do whatever that was.”
Alidae gave a shrug, his gaze never wavering from Jhan. “Alamien men have their sexual organs inside of their bodies. Sometimes, they become entangled. It is not something that I can easily resolve on my own. What I asked of Deverel was not pleasant and very difficult. He asked for a reward and I granted it. It mystifies me why it pleases him as it mystifies me why it pleases Captain Kile to mate with you, but that is as it is. My men don’t envy the man who helps me. You are another matter. They see themselves with you as well and that causes competition to mate with you. We can’t afford fights or enmity.”
“They won’t,” Jhan told him steadily. “Not now. I’ve changed.” Jhan looked at Jaross and Rehn. “Can you see it?”
They returned her gaze, both of them frowning. Rehn’s plain, brown features were twisted in a combination of puzzlement and distaste of the entire conversation. Jaross’s moody brown eyes took Jhan in, slowly sweeping her from crown to heel. He was the first to speak, but he was uncertain.
“Something is different.” Jaross stepped closer to Jhan. “What’s happened?”
“You tell me,” Jhan challenged.
Jaross groped. “You look... I’ve always been drawn to you, violently. Every time I’ve looked at you, I’ve wanted to-to... it was always so over powering, so inexplicable. You’ve always seemed easy to conquer, almost demanding it, demanding that I push you down and... I was always horrified by it, that I could feel like doing things like that to anyone. Now, all I see are those big eyes and that child face and... I don’t feel anything except maybe that I want to comfort you and, being so small and vulnerable, protect you. I feel... is this making any sense? I feel angry that Kile had you in bed. He’s so big and stupid. I wonder if he hurt you. It makes me angry thinking he might have.”
Jhan nodded . What she was feeling was utter relief, a confirmation, though not an explanation of how she had been changed. “Dagara made me to prick and draw out every instinctive urge in a man. From the glow of my fingernails, to the subtle shape of my body; even my smell was designed to drive a man mad for wanting me. Somehow, it was changed. You don’t want me either, do you Rehn?”
Rehn shook his head, unable to speak, but his eyes were clear with their relief. Some inner turmoil was settled for him as well.
“This is all ridiculous!" Bheni snorted, drawing herself up indignantly. “You are not to blame that men cannot control themselves. You have been through a great deal. You’ve concocted this fantasy-”
“No, it isn’t a fantasy,” Tevar contradicted her quickly. “I’ve felt it too and you know she doesn’t have anything to interest me.”
They all looked at Alidae, but he was incensed. “That creature is an animal to me, of no interest now or ever,” he said cuttingly, “but if you’re trying to convince me that what you two do together won’t be disruptive...”
“I’m saying it doesn’t matter,” Kile shot back. “We aren’t going with you.”
“You must!” Bheni surprised Jhan by arguing. “If you go back the way we came, you will only run into enemies ten deep! If you return to the Alamien without their princess they will not be eager to welcome you either! Think, Kile! You have to go to Blue Sky with us and then take the trade roads back to Pekarin, wide of the conflict engulfing this place.”
Kile shook his head quickly. “That’s through the mountains.”
“I don’t like mountains,” Jhan said with a shiver.
“There won’t be any snow at the lower heights,” Jaross assured her. “And it’s a well worn route.”
Jhan was bitter. “If you’re about to tell me that it’s an easy ride I’ll-’
“I’m not that much of a fool!” Jaross growled with hands on hips. “Any journey has risk, but it will be less than riding back the way we came.”
“How long?” Jhan wondered, near tears. “How long this time?”
“Two weeks,” Jaross replied with certainty.
“If the weather holds,” Tevar was more skeptical, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “It’s almost the rainy season. If the water starts pouring down, it’ll be mud and swollen rivers all the way.”
“You have sworn to protect Princess Avrilla,” Alidae reminded them all.
Tevar was incensed, nostrils flaring and eyes glittering dangerously. “Are you questioning my honor? I will protect Avrilla all the way back to the Alamien, but surely you can see as well that your safest route is back by way of Pekarin and around to the Silverwood from there? The Bhuntay would only be too happy to have you and the Princess in their grasp again.”
“Then what is this discussion?” Alidae demanded. He gestured at Jhan. “I won’t have this creature in the midst of my men.”
Tevar stared up at Alidae for a long moment and then he said firmly and clearly. “Jhan is coming with us. I won’t leave any of my people behind for the enemy.”
He was appealing to Alidae’s own code of honor and Alidae knew it. He went sour, straightening to his full height and glaring at Tevar as if he would kill him on the spot. When Tevar didn’t waver, he relented, but with demands, “Captain Kile is relieved of command. He will be baggage from now on. That way, he can have the boy any way he likes and no one will complain, much. You’ll have to pay us for his protection at the end of the journey the same as Darkai.”
“I’m not a boy!” Jhan seethed.
“Whatever you call yourself, Jhanula,” Alidae stressed the inflection at the end of her name with a sneer, “is of no matter to me.”
Kile made a curt motion at Jhan before she could shout in reply, he was staring fixedly at Tevar, his jaw working as he tried to keep his anger in check. Tevar was sympathetic, but unbending as he said, “I would expect it of myself, Kile,” Tevar told him softly. “You cannot command in this situation. Jhan needs you. She is a princess of the Kevelt and of Pekarin. Her safety is my responsibility as well as Princess Avrilla’s. I order you to take her under your guard.”
It took Kile an eternity to swallow the insult as he slowly realized that the payment for it was Jhan’s safety. “Yes, Captain Tevar,” he said formally. “Am I also relieved of command of the Pekarin men?”
There was only one, Jaross, so it seemed ridiculously formal, but Tevar knew that Kile was struggling to save face. “I don’t think that we need to go that far, but, if we see conflict, they will answer to me or to Alidae and his men first, you understand?”
“Of course,” Kile replied.
“I still don’t know what is going on,” Jhan spoke up suddenly. “Where’s Darkai? What’s he going to be doing? Has he just let me go? What about the people of Amberglass? Is all forgotten and we‘re free to go?”
Alidae sniffed irritably. “I have my men to see to.” He turned and exited the room.
Tevar glanced nervously at Jhan and then away. “If you would dress, an explanation might be forthcoming.”
Jhan shook her head. “I feel safe where I am. If I get up, things might start going out of control again, and, besides, from the way you’re talking, I may not see a soft bed for some time. I’m going to enjoy it while I can. Sit down, all of you, and stop hovering like a bunch of undertakers at a funeral. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
Tevar took a chair and Bheni settled on the edge of the bed. Rehn took the other chair and Jaross stood beside the closed door as if he were on guard there, eyes remote and on nothing in particular, lost in his own inner thoughts. Kile paced, trying to come to terms with his new, awkward status.
“Darkai informed me,” Tevar began, “that, after examining you thoroughly, he has decided that you do not suite his purposes any longer.”
“That isn’t what he told Kile,” Jhan spoke up and Kile’s jaw jumped as he ground his teeth.
Tevar paused, a warning look not to interrupt. Jhan made a motion for him to continue and settled back against the pillows. “He has ordered us to go with him to Blue Sky. He says that he has equipment there necessary to his changed plans. We will go with him to guard him. You and Kile will accompany us. The people of Amberglass are allowing us to depart. That is as much as we know at this time.”
“Not much to risk our lives on,” Kile growled, “But at least, whatever the real explanation, Darkai doesn’t have plans for you any longer Jhan.”
“I’m not going to trust that until we are back in Pekarin,” Jhan replied.
“That is wise,” Bheni agreed. She eyed Jhan critically. “You look well.”
Jhan knew what she wasn’t saying. Jhan reached out and touched her hand. “You couldn’t help me,” she told Bheni. “We were prisoners.”
Bheni asked softly, eyes looking down at their hands, “What happened after I was taken away?”
Jhan pulled her hand back and went very tense, her pale face flushing scarlet. Kile noticed and became alert, eyebrows coming down over his blue eyes as he strode to the bedside.
“What did happen before you were brought to the slave pens?” Kile demanded.
Jhan remembered soft breasts and a wild collage of images that didn’t make any particular sense. She only knew that she had become Jhanian Kevelt for one night and she had, as much as she wished to deny it, enjoyed every moment of it as far as she could recall. In the stark here and now, Jhan felt a dull, prickling horror at herself. What was she becoming? How far would these changes go? Would she reach a point where she didn’t even know who she was any longer? Would the memory of Tammy finally fade into the night never to be recalled again? She was a prisoner of her body and Omai had shown her what that body truly desired. Jhanian Kevelt wasn’t completely dead.
Jhan clutched at the blankets convulsively, staring at Bheni’s breasts, swollen gloriously with milk, and stretching her leather shirt. She didn’t feel any desire. She was too distraught and those stray hormones were too few to rise without vigorous prodding. It relieved Jhan somewhat, but she couldn’t forgive her body just yet.
“Jhan?” Kile’s voice was pained, but demanding.
“I wasn’t hurt,” Jhan replied slowly, eyes lifting to Kile’s concerned face. “I had food and a bath. If Poltrane was grooming me for something else, he never had the chance to carry it out. I went to sleep, comfortable, and woke up in the slave pens.”
Kile persisted, maybe questioning Jhan’s tense face and the way she chose her words so carefully. “What happened in the slave pens before I saw you?”
Jhan shook her head. “Nothing. I woke up in a cell and then they came to-to... you now what they were going to do.”
Kile ran a hand over his face and turned away. “I know. They-They did it to someone else before you were brought out. I never... I’m going to dream about that.”
The bruises and lumps on Kile’s face were still livid and unlovely. Jhan remembered their shared madness, their clutching at one another, and their determination not to be parted. It still hadn’t stopped it from happening.
“I wish I could return to the Islands,” Bheni said suddenly, low and distraught, but then she met all their eyes and shrugged dispiritedly. “It was simple there. We lived, we loved, we fought, we birthed, and we died. This madness of changing bodies to suite perverted tastes, of using and abusing, of fighting battles with nightmares and dishonorable people, is more than I can bear.”
She looked at Jhan. “You are different,” she continued, “but how can that be? How does any of this make any sense? How can a body be made to beg for rape? What changes? Are men so base, so animal, that they can be controlled like that? It frightens me.”
“When you hunt,” Jaross said thoughtfully, “you pick out the weakest. How do you do that? You watch and then you see a limp or a posture that lets you know that you have picked the easiest beast to bring down. Why should it be different with us? When I looked at Jhan, I saw a body and a face to die for. I knew, just as a hunter knows, that she was weak and, forgive me, in heat. She told my body and mind these things by exuding a ripeness in her smell, in her demeanor, maybe even in the glow of her skin. Everything about her told me that she was the one to choose, the one I could have easily.”
“And now it’s gone,” Bheni muttered with an angry shake of her head. “Unexplained. Mysterious. Now she is a child to you. Unsexed? Uninteresting? You feel nothing for her now and you can control yourself?”
Jaross was angry. “I have been controlling myself! We all have. It was only the ones who didn’t care to control themselves that attacked Jhan. As for uninteresting...” Jaross blushed and gave Jhan a quick look. “She’s still beautiful and perfect, but I don’t think I’m interested in... having her. Without that, I can think more clearly about what she is, or isn’t.”
“Very nice,” Jhan bit out. “You’re reverting back to being sickened by me. Well, I don’t know how it all happened either. We’ll have to ask Darkai when we see him. The main point of all of this is, that I will be able to ride with the mercenaries without fear of bein-”
Kile cut her off, nostrils flaring. “Don’t think that way, Love!”’ he admonished her as if she were a complete innocent. “Maybe you don’t beg men to rape you anymore, but, as Jaross pointed out, you still look like a very beautiful woman. That hasn’t changed. There are still enough men who’ll try and lift your skirt with or without Dagara Ku Ni’s Power egging them on.”
“That’s controllable,” Jhan replied irritably. “It wasn’t before when it was bordering on madness. Now they can be made to understand that, if they try something, there is a few hundred pounds of Pekarin soldier ready to stop them.”
Kile gave her a tight smile. “And you say you aren’t brave.”
Jhan shrugged. “You’re the one who has to be brave. I just have to hide behind you.”
Kile would have replied to that, but Rehn interrupted. He looked very uncomfortable. “Are we done speaking of this now? I don’t think I can blush much more. Men shouldn’t speak about such things with a woman, and my wife at that, present.” Bheni snorted, not taking that statement seriously.
Tevar stood up, straightening his red coat. “Yes, it’s finished. We will be leaving at dawn. Pack everything and, Jaross, make certain Alidae retrieves all of our things from the Amberglass guards.”
“So simple?” Jhan was skeptical.
“I mean it to be,” Tevar growled back. “All of you will join with the mercenaries tonight. We will make certain that there isn’t any mistakes.”
Jhan patted the blankets and sighed. “See, I knew what I was talking about when I said that I should stay in bed as long as I could. Well, if you’ll all leave now, I’ll get dressed.”
They did leave, surprisingly, and Kile smiled at her expression as he closed the door behind them. “You are a princess,” he reminded her, “or, if you like,” when she frowned, “you know how to command so that nobody argues.”
Jhan stood and looked about for clothes. There was a tightly woven brown dress and a tough looking leather tunic that went over it and buttoned down the front with metal buttons. There was a simple design at the hem of the dress, a white stitching of small flowers. Jhan’s worn boots, lost at either Poltrane’s or the slave pens, had been replaced with new ones. They were obviously men’s, scuffed and broken in; something borrowed from a young boy, perhaps. The socks that went with them were too thick for comfort in the heat, but, if she had to walk, they would make good cushions for her feet.
Kile looked her up and down after she had finished dressing. He hissed in disapproval. “Those are servant’s clothes!”
Jhan folded her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been wearing men’s clothes, and a rag of a dress borrowed from A Bhuntay savage, up until now, Kile. I think this is a practical improvement.”
Kile was pulling on his coat, frowning. “I am a Duke’s son and you are a princess,” he persisted. “You are my wife. I don’t like to be insulted like this.”
Jhan smoothed down her dress as she stood, amazed at Kile. “Don’t you ever dwell on anything, Kile?”
“What do you mean?”
“After all that we just went through, you’re worried about being slighted because of the clothes I’ve been offered?” Jhan shook her head in puzzlement. “I would have thought that being nearly branded as a slave would have outraged you more.”
“We were condemned men,” Kile replied as if that made perfect sense. “They could have killed us instead and been in their rights. Now that I’ve been freed and pardoned, I expect respect again.”
“I don’t expect anything,” Jhan replied and then had a thought. “We’re going to be on the trail again,” she said. “Maybe we should have one last roll on the bed while we have time?”
Kile shrugged that off and Jhan felt a sting of hurt. “We had our night,” he said and then saw her face. He took Jhan into his arms in an instant and kissed her deeply. When he broke away he said, “I don’t need you like I did. That’s a good thing. I didn’t like not being in control of that part of me. But,” he looked down into her blue eyes, “you don’t have to be afraid that I don’t want you either, so stop testing me. If we have to, we’ll slip off into the woods.”
Jhan managed a smile, though she couldn’t help doubting still. “I don’t think Tevar meant that as part of your guard duties.”
Kile smiled too. “I’m volunteering for the extra duty.”
Jhan laughed and Kile warmed to hear it.
“I don’t hear that often enough,” he said, and then more seriously. “I will get you out of this somehow and we’ll never leave Pekarin again. I’ll ring you with guards, put extra locks on our door- “
“Cover me with pillows to soften any fall...,” Jhan laughed again, but shook her head too. “I wish it were that simple, but you know I can’t live that way. Don’t encourage it. It’s takes all my strength not to be hiding under the bed right now.”
Kile put a big arm around her and led her to the door. “Then let’s get away from it now and find the men.”
They were in the house of an official, Jhan realized at once as they entered a wide hallway. It had a white marble floor, gold painted wainscotting on each side, and crystal, globe lights hanging intermittently from the ceiling. Windows, with fine glass, were so numerous, that even Kile was consternated by the opulence of it. He touched one in awe.
“I’ve never seen glass so fine,” Kile admitted in an undertone. “It’s at odds with the primitive buildings I’ve seen so far.”
“Maybe this is Darkai’s place?” Jhan wondered. “If he keeps his machines here then it would follow that the rest of the place would be more advanced than anything else in town.”
“Why Amberglass?” Kile mused.
“What?”
Kile shrugged. “Why have any of his things here? He spends his time with the Alamien.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want the Alamien to know about them?”
Kile had never been good at thinking. He wasn’t able to come to any conclusions and Jhan hadn’t expected him to. She couldn’t begin to guess the mind of Darkai. He was far too convoluted a personality.
There were few servants. Kile picked at the sleeve of one, a dark skinned native, and asked directions. He was directed to go out two double doors of heavy wood and they found themselves in a garden. Frowning, Kile was about to backtrack and ask again, but Jhan stopped him and pointed to a path that cut through the center of the garden and ended at a gate half hidden by a tangle of vines with deep violet blooms.
Going through the gate, they found themselves in a grassy area near a large building of rough wood. It too was covered in the vines and it looked very quaint in the sparkling sunshine. The mercenaries lounging about it were a stark contrast. They were wearing their full battle gear, hodgepodge of armor, thick plated leather, and bristling weapons. They were nervously alert and they half drew weapons as Jhan and Kile approached.
Jhan could tell at once that Kile was embarrassed. When they had seen the mercenaries last, he had been wild with grief and anger, clutching at Jhan and having to be dragged off like a lunatic. Now he was demoted, lesser than any of these men, and guard to Jhan, a creature all of them despised. Kile didn’t even have the power to order these men to let him enter the building.
Yunij was one of the men on guard. He looked Jhan up and down and then frowned as if he had lost something, searching her while his frown slowly smoothed out to be replaced by discomfort peppered with a bit of concern.
“They didn’t hurt your little boy, did they, Captain Kile? He’s pale as a ghost.”
Kile had been waiting for an insult. He took a long moment, trying to find sarcasm. He didn’t find any and he tried not to look surprised. “No, they didn’t hurt Jhan,” he replied carefully.
“Get him some food then,” Yunij told him gruffly. “Trey’s cooking. Your bit of fluff could use some fattening up.” Yunij stepped aside.
Jhan couldn’t believe that it was as simple as that. She was used to intense looks from men and obvious interest. She was used to the tension in the air of lust barely restrained; aching, frustrated, desire. To be looked at as if she were simply uninteresting flesh and blood that needing some tending, was shocking and untrustworthy. Jhan found herself waiting for more, waiting for the inevitable leer or filthy remark, but Yunij had turned away to speak to another man, and even that man wasn’t looking at her.
Kile was taking notice as well. He raised gold eyebrows at Jhan and said softly, “That will take some getting used to, but I’m very glad that only I see you as the beautiful, enticing, person you are. I never liked the competition.”
“As if you could have any,” Jhan replied, managing humor. “I did marry the handsomest man in Pekarin.”
“Not just in Pekarin,” Kile corrected her vainly as they entered the building.
The mercenaries were sitting about tensely, everyone armed, amid sacks of dry goods and animal feed. It was obviously a supply barn, but the smell of imala was strong through the open, door on the opposite side of the building. The mercenaries were settled by that door, ready to spring into action and not about to be trapped inside.
“Why weren’t they allowed to stay in that barracks?” Jhan wondered under her breath.
“Undefendable,” Kile replied. “We’re not trusting the people of Amberglass until they’re far behind us.”
Jhan and Kile were given idle looks, curiosity mainly. Some appeared relieved, not willing to see even their oddest members lost to an enemy. Again, Jhan was struck by those glances passing over her too quickly, dismissing her as too thin, too short, too young, too something that wasn’t acceptable instead of the usual frightening ‘want’. There was something else too, Jhan noticed. The tremendous disgust and hate she was accustomed to was missing as well. There were uncomfortable glances and some distaste, but it was muted, almost bored and well worn. Now that their revulsion for her wasn’t contradicted by the desire they had all felt for her, it was simple to ignore her.
Raveni openly sneered at Jhan as they passed. “I thought we were well rid of Captain Kile’s whore.”
Kile reached out a big hand and wrapped it into the front of Raveni’s leather vest. He pulled Raveni close, dragging him off of the barrel he had been sitting on. Stunned, Raveni didn’t think to draw a weapon as Kile turned his angry face and bored into Raveni with ice blue eyes.
“She is my wife! Oathed to me! Where is your honor?” Kile demanded furiously. “You will beg her pardon or I will slay you now.”
“Put a veil on the freak,” Raveni growled back, finding his courage, “if it wishes to be other than a warrior!”
Jaross was suddenly there, hand on his sword hilt. “You are insulting Princess Jhanian Kevelt, Raveni,” he informed him coolly. “Beg her pardon.”
“Her?” Raveni, still hanging in Kile’s grip, spat aside. “Has ‘she’ born you children?”
Kile shoved Raveni away from him violently. Raveni sprawled back over the barrel before catching his balance. He laughed at Kile. “By even the most generous tenants of the laws of my people, that creature is honorless; a whore. You know that. Will you slay me for speaking the truth? It doesn’t wear the veil. It sleeps among all of these men. How am I wrong? Teach me the error of my ways.”
Jhan spoke up, slow and painful, but to the point. “Kile doesn’t tell me to wear the veil, or to follow strict custom, because there isn’t any one who can beat him in combat, Raveni. My husband has my honor in his keeping and he is more than able to defend it. Veils and strict custom are for the wives of weaklings and cowards.”
Raveni narrowed his eyes, his smile disappearing as he gritted his teeth and put his hand on his sword hilt. He looked Kile up and down, noting the well worn sheathe and the leather grip of the pommel of his sword that had been polished to a dull sheen by long handling. Kile’s bulging biceps were an indication that he was barely leashed from attacking Raveni.
“What’s your point?” Jhan demanded. “There is one, isn’t there?”
“Only that this is a place for warriors,” Raveni replied. “You should stay with our employers.” He jerked his head and they all looked to where Darkai was standing with Avrilla and Alidae some distance off, conferring in low tones. “You shouldn’t presume to mingle with us if , as you claim, you are not a camp whore.”
“Are you challenging me?” Kile wondered in a tone that said he hoped that Raveni was.
Raveni laughed and the scars on his face became livid, moving like snakes against his skin as his face contorted in humor. “Only you would wish that sort of creature for a mate, Captain Kile!” He turned away insolently.
Jhan put a hand on Kile’s arm. He glared down at her. “Forget him,” Jhan urged him.
“Yes, he’s stupid,” Jaross agreed, even though he looked as if he would have liked to gut Raveni on his sword as well. “Don’t dirty your blade.”
Bales of hay had been pulled down from a large stack of them, and scattered about for makeshift chairs. Rehn and Bheni were seated on one, staring about them idly. Kile led Jhan over to them, hooked a bale of hay close, and pushed her down until she was sitting on it.
“Don’t move,” he told her commandingly. “I’ll get us some food.”
Jaross arranged himself at Jhan’s back, remaining standing as if he were guarding her, but he was relaxed. Everyone was minding their own business and the tension in the air wasn’t directed at them.
Darkai left off his conversation and approached Jhan purposely. Bheni stood with a hand on the hilt of her sword, a mahogany giant standing in Darkai’s path. Darkai stopped and managed to look down his nose at her even though he was nearly a head shorter.
“Does Jhan belong to you now?” Darkai asked archly.
Bheni frowned.” What do you wish?”
“To speak with Jhan, Islander,” Darkai replied.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Jhan called out and huddled in on herself, not looking at him.
“You should,” Darkai persisted. “There are things my machines saw in you that you might like to know about.”
“What makes you think I don’t know about them already?” Jhan replied simply.
“If you do, all the better.” Darkai tried to edge past Bheni. She moved to block his path again. “I would like to speak to you about them,” Darkai said to Jhan. It was clear he was barely controlling his temper.
Jhan looked at him then, blue eyes narrowing. “I’ll make a bargain with you,” she said, “Tell me what you did to me and I’ll tell you what I know.”
“You are not speaking of the past,” Darkai surmised. “What do you imagine that I’ve done?”
“You changed me again,” Jhan accused, watching Darkai’s face closely. He continued to look mystified and then his expression became incensed.
“I did nothing!” Darkai retorted acidly. “We are traveling to Blue Sky because I was able to do nothing to you!”
Jhan tried to find the lie and couldn’t. “I have been changed,” she repeated. “I am different.”
“Yes, you are,” Darkai agreed, “but I don’t know what that change is. It’s something imperceptible, but powerful nonetheless."
“It couldn’t just stop.” Jhan was certain. “It was too much a part of what I am. Someone changed it. If it wasn’t you...”
“It wasn’t,” Darkai replied. “I hated you because I could barely keep my hands off of you. Such a thing is disgusting, perverted to me. It made me crueler to you than made sense. I was ready to use you, when I never considered such a thing before. I am a gentle man. I only wish the good of men. That’s why I have devoted myself to healing.”
“What were you going to do to me?” Jhan demanded, standing up and facing the man.
Darkai looked at Bheni, Jaross, and Rehn. Rehn stood as well, hand on his knife hilt. “Don’t even think of going any where with him, Jhan,” Rehn warned.
“I wasn’t,” Jhan replied quietly. She smoothed her hands down the front of her dress and twisted them into the material nervously. “I wouldn’t, not even to get an answer.”
“I won’t speak of such things before other people,” Darkai countered, “so it seems we will both be short of answers.”
Jhan started in consternation, but Darkai was already walking away. Jaross frowned and shrugged. “What was that about, do you think? Why doesn’t he want us to hear it?”
Jhan sat down slowly, staring after Darkai as Kile came and put a wooden plate of hot meat slices and a piece of flat bread into her hand. He positioned a cup of water on the floor and then sat beside it since there weren’t any more seats left. He began eating his food with gusto. It was a long minute before he felt the silence. He looked up.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just Darkai being as mysterious as ever,” Jhan muttered and picked delicately at her own food. She was hungry, but it was hard to eat much. Kile didn’t take issue with it and Jhan was glad. He began eating again, not even making a comment when Jhan sat aside her plate half eaten.
“Avrilla looks little worse for wear,” Bheni commented absently.
“As beautiful as ever,” Jaross added. They looked at him, but he had a small smile on his lips and he was staring openly at the Princess of the Alamien. “She must be strong to have come through so much and still be determined to go on with this.”
“I think, like me, she doesn’t have a choice, Jaross,” Jhan interjected sourly. She noted Jaross’s distracted expression. “Don’t get attached to her, she’ll break your heart. Alamien aren’t like Humans at all, Jaross. Besides, she thinks of us as one step above beasts... clever beasts, maybe.”
“She’s sad, that’s all, and used to cruelty,” Jaross argued. “You should understand that.”
Rehn made a face. “Why do you always fall in love with women you can’t have, Jaross? Avrilla can’t even...” Rehn looked sideways at Bheni and blushed. Bheni chuckled.
“I know that,” Jaross growled incensed, “but who said anything about being in love? She intrigues me. Her personality and her beauty draw me.”
“You ARE in love with her,” Jhan said with certainty. “Knowing you, there isn’t anything we can say to you to shake you out of it either. You’re too single minded and stupid to know what’s possible or impossible. It might be fun to watch you annoy someone else for a change.”
“Revenge?” Kile grunted with an arched gold eyebrow.
“Doesn’t she deserve it?” Jhan shot back.
“I wasn’t arguing, Little Love.”
“She’s coming over,” Bheni warned.
Avrilla walked slowly over as if she were very reluctant. Her towering height stopped in front of Jhan and her black eyes were full of some inner turmoil as she looked down and down at Jhan.
“You have condemned me,” Avrilla said in a rich voice full of pain.
She was wearing her habitual black, a long dress with long sleeves, and her hair was tied back severely. It made her look gaunt and it didn’t suit her golden skin. A very faint, musky, cinnamon smell came to Jhan’s nose. She felt the prick of memory, but it was too faint, and the smell too elusive to grasp fully.
“I haven’t done anything,” Jhan replied at last.
“Somehow you have convinced Darkai not to proceed with his plan,“ Avrilla snapped. She looked very unpleasant at that moment, her face set in anger, but Jhan saw a touch of fear there too.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Jhan replied carefully. “It would be hard for me to convince Darkai of anything since I don’t know what his plans are, or were.”
Avrilla swept Jhan from crown to heel. “He feels pity for you, something he hasn’t now, or ever, felt for me. You, he’s letting go, but I have to fulfill his plans now.”
“And what are those plans?” Rehn wondered sharply. “If they are so terrible that you don’t want to submit to them, why should you want Jhan to?” Rehn remembered suddenly who he was speaking too. He became flustered, lowering his eyes and adding in a frightened mumble, “your Highness.”
“My people abhor machines that change the body,” Avrilla replied coldly. “Jhan doesn’t have any such aversion. What does it matter to her whether Darkai uses her?”
“It does matter to me,” Jhan interjected furiously. “You still haven’t told me what this plan is, but I’m sure I wouldn’t like it any more than you. I won’t be used.”
“You will find out.” Avrilla told her with an arrogant lift of her chin. “When the time is right. As for being used. We all get used, Jhan. There are just varying degrees of it. ”
“Not if you are strong,” Bheni objected and patted the hilt of her sword.
“You are naive,” Avrilla replied condescendingly and walked away.
Kile hadn’t said anything, still quietly eating his meal. When he had sopped up the last bit of grease with his bread and popped it into his mouth, he set the plate aside and sighed contentedly.
“That didn’t bother you?” Jhan wondered acidly.
“Why should it?” Kile replied airily and leaned back on his hands, stretching out his legs with a popping of knee joints. “It doesn’t matter what she says. She can’t hurt you.”
“She is a princess,” Jaross pointed out.
“Without any power,” Kile retorted. “Darkai is the one to worry about... and Alidae.”
“Stop quarreling with everyone and get some rest. “Tevar came up from behind Jaross, eying them critically. “We’ll be leaving at first light and it will be a long ride without a rest at midday.” He nodded at Jaross. “I’ll expect you to change watches with the mercenaries during the rest of today and through the night.”
“Yes, sir,” Jaross replied dutifully.
Tevar left without saying anything to Kile. Jhan could see that it stung. His life was centered around the military. To be on the outside now was worse than loosing an arm to him, even though it was for Jhan he was doing it. She knew that she was the love of his life, but she also knew that she had to share that love with the Pekarin guard.
“Two weeks, Kile,” Jhan reminded him softly and reached out to touch his face. He couldn’t quite smile at her, but his shoulders squared as if shouldering the burden of it.
“Two weeks,” Kile replied. “May they go quickly.”

CHAPTER FOUR
(Instincts)
Jhan awakened late, only the light of one lantern near the door giving her a sense of what was around her in the darkness. Reluctantly, she gave into the urge to relieve herself.
Walking away from Kile and her sleeping companions, Jhan searched for the privy. Half asleep, yawning delicately, and dragging her steps, she blearily crisscrossed the groups of men stretched out sleeping on blankets, the eyes of the guards near the doors glistening as they briefly tracked her progress and then went back to their duty of looking outwards for enemies.
The smell of the latrine finally brought Jhan to it; a primitive, stinking hole behind a turn of a wooden stall railing. It was overfull from the many men who had used it already and a widening ring of filth was beginning to creep across the dirt floor.
“There’s another.”
Jhan turned and saw Avrilla standing behind her. The woman was a patch of shadow with a faint outline from the lantern. Jhan couldn’t see her face and she suddenly very much wanted to.
“Where?” Jhan replied.
Avrilla took hold of Jhan’s hand. “Come, I’ll show you. It’s just outside.”
“No,” Jhan pulled her hand back. Avrilla’s voice was soothing and friendly, but Jhan felt a stirring of mistrust. The woman had been willing to sacrifice her to Darkai’s plotting. “It’s dangerous out there.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Avrilla chuckled, but her humor sounded forced. “It’s in calling distance of the guards.”
Jhan was silent, thinking it over. She didn’t want to have to use that stinking hole, but the danger...
“I need to pass water as well,” Avrilla admitted and then almost sheepishly. “I didn’t want to go alone. We’ll go together and keep each other safe.”
Jhan couldn’t imagine Avrilla being afraid or admitting to it if she had been. Yet, if it was in calling distance of the guards, Jhan couldn’t see a reason not to accompany Avrilla there. What could the woman do to her anyway? Even with her height, she wasn’t a match for Jhan’s skill. Jhan thought quickly of all the ways she could hurt Avrilla. It horrified her and comforted her at the same time. It also made up her mind.
“All right,” Jhan said. “I’ll go with you.”
Avrilla took Jhan’s hand again and led her over to the guards. She made as if to pass them, dismissive and arrogant. One was Trey. His wounded leg still healing and stiff, he had it propped up on a stack of tack, while he sat on a bale of hay. He stretched out his bared sword to block Avrilla’s path. His blue eyes narrowed.
“Where are you going, woman?”
“Your disrespect will be punished,” Avrilla snarled. Her hand tightened painfully on Jhan's.
Trey looked around her at Jhan and then shook his head critically. “Don’t you ever learn?”
Jhan blinked and then pulled her hand out of Avrilla’s. She rubbed it, her eyes on Trey.
Trey lowered his sword and shifted his weight with a wince. “You know that the Alamien woman doesn’t mean you well. Besides, your Captain love told me not to let you out of my sight while I was on guard. I thought he was being cautious to a ridiculous degree, but now I see he was most wise.”
Avrilla gave Jhan an unreadable look and then she was pushing past Trey’s companion guard and going out into the night. Jhan sighed, thinking of the latrine behind her that she now had to use.
“Why don’t you stop her?” Jhan wondered.
“She’s paying us,” Trey replied irritably. “Her and Darkai. If she wants to leave the protection of her well paid guards, that’s her business. You, on the other hand, are a part of our band. I have to watch out for you.”
Jhan didn’t believe him at first, waiting for the inevitable insult or mocking laugh, but Trey was sincere.
“Get back to your man, Little Bird,” Trey admonished her, “and stay away from Princess Avrilla.”
“I can take care of myself,” Jhan replied irritably.
“To be sure, where men are concerned,” Trey agreed, ”but against women? They can be just as treacherous, Jhan of Karana. I’ve had more experience with them.” He looked Jhan briefly up and down. “Or maybe I have all the experience, come to think of it. You should listen to my advice.”
Jhan thought of Caliya, Dreya, and Kile’s mother. She wasn’t a stranger to women’s cruelty, but it wasn’t that sort of cruelty she was afraid of.
“You don’t know my past,” Jhan told him. “It doesn’t bear retelling now, but I ‘ll say that they were all men who hurt me. I only know how to fear men because of that. I almost know what Avrilla wants from me, but I’m not completely certain. What I am certain of is, that it requires me to be alive and healthy. She won’t harm me.”
Trey didn’t look convinced, but he waved towards the door. “If you believe that, then go after her. You’re not a slave, last I heard. I can’t tell you what to do.”
Trey was being sarcastic. It made Jhan angry and unreasonable. To spite him she nodded curtly. “I will,” she said and walked past him out of the barn.
Jhan heard Trey splutter, trying to form words to stop her, but she was walking fast in the direction she had seen Avrilla take. The darkness swallowed her as she rounded the barn and then she was bathed in the unexpected light of a lantern hanging from a low post. Avrilla was slowly coming back, face scowling and body tense.
“Is something wrong?” Jhan wondered nervously.
Avrilla stopped in her tracks. She stared at Jhan in surprise and then smiled, pleased. “I was angry that you didn’t trust me. I thought that we were friends.”
It sounded sincere. “Trey was just worried that we might run into enemies out here.”
“He wasn’t worried about me,” Avrilla retorted.
“You’re a princess of the Alamien. He wouldn’t presume to question you,” Jhan found herself saying in defense.
“You are a princess as well,” Avrilla replied. “He shouldn’t presume to question you either.” she relented, “but I see he respected you in the end. Come. I will lead you.”
Jhan was relieved. She didn’t want to be alone, stumbling about looking for the latrine. Even Avrilla’s cold, towering company was better than that. Avrilla placed a hand on her shoulder. She was holding something. She steered Jhan down a small dirt path.
“Is it far?” Jhan asked nervously.
Avrilla slid her hand up Jhan’s neck and caressed Jhan’s cheek as if soothing a skittish animal. “Not far.”
Jhan smelled something odd. It wasn’t pleasant. She turned her face towards Avrilla. Avrilla was holding a small cloth in her hand. As Jhan turned her head, Avrilla slapped that cloth over her nose. Jhan involuntarily took a deep breath in shock.
A sickly smell filled Jhan’s lungs like cloying honey. She struggled to breathe while Avrilla kept her off balance. Jhan couldn’t react. Her mind fogged and the world pulsed like a heartbeat as she was forced to walk, half dragged down the path.
Jhan’s face was released as a solid surface came up under her back. Disoriented, it was a few moments before Jhan understood that she was now lying down on a wooden surface. When her clothes were jerked off of her with impatient hands, she couldn’t lift her own to stop them.
“Everything will be all right,” Avrilla was saying softly by Jhan’s head.
Jhan felt straps being tightened all over her body, pinning her to the table. Her legs were pushed apart and her knees were strapped down, forcing her into an obscene position. Jhan’s hips ached, protesting, but that was forgotten as a hand began massaging her between the legs, bringing her erect. Something was inserted there and Jhan bucked in a spasm at the shocking sensation.
Jhan tried to see where she was, see what was being done to her, but her eyes were bleary and uncertain. Avrilla was clear enough, standing so close, but everything behind her seemed to move and pulse in and out of focus.
“Darkai developed a scent very like the type exuded by Alamien females in Readiness,” Avrilla was saying. “Darkai fashioned a part of you to mimic an Alamien female’s hormone gland. It is a tube of flesh that presents itself when a female is in Readiness. It’s purpose is to broadcast a scent that is necessary to bring a male into Readiness. I have inserted that scent into you.”
The smell was cloying and cinnamon scented. It tripped receptors in Jhan and she heard herself moan very gently as a delicious warmth spread through her groin. Avrilla was intrigued.
“It makes Human males Ready as well, I’ve heard,” Avrilla said, “but I didn’t quite believe it. It is exciting you, isn’t it? That is best, I think. There will be pain in what is about to happen.” She looked superior and contemptuous. “It surprised me when Darkai became such a coward over you. I will not be one. You are the future of my family. This must work.”
Jhan managed to grip Avrilla’s sleeve in desperation. All she could force through numb lips was, “Friends.”
Avrilla understood. “Yes, we are friends,” she assured Jhan, “and I do treasure you. You are so like me. I couldn’t help, but like you. There isn’t an alternative though, don’t you see? I won’t have machines used on me. I won’t bear a child. The first you don’t mind and the second you wanted, isn’t that so? This will give you the chance.”
Jhan shuddered , beginning to understand now. She tested the straps. The drug Avrilla had dosed her with was making her muscles weak. She couldn’t slip out or force the thick leather.
“No,” Jhan mumbled.
“Yes,” Avrilla countered simply.
Avrilla went to a door and stood behind it as she opened it. Someone rushed in, moaning like a demented beast. Avrilla slipped out of the room behind that person and closed the door with a solid thud. A slot opened and Jhan had a momentarily clear view of Avrilla’s black eyes peering through it before a body blocked her view.
It was Alidae. His purple eyes were glazed. His mouth was open and his skin was glistening with sweat. It looked as if Avrilla had maddened him with the scent before he had even entered the room. His clothes were half torn off of him and his hair was tangled and matted with sweat.
Alidae bent over and he began licking Jhan between the legs as if she were the sweetest honey he had ever tasted. He moaned and trembled. His hands gripped Jhan’s legs as if he would break them to get them apart even more. Jhan panted in pain, but at the same time she was writhing under his onslaught, the scent maddening her as well. If her hands had been free, she would only have pressed his face closer to the object of desire.
The slit between Alidae’s legs was clear to Jhan’s view. Her dazed senses saw it open and something slither out. It was very long, as least two feet, and thick like a python. It throbbed, ghost white, with pink veins. Glistening with mucus, it thrashed about as if it were a separate creature entirely. Very slowly, something clear began oozing copiously from the head.
The smell of cinnamon hit Jhan like a battering ram. It was coming from Alidae now in response to Jhan’s scent. It made Jhan howl, low and guttural. The drug Avrilla had given her had worn off, but it was replaced now by one much stronger.
Alidae was fighting wildly with the straps. He had them off and was pulling Jhan to him in no time. They fell to the floor. Bodies thrashed. Alidae’s throbbing organ was gripped in Jhan’s small hands. She began licking it, taking it between her lips, sucking the fluid from it in gulps; crazed by her need to get at that scent.
Alidae was in Readiness now. His skin was hot, like a furnace. He pulled his organ from Jhan’s resisting hands, thrust her face down and then came up behind her to mount her like an animal. His hands gripped Jhan as if he expected her to fight, maybe turn and bite. He didn’t waste any time in trying to put his organ into Jhan’s slit.
Alidae fumbled, repositioned himself, fumbled again. Something was wrong. They twisted and groaned in mutual frustration. The problem became clear after a few more aborted attempts. Jhan was too small. Alidae couldn’t hold her as he needed to. He was too tall, too long in every limb. Instinct drove him to keep attempting a position that was optimum for breeding successfully to an Alamien female, but not to a Human nearly half that size. Alidae wasn’t possessed enough of his own mind to think clearly enough to find another option.
Jhan tried to twist around, desperate for some kind of release, even as the submissive partner, even though what hormones she had were yearning for a woman, not an Alamien male. Alidae mistook her movements for an attempt at escape. They thrashed into a heap as he tried to get a grip on her, his expression becoming angry and wild. Sexual tension erupted into violence. Jhan bit and clawed at the Alamien. Her knees found purchase underneath her and she used her extra joints to lever herself off of the floor. She attacked Alidae, moving quicker than he could respond as she tried to force him down now.
“Stop. You’re hurting him!”
Avrilla was suddenly there, face flushed and golden skin glowing. Her black eyes were wide with frustration and fear for Alidae as she jerked Jhan away, just avoiding a chopping blow from Jhan’s hand. Avrilla was the interloper here in Jhan’s drugged mind, trying to take away the object of her thwarted lust.
Avrilla wanted to leave the room quickly. She was moving with frantic speed as she tried to take hold of Jhan and drag her out of it. Jhan avoided her, as quick as an eel, straddling Alidae now and attempting to find a place where her confused body could find relief. It didn’t know she wasn’t a man now. It didn’t care that Alidae wasn’t a woman.
Alidae was strangely submissive. He had stopped struggling. His eyes were riveted on Avrilla. With a sudden heave, Jhan was tossed off of him. As she thudded hard against a wall, the Alamien was throwing himself at Avrilla.
Avrilla shrieked as strong hands tore off her dress and threw her down on her back. Alidae forced her legs apart and his head bent to lap between them. His organ oozed cinnamon scent and began to throb again. He uttered a low whine; pleading.
Avrilla fought for only a moment and then she was still, taking deep breaths. Her eyes glazed and her skin began to glow a hot gold. She reached out and grabbed Alidae’s organ. She squeezed it, causing it to ooze more. She took that liquid and brought it to her lips, groaning as she ran her tongue over it.
An organ slipped out of Avrilla, barely a finger’s length. Alidae licked it until it quivered and oozed like his own organ. As if that was the signal, he was grappling with Avrilla, turning and putting her in the position for mating. He rose behind her.
Alidae’s organ wasn’t erect. It was Avrilla’s body who gripped it and steadily began pulling it inwards. Alidae helped with frantic, but ineffectual thrusts of his hips. This released his scrotal sac and it hung down, swinging like a huge weight between his legs. It swelled and throbbed in time to his organ, filling with semen and egg.
It was a long process. They panted and moaned as time crawled by, locked together as Alidae was pulled impossibly far into Avrilla. He bent his body double over her, allowing every last inch of himself to be drawn inwards. When Avrilla’s body ceased its motions, Alidae swelled inside of her, locking them together. He finally became stiff; a spear with a sole purpose, to make a nest for egg and semen.
Alidae’s thrusts were short and quick. He gripped Avrilla and bent his body down over hers. Avrilla’s face pressed against the wood of the floor and Alidae’s face pressed down beside hers. His tongue was lolling out and his eyes were weeping tears as he wrapped his arms about her waist and pinned her securely.
The pain appeared incredible. Avrilla choked on strangled screams as the hook on Alidae’s organ protruded and began tearing into her. She struggled, but Alidae had her too tightly. She couldn’t lift any part of herself from the floor. She couldn’t squirm or move a hand to reach him. His position then was completely understandable.
It didn’t take long to make the nest. Alidae’s organ retrieved the hook and then began spasming as it released egg and sperm at the same time, shoving it with hard thrusts of Alidae’s hips into the nest of flesh.
Avrilla was sobbing, crying out, her desire unquenched. Alidae was through planting, but he wasn’t releasing her yet. He turned on his side and gripped her against him with arms and legs. His organ remained swollen. His hand found her smaller organ and began massaging it. That caused Avrilla to go wild. Her hips bucked. Her insides gripped Alidae and began its intense rhythm again. This drew semen out of Alidae again and again.
Their comfortable positions signaled that they were going to be at it for a long time. Jhan, dazed and forgotten against a wall, was the rejected mate. She needed release and knew that she wasn’t going to get it there.
At first she pulled on her discarded clothes like a sleepwalker, not sure why she was even doing it, and then she levered her shaky legs under her and made it to the door. It was still open. Leaning against the frame, Jhan tried to think what to do. Her mind was still below her belly. It ached and raged with a molten fire, not to be denied. It caused her to stagger through the door and down the short hallway, urging her to find a mate of any kind.
Another door led out into darkness. It was still night and the moonlight was gone. Forms were indistinct and Jhan didn’t know which direction to go in. Where had Avrilla taken her? Far enough away to make their animal moans and shrieks go unnoticed.
“Jhan!” Jaross’s voice came suddenly from the darkness. A small lantern was swinging in his one hand as he batted the branches of a bush out of his way and stumbled into view. His face was scratched and anxious, his eyes enormous as he searched. His black hair was a tangle matted with the sweat of his exertions.
Jhan was springing across the distance between them as quick as a cat, all indecision and disorientation gone in an instant of adrenalin and clarity. Jaross was the one she wanted. Jaross was the one she was going to have.
Jhan took Jaross unaware. He was turning towards her just as she barreled into his chest. The lantern swung and left his grip, light splashing about crazily as it hit and rolled on the ground. It didn’t shatter, but the light continued to glow fitfully as Jaross grabbed a hold of Jhan to fight her attack. When his hands closed on her small arms, he felt her light weight. Realizing who she was, he gingerly eased his grip.
“Jhan! What’s going on?” Jaross demanded, panting in consternation and shock.” Where have you been? We’ve all been looking for you!”
Jhan couldn’t speak. She was too deep in lust and need. Jaross smelled strongly male, his slim body hard and wiry with muscle, but Jhan didn’t care. She tore at his clothes, jerked open the buttons of his pants and reached inside.
Jaross started violently. His hand went to hers and he exclaimed an explosive oath as he pushed her hand away. “What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?”
Jhan tore open her coat and the buttons of her dress. Her breasts were before him, milky pale and enticing in the lantern light. She tumbled her curly hair forward like a curtain as she bent forward and seized his mouth with hers.
It was everything that Jaross had dreamed of. When Jhan began tugging down his pants without releasing her grip on his lips, he couldn’t bring himself to stop her. A taste of cinnamon hit his tongue when her tongue darted inside of his mouth and all arguments faded from Jaross’s mind. He wasn’t maddened by it, there wasn’t enough, but he couldn’t battle against Jhan’s beauty, his own need, and that spur of Alamien sex at the same time.
“Oh, how I wanted this!” Jaross breathed and he grabbed Jhan and began undressing her with hurried, shaking hands. “Love, dearest friend, I don’t know why, but thank you...” his sentence trailed off in a moan as the last of his own clothing was pushed down or off of him completely and Jhan’s hot body pressed against his own, flesh to flesh.
It all went wrong for Jaross immediately after that. He felt between Jhan’s legs and encountered strangeness. His own passion went cold as he fumbled and found the odd slit, not close enough to a woman’s to ease his growing doubts. He wasn’t given time to deal with it. Jhan was too wild. They rolled and struggled as Jaross tried to get Jhan to at least submit to the familiar position of a woman.
Jhan was responding to other urges. She was pushing and pulling at Jaross with hard hands and a vise like grip, determined to force him beneath her. When Jaross finally allowed it, he found himself unaccountably pinned. Jhan’s arms were around him, squeezing hard. He couldn’t breathe. Red tinged his eyesight as he tried to do what should have been ridiculously easy, toss off her light weight. Instead, he discovered that his lower body wouldn’t move. One of her hands had latched onto his spine, squeezing so hard that his nerves had gone numb.
The friction between their bodies was what Jhan needed. She wasn’t enough of a man to rape Jaross, but the position and the utter degradation of being put in the position of a woman was making Jaross struggle and curse in shame even as he was loosing consciousness.
It was difficult for Jhan. Jaross’s body was a heavy, unwieldy mass, but the satisfaction of finely reaching orgasm after so long made Jhan cry out and find strength she didn’t know she had to hold him tightly in that degrading position until she was done. Then, she released him. Unconscious, he lolled limply and was still. Jhan climbed on top of him and nuzzled his warm skin, smiling contentedly as she lapped at his nipples and felt possessively between his legs. He was hers, she thought, like any animal having found a mate, and she twined her body about his as she slowly fell asleep.
It was some time before dawn when Jhan felt Jaross roll between her legs. He was angry and vengeful, but he was careful of her small body for all that as he plunged into her. Pinning her with his arms locked about her, he rode her, wanting to humiliate her as much as she had humiliated him. He cursed her softly, his lips moving as if in a litany.
“Pervert! Stinking Thekling! All this time I thought you really were a woman, but you’re not! You used me, imala in heat, but I’m the stallion and I’ll prove it to you! Little whore! Thekling whore!”
Jhan was still caught in the drug. She clawed at him, bit his chest when it presented itself, gave herself completely to him like a tigress; claws and teeth. She even laughed, low and deep, wrapping her legs about him and not even caring that he had entered her in a way as obscene as his words; using her as she had tried to use him. Jhan was only concerned about quenching her own heat as she pressed her body up against his and began her own counter rhythm.
Jaross should have been enraged by this, but he was strangely spurred on in his desire, groaning with his passion. He had a powerful orgasm, biting down on his lip to keep from crying out. He lay panting atop Jhan for some time afterwards, letting Jhan move against him. At one point she sank her teeth into Jaross’s nipple. He shuddered at the assault, but didn’t move to stop her. She gnawed viciously and then released him, letting herself become limp and submissive beneath him.
Jaross sat up, breathing in large gasps as he rubbed at the chewed nipple. He stared at Jhan, dazed with confusion and passion. When Jhan continued to lay on her back, staring up at the treetops and the darkness, he became concerned that he had hurt her. He inched forward and leaned over.
Jhan caught him, laughing, all in one motion. She pinned him down as she had before. Jaross begged. She ignored him. He choked curses again. Jhan was unmoved. She had him a second time and, towards the last, he seemed to accept it and allow it, perhaps realizing that she couldn’t really assault him in any way and that simple shame wasn’t enough reason to fight her until he was unconscious again.
When Jhan was finished, she twined about Jaross again and he found himself holding her. There were tears in his eyes. “Is this what you do with Kile?” Jaross whispered in a half sob. “You’re a demon, Jhan. I should never have felt sorry for you. All of it was an act, wasn’t it, that gentleness and helplessness you pretended? Why let me see the truth now?”
Jhan couldn’t answer. Her hormones were shifting and becoming slowly dormant again. The adrenalin was receding with the coming dawn. Exhaustion was steeling over her. She yawned like a lazy cat and pillowed her head against Jaross’s warmth. Nothing he said made any sense to her. It was only important that she was sated. Jaross stroked a hand over her hair until she fell asleep.

CHAPTER FIVE
(Flood Waters)
Jhan whimpered, her eyes opening slowly as she clenched at throbbing pains shooting all through her body.
“Don’t,” Kile’s voice said on the other side of her. “Try to stay still.” He sighed gustily and she felt hands fussing with a blanket. “You fell in the dark and hurt yourself,” he continued. “Why you were even out there... Jaross found you luckily, at the bottom of a drainage ditch. There were rocks. I didn’t feel any breaks, but fractures might be a real possibility."
Disoriented, Jhan turned her head and blinked at Kile. His gold hair was mussed, a stray leaf sticking out at the very top. His concerned blue eyes were also angry and his strong jaw was clenched hard on whatever words he longed to say to her.
Jhan was exhausted. She didn’t think she could move if she had wanted to. She tried to remember what had happened. Her head ached. Her lower body was hurting as it had when she had been sick with the Bhuntay. An embarrassing, raw pain that was intense enough to make her bite her lower lip. Her torso was bruised and aching in rhythm to the beat of her heart. Her right arm felt nearly wrenched out of the socket and her ankle was stabbing pains up to her groin.
“I fell?” Jhan mumbled, frowning and shaking her head. “I went with Avrilla...”
“Why and where too?” Kile snapped.
“To a privy,” Jhan replied, staring at his anger in trepidation. It wasn’t helping her clear her head. It was only confusing her more.
“You didn’t make it to the privy,” Kile grated. “I had to clean you up.”
Jhan felt her face turn red. She couldn’t speak after that.
“Jhan,” Kile said seriously, kneeling down close to her and leaning over her. “I don’t own you. Even if our marriage was conventional and you were really a woman, I know I couldn’t command you as a man is expected to. Still, I can’t understand why you lack even basic common sense! All that you had to do was stay by my side, sleep the night away, and go safely with us out of this place. Instead, you wander off with a woman who you know doesn’t mean you well and get hurt once again! Trey told me that he had tried to stop you. ‘As well as tried to stop a storm,’ he told me.”
Jhan remembered her anger and her assurance in her own ability to stay out of trouble. "I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
Kile sat back on his heels, hands on hips. “Sorry? Why apologize to me?” his tone was sarcastic.
“It isn’t just me who gets hurt when these things happen,” Jhan managed to answer. “You do too.”
“I do,” Kile replied, “and it’s killing me, Jhan.” He ran a hand over his face in anguish. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”
That stopped Jhan’s mouth. She reached out a weak, shaking hand to him and touched him gently on the hand. He clasped it, kissed it, and then released her as he stood up, stretching and cracking his spine.
“I’ll get you some breakfast,” Kile told her. “Everyone is still saddling up, so you have a few minutes to eat it.”
Kile walked away. Jhan watched his broad back as he picked his way through the milling mercenaries. Fits and starts of memory were teasing out of the darkness of her mind. She remembered the room with Alidae, a nightmarish collage of heat, sweat, and smells too overpowering to make much sense out of. The image of Avrilla and Alidae, locked together on a wooden floor, was more clear. The feel of strange skin and male scent. Someone over her. Someone under her. Jhan’s face reddened as she tried to piece it together. She couldn’t see a face, only a body, writhing and struggling.
Jhan put a hand under the blanket. She was dressed in a clean gown and a leather tunic. Underneath, she was bare. She touched tender parts, felt bruises and places rubbed raw. The pattern was all too familiar, but the memories wouldn’t connect enough for her to truly understand what exactly had happened.
Rehn crouched by Jhan and she started, feeling a hot flush suffuse her skin. She stared stupidly at Rehn’s open, friendly face and his concerned expression.
“Are you going to be able to ride?” Rehn had to repeat the question.
Jhan sat up, ignoring the livid roar of pain that shot through her body. Her face tightened and her hands clenched in the blanket. Whoever she had been with hadn’t been too rough. Her pelvis was unhurt and her legs were moving and bending without protest.
“I think I can,” Jhan replied at last. “Did Avrilla come back last night?”
“Come back?” Rehn glanced over to where Darkai was standing. The man was next to Avrilla and they both looked tense. Avrilla was very pale. Alidae was pacing in agitation just outside in the sunlight, glancing Avrilla’s way like a caged tiger kept from a piece of choice meat. “Why shouldn’t she have and why should you be worried about her? She didn’t tell anyone that you had been hurt.”
Jhan could only shake her head. She didn’t know what to say. How could she accuse Avrilla of anything when she couldn’t remember what was dream and what was reality? Jaross had found her in a ditch. For all Jhan knew, she could have fallen and imagined it all.
Jhan shifted and caught her lip when a pain shot up from her lower body. No, it hadn’t ALL been a dream. “I have to use the privy,” she said.
“Over there,” Rehn nodded to where flies were beginning to buzz. “It isn’t very pretty.”
“I know,” Jhan replied as she managed to stand. Her ankle protested. She ignored it, hobbling through milling men to the stinking privy.
It was much worse than last night. Jhan was glad that the sun didn’t penetrate the gloom of the barn too much. At least she didn’t have to look at it. Someone had placed a few boards over the muck. Jhan made her way cautiously over them.
It hurt. Jhan sweated and trembled, trying not to cry and whimper her pain. She felt torn inside and raw. By the time she was done, a ringing had begun in her ears and she felt faint. She gathered all of her willpower to leave that pit behind, desperate not to collapse into that oozing cesspool.
A man stood in front of her, taking her by the elbow as she stumbled. Jhan looked up into Jaross’s face. It was half shadowed, but she could see his frown.
“Jaross,” Jhan confirmed, touching his hand on her elbow and giving it a small squeeze. “Kile told me that you found me last night. Thank you for rescuing me from my own stupidity. I didn’t even have a lantern last night. It’s no wonder I fell into a ditch and knocked myself out.”
Jaross’s brown eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me that you don’t remember-”
“Not a thing!” Jhan replied, too quickly. “I mean, I remember going with Avrilla, but it’s all hazy after that.” Jhan clung to that, wanting to forget, willing to embrace the story that everyone knew and accepted already. Her life had been filled with horror. She didn’t need to have any more to burden her already overburdened mind. That Avrilla had been mated by Alidae, she couldn’t deny, but the rest... it didn’t need to be recalled.
Jaross released her arm very slowly, eyes still intent on hers. “You don’t remember,” he repeated as if stunned. He gathered his wits back together after another moment. His jaw firmed and he nodded. “Well, you did fall pretty badly. I suppose forgetting would be a symptom.”
Jhan was looking away, refusing to comprehend what she was beginning to suspect. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to guess. She wanted to forget last night. “I fell into a ditch and knocked myself out,” she repeated, needing the reality of that lie as if she were drowning and was shouting for a lifeline.
Jaross needed it too. “Yes, that’s how it happened. Lucky I found you. No telling what might have happened if I hadn’t. Someone else might have... Do you think Avrilla did something to you?”
“She did,” Jhan replied, but it burned too come that close. “It didn’t work, what she intended. I managed to get away. I guess I fell into the ditch while I was escaping.”
“Yes,” Jaross confirmed steadily. “Drugged you, do you think? The ditch was easy to see. I’m surprised that you didn’t see it. You must have been drugged.”
“I was,” Jhan replied. “I wasn’t myself. I wouldn’t ever do that again... didn’t want to.... it was the drug... I wouldn’t have fallen into that ditch without it.”
Jaross nodded gravely, grimacing as if trying to come to terms with his own nightmare. His hands trembled almost imperceptibly. He clenched them nervously. “Best forgotten,” he muttered. “All of it. It was madness.”
“That’s what I thought also,” Jhan replied quietly. “Best forgotten.” She moved past him, unable to endure his nearness any longer. It would be a long time, she knew, before she would be able to look at him again and not have to force herself not to remember. For now, they needed to be separated.
It was worse for Jaross, Jhan thought sympathetically. He knew it all without the merciful clouding of a drug. What must it have been like to have her... Jhan stiffened and closed her mind like a sensitive flower. No. She couldn’t go that way. She couldn’t admit that he had even been a part of it. He had found her unconscious in a ditch, nothing else. Nothing else.
Bheni was rolling up their blankets as Jhan returned. Kile handed her a bowl of cold porridge and Jhan ate it with the care her stomach required. Bheni glared at her. Jhan sighed and stared down into her porridge.
“You might as well get it over with,” Jhan said dismally.
“What?” Bheni seethed as she tied a cord about the blanket rolls.
“My lecture.”
Bheni gathered the rolls under her arms and stared down her long height at Jhan. “You are too old to need one. Your temper is not a new thing. You let it command you again last night, I heard from Trey.”
Jhan swallowed a hard lump of porridge and then put aside her bowl on a bale of hay. “He has a big mouth.”
“I have to,” Trey said from behind Jhan as he took up the bowl. He was leaning awkwardly on a crutch, his bad leg still giving him trouble. “Your Kile was about to throttle me for not stopping you and that woman warrior there wanted to fry me slowly over my own fire!”
Jhan darted a look at Bheni. Bheni was glowering. “We know that you did not have the skill to stop her, yet you should have called out to us,” Bheni admonished Trey. “We could have persuaded her of her foolishness.”
“Think so?” Trey shot back sarcastically. He looked down at Jhan. “Your friend, the Princess Avrilla, didn’t even ask after you when she returned. She went straight to her blankets and went to sleep. I knew something was terribly wrong then and I started the search myself.”
Jhan looked over to Avrilla. The woman was very pale and seemed dazed and in her own world. Jhan felt a violent impulse to go and confront her, demand an accounting, but then she calmed, going as cold as ice. Avrilla, if her mind could be trusted to remember rightly, had paid for her scheming. She had suffered the fate she had planned for Jhan.
It was Darkai who looked about and met Jhan’s eyes. He walked over, grim and solemn. Kile stood and touched the hilt of his sword. Darkai walked past him as if he didn’t exist. Jhan stood and confronted the man. Darkai looked as if he hadn’t slept. His eyes were shadowed and his hair was escaping the neat braid at the back of his neck. He wore dark riding leathers and the laces at his neck were tied wrong.
“I warned Avrilla that you weren’t suitable,” Darkai said. His voice echoed his weariness. “I had planned to do it all artificially, with my machines here, but I found that your anatomy had already destroyed the implantation of the cells from the Alamien queen that I had placed inside of you.”
“You planned to...” Kile swallowed and drew his sword an inch from its sheathe. Darkai watched it, not the least bit frightened. He knew that Kile wasn’t a murderer however outraged he was.
Darkai faced Jhan again. “Avrilla decided to be more direct and bypass the machines. She thought to breed you directly to Alidae. Foolishness from the start, of course. I thought that I had trained her better in the healing arts. It failed, miserably and she fell prey to Alidae instead. She has been successfully mated. She will bear Alidae a child. Our goal now is to reach Blue Sky, not for you now, but for her. I must reach my machines there to alter the cells of her child. It must be born as a true Alamien, not a shadow of its mother.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that this happened last night?” Kile demanded, confronting Jhan as he slammed his sword back into its sheathe and grabbed her arm. He pulled her close, face suffused with blood and eyes like a sky before a storm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Darkai came to her defense. “She was drugged. Avrilla wouldn’t have been able to control her else. I doubt Jhan remembers much.”
“I don’t,” Jhan interjected. “It-It seems like a bad dream.”
“It was,” Darkai said dryly. “All of it. To think that I was willing to use you so... I can scarce think of it as anything other than a bad dream. I woke from it when I had you in my power that last time. I saw my plan crushed by your bodies ability to heal and to overcome the invasion of the cells I had placed there. With my plan destroyed, I saw you for what you were, not the instrument of the salvation of the Alamien, but as the child you were and are. Mutilated and abused beyond belief, I added my crime to your sorrow. That Avrilla should have orchestrated a rape afterwards to try and triumph where I had failed... I pray that you don’t remember it, Jhan.”
Jhan felt tears on her cheeks. She pulled away from Kile and simply began walking. She left the barn and stopped when she stood in warm sunlight. She closed her eyes then and drank in that warmth, letting it soothe her pain and despair.
“If you come near her, I will kill you, mercenary!” Kile barked behind Jhan.
Jhan turned and saw Kile confronting Alidae. The man had been approaching her. He stopped, hands clenched.
“I wanted to tell your creature that it was not my plan to try and mate,” Alidae explained angrily. “Avrilla tricked me. Things turned out as was proper all the same, but I don’t wish anyone to believe that I am... perverted, that I mate with animals.”
“I’m the animal, you mean?” Jhan’s brief laugh was edged with hysteria. “Well, I’m glad that you failed too... all of you. You ARE perverted. You, Avrilla, and Darkai. Nothing justifies what you planned for me.”
“Not even the future of a race?” Alidae was quick to respond. He drew himself up, purple eyes contemptuous. “A hundred such as you would not be worth one Alamien life. I agreed with Darkai’s plan from the start. Use you to carry the child and then harvest it when it was due.”
Jhan went cold and bloodless. She felt Kile grip her around the waist and pull her against him, horrified. “Where is your Humanity?” Jhan demanded, choking on emotion.
“Alamien are not Human,” Alidae retorted, turned on his heel, and strode away shouting orders.
“Lets get away, Kile,” Jhan sobbed and buried her face against his chest. “Can’t we leave now? We don’t need them!”
“I’m under orders,” Kile replied anxiously.
Jhan knew instantly the cause of that anxiety. She knew that if she asked him to disobey those orders and take her away, Kile would. He would give up the life he loved for the person he loved. Jhan almost opened her mouth to say it, to beg him to run with her. She bit her lip at the last moment and, instead, said nothing. Love went both ways, and, anyway, it was all ready done, their crime. It was ended. Resolved in Avrilla, who carried the future of her people or its death, depending on what the child looked like when it was born. They didn’t need her, Jhan, any longer.
“I’m sorry,” Jhan said at last. “I didn’t mean that. Of course we’re safer with all of these soldiers. It would be foolish to leave them now.”
Kile nodded, but his thoughts were on other things. “It’s all so confusing,” he said softly. “Why did Darkai change you if all he wanted you for was... was to make you pregnant with Alidae’s child?”
“Contingency plan,” Jhan replied. “What he did... I’m exactly like an Alamien female in heat. If all else failed, he might have had to interest Alidae more directly. I think Darkai would have found a way to do it, even though Avrilla failed in the very same attempt.”
“Why did it fail?” Kile wondered in morbid fascination. “Why couldn’t he-”
Jhan gave him a bitter smile. “Our size difference doesn’t hinder us because we can think of options. When an Alamien is in rut, he can’t. He only knows one way. Alidae and I didn’t... fit. That’s the only decent way of saying it.”
“I don’t think I want to know any more,” Kile grated. “I might kill him.”
Jhan squeezed his arm hard. “No more violence. I told you, it’s like a bad dream. Let it stay that way. Avrilla is paying for it.”
“Is that a sentence?” Kile said with a frown. “You would have called it a blessing before.”
“I still do,” Jhan assured him, “but Avrilla doesn’t. She never wanted a child, not by any means. For her it will be punishment.”
Kile studied her. “I won’t ask if you’re all right, but can you ride? You look like you’re in pain.”
Jhan ran a hand along her aching spine. “I’ll do what I have to.”
“You always do,” Kile sighed. “You have such strength. I would have laid down and happily died long ago if I had been you.”
“I don’t know why I don’t,” Jhan admitted thoughtfully. “Too much has happened to me, maybe. I’m numb to it. It still horrifies me, but I pick myself up, brush myself off, and go on now. I’ve learned to endure it.”
Kile gave her a slow look, up and down. A faint smile played on his handsome lips. Jhan frowned at it. “What?” she asked.
Kile shook himself. “The sun makes you glow. Even worn to the bone and none too clean, you are surely the most beautiful...,” he paused and became more serious. “What do I call you? How odd that I’ve never thought of it until now. She you are and always will be, but this...” he cupped her chin and lifted her face to gaze into her deep blue eyes. “You defy definition.”
“I’m a person,” Jhan replied. “Call me that. Besides, it only matters to you and me what I am.”
“It should, but you know it doesn’t,” Kile looked about them at the men tying the last of the supplies to the imala. “Everyone cares and feels differently about it. We have to stay on guard for trouble. You know that. Please don’t get angry, but-”
“I have to stop being so stupid?” Jhan finished.
“I want us both to be alive at the end of this,” Kile told her firmly.
“They don’t need me anymore,” Jhan reminded him. “For once, I’m not a part of anyone’s plan. Without that, I only have to deal with people’s disgust.”
“Avrilla may want revenge,” Kile said thoughtfully.
“For what?” Jhan was skeptical. “I didn’t do anything except be too small. She can’t blame me for what happened to her.”
“You should know by now that people can justify anything to themselves,” Kile warned her. “Stay away from Avrilla.” Kile’s eyes saw Alidae staring at Jhan. “And Alidae. He may not have worked you out of his system yet.”
“That’s your job,” Jhan teased him. Kile’s eyes widened uncomprehendingly. “You are my guard,” Jhan reminded him. “So, guard me.”
Kile touched the hilt of his sword and straightened officiously. “And so I shall, as long as you do as I say.”
“Everything you command, Captain Kile,” Jhan replied with a chuckle, feeling the tension and the bitter sorrow slip away for now.
“Everything?” Kile surreptitiously leered. “When you’re over the bruises from your fall, I’ll see how much you mean that.”
Jhan tried not to flinch. Kile wasn’t fooled. His good humor, faltered, but then became determined. “I’ll teach you to love that body as much as I do, my Princess. My love will burn up the memory of anything else.”
Jhan hoped it would.

“What’s wrong with Jaross?” Tevar wondered. “That’s the fifth time he’s asked to ride point with the mercenaries. I know that he doesn’t like them.”
Jhan was riding her imala slightly behind Tevar. Her jaw clenched and she said nothing. Kile, riding beside her, shrugged noncommittally.
It was Rehn who spoke, slow and thoughtful. “He seemed disturbed back in Amberglass. Perhaps almost being made a slave hit him harder than we thought. He is a Lord’s son, after all.”
“So am I,” Kile reminded him. “It doesn’t make a man weak.”
Rehn smiled apologetically. “I know. I’m sorry, Kile. Jaross never struck me as the soldier type, though. He’s... more sensitive.”
Bheni grunted. “More self serving, you mean? It does not surprise me that he would take having his skin sold so hard. He loves it well enough.”
They were riding upwards at a steady pace, the ground becoming rocky and difficult for the imala to pick their way through. A scrub forest made things even more difficult, the evergreen bows hanging low and long. Without much cover, the sun was merciless.
Jhan’s skin ached. It had been barely healed from her trip across the plains. It was still an unlovely red in places. Still, that pain was small compared to the more intense one of her lower body. Though she had cushioned the saddle with a blanket, ignoring Kile’s questioning eyes, it was still hard to sit and endure the rocking stride of the imala. When they stopped to rest at mid-day, Jhan was the first to stumble off, her hands rubbing at her lower spine.
Jhan paced, stretching her legs, and then simply stood, leaning against a tree in one of the few patches of shade. The mercenaries settled all about her, some promptly lying down and trying to catch a quick nap. Trey handed out dried cakes of something and water flasks were taken out and tipped to thirsty lips. It all looked relaxed, everyone at ease, but Jhan could see the sentries standing on the outskirts, alert for danger.
“Try and rest,” Kile said as he sat down beside Jhan. Bheni sat with Rehn, pillowing her head in his lap as he settled his back against Jhan’s tree. Bheni’s many braids splayed about them both, her mahogany skin a sharp contrast to Rehn’s pale skin. They looked totally unsuited to one another, but their love was clear to any eye. Jhan took comfort from that. She and Kile weren’t the only oddities.
Jhan shook her head, not willing to sit down. Kile took her hand in his great one and pulled her gently down into his lap. He held her against him and she relaxed reluctantly.
“You need rest,” Kile insisted. “You’re hurt more than you’re saying.”
“Not in front of decent men, Captain Kile!” Rufar spat aside as he walked past. The older man met up with his brother and they crouched and began playing a game of dice.
Jhan’s face was stinging. She began to get up, but Kile held her still. “Get some rest,” he repeated. “I don’t have to prove anything to them any more.”
“You never did,” Bheni muttered, half asleep herself.
Jhan surprised herself by dozing off. It was hard to remember that she had been up most of the night. It still felt too much like a dream. It was already falling from memory, disjointed and hazy.

“Have some tea.”
Jhan blinked in confusion. She was sitting at a small cafe table, in a comfortable wrought iron chair, facing an ornate silver tea service, surrounded by her inner indigo world. A delicate bone china cup was being handed to her. Inviting steam and the smell of Earl Gray tea wafted to Jhan’s nostrils.
Jhan took the cup slowly and looked over it, the table, and the tea service at Tsarianna. He was the tall, slim priest of the sun god she had met in the desert. He smiled engagingly at her.
“Sugar?”
Jhan nodded dumbly and Tsarianna reached across the table to drop a spoonful of sugar into her cup. Jhan recoiled, almost throwing the tea over herself. Tsarianna’s hand and arm were metal, intricate pistons and joints clicking softly as his fingers reached out to steady Jhan’s sloshing cup.
“Sorry, it’s hard to concentrate in this manner.” Tsarianna frowned and the arm and hand became flesh, normal down to the tiny hairs and the texture of his skin. “It’s much easier to do this near my source of power.”
“Why bother?” Jhan breathed, her nerves jangled only for a moment before the soothing effect of that indigo world leached away her alarm and left only curiosity.
“Testing a theory,” Tsarianna replied. He sipped at his own tea, murmuring appreciatively, and then set it down on a china saucer. “I want to see if people pay more attention to me if they can see me and relate to me on a more Human level.”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“To you, perhaps, but not to a being such as myself. I’m not now, nor ever have been, Human, Jhan.”
Jhan thought on that. She stared own at her cup of tea. She brought it tentatively to her lips and sipped. She gave a little sigh of pleasure. “Very accurate for an illusion.”
Tsarianna smiled. “Wasn’t my idea, this tea party. It was yours. You have a good memory.”
Jhan indulged herself in her tea. Tsarianna let her lose herself for awhile, but then he gently called her back.
“I wanted to make certain that you paid attention to me,” Tsarianna told her. “I’ve warned you of danger before, but you’ve ignored me. This time, you must not ignore me.”
Jhan set down her empty cup. She looked up at Tsarianna, studying his earnest seeming young face. “Busybody,” she said simply.
Tsarianna frowned. “What else do I have to do? I’m in the middle of a desert. Pilgrims aren’t as hardy as they used to be. They don’t often complete their pilgrimages to the temple.”
Jhan went sour. “Is that what I am. A diversion?”
Tsarianna grinned. “You are certainly never dull, Jhan.”
“You didn’t warn me about Avrilla,” Jhan reminded him. “You didn’t warn me about Poltrane.”
Tsarianna waved a hand dismissively. “They never meant to harm you. The danger you are fast approaching is of a more deadly nature.”
Jhan sat up, concerned. “What are you saying?”
Tsarianna became serious. “The past has a way of coming back with a vengeance. I can’t see everything, or know everything, especially when you sleep and the machines I placed within you are not available, but I can see far places and events now and again by entering the minds of others. While you slept in the home of Poltrane, I saw into the mind of someone who knew you, knew you from before. It was only briefly, but it was long enough for me to be served a most vile image of you, an image of the man’s home, and an image of you lying in bed at Poltrane’s home.”
“I had a dream,” Jhan recalled, feeling herself go cold and numb. “I dreamed that someone came and changed me. He... He did know me from before. He looked just like... but I don’t remember him from that place. That part can’t be right. What- what image did you get from his mind?”
Tsarianna faded as if his concentration wavered with some deep emotion. When he solidified again, he was shaking his head. “No. You don’t want to see that.”
“I’ve already seen it all,” Jhan argued impatiently. “Don’t think to spare me. I have to know- If I do know the image...”
The world changed all in an instant. The cozy tea service and the rich smell of Earl Gray were suddenly gone. Jhan was seeing herself... himself, held in the tight embrace of Dagara Ku Ni. They were both naked. Dagara was sitting on the edge of his bed, Jhan standing before him, facing the watcher. Dagara’s legs were wrapped around Jhan, powerful muscles like steel clamps holding him pinioned against hot flesh. Dagara’s hands were caressing Jhan’s chest, moving up to Jhan’s long neck, tilting Jhan’s head back so that Dagara could nuzzle and chew on his earlobe. Blood was running in several narrow trails down Jhan’s body, steaming in the intense cold of that room.
The watcher picked up a handful of Jhan’s long, straight, black hair and rubbed it between his fingers. Those fingers were long and white, the nails dusted with gold paint. It set the time for Jhan. Dagara had adored that incredibly long hair when Jhan had first been his captive.
“You become tiresome,” Dagara hissed. There was blood on his mouth. He didn’t move to wipe it away. He glared at the watcher like a leopard about to leap.
“I thought that your goal was to send the boy to your enemies,” the watcher said stiffly, a hint of fear edging his tone. “or to your ‘victims’ as you like to call them. I think you’ve become too fond of him. You keep making excuses to keep him with you.”
Dagara shoved Jhan to the floor and stood up, all in one motion. He approached the watcher lightly, his steps seeming to float over the floor. His eyes blazed red with his Power.
Dagara measured each word like a blow. “Why do you care what I do?”
“I see you growing weak over him,” the watcher accused, but his attempt to sound scathing failed. His voice quavered. “If you don’t keep these beasts that pass for soldiers in control, they’ll be ripping me to shreds along with the countryside. I’m looking out for myself.”
“Like Gyven,” Dagara said, “you have your uses. Those uses are not indispensable to me, brother.”
“We were speaking of the boy,” the watcher snapped. “Send him away or put him in a dress and marry him. Decide and stop playing these Power consuming games with him.”
“Marry him?” Dagara laughed, showing his sharp, bloodied teeth. He stepped back to stand over Jhan. He crouched and pulled Jhan up to a sitting position. Facing him, Dagara planted a devouring kiss on Jhan’s lips. Jhan was as still as a porcelain doll, eyes wide and empty as he tasted his own blood. “Would you like that my proud Jhanian? Would you like to be my bride?”
The watcher half turned away. “I’ll leave you to your intimacy.”
“Not to your taste?” Dagara broke from the kiss and stood, pushing Jhan down against the floor with his foot until Jhan was flat. “I’ll admit that the boy has me enthralled, but it’s my own artwork I’m enamored of, not dear Jhanian himself, you understand. Still, if you think he’s a danger to my reason, or to your safety, go ahead and rid me of him. Use that stick you have for more than hobbling about.”
“A pity,” the watcher was quick to reply. “You’ve spent so much time training him and perfecting him as a weapon. Why not send him away instead. Why destroy everything you’ve done?”
Dagara’s smile became feral. “Afraid of discovery, dear brother? I know you expected him to kill me as soon as you added your little enticements to my masterpiece, but luckily I’m not as weak as you’d like to think. Jhanian is completely under my control. I know every inch of his body intimately. I knew the moment I saw him that you had tampered with him. That’s why I’m King Dagara Ku NI and you’re Prince-,” he said something completely foul.
The watcher backed up, obviously trembling.
Dagara looked down at Jhan. “You did me an unexpected service, though. You’ve made Jhan more perfect than my skill would have allowed. For that, I’ll let you live, but your punishment won’t have you thanking me for that. I’m going to show you just how well I have my little Jhanian under control. I don’t want you to doubt my power again.”
Dagara stepped off of Jhan. He didn’t need to speak. His orders flowed into Jhan’s mind. The watcher saw Jhan stand like a puppet being pulled by strings. Dagara, smiling hideously, stepped aside as Jhan began walking towards the watcher. The watcher made some attempt to turn and run.
“Stop,” Tsarianna said and the scene was replaced by the indigo world, the tea service and the hot tea still there, frighteningly mundane. “The rest is very ugly.”
Jhan couldn’t move. She stared at her pale reflection in the swollen belly of the tea pot. Her huge, blue eyes were distorted wells of horror.
“Let it go,” Tsarianna said encouragingly. “Take a deep breath and then let it out slowly. Let this place soothe you. That’s it’s purpose.”
Jhan did as he told her. Her trembling ceased. Her mind, that had felt on fire and ready to collapse, became hazy, numb, and filled with only one thought. “I don’t remember that happening.”
Tsarianna picked up her cup of tea and pressed it into Jhan’s hand. She absently sipped at it, staring into its amber depths. “It was in the man’s mind. He remembered it perfectly. You beat him brutally.”
“If I did, then he must have changed me for revenge,” Jhan surmised. “Maybe he changed things I don’t know about.”
“No, don’t be afraid of that,” Tsarianna assured her. “Because of the machines I placed inside of you, I know your body. I know what he did to you. Very sophisticated, yet very subtle. He took away your irresistible allure. Your life should be much more peaceful from now on. A man wanting revenge wouldn’t have done that.”
Jhan frowned, remembering. “He said.... He said that he was doing it so that he wouldn’t fall prey to it. It wasn’t for my benefit." She put her cup down and stood up. She was wearing a gown of white light. Her feet were bare. The indigo grass felt as smooth and as soft as lamb’s wool. “If that part was real, then the rest might not be my imagination at all. Dagara might have a brother, a brother who looks exactly like he did. I think if that were true, then I can understand why I would forget it. Two monsters, identical in every way, would have been too much to bear.”
Tsarianna stood as well and the table, chairs, and tea service disappeared. He was wearing a flowing robe of yellow. It stirred in a gentle, warm breeze. “Believe it,” he told her, “because it is part and parcel of the warning I’m about to give you now. You must NOT go to Blue Sky. All of your horror began there. It’s where this man is from.”

“Jhan!”
Jhan felt her shoulder shaken in a hard grip. Someone was pulling her to her feet. The dream shattered as she blinked in the sunlight and tried to orient herself to what was happening.
Men were milling, imala stamping and wheeling as everyone began to throw themselves into their saddles. Voices shouted orders. Tevar was in front of Jhan, face grim with worry.
“Storm’s coming. A big one,” Tevar was saying over Jhan at the others. “There isn’t any cover. We need to find some high ground and tie everything and everyone down. Alidae has told me that floods are not uncommon this time of year.”
The sky had darkened, clouds as black as pitch billowing down from the mountain peaks. A stiff breeze was slinging Jhan’s hair and dress about. The air was cool. A bad sign. That usually heralded strong storms.
Kile lifted Jhan into the saddle of her imala. He pressed her hands to the saddle prow, face looking anxiously up at her. “Hold tight,” he said. “I’ll take the reins. You won’t be able to hold the beast if it becomes wild in the weather.”
Jhan nodded, but Kile was already swinging up on his own imala. Bheni pulled hers up alongside of Jhan. She turned her eyes from the sky and checked on her husband. Rehn was pale, but he was determined as he came up on Jhan’s other side.
“Stay between us,” Rehn ordered Jhan. “There are many deep gullies and chutes to carry water down onto us. We have to be prepared to brace ourselves. Bheni and I will keep your light weight from being carried away.”
It sounded too much like when and not if. Jhan was having a hard time dealing with the swift charge into danger. She was still caught up in the dream, unable to shake the lethargy that gripped her mind. When she said nothing, Bheni and Rehn became anxious, but there wasn’t time to find out what was wrong with her.
Darkai was taking the reins of Avrilla’s horse, pulling it along with him as his horse broke into a quick gallop. Avrilla was little better than a piece of baggage, not helping in the least, but seemingly too lost in her own misery to care what happened to her.
The mercenaries poured after Darkai and Avrilla. Jaross and Tevar were the last to throw gear onto their imala, before they were springing into the saddle and taking the lead after them. Jhan bent low in her saddle, blinking against the whipping cold wind and beginning to smell rain. She had to hold on with white knuckled hands as the land tilted upward, the imala’s hooves scrambling dangerously on the rocks as the company tried to get above the danger of flash flooding.
When the land flattened out and then dipped down into a watercourse, there was a general panic. Jhan found herself rushing into a maelstrom of cursing, shouting men, whipping their beasts into the shallow water. She was glad that Kile held the reins. Her imala rolled its eyes and honked, balking and kicking out at its neighbors as Kile hauled it after him into the water.
Rehn reached out at the same time as Bheni, keeping Jhan in the saddle with a strange tug of war motion as they tried to keep their imala on each side of her. Water splashed over Jhan’s legs and some droplets reached her face. It was freezing. It startled her from her daze and she straightened, finally taking everything in and understanding that there was more to be afraid of than the water. Even if she died, she would not go another step in the direction of Blue Sky.
Jhan reached forward, leaning perilously far over her imala’s plunging neck. She tangled her fingers in the reins and jerked back on them, taking them out of Kile’s surprised hand. He twisted in his saddle, shouting in consternation as Jhan hauled her imala around and used its panic to force her way from between Ahlen and Bheni. They grabbed at her, faces full of astonishment, but Jhan was already letting the imala have its head, fleeing back through the water.
Yunij was bringing up the rear. A second in command of the mercenaries, he was making certain everyone crossed. He was red faced and cursing, trying to bring order to the chaos. When he saw Jhan bolting past him, he quickly assumed that she had lost control of her imala. His big arm snagged her from the saddle and swung her down hard in front of him on his plunging beast. It was then that the wall of water hit them.
Rushing down from the mountains ahead of the storm, the flood was bone cold and had the force of a speeding truck. Yunij’s imala was spun about as its feet were thrust out from under it. It honked before its mouth filled with water, throwing its riders off into the torrent.
Yunij held onto Jhan. She didn’t think it was concern for her life. It was involuntary, an instinctive grasp of shock that kept them locked together as they were swept down the watercourse as fast as a bullet.
Jhan tried to breathe. Her lungs were frozen by the cold and choked with water. Her arms flailed and then clung to Yunij, a lucky thing as he suddenly released her to try and save his own life. He couldn’t spare a moment to shake her off as he used every ounce of his strength to simply stay above the water.
The water course branched and then branched again. Rocks swept past dangerously close. One took the skin from the side of Jhan’s leg, another rammed into her ankle with bruising force, but it was the broken trunk of a tree that almost broke her hold on Yunij. It slammed into them both.
Jhan went under, her hands clawing desperately. For an endless second, her hands were empty, but then she found a bit of cloth from Yunij’s shirt and she twisted her vise like grip into it. At the same time, the torrent threw them into a bend of the watercourse, the force of the crashing water on the bank casting them up and out in a shower of icy water.
The roots of a tree jammed into Jhan’s ribs. She let go one hand and locked her grip on one of them. Like a lifeline, it held both her and Yunij as the water rushed and eddied about them, threatening to drag them back into its deeper course.
Jhan’s head went under water as another rush of water crashed over them. Her grip wasn’t going to hold she knew. She could feel the bones and muscles beginning to tear.
“Let go!” Yunij shouted hoarsely. “I have a branch!”
Jhan let go then, trusting him, and she felt herself hauled, gasping and choking up out of the water. Yunij was holding onto a low tree branch with arms and legs. Jhan still had hold of his shirt, but it was almost ripped off of him, dragging the water along with his leather tunic like a lead weight.
“Fend for yourself, damn you!” Yunij cursed. “Get hold of the tree!”
Jhan made a panicky scramble farther up the tree, hooking a leg over a narrow branch just below Yunij. The water rushed towards them, dragging at the roots of the tree as it washed in and out of the raging watercourse. There wasn’t any telling how long the tree could stand that abuse. It was very large and ancient, but it was bowed and twisted with some disease.
Yunij began climbing higher, and then he began moving out over a limb. Water ran from him in rivulets and his hair was plastered to his head. He was shivering convulsively, his teeth chattering as he tried to reach the limb of the tree next to the one they harbored in.
Jhan followed Yunij, but her hand wouldn’t close properly and her leg ached and moved stiffly, the raw scrape along her lower thigh burning with every movement. She was also shivering so violently that it threatened to send her off balance into the flood below.
Yunij reached the limb of the other tree. He began to step over and then he paused and looked back at Jhan. He quickly weighed possibilities in his mind, and Jhan felt dread grip her, expecting the worst; to be left behind to try and get across to the other tree by herself.
“C-Come o-on!” Yunij stammered through chattering teeth.
Jhan tried to hurry, but her sodden dress hampered her legs. She slipped and came down hard on the branch she stood on. The breath went out of her and red lights shot behind her eyes. She gripped the branch with her legs while her good hand scrabbled on the slippery bark for purchase.
“I-Idiot!” Yunij stepped back and grabbed Jhan by the collar of her dress. He hauled her up, dangled her under one arm, and carried her as he made the dangerous little leap over to the branch of the adjoining tree. He almost overbalanced, but his free hand snatched leaves and small branches while he swayed, saving them from the fall.
Leaning Jhan up against the trunk of the tree, Yunij ripped Jhan’s dress up near her knees, freeing her legs. Twisting the wet material in tense hands, he looked around them, trying to decide their next move. There was still a sharp incline and at least eight feet of surging water to contend with. The dry bank, a stone’s throw away, was tantalizingly close.
Jhan looked up into the tree. She eyed the larger branches and followed them out, discarding one after another as being too short or too thin and uncertain. None were strong enough to support Yunij.
“If-if we i-inch out a-as f-far as we c-can,” Jhan suggested, “W-We can t-try and get to dry l-land.”
Yunij looked down the line of rushing water. “T-Turns down there,” he replied. N-No telling w-what’s there. R-Rocks again, maybe. I-If we w-wait, w-water may slow.”
Jhan pointed up at the sky with a shaking finger. The storm clouds had cleared the mountain peaks. They were obviously coming their way. There was going to be more rain and more water to swell the water course.
Yunij nodded, jaw tightening. “H-Hold t-tight,” he ordered. “I-I’ll th-throw myself as far as I can.”
Jhan nodded in reply. She circled his waist with her arms and he gripped her tightly as they began moving to the end of the branch they stood on. When it began to creak ominously, Yunij stopped and gathered himself. The jump was impossibly far. Jhan took a deep breath, readying herself to plunge into the icy water again.
“W-Waite.” Yunij looked down at Jhan speculatively. “I’ve seen y-you jump. Incredible! Y-You can make that. W-We’ll tie our c-clothes together. M-Make a r-rope.”
Jhan shook her head. “I-I won’t be able t-to pull you across.”
Yunij pointed to a tree on the water’s edge. It was small and looked half gone, some of its roots sticking up out of the ground. “T-Tie it th-there. H-Have to ch-chance it.”
Jhan nodded. The last thing she wanted to do was undress in front of Yunij, but she wasn’t a fool. Yunij ripped the length of material he already had until it was one long length. He added his shirt and coat, tying the connecting knots as tight as he could without wasting precious material. His pants came next. Standing, shivering, in only his boots he didn’t look at Jhan as Jhan pulled off the remnants of her dress. He added this last bit of material and then edged sideways as much as he could to let Jhan pass him on the branch.
Feeling exposed and vulnerable, Jhan moved gingerly, steadying herself as best she could with the smaller branches around her. She essayed the distance and measure it along with the aches and pains of her body.
“G-Go on!” Yunij urged her. “P-Pull you b-back if you d-don’t make it!”
Jhan swallowed as she took a tight hold of her end of the makeshift rope. She crouched, gathering every muscle, and tried to estimate how far she could go before the branch she was on wouldn’t hold her weight. A rough guess was all she had as she sprang forward, running two steps without loosing her balance. Coming down hard with both feet on the second step she pushed off of the thin end of the branch, springing outward towards the bank.
Jhan’s spine was as flexible as a cats’ and her small extra joints were like springs. She spanned a distance impossible for a Human, flying through the air in a slow arc with the cloth rope flapping behind her. She landed just short of the bank, crashing into the water.
Jhan clawed like a mad thing as the water tried to rip her away and carry her downstream. Gasping hoarsely at the stunning cold, she tore nails and the skin from her fingers as she propelled herself over the rocky bank and onto dry land. She kept going, thrashing over the sand until the rope brought her up short. Then she sat up, exhausted, and simply breathed for a long minute as her heart raced in her chest.
Yunij watched her from his perch in the tree. His face was tense. He didn’t know her and didn’t know what to expect from her. He didn’t shout at her or offer any encouragement. He waited for her to tell him his fate.
Jhan levered herself to her feet and dragged her wet hair out of her face. She staggered over to the tree and tied it as best she could. There wasn’t much slack to make it secure. She kept her grip on it, just in case, and then nodded to Yunij.
“N-Now!”
Yunij didn’t hesitate. He flung himself away from the tree, using the incredible strength of a man’s adrenalin. He landed a few feet shy of Jhan’s mark. The rope pulled tight as the water grabbed hold of Yunij’s big body. The knot slipped on the tree, but Jhan kept her grip as Yunij hauled himself along the rope until he reached the bank.
When Yunij was on dry land, Jhan collapsed onto her back, staring up at the cloudy sky, as she tried to regain her breath and her strength. The sun was warm, but the breeze continued to be cool and to smell even stronger of rain. Jhan shuddered with cold.
When Jhan was finally calmed down from her ordeal, she turned her head to look for Yunij. She saw him sitting in a miserable huddle, very close, and staring openly at her body. That made Jhan sit up defensively, hands trying vainly to cover herself.
Yunij grunted. “I-I do h-have honor!” He reached for the rope, untied Jhan’s wet dress and slung it at her. It hit the ground with a sodden slap. “G-Get dressed, l-little bird! H-Have to get out of h-here. F-Find the others.”
Jhan pulled on her dress. It was hard work, but it was better to have on a muddy, rent piece of cloth than to walk about for Yunij to stare at. Still, it felt odd to have her legs bare. On that world, not even the men did that. Yunij gave her a brief glance only, before standing up and beginning to walk away from the water.
Jhan forced herself to get up and follow. She felt a moment of consternation that he hadn’t tried to help her, but then swiftly reviewed all that she knew of people of that world and their endless cruelty and indifference to the other people around them. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to be surprised at all.
Yunij walked with long strides, his clothes slung over one shoulder, dripping down his broad back. Jhan slogged after him in her wet boots, her shorter legs having to take two steps for his every one. It managed to warm her up though and her shivering and chattering ceased to be replaced by her harsh panting and the slapping of her wet boots on the ground.
Safe for the moment, it came back to her, all in a rush, why she had fled into the flood to begin with. She stopped, stunned and blind with fear. Yunij seemed to know where he was going. Logically, he would try to strike back for Blue Sky and hope that the mercenaries would be there to meet him. It was the last place Jhan wanted to go. Dying in the flood was more preferable.
Jhan turned to go in another direction, not even considering that she was without supplies or even a basic knowledge of where she was. It didn’t matter. Twice she had been in the Power of evil. She knew that she wouldn’t want to live through a third.
Yunij’s big arms corralled Jhan. She stopped, tensing to fight, looking up at his puzzled, harried expression. “What’s wrong, Little Bird?”
“Get out of my way or I will kill you,” Jhan warned in a dead tone, meaning it. “I’m not going to Blue Sky. I will do whatever I have to not to go there.”
Yunij didn’t laugh or mock her. He was as silent and as still as a statue for a long moment. He finally took a deep breath and said one word. “Why?”
“The ones who did this to me have their home there,” Jhan explained, and then warning again. “Let go of me. I can kill you, Yunij.”
“Captain Kile owns you now,” Yunij argued faintly. “He’s besotted with you. Why do you imagine he would let anyone hurt you?”
Jhan laughed, short, sharp, and hysterical. “If you only knew you’d realize how stupid you sound... how naive... you’d be running away with me.”
Yunij became angry. He stepped back, dropping his arms. “You’ll die. You’re the naive one if you don’t know that.”
Jhan began to walk without replying.
“Does your Kile know about the danger?” Yunij’s voice carried to her easily.
Jhan stopped, body trembling with two conflicting emotions. Kile didn’t know. None of them did! She had run away without even bothering to warn them. Jhan felt a sickness in her stomach as she fought with her fear. Kile and the others had been there when Dagara Ku Ni had been defeated. If that evil man did indeed have a brother, or even if some of his men had survived, then Kile and the others would be recognized. They would be the ones to face torture while she ran to safety.
It was bone deep, Jhan’s fear, but her love was stronger. She turned, weeping, and began to walk in the direction of Blue Sky. Each step made her sickness grow worse. She hardly noticed when Yunij took the lead with an annoyed, yet satisfied grunt. It was then that the sky opened up and the rain began to fall.

CHAPTER SIX
( Falling into Darkness)
Two trees had fallen down together in a heap. There was a small space out of the rain. Yunij forced his way into it and Jhan huddled miserably up against him, sitting between his knees. They were still chill and wet, but at least the rain wasn’t hammering on their heads any longer.
“Put your clothes on,” Jhan grated.
“They are wet,” Yunij responded irritably. “They aren’t like your dress. They’ll gall me while I’m walking.”
Yunij smelled strongly of sweat and his own masculine musk. Jhan faced away from him, but it didn’t comfort her in the slightest.
“I don’t want you,” Yunij assured her. “I’m not a boy lover.”
“I’m not a boy,” Jhan snapped back.
“A child then, whatever sex you aren’t any longer.”
“I’m not a child either!” Jhan turned herself into a tight ball, arms gripping her knees. “I’m- I’m much older than you think.”
Yunij chuckled. “Why protest? Do you want me? To escape my attentions, you need only be silent or agree with me.”
“I don’t want you,” Jhan measured out each word. “I’m just tired of being called a child!”
“As you will, ancient one,” Yunij grunted and then was silent.
Jhan was glad of it for only a short time, and then her mind began to think of her danger and the danger of Kile and the others. She tried to stop it, but it was as strong as the flood. She began to remember her days of torture and humiliation. She remembered brief glimpses of mountains and red flowers with thorns. She remembered that it had always been cold there.
“You’re afraid of me.” Yunij said softly.
“No, not you,” Jhan replied, desperate for distraction. “I know that I can handle you.”
“Can you?” Yunij’s voice was edged with threat. “I’ve seen you fight. I saw you put down Raveni. He’s not a poor fighter, but I’m better. You only bested me last time because you landed a dirty blow.”
“There isn’t enough room in here to fight and I don’t want to go out into the rain,” Jhan told him stiffly.
Yunij chuckled. “You’re brave for such a little bit of nothing.”
“I’m not nothing.”
“As you say,” Yunij replied and Jhan felt him shrug. “I don’t really want to fight with another man’s whore.”
“My brother is the King of Karana,” Jhan said to needle the man. “Captain Kile is Lord Kile, son of Duke Dor. We are legally married. We were wed before two kings and a number of noble born men and women. Our papers were given the royal seal of Karana and Pekarin. I’m not a whore or a slave.”
“I think all of your titles were probably taken away from you when whoever it was cut off what was between your scrawny legs,” Yunij told him cruelly. “I expect that even a low born man wouldn’t claim you for kin now, let alone a king. As for your Lord Kile, he’s worse than a pervert for keeping you for his bed. Him I respect as a fighter, but not as any Duke’s son. His father probably disowned him as well after your ‘marriage’ papers were signed by your mad kings.” Yunij gave a little shudder and it wasn’t from the cold water soaking the ground beneath them. ”I can’t imagine what you and Captain Kile do together. I don’t even want to think about it!”
Jhan seethed, “It’s none of your business.”
“So,” Yunij wondered, returning to the original subject. “What are you frightened of then, if not me? Seems to me you’ve faced many a thing that would have turned my blood to ice, and gone on living afterwards. If it’s Blue Sky you’re thinking about, I don’t understand that either. It’s a large city, though rough shod compared to many I’ve seen. We might ride in and out without anyone turning their heads to notice us. You’ll be surrounded by mercenaries and your own companions.”
Jhan went bloodless, hiding her face against her knees and saying in a small voice. “I told you. That won’t matter. They are very powerful, the people who hurt me.”
“Who are they? Kings? Princes? Bandits?”
“Evil, pure evil,” Jhan replied.
Yunij asked with the insight of a commander. “Is it you they want? If it is, your companions and my comrades might be safer without you.”
“They know my friends and my husband,” Jhan replied. “It isn’t just me anymore.” Jhan rubbed at her eyes wearily; heartsick. “Why did I run? I didn’t even think about them. It was just like the battle where I left Bheni and Trey. I ran without thinking about them either.”
“We all have our limit,” Yunij said with surprising understanding. “If men had cut off the things I hold most dear, I don’t think even concern for my brother would make me go back there. As for battle... it’s a strange thing. It’s always different. It always tests a man. Running away from hundreds of hacking blades makes more sense than running towards them, if you think about it. The man who does stand and run towards it... must be a touch of madness or lack of a healthy concern for one’s own body. I’ve often wondered at my own ability to do it.” He trailed off, thinking about it.
“Do you think they are all right?” Jhan wondered with a sudden chill of dread.
Yunij didn’t give her an answer. He didn’t have one.
“The rain has let up,” Jhan inched a little out of the shelter. “We should start walking again.”
Yunij grunted. “You’re right. We should go. I don’t think this rain is going to stop any time soon.”
Jhan was stiff when she unfolded from the shelter. She winced and worked a foot that had fallen asleep. Yunij, with the grace of a panther, slid from the shelter and began walking. Jhan hopped and hobbled to catch up, biting back a curse at him and at the rain. When her foot was in working order again she fell into a quick walk that soon had her exhausted.
“Slow down,” Jhan finally complained. “My legs aren’t as long as yours, Yunij.”
Yunij shortened his stride for a time, but the longer stride was natural to him and he returned to it unconsciously, climbing over the rocky ground tirelessly. Jhan struggled to keep up, the rain and her own weariness telling far too quickly. She watched Yunij’s rain slicked, naked body get further and further away, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t glance back at her once and Jhan felt that she wasn’t high on his list of worries. He wanted to reach his brother and his companions to see who lived and who did not. He didn’t want to use up precious time nurse maiding someone like Jhan.
There was a low overhang of branches forming a natural shelter. Jhan ducked under the evergreen bows and felt a welcome relief from the incessant drizzle. She watched Yunij stride away into the forest and found that she couldn’t muster an ounce of alarm. Something inside of her had given up and was relieved by that surrender. It was pure pleasure just to lean against the trunk of the tree and to stop advancing in a direction that was causing her ever increasing panic.
Yunij’s voice startled her. “Good choice. We’ll stay for the night and start fresh.”
Yunij pushed past the evergreen bows and revealed the narrow mouth of a cave. He began scooping up the refuse from the tree that had collected there, piling it up to make a fire. It was tricky. He used stones to make a mound out of the wet, but near enough the cave entrance to let out asphyxiating fumes. The tinder he lit with a flint from the pocket of his pants. A great deal of time elapsed before Yunij was able to create a warm fire with enough fuel to keep it going. Jhan could understand then why he had begun it long before the sun had set.
Jhan didn’t help in any way. She settled at the back of the small cave, wet and miserable. There was only six feet of floor to the entrance and only three feet either side of her. The roof was low. Small enough for the fire to warm and make cheerful, but small enough to make her nervous. Nervous, because the next step was obvious.
Yunij placed a tree branch over the fire, bracing it on each side of the cave. He hung his clothes over it and then moved aside to sit down gingerly on the smoothest part of the rock floor he could find. He didn’t look at Jhan, but she could sense that he was waiting expectantly.
Every instinct urged Jhan to pull off the wet dress. It was keeping her skin from drying and she knew that could be dangerous. Exposure that caused embarrassment was much better than exposure that caused death.
Jhan pulled off her wet dress and added it to the branch next to Yunij’s. When she turned, he had taken her place at the back of the cave, pointedly giving her preference near the fire and near the mouth of the cave. It said everything without saying anything and was smoothly done, Jhan thought gratefully.
“You don’t have to shiver back there,” Jhan said with more bravery than she felt. “I’ve had to do this before. As long as you understand....” Jhan stopped. He had been tactful. She didn’t want to insult him.
Yunij came to the fire without a word and sat staring out at the gathering darkness and the rain, listening to the small hisses of the fire as droplets of water dripped from the clothes.
“Do you know where we are?” Jhan asked. “It didn’t seem like we were in the water that long.”
“It moved us fast and far,” Yunij replied quietly. “I’ve been following the sound of the water. Not much else to guide us with all of these clouds.” He paused and then said, almost to himself. “I would have thought that we would have seen someone by now. We can’t have been the only ones to be carried away in the flood.”
“Kile will be looking for me,” Jhan said. It was a warning to.
“Then he’s a fool,” Yunij grunted. “My comrades will be going on to Blue Sky. They will expect me to go there as well. Searching in the wilderness, hit or miss, will only endanger more men.”
“They will expect you to make it, even wounded,” Jhan agreed. “You’re strong and well trained for these sorts of situations. I’m another matter entirely. Kile knows how long I would last out here by myself. He will be searching for me.”
“His delicate little bed-mate,” Yunij growled in disgust. “I wouldn’t have a woman as tiny and as weak as you. How does he command if he has to care for you so carefully on his campaigns?”
“I don’t-” Jhan stopped, frowning, trying to explain simply a situation that was ever increasingly complicated. “You don’t know anything about me, Yunij. I stay quietly at home while Kile does his soldiering. I’m his wife, whatever you think otherwise, and I don’t act any differently than most women. I only became embroiled in all of this because I had to-”
When Jhan went silent, Yunij essayed a look at her and then looked away again uncomfortably. “What?” he finally prompted.
“Go after him,” Jhan finished lamely and then sighed. “We were having some problems. I caught him with another woman.”
“A real woman, you mean?” Yunij chuckled.
Jhan scowled. “Why bother telling you any of it?”
“Nothing else to do,” Yunij replied. “I need something to keep my mind off of my stomach. You might as well keep on talking. It’s all strange enough to be interesting.
Jhan bristled. “It wasn’t meant to be amusing.”
Yunij shrugged. “I didn’t say amusing, but to me, it can’t be anything but amusing. Go on, talk. I’m sure there are things you would rather not think about right now.”
“Kile ran away to the Silverwood on a courier mission,” Jhan continued by way of agreement. “I thought that he might do something foolish, so I followed. We became mixed up with Darkai and the Princess Avrilla after that.”
“That’s a more interesting tale than your... appalling love life,” Yunij interjected. “Tell me more about that.”
“I hardly know where to start or what to say,” Jhan admitted. She picked up a stick and poked at the fire distractedly. “I was wounded getting to the Silverwood. Darkai healed me, but he did other things to me to. He changed me, made me more like a female Alamien.”
“Added or cut away?” Yunij wondered morbidly.
“Added,” Jhan replied and then continued. “I didn’t have anything before. I didn’t feel anything. What Darkai did to me was both a gift and a violation. He took away my complete appearance of a woman, yet gave me the ability to enjoy being with Kile.”
“Enough of that!” Yunij grumbled uncomfortably. “I told you, I don’t want to hear about that. Tell me about Darkai. Tell me about his plan. What was worth our lives?”
Jhan sensed Yunij’s anger. She inched away unconsciously and tensed as if preparing to flee. “He wanted to use me to carry the heir to the Alamien throne,” she answered warily. “When he discovered that I wasn’t suitable, that plan fell apart.”
“When he found out that you were a boy?” Yunij asked in confusion.
“No,” Jhan tried to explain. “I’m not a boy, Yunij. I was... they cut me and changed me with Power until I was very like an Alamien woman. They wanted to... it was all about revenge, you see. They wanted to humiliate me every way they could. Still, I hadn’t been changed enough and Darkai couldn’t-”
“Power?” Yunij shuddered. “These enemies of yours have Power?”
“Yes.”
Yunij was thoughtful for some time. Jhan grew more nervous, wondering what the man was thinking. Finally, he said, “Alidae must have known all of this.”
“About Darkai or about-”
“Darkai, of course,” Yunij snapped. He rubbed a hand along his jaw, eyes hard as flint.
“Alidae was part of Darkai’s plans as well,” Jhan informed him. “He was going to provide Darkai with his seed to create the heir.”
Yunij stood, shaking his head, hands dropping to his sides and turning into fists. “This is all wrong! We should never have been a part of this! That Alidae would risk us for such perversion! He was looking for power, I can understand that. He has always wanted to return to the Alamien. What better way than as father to its heir to the throne? But to play such politics with other people’s lives at stake...”
He didn’t offer any sympathy to Jhan nor indicated that he even cared about what she had been put through. It was his men, and his brother, he was concerned about now.
“We fight for who ever pays us,” Yunij explained, staring out at the night as if he were explaining to the empty air and not to Jhan at all. “We’ve fought some dirty battles for shady ends before. If we were all upstanding citizens we would be in a city guard somewhere. This... Alidae should have been straight with us. The only profit in it is for himself. That Darkai won’t ever be able to pay us enough for what we’ve gone through. Pitched battles, sickness, floods, gates, and now you’re saying we’re running right into someone with Power.”
“I don’t know what we’ll find in Blue Sky,” Jhan admitted softly, “but I know there will be danger for me if they find out that I’m there.”
“And yet you go back,” Yunij turned and stared down at her with respect and some puzzlement. “For this man who married you and treats you as a woman? Is that something you wanted or something you have to settle with, not being a man any longer?”
“It’s what I want,” Jhan stressed. “I love Kile.”
Yunij made a face, not understanding that at all. He dismissed her as a warped, perverted creature with a lift of his lip in a sneer. He didn’t have to say the words. He was eloquent in his body language.
“I have to warn the others,” he said. “You’ll tell them what you know so that we can avoid danger.”
Jhan went rigid with bitter anger. Now she knew why Yunij had bothered to play on her emotions, causing her to turn back to save Kile and her companions. He needed her to save his own companions.
“Get some sleep, Little Bird,” Yunij told her. “You’ll need your strength tomorrow. Hopefully, in the morning, the sky will clear enough for us to see where we are.”
Jhan didn’t argue. She was exhausted. She cleared away loose stones and the forest debris until she had an uneven, hard bed. Pillowing her head on her arm, she curled up on it and tried to forget everything. Her aches and pains, her empty stomach, her uncertainty about Yunij, and her terror of what lay ahead kept her shivering and tossing and turning for some time before she was able to drift off to sleep.

“You sleep like the dead!” Yunij snarled.
Jhan started awake, half sitting before her body screamed its aches and pains at her. She gasped and hugged herself tight until it ebbed enough for her to unclench. Yunij was standing over her, glaring. The fire was glowing coals and the light of a fitful dawn made everything uncertain shadows.
“Is it still raining?” Jhan asked, her voice hoarse.
“Yes,” Yunij replied shortly. “Get up! We have to go on.”
“All right,” Jhan said and tried to stand. Her ankle was a throbbing agony and her scraped hip prickled with pain. Her right wrist was swollen and the fingers of that hand didn’t want to close. Yunij raised an eyebrow as Jhan went very pale and her face tensed. Jhan shrugged it off. “Okay, let’s go. It’s not going to get any better. I’ll try and keep up. If I don’t, make sure to leave a good trail for me to follow.”
“At least you are not weak like a woman,” Yunij commented as he left the cave and fell into his ground eating stride.
“You must not know many women,” Jhan growled under her breath as she snagged her dress from the branch over the fire and pulled it over her head. It was barely dry, but that hardly mattered since it was about to get soaked again. Yunij hadn’t bothered to dress. His clothes were tucked up under his arm.
Jhan felt better once her muscles warmed up. Her ankle died to a dull throb and the complete misery of walking through the rain and slipping and sliding on slick rocks kept her mind off of everything else. Her vision narrowed down to her feet after a time, trying to keep her balance and set a pace that would keep her body warm in the chill rain.
“Yunij!” A mercenary came leaping out of cover with a war whoop. Yunij reached for a sword he didn’t have, but then recognized the man and grinned.
“Sala!” Yunij shouted in delight. “Raveni! Agav!” That when the two other men made a slower appearance. They all looked ragged, obviously having been caught up in the flood as well. Yunij clapped them on the shoulders. “Where’s the others?”
There were shrugs and dispirited shakes of the head.
Raveni scowled when Jhan joined them. Agav, a brown skinned mercenary with the grizzled beard and thinning hair of someone past his prime, spat aside and made a rude sign with one hand. The other, Sala, a bow legged, square bodied man, with lanky black hair and a thick beard, was about thirty. He narrowed his eyes at Jhan as well.
Jhan kept quiet as they argued, trying to decide what to do. Yunij took command with a sharp curse. “You’ll do as I say, or I’ll finish what the flood started!”
“What do you say?” Raveni demanded. He had an arrogant tilt to his chin, his dark eyes snapping with temper. “I don’t think you know any more than we do where we are.”
“I’m in command!” Yunij shouted threateningly and stood toe to toe with Raveni. “Are you challenging me?”
Raveni’s scars rippled as he ground his teeth together. “It might be that I don’t wish to be under your command any longer. Alidae has fallen short of honor of late. This might be a good time to cut my losses and find another band. I signed up to fight wars, not to guard strange creatures such as that,” he nodded at Jhan, ”and errant Alamien royalty into the outer parts of civilization.”
“As if your people are so civilized,” Yunij growled sarcastically, but he understood Raveni more than he cared to admit. He had already told Jhan that he didn’t like what Alidae was doing.
“I’m sticking,” Agav announced with the gritty tenacity of a veteran. “I don’t bow out on my sword mates when things don’t go right.”
Raveni bristled. “Are you accusing me of running away?”
Agav was afraid of Raveni, but he was also brave. He didn’t flinch. He stood his ground. “I’m not insulting anyone,” he said, “I’m just saying what I mean to do.”
“The day is wasting!” Sala grumbled, ”Everyone shut up and let Yunij lead. Go or stay after we get back to the others.”
“Sense at last,” Jhan muttered, miserable enough not to watch her tongue.
The hard slap knocked Jhan off of her feet. It had been Raveni. He turned back to the others without missing a beat and said, ”I will go with you Yunij, but I warn you, I am not under your command.”
Yunij didn’t spare a glance at Jhan, he went toe to toe with Raveni again. “Do that to the Captain Kile’s whore again, and I’ll gut you. As for not being under my command... Take that choice and none of us will be responsible for your hide if there should be trouble. You may not like me, Raveni, but even you can understand that there has to be a leader. Stop playing the fool. Cut your losses after we reach the others.”
Jhan climbed to her feet. She didn’t wait for Raveni’s answer. With a hand clutching her swollen cheek, she began walking away, taking the direction that she and Yunij had originally been traveling in. She slid over rocks, dragged herself through mud, and tried to keep an ear open for the sound of the rushing water.
“Pace yourself or you’ll be done long before nightfall,” Yunij said suddenly from behind Jhan. She could hear the others walking behind her, their stronger, steadier breathing, and their long, confident strides.
Jhan didn’t say anything or slow her pace.
“Did he hurt you, Little Bird?”
“Not much,” Jhan replied tightly.
“Then he must like you,” Yunij chuckled.
Jhan tried to lengthen her stride, but failed miserably. All the men quickly passed her and none seemed concerned whether she kept up or not. Jhan again made the decision to fall behind. She found a log and sat down, breathing heavily and gingerly touching her swollen cheek. She wasn’t going to travel with those men. She wasn’t going to repeat that horrible trip to the desert, at the mercy of men who didn’t consider her better than their imala. It was far better to stumble about, lost, wet, and dying of hunger than to suffer at the hands of cruelty.
They didn’t wait. The footsteps of the men were quickly drowned out by the falling rain and the sound of rushing water. Their footsteps began to wash away. Jhan stared as the impressions filled with water and then melted into the mud.
“You are ruining my reputation,” Yunij growled. Jhan looked up, startled and angry. The man was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes hard and furious. “They think I’ve taken you into my bed. They imagine that, once we get back to your Captain Kile, that he and I are going to cross swords over you.” He spat aside, strode up to her, and grabbed Jhan by the back of her ragged dress. He pulled her off of the log and shoved her before him. “Start walking, Little Bird, and remember that I saved your life.”
As Jhan was flung forward, she tangled her hand in Yunij’s and then grabbed his thumb. She twisted, letting his weight anchor her as she regained her balance and applied leverage. He fell to his knees, crying out and beginning to swing at her. Jhan forestalled him by swinging her foot around and stopping it just short of his nose. Awkwardly, they balanced in those positions as Jhan let it sink into Yunij that she could as easily have kicked his nose into his brain. When she saw the light of it in his eyes, she released him just as suddenly and staggered a few feet away, panting.
“Remember that I could have killed you, and didn’t,” Jhan said for emphasis and began to walk.
It was a moment before Yunij caught up with her. He walked behind her for some time and then he said, cautiously. “Why didn’t you kick Raveni? He deserved it more.”
“For a slap? That was nothing,” Jhan replied breathlessly. “I’ve already shown Raveni that I can beat him.”
“And now you’ve shown me, you mean?” Yunij snarled. “You took me by sur-”
“Surprise?” Jhan finished sarcastically. “That’s twice now. You are an easy man to surprise, Yunij.”
Yunij grabbed Jhan by the shoulder and spun her around. He crouched defensively. “Come on, Here and now!” he demanded, balling his hands into fists. “Come on and dance, Little Whore!”
It was like a switch, those words. Jhan wasn’t certain what happened next. Her mind seemed to go blank, a black space blooming; devoid of time or place. When she came to herself, she was standing over Yunij and he was bleeding and unconscious, sprawled out in the mud. That had saved his life. The triggers and compulsions deep within Jhan only responded to moving targets.
“I’ve never seen anything like it!”
Jhan turned dazedly. Raveni had his sword drawn, the only man to still have a weapon. His eyes were glittering in appreciation and also wariness. Agav and Sala were ranged behind him, looking ready to run.
Jhan looked down at Yunij again. Surely he was suffocating, having his head in the mud like that? She shook herself and kneeled, tugging and pulling until he was free to breathe again. When they saw that she was trying to help him, they came forward then to assist.
“Did he try for your charms?” Agav wondered disgustedly as they pulled Yunij’s great bulk to a rockier spot out of the mud and stretched him out on his back. The rain pelted his bruised and bleeding face. The mark of Jhan’s boot was on both sides of his head and his naked body showed clearly that she had jabbed a hand up under his ribcage. It was a miracle that he was still alive.
Jhan touched the purpling welt under Yunij’s ribcage. “Good thing for Yunij that you slipped in the mud or he would be greeting his ancestors now,” Raveni said guardedly, mistaking her expression of confusion.
“He doubted how deadly I can be,” Jhan said softly. “He wanted me to prove it to him.”
She had proved it to them all.
“He insisted on going back for you,” Sala said as he wiped at the blood flowing from a cut over Yunij’s eye. He checked it with his fingers to see if the skull was cracked. “We called him a fool among other things, but he said that we needed you. I understand his meaning now. We saw you fight him. He didn’t stand for more than a moment before you brought him down. You, I can hardly believe that I am saying this, but you are a great fighter, Jhan Dor. With only one sword between us all, it’s good to have someone along who doesn’t need one to kill.”
Agav spat aside. “I don’t care what it can do! I won’t fight beside it! If Yunij wants to bed it, I won’t fight beside him either!”
“I don’t think that was Yunij’s intention,” Raveni retorted sourly. “He said something about danger in Blue Sky. He needed Jhan Dor to speak of it to Alidae.”
“Fool!’ Agav growled. “We don’t need anyone to tell us that we’re sticking our necks out by traveling to Blue Sky. They have a standing army bored and looking for trouble. I heard enough gossip from men in Amberglass to make me cautious. They said that it was the king in Blue Sky that was demanding that they make war on the plains; using the Bhuntay to keep his troops ready for larger conquests later.” “You should have told this to Alidae,” Raveni swore.
Agav glared. “I did! He gave me that purple, cold fish look and asked me why I was bothering him when I was supposed to be on patrol.”
“Then he knew?” Raveni wondered angrily.
“Or he didn’t think much of Agav’s intelligence,” Sala interjected. “Soldiers make a pastime of sharing gossip without much care whether it’s the truth or not.”
“King?” Jhan’s already icy blood was frozen now, her eyes dark pools of growing terror. “What king? What’s his name?”
Agav sneered at her. “Think that you might know him, Princess Pervert? Hajian, they called him, if that does you any good.”
Not knowing for certain whether her terrors were in Blue Sky or not, thinking that Tsarianna might have been just a dream, had made it possible for Jhan to go back for Kile. Now that it was confirmed, now that she knew that her dreams hadn’t been just dreams, Jhan couldn’t bear it. She let out a shriek of terror and began running in the opposite direction, churning mud as she stretched her spine and gathered all of her meager energy to get away as far and as fast as she could.
It was madness, her terror, clouding her eyes and mind with memories of tortures and humiliations. Her face was bloodless and her eyes were round pools of blue shock. When she ran full tilt into Kile, she thrashed and screamed to get away. Nothing was going to stop her, nothing was going to force her to go to Blue Sky.
“Little Love,” Kile said softly, not even attempting to hold onto her or defend himself. Instead, he stood as still as possible, hands at his sides. “Dearest love,” Kile tried again as Jhan crouched to spring.
Jhan only understood that she wasn’t being threatened, that this person wasn’t going to stop her. Jhan used her crouch to spring past Kile and to run again. He couldn’t keep up, he wasn’t a runner. Kile had spent his life in the saddle of an imala. Still, he didn’t have to. Jhan ran straight into another wall of flesh. This one was holding a large cape open like a net. Jhan was a wrapped in it, her head covered and her legs instantly entangled. That body brought her down to the ground, slipped thumbs into sensitive nerves, and rendered Jhan unconscious.

CHAPTER SEVEN
(Return to Nightmare)
Jhan never came completely awake. Every mouthful of food and every sip of water that was given to her was drugged first. She heard snatches of conversations, bleary images of men going in and out of her vision, and the sickening sway of an imala under her in constant motion. Kile never reappeared in that confusing miasma. Jhan longed for him, longed for an anchor and an explanation.
There was a constant, nagging pain in Jhan’s wrist. It dragged and throbbed in rhythm with her breathing, a pain made worse by the smallest movement. That pain gave her a point to concentrate on, a point to bring her back from the drugs that were finally being allowed to leave her system.
Jhan opened her eyes. She found herself clean and comfortable in a soft bed mounded with quilts and pillows. That bed was in a very small, plain room. Carpets hung on the walls to keep out the drafts seeping through the stone and thick wool- like carpets covered the stone floor. A fireplace cut the bone chill somewhat, the flames and several candles giving the only light.
“Good,” a familiar voice said wearily.
Jhan turned her head and saw Darkai sitting in a chair on her right, staring at her with red rimmed eyes sunken in weariness.
“We are in grave danger, Jhan Dor,” Darkai told her quickly. “You must wake up at once.” He helped Jhan to sit, piling the pillows behind her. “How do you feel?”
Jhan couldn’t answer. She couldn’t think. She simply stared at Darkai and then looked about the room. Something about it seemed familiar. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t the room itself. She had never seen it before. It was something else. Something in the particular intensity of the cold and the thinness of the air. It pricked at deeply buried horror.
Jhan scrambled out of the bed. She was wearing a thick nightgown that covered her from throat to heel. Her feet were in soft, knit boots. Her hair was tied in a braid that whipped as she rushed to the walls of the room and frantically began tossing back the carpets one after another.
“What are you doing?” Darkai demanded, standing as well and slowly following her. “You’ll make yourself ill. You’ve been drugged for days. You must go more slowly.”
Jhan ignored him. She did feel ill and shaky, her hands trembling and her knees threatening to buckle as she braced herself against the stone and kept up her search. When she discovered a window at last, shuttered tight, She threw the latch and forced it outwards. It groaned in protest as it swung outwards and let in a stream of cold and light.
Mountains. Familiar, jagged mountains were all about them. The blue of the sky was made milky by lowering mist and low flying clouds. They were very high up. Even the Summer sun couldn’t cut the morning chill. Jhan looked down. Her heart leapt into her throat. A hardy garden of low bushes curved along the side of the fortress she was in. Red flowers dotted them like drops of blood.
Without warning, without thought, Jhan tried to throw herself out of the window. Darkai grabbed for her with a shout, but he didn’t need to. Jhan’s wrist held her back, kept her from being able to pass the sill. There was a horrendous, tearing pain as Jhan began to fight that tether to life. Darkai held her, wrapped arms about her and dragged her back. Jhan twisted out of his grip and made for the window again. A hand snagged her ankle, tripped her. Darkai threw his body on top of Jhan, crushing down on her fragile bones with his greater weight as he drove in a knee and an elbow in an attempt to pin her to the floor. Something snapped with several audible sounds; Ribs, collar bone, and Jhan’s sternum.
Jhan howled, thrashed, and then lay panting in agony as Darkai realized his mistake and rolled off with an exclamation of dismay.
“You were supposed to care for Jhanian, not kill him!” A familiar voice snarled.
Jhan was turned. She lay on her back as hands touched her broken bones. She felt a mind grip her mind and take complete control. Bones came back together with searing agony. She convulsed, threw up bile, but couldn’t move a muscle to stop her tormentor. When the pain abruptly ceased and she sank into warm numbness, she collapsed in relief even as her mind continued to scream in terror.
“Forgive me,” the familiar voice said softly. “I would have stopped the pain sooner, but you were about to die. I thought saving your life more important than a moment’s discomfort. Your ribs drove into your lung, you see, and you nearly pulled your manacle out through your hand. I didn’t expect you to do that. I thought it was a clever solution to your abilities, to put the manacle through your wrist instead of around it.”
A wet rag began cleaning Jhan up. She was propped up and her soiled robe was pulled off over her head. She was given a new one. It was all done with care and gentleness for her modesty. That didn’t register in Jhan’s panicked mind, only the voice, the one she knew from her dreams.
“Get him into bed,” the voice commanded.
“Yes, your Majesty,” Darkai said in anguish. “I didn’t realize-”
“That Prince Jhanian fears this place so much?” The familiar voice sounded dark with remembered pain. “I fear it, Darkai. Sometimes... Sometimes I wish to simply jump out of a window too, when memory sits too heavily on my mind. My brother, Dagara Ku Ni, tortured Jhanian unspeakably. He forced me to do the same. After his death, it was an extreme pleasure to have all of his soldiers, all of his ‘experiments’, and all of his minions, put to death. I couldn’t have done it without the help of the soldiers from Amberglass. I couldn’t have put on the crown without the support of the people of Blue Sky. My people know peace again. My people have come out of the darkness and live in the sun now. I won’t see things go back to the way they were.”
They lifted Jhan and put her back into the bed. Her mind wasn’t released. She was limp under that control, allowing the two men to care for her and make her comfortable. Darkai stepped back to let the other man lean close to Jhan. When she saw his face, she choked on the screams he wouldn’t let her utter.
“I know,” The man, Prince- King Hajian said softly, “I have his face. We were twins. Both born with Power. He was cruel. I am not. I don’t intend to harm you, Prince Jhanian. No one here will harm you. All of the men, “ he swallowed hard, his dark, handsome features twisting at remembered torture, “All of the men who hurt us met their ends in a way that would have satisfied you thoroughly, I assure you. You are an honored guest. You will be treated as a Prince of the Kevelt. I’ve already sent word to your brother that you are well and under my care. The men who had you, the one especially who was making you his bed mate," he said it with disgusted horror, “will be punished.” He smiled encouragingly. “Soon, I’ll have you changed back to your true self. I have the skill and the Power, Prince Jhanian. I will give you back what my brother took away.”
Hajian made as if to touch Jhan’s cheek, but he didn’t. His fingers poised just above the skin, trembling. Jhan felt something twist in her mind. She gasped and then felt a calmness overtake and drown the panic. She blinked and didn’t feel afraid any longer. It was all at odds with what her mind was telling her.
“Forgive me,” King Hajian told her, “but I can’t allow you to kill yourself before you understand that you’re safe here and that I only wish to help you. The days of torture and humiliation are over, Prince Jhanian. Please, believe that.”
“Your Majesty,” Darkai said respectfully, “about Princess Avrilla... You’ve confiscated my possessions from my home here. I need them to help her.”
“Don’t concern yourself about that,” Hajian grumbled. “Prince Jhanian is your charge now.”
“But time is of the essence if I am to help her baby,” Darkai continued in a boldness that was a part of his arrogance.
“You will not question my orders,” King Hajian snapped, bringing himself up to his full height. He had the same cold stare as Dagara Ku Ni, the stare that had made Jhan scream when ever it had rested on her. She couldn’t bear it.
Jhan wasn’t afraid, but she knew what came next after a look like that. She scrambled under the bed before they could stop her and she curled up against the baseboard of the wall.
“Tend to the Prince,” Hajian commanded again. “His brother has been ordered to come for him. I explained in my dispatch that he will have his brother returned to him, whole and as he was before Dagara’s madness. It will be your duty to make certain that Jhanian doesn’t do himself any harm before that happens.” That cold look sharpened. “Fail me, Darkai, and I will be most displeased.”
Darkai bowed, swallowing hard.
Hajian left the room, a guard opening and closing the door for him.
Darkai stood for some time, not saying anything. Jhan stared at his booted feet, trying to think past Hajian’s hold on her mind. At last, Darkai gave a shaky sigh. “You can’t hide under there forever.”
Memory whirled on the outskirts of comprehension, held out of Jhan’s mental grasp along with her fear. All that was left to her was a bundle of ingrained reactions, instinct shouting at her that the predator was nearby. Even that was short circuited to a degree, the reaction to flee uncoupled from the fear that impelled it.
“Go away!” Jhan shrieked. “Go away!” It was madness that gripped her now. She was an animal caught in a trap with no escape.
“I can’t go away!” Darkai replied in exasperation. The bed sagged as he sat on it heavily. “I’m stuck with you whether I want you or not!”
Jhan pulled at the manacle through her wrist. It was healed around the edges of the gap, the iron thrust through a neat hole in her flesh. A man, who did a thing like that, was asking her to trust him, to believe that he wasn’t like his brother Dagara. Jhan knew better. Her dreams were true. She had seen his cruel experiments. It wasn’t Dagara who had forced him to do such things. Jhan remembered that he had liked it.; prided himself on his skill. The man was lying to Darkai, lying to her.
“His men surrounded us soon after the flood,” Darkai explained. “We were all taken prisoner. King Hajian thought... he had seen you in Amberglass. He left you there, not knowing that you were coming here, to Blue Sky. When his spies brought word of it, he came with his force to meet you, thinking... Well, he thought you had come for revenge.”
Darkai stood and paced, his boots making soft thuds on the carpeted floor. “He made us search for you. Kile would have anyway, but he was afraid of Hajian. He refused. He tried to use his sword to escape. King Hajian took over his mind. He made Kile obey him. He sent him out to meet you when you were spotted running towards us. It didn’t work of course, you ran right past him. King Hajian grabbed you, as simple as that, and held you for the longest time. When he finally released you, you were as controlled as Kile. Hajian laughed. I suppose he found out from your mind the real reason for your journey to Blue Sky. He took me then and questioned me. I told him about Avrilla. I told him that I had once lived in Blue Sky, but fled after his brother came to power. I had been forced to leave all of my most advanced machines here.”
“We journeyed to Blue Sky, bound and under threat of death if we didn’t do as we were told,” Darkai continued as if he were ashamed of the indignity. “Hajian had heard of my reputation. He put me in charge of you. He made me drug you through the entire journey. When I fell asleep, and one of his soldiers tried to molest you, he...,” Darkai choked at the horrible memory and then went on a little raggedly, “He put out his hand, placed it on the man’s shoulder, and... the man just melted. He didn’t even scream. His eyes just widened and then he wasn’t a man anymore and he was very dead. I’ve heard of people with Power. I’ve never had the chance to examine someone with it. I never dreamed that it could do such things. If his brother was anything like him, I can understand how they terrorized every land from here to the sea.”
Darkai suddenly kneeled and looked under the bed. He was a shadow against the candlelight. “We are in grave danger, Jhan Dor. He is mad, that man, I can see it. He says that he wants to return you to what you were, a prince of the Kevelt, but that isn’t all of it. I can feel a bargain taking shape. He has the stench of fear about him. He speaks of holding what he’s made here and in Amberglass. He doesn’t want to loose it. He doesn’t want anyone usurping his place.”
“He knows about the machines in me, Jhan,” Darkai said finally. “He knows that I’m not completely Human. He... He raped my mind, trying to understand how it was done to me,” Darkai swallowed hard before continuing. “I shall never forget it, his mind in mine. It was a complete violation of all that I am.”
“Now you know,” Jhan replied viciously. “Now you know how I felt when you did those things to me without asking! That was rape too.” Jhan shook her head sharply, feeling tears rolling down her cheeks. “He’s going to do a lot worse, Darkai. You’ll scream for death before he’s done. For your own good, he’ll say as he tears you apart, for the good of this or that, or just because he imagines that he needs to do it. He’ll find a reason, even when there isn’t one.”
“I can’t tell him anything about the machines inside of me,” Darkai told her slowly, as if he were parting with a great secret. “It was done to me over two hundred years ago. I went on a pilgrimage to the Sun God. I wanted to be a priest; to make myself an initiate of the temple in the great desert. I was set upon by bandits and suffered great wounds. I thought that I died, but I woke in the Sun Temple and Tsarianna himself healed me. He told me that the world lacked healing arts. He asked me to learn from him and to take that knowledge out among the people. He replaced parts of my body with parts of himself so that I would live long enough to make a difference, to train others, and to build certain machines that he said would end much suffering.”
“So, he tampered with you as well,” Jhan replied darkly. “At least he asked you first.”
Darkai blinked. “Then you were changed by him as well? I thought so,” He paused and then plowed on, as if he were afraid of sounding lunatic. “I’ve been aware of you, you see, in an odd way. It’s as if... how can I explain? It’s as if you were a hand that I can feel without it being attached to me. I was the one who found you in the forest. I seemed to know exactly where you were.”
“And you led him to me!” Jhan said it loudly, but the anger that should have gone with it was as muted as her fear. It was frustrating, as if she were filling something inside of her so full that it was about to burst. She needed an outlet of some kind or, she felt, something terrible was going to happen.
Jhan bent over and banged her head against the floor. Darkai exclaimed as she did it again. Jhan laughed at the release of pressure inside of her. The pain was sharp, unpleasant, and just what she needed. She began to do it repeatedly until her senses reeled and Darkai had taken hold if her. He dragged her out from under the bed, daring death Jhan was sure he realized.
“Stop it!” Darkai shouted and shook her hard. “If you harm yourself, he’ll blame me!”
Jhan’s head was purpling with bruises. She tore at them and then tore at her hair, until she realized that something had changed. She pulled her hair forward to where she could see it. The tight braid was like straight silk. Her curls were gone!
“King Hajian told me that Dagara had made your hair curly,” Darkai said as he grabbed her wrists and tried to pin them against his chest. “When he changed it to the way it is now, he was proud, saying that it was the first step in your journey to returning to the Jhanian Kevelt you were born to be.”
Jhan sobbed, unable to express even outrage. Darkai released her and stepped back. He paced again. Jhan sank to the floor and covered her head as if she could hide from reality that way.
“You don’t want that, even now, do you?” Darkai guessed with sick amazement. “I’ve never seen anything so incredible as what that man can do with just his hands. Even with all the skill Tsarianna gave me, I don’t even have an iota of that man’s ability. He could help Avrilla without breaking a sweat. He can change you back into the man you were-”
“He can’t,” Jhan said from the cover of her arms. “He can’t give me back what Dagara cut away. He’ll try, I’m sure, but he will fail. You’re right that I don’t want what he’s intending to do. I was NEVER Jhanian Kevelt. I am not a prince of Karana. I am a woman trapped in this mangled, abused lump of flesh and I know now that I will never have rest, never have happiness. You and all of your kind will never allow it!” She sat up, tears still running down her face. She laughed hysterically. “Let him play with me! Let him turn me inside out! What does it matter? I can’t have what I want most in the world. I can’t have Kile and a life together. Hajian’s already taken that away from me too. Let him take the rest!”

Hajian did try to take the rest. Jhan sat numbly, refused to eat, refused even the water that Darkai begged her to drink. When Hajian came for her, he was cautious. She had beaten him once and the fear of that was in his dark eyes.
Dressed in a rich, burgundy robe and a golden crown on his dark hair, Hajian looked very powerful. His hands, full of jeweled rings, unlocked Jhan’s wrist from the manacle and took her up from the bed. Jhan, unresisting, felt his Power flow from those hands and take control all in an instant. He was a spider to her, winding her in tight threads to save for a feast later.
“Come,” Hajian commanded and, even without the compulsion, Jhan would have obeyed. Her mind had already sought refuge deep within her. She only watched now, unfeeling and unthinking.
Jhan walked past Darkai. The man was nervous. He dared to try and speak with Hajian again when he saw Jhan’s dead eyes. “You won’t hurt, Jhan Dor?”
“Prince Jhanian,” Hajian corrected Darkai patiently. “You will give him that respect. I’m afraid that there will be pain,” he said regretfully. “I can block most of it, but there is much to do.”
“She doesn’t think that you can do it,” Darkai said.
Hajian stopped and turned stiffly to look down at Jhan. It was obvious that he didn’t like anyone questioning his skill. He touched the bumps on her head. They smoothed out and were gone as he stroked them with his Power.
“This is not a woman, this person under my hand,” Hajian said quietly. “This is a man, a man made mad, as I was, by my brother’s tortures. I came to my senses when I took the throne and began to undo all the evil of my brother’s dark reign. Prince Jhanian will do the same once what is his is restored to him.” Hajian smiled. “I know a man still lives within this flesh. I visited Prince Jhanian in Amberglass. He had just lain with a slave woman.” Hajian looked sideways at Darkai as Darkai became uncomfortable. “He knows what he is, Darkai. He hasn’t truly forgotten. It was just easier to pretend to be something else after-,” he shivered a little and then said to Jhan, “Come. We will make you whole again.”
Darkai didn’t dare anything else.
Jhan walked behind Hajian, out of the room and into a corridor that was very familiar. It was horrible not to feel any fear, not the slightest trepidation. The numbness kept her from screaming, from trying to run, from trying to kill herself with whatever she could find.
Two guards followed behind them. They didn’t wear the orange uniforms of Dagara Ku Ni. These were a deep blue with a red flower design on the left breast. Jhan glanced back and , while one man looked bored and uninterested in his duty, the other was looking Jhan over curiously. Jhan tried to see malevolence in that look, but couldn’t find any. The man even seemed friendly, giving Jhan a small, encouraging smile when he saw her look back, as if she were a nervous child that needed reassuring. She didn’t recognize him or the other man.
“I had them all killed,” Hajian said without turning, but knowing her fear himself all too well. “I impaled them on stakes around the walls of the fortress. It took days for some of them to die. Would you like me to tell you how I had them impaled? It was fitting justice, I thought, after what they did to us.”
Jhan shuddered, feeling ill, unable to find the satisfaction that Hajian expected of her.
“The people love me,” Hajian told her with pride. “My men follow me willingly, not out of fear or because I compel them to. I am a good King, Prince Jhanian. I have righted many wrongs. This wrong, the great wrong that was done to you, will give me the most pleasure to make right again.”
The doors were the same. Gargoyle heads with mouths open; designs so stylized and intricate that they made Jhan dizzy. She almost felt as if she were flying, the swirls and bold carving imitating the flow of the wind and the wall carrying the design some feet back the way they had come. When Hajian opened them to reveal Dagara’s rooms, Jhan collapsed onto the floor gasping.
“They are the rooms of the king,” Hajian explained apologetically. “I had to sleep here whether I wanted to or not,” he paused and then finished with a steely glint, “and I must confess, I felt more triumphant over my brother when I took even this from him.”
Jhan couldn’t breathe. She felt her lungs constrict and her eyes go dark as she fought for an expression of her horror. She moaned like a tortured beast and then began to methodically slam her head against the stone floor. A hand full of rings quickly cushioned her head and held her still as Hajian sought a tighter control over her mind.
“Get us food and drink,” Hajian ordered as he lifted Jhan to her feet again. She couldn’t think at all. Her world had narrowed down to a small point of sight and a small part of consciousness, enough to let her obey Hajian as he said once more, “Come.”
They entered the rooms of Dagara Ku Ni, but they were changed. Jhan was left standing as Hajian closed the doors. The room had white curtains now. They were thrown back to reveal the great windows at the farther end of the main room. Light streamed in and pooled on finely woven carpets of romping beasts, a great, oval table with a surface like a black pool of water, bookcases filled with dusty tombs, and a bed covered in white comforters stitched with an intricate hunting scene.
Jhan walked at once to the window and gazed out at the mountains and the misty sky. She remembered in a haze as thick as the one lowering over the mountain peaks, that she had always longed to do this when she had been a prisoner of Dagara; simply stand in the sunlight of that window.
“It isn’t the same,” Hajian said to her as he came to stand next to Jhan. “I’ve changed it all.”
Jhan didn’t believe him. She said nothing. He took her arm after a time and led her away.
“Sit down,” Hajian pulled a heavy chair away from the table and placed her in it. “We’ll eat first, talk a little. I don’t want you to be afraid. I want you to understand that everything will be all right.”
Jhan stared at the face that was Dagara’s. The differences were subtle. A scar marred an eyebrow. The lips were tight and the eyes lined from long suffering. Dagara had always tried to make himself look beautiful, enhancing himself repeatedly with his Power. Hajian’s appearance, though royal, was much less circumspect. His hair was teasing out of its clasp at the back of his neck. He looked as if he needed to shave. There was a line of dirt along his neck, as if he had stooped to do something menial and beneath a king. There was also a glitter of something unmistakable in his eyes; a bone deep madness that, like Jhan’s, would never be healed.
“I thought that you were coming to Blue Sky for revenge,” Hajian began. “I left you in Amberglass, thinking that Poltrane, who is a good man, would take care of you and then send you on your way. I didn’t realize that your way was Blue Sky. As soon as I heard of a mercenary force approaching and one of them a slight, dark haired beauty, I... I admit, even among my army, I felt afraid. You killed Dagara when I thought nothing on this world could do that.”
Hajian pushed back a stray strand of his dark hair and adjusted his crown on his head.
“I came to meet you, to conquer you if I could,” Hajian continued, “but, as I rode with my men, I reconsidered. I thought of all the tortures that you had endured. I remembered seeing you hanging from a window of the soldier’s barracks, bleeding all down the wall while you shrieked. I remembered you being healed by Gyven after they used hot irons on you. I-he thought that you would die that time, but he had a great Power for healing, even more so than mine. I thought of the Jhanian Kevelt who you used to be, the one who had walked into this fortress on a Winter’s day and struck a deal with evil. A big, powerful man, with a need for more than a second son’s lot in life, you didn’t know that Dagara was anything other than a foreign king. Dagara promised you a kingdom, promised you a beautiful woman, and promised you all the power you could go and take. When Dagara attacked Kevelt, you understood at last what he had done. You defected back to your father Torian and so set in motion your own downfall.”
Hajian was pale, thoughts lost in the past. “I remember when Thaos brought you to the fortress and threw you down at the gate, tied and shouting your fury. Thaos had made a bargain with Dagara. In payment for your return, Dagara was to release fifty men he had taken captive. It was all lies of course. Those men had long since died. Dagara was so happy to have you back. There wasn’t even a moment between the time he put hands on you and the time that he began to torture you for your treachery. I think he actually loved you, if a man like that can love. Your betrayal had cut him in his black heart. It’s why he was so inventive, so consumed with reducing you to powdered bones in the slowest, most humiliating means possible. You were the only thing he had ever loved and you had spurned him.”
There was a soft knock at the door.
“Come in,” Dagara called.
A servant brought in a tray of food and drink. Honey wine, cut up birds in a cream sauce, and berries in a silver bowl. The man smiled at Hajian and bowed as he placed the tray on the table.
“Thank you, Kirset,” Hajian murmured, still distracted by his memories.
Pleased that his king had remembered his name, Kirset, a reedy, balding man, bowed very low again and backed out, closing the door behind him.
Jhan didn’t make any move to eat. Hajian studied her and then ordered, “Eat. You know that refusing is a waste of energy. Dagara laid these controls on you long ago. It is nothing for me to take them up again with my Power.”
Jhan did eat, mechanically, not looking at, tasting, or knowing what she ate. Her blue eyes remained blank, thinking of Thaos’s treachery in the smallest sense as she stared at the bed and remembered agony and humiliation.
“I’ve called Thaos to Blue Sky. It will take time for him to arrive, but that is for a purpose,” Hajian continued as he sipped from a golden goblet of wine. “I think, after you have been changed back into your true self, you will want to have the chance to revenge yourself on him as well as those others that kept you against your will. That Darkai, he says that he forced you to journey with him. It was he who mangled my brother’s fine work and made you live as a half thing. I think, when you are more sane, you will want a particularly choice punishment for him. As for now, he is an excellent healer, even without Power.”
Jhan continued to eat, not giving any indication that she had heard him.
“Stop,” Hajian ordered. “I know that you can’t eat much.”
Like a puppet, Jhan put down a handful of roasted bird. Hajian picked up a napkin, and, like a servant, cleaned that hand off for her. After putting the napkin fastidiously aside, he went to the door and locked it.
“I don’t wish any disturbances,” Hajian explained. “There are many levels involved in this work. It will take much time, much concentration. To change you back, I have to first understand what my brother has done to you and what Darkai has done. I think you know that the body is a delicate balance of functioning parts. If that balance is tipped too much, the body collapses and dies. It may take months before the work is done.”
“Come.” Hajian took Jhan’s arm and raised her up from the chair. He led her to a door. It looked new, the wood light colored and highly polished. He opened it and led her into a workroom. It too smelled new; fresh paint and the stench of stone dust. It wasn’t very large, just a table of wood, walls lined with shelves, and a low sink with a spigot to release water from some rain barrel on the roof.
Hajian looked at Jhan’s face. It didn’t register anything. “I’ve taken up my experiments again, but only on animals,” he told her.
Hajian opened and closed a few cabinets. He pulled out a blanket and draped it over the table.
“It gets cold in here,” he murmured, “and I’ll have to have you undressed.”
Hajian turned to her then and his face was very tight and serious.
“I know what you suffered with my brother,” Hajian said. “I want to assure you that I don’t have any attraction to you whatsoever. After what was done to me, I find even the thought of... coupling with anyone, terrifying. Dagara always called it a thing for animals, too base for his more refined tastes. It was always too quickly done, the pleasure not great enough, he told me.” Hajian scowled. “It was always my opinion that he couldn’t and that he delighted in punishing those that could. You would know more about that, I think.”
Jhan did know and Hajian was only half right. Dagara had thought it a mild torture; a thing too easily grown used to or even learned to enjoy. Dagara hadn’t hated. He had loved his victims, loved squeezing every bit of strength of mind and will from them, subjugating them totally and possessing them utterly. It had been as much a part of his art as his tireless resculpting of flesh. Besides, though Dagara had avoided straightforward rape, he hadn’t been opposed to abusing Jhan in other, cruder ways, or in forcing her to humiliate herself by pleasuring him.
“I can see that you aren’t going to be reassured by anything that I say,” Hajian sighed. “Undress then. I’ve done what I can to make this easy on you.”
Jhan pulled her nightgown over her head and then let it drop. Hajian looked her up and down. “You are still very beautiful,” he said softly.
Hajian helped Jhan to lie on the table. Even with the blanket, it was cold, Jhan shivered and closed her eyes, not wanting to see what was about to happen.
“You won’t feel anything,” Hajian told her. “I’m going to examine you outside and then look inside with my Power.”
His hands were cold. He muttered to himself as he touched and probed and then he said more clearly. “There is so much for me to do, and I am not a young man. It has been weighing heavily on my mind, my mortality. Without an heir, I’ve been afraid that another despot like my brother will reign after I am gone. The thought of my people falling into the darkness again is unendurable to me. I have been experimenting, trying to use my Power to find the key to death. I have discovered that everything in a person can be changed by tweaking small strands of flesh deep inside. It has been my theory that there must be a strand of flesh that tells us to age and to die. The work has been slow though, and Power consuming. I can’t afford to overuse my Power. I won’t go the way of my brother, who used his Power until it almost burned him up alive.”
Hajian paused as he manipulated the extra joints of Jhan’s wrist and then he continued, “I learned from Darkai’s mind that a creature in the great desert, called Tsarianna, placed machines within him that have allowed him to live several spans of a human life. I will be taking him apart after you have executed him. Perhaps the key I am looking for is buried within him.”
Soon he would find out that Jhan had those machines in her as well, she thought. She didn’t have to imagine what he would do then. She would suddenly not become as important as Hajian’s need to keep on living. It’s what he feared, Jhan knew. The man didn’t want to die. That fear had kept him alive all through his brother’s reign, but now that he was in command and there was peace, it gnawed at him like a canker. Hajian was giving himself reasons for his search; for his people, for his land, to combat all that his brother had done. In truth, he was doing it for himself.
Things were coming to an end, Jhan though distantly. She felt his hands examining between her legs, lamenting at the damage. How much longer she had depended on how time consuming, how thorough Hajian was. When he used his Power to reach inside of her and, unlike the last time at Poltrane’s home, truly search out and know what had been done to her, he would find the machines. When that happened, Jhan knew, her fate would be the same as Darkai’s. Hajian would remove them. Jhan’s body would die without them.
Jhan fled deep within herself, sinking past any sensation. There was complete darkness at first, a warm womb to pull around her that was both forgetfulness and comfort, but something, a deep emotion that Hajian had not stifled, drew her away before she could lock herself there, never to come out again. Like a magnet, that emotion pulled Jhan to the one place where she most wanted to be; with Kile.
It was a dream, a last gasping hope, Jhan thought, but then decided that it was too real. She was standing in a cell, five feet by five feet and facing Kile. Her love was sprawled against a wall, head tilted back and eyes staring at spiders on the rough hewn ceiling. A narrow window let in light and the cold. His arms were shackled, but he had enough slack to sit comfortably, as comfortably as he could on a freezing stone floor.
He was dirty, clothes in disarray, shoulder of his red uniform torn and hanging. His face was gaunt and pale, a blue tinge along his lips that spoke of illness or soul rending despair. His hair was matted with blood and sticking up wildly with bits of dirt and straw from a mound of them that was all he had for a bed.
“Kile,” Jhan’s voice sounded barely above a whispering breeze, but he heard it.
Kile’s eyes lowered very slowly and he stared at Jhan’s apparition. “I-I can see through you, Little Love,” Kile choked out the rest. “Are you a ghost? Has he killed you?”
“King Hajian has me bound with his mind,” Jhan explained. She stepped forward and felt as insubstantial as she looked. She kneeled by Kile and tried to touch him. He braced himself for the touch, watching her translucent hand rest on his knee.
“Like a feather,” Kile said hoarsely. He tried to put his own hand over hers. The chain clanked at his motion. He grimaced as his hand went through hers. “I can feel a warmth, but that’s all. Are you using your Power, like before?”
“I think so.”
Jhan had emotions here. Freed of the body that Hajian was controlling, she felt the panic and the terror of that place and the grief that she might never see Kile again. She threw her body against his and he tried to hold onto her. She shook and wept as his hands passed through her to hold himself. He wept then too and it was some time before Jhan could speak again.
“He’s changing me, Kile,” Jhan explained. “He wants to make me into Jhanian Kevelt again.”
Kile stared. “Can he do that?”
“Some of it, yes, most of it, no,” Jhan replied. “He’ll try anyway though, because he thinks that it’s owed to me and, I think, he wants to see if he’s better than his brother.”
“Tell him the truth!” Kile exploded, frantically trying to take hold of her. “Tell him that you aren’t Jhanian Kevelt! Tell him that you want to stay just as you are!”
It was strange, feeling his hands passing through her, and to be so close to his face without being able to kiss him and calm him. “It doesn’t matter,” Jhan told him. “He thinks I’m mad and that being returned to my ‘true self’ will bring me back to sanity.” She couldn’t explain to Kile about the machines. He wouldn’t understand that part of it. She tried to keep it simpler. “I may not survive what he’s going to do to me, Kile. I want- I want to say goodbye.”
“No!” Kile was sobbing uncontrollably. “I don’t care what he does to you, Jhan. I don’t care what you end up being. I will still love you. Believe that! Please believe that! Live!”
“I don’t think that I’ll have a choice,” Jhan replied. She touched him gently on the cheek, tried to feel once last time, the man she loved more than anything in the world. She didn’t tell him that his fate was sealed as well, that Hajian intended to kill him along with Darkai and the mercenaries. Jhan didn’t want to think of her friends, of Bheni, Rehn, Tevar, and Jaross, who might also share his fate. Her own horror and grief at the fate of Kile and herself didn’t leave room for anyone else.
Kile thrashed madly in his chains, groaning. “I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him if he hurts you!”
Jhan couldn’t hold on any longer. Someone was touching her mind, drawing her back. She tried to hold onto Kile, to deny that power, but it was useless. She had a last look at his stricken face and then she was back in her body and Hajian was mentally inside of her, examining her, drawing closer and closer to her secret. Jhan groped for a defense of any kind and, unexpectedly, found a weapon in her memories.
Dagara was raping her, slowly, methodically, taking a day and a night to utterly humiliate Jhanian Kevelt. Jhan thrust that memory at Hajian like a sword and the man flinched. For a moment, before he withdrew, he was the one being raped by his brother, feeling the pain of the physical violation, hearing the panted endearments in his ear as those sharp teeth gnawed at it; smelling sex, sweat, and the alarming odor of blood.
“You’re afraid,” Hajian said as he backed away. He looked ill and pale. “We’ll stop for now, allow you to recover. This won’t be done in a day, or a month. I’m sorry that I grew over eager.”
“Let Kile go,” Jhan said, her voice small and trembling. “Let them all go.”
Hajian looked at her, wondering that she could speak at all with the controls he had on her mind. Jhan felt him tightening those controls. She could sense his fear of her, of her abilities.
“I’m not an evil man!” Hajian retorted, hands clenching. “Most of the mercenaries I’ve already released. My men are seeing them to the border. I kept a few to question, but they won’t be harmed either. It was only Captain Kile and Jaross Ke Nava that I imprisoned. I saw from their minds that one hand raped you and that the other had made you his bed mate. “Hajian shuddered. “You’re defending them because you are not in your right mind, Prince Jhanian. You submitted yourself like a woman, convinced yourself that you were a woman, so that you could accept what Dagara did to you. Once I give you back what was taken away, you will want revenge, I promise you.”
Jhan had raped Jaross, she knew, but she couldn’t speak now and the glint in Hajian’s eyes told her that he wouldn’t listen to her anyway.
Hajian helped Jhan to dress. He took her back to the main room and sat her down in the chair once more. “I will have men’s clothing made up for you, with the proper height that I’ll give back to you, Of course. Until then, robes will do. You must begin to act like a man again.”
Hajian had Jhan eat more food. When that was finished, he said, as he wiped her lips and hands with a napkin, “It is strange that, when I was in your mind, I couldn’t sense anything of your past, not even as General of Dagara’s army. There was, instead, muddled images of a land I didn’t recognize and people that seemed strange to me. I’ll probe deeper as we progress, but it may be a part of the same madness that has made you forget your true sex.”
Jhan wished, more than anything else, that she could see what Hajian had seen in her mind. Her past as Tammy was faded, destroyed by the tortures and sickness that she had endured. She couldn’t even recall her Mother’s face at that moment, or much of her home. Her life with Kile was clearer and dearer, but she longed for her past.
“I will be glad when you give up this fear of me,” Hajian said as he stood Jhan up and led her to the door. “It wastes energy to bind you.”
The Power was consuming, Jhan knew. She remembered the fire in Dagara’s eyes and the way his hands had burned everything he touched. She recalled her own unbound power and the way it had threatened to destroy a world. Hajian didn’t have that kind of Power. His was subtler. It twisted DNA, healed bodies, and read minds. A fantastic gift if used for good, a torturer’s dream if used for evil. Still, it did consume him. She could see it in the lines of his face, in the furrow of concentration between his eyes, and in his quicker than normal breathing. Like a fire, the Power needed energy. It was obvious that it took that energy from the body; Hajian’s body.
“I wish that Gyven were still alive,” Hajian muttered, “I can change a body to different forms, but he had the true Power of healing. He helped Dagara bring you back to life. As it is, I’ll have to use my lesser skills to keep you alive and out of pain, while I try and restore your body to its true form. Another reason why we must go slow.”
Jhan heard his thoughts, running between them through the mind hold he had on her. He was wondering why she was still alive when he had been certain that she should have died before ever leaving Dagara’s clutches the first time. It was in his mind that Dagara had done something to her, unknown to him, that was keeping her body alive despite everything that he had cut out of it. He had to discover what that was, he was thinking, make use of it somehow, along with the machines in Darkai, to extend his own life.
Jhan felt a lessening of tension in Hajian. He was feeling more confident that he would find his cure for death. He had his excuse for opening her up and examining her that he could live with. He could be a good man and still accomplish his desire.
“Take Prince Jhanian back to his room,” Hajian ordered the guards outside of his door. “Be gentle with him. He is ill and he doesn’t realize what he is doing.”
“Yes, your Majesty,” one of the guards said with a salute that made Hajian smile in pleasure.
“Until tomorrow, Prince Jhanian,” Hajian said to Jhan.
The guards led Jhan away. She followed docilely, thinking that they would molest her as soon as they were out of Hajian’s sight. They didn’t. Instead, they spoke behind her back as if she were unaware. Perhaps she looked that way to them.
“Pretty thing,” the taller guard said in a gruff voice. “You don’t think that his majesty likes-”
“Hold your stinking tongue!” The second, younger guard snarled. “Don’t talk like that in front of a child!”
“No offense,” the first guard said louder, hoping Jhan, if she could understand, would forgive. “That’s not a child anyway,” he said softer. “I heard tell that Prince Jhanian was a man grown before that bastard, King Dagara, tortured him. Eighteen then, almost twenty now, I figure.”
“He looks twelve at the most!” The other guard exclaimed and then quickly, “Sorry, your Highness!”
“Look at him!” The first guard grunted. “He doesn’t have the wit to know what we’re saying.”
“You hope!”
“I know! His eyes are as flat as stones.”
“His Majesty is a kind and good man to help him,” the second guard said. “He’s ordered us to treat him gently and we shall.”
“I’m not arguing about that,” the first protested. “I do as I’m told by my betters. It just seems to me that a man cut down to look like a little girl has a few uses that you’re too fine of a man to know about, but maybe our good King does. Maybe you’re willing to forget the past, but I had a cousin who soldiered here in the dark times and he told me stories about our King Hajian that would raise the hair on your head. I don’t grudge a man his pleasure, but if he’s going back to what he was by consorting with,” Jhan could imagine a thumb pointed at her back. ”He certainly doesn’t have any women in his bed.”
“Shut your filthy hole!” the second guard exploded. “I won’t stand here and listen to-”
“All right!” The first conceded. “I beg your pardon, Silan! I didn’t know that you were so touchy about his Majesty. Go ahead and trust him to the death, but I’m a man who asks questions. I don’t want to be here if things go bad again. I’m watching for the signs.”
“This isn’t a ‘sign’ of anything, but King Hajian’s goodness!” the second shouted. “He is healing Prince Jhanian! He is righting the wrong that King Dagara did to him.”
“Why is that?” the first wanted to know shrewdly. “By all accounts, Prince Jhanian wasn’t as good a man as our King Hajian. My cousin told me some of the things he used to do. Rapine of women, the least of it. When they attacked a village, he was always the first to take a woman to rut on. He killed and maimed soldiers that dared to fail him or just disagree with him. No, he wasn’t a good man, by any account. Our King Hajian killed men for less than that. Why save this one, hmm?”
“You think too much!” the first one snarled. “All of that could be lies. Dagara had great Power. He could have made a man do anything.”
“So can King Hajian,” the first reminded him and then they were silent, thinking about that.
“You have a beautiful ass, Prince Jhanian,” the first soldier said suddenly. “I would love to put my hands on it.” When Jhan didn’t bat an eye and kept on walking without a pause, the man grunted, saying through the second soldier’s gasp of shock. “See, he’s gone somewhere in his head. Even a cut man would have said something about that, especially a prince.”
They reached Jhan’s room. The soldier opened the door and she walked inside.
“Lord Darkai?” The first soldier called.
Darkai came from a back room anxiously.
“The Prince isn’t responding to anything,” the first soldier told him. “King Hajian wishes him treated well and gently.”
Darkai closed the door in the man’s face. He took Jhan by the arm and settled her on the bed. “He seems an unpleasant man,” he grumbled.
Jhan closed her eyes, wanting to retreat again. Darkai was touching her, trying to see if Hajian had done anything to her.
“You seem unharmed,” he said in relief. “Did he find the machines within you?”
Jhan shook her head numbly and then went to the window. She pushed back the wall tapestry and opened the thick shutter. A cold wind whipped into her and the vista of mountains was dizzying. She didn’t have any urge to jump now, not even when her own wrist caught her attention. The hole in it was still there, but it didn’t have a purpose now. Hajian knew that she was helpless and that he didn’t need to chain her.
“They let me leave the room,” Darkai told her as if it were important. “They let me see Bheni and Avrilla. Bheni is frantic for her husband and you, but she and Avrilla have been well cared for. They are in a suite of honor, though guarded. Hajian intends to send them home with protection. He doesn’t understand that Avrilla will be killed by the Alamien if he does that. I have to make him understand that she needs help. Every day that passes makes it less likely that I will be able to change her child.”
There wasn’t any talk of saving Jhan. Darkai must have realized the uselessness of that. Jhan tried to think through the dull haze about her brain. She wanted to say something desperately. If Darkai could go to Avrilla and Bheni, could he also go to Kile?
“You have to save him,” Jhan said almost indistinctly. Darkai was very close, maybe fearing that she would jump. He leaned closer, trying to hear what she was saying. “Kile is in a cell. I know where it is. You have to save him.”
Darkai straightened frowning. “What can I do? I’m sure your ‘love’ is well guarded.”
“Save him,” Jhan repeated.
Darkai shook his head firmly. “I’m not going to risk myself for him. He-well, you may think well of him, but I still consider him a pervert. He used you as a woman. He went against nature to ‘marry’ you. I at least agree with King Hajian that your mutilation has made you mad enough to accept what he did to you. As far as I’m concerned, your Captain is getting what he deserves.”
“Death?”
Darkai was startled. “Death? That’s not what King Hajian told me. He said that Kile would be imprisoned, perhaps enslaved.”
Jhan took a shuddering breath. It was making her ill to concentrate so hard. She leaned against the windowsill. Darkai took hold of her wrist, still not certain what she meant to do. Jhan looked at him hard.
“Hajian thinks that you hurt me too,” Jhan told him steadily. “He wants me to kill Kile and you.”
“What?” Darkai was alarmed, backing up. “When?”
“After I’m turned back into Jhanian Kevelt,” Jhan replied. “You don’t have much time, Darkai. Please, escape this place and take Kile with you.”
Jhan pulled away from him, her mind sinking back into numbness, she staggered to the bed and collapsed onto it, curling up into a tight ball.
“The place is heavily guarded,” Darkai said. Now he was looking out of the window, trying to make some plan. “I’ll never be able to get Kile out of that cell. I would be a fool to try.”
Jhan said nothing. He had denied her the one thing that she still had enough presence of mind to hope for. Without it, there was nothing left. Nothing to hold onto consciousness for. She pulled the edges of oblivion over her mind and willed herself away.

CHAPTER EIGHT
(Apparitions)
“Alidae never left a man behind!” Yunij was pacing. His face was purple and swollen where Jhan had kicked him. He was rubbing his stomach as if her blow there still pained him. The rain had stopped and he was facing several men across a campfire.
Agav, Sala, Raveni, and Trey were crouched in a semi circle, all of them with varying expressions ranging from eagerness to disgruntlement.
“I came to find you and bring you back to the band,” Trey growled, “Not to storm a fortress with a handful of men.”
“Why did he keep Alidae when he let everyone else go?” Yunij demanded. His arm band glinted in the firelight and his clothes, still the worn ones he had been wearing when he had been with Jhan, were dirty and ripped.
“He didn’t let everyone else go,” Trey informed him tersely. “He kept Captain Kile and his boy, Avrilla and Bheni, Darkai, and that Pekarin soldier, Jaross. He didn’t tell us why. He’s a king!”
“What happened to the other Pekarin soldiers?” Raveni wondered.
“They stayed to try and convince King Hajian to release them,” Trey replied, "but they weren’t having much luck when I left.”
“Then we are more than a small handful if they join with us,” Yunij interjected.
“What will you do?” Sala demanded. “Throw our lives away for them?”
“For Alidae!” Yunij shouted furiously. “Honorless whoreson! He saved my skin more times than I recall. He plucked you out of slavery, Trey, and made a man of you again. Raveni, sister-killer, he took in when no one else would.”
Raveni’s face purpled with rage. “She was in bed with two men and neither of them were her husband!”
“Still, even your people don’t stomach killing close kin,” Yunij said coldly and then looked at Agav and Sala. “What did he do for you two, hm? I’m sure he saved your lives a time or two.”
“And I paid it back threefold!” Agav snarled. “You aren’t going to convince me that way, Yunij! I don’t have any debts with Alidae!”
Jhan, as insubstantial as a ghost, was amazed to be standing out in the woods with these men. She listened to their arguments until there was silence. Only in silence could her small voice be heard.
“Yunij.”
Yunij saw her. His face contorted in fury and he threw himself on her with a shouted curse. “Stinking whore! I’ll pay you back for what-” he stopped in mid sentence as he went rolling on the ground. He had passed through Jhan. He scrambled to his feet and backed away. Raveni drew his sword as the others gasped and came to their feet.
“What are you?” Yunij demanded.
Jhan waited for silence again. She wasn’t surprised to see Sala bolt and run into the forest. She saw Agav backing up to do the same. She had to say something, stop them before they all ran in fright.
“I have Power,” Jhan told them and that didn’t calm their fears. Their eyes widened in terror. “I’m here to tell you something.”
“Say it and go!” Raveni shouted, threatening her with his sword.
“Don’t attack King Hajian,” Jhan told them. “You won’t win. He has Power too. Alidae won’t be harmed. He’s not a prisoner. He is staying to help Darkai and Avrilla.”
“Looking out for his own kind rather than doing his duty by us!” Agav spat aside.
“Listen to me!” Jhan said as loudly as she could. When they fell silent in fear again she continued as quickly as she could, not certain how long she could remain there. “King Hajian has sent for King Thaos of Karana. He’s walking into a trap. You must stop him and tell him what’s going on. King Hajian wants me to execute him.”
"Thaos?" Yunij was confused. “”He’s fought some battles, but he’s a stay at home throne warmer now. What’s Hajian have against Thaos?"
"Thaos is you brother,” Trey remembered.
“Yes,” Jhan replied. “He turned me over to Dagara Ku Ni. King Hajian thinks that he should die for that, that I should be able to revenge myself on him.”
“And you don’t want to?” Agav was puzzled.
Jhan shook her head. “I can’t explain all of it, there isn’t time. Find him. Tell him he’s being tricked.”
Yunij crossed his arms over his broad chest and scowled. “Why should we do that? What’s he to us?”
Jhan had an answer to that. “Money,” she replied. “He’ll pay you handsomely for the information. I’ll see to it-”
“You’re not in a position to see to anything,” Yunij retorted, cutting her off. “Do you imagine that he can save you?”
Jhan went quiet, feeling her concentration waver with her roiling emotions. Whatever had brought her to the mercenaries campfire, it was only her own will holding her there now. “It’s too late for me. I’ll be dead before he arrives.”
Raveni wasn’t a fool. “It’s your Captain Kile you want rescued, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Jhan replied and then stronger. “They have him in a cell. King Hajian wants him to die. He doesn’t understand that we love each other, that I wanted to be with him.”
Yunij spat aside. “Enough of that! Explain to me why, if Hajian cares so much about people using you and committing treachery on you, that he would also want you dead?”
“He’s going to try and change me back into a man, into Jhanian Kevelt of Karana,” Jhan explained in a dead tone. “He thinks he owes it to me because of what his brother, Dagara did to me. It will kill me. My body won’t be able to live like that.”
“You told him this?” Raveni wondered.
“He thinks I’m mad,” Jhan explained. “He won’t listen to me.”
“I think you’re mad as well,” Raveni sneered. “I don’t think we should listen to you either.”
“He’ll pay us?” Yunij interjected. “King Thaos?”
“Yes, with or without my say so,” Jhan replied. “Tell him about me. Tell him about Kile. That’s worth gold and you know it.”
“I do,” Yunij said with a grin. “Go away, ghost, and leave things to us.”
“You will go to Thaos?” Jhan persisted.
“What does it matter to you?” Yunij snapped as he purposely turned away. “You’ll be dead.”
“Honor is honor, even to the dead,’ Raveni said reluctantly. “Give the creature its answer, Yunij, otherwise it might continue to haunt us.”
Yunij turned back, looking nervous about that prospect. “I’m going to Thaos.”
“And I,” Agav said. “I’m not missing out on a chance like this.”
“I’m not going,” Raveni said as he fingered his sword.
“Cutting your losses when we have a chance at some real coin?” Yunij wondered in surprise.
“King’s are chancy," was Raveni’s only reply.
“I’m not going either,” Trey said and settled by the fire again. “I’m not going to follow the orders of a ghost.”
“I’m not a ghost,” Jhan said, but she was already fading, her strength done.


“I’m getting them out of there,” Rehn said distinctly.
They were sitting about their own campfire between the sprawling town of Blue Sky and the fortress perched on the side of a mountain.
“I’m waiting for a plan to that effect,” Tevar grumbled as he broke twigs in his hands and tossed them, one by one, into the fire.
Rehn was oiling his long knife, the rag moving in hard strokes over the gleaming metal. He was staring down at it intently, face scowling and eyes as hard as the steel. “There must be a way!”
“Bheni and the princess are being returned to the Silverwood,” Tevar muttered. “Captain Kile is being imprisoned for crimes against Jhan. Jhan is an honored guest, King Hajian told us. Darkai and Alidae, I fail to care much about. Their impatience made us walk straight into the arms of the enemy. I told them... I urged caution. I urged scouts. I urged Kile not to go chasing after Jhan. No one listened.”
“Stop Kile from chasing after his lady love?” Rehn snorted in grim amusement, but it had pain in it to. “You expected Jhan to have sense and to make for Blue Sky as if she were a trained soldier. Jhan never had sense. She was afraid of the woods, of the wilderness, of everything. If she had happened on the other mercenaries that were lost, she would have hid from them, not sought them out for help.” He shook his head sadly. ”So deadly with her little hands, yet so very much afraid.”
“I tried to reason with King Hajian,” Tevar admitted. “He didn’t hear me. I found out from a guard that Kile and Jaross were being held for execution.”
“Kile, I can understand,” Rehn said in puzzlement. “King Hajian thinks that he used Jhan. What about Jaross though?”
Tevar grimaced and said nothing, but the twigs began to break at a faster rate.
Rehn was suspicious. “You know something. What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”
Tevar shrugged. but it was more of a twitch. “You won’t like it.”
“Is it true?” Rehn wondered quickly.
“I don’t know.” Tevar looked up at Rehn with pained eyes. “Surely Jhan would have said something? Surely she would have shown some sign if he had-”
“Had what?” Rehn demanded.
Tevar licked dry lips and then replied quietly, “The guard told me that Jaross was accused of... of raping Jhan.”
Rehn was shocked.” What? When?”
“I don’t know and I don’t know that it’s the truth!” Tevar added quickly. “Kile isn’t guilty of what they are accusing him of, but he is Jhan’s ‘husband’. There’s truth and then there’s truth.”
Rehn gripped his knife hard, brows coming down over his brown eyes. “He always wanted to... He told me enough times...”
“Jhan would have said something,” Tevar said adamantly.
“She’s been through so much,” Rehn reminded him. “What does she even think is ‘normal’ treatment any more? Maybe Jaross did that, that terrible thing to her, and, after all that she’s been through, she just shrugged it off and went on with her life?”
“She wouldn’t have,” Tevar stressed again.
“I did,” Jhan spoke up at last. “I did shrug it off.”
They both stood, shocked, and then Rehn smiled and stepped toward her. The smile dropped when her words sank in and he noticed that he could see through her.
“What is going on?” Tevar demanded. “How have you come to us like this?” His eyes were dark and very round with fear, his hand drawing his sword in a slow, disbelieving motion.
“My Power,” Jhan told him. “When I was being tortured, I learned to get out of my body to escape it. I thought that I was just dreaming it, but I found out later that it was true.”
Rehn was still struggling to comprehend. “You’re still a prisoner then? Has King Hajian hurt you? Has he killed Kile or Jaross?”
“Nothing has happened yet,” Jhan told them. “Except that I sent some of the mercenaries to King Thaos to warn him of Hajian’s treachery. Hajian intends to have me execute him. He’s the one who handed Jhanian over to Dagara Ku Ni in the first place.”
“What?” Tevar was outraged. “His own brother?”
“The more I hear of Jhanian Kevelt the more I think he deserved-,” Jhan cut herself off and winced. “No, no one deserved what happened to him and me. No one.”
“We will save you, Jhan,” Rehn assured her. “We’ll find a way.”
Jhan was warmed by his words. but she knew how impossible it would be. “Wait for Thaos to come,” she told them. “Don’t do anything stupid.” She turned towards the fortress. “The second window up, very narrow and barred with iron. Do you see it? You can see a line along side it where some vines have grown up the stone.”
Tevar narrowed his eyes like a hawk seeking prey. He nodded, once. “I see it.”
“That’s where Kile is,” Jhan told him. “Don’t bother with me. Save Kile.”
“Not Jaross?” Rehn wondered. “Did he truly rape you?”
“I don’t know where Jaross is,” Jhan replied softly and she saw them lean closer to hear her words. “Kile is my life. I don’t have the strength to think of anyone else. “
“Did he rape you?” Rehn persisted.
Jhan stared and then shook her head. “I raped him, Rehn, as much as this body could rape anyone. We didn’t tell anyone. He was ashamed and I-I wanted to think that it was just a nightmare.”
“I don’t understand,” Rehn said plaintively.
“Avrilla gave me a drug,” Jhan explained. “She wanted to make me so in ‘need’, that I would mate with Alidae and give the Alamien- It’s too much to explain. I escaped, but I ran into Jaross searching for me. I took him by surprise. He didn’t have a chance to defend himself.”
Rehn looked ill, trying to imagine what they had done together. He looked at her at last and said firmly. “I won’t leave him to die. I won’t leave you either.”
“You can’t save me,” Jhan told him. “Don’t try. Kile you can save, and Jaross, if you can find him. Hajian is turning all of his Power on me. If I keep him occupied, he may not be prepared for a rescue.”
“You are not a good strategist,” Tevar grumbled. “Hajian has commanders, captains, lieutenants. They will be the ones we face. Hajian doesn’t need to give orders for us to be killed to the last man.”
Jhan wanted to weep, but she didn’t have the strength. “Try,” she pleaded. “Please try.”
They were gone from one blink to the next and Jhan was glad to find herself in bed, the room darkened, and comforters pulled up under her chin. Wandering about as a helpless ghost had accomplished very little. She had to believe that Yunij would warn Thaos. She had to believe that Thaos would come to get his brother back from Hajian. She had to believe that Tevar and Rehn would save Kile and Jaross. So many things to try to believe in when she was down to the last dregs of hope.
Darkai stirred. He threw a log into the fireplace and prodded it into the fames. When he turned, Jhan saw that he looked worn to the bone, worried about his own life, maybe, and what the next morning would bring him. He wrapped a dark robe about himself and sat heavily in a chair near the bed. He saw Jhan looking back at him.
“Sleep,” he commanded in exasperation, as if Jhan had been doing something completely opposite of that.
“Escape,” Jhan told him, the only word that she could form.
“You or I?” Darkai said with an arched brow
Jhan pointed a shaky finger at Darkai. He sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “They aren’t watching me that well. It may be that I can escape. You seem to be the only person that they are watching. When I walk away from this room, no one follows.”
Darkai poured water into a cup from a flask. He supported Jhan’s head and helped her to drink. The water was cool on her parched throat.
“You are growing ill, I think,” Darkai said. “Your skin feels very chill. You’re eyes are odd. I think that you spent too long in the rain, and then, to be drugged and carried up a mountain into the cold... you are too frail.”
Darkai put the cup aside and helped Jhan get comfortable again. Sitting back in his chair, he didn’t look at her. He added tersely. “I wonder about your sanity in not wanting Hajian to change you, but then I always did. Hajian offers you what I never could, a chance to be what you were. You say it will not work, but I don’t think you know that for certain. He may be able to offer Avrilla something as well. If he does change you, if you can convince him that you are sane and that I didn’t mean to harm you, then I might be able to convince him to use his Power on Avrilla. The Alamien may have a chance to have their heir. Risking my life... well, I’ve done that many times in my long life. I’m going to risk it again. I’m going to stay, Jhan. I won’t escape.”
Jhan hated him, that he had a choice. She turned her shoulder to him and buried her face in her pillow. She almost hoped to smother herself in her weariness, but a small corner of doubt, the thought that her out of body journeys might just have been the product of a fevered mind, kept her from it. Somehow, she had to make certain that Kile didn’t die. She determined to keep her frail body alive as long as she could and to argue for Kile’s freedom as long as she was able. If she really had contacted Yunij and Tevar, then she had another reason to stay alive as well. She had to help them somehow if they attempted to rescue Kile by force.

“Bear with it, Jhanian,” Hajian muttered as he sweated with concentration.
Jhan could only groan and tremble, tears streaming down the sides of her face as she felt something inside moving, changing, tearing flesh from flesh. She was stretched out on the table in Hajian’s laboratory room, naked, and limp under that steady torture.
Hajian had done something to her, severed her mind from her body. Nerves reacted to the pain, but she couldn’t do what she longed to with every fiber of her being, escape, run, hide somewhere where the pain couldn’t reach her. Denied that, she could only lay in the grip of Hajian’s mind as he tested his Power on her.
Whatever Hajian was attempting failed. He swore and straightened, wiping at the sweat on his brow with a towel.
“I can’t understand it!” Hajian exclaimed in exasperation. “You’re heart needs to be larger, but, whenever I attempt the change, something blocks me! It heals everything I shape.”
He thought for a long time, staring at Jhan’s blank eyes. He made a decision abruptly and reached over for a knife.
“I need to find out. There is only one way to do that. Sleep, Jhanian.” Hajian covered Jhan’s eyes with his hand and Jhan felt her mind turned off like a switch. Her subconscious was another matter. Freed from horror, it escaped like an uncaged bird.

They were sitting in a chair together and Jhan was a he. Dagara traced the line of Jhan’s neck with his tongue. Dagara wore a thick, scarlet robe, but it was open from neck to heel. Jhan sat astride his lap, facing him, held in a warm, soft embrace against Dagara’s chest. He was as small as a child against Dagara and Dagara ran a hand along Jhan’s long, silky hair as if he were comforting Jhan like one. Night was fading into dawn and the continuous rape had left Dagara exhausted for once and very quiet, almost gentle.
“You will remember me, always,” Dagara whispered in Jhan’s ear. “When I send you to the Pekarin’s, your life will be short, but, for what life you have left, you will remember my kiss, my bite, my manhood buried in you. You will always belong to me.”
Dagara took hold of Jhan’s hips and pushed him down into his lap for emphasis. He was still within Jhan, but his desire was fading and it didn’t add much to the pain already there.
“You are my masterpiece,” Dagara continued. His hands had tightened as if he had felt pain too. “I have visited every torment imaginable with you, every humiliation, every dark emotion. I find myself satisfied, for once, my needs quieted as they have never been quieted before.”
Dagara kissed Jhan full on the lips, drew out Jhan’s tongue, sucked on it, gnawed on Jhan’s lips, stuck his tongue in as far as it would go and made obscene motions with it. When Jhan didn’t even quiver, he sighed and released Jhan’s lips.
“It has ended,” Dagara said almost sadly. “Nothing horrifies you any longer. Hajian was right for once, the loathsome worm. Time to let you go. Time for you to do what I made you to do, and then to die.” He smiled tightly.
Dagara narrowed his eyes. His hands touched either side of Jhan’s head and Jhan felt his mind searching, like flame over sensitive flesh, for one last spark of rebellion, of fear, of humiliation from his victim. When he felt nothing, Dagara became angry, irritated, frustrated. His hand turned cruel, throwing off his ennui. He had wanted an excuse, Jhan knew, a last spark that would have made him keep Jhan longer.
Dagara stood up, Jhan still straddling him, and he held Jhan there easily, his strength the strength of a trained warrior. Dagara embraced Jhan against him and let him sit like that, a last, completely possessive act. He entered Jhan’s mind and left his last instructions there, the ones that would make Jhan kill himself after he had managed to kill Pekarin soldiers, while he thoroughly ended his rape with violent motions.
Dagara finished with a moan of pain. “I am in you, my seed, my body, my mind until the day you die, Jhanian of the Kevelt,” Dagara told him viciously. He carried Jhan to the door, opened it and carried Jhan out into the corridor, letting the surprised guards see his humiliation.
Dagara touched the gargoyles on the doors and they flared with light. The soldiers scrambled back. This was the part that Jhan had long forgotten, this last, burning, painful humiliation as Dagara slammed his back against the gargoyle heads, slid his body out of the painful wound he had made of Jhan’s lower body, and then mounted Jhan on the upturned tongue of one of the gargoyles. He made sure that Jhan felt it for several long moments before he slid a hand to the eyes of the left hand gargoyle and pressed sharply.
“An old machine, but useful if you have the mind Power to use it.” Dagara told Jhan. “It will take you to where the Pekarin’s will find you, naked, beautiful, and as my brother secretly made you, irresistible. What fun will they have before you kill them, do you think? And least you’ll get some revenge on them, my sweet Moonflower.”
Dagara smiled wickedly at Jhan. “Perhaps I should give you a gift before you go, a small token to show my delight in you. My brother has been unfaithful to me, using his Power to make me careless. Shall I punish him? I give the decision to you. Avenge yourself on him at least. Pay him back for touching the body and mind that belongs to me alone! Say it, Jhanian. Yes, or no!”
“Yes!” Jhan shrieked with all of his anger and last ounce of will. It was a hoarse, tormented shout, a last grasp at sanity and the chance to strike back that had roused him from the deep, dark place he had been hiding in.
It was a trick, of course, a last test; a last excuse to keep Jhan and torment him. Jhan knew it when he saw Dagara’s slow smile and sharp teeth. Jhan reached out with frantic hands, tried to pull Dagara to him. He knew what to say, knew how to save what little was left of him.
Dagara stepped forward into Jhan’s embrace, curious. Jhan kissed him on the lips, tried to ignore the humiliating pain below his waist to take hold of Dagara with his legs, wrapping them about Dagara’s waist and moving his pelvis against Dagara’s suggestively.
“Love you,” Jhan whispered. “Love you. Don’t-Don’t make me go.”
Dagara’s smile dropped. His face constricted into a rictus of hate and loathing as he thrust Jhan off of him. He wanted victims. Crawling, humiliated victims. This was unendurable, what Jhan had done to him. He spat in Jhan’s face.
“Kevelt whore!” Dagara snarled. “Service the Pekarin soldiers!”
There was a flare of Power that made Jhan feel as if he were being burned alive and then the world turned inside out, sickening, disorienting, and impossible.

Someone was screaming in agony. Jhan felt the mind of Hajian gone. She blinked at the ceiling, thoughts moving sluggishly as the nightmare receded. When a chair came crashing down on her, she only had a glimpse of Hajian’s maddened, horror stricken face, before the world exploded into colored lights.

CHAPTER NINE
(Victims)
“Jhan?”
Jhan moaned and turned in a bed of straw. A chain clanked and she felt pains in both of her wrists and ankles. The bone deep cold told her that she was naked.
“Jhan, please say that you are all right!”
It was Jaross’s voice, pleading with her, hoarse and unused to speaking.
Jhan opened bleary eyes. Her mind was clear. It was a strange sensation, to be in control of herself again after so long.
Jaross was standing up, chained at the wrists and held by another chain to a staple in the floor. He was crouched over to accommodate his position. He could have kneeled by the bed, but he didn’t. Everything in his attitude was cautious.
He didn’t look well, Jhan thought. She stared at his stubble covered chin and his tousled black hair. His eyes were bloodshot and his mouth was set hard. He seemed gaunt in his wrinkled, worn clothes and he didn’t smell too fresh.
“Well?” Jaross asked softly.
Jhan’s face hurt and so did most of her shoulder and right ribcage. She remembered Hajian hitting her with a chair. She had deflected it with her arm at the last moment. That was sore as well, but nothing seemed broken. A dark bruise was covering much of her shoulder, arm, and side. That she wasn’t dead was a small miracle, knowing how brittle her bones could be. Maybe he had healed her? Hajian had unwilling shared her nightmare of Dagara. Would he have risked that again to keep her alive? Knowing now what she had done; ordering his torture, she could believe that he had.
Jhan’s eyes looked about at the cell. She felt nausea grip her. She knew that place, remembered every line, every crack, every spot of dampness. This had been her cell when she had been a prisoner of Dagara Ku Ni. She even remembered the slight smoothness of the floor in one corner, where the fat guard had liked to-
Jhan sat up. It was hard. Her body was stiff and sore and she did feel a fever beginning to burn under her skin. None of that mattered as much as the realization that she was calm. She wasn’t panicking. She wasn’t trying to go insane or find a place to crawl and hide. She accepted this turn of events with a numb acceptance to match the one that Hajian had forced on her.
“What does it matter?” Jhan replied at last to Jaross.
Jaross blinked at her like an owl. “Of course it matters!” He retorted softly and then kneeled beside her at last, chains clanking. “I’ve been loosing my mind, wondering what they mean to do to me. They told me nothing, just singled me out and locked me up. Now they bring me you. Tell me what’s going on. Tell me what’s going to happen. Tell me that you’re all right!”
“Hajian thinks that you’re going to rape me again, “Jhan said matter-of-factly and then coughed. The cough hurt her chest. She was definitely becoming ill.
Jaross went white and then red and then backed away. He didn’t get up, but he half turned away on his knees and looked hard at nothing. “We both know what happened,” he grated.
“He doesn’t care to hear the truth,” Jhan replied. She looked down at her wrists and ankles. Jaross looked sideways at them too and went even paler.
“That must hurt terribly,” Jaross breathed.
The links of the manacles were small, passing through small holes in Jhan’s wrists and ankles. There was blood on them. The metal was rough and they couldn’t help but rub healed skin raw.
“I thought it was just a wrist,” Jhan said quietly and then she shook her head. “It doesn’t hurt much. Other things hurt more.”
Jaross looked up at her face. “It looks like Hajian beat you. Why? Why all of this? Who are we to him?”
He didn’t know, Jhan realized. She thought long on her answer, wondering how to encapsulate all of her past in a few words she could manage. There was only one simple thing to say.
“This is Dagara Ku Ni’s fortress,” Jhan explained. “Hajian is his brother; his twin brother.”
“I saw him,” Jaross said in a dead tone, eyes going glazed with apprehension. “Hajian came up and looked into my eyes... then he just told the guards to take me away. He didn’t much look like Dagara.”
“Dagara abused him too,” Jhan replied. “It wears one down to nothing.”
Jaross was trying to comprehend. “Is he like Dagara, evil? Is he going to...,” Jaross swallowed hard. “I won’t be-”
“No,” Jhan replied quickly. Jaross began to relax in relief, but Jhan couldn’t help but tell him the truth. “He’s going to kill you, instead.”
Jaross’s eyes went round. “Why?”
“For raping me.”
“But I didn’t!” Jaross erupted. “You-”
“It doesn’t matter,” Jhan repeated. “He won’t listen. He’s mad. He was going to kill you for raping me, but now it seems that he wants you to. “
“Why?” Jaross asked in anguish.
Jhan stretched out on the straw. Her body shot pain all down her side. Her face began to ache with a sickening throb. “Revenge, I think, for something I did when I hardly had enough mind to know what I was doing or saying.” She chuckled. It sounded raw and bleeding. “That’s the reason Dagara gave for hurting me. Revenge; a tried and true excuse.”
Jhan chuckled again. It hurt as much as everything else.
“I was the one he was going to save,” Jhan explained. “He was going to make me Jhanian Kevelt again. He was going to right all the wrongs his brother did to me. He was going to destroy all of those who hurt me, Kile, you, Thaos.”
Jaross was stunned, but he managed to ask. “Why Thaos? Why Kile?”
“Kile, for the same reason you’re going to be killed for, or maybe Hajian’s changed his mind about that as well? Maybe you’re going to be his heroes now and I’ll be the one he kills, hm?”
"But... Thaos?"
“Thaos turned me over for Dagara’s tortures when I was Jhanian Kevelt.” Jhan grimaced as she touched her hurting face. “I don’t blame him. Jhanian wasn’t a very nice man. He caused many people to get killed in very nasty ways and he was a rapist as well.”
Jaross grew very quiet. “Of men?” he wondered with every nerve set to feel the sting of humiliation.
“Women,” Jhan replied and then, “Hajian has sent for Thaos, promising him that his brother will be returned to him.”
Jaross went sour. “I doubt that Thaos would welcome that. If he felt that way about you then...” He shrugged. “The Kevelts have always been a cruel people. I can believe that Thaos would have tried to kill you for the throne. He was never certain whether he would inherit or his father’s ‘ darling Jhanian’.”
“I told you,” Jhan replied. “I don’t blame him. I’m not his brother. I’m not the Jhanian Kevelt that he betrayed.”
Jhan shivered. Jaross tried to look at her without ‘looking’ at her.
“You’re too thin to stand the cold for long,” Jaross said and stripped off his ragged red coat and shirt. He handed them to Jhan gingerly, not willing to touch her.
Jhan sat up again. It was harder. She fumbled to put on the shirt, sliding it over her aching arm and side. Buttoning the front of it was slow and a test of her failing concentration.
“I spent my entire time here without any clothes on,” Jhan said and again wondered why those words didn’t do more than make her feel ill. “It made it easier for them to- to do things- to make me feel less than Human.”
“Why didn’t you freeze?” Jaross asked curiously, but she could tell that he was as sickened as she was. “I’ve been huddling under the hay at night and thanking my gods that this isn’t winter.”
Jhan struggled with the coat. She had to lift her arm up, the one that had stopped her skull from getting broken. It didn’t want to lift to put on the heavy material. Jhan fumbled to pull the coat on as she had the shirt, but it was simply too awkward.
Jaross moved at last, reluctantly. He helped put the coat on her and then retreated to let her do up the buttons. Both coat and shirt fell past Jhan’s knees.
Jhan nodded to the wall on their right. “A fireplace chimney goes up from behind that wall. It you press yourself close,” She looked away, remembering an uglier truth, “you can survive the night, but... I was never here at night, or much of the day.”
Jaross had backed away. He eyed the wall. “Both of us are chained. We can’t reach it.” His hands rubbed along his pants, but he didn’t give them up. He did start to take off his boots and socks. He handed those to Jhan without comment. She, in turn, didn’t argue. She knew who would die first if the night turned very cold. She put the boots and socks on and then curled up, somewhat warmer.
In only his pants now, Jaross moved even further away. Jhan studied him for a long moment and then understood. He was afraid of her.
“I won’t hurt you.” Jhan told him steadily. “I was drugged when I- when I did that terrible thing to you, besides, you did return the favor, as I recall.” Her words turned bitter, remembering the pain of that shame.
“You think that matters?” Jaross rubbed his hands along his arms, feeling the cold already. He was tall and slim, with the muscles of a swordsman. Scars marked him, thick and obviously from blades. The bones of his ribs stood out a little too sharply and his face was hollow. People had said that he looked like her. Did she have that hollow, haunted look too? It hadn’t been there until she, Jhan, had put it there by forcing Jaross to submit to her. Having been drugged at the time, didn’t seem like a good enough excuse now. It hadn’t been when Sael and Ahlen had raped her, yet she had said the very same things that they had. ‘I was drugged. Sorry about that. It won’t happen again.’ How pathetic, Jhan thought, and meaningless to a man who’s spirit had been crushed by his having been made helpless.
Jaross’s clenched vulnerability, rather than threat of torture or death, stabbed through the walls of Jhan’s numbness at last. She sobbed and then began to cry. Jaross was taken aback.
“What is it?” He demanded quietly. “Are you in pain?” when she didn’t respond, he haltingly moved to kneel beside her. Jhan could see that it took all of his willpower. It made Jhan cry harder.
Jhan slowly reached out and touched Jaross tentatively on his hands. She was as much afraid as he was, to reach out and touch someone other than Kile. He flinched at her touch, tensed to pull away.
“I’m so sorry, Jaross!” Jhan cried. “I would take it back if I could!”
Jaross was confused. “What are you talking about?”
“What I did to you!”
Jaross comprehended and his face went grim. He stared down at her hands on his. “You used your skill against me,” he said quietly. “My strength didn’t matter. I’ve always relied on it. It was a shock- I haven’t been able to come to terms with it yet. Please, don’t touch me.”
Jhan pulled her hands away as if she had been burned. She hid her face in her hands instead. "I’m going to pay for what I did to you, you know. Hajian will kill me.”
“You don’t know that,” Jaross admonished her. He was moving away again and sitting with his knees drawn up against his chest, trying to keep his heart warm. “He wants me to rape you. I’ll pretend that I did. Maybe that will satisfy him.”
“He’ll know,” Jhan said in a dead tone, “the same way he knew that we had been together before.”
“Wasn’t very accurate, the way he read my mind,” Jaross mused. “He might not be as good at it as you think. If he was, he’d have known- known what happened that night.” He had been going to say how frightened he had been, but he was too proud for that.
“Do what you want,” Jhan sighed and turned her back to him as she tried to sleep. “None of it matters.”
Jaross was irritated now. “Have you just given up?”
“Yes,” Jhan replied shortly. “It doesn’t even horrify me any more. I’m too used to it.”
“Used to it?” Jaross’s brown eyes were large and sickened.
She could have given him an example, told him what they used to do to her in that cell, the blood, her blood, that had flowed, splattered the walls, and sunk into the mortar. She could still see where that mortar was black, especially in the far corner. They had liked to put her there where she couldn’t get away. Instead, Jhan said nothing at all, kept it to herself, and determined to keep silent. There wasn’t any point in sharing anymore of her nightmare with Jaross. She had hurt him enough. She drifted off to sleep, and, while she slept, the sickness sunk in its claws.

CHAPTER TEN
(Twisting in the Wind)
“You didn’t even touch him!” Hajian’s voice echoed in that stone place. He was furious. “Why didn’t you rape him? You did before! I gave him to you on a silver platter, boy!”
Jaross’s response was weary, but defiant. “Jhan is ill. If she spends one more night in this cold, she will die.”
“You didn’t answer my question!”
“I have!” Jaross retorted bravely. “We need blankets, a brazier, clothes for the both of us. I’m not going to last much longer than Jhan. I’m not well either.”
There was a heavy silence. “I see. You are ill, so you are lacking desire,” Hajian said speculatively. “You must overcome that. I have executed everyone of Dagara’s soldiers and servants. My soldiers are all good men. I can’t ask them to administer the punishment that Jhanian deserves. It is up to you.”
“There is still Kile,” Jaross suggested in desperation. “He wants Jhan more badly than I do.”
“But he would do it with love,” Hajian sneered. “You did it with violence before. That’s what I want now. Jhanian must suffer for making me suffer.”
“I don’t understand,” Jaross replied.
“We have a past together, Prince Jhanian and I,” Hajian told him painfully. “We were both tortured and tormented by my brother, the late King of Blue Sky. Until now, I didn’t know that one of my particularly foul tortures was due to Jhanian. He was given a choice, you see, whether I should be punished for plotting against Dagara, my brother. Jhanian told him yes... yes, torture me, yes punish me, yes, anything to give himself one moment of respite from my brother’s cruelties.”
Jhan heard Hajian’s boots on the stone floor as he came to stand by her side. She couldn’t open her eyes. They were sticky with sweat and fever. Her stomach was a knot of hunger and her throat was as dry as a desert. Her skin burned and it felt stretched tight over her bones.
“I saved Prince Jhanian time and time again when Gyven’s Power wasn’t enough,” Hajian continued. “I wasn’t the healer that he was, but I could reconstruct flesh enough to be healed. There was also my brother’s experiments on Jhanian. They didn’t always work. It was my enhancements that kept Jhanian in the land of the living.”
“Knowing what she went through,” Jaross interrupted, “I think she would rather have died. Surely you knew that? Why would she care about you? Why would she think that you were any better than Dagara? You’re condemning her for hating the people who tortured her and kept her alive to keep on being tortured.”
“She?” Hajian echoed furiously. “Jhanian is a man! A man, not a woman or a child. He led armies into bloody battle, Jaross Ke Nava! He raped women! He slaughtered and burned and yes, even tortured soldiers to get out of them what he wanted, whether it was information or obedience. You think he ordered my torture out of ignorance? Out of revenge? I tell you again, he ordered it to save himself a few moments pain. Those few moments cost me days being torn apart by the beasts Dagara called soldiers!”
Jaross’s voice was unsteady, but he was unflinching. “Did it ever occur to you that Dagara Ku Ni would have tortured you no matter what Jhan said?”
“Of course he would have!” Hajian shouted in anguish, “but Jhan was a party to it. He agreed to it! He had a choice. He will pay for that choice. I can’t hurt him, it isn’t in me and never was. My men can’t hurt him and I would never order them to. You are another matter. You will punish Jhanian Kevelt or your life will be forfeit. I give you the choice. See if you can do any better than Jhanian did with it. Torture him and save yourself, or let him go on as he is and die.”
“But, if I choose my life,” Jaross stammered, trying to understand a madman’s logic, “doesn’t that prove to you that Jhan couldn’t have chosen any other way?”
“No,” Hajian told him coldly. “It only proves to me that you are as much a despicable coward as he is.”
Jaross went very quiet and then, to Jhan’s horror, he asked softly, “What should I do to her?”
“Don’t kill Jhanian,” Hajian warned, “but do punish him harshly. He’s used to that, so you’ll have to be inventive to punish him properly and to my satisfaction.”
“Then what will you do with him?”
“Why, change him back to Jhanian Kevelt as I promised him,” Hajian replied in surprise. “I don’t forget my promises or my vow to right the wrongs of my brother, Dagara Ku Ni.”
“Give me what I asked for,” Jaross pleaded. “Blankets, a brazier, and clothes. If you don’t want Jhan to die-”
“You Lowlanders!” Hajian sniffed. “So soft!”
“Please.”
“I’ll have the window closed tight and give you extra hay, but the rest...,” Hajian considered and then rejected Jaross’s plea. “Jhan survived being here before. This is nothing different. I think you are exaggerating to gain something. I won’t allow it. Make do with what you have.”
Hajian spun on his heel and Jhan heard him leave, the door closing with a familiar creak and sound of metal on metal as the lock was thrown.
“He’s completely mad,” Jaross said after a moment. “His eyes...”
“So, when does the torture start?” Jhan wondered in a reedy, thin voice.
“You heard all of that?” Jaross asked in dismay.
“Yes.”
“I hope that you don’t think that I would do something like that to you,” Jaross said angrily. “I hope that you know me better than that!”
“What then?” Jhan raised a shaky hand and rubbed at her eyes until she could open them. Jaross was crouched by the wall, running one of his metal chains through his fingers as if he were looking for a crack; a weakness he could exploit to get free.
“I don’t know,” Jaross said helplessly. “Nothing. He’s going to kill me, I guess.”
“Can I get a drink and some food first?”
Jaross scowled at her. “Is that a joke? I don’t find it funny.”
“I only laugh when I become hysterical,” Jhan replied. “There isn’t anything else to say, Jaross. He’s going to kill or torture us both no matter what we do.”
“I won’t help him hurt you,” Jaross told her sharply.
“You will,” Jhan said with a bleak sigh. “He’ll make you. He has Power, remember.”
“So do you.”
“I can’t use it,” Jhan replied. “You know that. It’s locked up tight.”
“I’m not a coward,” Jaross retorted as he put a dirty, wooden cup of water and a bowl of thick, congealed stew near enough for her to reach them. “I’ll die if I have to and I’ll do it by my own hand if Hajian tries to make me dishonor myself.”
“I am a coward,” Jhan replied. She tried to raise herself up and then fell back heavily in defeat. “I did just what Hajian accuses me of. I did tell Dagara to torture him. I did think it would give me a few moments in his favor; a few moments free of torment, a small moment of sweet revenge.” She wouldn’t tell Jaross the rest of it; being impaled on a gargoyle’s tongue the least of it.
Jhan took hold of the cup and tried to get it to her lips. She raised her head, but her neck muscles trembled as much as her hand. The water began to spill. “Please, Jaross, help me.”
“I won’t judge you,” Jaross said steadfastly. “You want me to. You want me to agree with you-”
“I just want you to give me a drink!” Jhan protested weakly.
“You know why I can’t do that,” Jaross told her accusingly.
“What do you think I can do like this?” Jhan demanded.
“It didn’t seem possible the first time,” Jaross retorted and huddled his limbs closer together.
Jhan used her fingers to get the water from the cup to her mouth. She bathed her face with it, until Jaross snapped, “Don’t! They are not very attentive jailers. We may go awhile without more water or food.”
Jhan couldn’t help but drink all of the water. When the cup was empty, she was still thirsty, but Jaross didn’t make a move to give her any more. She resigned herself to the thirst and tried to eat the stew.
“Slow,” Jaross warned her. “If you throw that up, you’ll only have to eat it again.”
Jhan’s stomach turned, but she had done worse than that in that cell. They hadn’t been very attentive then either. She ate only a few mouthfuls and then pushed the bowl aside for later.
“What do you think Hajian will do with Kile now?” Jaross wondered.
“He said himself that he’s not a killer, ” Jhan replied as she piled the hay over her bare lower legs. “He wanted me to do it.”
“He might order an execution for crimes,” Jaross said thoughtfully. “His men would do that, and, knowing what Kile and you were together, they would probably think the execution just.”
“Please don’t talk about it!” Jhan groaned and closed her eyes. “You never think, even now, Jaross. Kile’s fate is the only thing truly frightening me to death right now.”
Jaross fell silent. A guard came to close up the window, sticking out a long pole through the bars to snatch at the wooden shutters on the outside and pull them shut. It made the cell very gloomy. Another guard brought in a few meager handfuls of hay to replenish their bed. On the way back out, they both looked at Jhan and Jaross with mingled curiosity and some sympathy.
“It’s going to stink in here with the window shut,” the burlier guard said gruffly. “Call when you use the bucket and we’ll take it away.”
“Beget!” The skinnier guard snapped. “The King said not to talk to them and to ignore anything we hear them doing.”
“Any screaming, he said,” Beget said with a shudder and another look at Jaross and Jhan. “I don’t like that order one bit!”
“No one is going to get hurt,” Jaross told them angrily. “You won’t hear any screaming.”
“Good, lad!’ Beget replied in relief. “Don’t make things worse for yourself by beating up on the child.”
“Jhan isn’t a child,” Jaross said sourly.
“I know what you did,” the skinny guard said in disgust, “but what did the other one do to deserve getting locked up with you?”
“Now you’re the one talking, Kemel!” Beget snapped. “Let’s get out and not start questioning his Majesty’s decisions. King Hajian wouldn’t have put them in here without good cause.”
They left, locking the door behind them. It was hardly warmer for having the window closed and Jhan huddled under the new hay. “I feel sorry for them,” Jhan said.
Jaross looked at her and asked sharply, “Why?”
“Thaos is going to come charging in here to avenge his honor and they might get hurt in the process.”
“What are you talking about?” Jaross demanded. “How do you know what King Thaos is going to do?”
“Do you remember, one night on the skirts of a mountain range, seeing an apparition of me?” Jhan asked.
Jaross frowned now. “Yes, it was madness. Kile swore it was you, swore that you had-”
“It was real,” Jhan assured him. “I don’t know how I do it, but, sometimes, I can leave my body behind and wander about. I saw Yunij and a few of his men near the fortress. I told them that Thaos would pay them well if they rode to tell him that King Hajian was trying to trick him.”
“Trick him?” Jaross echoed dumbly.
“Hajian sent for him, told him that he was going to make me Jhanian Kevelt again,” Jhan considered it a moment and then said, "Thaos may come to welcome me back to his family or to try and kill me again. He didn’t love his brother. He hated him. When he finds out Hajian is trying to have him killed, his honor will be more important than what he wants to do with me. As you said, Kevelts are cruel and they like a fight. Hajian is about to have a war on his hands.”
“That doesn’t bother you,” Jaross said angrily. “You’ll hold back from using your Power, but you’ll gladly let Thaos and his soldiers slaughter people, like those guards out there, to save yourself?”
“He isn’t coming to save me,” Jhan retorted. “I’ll be dead before he reaches the borders of Blue Sky and you know it. It’s Kile... and you, I want rescued.”
“Still-”
“I couldn’t let Thaos ride into a trap and be slaughtered,” Jhan old him roughly, feeling guilty despite herself. “It’s just inevitable that, knowing Hajian’s treachery, the next step would be war. It doesn’t have anything to do with us and everything to do with Hajian. It wasn’t my decision for it to happen.”
“Hajian has been ordering forays against the Bhuntay,” Jaross said thoughtfully, trying to justify it in his own mind. “He wants to be a peaceful King, but only where his people are concerned. Not unusual for most of the lands from here to the sea. He has called this down on his own head. I only hope that Thaos has learned to be a better commander than he was when we first met.”
“I saw Tevar and Rehn as well,” Jhan told him. Jaross became eager at once.
“How were they?” Jaross demanded.
“I told them to rescue Kile,” Jhan said shortly. “I told them to forget about me.”
“And me?” Jaross snarled.
“I didn’t know where you were.”
Jaross was skeptical now. “How did you know where Kile was?”
“I was able to go to him too. He isn’t much better off than we are.”
Jaross looked very uncomfortable now. “You’re ill. You may have just imagined all of that.”
“Maybe, but what does it matter?” Jhan sighed.
“You keep saying that.”
“It keeps being true.”

Jhan awoke, feeling unaccountably warm. Her fever had receded and her body didn’t ache as much as it should have. It took her a moment to gather the nerve to open her eyes, afraid that it would disappear into harsh reality when she came completely awake.
A bloated, hairy spider was balanced on Jhan’s chest. She stared at it, wide eyed. When the spider lifted two legs as if to begin walking up to Jhan’s face, she exploded into motion, thrashing weakly and crying out incoherently.
Jaross, she discovered in the next instant, was wrapped about her like a blanket with the hay piled over them both. Her violent motions woke him and threw him back to the night of Jhan’s attack. He panicked and began thrashing to fight off what he thought was another attack.
Jhan felt a fist connect with her jaw and the world went dim with sparks of red. She fought to keep conscious, her chains rattling and ripping at the holes in her wrists and ankles as she curled up in a ball with her arms over her head to protect herself. She lay very still, riding out Jaross’s panic until he realized that she wasn’t fighting him.
Jaross froze, his face pale and his mouth open and panting. Jhan didn’t dare come out of her cramped position, but she said. “It was a spider,” she could hardly speak through a throat swollen with sickness. “I was frightened.”
Bereft of Jaross’s warmth, Jhan felt the chill of morning air envelope her. She shivered violently and felt death waiting in that bitter cold. She turned and burrowed into Jaross’s body, despite his stiffening and unvoiced threat. She didn’t care. She had to be warm no matter what he did to her because of it.
“So-So cold, Jaross,” Jhan chattered. “Please l-let me be near y-you.”
Jaross was shaking in reaction and it wasn’t from the cold. He was fighting with himself, wanting to throw her off and keep her safe at the same time. Jhan tried to be as unthreatening as possible. She lay on her back and tugged at his hands. She inched her body against his legs. It was humiliating, but she was used to that.
“Do what you want, J-Jaross,” Jhan pleaded. “just k-keep me warm at the-the same t-time.”
Jaross stared deeply into Jhan’s blue eyes, face creased with indecision. He made up his mind all at once and Jhan found him in her arms, lowering himself so that he was stretched out alongside her. He wrapped his legs about her lower body and pinned her wrists with his large hands. He placed them against his warm heart and then allowed Jhan to burrow against him. They both slipped back under the hay and it wasn’t long before they were warm again.
“I’ve always wanted this,” Jaross murmured in her hair. “Until you did that terrible thing to me. Now, I just want to run away from you. I hate myself for being afraid. What’s wrong with me that I can’t forget about it? You were drugged. I KNOW you, Jhan. You don’t want to hurt me.”
“I betrayed you,” Jhan told him, “I betrayed the image you had of me. I remember... you thought that everything I had been had been a lie.”
“Wasn’t it?” Jaross was bitter. “You always seemed so gentle and incapable of harming a fly. You mastered me that night, Jhan. You- You were strong and wild and as cruel as any man. Was that Jhanian Kevelt I saw that night?”
The question stunned Jhan. She hadn’t thought of it that way. “I guess it was,” She replied quietly. “That drug... it takes away everything, but a base animal instinct to rut. From what I’ve been told, Jhanian was like that on a regular basis.”
“I could crush you by just squeezing you with my arms,” Jaross said and Jhan was the one who was suddenly afraid. “How did you make me so helpless that night? Show me so that I know how to do it. I think that’s the only thing that will keep me from being afraid of you.”
“I’m too weak, too sick,” Jhan protested.
“That’s a lie,” Jaross retorted. “You’re fever has broken, though I don’t know how you managed to get better on slops and stagnant water. I feel like I’m getting worse.” Jaross looked into her eyes again, his brown ones demanding this as some sort of repayment for her crime. Jhan balked.
“You already had your revenge,” she said with angry humiliation. “My backside was sore for days. I’m surprised that you didn’t kill me doing it like that.”
Jaross shrugged self deprecatingly, but he was embarrassed too. “You’re lucky I’m not built like Kile, but it isn’t revenge I want. I want to feel safe around you. I- I still consider you my friend, Jhan. I don’t want to be afraid of you.” He looked about at the dank stone and the spiders in their webs. “We won’t survive this by not trusting each other.”
Jhan shook her head. “I hate that I can do those things. I learned to do them here. I practiced on men. I murdered them. When I didn’t, when I failed, I was tortured.”
“Teach me,” Jaross begged.
“What good will it do you?” Jhan replied acidly. “It won’t help us get out of this.”
“What does it matter?” Jaross retorted, throwing Jhan’s words back at her. “Show me.”
Jhan slowly reached to the back of Jaross’s neck. “There. Remember? All you have to do is squeeze there very hard.”
“Can I?” Jaross wondered as he put his hand to the back of Jhan’s neck. She repositioned his fingers until he had the correct grip. “You’re hands are very strong.”
“As tight as you can,” Jhan prompted him.
“I might snap your little neck instead, “Jaross warned nervously.
“Do it!" Jhan urged him.
Jaross squeezed, his face full of his concentration. Jhan felt her legs go numb. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move her lower body. Jaross could have done anything to her then. Jhan didn’t care. She stared at him blankly, accepting, not even judging him. When he released her and took back his hand, he looked guilty.
“I thought about it,” he admitted.
“I knew you would,” Jhan replied.
“And you let me anyway?” Jaross shook his head. “What is it, Jhan? Why don’t you care any longer?”
“There’s nothing left for me, Jaross,” she told him. “Even if I live through this, it’s never going to end, the way people despise what I am and try to hurt me because of it. I’ve seen it all, felt it all. I’ve not only become jaded, but I’ve also realized that I’m never going to have Kile and the peaceful life that I want.”
“So, you ARE giving up,” Jaross affirmed in disgust. He drew back from Jhan, glaring at her as if she were unendurable. “Life is hard for you, Jhan, but it’s hard for everyone. Stop acting like a baby and grow some backbone! We will get out of this! You will have Kile back again! You will have a happy life!”
”And you’ll make that happen?” Jhan sneered.
“Yes, I will,” Jaross told her adamantly.
“I’d like to see you try!”
“Live, and you will,” Jaross retorted.
“Promise?” Jhan asked, softening suddenly and looking anguished.
Jaross softened as well and smiled at her, relaxing again as he replied firmly, “Promise.”

Jhan had spent the day in Jaross’s embrace, only stirring to take care of her bodily needs. No one, but the guards who brought them their meals, disturbed the long monotony of the day. To sleep after that, as the light through the cracks in the shutters faded and darkness descended in their cell, was almost redundant.
“You’re ill,” Tsarianna said as Jhan opened her eyes on her indigo world.
“Where have you been?” Jhan wondered irritably.
They were seated in the grass at the edge of the still lake. Tsarianna was leaning back on his elbows and staring sideways at Jhan. Jhan was still naked and carrying her chains. It dismayed her, breaking through the calming effect of that place.
“Things must be bad,” Tsarianna said sympathetically, “for you to bring the troubles of the waking world here.”
Tsarianna brushed at the fetters and they were gone. He motioned to Jhan’s body and she was instantly covered in a soft, white dress that flowed all about her like a silken, blooming flower.
“Better, “ Jhan breathed, “but you haven’t answered my question.”
Tsarianna looked out across the lake. “I was making certain that Darkai wasn’t torn apart by King Hajian,” he replied. “After Hajian decided to have you punished, he turned his attentions on Darkai. It’s been very frustrating for him to have every cut he makes heal itself, and every attempt at the use of his Power, thwarted by the combined resonances of my machines in Darkai.”
Jhan tried to muster outrage. “Why didn’t you do that for me?”
“Darkai is almost all machine,” Tsarianna explained simply. “You have only bits and pieces.”
Jhan tried to remember. “He tried to cut me open too. My heart.”
Tsarianna nodded thoughtfully. “It is largely machine now. There wasn’t any other way to keep it beating. It had a great deal of damage.”
Jhan touched her chest as if she could feel the cold beat of that machine in her chest.
“Don’t,” Tsarianna told her. “It isn’t like that at all.”
“He wanted to enlarge it so that he could make me larger,” Jhan told him.
“I know,” Tsarianna looked pained now. “I can hear your mind when I want to Jhan. I know everything that’s been happening to you. There’s no need to go over it again. Rest here. That’s all that you need to do.”
“Then why are you here?” Jhan wondered.
“Only to reassure you that you have some defenses against Hajian,” Tsarianna told her. “His Power, of course, is another matter, but it seems to have limits.”
“Unlike mine,” Jhan muttered. “If it did, I would be using it right now to force my way out of Hajian’s fortress.”
“By killing?” Tsarianna was troubled. “You used to be such a gentle soul.”
“When I had hope,” Jhan replied. “It was easy to be. I could always say to myself, ‘Just a little longer and then it will be over with. Just a little longer and a better life will start.’ That’s not true. It was never true.”
“Jaross was right,” Tsarianna said critically. “You are acting like a child. Of course it will get better, Jhan! How can it get any worse? You’ve wondered why you’ve stopped caring, stop running in terror, stopped being horrified. You’ve seen it all, just as you said to Jaross, and, if that’s true, then it can only get better. You know that instinctively.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Jhan snarled and stood up, gripping her elbows as if she could still feel the cold of the cell. “You’re the child if you really think that.”
“I’m far from being a child, Jhan, but if you want things easier for you, if you truly can’t bear it any longer, I’ll give you a gift.” Tsarianna stood as well and looked down into Jhan’s eyes. “I’ll let you stay here while time moves on past your body. It may survive it. It may not. It depends on how well Jaross can care for it and how long Hajian will keep himself occupied with Darkai.”
“Stay here?” Jhan looked about her. It was a soothing place, but it was also lonely.
Tsarianna became very annoyed. “You want so much. You are never satisfied!”
“Humans never are,” Jhan told him.
“So I have found,” Tsarianna grumbled. “You will not be alone,” he continued. “This is the place where your Power can work without harming the world. Bring whomever you wish here, in safety, but be warned. They are in true dreams. They won’t understand that you and this place are very real.”
Jhan nodded, but she found herself nodding to empty air. Tsarianna was gone.
Taking a deep breath, Jhan did nothing, but drink in the calmness of that place for some time. How much time, she didn’t know. The sky never changed. There wasn’t any sunset or sunrise. She was never hungry or in need of anything. At last, feeling as if she might drown in that stillness and forget who she was, Jhan thought of the one person she most wanted to see in the world.
Kile was suddenly there, staring off into the distance, face frowning very slightly and gold hair tumbling over into his blue eyes. Jhan stood up and touched his arm. He looked blearily down at her and then smiled very softly and very sadly.
“Little Love, my dreams are happy ones at last!” Kile’s smile faltered and he frowned again. “I’ve had such nightmares.”
“This isn’t a dream,” Jhan told him, knowing that if anyone could understand that it would be Kile, but he didn’t look convinced.
Kile took Jhan into his arms, holding her and brushing her lips with his. He breathed deeply of her hair, fingering it, and then sat down with her in his lap.
“What’s been happening to you?” Jhan asked, fending off Kile’s big hands a they tried to slide up under her dress.
Kile said sourly. “Now I believe that this isn’t a dream,” he said. “My dreams don’t try to tie me up in knots. Are you using your Power to bring me here?”
“Yes, now answer my question,” Jhan persisted.
Kile shrugged. “Same as when you left me last time. They feed me, give me fresh bedding, and never answer any of my questions. I’m as well as can be expected chained to a wall in a cold cell.”
Kile looked Jhan over. “I suppose, here, you can look any way you wish. How are you doing?”
There wasn’t enough room in Kile’s embrace to withdraw and Kile cupped her chin with his hand to keep Jhan from looking away. Jhan reluctantly explained what had happened.
Kile was livid. “If Jaross touches you...!”
“He won’t,” Jhan assured Kile. “Whatever else Jaross is, he is an honorable man and-and we are friends, Kile.”
Unlike the first visit, Kile was comfortingly solid and warm. Jhan opened up his dream clothes and slid her hands inside. She put her cheek against his chest and simply sighed in contentment.
Kile was studying her. “You look different here,” he said finally.
“How different?’ Jhan mumbled against his chest.
“Not like Jhanian Kevelt any longer, more like a woman,” Kile struggled to explain. “A woman I don’t know. Your hair... it keeps trying to be blonde, and your body changes shape, grows and shrinks against me. Are you hating yourself again, trying to be someone else?”
Jhan was surprised. She lifted her head and looked down at herself. She looked the same as ever, small, thin, and as delicate as eggshell. She was also completely naked. The gown that Tsarianna had mentally woven for her was gone. Small, perfect globes with pink nipples for breasts met her eyes, and a waist too much like a boys’ for Jhan’s comfort. Her narrow hips flared just enough to be feminine. Her legs were thin, but strong, the extra joints at knee and ankle making them a bit oddly shaped, but still smooth and perfect. Her feet were narrow and small. She was a mix of boy and young woman, seemingly on the cusp of puberty and likely to go either way. She did look like she was twelve at the most and that anyone, especially Kile who had a preference for big hipped, big breasted women, could think of her in a sexual way was almost unbelievable.
Jhan thought very hard, trying to remember how she had looked as Tammy. If this place was what she made of it, then couldn’t she be that for Kile; Tammy, a woman? A woman just as he liked them. Once, just once, before it was all ended, couldn’t they come together perfectly, without horror, without disgust, without aversion?
“Before I was Jhanian Kevelt,” Jhan explained, “I was Tammy, a woman. A blonde woman. I wasn’t young, but I wasn’t old either. I died and somehow, whatever we are, spirit, energy, soul, was taken from Tammy and put in Jhanian. You always wanted to believe that I’d just lost my mind, even when I told you that I hadn’t. I know you still think that. Let me show you what I was. Let’s have that, Kile. Let’s be together as we were meant to come together. Man and woman.”
“Jhan-,” Kile began.
“Tammy,” Jhan corrected and changed.
Kile was startled, blue eyes going wide as he suddenly had a strange woman in his lap. Tammy had been tall. She was a good match for Kile’s size. Her face was lined at the eyes, but her skin was clear and she was pretty. She had kept in shape. She was shapely and strong. Her breasts were large, over ripe, and her hips were rounded moons. Her blonde hair was a tumble about her shoulders.
Tammy pressed against Kile. She took his hands and made him cup her breasts. He squeezed them, not out of desire, but out of trepidation. He was beginning to believe that he was dreaming again.
Tammy straddled Kile’s hips and made him naked. He wasn’t ready for her, but she smiled and knew that he wouldn’t be long about it. She kissed him, ran her tongue along his lower lip sensuously. She pressed her pelvis against him and moved his hands to her thighs.
“I’m everything you want,” Tammy whispered. “Take it, Kile.”
Kile wasn’t responding. Tammy leaned back in puzzlement to look into his eyes. He was staring at her with the shock of revelation. She could tell it was something uncomfortable, something he didn’t want to admit to even to himself, but had to. He was slow saying anything, maybe desperately hoping now that it WAS a dream.
“I,” Kile licked dry lips and couldn’t look away as he said, “I don’t want this. This isn’t what I want.”
It was Tammy’s turn to be shocked. “What do you mean?”
“I-I like you the way you were,” Kile admitted as if it were being dragged out of him with hooks.
“What?” Tammy became furious, on the point of tears in an instant. “You want... what? A boy? A little girl? A child either way? Is that what you really want?”
Kile shook his head. “No!” he exclaimed. “Not a child. You aren’t a child!”
“I just look like one!” Jhan slapped her spare chest, realizing that she had become Jhanian again. “What can you possible want with this body that isn’t sick or-or perverted?”
“You hate it-You hate it so much, but I don’t, Jhan,” Kile told her in anguish. He cupped her breasts. “Look at them! These are not a child’s breasts! They are beautiful, soft, perfect in every way and most definitely a woman's." He smoothed hands down her narrow body. “You are small, but I’ve seen women smaller. Your size doesn’t make you a child, Jhan. These hips, if you could only see them from behind. They are truly,” he swallowed with growing desire, “truly beautiful and most definitely a woman's."
Jhan grabbed his hand and put it between her legs. “Is that a woman’s too?” She snarled furiously.
“No,” Kile replied, but he was undaunted. “But I don’t hate that part of you. I want it as much as I want all of the rest. I don’t want you to change. I don’t want what you were before. It can’t ever be, not in the real world, and I don’t want it. I want you, only you, forever you, and, because of that, I accept what you are, love, in the shape that you have. Please don’t destroy that by tempting me, taunting me, making me know that you were something else. That person, if she did exist, died, Jhan. I have only Jhanian Kevelt to love now. I love him.”
“But it’s not me!” Jhan shouted at him and wept.
Kile pulled her against his chest and held her. “It is you and you are going to completely accept that. We are going to be together, now, as Kile Helarion Dor and Jhanian Kevelt of Karana. It is what we are. It is all that I want. Nothing more!”
Jhan didn’t know what Jhanian Kevelt looked like, but she made an educated guess, putting her features and Jaross’s together, making her body as large as Kile’s and making herself very much a man. As Jhanian, he grabbed Kile by the chin, pulled Kile to him with a masculine jerk, and jammed his tongue into Kile’s mouth. He used his free hand to grab Kile’s and place it on his aroused manhood.
“Is this what you want?” Jhan asked around his kiss.
Kile broke away, his face going scarlet as he retrieved his hand. He looked Jhan over in amazement and then, incredibly, he laughed, taking on Jhan’s temper and challenge. “If you won’t be what you are, then I’ll have you any way I can, Love. I’m long past shame or revulsion. Be a woman! Be a man! Be something inbetween you stubborn, hard headed, bad tempered-”
Jhan cut him off with another kiss and laughed into Kile’s mouth, suddenly feeling the weight of the world lift off of his shoulders. Kile pushed him onto his back. He looked Jhan over with determination.
“Is this what you want?” Kile demanded, a challenge of his own. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, but you’re still beautiful, Jhanian Kevelt. I’m sure I could manage...”
“You could manage with a rock,” Jhan said with a masculine giggle and stretched out with an arm behind his head. He was beyond caring, just as Kile was. It was madness and, in that place, they were happily mad.
Kile's eyes were burning now. He looked over Jhan’s body, ran rough hands along Jhan’s chest, his washboard stomach, his belly, and then Kile lowered his head towards Jhan and opened his mouth with obvious intent... Jhan sat up, startled into her own shape.
“I didn’t think you actually would!” Jhan exclaimed in wonder.
“There’s my Little Love!” Kile laughed. “Are you done with your tantrum now, because I truly need to-”
And they did, wrapping about each other, holding onto each other desperately, wanting that moment to last forever. It was hot, passionate, a confirmation that Jhan had needed; that Kile did love what she was, would have loved anything that she was, as long as it was her inside. As long as she knew that, without a doubt, then she could face whatever Hajian did. She WOULD have Kile afterwards.
“You’re tiring,” Kile noticed as he played gently with her breasts. He kissed one and then the other, Jhan lying beneath him. Kile, propped on an elbow, stared down at her in regret. “I need to go back to my body, back to my cell.”
Jhan did feel tired, as if her blood was slowly draining out of her. Keeping Kile in that place was taking a great deal of energy, yet she didn’t want to let him go. If she could stay there..., but Kile couldn’t. He couldn’t live in her mind forever. There wasn’t anyone to watch his body while he dreamed.
“We may not see each other again,” Jhan said to him bleakly. “Hajian may kill us both.”
“I won’t think that way,” Kile admonished her. “Don’t you think that way either. Have hope.”
Jhan tried to smile, but it was sickly. Kile kissed her and then was gone. Jhan felt very lonely after that. She knew that she couldn’t stay in that place without him. She had to rejoin the land of the living.
Jhan stood up and looked slowly about, not sure how to end the dream.
“Tsarianna!” Jhan shouted to the purple sky. “Let me go back!”
“There isn’t any ‘let’, “ Tsarianna’s voice said from the purple clouds. “There is only ‘will’.”
Jhan concentrated and willed herself back to her body. She came awake, sitting up and slowly eating a piece of stale bread. She choked on it. A hand slapped her back and it dislodged. Jhan swallowed the bread and then turned her head to look at Jaross. His beard had come in. Some time had passed.
“Wh-,” Jhan coughed again and Jaross handed her a cup of water. Jhan sipped cautiously and then tried again. “What’s been happening?”
Jaross was sour. His face was sunken and gaunt looking. His eyes were red and he had the look of someone who had been left alone too long with their own thoughts.
“I’m not sure,” Jaross replied in a clipped tone. “Why don’t you tell me? You’ve spent weeks without saying one word or acknowledging that I even exist!”
Jhan blinked at him. “I thought- I didn’t know- How did I do that?”
Jaross scowled and sat down heavily next to her. His chains rattled. They were galling sores in his wrists. “Explain.”
Jhan sipped at more of her water. She felt sweated, but it wasn’t fever. In fact, she felt healthier than when she had gone into her dreams. Her muscles were toned and tight on her light bones. Her face was flushed as if from some exertion.
“I was a coward,” she said at last, looking down at the cup and feeling very guilty.
“Explain some more,” Jaross prompted.
“I can go into my mind, escape,” Jhan replied. “I did that. I did it with Dagara. I did everything he told me, but... I wasn’t really there.”
“No one made you do anything,” Jaross told her in confusion. “You worked off your own chains, making a bloody mess of it too. You began exercising, showing skill I never dreamed possible. You did it all day, ate most of the food when it came, and then just slept like the dead. The guards are afraid of you. They knew you were free, but, since I wasn’t, they didn’t report it or do anything about it. They’ve just been sliding food and drink into the room, taking the bucket to empty, and leaving us alone.”
The straw was very dirty. They were both very dirty. Jhan smelled terrible from her exertions. Jaross looked as if he had a thin film of gray on his skin.
“I’m sorry,” Jhan said. “It must have been hard for you.”
“Two weeks in a cell was hard,“ Jaross replied as he scratched at his beard. “Learning some moves from you, some deadly moves, more than made up for it, I think.”
Jaross slipped out of his manacles. It was hard and he had to work at it, but his hands came free. He shrugged. “I’ve lost weight since they put them on and, as I said, they’re too afraid to come in all the way. I’ve been watching you, practicing some myself, trying to stay sharp if we happen to get a chance at escape. The food has been a problem. You thrive on it, but my stomach... I’m not as in good a shape as you are.”
“This is where I was made,” Jhan said as she tested her muscles and stood up. Her body unfolded with incredible ease. Her sweat was beginning to chill, but she ignored it as she walked about the cell. She reached the warm wall and put her back to it.
“Why come back to your senses now?” Jaross wondered.
“It was lonely where I was,” Jhan told him. “Even your company was preferable to that.”
Jaross made a face. “I have been a good nurse maid. You shouldn’t criticize."
“I’m sorry,” Jhan said contritely and moved away from the wall to pace the confines of the cell. Spiders skittered out of her way. She crouched by the smooth place, staring at it as memory pricked at her. She made herself touch it and looked for her blood in the cracks of the mortar. Yes, it was still there.
“I would have gone away too, if I could have,” Jaross said at last. “I don’t blame you, really. You have so much more to be afraid of.”
Jhan stood again and walked over to the door. She touched the solid wood, listened for the sounds of their jailers. She could hear low voices, idle conversation, but nothing intelligible.
Had Tsarianna taken control of her body somehow, coaxed her to stay in the dream place, and then used her for his own ends? Jhan imagined the small machines within her, violating her will to make her dance like a puppet on strings. A corner of her mind realized that, if she had spent two weeks not moving at all, she wouldn’t have been able to get up and, if Jaross had been unable to make her eat, she might have wasted and died. It was hard for her to think well of Tsarianna even knowing that.
Jhan did two experimental backflips away from the door, spun in midair, and then landed lightly facing Jaross. He didn’t look surprised, only curious.
“You’re thinking,” Jaross said, prompting her to speak.
“Yes, I am,” Jhan admitted. “Hajian is obsessed with not dying. He thought I held a key, but he found nothing he could use. So, he’s turned to Darkai, but Darkai has his own defenses. He’s been so busy trying to crack Darkai, that he’s forgotten about me, about you, about Kile. That’s going to be to our advantage.”
Jaross sighed and leaned back on his hands. “I hope you know how ridiculous that sounds? We are in a cell. We do have two jailers. We do have a fortress of armed guards between us and freedom.”
“Only if we try to go out the front door,” Jhan told him.
Jaross was still sourly disbelieving. “I’ve climbed up that wall to look out the window. I’m sure you have to. The wall is slick and there is a long drop to the ground.”
“But not guarded,” Jhan told him. “They don’t imagine that we can go that way.”
“We can’t,” Jaross replied adamantly.
“We can,” Jhan retorted.
“Why the sudden hope?” Jaross wondered. He stood up, rubbing at his raw wrists. He had lost a great deal of weight. He seemed skin and wiry muscle stretched over bone. His pants were loose and belted tight to his waist. “You were ready to fold your hands over your breast and die before.”
“I had a talk with Kile,” Jhan replied as she measured the distance to the window. She had climbed to it before and she knew the view and the impossibility of the climb. “I was worried that Hajian would change me and we would have nothing after that. I was wrong. Kile wants me no matter what.”
“And you believe this dream?” Jaross looked pained, but determined not to let Jhan delude herself. “Jhan, I know Kile. It was only Hajian’s trick on your body that made Kile desire you. He loves you enough, and your enough like a woman for him to accept you now, but, if Hajian changes you into a man completely, you know that Kile will reject you.”
Jhan smiled and blushed, remembering Kile’s warm hands on her when she had made herself a man, Jhanian. “You’re wrong. It wasn’t just a dream. He does accept me and... I think I accept me now too.” She faced him squarely, trying to find the words. “In that place in my mind, I could be anything, you see. I made myself a woman. I made myself a man. In the end, I made myself this again, because, finally, I understood that it doesn’t matter what body I have, Jaross. I’m still me inside. Kile accepts that. I’m accepting that.”
“So, that makes you want to escape?”
“I was at the end of my rope and I was going to let that end hang me,” Jhan replied guiltily. She essayed the jump and then leapt lightly upwards until her hands closed on the window sill, levering herself up, she planted her small rump there and balanced precariously as she worked open the shutter and looked downwards.
“I had just given up,” Jhan continued. “I didn’t want to face any more. It was easier to believe that my life was doomed anyway and to think of dying as a an escape. Kile told me that I was being childish.”
“I did too,” Jaross said from below her. “I don’t know what you expect to do up there. We can’t get through the bars.”
“We won’t have to,” Jhan told him as she worked at the metal with her hands. The fortress was old. The stone was cracked from cold and snow. The bars, three of them, moved and turned as she tugged at them.
“I couldn’t do this by myself,” Jhan said. “Now that I have you to help me-”
“The window is very narrow,” Jaross protested. “I don’t think that I can get my shoulders through there.”
“You’re thin,” Jhan replied shortly.
“If I’m thin enough, then what?” Jaross growled and paced below Jhan in a short circuit. “I’m not going to try and climb down that wall!”
“Not down,” Jhan informed him, “Over. There’s one, two, three windows between us and Kile.”
Jaross crossed arms over his chest and glared up at her as he came to a stop beneath her again. “Say we get over there without falling and breaking our necks, then what?”
“We rescue Kile,” Jhan said forcefully as she gave a hard tug on a bar.
“And the plan for that is?”
Jhan looked down at him now, scowling. “I do have a plan, Jaross.”
“I’m waiting.”
“If you stop looking up my shirt and get out of the way, maybe I could jump down and tell you what it is.”
“It’s my shirt,” Jaross reminded her, and then with a grimace, “and I don’t care what you have up it any longer.”
“Good.” Jhan said as Jaross moved and she let herself drop lightly to the floor. She wiped her hands on her coat and moved to sit on the hay. Jaross remained standing, watching her skeptically.
“Your sense of strategy stinks,” Jaross said. “I don’t think this ‘plan’ is going to be any better. You’re thinking with your heart, not with your head.”
“If you think with your head, Jaross, “Jhan replied acidly, “then you’ll stay here and hope that Hajian won’t remember you and come finish the job he started. I can tell you how that will end, but you know it already. If that’s what you want, go ahead. I’m willing to risk myself to get out of this and I think that I have a plan that will work.”
“I’m still waiting for it,” Jaross told her crossly.
“Thaos is coming soon-”
“You don’t know that,” Jaross corrected her. “Don’t make a plan based on possibilities.”
“When Thaos comes, I’ll know,” Jhan doggedly continued.
“You don’t know that either.”
“When he comes,” Jhan snarled, “I’ll tell him where we are. He can join with Tevar and Rehn and together they can help us escape.”
Jaross wasn’t charitable. “And where does climbing out of a window come in?”
“If we can get out of our cells, we’ll be able to-”
“Drop to the ground and run for Thaos and his men?” Jaross snorted in open contempt now. He turned away, shaking his head. “I think I have better odds hoping that Hajian will have a change of heart and let me go!”
“I won’t stay here!” Jhan exclaimed in anguish. “I won’t!”
“I’ve spent two weeks thinking about plans to escape,” Jaross countered. “I haven’t thought of any. You have to accept that there isn’t one. If Thaos comes, he might parley with Hajian for our release. The Alamien will pay to have Darkai returned to them. My father, though he disowned me, won’t want to see me die. He’ll pay too. Kile is a noble of Pekarin. Duke Dor will pay for his release.”
“And me?” Jhan said with mocking, raised eyebrows. “Who do you think will pay to set me free, assuming, of course, that money will settle all of this?”
“King Thaos-,” Jaross began soothingly.
“Must know that I know about his treachery by now,” Jhan snapped, cutting him off. “He’s going to be afraid that I’ll want revenge. He’s also going to wonder if Hajian changed me back to Jhanian. He won’t want that. That’s two good reasons to let me rot in this cell.”
“He’s your brother,” Jaross said, troubled. “He has honor.”
“You have a short memory,” Jhan replied coldly and huddled in on herself. “I remember too well when he tried to cut out my tongue, starve me to death, and drop me off of a cliff.”
“The cliff was over water and not very high,” Jaross argued only half heartedly.
“Did he know that?” Jhan wondered acidly. “We didn’t.”
“The Kevelt are a cruel people,” Jaross reluctantly agreed, “especially to themselves.”
“So, he won’t rescue me,” Jhan affirmed bitterly. “No one will. That means that I have to escape on my own, if you’re not willing to go along with me.”
“I won’t go because it’s madness!” Jaross exploded. He turned to Jhan again, begging her to see sense. “You’ll fall. The wall is too slick. The only thing you will be doing by climbing out of that window is suicide!”
There argument was cut off by the guard entering with their food. He was nervous, having heard them shout. He tried not to see that neither of them were chained. He put the tray of food and water on the floor and began to retreat.
“Wait!” Jhan called. The man paused with a twitch of trepidation.
“What’s going on? Do you know?” Jhan asked, keeping her voice soft and reasonable.
The man licked nervous lips. “King Hajian is too busy to bother with the likes of you.”
“I know that,” Jhan persisted, “but with what?”
“The man from the Alamien, Darkai,” Beget said slowly. “We’ve heard screams. He never comes out of his Majesty’s work room.”
“Has Hajian said anything about us?” Jhan asked, but Jaross turned away suddenly and went to huddle against the warm wall, suddenly not caring that the guard knew he was free of his chains. Jhan stared after him, puzzled, but she didn’t want to loose her opportunity with the guard. She turned back to him, but he was staring after Jaross as well in a way that Jhan knew. She knew what the guard was going to say next and it hardly shocked her.
“After that one did you, his Majesty was satisfied. Didn’t order your release though.” Beget jerked a chin at Jaross. “He was very put out about that. Demanded to see the King, told him he’d do it in front of him if he wanted proof. It was enough that we came in and saw it!” Beget spat aside, but looked at Jhan sympathetically. “You were out of it then and you probably didn’t hear that part, but there’s nothing that can help you now. It’s what his Majesty wanted; punishment for whatever you did to him.”
“Has Hajian told you what he plans to do with us?” Jhan asked in a very small voice that trembled at the edges.
“To me?” Beget guffawed. “I’m just a guard!” He looked guilty. “Shouldn’t be talking to you anyway.” he became nervous again and backed out of the room. The door banged shut and the lock was loud in the silence.
Jaross suddenly threw himself up at the window. He made guttural, incoherent sounds as he tugged on them with all of his might. When one gave, he hung on it, kicked his bare feet, and twisted his body until his own weight brought it out of the stone with a shower of mortar and rock. The next was harder. He twisted and jerked at it like a madman until it too gave. Landing lightly back to the floor, he turned to Jhan, panting and red face. His expression was wild and fearful, as he hefted the iron bar in one hand threateningly.
“I did what I had to!” Jaross panted. “You were out of it, not talking, not seeing me, not caring what went on around you. I thought- I wanted you free however I had to do it. I couldn’t watch you, day after day, training hour after hour for what I thought would be a final confrontation with Hajian. A confrontation that would get you killed! If I had to bang you to stop that... well, I did, and you didn’t even blink at it! Now that I know that you ran away and left me your body, and that you didn’t even know how I hurt you, I find that I’m not sorry!”
Jaross’s voice broke on a sob. “I almost couldn’t-”
“Until you remembered what I had done to you and how you wanted to pay me back,” Jhan cut in, closing her eyes tight and shivering. “and make yourself a man again, even at my expense.”
“I was rougher that last time and you were all right,” Jaross protested. “This time was all different.”
“Because you had me the right way,” Jhan guessed, “and you didn’t expect yourself to like it, to feel the greatest pleasure you’ve ever had.”
Jaross nodded, pale and sick looking. “I lost my head. I did it for ever. I couldn’t end it, couldn’t stop. The guards heard me yelling. You didn’t make much sound. They pulled me off of you or I would never have stopped until my heart burst.”
“That’s happened before.” Jhan said softly. “A man died raping me because he couldn’t stop. So, you hurt me, but you wanted to do it again. How long before you did?”
“An hour,” Jaross said, shaking visibly and wrapping his arms about him. “I was able to stop that time.”
“Because you tired me and my body didn’t react as strongly,” Jhan guessed.
Jaross shrugged, hardly listening as he continued, “After that, no matter how I cursed myself, I had you every few hours until I became unconscious. When I woke... I was in my right mind again. I-I told myself what you really were. I made myself remember that day that I found you... with nothing between your legs. It helped.”
“But it didn’t stop you,” Jhan guessed. When Jaross said nothing she opened her eyes and glared at him. He needed more to bolster an aversion to her or he might... the tension was there... hurt her again. She braced herself and began to talk.
“When Dagara Ku Ni cut those parts of me off, he made sure that I didn’t feel the pain much,” Jhan explained. “because he wanted me completely aware of what he was doing. He even propped me up so that he could make me watch. Afterwards, he took them away, and then came back and cut me open so that he could make me a woman inside, so that he could make me pregnant. It didn’t work, of course.” Jhan looked levelly at Jaross. The man was green. “Do you know what he did with those bits that he cut away? He cooked them in front of me and then ate them.”
Jaross turned and vomited. He fell to his knees, heaving up everything that was in his stomach as he sobbed and choked.
“Such a sacrifice,” Jhan snarled angrily. “For my own good, I’m sure you thought, and for yours too!”
“He was going to kill us both!” Jaross finally choked out. “He came in and told me that when he discovered that I hadn’t done as he ordered. It seemed such a little thing to do to save our lives. All of that horror you’ve lived through, is it so terrible what I did? It’s not like you’re a virgin maiden. You’re a man! What’s one more between your legs after Kile, and all those others you told me about? I was gentle enough. I was careful, until you made me loose my head. It was for our lives, Jhan!”
“You’re a man too, aren’t you?” Jhan taunted him. “What’s one more between your legs?”
Jhan was on Jaross before he could move. All of her pent up anger exploded. She knew that she could overwhelm Jaross. She had done it easily enough before. She wasn’t afraid as she threw him down, reached behind his neck and squeezed. He went limp, only his eyes showing his terror. Very deliberately, Jhan used her free hand to open the buttons of his pants. She ignored vomit and his stink of fear as she leaned close, stared into his eyes and then ran her tongue over his face in a broad, obscene gesture. He tasted of dirt and sweat, but she had braced herself for it.
It was hard to get his pants down one handed, but Jhan struggled doggedly and finally accomplished the feat. Jaross was fairly whimpering now, begging her to stop in a small, lost voice.
“What’s the matter?” Jhan wondered in mock amazement. “Don’t you want me now? If ten times saved our life, a few more should set us free!”
“Get off of him, pervert.”
Jhan turned her head and saw the two guards standing just inside the doorway. The skinny one had a pike.
“It was all right for him to rape me, but not all right for me to rape him?” Jhan wondered in disgust.
“The King wants to see you,” the skinny guard snarled and raised his pike threateningly. “He didn’t look pleased. I think you’re fun time is over. Now, get up.”
Jhan released Jaross and stood all in one motion. Jaross sat up as well, pulling up his pants with shaking hands and buttoning them as he sobbed. Jhan ignored him, facing the guards and rising up on the balls of her feet. She wasn’t afraid any longer. She knew her skill. That place had reminded her of it. Jaross had unwittingly given her the confidence and the will to do what she did next.
Without warning, Jhan began to run towards the door. As she anticipated, the pike lowered to meet her as the guards, caught off guard, backpedaled to gain fighting ground. Jhan eeled sideways, snatched the pike as she passed by the point, and twirled it to take the skinny guard in the head. He dropped like a sack of flour, unconscious. Jhan almost twirled the pike around to drive the point into the heavier guard, but she corrected herself at the last moment, fought and beat down her killer reflexes, and popped the man in the face with the heel of her hand instead. He dropped bonelessly and lay sprawled over the skinny guard.
Jhan held onto the pike and jerked the keys from the burly guards belt. Straightening, she looked angrily at Jaross. “Come on, we’re escaping.”
Jaross looked up dumbly. He could have been angry, vengeful, ready to attack her, but, instead, he pulled himself together with incredible strength of will, and stood up.
“T-Take their clothes,” he suggested.
Jhan nodded. She took off Jaross’s clothes and, as he put them back on himself, she began stripping off the clothes from the skinny guard. She put on his pants, rolled them up and belted them tight. She took the man’s coat, but didn’t put it on, belted his thin dagger, and tried on his boots. When she found them too large, she kept on the man’s socks and bundled the boots up with the coat. Jaross was taking the burly guard’s sword and knife, belting them on with absent ease as his eyes continued to watch Jhan hatefully.
Jhan handed Jaross the bundle of jacket and boots. “I’ll need to be free to fight,” she explained.
“I have a sword,” Jaross said as if she were calling into question his ability with it.
“It will make noise,” Jhan told him. “We need to slip out of here-”
“We can’t ‘slip’ out of here,” Jaross retorted as he took the bundle and tucked it under one arm. “This is a fortress.”
“We don’t have a choice now, do we?” Jhan snarled back. “I’m not going to stay in our cell and let you rape me again whenever I fall asleep!”
Jaross went very pale as he looked down, face becoming hollow with guilt and inner pain. “I made a mistake..., but I thought that I was doing the right thing. I wasn’t- I wasn’t in control, but it wasn’t my fault. The way you were acting, in a trance and unaware of me or anything around you, I thought- I thought that you wouldn’t know. The guards... they were there to stop me only because they came in to take us away to our executions.”
“Yours, maybe,” Jhan said as they slowly inched into the hallway. It was empty. With only locked doors to guard that were four inches thick, no one imagined it possible for someone to escape. “Hajian wasn’t going to kill me,” Jhan whispered as they slowly went down the hallway. “He still needs me. He still wants to pursue his mad goal of righting all the wrongs of Dagara Ku Ni while living forever.”
“I saved one of our lives,” Jaross replied tightly. “I can’t be sorry for that. I am sorry that I hurt you.”
“That’s something,” Jhan grated, mind on more important things. She stopped at a doorway and put her hand on the wood. It was Kile’s cell. She fumbled for the key, put it in the lock, and turned it. It clicked loudly. Jaross looked up and down the dank corridor in alarm, but there wasn’t anyone to investigate.
Taking an unsteady breath, Jhan swung the door open. The light from the lanterns lit a cell that was darker than theirs had been. In the place where Kile had sat, languishing, the last time Jhan had seen him, there was now nothing but dirty hay and empty manacles.
“No!” Jhan exclaimed hoarsely, and then louder, ”No!”
“You don’t know that he’s dead!” Jaross shouted in Jhan’s face as she turned, wide eyed and ghost pale. “Don’t do something stupid and get us thrown back into our cell!”
“Get away from me!” Jhan shouted at Jaross, fists clenched and face twisting in grief and fury. “Get out of my way! Run and save yourself! I intend to find Kile!”
Jaross dared to grab Jhan by both arms, pinning them against her sides. “Don’t do this! I can get us out of here if you calm down and trust me!”
Jhan laughed at him, hysterical now. “Trust you! You raped me after you swore that you wouldn’t, just to save your own skin! I should kill you along with the rest!”
“Kill me?” Jaross swallowed hard and his grip tightened. “Kill me for trying to save us? You are such an innocent, even after everything you’ve been through Jhan, or is it that you’re a half-wit and can’t understand that sometimes you have to make-”
“Sacrifices? Is that what I did, Jaross?” Jhan spat in his face. “I don’t remember anyone asking me if I wanted to or not. What did you say to Hajian? Maybe, I wanted to die and not be saved by his Power? You should have listened to yourself!”
“I did what I thought was right,” Jaross replied stiffly. “I keep repeating that because it’s true. I never meant to hurt you, to use you, to rape you. Even without that power to drive men mad that Hajian gave you, your body can still make a man die for wanting you. I refuse to let you blame me for it.”
Jhan felt tears trailing down her cheeks. “You did what you always wanted to do. Don’t deny it. You wanted to get me back for hurting you and you still ‘wanted’ me.”
“I’m not going to argue with you over this,” Jaross retorted. He pushed her backwards and Jhan took two steps before she gathered herself to step forward again and pass Jaross by. He barred her way.
“Tell me what you are going to do,” Jaross demanded. “Commit suicide by attacking the soldiers until they cut you down?”
“Without Kile, there isn’t anything left for me,” Jhan told him and her eyes were blue pieces of hard granite.
“He may not be dead. We may be able to find him, if we’re careful and if you don’t loose your head!” Jaross admonished her.
“I don’t need you!” Jhan replied and shoved his arm down and away. “You bought your freedom with my body. You can go now.”
Jaross flinched, but he didn’t let her win. “These men are innocent. They aren’t the soldiers of Dagara Ku Ni. If you kill them, it will be murder.”
“You’re a soldier,” Jhan countered. “How many men have you killed for doing their duty?”
That hit the mark. Jaross struggled for something more to say, but couldn’t find an argument that she would listen to. Without a word, he turned and hit Jhan square in the jaw.

CHAPTER TEN
( Allies)
Jhan awoke with a throbbing pain in her jaw. Her head felt as if it were going to explode, and her wrists and ankles were raw with pain and bound through the holes tightly together. Like a felled deer, Jhan was being carried slung across Jaross’s shoulders.
“What?” Jhan exclaimed hoarsely.
Jaross crouched and let Jhan slide carefully to the ground. He stayed in that position and waited for Jhan to realize that they weren’t in the fortress any longer. They were in a forest and the mountains peeked up through the scant canopy capped in snow. At the height of summer, the air was still chill.
“I told you I could get us out,” Jaross told her matter-of -factly.
“Without Kile!” Jhan exploded and struggled against the ropes that held her. It was futile, she couldn’t bring pressure to bear on them at all and she certainly couldn’t slip out of them.
“I covered you over as if you were a sack,” Jaross explained. “My clothes were hodgepodge enough for me to look like a rag man once I turned my uniform coat inside out. They let me through with very few questions. They’ re trained to keep people out, not people in. I’ll have to remember that when we get back to Pekarin. That’s something for a captain to know.”
“You won’t make captain!” Jhan seethed. “I’m going to kill you, Jaross!”
She meant it. Her blue eyes were like twin volcanoes ready to erupt and her face was red and unlovely with her fury. Still, she was very small and very impotent at the moment and, though he did look guilty, Jaross wasn’t daunted by her display.
“I don’t expect you to thank me,” Jaross replied quietly, “but I won’t listen to your threats. You were being worse than a fool back there, letting your emotions for Kile get in the way of common sense.”
“I didn’t know that you had any,” Tevar said as he suddenly appeared at Jaross’s side. He crouched too, hands lax between his knees and hawk-like face calm, but hardly able to conceal his joy.
Jaross aborted a move to his sword hilt and grinned instead. “Captain Tevar! I am very glad to see you.”
“You stink like a midden,” Rehn observed as he joined them. “We’re you in their prison?”
Ranged behind Rehn were Avrilla, Bheni, and Alidae. All of them looked morose and uneasy with their surroundings, darting nervous glances and fiddling with what weapons they had.
“Kile is still back there!” Jhan erupted. “Let me go to him!”
“We’ve been racking our brains for a plan to rescue you and here you are, walking free,” Tevar interrupted. “How did you manage it?”
Jaross explained briefly, but his concern was for Kile too. “He wasn’t in his cell. Darkai is being harmed in some way. The guards heard him screaming. Kile may be being subjected to the same treatment. We need to save them both. It was my plan to find Thaos and enlist his help. A king might be able to move another king to release them.”
Avrilla looked very pale. Her hair was loose and streaming over her shoulders. She was wearing a plain brown dress with a black leather cloak pulled close about her. Alidae hovered over her protectively, but she pushed him away to confront Tevar and Jaross.
“We must rescue Darkai from that madman!” Avrilla demanded. “The Alamien people need him. I need him!”
“You started all of this!” Jhan exploded, struggling wildly now and not caring about the pain. “You and Darkai! If you’ve killed Kile because of your horrible plan to use me, I’ll kill you!”
“After you kill me or after you kill everyone in Hajian’s fortress?” Jaross replied acidly. He tried to stop her motions, pin her to the ground, but it was Rehn who fended off his hands, glaring.
“We know what happened,” Rehn informed him accusingly. “Jhan told us.” “That she raped me?” Jaross snapped, coloring crimson with humiliation. “Well, she’ll tell you now that I returned the favor!”
Rehn’s fist lashed out and he and Jaross went over in a punching tumble of limbs. Tevar hauled at Rehn’s collar and Jaross was eager to back away, wiping at a bloody lip. Tevar shook at Rehn, furious.
“This is not the time or the place!” Tevar barked. “You will all forget your scores and concentrate on surviving this! We are still in danger. Hajian will have realized by now that Jaross and Jhan have escaped. He’ll search and, if we don’t make a plan and start moving now, we’ll be caught up in their net!”
Jaross spat out blood. Rehn’s right eye was purpling. Bheni came forward with silent grace and stepped between them. “We cannot prevail against Hajian with so few. We must seek out King Thaos and enlist his help. Hopefully, Kile and Lord Darkai will-,” she looked down at Jhan with guarded sympathy, “will be well when we return.”
“Agreed,” Tevar said. “We’ll have to live off of the land until we reach help. Food and water are going to be hard to come by while we’re trying to cover ground.” He faced Avrilla and Alidae. “You’re pregnant, Princess Avrilla. You should stay out of this and take up Hajian’s offer to return to your people.”
“They will kill her if she returns,” Alidae snapped coldly. “She needs Darkai to make the changes in her baby or she is better off dead.”
“How dare you say that!” Jaross faced Alidae. The Alamien looked down his long height at Jaross. “Avrilla is not a breeding imala! You will not treat her so!”
“He is right,” Avrilla said, just as cold as Alidae. “My life is worthless if this child is not purely Alamien.”
“There is a world outside of the Silverwood!” Jaross argued. His heart was in his face, though he was attempting to hide it.
“Places such as the one we left do not interest me,” Avrilla replied arrogantly.
“They aren’t all like that!” Jaross persisted. “Petrath is a center of culture, trade, and knowledge. We pride ourselves on our-”
“Next to the Alamien, you are animals in the mud,” Alidae said, cutting Jaross off bluntly. “I have lived my life among you and I don’t have any wish to continue that way. As Avrilla’s Intended, I have earned a place among my people again.”
“If the child is normal,” Jaross reminded him. “If it isn’t-”
“I will kill the child and then myself,” Avrilla replied and turned away. “I tried to run once, but, I found your world as distasteful as Alidae did. I will not live as an outcast and my people will not let me live among them. Death is the only option.”
“Death!” Jaross exploded, glaring at Avrilla and Jhan. “Is that the only answer you can think of? You are worse than cowards!”
Bheni had crouched and was patiently untying Jhan. “You cannot go on like this,” she said in her rich voice, “The journey will be hard enough without bonds cutting off your blood.” When Bheni finally unwrapped the ropes enough for her to understand that they were passing through flesh, she cried out.
Rehn whirled and came to Bheni’s side. “What is it-” Rehn cried out as well, kneeled , and frantically tried to get the ropes unknotted as his voice shook on an in drawn sob. “How- How did- Gods, that King Hajian should do such a thing to you!”
Tevar was wincing in distaste, but he straightened. He had seen battle. He had seen more terrible things than Jhan’s bonds. Still, he was puzzled as to how it had been done. “Did he use his Power to do that?”
Jhan nodded shortly, eagerly waiting for freedom. Jaross tore himself away from Avrilla in time to see what they were doing. “No! She’ll run straight back to try and rescue Kile!”
“Yes, I will!” Jhan snarled and then to Rehn. “Hurry!”
Bheni and Rehn looked at each other in anguish and then up at Tevar. Tevar’s face was tight and grim as he said. “Release her. She can’t stay tied up like that. If she wants to run into the teeth of battle for Kile, that’s her decision.”
“You can’t mean that!” Jaross snarled and made as if to stop them. Bheni pushed him off as she straightened.
“Do not do that again, Jaross.” Bheni told him warningly. “You know that this has to be done.”
Jaross was frantic as Rehn began untying the knots again. His hands curled into fists. Jhan glared at him, daring him. “You can’t keep knocking me unconscious the entire way, Jaross!”
“No, I can’t,” Jaross said and kneeled by Jhan. He took her by the shoulders and looked hard into her eyes. “I’m going to try and reason with you, instead.”
Jhan laughed derisively. “You wouldn’t know what reason looked like if it hit you on the head!”
Jaross ignored her taunt. His eyes didn’t waiver. “I didn’t rape you.”
Jhan blinked at him and then sneered in disbelief.
Jaross repeated himself, clear and careful. “I didn’t rape you. I only pretended to so that our guards would have something to tell Hajian. I imagined that I had you as hard as I could, tried to fantasize it so clearly that, if Hajian looked into my mind, he’d see it and believe that I had done that to you. I remembered everything that Kile had ever told me about what it was like to make love to you and then I pretended to rape you again and again until my body believed it and the guards who came in and saw it believed it. I had to lie to you. I had to tell you those terrible things so that you would think that I had done it, so that Hajian would see it in your mind as well. I’m sorry. I was going to allow you to keep on believing it until we were safe with Thaos, in case we were captured again, but you made that impossible.”
“Impossible?” Jhan echoed in a whisper of consternation.
“If you run back to save Kile,” Jaross explained, “I don’t want you to think that you’re safe from Hajian. He’ll know that I didn’t punish you. He’ll do more than try to change you back into a man if you’re captured.”
“You bastard!” Jhan struggled against the last of the ropes, but Jaross put a hand over Rehn’s to stop him from releasing Jhan completely.
“You’ll go back and try to slip back into the fortress unnoticed, Correct?” Jaross asked. Jhan glared at him. “You’ll try to find out where Kile is and then... kill whoever gets in your way to set him free, because there won’t be any other way that-”
“We escaped without killing anyone!” Jhan retorted.
“That isn’t true, “Jaross said quietly. “I had to kill a man to get past one of the gates. If Hajian captures us, he’ll have that to punish us for as well.”
Jhan was very still, trembling with emotion. “You want to frighten me, but I’m beyond that! It doesn’t matter what happens to me.”
“It does,” Rehn spoke up at last. His plain, open face was creased with new lines and his mouth had a hard set to it as he said, “Kile won’t be able to live with himself if you die to save him. You know that. You must!” He shrugged off Jaross’s grip and finished with the ropes. He looked physically ill when he pulled them through the holes in her wrists and ankles.
Jhan sat up, panting, gathering herself to spring up and run. Her muscles wouldn’t obey her. She floundered in frustrated anger and then slowly stood up. Pain arced through her body from every joint and muscle. She gasped and bowed over herself, as she attempted to walk.
“So stubborn!" Bheni growled as she moved to block Jhan’s way. “This will not work. You are not such a fool! King Thaos is our only hope for rescuing Kile. Come with us.”
Jhan began to sob helplessly, knowing that she was right, but unwilling to leave Kile to his fate. Bheni took her by the shoulder and turned her away from Hajian’s fortress. She let Jhan lean on her as they began to walk. It was easier not to say anything, not to admit to defeat.
“Jaross-” Rehn began to say angrily.
Jaross cut him off viciously. “You can’t say anything that I haven’t said to myself, Rehn! I did what I had to do to save Jhan and myself. She wouldn’t save herself. She’s changed. That place broke her somehow. She won’t fight any longer.”
“That place is where it all began for her,” Rehn replied, hands clenching and unclenching as if he longed to beat Jaross senseless. “You weren’t there to see what they left of Jhan when I found her. It was horrible! Physically, she was a boy and perfect in every way. Mentally, she was torn to shreds and completely mad. She shrieked if you even looked at her and tried to find a place to hide, any place; through walls, under cracks in doors, under the bed. She would even try to squeeze herself into tiny patches of shadow. That she managed to find her sanity again, and some happiness, was a miracle in itself. Being taken back there... we can’t imagine what that was like for her. For you to have pretended to rape her- to have tied her like that and knocked her unconscious, dragging her away from the one person who made her want to live-”
“Hajian was going to execute us both!” Jaross exploded, face twisted in anguish. “I wasn’t about to forget my honor and truly harm Jhan to satisfy that monster, and I didn’t want to leave Kile behind either, but, you didn’t see her. You didn’t see that Jhan was going to murder those men of Hajian’s until they brought her down. She wouldn’t have saved Kile.”
“She is very skilled,” Tevar said, walking just ahead of them. “She might have done more than you think.”
Jaross shook his head with a hard tensing of his jaw. He searched for the words to explain. “She wasn’t going to save Kile. She knew that. She wanted to die.”
“What?” Rehn was skeptical.
“She thought that Kile was already dead,” Jaross told them and then looked back at Jhan. She had heard him, but she didn’t want to acknowledge the truth of what he was saying. “Still does,” Jaross continued. “She doesn’t want to go back to save him. She wants to go back and die with him.”
“Enough talk,” Alidae growled. “Idiot Humans! The entire countryside will know where we are if you keep shouting at one another!”
“I don’t understand why you are blaming Jaross,” Avrilla finally spoke up. Her eyes were on the ground and she looked pale. “He did his duty. He saved Jhan. I will pay him in gold when I return to the Silverwood.”
Jaross’s eyes lit up at her praise, but it wasn’t enough to make him stop feeling guilty. “I thank you, your Highness,” he said to Avrilla. “I did do my duty where my honor was concerned I only-I only regret the rough way that I had to do it. Jhan is hurting inside and out because of it. I don’t think- I don’t think that she will ever forgive me.”
Avrilla did look up then, her purple eyes seeing Jaross as if for the first time. Her expression was curious. “She will understand more when Captain Kile and Darkai are freed and safe. She will not be so distraught and she will realize that you only did your duty.”
“I hope so,” Jaross replied quietly.
“Our pace must be quicker!” Tevar told them in exasperation. “This is not an outing in the garden! Alidae is correct. Be silent. Concentrate on your steps.”
They quickened their pace. Jhan’s muscles loosened after the first mile and she was able to walk alone. Bheni strode confidently beside her, unfazed by danger or captivity. Jhan wished for even a little of that strength. Even though she had exercised every day, it hadn’t given her more energy reserves for long marches.
Alidae paused often to erase their tracks, smoothing out the ground with his hands, scattering leaves and twigs, and, once or twice, crushing a pungent herb to confuse any tracking beasts. His efforts appeared o work. They didn’t hear any pursuit all that day.
At night, they huddled in the undergrowth of the forest and didn’t dare make a fire. The chill of the air made their breaths smoke, but sharing body warmth made it tolerable. When they awoke the next day, food and water had become a priority.
Jhan was the last to uncurl. She sat up groggily and tried to will her blood to flow through her veins. She felt like a block of ice after the warm bodies separated and deserted her. Even Jaross, long chained to a wall, was stretching and obviously willing to start walking again.
Tevar eyed Jhan and came to stand over her. “You have to walk,” he told her, hiding sympathy and making himself commanding instead. “You’ll warm up if you do.”
Jhan looked up at Tevar, saying sarcastically, “You don’t really think that I’m going to make it, do you? I might as well stay here and try and stay warm.”
Tevar was too well trained to treat royalty as sacrosanct. He had gone as far as he was able with Jhan. It was Rehn who came up and took hold of her arm, without comment, and hauled her to her feet. Jhan didn’t protest, other than to groan, but Rehn wouldn’t have listened to it any way. He put her at the head of the line to set the pace as they all began to walk, and helped her keep walking until she was warmed up.
Tevar didn’t like it. Alidae liked it even less, but neither of them had time to protest. They were both ranging the forest on both sides of the narrow trail to look for food of any kind.
Periodically, Tevar and Alidae appeared to hand one of them mushrooms, berries, and sweet tasting leaves and roots. It was never enough to satisfy, but they couldn’t chance spending too long gathering food. They were still afraid of pursuit and they didn’t want to loose whatever lead they might have had.
Jhan noticed that Alidae passed her up more than once to hand food to someone else. She didn’t need to be told why. He didn’t think that she was going to make it either. She didn’t argue about it, not caring at that moment if she starved to death and fell in her tracks, but Rehn, ever vigilant where she was concerned, did notice at last. When Alidae tried to pass Jhan again, he snagged the, what was this time, berries, and gave them to Jhan, ignoring Alidae’s fierce frown.
Jhan ate mechanically, but she did feel better afterwards. Still, it was only a matter of time before her body wouldn’t be able to go any further. What would they do when that happened? Jhan imagined herself slung over Jaross’s shoulders.
“Rest,” Tevar called suddenly.
Rehn helped Jhan sit on a fallen tree. It was covered in moss and lichen and was in a small patch of sunlight because of a break in the forest canopy. As everyone else settled around her, thirsty and tired, and fell silent, Jhan’s sharp ears heard the sound she had been dreading.
“Men,” Jhan said softly.
Jaross drew his sword as did Tevar and Alidae. Tevar motioned everyone into a fern brake and they huddled under the fronds, trying not to breathe. They all tried to determine in which directions the sounds were coming from.
“Heading away to the East,” Tevar whispered at last. “It may have nothing to do with us. Everyone... rest. We shouldn’t move until they are well away.”
Jhan went to sleep at once, curled against Rehn’s side, trying to conserve as much energy as possible. It frightened her, how quickly she fell into the darkness of sleep, but she wasn’t surprised to find herself in her indigo world and facing Tsarianna.
“You’re not going to blame me too, like you did poor Jaross, are you?” Tsarianna protested when he saw Jhan’s angry face.
“Tell me what your game is!” Jhan demanded. “Why did you use my body like that?”
“You’re going to need your body healthy,” Tsarianna explained. “You know that.”
Jhan shrugged that off. “You’re using me! I know the stink of it pretty well now. Tell me what this is all about!”
Tsarianna looked annoyed now. “It isn’t all about you, Jhan. It’s also about me. I tried to stop you from going with Darkai. I went to Darkai and tried to convince him not to go. Neither of you would listen! Now I am in danger from King Hajian.”
Jhan understood then and nodded. “Of course, what else could hurt you, but someone with Power! You are afraid that Hajian will discover you if he discovers the machines in us.”
“He wants to be immortal,” Tsarianna said, as if it were the height of stupidity. “He’s already found out about me from Darkai’s mind. Once he discovers the machines, he’ll imagine that I can give him what Darkai has had; a very long life. He won’t care about the cost. Darkai knows what that is. He isn’t a man any longer, yet he feels as if he were. He’s endured the pain of that for three hundred years.”
“What cost will I pay?” Jhan demanded in anguish. “A long life without Kile, whether I want it or not? Can I die, if I wanted to?”
“You can die,” Tsarianna told her, “but it won’t be easy to stop the heart that I gave you.”
“And what else?” Jhan demanded. She stepped towards, Tsarianna, that world, for once, not calming her.
Tsarianna was reluctant to say, but then he decided on truth. “You have to live with the fear that one or all of the machines I placed inside of you might suddenly stop working. It is a possibility. I am not made of indestructible parts. Like any machine, there are malfunctions.”
Jhan turned away and wrapped her arms about her. “Any life is like that,” Jhan said with a shrug. “There are things that can go wrong with a body without warning. I’m not afraid of that. That’s life. I’m more concerned with living when I don’t want to.”
“And you don’t want to?” Tsarianna wondered worriedly.
“Not if Kile’s dead!”
“He isn’t dead,” Tsarianna told her.
Jhan didn’t trust him. “So you say,” she scoffed. “I won’t believe it until I see him.”
“Then bring him here, now,” Tsarianna told her promptly. “Why do you refuse to acknowledge your own power over this place? You are making yourself blind and dumb when you don’t have to!”
“You made this place,” Jhan said angrily, persisting in her skepticism. “How do I know that the Kile I bring here is real, that he ever was real, for that matter.”
“You know better than that,” Tsarianna admonished her in exasperation. He came to stand very close to Jhan’s back. The hands he placed on her shoulders were metal, robotic, hands with pistons and steel joints that clicked and whirled as they bent to give her a gentle squeeze.
Jhan flinched and turned. Tsarianna was all metal now, a complete metallic construct of a man in a flowing yellow robe. The sky reflected on him and made him seem as if he were colored in shiny indigo.
“Bring Kile here.” Tsarianna urged.
Jhan did, as simple as taking a breath. Kile stood before them, confused and very ill looking. His blue eyes were sunken in dark circles and his mouth was a thin, straight line. When Jhan threw herself into his arms and held him tight, she knew without a doubt that it was Kile and that it wasn’t some trick of Tsarianna’s. She could even smell the slight, musky scent of his skin.
“Tell me that you’re all right!” Jhan demanded breathlessly. “I went to your cell to rescue you, but it was empty!”
“Hajian examined me. He told me that he wanted to see if I was like Darkai. I don’t know what he meant by that,” Kile explained. His hand stroked down the long silk of Jhan’s hair. “How... Your hair has changed!” Kile gripped her hard. “Did he hurt you again, Jhan?”
“Nothing yet,” Jhan assured him, surprised that she had accepted the change in her thoughts so quickly. “He-He didn’t like the curls that Dagara gave me.” She continued to clutch at him, to look him over with desperation. “Did-Did he hurt you?”
Kile wouldn’t answer. “He called me terrible names,” Kile told her, “I tried to explain how it was between us, but he wouldn’t listen. It will sound odd, but I think he is jealous of you Jhan, and that you were able to be with someone after what Dagara did to you.”
“He can’t, he told me,” Jhan replied slowly. “He didn’t act as though he hated me. He wanted to help me be Jhanian again.”
“Because of the vow he said that he swore to the people of Blue Sky and Amberglass, and his own sense of honor,” Kile said.
“To right the wrongs of Dagara Ku Ni.” Jhan shook her head. “He goes from moment to moment and it’s hard to tell where he will jump next. I don’t think he even realizes how damaged he is.” Jhan had a thought and it was bitter. “I brought up the old memories. He had everyone who could have done that executed. When he saw me in Amberglass, when he thought that I was coming for revenge, it must have opened all of his old wounds. He might have been all right, even been a good ruler, if I hadn’t come along. When he looked into my mind with his Power, I showed him some of the things that Dagara made me do. One of them had to do with him. That was why he wanted to punish me. He couldn’t blame me, really, but he needed someone to pay for it. Dagara was dead. The soldiers were dead. There was only me.”
“Did he hurt you?” Kile demanded. “Are you keeping it from me?”
“He wanted Jaross to hurt me,” Jhan told him and he felt her shudder.
“I’ll kill him!” Kile seethed.
“Jaross?” Jhan snuggled against Kile’s warm breast and he held her comfortingly. “He pretended that he hurt me, but he didn’t. He had too much honor.”
“Never enough and too little sense!” Kile growled.
“He didn’t want me to rescue you,” Jhan admitted. “He knocked me unconscious and carried me out of the fortress. I’m with him, Bheni, Rehn, Tevar, Alidae, and Avrilla. We’re going to find Thaos and try to get him to help you.”
“Maybe Jaross isn’t that much of a fool,” Kile grunted reluctantly. “He was right to make you go. You couldn’t have saved me.”
“What does Hajian intend to do with you?” Jhan wondered anxiously.
Jhan felt Kile shrug. She looked up into his sky blue eyes. He seemed unfocused, mind partly elsewhere. “I don’t think he’ll let a pervert out among his people, but I don’t think he has the desire to kill me either. He may just let me rot in my cell and let the Gods decide whether I live or die. All of his attention is on Darkai now, I think. Maybe, he’s even forgotten about me.”
“It will only be a few days,” Jhan said. Why did Kile look so pale? His eyes had centered on something in the distance. She turned her head to look, but there wasn’t anything there. She reached up a small hand and touched his face. He looked down at her again and smiled the sweetest, gentlest smile she had ever seen. It made her heart clench. “What is it, Kile?”
Kile shook his head and didn’t say anything. He bent and kissed her hungrily, lifting her up off of the ground and cradling her in his arms as if she had been a child. He smelled her scent, nuzzled his nose into her small breasts, and then devoured her mouth as if they were delicious. He gave her another long, sweet look.
“I’m coming back for you!” Jhan wailed, suddenly understanding. “I won’t let them take me to Thaos!”
“Too late, Little Love,” Kile whispered and then he put her down and was gone.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
(Brother Mine)
“Jhan?”
Jhan struggled up, but hands were holding her. She blinked stupidly at Bheni and Rehn, the morose Jaross crouched behind them. She remembered Kile all in an instant, as if time had been stopped and then had suddenly resumed. She tried to get to her feet. They prevented her in concern.
“Slowly!” Bheni admonished. “You have been sleeping for two days.”
“You should have told us that you were ill!” Rehn exclaimed as he tried to push her back down. “Jaross said that you did this while you were captives-”
“I still am a captive!” Jhan exploded, her heart breaking. “Let me go!”
“Don’t be ridiculous," Jaross admonished quietly. His dark, sunken eyes had a look that was too much like Kile's.
“Brother!” That was Thaos, bull broad and maned with black hair like a lion, he stepped into Jhan’s sight and looked down at her with disapproving blue eyes. “Rest easy! You are among my army now.”
“But that’s not where I want to be!” Jhan replied in confusion. They let her go as she managed to stand up, as wobbly as a newborn imala. Too long on her back, her blood struggled with gravity to reach her head. She felt dizzy and swayed. Thaos caught hold of her arm and steadied her. His hand was huge against her small arm. He was dressed in black armor and his gloves were covered in black, protective, metal scales. They hurt Jhan as they dug into her flesh.
Thaos looked older, more bitter, and he had new lines in his handsome face. He was still as impatient as ever. He didn’t wait for Jhan to recover before he was pelting her with questions.
“I’ve heard their side of things,” Thaos said as he jerked his chin at the others, “but I want your side of it now.” He caught one of Jhan’s wrists in his free hand and showed her the small hole there. “You are Kevelt still,” he said vehemently. “If King Hajian has dishonored you-”
“Let me go,” Jhan demanded weakly and pushed him away. He did release her, but not because of any strength that she had. He was going to be compliant as long as she gave him what he wanted. She glared at him. “You’re glad that I wasn’t changed into Jhanian. That’s all you really cared about.”
“You judge me harshly,” Thaos growled irritably. His armor made a scraping noise, and the leather that bound it all together squeaked, as he leaned down to be at her level. “You are still my brother, whatever else.”
“I’m not your brother,” Jhan told him coldly.
“You’re angry because I took your son away?” Thaos guessed. “Or you thought that I had abandoned you to the Pekarins?” His eyes were a blue as deep as Jhan’s and they studied her in a calculating manner. He smelled strongly of imala and campfires. “You crawled into a man’s bed and spread your legs there. A son doesn’t need to live in a household where that happens. It’s bad enough that he hears about it. I took him away and kept you away. How can you blame me for that?”
”I haven’t even thought of you,” Jhan replied bluntly. “And Jhanian’s son isn’t my son. I’m glad that you’re raising him. It was terrible, what happened to his mother.”
“He looks like you used to, like a Kevelt,” Thaos told her as if trying to goad some response out of her. “I’m going to make him my heir.”
“What do you want me to say?” Jhan finally snapped. “None of that concerns me.”
“Your Captain concerns you, I’ve heard; Duke Dor’s son,” Thaos said, looking unpleasant now. “They told me that you want me to rescue him.” He shook his head in disgust, his brows coming down sharply. “Such a man you were, Jhanian. You still are underneath what was done to you. I honored that, tried to do as you wished, and passed you off as a woman. I thought I could fool my people, you see, make them believe that you had truly been changed into a woman. The marriage was a perfect foil for that bit of subterfuge. Unfortunately, Kile’s mother spread the word of how it really was. She sent word to the Indri and the Nava of what you were and then hounded me to recant my consent allowing you to be wed to Kile. All the Kevelt and the cousins of Kevelt have felt the insult of what you have been doing. Another reason that I never asked you to come to Karana. There are many there who have called for you to be punished, even put to death.” Thaos’s eyes roved briefly about at all the soldiers, his soldiers. “There are some here who feel that way.”
“Then you won’t help me.“ It wasn’t a question. Jhan began to turn in determination, but she stopped when she saw how large the force of men was all around her, the sea of bright armor, well used weapons, stamping imala, gathered foot soldiers, and the constant rise and fall of noise and conversation. Jhan took a deep breath and tried to see a safe way through them. “I’ll go back on my own. I’m going to save Kile.”
“King Hajian sent me a letter,” Thaos told her in a measured tone. “It said that he was using his Power for good after the death of his evil brother Dagara Ku Ni. He told me that he was going to change you back to the way you were. I think you know enough of how it was between us to know that it wasn’t a welcome bit of information. I felt that, once you had been restored, you would remember...,” he narrowed eyes at her and Jhan felt him step very close to her. She didn’t look, still trying to find a way out.
“I know what you did,” she confirmed absently. “I don’t care, or, I suppose I do, that you could have done that to your own brother, but... it wasn’t me that you did it to. I don’t want revenge.”
“I thought that you would convince Hajian to deliver you his army to harm me, to take Karana from me,” Thaos admitted. “When your mercenaries arrived and told me that it was Hajian’s plan to let you do exactly that, I borrowed more forces from Nava lands to fight you. Now you are here, looking a little different, but not much different from the ‘woman’ I left married in Pekarin. You want me to go to Blue Sky and start a war for you. We Kevelt hold honor dear and he has dishonored you by holding you captive, but I see that he has done nothing else to merit loosing men’s lives over.”
“Coward,” Jhan said under her breath and didn’t really know why. It wasn’t something that she was thinking about. The words seemed to come from elsewhere, popping involuntarily out of her mouth.
Jhan was spun and lifted off of the ground, Thaos’s face almost pressed to hers and his fists wrapped in the front of her ragged clothes. “What did you call me!”
“I don’t need your help!” Jhan snarled back at Thaos. "Go back to Karana! It’s too late anyway! Kile’s probably dead by now!”
“And yet you go back?” Thaos seethed, not loosening his grip even a little.
“I can’t live without him!” Jhan shouted in anguish and fury.
Thaos again searched her eyes, wanting to see something of his brother and finding more unpleasantness. “Is it so wonderful to you,” he said as if he were tasting something foul, “To have that man put it to you? Is it something you’ve always wanted? Is that why you treated women so cruelly? Because you really wanted men rutting on you?”
“I love Kile,” Jhan replied distinctly. “No matter how crude and wrong you try to make it-”
“I don’t have to try,” Thaos retorted and then let Jhan drop softly to the ground.
Jhan swayed and then stiffened her back, her hands balling into fists and her eyes like fire. She stabbed her finger at Thaos’s armored chest and there was a small metallic sound each time she hit it with her finger. He stared down at her incredulously as she began shouting at him.
“You think you can say things like that to me? What do you know about me and Kile? You think that I’m your brother, but I’m not. I never was! Go back to Karana! Take your men with you! I don’t need an army for what I intend to do. I can do it myself! Your nothing but a- a big oaf with mud between your ears! You have everything that you ever wanted; your crown, a son, and life without your brother. Why keep trying to bring him back? Why not let him die and bury him? I’m something else, Thaos! I may not be a woman, but I’m not a man either! What I do about that, what bed I climb into, and yes, as you crudely put it, who I spread my legs for, is none of your business! It’s mine and only mine! I don’t need to have you judge me! Screw you and your men! You heard me! Screw you and your stupid, ignorant, pig-headed, cruel, macho crap! I am Jhan Dor, wife of Kile Helarion Dor, and that’s the way it’s going to stay, living or dead! Now, get out of my way! Tell your men to get out of my way! I am going!”
Thaos stared, wide eyed and then laughed. “What will you do, hmm? What will you do, Jhanian Kevelt of Karana, that an entire army can’t do? Little thing, little wisp of smoke and air. You’re fiery temper will not win the day for you.”
Thaos grabbed Jhan before she could react, wrapped his big arms around her so that her arms were pinned at her sides. He lifted her up and began to squeeze. Jhan wasn’t afraid for her life. Dagara had liked to do that too, to show her just how weak she was. Only once or twice had he misjudged and broken ribs. Thaos didn’t have Dagara’s intimate knowledge of her body, but he managed to stop just short of snapping her in two.
“What will you do?” Thaos demanded in amusement.
“Die,” Jhan replied very softly.
Thaos frowned and put her down again. He released her and stepped back, looking about them. Many of his men were watching. They were curious, disgusted, angry, and some of them horrified by what they could see of Jhan, of the body that had once been their prince. Jhan understood all in an instant.
“Did I make a good show?” Jhan asked angrily. “That is what you wanted, wasn’t it, for me to show them what I’ve become? You don’t want them wanting their Prince Jhanian back to be king; King Torian’s favorite son.”
Thaos replied carefully. “There are some here who would gut you if you tried to be that again.”
“Are you one of them?”
Thaos seethed for a moment and then he nodded to one soldier nearby, He only had a puckered seam where one eye should have been. “My brother Jhanian did that because he fell asleep on guard duty. There are too many instances of that and more. There are many men who had their wives tumbled unwillingly by Prince Jhanian. Men who lost their lives defending against him when he attacked their lands with Dagara Ku Ni.”
“The Kevelt are cruel, especially to each other,” Jhan said. “Jaross Ke Nava told me that and I believe it. You brought those men along to tell the others their tales. Are you that insecure, Thaos?”
“If you aren’t my brother, as you claim, then you don’t have any right to address me so plainly,” Thaos grated.
“Forgive me, your Majesty,” Jhan mocked, “but I don’t have much longer to watch my tongue, since I don’t intend to stay in your presence any longer.”
“I did not give you leave to go,” Thaos snarled and Jhan felt an arm almost break in two as Thaos grabbed it. “You called me a coward, remember? That is the ultimate insult.”
“What will you do?” Jhan asked, pulling at his fingers ineffectually. “Challenge me to a duel? I promise you, I would win.”
“You are still a braggart, Jhanian!”
“I’m not Jhanian!”
They faced each other, panting, challenging each other with their eyes for a full minute, and then Thaos laughed.
“A challenge, indeed! I had forgotten your bravery, little fluff!” Thaos laughed. “I suppose that you must be brave to lie under that Captain Kile. How does he manage not to crush your bird bones?”
“We manage,” Jhan retorted. “Now, let me go. I’m doing what you want. I’m going away. Why are you stopping me?”
“To see how foolish you are,” Thaos replied, but he did release her once more. Jhan began walking away. The soldiers didn’t part for her. They were too curious and Thaos hadn’t given her leave to go.
Bheni came close, hand nervously stroking the hilt of her sword. “Why will you not see reason? You need King Thaos’s help.”
Jhan rounded on her. “I didn’t see anyone trying to help me.” she looked past her to the others. They were in a tight group looking worried. Avrilla, surprisingly, stepped forward and confronted Thaos.
“I have already requested your aide in freeing Darkai from King Hajian,” Avrilla said coolly. “Why do you refuse me and your own brother?”
King Thaos looked eye to eye with her. He rubbed at his solid chin and smiled behind his hand. “I didn’t refuse. I simply said that I didn’t see an insult to myself or the Kevelt. I want a good reason to send my men into battle.”
“The Alamien will reward you handsomely,” Avrilla told him.
Thaos spat aside, slow and deliberate. “I am a King, not a mercenary, woman, if woman you are. Is the world blighted with mutilations like my poor brother or had Dagara more victims than I knew of?”
“She’s Alamien, as is Alidae,” Jaross said.
“Cousin,” Thaos said sternly. “You forget your manners.”
“Alamien are not Human, your Majesty,” Jaross continued with stiff formality now. “They are neuter for most of their long lives. Dagara and Hajian worked together to attempt to make Jhan- Jhanian like them.”
Thaos’s brows came down sharply as he glared at Jaross. “For what purpose?”
“To make your brother, a Kevelt, and a prince of Karana, pregnant,” Jaross replied with emphasis on the last word, a flung barb that hit the mark cleanly. Thaos straightened, his face going almost purple with anger.
“Pregnant?” Thaos could hardly force out the word. His hand went to his sword hilt and clenched there as if longing for something to hack. “Hajian helped to do this?”
“Yes,” Jaross said, glancing nervously at Jhan. Jhan kept her face unreadable, not sure what Jaross intended by that revelation. She waited, stifling an insane urge to fight her way through the soldiers.
“That is an insult,” Thaos finally said and it came deep from within him like the growl of a bear. “I never knew about Hajian. He sent me missives as any ruler would do, assuring me of peace and that he had not been involved in Dagara’s evil. This, cousin Nava, contradicts that assurance. You are certain of it?”
“On my honor,” Jaross assured him, standing straight and putting a hand to his heart. He still looked as ragged as Jhan and he hadn’t yet cut off his beard. It looked strange in a sea of men who didn’t grow them.
Thaos took off a metal glove and slapped it against his side in exasperation. “It seems, brother, that you will be having company after all.”
Jhan drew herself up, frustrated. “I don’t need it and I don’t want it. Go back home!”
Men laughed uncomfortably at her boldness. Thaos wasn’t amused, but he chose not to notice her. He turned and began shouting orders. His generals began shouting their own. Soon the mass of men and animals was up and milling as they began to fall into formation. Only then did Thaos cover the distance between himself and Jhan.
“Keep with your companions,” Thaos warned her. “These men of our homeland might think that they were doing you a favor by slitting your throat.”
“And you?” Jhan spat back, beyond fear.
Thaos went through several expressions, clearly thinking through some choice replies. In the end, strangely, he merely grunted and let her think what she wanted to.
“See sense,” Rehn said as he came up to Jhan, looking nervously at Thaos and giving the man a deferential half bow. “You’ve been unconscious for two days. You’re obviously ill, Jhan. Thaos is offering you an army to rescue Kile. Why won’t you take it?”
It was the army that frightened Jhan. It brought back the battlefield to her, that terror and helplessness. What could she do against so many? Nothing. It was the same in Hajian’s fortress. She couldn’t save Kile. She was going to die, wanted to die, knowing that Kile was already dead.
Jhan turned and walked up to a soldier that was blocking her way. She reached out, gripped his elbow, and squeezed. He howled, his helmeted face whipping around in consternation to face her. Jhan glared at him and the man stepped back.
“I am Prince Jhanian Kevelt of Karana!” Jhan snarled. “You will all get out of my way or I will not be responsible for what I do to you!”
The man touched his sword hilt, glanced behind her, and then did move out of her way uneasily. Jhan glanced behind her. Tevar, Jaross, Bheni, and Rehn were behind her looking dangerous, but, beyond them, Thaos was waving a hand, swatting at a biting insect irritably. It looked like a dismissal and the soldier was ready to take it for one.
Jhan began walking, weaving in and out of groups of men and animals. Her companions trailed behind her, confident, perhaps, that her strength would wear thin quickly and she would need their help and stop. Jhan determined not to do that. She had nothing to save herself for. She intended to walk until her heart stopped, if it could.
It was strange, when she reached the front of the army. Silence reigned so suddenly that the living mass behind her was like a dream or another world entirely. Only the sound of her boots crunching on dried leaves, and her own panting breath, disturbed the sound of birds. Her companions held back, giving her peace and the space to realize, hopefully that she was being foolish. They didn’t understand, Jhan thought, how devastated, how dead, she had already become inside.
The army began to march. It was a low, deep sound in the background of Jhan’s thoughts. She heard her companions beginning to talk; discussing her. They wondered if her sanity had left her.
“She’s never been sane,” Jaross said acidly.
“Perhaps we should consider tying her up again,” Tevar suggested.
“I do not relish standing in her way,” Bheni replied apprehensively. “Her face... I have never seen her wear such an expression. “
“When she saw that Kile’s cell was empty-” Jaross sighed. “She believes the worst. She doesn’t have any hope left of finding Kile alive.”
“I wonder that you do,” Rehn surprisingly said. “You know what Hajian and his brother did to Jhan. You told us that the man is mad. Hoping that Kile is dead might be kinder than imagining him tormented as Jhan was.”
“I can’t tell you what Hajian might do,” Jaross replied tightly. “He wanted me to rape Jhan for a punishment. He intended to kill us both if I didn’t. What can anyone make of that? If he were bloodthirsty, he would have killed us outright. If he’s like his brother, he would have tortured us first. In the end, he didn’t do either. He just forgot about us.”
“I will fight by her side, Husband,” Bheni said.
“You have a child at home,” Rehn protested in anguish. “Kile is my best friend, and Jhan like a sister, but our child comes first.”
Bheni was silent, but Jhan could feel her simmering in the tension in the air. She loved her child and she loved Rehn, yet she couldn’t let the warrior inside of her go.
“I’ll fight with her,” Tevar assured Bheni. “Jaross as well. Kile is under my command. I don’t leave men behind to be tortured or killed.”
“I will fight, if I must,” Alidae spoke up suddenly. Jhan frowned. She hadn’t known that Alidae was still making himself a part of their group. She still felt stings of humiliation when she recalled what she had done with him, the way she had- “Darkai must be freed.”
“Your men have all gone on without you, even Yunij and the others,” Jaross pointed out. “You’ll have to put yourself under Tevar’s command or Thaos’s.”
A mercenary didn’t stomach that. Alidae muttered under his breath and then said. “My men have deserted me, it’s true, but I showed them where my true loyalty lies. Not with them, but with my people, with the Alamien. I am consort to Princess Avrilla now. Her safety and the future of the heir of the Alamien is paramount. I will place myself under Tevar’s command... for now.”
Jhan floundered in some leaf mold. She struggled up, her knees full of mud, and pressed on. It was a moment before she noticed that Avrilla was at her elbow. The woman wasn’t looking at her. Her black eyes were staring forward, her face deep in concentration.
“Go away!” Jhan grated. “You caused all of this!”
“I caused nothing,” Avrilla replied, still without looking at her. “I was simply born, and even that wasn’t my fault.”
“You used me!” Jhan shouted at her, fists clenched. “You gave me to Alidae!”
“It did not seem to me that you were against the mating,” Avrilla reminded her. “You reacted strongly. You were so eager, in fact, that you almost hurt Alidae. The mating makes an Alamien male both strong and weak. Energy is expended quickly. You could have run when he was at his weakest, but, you chose to try and mate with him. That was not my doing.”
Jhan remembered the overpowering urges, the throbbing flesh and cinnamon scented fluids that she had lapped up and coaxed out of Alidae, the desperate need to consummate... “That wasn’t me. Alidae did something to me. He smelled... He exuded some overpowering-” Jhan felt a shudder of longing still. It had been very strong. She could almost desire it again and it made a part of her, bellow her belly, ache. That frightened her.
“Go away, Avrilla!” Jhan sobbed.
“I don’t want this child,” Avrilla told her, “but I could not help myself where Alidae was concerned. I wanted him as much as you did. I chose to stay when I could have run. I may pay for that with my life.”
“And Kile's." Jhan glared at her. “You’re people are so cold, so thoughtless of others. Is it because you think we’re animals? Is that why it was easy to use me? You told me that we were friends. That was a lie, I know. You’ve destroyed my life, taken away the one thing that made it livable, and left me with a hole where my heart used to be just so that you could avoid having the one thing that I wanted so much; a child. Now you’re speaking of killing... killing yourself and killing the child that cost me so much!”
“If I reach Darkai,” Avrilla told her, and all semblance of friendship or compassion left her. Her game was ended, “he will make certain the child is normal, that it lives. You must make an alliance with King Thaos. You must not make him your enemy by running away from him like this. The Alamien depend on this child. It will ensure their survival. It’s well being is worth a hundred Kile’s, a thousand of you. You ARE mad if you can’t see that.”
Jhan shook her head, her face a mask of pain. “I’m done being afraid, done giving every last ounce of myself for other people’s ends. You’re people can go to Hell. Thaos can go to Hell. You especially can go to Hell! I’m not going to save Darkai. If you want him, you scheme and plan to get him.
“It is not so easy to be rid of us!” Avrilla replied, loosing her cool, detachment all in an instant. “Alidae considers you his mate, as he does me. He is torn. He will not follow me if I try and part myself from you. He stayed with Hajian, not merely because he wished to save the Alamien heir, but his two mates as well.”
Jhan glanced back nervously, a fear pricking at her at last. “He wouldn’t try to... mate again?”
Avrilla shrugged as if it weren’t of any consequence. “You know he can’t with you, but, yes, he may try. He has told me, and he is ashamed of it, that you have a scent about you. It is as if you were in heat, faint and on the edge of perception, but there nonetheless. It was perhaps that, made stronger by Hajian’s Power, that made you irresistible to Human men, that and your weak and vulnerable appearance.”
Jhan thought of all the ways she could kill Alidae before he could blink, but couldn’t escape the fear that SHE would be the one to try and have him. If he reacted to her, if he once again began to exude that liquid, that fire on the brain, Jhan knew that she would be writhing in the dirt with him in a moment, even in the midst of the army.
Jhan set her jaw and began to walk faster.
“That will not do any good,” Avrilla assured her. “Alamien senses are very keen. He could scent you a mile away if the breeze was right. You can’t get away from him.”
“Why tell me this?” Jhan sobbed. “Do you enjoy seeing me weighted to the ground by one tragedy after another? Does it please you to see me suffer?”
“I will save Darkai,” Avrilla assured her and the coldness was back, calculating intellect. “Thaos will throw his forces against Hajian’s for your sake, following where you lead.”
“He doesn’t think that much of me!” Jhan retorted. “He’s doing this for himself. Hajian has proven himself a danger to him; a nest of hornets he has to clear out to keep his borders safe. I’m just an excuse he can use to placate his neighbors when they ask why he attacked Hajian.”
“He will follow where you lead,” Avrilla insisted. “You must lead him to Darkai, only then will we find your Kile.”
“He isn’t there to find!” Jhan exploded at last, stopping and shoving Avrilla from her, as tears began flowing down her face. She shook her head in grief like a wounded animal. “He’s dead!”
Avrilla didn’t stumble. Her tall frame took a step back to steady itself and then she was leaning towards Jhan. “You will do as I say. I carry Alidae’s child. He will make you stay with me and go where I wish. If you try to fight him, he will get excited. That is usually the first stage of mating. He will not reach Readiness, but he may expel his scent in simple response to your stimulation. You know what will happen to you after that. You are, after all, really a man and not an Alamien woman.“
Jhan stared at Avrilla with wide disbelieving eyes. The others caught up to them, milling uncertainly. Alidae stepped very close to Jhan and Avrilla and she could feel his smothered tension, even though he appeared as remote and disdainful as ever. His nostrils opened and closed very slightly and one of his hands twitched imperceptibly towards Jhan as if he longed to grab her long, trailing braid of black hair.
“What’s wrong?” Tevar wondered. His hawklike face was glaring at Avrilla, ready to blame her for something. He looked weary of it all, bone tired and deeply wounded by a failed command galling him and never seeming to have a resolution.
Bheni and Rehn looked tired as well, Bheni drawn by the frustration of being held back from a battle and Rehn from the knowledge that Bheni was hurting and that he couldn’t, wouldn’t be able to relieve that pain. He needed the mother of his child because he loved her and the child needed her. It was a wedge between them, a point of anger and contention that might never heal.
Jaross was very dark and moody, his eyes hot and dangerous. Captivity had made him bitter. Jhan had stolen manhood and innocence. He might regain one, but never the other.
These were the shadows that Jhan had been dragging after her, slowly breaking them as she had been broken. They had lived through battle, horrors, and dangers. None of them were ever going to be the same. Her fault. All of it her fault for being so weak, so easy to use and abuse. She had imagined that it had only hurt her, but now she at last realized that she had been destroying everyone close to her. Kile had paid with his life.
Avrilla was threatening her, not with uncontrollable sex, Alidae wasn’t capable of that now, but with humiliation. She had painted a picture of Jhan, groveling in the dirt with Alidae and lapping eagerly at his scent in front of everyone, doing whatever she could to get him to mate or be mated. Avrilla expected her to quail from it, to bow to her wishes to avoid it. The woman didn’t have any idea how much Jhan had suffered, the greater torments and humiliations in front of scores of Dagara Ku Ni’s soldiers. She thought that she had a perfect weapon.
Jhan confronted Avrilla. “When I was a prisoner of Dagara Ku Ni, and a man entirely, he used to let his soldiers abuse me,” Jhan told her calmly and matter-of- factly. “They would parade me naked through the fortress, fondling me and pretending to mount me all the way. Once in awhile, they would stop where some of Dagara’s subjects were gathered and make me use my mouth on them, one after another, even some of the women. They whipped me after, with riding crops, making me run about until I collapsed while everyone laughed. Then they began cutting me with their swords. Then they began beating and kicking me. Then they invariable pulled and twisted my genitals while they shoved things into my-”
“Stop!” Rehn shouted in anguish, sobbing and putting hands to his ears. He was shaking. Bheni looked ill and ready to scream. Tevar was white and stiff lipped as if he were about to cry, his hand tight on his sword hilt. Jaross stood with his eyes closed, arms wrapped about his chest as if it hurt.
“It was a joke of Dagara’s, you see,” Jhan said, not so calm anymore. “to order the men not to rape me, physically. Physically, meaning they couldn’t stick themselves into my backside. It wasn’t because he thought they would hurt me or kill me outright that way. It was because he wanted that ultimate humiliation to be fresh for him to use against me. He also knew that it would make his men inventive in my torture, so inventive that the line between rape and almost rape was nearly invisible.”
Jhan took a shuddering breath. She could feel the hairs on her head standing at the horror of it, but she didn’t take her eyes from Avrilla’s as she continued, “You think you can threaten me with humiliation? Think again! If Alidae,” and she turned her glare on the tall Alamien, “tries to get in my way, I’ll kill him, pure and simple. I’m beyond morality or compassion. You destroyed that. I am going to find Kile’s corpse and, when I do, I’m going to die beside him. Nothing is going to keep me from doing that. Not you, Avrilla, not Thaos and his army, and not Hajian!”
“At least you still have some hope left,” Jaross said quietly.
Jhan whirled on him in shock. He was looking at her now, face grim.
“If you really thought that he was dead, you would be killing yourself now,” Jaross pointed out.
“I have to see it,” Jhan did admit, “To make it real. To know what they did to him. It isn’t because I have any hope that he still lives.”
“That’s a lie,” Jaross said distinctly. “You’re not very good at them. I don’t know why you think that Kile might be dead, but I can see clearly that you aren’t completely convinced.” He turned to Avrilla. “As for you, Princess Avrilla, I don’t know what you just tried to do to Jhan, but I will not forgive you for it. You and Alidae will step back and return to Thaos and his army.”
“He can’t,” Avrilla replied as if Jaross were an idiot. “He has her scent.”
“And that means?” Rehn asked angrily.
“She is my mate as much as Avrilla,” Alidae said at last. “I can’t help what I do. It is... instinct. My body doesn’t understand that there isn’t a child in her to protect or that Jhan is actually a male. There isn’t sense to it. I can’t let her leave me.”
Jaross half drew his sword in threat, but Tevar shouted a swift order, “Stand down, soldier! You forget that you are under my orders!”
Jaross’s jaw clenched, but he resheathed his sword. “We have a difficulty.”
“We don’t,” Jhan assured him and Jaross winced at the hard look in Jhan’s eyes. “I WILL kill him if he gets in my way.”
Jhan could see the front column of Thaos’s army breaking from the trees. She didn’t want to be among them. She didn’t want to see their horrified, disgusted, hate filled looks at the man who had once been their powerful prince. She felt danger in those looks. The people of Karana were hard and cruel she had heard often enough. She didn’t want a taste of it. She turned and fled with her companions close behind.

CHAPTER TWELVE
(Uncomfortable Truths)
Jhan collapsed mid-stride, body giving out at last as darkness filled her sight completely. She panted and her heart labored, body slick with sweat and, now, forest loam and dead leaves. Hands lifted and turned her, cared for her gently. Voices murmuring in exasperation, arguing and trying to decide what to do. Jhan knew that part of the argument was whether to tie her up or not. In the end, they decided that she would sleep and that it was unnecessary.
Jhan was going to escape. She ran the plan through her hazing mind; wait until they slept. Wait until the dead of night. Run as far and as fast as she could so that they couldn’t stop her from doing what she knew she had to. falling asleep herself, hadn’t been part of that plan.

Jhan found herself in her indigo world confronting Tsarianna. “Why?” she demanded simply. “Why make me sleep and make me weak when you had gone to so much trouble to keep me strong the first time?”
“But that’s already mended,” Tsarianna assured her. “You walk has made you strong again. You need your companions. You need Thaos and his army. You even need the cold, unfeeling Avrilla and Alidae. They all have their parts to play in bringing down Hajian.”
“Tell me if Kile is dead,” Jhan demanded, “tell me that and I will try to do as you wish.”
Tsarianna was silent. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Jhan snarled, shaking an impotent fist at him. “I thought you cared about me! You’re only concerned about Hajian using his Power against you.”
“He must be stopped,” Tsarianna said, but Jhan could tell that her words had effected him. His Human features wavered and Jhan found herself facing a machine in a flowing yellow robe. Eye orbs clacked and blinked at her, pistons and gears whirled and clicked, gyros turned to keep the machine’s balance. “I may be a machine outside, but inside I am spirit,” Tsarianna assured her. “I do feel. I do care about you, but can’t you understand that there are other people that I have to care about too? Hajian is going to hurt many, many people in his madness if you don’t stop him now.”
“I can’t stop him!” Jhan told him vehemently. “I don’t know why you think that I can.”
“You can, if you allow your companions to help you,” Tsarianna told her sternly. “Alone, you will only die.” He cut her off as she drew breath. “Don’t tell me that you wish to die. You want to see your Kile again before that happens.”
Jhan wished Tsarianna away. The world whirled and disappeared with him in it and then returned like a wave with Tsarianna gone. Thaos was there instead. Jhan hadn’t wanted that. She tried to will him away, but he stayed stubbornly solid. Jhan suspected that Tsarianna had brought him.
Thaos was dressed still in his armor. He looked even bigger than in real life and his hair was more shaggy, more reminiscent of a lion’s mane. He stared down at Jhan with a curious, surprisingly gentle expression. He seemed a boy, almost unsure of himself.
“What is this place?” Thaos asked.
“My dream,” Jhan replied.
Thaos looked at her from crown to heel. “You look even more like a woman here,” he said, accepting her words with surprising calm. “Is this my dream too?”
“Somewhat,” Jhan told him. “but it’s very real too. You won’t remember that when you wake up.”
Thaos rubbed hands over his face and sighed. “If it were a dream entirely, I would make you appear as you used to.”
“You can, if it makes you feel better,” Jhan replied waspishly, “but I would rather that you just went away!”
There was suddenly a flat topped rock poking out of the ground. Thaos grunted. “I thought of that and it appeared. I am in control of this, then.” He sat down, more at ease.
That disturbed Jhan for a moment, but then the soothing properties of that place drove that away. She didn’t feel threatened. She didn’t think that Thaos could actually hurt her there.
“Your son looks very much like you,” Thaos said in a troubled voice. “It pains me more times than I care to admit, when I look at him.”
“You turned Jhanian over to Dagara,” Jhan reminded him with contempt. “You despised your brother. You happily wished him dead! Don’t play games with me!”
Thaos raised an eyebrow. “Don’t judge me!” he growled and then shook his head, looking off into the distance. “You’ve forgotten everything! If you remembered, you would understand why I did those things to you!”
“I do understand!” Jhan retorted, “I just don’t care! I am not Jhanian!”
A man suddenly stood between them. Jhan took a startled step back. The man was young, but as large as Thaos. Straight as a spear, slim at the waist, broad at the shoulders, and possessing a dancer’s grace, this man was clearly a warrior; a swordsmen. His hair was a shock of black so dark it had blue shadows. His face was long and still almost feminine with youth. His jaw was chiseled, his cheeks prominent, and his eyes wells of deep blue. He was incredibly handsome, feline, headily masculine, and exuding an odd, tense sexuality that made Jhan think of Alidae. He was supremely naked and turned in a pose that made Jhan feel as if he were about to whirl, leap on her, and do something savagely wrong.
“Don’t you remember?” Thaos asked and he seemed defeated now, head bowing and shoulders slumping as if he were about to vomit. “This is yourself.”
Jhan stared then, fascinated and horrified at the same time. This is what Dagara had begun with. She involuntarily touched her chest and face, feeling the smooth, feminine lines. The image of Jhanian Kevelt watched those movements and then his tongue lazily slithered out and licked his lips as he strode forward like a released spring. He took Jhan into his arms before she could move and it was then that Jhan realized that she was naked as well. Jhanian caught Jhan in an embrace, pinning her arms against her sides. He used a free hand to grab violently by her chin. Tilting Jhan’s face up, he stared down into her eyes as he bent his head, licking at her lips with a broad motion of his tongue. He ran that tongue up the side of her face.
Pulling Jhan even closer, the image of Jhanian became wild, wanton, animal. He grappled with Jhan as if she were as large and as strong as himself. It should have hurt, but Jhan felt nothing but the warmth of his flesh slamming against hers and the tight grip of hands moving up and down her body. He was using her as if she were a towel and he was wet, rubbing her violently all over his body.
“Stop!” Thaos said suddenly, standing and looking sickened to his core. “This is-This is perversion. It is yourself you are going to rut on, Brother! I thought that this would bring you to your senses, make you remember, but it has only brought back the part of you that I hated the most! It’s the part that I never wanted to see again!”
Jhanian was deaf to Thaos. He was crudely erect, throbbing, large and ready. His hand felt between Jhan’s legs and then he smiled and spoke words from Thaos’s memory, and he said, “See here, Thaos? A sweet girl! Much better than those slag women in their burning huts. One of them bit me before I put a sword to her brat. Shall we both take some recompense?”
Thaos was in that memory too, bloodied armor covering him now, a sick, harried expression on his face, and a bloody sword in a gloved hand. “A little girl, Jhanian? What are you saying? It is enough! Come away! They rebelled, we have taken them back into Karana. Their city is in ruins. We are their princes now. You must not do this thing!”
Jhanian tossed his head defiantly. “I’ll do as I please, brother! I’ve had enough women today. I want something different, something I’ve been wanting to taste for some time! This one’s pretty enough. You can have what’s left, if you want, but there won’t be much to poke, I promise you.”
Jhan stepped out of the image and found that it wasn’t herself that was being spoken of. There was another image in her place. A small, dark haired girl with her clothes torn half off of her, cowering on hands and knees in a tight ball with her face turned away from what she must have thought was imminent death.
“You haven’t changed at all!” Thaos exclaimed in horror. “You’re as despicable as ever, as cruel, as perverted as when you left to become Dagara’s lap dog!”
“I am!” Jhanian grinned as he stepped behind the cowering girl.
“Not this time!” Thaos howled. “I won’t watch this like I did the first time! I won’t take you to Dagara’s tender mercies only after you did this terrible thing. I will not let it happen!”
“Go away, brother!” Jhanian told Thaos viciously and began to crouch over the limp, terrified girl and pull her against his pelvis in a way that made his intent obvious. “I’m the only man our father sired. You’re just a mewing coward. That’s why he’s going to make me king!”
The girl began to protest, to whimper in disbelief at this new, terrible assault, and then to shriek as Jhanian plunged forward with a satisfied grunt and then began a terrible rhythm with his hips. The scream was cut off midway as Thaos plunged his sword into Jhanian’s back. Both girl and Jhanian vanished at that instant, leaving nothing but a horrified Jhan and a panting Thaos standing in a serene landscape of indigo. The sword vanished next and Thaos’s bloody armor was free of blood.
Thaos covered the few steps between himself and Jhan as if he were sleepwalking. He stood, staring down at her in anguish. “You are not my brother, Jhanian.”
“No,” Jhan confirmed in a small voice that was the faintest of gasps.
“You never were my brother,” Thaos continued.
“No.”
“You see now why I hated you, why I couldn’t make peace with this that you are,” Thaos said in a voice that was grating and full of emotion. “He tried to trick me before. I thought it was another trick. I kept trying to see through it. This whole business with Hajian... I thought the trap was going to snap on me at last. I’ve been waiting for it all of this time, waiting for you to try and come back and take the crown from me.” Thaos looked over to where Jhanian and the girl had been locked together obscenely. “Seeing him again...” Thaos shook his head sharply, grimacing. “This isn’t a trick. A man can’t change from such as that to what you are before me.”
“No,” Jhan said again and rubbed a hand along the flesh that she wore, the flesh of a man who had done such things... She almost wanted to rip it, tear it away and become something else.
Thaos faced her again. “I told you that I hated you, but that was a lie. I couldn’t help marveling at your bravery, your heart, your fiery temper. I hated myself for not hating you. I tried to humiliate you in front of the men. I told them tales of your past cruelties, filled the lines with men who had a grudge with you, and let them know that you were lying with Kile Dor as his wife. I wanted them to hate you, to reject you. I wanted to make certain that they would never follow you. It will be hard to convince them now that you need saving.”
Jhan shook her head. “I don’t need-”
“You do,” Thaos insisted. He searched for words. “My father Torian loved Jhanian because he was Kevelt through and through. He was brave, and clever, and cruel to the core. I was never so blessed. I was sensitive, bookish, prone to consider the feelings of others and their welfare. I was called unmanly and unfit by Torian more times than I care to remember. I tried to be the warrior and the general. I trained as hard as Jhanian, whored as hard, and made myself steel in my heart. That is why I watched my brother rape that poor girl. I didn’t want Jhanian to tell my father that I had turned away, that I was weak. I was certain that tale would have cost me the throne.” Thaos trembled. “He didn’t kill the girl, though it was done roughly, but I’m sure the girl didn’t know the difference after my brother finished and threw her into a corner like a dirty rag. I-I pressed some gold into the child’s hand when Jhanian wasn’t looking, but she had fainted. I realized then that I, prince and heir of Karana, had been reduced to paying off Jhanian’s whores! It was then that I decided to betray him to Dagara. It was the first time I remember feeling truly like a Kevelt.”
Thaos gripped Jhan’s arm hard. “ I don’t care to feel like one now,” he continued. “You aren’t Jhanian. You’re that poor child he raped, only it never ends for you. I want it to end. I am going to end it. I’m going to do to Hajian what I just did to my brother. I’m not going to stand by and watch you raped again. That man must die for you and my borders to be safe. I will ride to war for you and for my people.”
Thaos was gone then and Jhan sat down heavily. That the first person, the first Human person to believe her had been Thaos... not even Kile truly believed that Jhan was really a woman. He, like everyone else, just thought it a touch of kind madness.
Jhan was emotionally exhausted now. She stretched out on her back and willed the image of the terrified girl away. That was her, she knew, without a doubt, terrified and helpless, ready to let evil be done to her again. Running full tilt back to Hajian was nothing short of that. How many men could she kill, how many innocent men, before she was killed herself? The hard truth was that she would never reach Kile, wherever they had put him, dead or alive, if she kept on as she was, rejecting friends and help of every kind. The madness of grief settled and became cold and calculating. Jhan still intended to die, but she wanted more from life before she did. She wanted to know what had happened to Kile. She wanted to see him, and, if it was possible, she wanted revenge. She wanted Hajian to pay.

Thaos was crouched by Jhan when she awoke, drinking from a cup, something spicy smelling and hot. He had it cradled between his hands and he was staring down into it thoughtfully. When Jhan stirred, he looked at her uncertainly.
“Lady Jhan,” Thaos greeted her pointedly.
Jhan gathered her thoughts, wiped the sleep from her eyes, and tried to sit up. She gasped and winced as every muscle protested. She had pushed her body too far. Without a word, Thaos set aside his cup, stripped off his gloves, and moved to take one of Jhan’s legs in his big hands. He massaged it thoroughly, making Jhan feel as if she were being tortured and sent to heaven at the same time.
“I’m not a princess any longer?” Jhan asked between her set teeth as she tried not to moan.
Thaos eyed her as he worked. “Nor a prince,” Thaos replied. He didn’t mention the dream. He probably thought that it had been one. He said simply, “I accept, now, what you’ve been saying all along. You can’t possibly be Jhanian Kevelt.”
Jhan sighed and nodded. “Good.”
Thaos shrugged as he took Jhan’s other leg and began on that. “You are not a Kevelt any longer. You don’t have any claim on me or the family as kin. Jhanian’s son will be formally made my heir. You are now simply, Lady Jhan Dor, the wife of a minor son of the house of Dor.”
“Will you put that in writing?”
Thaos snorted in amusement. “How gladly you shed the name of Kevelt. Sometimes, I wish for such freedom.”
Jhan pushed his hands away and huddled in on herself, her small bit of humor snuffing out as she came completely awake and set herself to endure another day without Kile. “It won’t be for long,” she said absently.
“Perhaps not,” Thaos agreed. “War is chancy. Life uncertain. For once though, I feel like I have taken the reins of my own life. I think that you have done the same.” He straightened, his spine cracking. “It’s time to step out of the shadow of what was.”
“I wanted to kill him too,” Jhan admitted as she managed to stand as well.
Thaos looked down at her curiously. “Who?”
“Jhanian,” Jhan replied and then, “Where is everyone?”
“Picking mounts,” Thaos said slowly, still trying to understand how Jhan had known about his dream. “Unless you think that you want to try and walk all the way back?”
“You let us walk yesterday.”
“Yesterday, you were Jhanian and I hated you,” Thaos replied tightly. “Now, you are Lady Jhan Dor. A lady shouldn’t be walking in the road dust with soldiers who think she is a dead prince.”
“Did you think that they would kill me?” Jhan wondered.
“I had hoped,” Thaos replied uncomfortably. “I didn’t want my brother’s blood on my hands.” His face creased as he thought of the dream again. “How easy it was after all, to do it. I wasn’t even afraid.”
“You were horrified,” Jhan pointed out. “You wanted to save a little girl. Jhanian wasn’t your brother any more. He had become a beast.”
Thaos was even more perplexed now. “It was only a dream. In reality, I LET him do it! I stood by and watched him...” Thaos ran both hands over his face and let out a gusting breath. “Sometimes, I dream of those helpless whimpers and shrieks.”
“He paid,” Jhan assured him. “He paid more than any man should have to pay for any crime and then some. He died Dagara Ku Ni’s whore, as helpless as that little girl.”
“I’m not glad of it,” Thaos replied.
“Neither am I.”
“I meant that you were the one to pay most of that price,” Thaos clarified. “From your account, Jhanian killed himself like a coward early on and escaped. His punishment was yours too. It is strange that I must make war on a man who did me a favor, but then committed so terrible a crime at the same time.”
“Hajian is mad, never forget that,” Jhan said harshly. “No one who was in that place for long was sane.”
“I won’t show him mercy,” Thaos assured her. “He has too much Power and power of the normal sort. Blue Sky will fall to me. They won’t be able to stand up to the trained forces of Karana.”
“So confident,” Jhan muttered disbelievingly.
“He’s not Dagara Ku Ni,” Thaos said. “He can’t throw a glamor over his men like Dagara could. They must see what he is.”
“They see that he isn’t as bad as Dagara was,” Jhan warned him. “He hasn’t done anything to them. It’s those he thinks are evil, that were part of Dagara’s rule, that he turns his cruelty on.”
“Such as you, Kile, and the Nava brat?” Thaos wondered skeptically. “I was told that your guest room was in the dungeon. You are still so very naive, Lady Jhan. You always fail to see the many layers a man can contain.”
“I’m not naive,” Jhan snapped back. “I said that he ‘thinks’ that, not that it’s so. He’s as good as anyone else at justifying what he does.”
The others came towards them through the morning mist leading saddled imala. Rehn handed a spotted one to Jhan and didn’t explain the lead that led from it to his own mount. Jhan scowled.
“I’m not going to ride off,” Jhan said angrily, but then sighed and let it go when she saw Rehn’s pained expression. She looked at him, at the others who were silent and tense, wondering what she was going to do. “I’m sorry. I’ve come to my senses at last and I realize that I’ve been treating you badly. You’re all my friends. You deserve better for the way you’ve stuck by me. I’ll stay with you and with Thaos and his army.” For the time being, she thought to herself, but kept it off of her face.
“You’re upset,” Rehn replied quietly. “We understand.”
“I don’t!” Jaross growled and glared darkly. “You act as if we don’t want to find Kile too. I find that an unforgivable insult.” Bheni began to protest, but Jaross cut her off. “It’s time that you learned what every good soldier knows... that battles aren’t won by a lone man storming the fortress! It’s time that you considered that a good strategy will keep as many innocent people as possible from the battle field and kill as few as possible of those who must stand and fight. You want to die, I know, but you want to make other people do it for you, innocent people who will have the bad luck of being in your path when you reach the fortress. They don’t deserve what you intend to do to them. I can’t believe that grief for Kile as made you so cruel and changed the gentle person I know you to be.”
Jhan almost said it, anger and sorrow making her feel completely self centered and as unfeeling as Jaross was accusing her of being. She almost said, “Who ever showed me mercy?” but she held her tongue before it could slip out. She remembered the girl, Jhanian’s victim, who had done nothing but be in the reach of a cruel, unfeeling man. Was she any better? She wanted to find Kile, wanted to die, wanted to hurt those who had hurt them both, but who was that but Hajian? His men hadn’t touched her, had showed her rough courtesy and friendliness. They hadn’t liked what their King was doing. Jhan imagined herself killing them, using the deadly skill that Dagara, the king of cruelty, had taught her. She also imagined Thaos running his sword through her, putting her down like a mad dog. It was in his eyes, a measuring of her temper and her despair; a watchfulness for the ghost of his brother that would never go away.
Jhan didn’t reply to Jaross. She pulled her stiff, aching body into the saddle of her imala and sat with folded hands and downcast eyes, not even attempting to take up the reins.
Thaos grunted and walked away to take command of his men. The others exchanged glances. Tevar sighed. “I don’t know why I even pretend to be in command,” he said sourly.
“You are my Captain,” Jaross told him as they all began to mount their imala. “I won’t follow anyone else.”
Tevar was startled, not expecting that from the mocking, bleak man Jaross had become. He searched Jaross’s eyes as if expecting a joke at his expense. Jaross returned his gaze steadily and then blushed and looked away. Tevar blinked as if he had been hit between the eyes. He licked suddenly dry lips and then regained control of himself. He cleared his face of emotion and then took the lead. He sounded much more confident as he snapped. “Order! Move out!”
Alidae came up on Jhan’s right, and Avrilla followed close behind. Alidae kept his eyes on both of them possessively. He was the one who was going to be the problem, Jhan thought, and not only because he would try to stop Jhan if she tried to get away from him. She still felt a disgusting attraction for him. She still longed to... Jhan shuddered and pulled her imala sideways, almost bumping into Rehn’s imala. She wasn’t going to succumb to that remnant of Jhanian. She wasn’t an animal. She was in control. She repeated that mantra over and over again.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
(Into the Lion’s Den)
They were too large a force to get far without someone noticing them. They clashed twice with border patrols and emerged victorious. At the smell and screams of slaughter, Jhan took refuge at the center of the army, and didn’t feel ashamed to hide her face in her hands and hope that the fighting never reached her.
When they reached the gates of the fortress, Jhan wasn’t surprised to find the gates locked and a siege inevitable. Messengers went out to dictate terms and returned with a refusal. War had begun. Thaos seemed in his element, energetically deploying an encampment, ordering the digging of privies, and securing a several roads for supply lines. Tevar was resigned and Jaross bowed to the inevitable. Bheni too, looked as if she had expected the wait, but Rehn was disappointed and angry. Alidae and Avrilla were even less pleased.
“Is the man a coward?” Alidae fumed. “He should storm the gates at once and bring them down. Go to him and demand it at once!”
“King Thaos, you mean?” Tevar replied, emphasizing the title. “I’m just the son of a city scribe,” Tevar told him acidly. “I can’t question a king about anything.”
“I can get the gates open,” Jhan said suddenly. They all looked at her small body, her feminine, delicate features. “I’m not a woman,” Jhan reminded them. “I’m not like you either. Dagara made me different. There are things I can do that no one else can.”
“Like scale a slick wall?” Tevar asked, but then shook his head. “No! You are under my protection. I can’t allow-”
“You shouldn’t have said that!” Rehn groaned as Jhan dismounted from her imala.
“No you shouldn’t have,” Jhan agreed. “I’ll do as I please Tevar.” She began walking towards the fortress, saying over her shoulder, “Have Thaos ready. It will open, I promise you. Hajian will not be able to resist.”
Bheni almost followed, but Rehn grabbed her arm and their argument made them all pause while Jhan gained ground. She was faster than they imagined. She was out of the trees and down the long slope towards the fortress before they even registered that she was gone. She could sense the archers take aim, the consternation as they paused at the tiny, impotent figure coming towards them. When Jhan wasn’t shot down immediately, she wondered if they thought that she was another messenger from Thaos.
Jhan came to stand near the gate, but not close enough for a soldier to make a quick grab and carry her off. She needed the gate open longer than that. Someone, with a helmet hiding his features, looked down at her from a window high above, a window positioned so that terrible things could be poured down on anyone threatening the thick wooden gates of the fortress.
“I wish to speak to King Hajian!” Jhan shouted upwards.
“Who are you that he should speak to you?” The soldier drawled in contempt.
“Jhanian of the Kevelt!” Jhan shouted back. “The one who had him tortured by his brother! The one who still hasn’t been punished for it. Tell him that! He will want to speak to me!”
There was silence. Jhan waited, the hair standing up on the back of her neck. She felt a thousand eyes on her front and back. “You are a fool.” Jhan stiffened and didn’t turn her head at Alidae’s voice. “I can’t help, but follow you.”
“And he can’t help, but bring me with him,” Avrilla said softly.
Jhan winced. She had wanted the danger all to herself, the possibility of dying hers alone. She was the one who had least to loose.
“We are all fools, I suppose,” said Tevar’s weary, resigned voice. “Thaos must be ripping out his hair.”
“I hope you have a plan, Jhan,” Jaross growled. “I don’t want to die with you.”
“Neither do we,” Rehn added.
“But, if we must,” Bheni said. “We will do it honorably and bravely. Our child will sing our praises.”
“I would rather our child had his parents to rear him,” Rehn muttered.
“Go back!” Jhan protested at last, hands curled into tight fists. “You don’t understand-”
“We do,” Tevar disagreed, “and that’s why we’re here! We aren’t going to let you throw your life away. I’ll tell them that we’re messengers. I’ll make up something. Hopefully, we’ll leave with our heads.”
“Does Thaos know what I’m doing?” Jhan replied angrily. “You did tell him to be ready?”
“Of course, but I don’t know what for!” Tevar exclaimed. “If you think they’re going to throw open the gate and leave it open, you’re wrong. They do have a smaller door over there. They’ll use that to come out and get us.”
Jhan narrowed her eyes at the little door and felt a flush. She hadn’t known that. All of her plans were crashing swiftly. She tried to think up another that would save her friends lives. The only one she was finally able to come up with entailed her turning and walking back to Thaos and his long siege.
“I can’t do that,” Jhan moaned.
“Do what?” Tevar demanded.
“Go back,” Jhan replied. “I have to find Kile. I can’t wait for this war to be won.”
“So, you’re going to give yourself to Hajian and make him tell you what happened to Kile?” Jaross guessed in sick amazement. “Is that your plan?” Jhan fully expected him to walk away in disgust, but he didn’t. “We’re going to get you out of this mess. We’re not going to let you do this!”
Jhan didn’t know what Jaross had in mind, but she was relieved when that small door opened and armored men boiled out like a kicked ant nest. Jaross tried to speak in protest. Tevar tried his messenger gambit. Both failed. Bheni drew her sword and stepped forward. She was ringed by a sea of swords and forced back. They took only one person, Jhan, leaving the others stunned and unharmed outside of the gate.
No one molested Jhan. They thought that she was a child, those that didn’t know who her body had used to be. They treated her gently, keeping her in a protective circled as she passed through armed soldiers and into the fortress proper. They didn’t try to ask or guess what she wanted, what madness had possessed her to give herself up to the enemy, but there was one who remembered that Jaross had killed one of them to make their escape. He was the one who reached for her, face red with fury, and plowed a large fist into her face. When Jhan fell, he landed a boot into her delicate side three times before he could be shoved back.
“Gods, look what he’s done!” One of the soldiers swore as he saw that Jhan was almost unconscious, the side of her face rising in a welt and turning dark like a flush of ink under her skin. She was curled around her side, retching on pain and feeling something terribly wrong underneath her clutching hands.
Jhan wanted to laugh, partly in hysteria and partly in relief. She wasn’t going to get to fight anyone. She was simply going to die there among those men on the hard stone floor, far from Kile or anyone else that she loved.
“To the King,” Someone suggested desperately. “Get him to the king so that his Majesty can help him, or it’s going to be our balls on a plate for sure!”
Jhan cried out as they moved her, lifting her up, and jogging as they hurried through one corridor after another, booted feet pounding and armor jingling and clacking together. Jhan knew the way as well as they did. Her memory slipped out of focus and out of time, as she remembered other desperate runs to find Gyven to heal her after a particularly nasty session with Dagara or his soldiers. She lost her senses then, the world melting into that memory of the past until it was more real, more present. As she had so many times then, she prayed, ‘Let them be too late to save me.’
In the end, it didn’t matter, their mad dash. They kicked their heels outside of Hajian’s rooms, staring at the ornate gargoyle heads, and then were told curtly by a servant to put Jhan in the dungeon to await punishment. The King was too busy to be bothered.
Jhan only half heard the arguments. The soldiers were confused. They begged the servant to tell Hajian that Jhan was about to die. The servant left, returned, and repeated his message with a tone of anxiety that warned them against any more argument.
The soldiers reluctantly carried Jhan to the dungeon cells. Jhan fought through pain and nightmare memories to speak, harshly, demandingly, as forcefully as she could. “Kile. Put me in the same cell as Kile. Do this! Let me die with him! If you can’t do anything else for me... do this, I beg you!”
“Who?” One of the soldiers wondered.
“That blonde from Pekarin,” another told him. “I know the one. The king wasn’t too kind to him. I-I heard him screaming. You won’t win the king’s favor by asking to be with him, Prince Jhanian,” the man said to Jhan. “He’s going to be executed soon.”
Jhan gathered herself together with every ounce of effort at hearing that, her heart constricting with joy at finally knowing that Kile was alive, but feeling agony too knowing that Kile wasn’t safe yet. Panting, she opened her eyes and rolled them. She was hanging limply in one soldier’s arms, her head lolling almost upside down, strength less. She was staring at the inverted face of the last soldier that had spoken, a grizzled veteran who had probably been there when Dagara had reigned. She could see that he knew her. His eyes were shadows, filled with some of the same memories that she had.
“You know me,” Jhan said to him. “Do I deserve your mercy?”
“I think you paid for whatever you did as the General of Dagara’s army,” the man said and spat aside. “You deserve at least to die in peace.”
Jhan said the words without hope, speaking to herself rather than the men around her. “I love, Kile. I want to die with him. Please...,” she sobbed. “Please, let me die with the man I love!”
There was an acute silence and then the grizzled warrior grunted. “Of all the men who could have carried you here, you’ve spoken to one of the few who can understand that. The one holding you is my love, Kineve. We’ll take you to Kile.”
Jhan closed her eyes as tears rolled down her face. “Thank you.”
She endured the long walk to the dungeon. Keys rattled. Hinges creaked. Jhan was taken into a cell. It was then that confusion began.
“They’re making a charge at the North wall!” A strange voice shouted. More voices took up the shout. There were suddenly more men. Voices mingled and argued. Jhan felt herself put down on the cold floor and some straw was shoved under her head to make a pillow. That was all that was done for her as the soldiers rushed away to defend the fortress. She heard the door bang shut, but she didn’t hear the lock turn.
“Gods! Jhan!” The voice was weak and rough.
Jhan opened her eyes. She coughed and blood came into her mouth. The pain in her side began to burn. It took an eternity for her eyes to clear and focus on the figure chained against the wall.
Kile was gaunt. His face was bruised and his eyes looked hollow and wild. Jhan could see blood on his dirty, disheveled clothes. One of his hands was bent the wrong way at the wrist. It was swollen and the wound was seeping pus. He tried to move, stretch his short chains to reach her, but he groaned in the next moment and settled back down involuntarily.
Jhan crawled. She gasped and sobbed at the pain, but, as she moved, inch by inch over the rough floor, a numbness began, a numbness that told her as surely as anything else that she was dying. She coughed again and more blood came up. She was leaving a trail of it behind her. Would she even make it to Kile? She heard him sobbing and cursing frantically on the edges of consciousness, mad with grief for her. She would make it, she determined, she would be in his arms again one last time.
It was hard. It was impossible. She shouldn’t have made it. Jhan’s energy was gone with the flowing blood and the sense that more of it was flowing inside of her where it didn’t belong. She tapped every last ounce of will to keep moving, loosing fingernails and flesh from her fingertips and knees as she scraped forward. The floor seemed to grow with every inch forward as if some cruel God were making the distance wider and wider to thwart her. Jhan strangled on her sobs and the blood, reached down deep, down deeper than she had ever gone within herself, and touched the last source of energy she had. It was barred behind mental doors. It throbbed and thrashed, wanting release. She let it go with a force of will she never knew she possessed. It bounded inside of her, joyful, and gave of itself to let her rise up and throw herself forward into Kile’s arms.
Jhan lay, panting, as Kile folded her against him, sobbing into her hair. He cried endearments, touched her all over, kissed her face hundreds of times as if he longed to devour her, pull her into himself where she couldn’t be hurt any longer. He was hot with fever, gangrene had set in and the sickness that had just been starting when Jhan had seen him last. He was dying too.
“Touching,” a cold voice said from the door. “I see my ‘guards’ are lacking in discipline.”
Jhan didn’t have to look to know that it was Hajian. She felt Kile tense, hold her tighter. “Leave us!” he shouted in anguish. “Let us at least die together!”
“Is Jhanian hurt so badly?” Hajian sounded disappointed. “I dismissed him out of hand, but then thought better of it. You are the last of Dagara’s men, the last wrong that he has done in this world. I thought that, after living through Dagara’s tortures, that you had become a changed man, giving up your evil ways, but, when you escaped, you coldly killed one of my best men. He had a family. He didn’t deserve what you did to him. For that, and your crime against me, you will pay. My mercy is done. Your chances have run dry. Now you must pay as all of Dagara’s men have paid.”
“That’s just an excuse,” Jhan laughed and choked against Kile’s chest.
“What did you say?” Hajian demanded.
Jhan turned her head and looked at him at last. He was out of place in that rough cell, standing straight and tall in a purple robe and crowned on his black hair with a circlet of yellow gold. His eyes were as hollow as Kile’s and they glowed slightly. He had been using his Power too much. It was consuming him.
“You’ve probably ripped Darkai apart by now to find out what’s inside of him,” Jhan guessed weakly. “You know where the real power lies, in the Great Desert with Tsarianna. You probably also know that I went there as well. You told the guards to let me die so that you wouldn’t have to do it yourself while you take me apart to find the same things you found in Darkai.” Jhan paused, gathered strength, and continued. “Only you couldn’t help still wanting revenge. You came here to hurt me, didn’t you?”
“You hurt me unspeakably,” Hajian confirmed and the glow in his eyes increased. “You killed a man who was only doing his duty.”
“That’s war,” Kile replied angrily. “He was a soldier. He knew the risks. Every man in your uniform knows he might die. To get out of here, I would slay everyone of them. They would do the same in my position. That’s accepted.”
“I don’t accept it!” Hajian exploded. “You have committed crimes! Both of you! How do you not deserve death for them?”
“You don’t want to listen, why bother?” Jhan sighed. “Do what you came to do. Get it over with.”
“Yes,” Kile agreed as he held Jhan close. “Do it. We know we’re both dead already.”
“You wish to die nobly, in each other’s perverted arms!” Hajian replied angrily. “I will give you the latter, but there is nothing, and will be nothing, noble about your deaths. I will reach into Jhanian and make him irresistible again, even more so, and you, Kile Dor will not be able to help yourself even in your state. You will rip your ‘love’ apart and I will take pleasure in letting my men in to see your bodies, locked together like animals. I will take particular delight in sending one of those men to Thaos and to your father, Kile Dor, to relate it in detail. Honor is not for the likes of you.”
Jhan was numb to it, not caring, but Kile was horrified. She felt him shake and sob hoarsely at the thought of his father remembering him like that, of everyone knowing how obscenely he had died. His honor was everything to him. It was more than he could bear.
“Get away from me!” Kile sobbed and pushed at Jhan. “Crawl away again, Love! Don’t let me do this to you. Don’t let him- I can’t- Oh, God’s! My poor father!”
Jhan gripped Kile tighter. “I won’t leave you!”
He hurt her, pulling at her arms and pushing at her body. Jhan felt the wound inside of her tear even more and there was a gush of blood swelling under her skin. She cried out, gasped, and convulsed in Kile’s arms. He couldn’t help, but clutch at her and call her name frantically.
“Not so quickly!” Hajian snarled. “You will not die yet!”
He didn’t need to touch her, he didn’t need to move from the place where he stood. Hajian simply reached out with his Power and dove down inside of Jhan. He couldn’t heal like Gyven. He was a changer. He moved and twisted flesh. He caused it to stretch and multiply to fill the gaps. He forced veins to reconnect. He moved blood out of dangerous places, but he couldn’t heal bone deep bruises or cause the wound to heal as if it had never existed. Flesh still had to heal, blood still had to replenish.
Jhan watched his progress in her mind’s eye. In a moment, he would be done and then he would change her into the thing that Kile couldn’t resist. Jhan couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let Kile die that way. She couldn’t allow old Duke Dor to remember his son that way. She didn’t matter. What anyone thought of her didn’t matter. Kile was the only one who did matter. For him, she would let loose her Power. For him, she would let it burn and kill her.
Jhan didn’t have to think. Her mind reacted instinctively. Her Power responded by reaching out and taking hold of Hajian like a terrier grabbing a rat. His Power was a small thing, limited to a few uses. Jhan’s could destroy the world. It was limitless. It could do anything that she willed it to... if she could control it.
Jhan stripped away Hajian’s control of his Power effortlessly. She forced him to finish healing her, how she wasn’t sure. She just ‘wanted it to be’ and it happened as fast as lightning, as frightening as a striking snake. She used him to heal Kile, bending his mind despite his wild struggles, to mend the damage he had inflicted inside of Kile while he had been looking for the same machines that he had found in Darkai.
All the while, Jhan felt the Power burning through her veins, seeping out through her pores, sizzling against Kile’s skin. He pushed away from her, frightened and not understanding what was happening. His chains were gone, melted as if they had been wax, yet they hadn’t burned his skin, not like Jhan’s Power was doing now.
Hajian began to fight at last, thrusting mental darts at Jhan, trying to disrupt her body, break it down in terminal places. As he did that, Jhan was able to hear his thoughts. She was shocked, sickened. He had seemed simply mad, delusional, but, now she knew that he was as evil as his brother. He had tried to hide it, reason with it, struggling to give the appearance of a good man. His heart was rotten though, greedy for power, greedy for life, willing to do anything to be better than Dagara, to show that he was the true King, the better man. He had been experimenting again, trying to discover the elixir of life. She could see his victims hidden in a deep laboratory, twisted and crying for mercy to a man who had never felt compassion or Humanity. It had all been an act to keep calm a populace ripe for violence and revolt after the rule of Dagara.
Jhan could see Hajian’s every dark impulse, his cringing fear of Dagara, his schemes, his plots, even his sexual perversions on animals. She could feel his twisted desire for her and the terrible torture and rapes that had made it impossible for that desire to ever be fulfilled. It was this, and his great fear of dying, that was fueling his anger now, his need for revenge. Her betrayal of him to Dagara had only been an excuse to punish her for making him acutely aware of his impotence and his fear.
Jhan’s Power rose to meet Hajian’s. It quelled it easily, over topped it, and kept on building. Jhan tried to pull it back, frantic, but it continued to blossom. She could feel it begin a familiar, agonizing flow through her veins, seeking an outlet. Her skin felt as if it were on fire. She groaned and convulsed, fighting for consciousness as the pain built and built past all endurance and then kept on past even that.
Jhan knew that she was screaming her throat raw. She couldn’t even shout for Kile to run. Where could he go? She was going to destroy the world! And for what? To save their two lives? Jhan hated herself. Hated that she had been too self-centered, too needy, to stupid to care about anything but saving Kile. She loved him, she couldn’t live without him, but even Kile wasn’t worth the world! Jhan steeled herself and did what she knew was right. She began to pull the Power back into herself, making herself the target, focusing all of her hatred for that body of Jhanian Kevelt and hoping that her instincts would turn the Power on it and that her death would stop it.
Jhan hadn’t counted on Hajian. He continued to fight her, attacking her when he felt her waiver. The Power wasn’t so easily fooled. It lashed out to protect itself, its body, from the true enemy. Jhan and Hajian locked together again and the Power flexed to strike.
Two things happened. Alidae was suddenly standing behind Hajian. He grabbed the man by the chin before he could turn, and jerked upwards. There was an audible snap and Hajian fell bonelessly to the floor, very dead. The second thing was the appearance of White Fur, the Sahvossa. Her blue eyes were glowing as she stepped delicately towards Jhan. Her mind voice was eerie, making a silence where there was none.
‘We are the balance, you and the Sahvossa,’ she said softly. ‘You have much to learn, young one. Do not use a storm when a breath will suffice. Do not turn from your pack when they can aide you. How easy it was for another to end the life of the mad one. You did not need Power. You will never need it. Keep it buried, young one. Forget the scent of it.’
Jhan felt the doors in her mind closing and locking on the Power once more. It howled, it struggled, it burned her as it fought. Jhan kept screaming, kept tearing at her own body as if she could get rid of it that way. When the door was finally shut, and the Power was gone, she fell, moaning, in a heap at Kile’s feet.
Kile was stunned. He stared at Jhan, stared at Alidae, stared at the body of King Hajian. “Where-Where did you come from?”
“I came for my mate,” Alidae said in a voice that was a contradiction. It was cold, aloof, yet struggling with instinct too strong to ignore. “I climbed the fortress wall and killed several men to gain entrance into the dungeon. I surmised that you would be here.”
“Mate?” Kile was too dazed to make sense of that. He shook his head to clear it, not understanding why he was feeling so much better or how the iron chains had fallen off of him. There was still the pain of healing flesh. He hissed and limped as he kneeled by Jhan. He touched her gingerly, afraid of getting burned. When he found her cool to the touch, he pulled her into his lap, cradling her against him like a child. “Little Love,” he whispered.
“Still here,” Jhan said with a weak smile. “Sahvossa saved me.”
“What? When? Where?”
Jhan began to point shakily to where she had seen Whitefur, but nothing was there. Perhaps she had never been there at all. She clutched at Kile’s hand. “I’m sorry, Love, but I nearly killed everyone trying to save you. That was- that was wrong. I’ve been so selfish. From the moment I came to this world, and was shoved into Jhanian’s body, I’ve thought of nothing but myself. I wailed, I sobbed, I wanted sympathy, pity, everything that I had restored to me. I couldn’t settle for anything less. I made everyone suffer because of it. You’ve suffered the most. If I had just let the past go, let all of that evil and sorrow become dim memory, instead of carrying it around like a fresh wound in my heart, wanting to punish who ever was responsible, we could have been happy these two years.”
Jhan wiped at tears. “You can’t live an entire life devoted to feeling sorry for yourself. You can’t want what’s gone until you destroy what you have. You can’t punish the wrong people, and keep punishing them, for things other people did. That’s what I’ve been doing to you Kile and to our friends. I was going to punish the world next, punish it by destroying it because one sick, little man was trying to take you away from me. I’m the one who’s been sick. That I could have even considered it, as if what we were, what we have, is more important than anything else...” She smiled up at Kile’s perplexed face. “You are my love. I can’t live without you, but you aren’t worth the world, Kile.”
Kile blinked and then managed a dry throated chuckle. “I’m not that vain.” He grew more serious. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Jhan. You’ve been treated to enough cruelty for a dozen lifetimes. I don’t blame you for complaining, for wanting better, for thinking that you deserve some sort of recompense. I don’t blame you either for finding it hard to let go of what happened to you here. I am only sorry that it came between us so many times.”
“Because I let it,” Jhan told him, “because I wouldn’t let it go. I kept trying to... I don’t know, it’s hard to put into words.... I suppose I was trying to do with you what I couldn’t do with Dagara and his men; refuse, deny, be shocked, be angry, run away.”
“You blamed me,” Kile worked out. “You punished me, because you couldn’t punish them.” Kile ran his hands over his face in anguish. "All those times you screamed at me, struck at me, called me names, and refused to-to-” he sighed heavily. “I was that for you, the enemy, because I dared to love what you hated, the body they gave you, made for you, and abused.”
“I’ve accepted this body, kicking and screaming,” Jhan agreed hoarsely. “and now I have to accept the life that goes along with it. I am a creature that Dagara Ku Ni made. I will never be anything more than that. I am a man. I was Jhanian Kevelt of Karana. I was raped, tortured, and made the plaything of evil men. I’m not owed anything for that. I will never get revenge for it. I will never forget it. It will never not be true. I love another man, Kile Helarion Dor. I love him with all of my being, but he can’t make me whole. He can’t make me a woman. He can’t ever give me back what Dagara took away. We are two men, loving and bedding each other, different, but as unimportant as everyone else in the world. We are not special. We are not more worthy of life because we are that much in love. We are not more important because I think that this world owes me for what happened. It won’t die to give to give us a few more moments of life together. I will never use my Power again, even if I die because of it, even if you die because of it.”
Kile nodded, troubled, but knowing that this was important to her, knowing that she had to affirm this self knowledge so that he could join in her understanding and know that their relationship had just changed once more, and finally. It was up to him whether to accept it or not. He said nothing, but Jhan could see him thinking of the implications of her words.
“It is strange that you deny yourself a weapon when we are still very much in danger,” Alidae spoke up at last, standing attentively close to Jhan now and eying Kile as a potential interloper. “May I remind you that I have just killed the King of Blue Sky.”
Kile shook himself and straightened. “Can you walk, Jhan?”
“I have to,” Jhan replied. “If you meet anyone, you’ll have to fight.”
Kile was troubled. “I know that you said that we weren’t more important... but, some men are going to die, Jhan, when we try to get out of this place.”
“I meant a world of innocent people that have nothing to do with us or our small tragedy,” Jhan clarified as he helped her to her feet. “The men here are soldiers. It’s just as you said to Hajian. They chose to fight. If they try and stop us, I don’t see how we can not defend ourselves, but I don’t want to see anyone die. Please, try to avoid it.”
Kile frowned, irritated that she felt it necessary to say that to him. “Yes, your Highness,” he muttered, but his anger was only half hearted. They didn’t have time for it.
“Sorry,’ Jhan replied with a squeeze on his great arm. “I’m just afraid of seeing blood here again, of seeing soldiers die. I don’t know how I will react, especially here in this place where I was originally trained to fight.”
“You don’t have the strength for anything,” Kile said critically. “Leave the fighting to us.”
“I intend to try,” Jhan replied softly.
Her body ached. Her face, unhealed, and other scrapes and bad bruises were still fresh and painful. She was starving, bone tired, and shivering from where the Power had scorched her skin as if she had lain out in the sun to a dangerous degree. She felt as if she were in the grip of a fever. It was hard to put one foot in front of the other as she, Kile, and an impatient Alidae made their way out of the cell and down the long corridor to the main fortress. Periodically, they found Alidae’s victims, all with their necks neatly broken. Jhan didn’t look closely at their faces. She didn’t want to see if her first guards were among them, or the two men who had taken her to Kile.
Jhan stopped suddenly, having a thought. “I know how we can get out of here.”
“Good,” Avrilla stepped from the shadows. She was holding her long knife. “but first we must rescue Darkai.”
Kile was angry. “How can we do that? He’s in Hajian’s well guarded rooms!”
“That’s what I was going to tell you,” Jhan licked nervous lips, trying to avoid her body’s protests long enough to think clearly. “The door to Hajian’s rooms is a-a portal- a small gate to where ever you wish to go. I have Power. It’s locked up inside of me again, but just having it might be enough-”
“Might be,” Kile emphasized. “You don’t know for certain.”
“You and I can’t climb down the wall,” Jhan pointed out. “The soldiers aren’t going to let us walk out of here. We can either hide here and hope that Thaos’s siege works, or we can gamble that all of the men are at the walls defending them and not many are actually guarding the interior.”
“And gamble that this gate thing will work when we reach it,” Kile added. “I don’t like the odds.”
“If Darkai is in Hajian’s rooms, that is where I shall go,” Avrilla told them with a lift of her chin. “Alidae will come with me.”
“You can’t make it work without Jhan,” Kile reminded them.
“Alidae will not allow Jhan to stay behind,” Avrilla explained shortly and then began walking. “Come. You may waste time fighting, but I don’t see any other alternative.”
“I think that it can work,” Jhan told a reluctant Kile.
Kile nodded and motioned for her to follow Avrilla, but he himself took the lead. He knew where Hajian’s rooms were as well as Jhan.
“Keep with Alidae,” Avrilla told Jhan. “He will protect us both.”
“Concern for me?” Jhan bit back angrily.
“It is Kile that I need,” Avrilla replied without apology or emotion. “He will not help me get to my goal if something were to happen to you.”
Jhan refused to reply to that. There was nothing that she could say that would hurt Avrilla. Jhan concentrated, instead, on staying upright and walking. Her side was on fire, stitched by Hajian’s Power, but still healing inside. Her head felt swollen, the blow to her face feeling heavy and hot. She had almost died, it was something she didn’t expect to recover completely from any time soon.
Kile wasn’t in much better shape. He walked as if his legs were lead weights. His back was stiff, but Jhan saw it tremble. His face was drawn and very pale. Only Alidae, who had a long sword and a knife, and Avrilla, had a weapon. Jhan was a weapon, but she balked at using her skill even now. Kile could fight, hand to hand, but that was little defense against armed soldiers. It was madness, what they were attempting, but the only alternative was dying. When the soldiers discovered their dead king, they would be executed for the crime.
The corridors were not empty. They passed by men and women intent on their own business, not realizing that escaping prisoners were on the loose. Kile and Jhan’s ragged clothing went unseen. Soldiers went past in large groups or watched them pass with bored curiosity, but none questioned them or diverted attention away from the more pressing problem of defending their fortress against an enemy.
“I would have slit the throat of a man of mine who would have been so lax in discipline!’ Alidae growled under his breath.
“Me too,” Kile agreed critically, “but it’s saving us so far.”
“We haven’t turned our steps towards the king’s chambers yet,” Avrilla interjected. “Surely they will be more attentive there?”
The air was chill, a breeze blowing in from the mountains and through the high windows. It brought back memory and Jhan shivered, staring about. She was so weary and in pain, it was too easy to slip in an out of time, and be again a naked, shivering boy being taken to yet another round of humiliation and torture. It was almost surreal to turn into the hallway leading to Dagara’s rooms and see the seven soldiers arguing at the doorway. She half expected leers, taunts, filthy suggestions as they laughed and handed her off to her master, but the men stood, frowning as they turned and faced them, saying nothing as they drew their swords and waited.
“We know King Hajian isn’t in there,” Kile called to them. “We’re not here to hurt anyone. We’ve just come for Darkai. Step aside and we won’t have to fight.”
It sounded childishly optimistic, but Kile avoided killing whenever he could. The soldiers chuckled at their rag tag group and continued to wait. People were going to die, Jhan knew, and it was most likely going to be them. They couldn’t hope to win through so many armed soldiers. They had lost before they had begun.
“Come on!” the captain of the men called, when Kile hesitated. “If you’re such a fool! We’ll slice up your entrails and make your little General Jhanian dance for us! I remember him well! I remember that he raped my daughter! Come on, little whoreson! Moonflower he used to call you, wasn’t it? Come, dance for us, Moonflower, while we kill your friends!”
The flashing steel, the angry, cruel expressions permeated Jhan’s mind. The smell of sweat and fear was sharp, jerking her into motion, tripping wires dormant, but still very much alive. She passed Kile before he could grab her, avoided Alidae and ignored his bellow of outrage. She ran as if she had nothing wrong with her, adrenalin pumping, muscles becoming like flexible steel, mind honing down to reflex and the skill she had been taught in blood and pain.
Jhan fell forward, as if she were falling on her face. Swords licked out, cut her ragged clothes, nicked the skin of her back, but passed her nonetheless as she flipped and brought her foot into the captain’s face. It crunched and he fell in a mash of blood and gore. Jhan fell from that point, landed on her hands, and flipped over to bring her hand down on another man’s neck. When he fell, the other men tangled, unable to bring their swords around in the tight space. They tried to draw daggers. Jhan caught one man’s hand and made him stab his companion as she kicked him with her boot and crushed his ribs to his backbone.
Three men left. Alidae casually took out one of them. Another caught Jhan with his dagger, but she was already twisting her body about and it only cut a thin line of skin as she whirled completely about and kicked him in the head. His head jerked violently and he fell with his neck bent at an impossible angle. The last man dropped his sword and fell to his knees.
“Don’t move!” Kile warned him loudly. “If you want to live, don’t move a muscle.”
The man stared at Jhan, trembling in fear, sweating and blinking as the sweat stung his eyes. Jhan eyed him, still caught in her training. The man panicked. He began to get up, to run. Jhan’s fist shot out and caught the man in the larynx. He fell. convulsing on the stone floor as he bled and asphyxiated. Alidae dispatched him with a thrust of his sword to the heart. Jhan turned on him.
“Don’t move!” Kile warned, but Alidae was frozen, staring down at Jhan as if he couldn’t yet believe that she was a danger to him.
They all stood, frozen in place. Jhan looked about with dead eyes, waiting for another target. When none presented itself, she slowly sank to the floor and closed her eyes with a sigh.
“Get Darkai!” Avrilla urged impatiently. “We don’t have much time before we are discovered by others!”
Kile nodded to Alidae and the man edged warily around Jhan and darted into Hajian’s rooms. Kile slowly approached Jhan. He hadn’t been able to help in any way and it was hurting him. He picked up a sword and a knife from a dead man and his knuckles were white as he gripped their hilts hard.
Jhan came to herself slowly. It was hard, but a part of her mind knew that she had killed, knew that she was still in danger, knew that she had to shake off the past and deal with the here and now. She took a deep, rasping breath and opened her eyes on the carnage all about her. Her hands went to her mouth and then stopped as she realized that they were covered in blood and gore. She was covered in blood and gore.
“There wasn’t any other way,” Kile said softly. “You know that, Jhan. They were going to kill us. They made their choice.” He didn’t remind her of the last man who had run. Perhaps he was hoping that she hadn’t been aware.
“That’s another thing that I have to accept about myself,” Jhan said with a sob. “I’m a monster puppet with hidden strings. I’m a killer and I’m very good at it.”
Kile didn’t argue. He only nodded. They were done lying and pretending.
Alidae came out of Hajian’s rooms then half carrying Darkai. The man was pasty pale, clutching at his left arm and trying to hide it with the long sleeve of his robe. For a moment, he was unsuccessful. Jhan caught a glimpse of metal, pistons, gears, and flesh peeled back before he jerked the sleeve down.
Darkai saw Jhan then. He stared at all the blood, at the dead men, at the fact that only Alidae had some small bit of blood on him. “What?” his voice was hoarse as if he had ruined it with screaming. He shook his head, dismissing the mystery with a wince. “Get us out of here! There is nothing that I can do for Avrilla here. The mad man tore apart me and all of my machines!”
Avrilla gasped, showing emotion at last. “You must do something, foster-father!”
“There is nothing that I can do, child!” Darkai snapped back. “We must wait and hope that the baby is normal.”
Kile bent and lifted Jhan to her feet. The hallway tipped under her feet and Jhan’s head throbbed. She felt ready to faint, her adrenalin rush having eaten all of her reserves. She covered Kile with blood as she clutched at him. He put an arm around her waist. “You have to get us out of here, Little Love!”
Could she? Jhan turned to the gargoyle heads on the door, lifted a hand as she stepped over a dead body to get closer. She touched the upturned tongues, remembering being impaled there for Dagara’s amusement. It was painful, agonizing, to try and recall everything that had happened then. She concentrated and then relaxed, letting her mind go completely blank, as blank as when she had been Dagara’s numb slave.
It happened then, a sensation like flying. A disorientation under her hand and a feeling that a cool breeze was touching her face. “Come close,” Jhan told them as she tried to keep the feeling. “Hold onto me”
“What’s going on?” Darkai demanded querulously.
No one enlightened him. Alidae kept hold of him and reached out to grip Jhan around the middle. Avrilla and Kile did the same.
“Hold tight,” Jhan whispered. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”
Jhan concentrated on Thaos’s army as she lifted a hand to one of the gargoyle’s and pushed her fingers into its eyes. She remembered the last place she had rested, a pile of scented pine bows under the shelter of a tree. She meticulously put herself and her companions there in her mind, dismissing a nagging doubt that it was all foolishness, that she couldn’t possibly do such an impossible thing.
It happened in seconds, the world tipping out from under them, the rush of wind, the stomach churning sensation of distance crunching together, and then they were crouched under a tree, standing in a pile of drying pine bows in the midst of Thaos’s army.
Jhan collapsed, feeling her heart fluttering, her body a dry husk, every last ounce of energy gone, eaten by the gargoyle gate. She was only dimly aware of shouted challenges, questions, and quick replies. She thought that she heard Thaos and he sounded angry, but his words were an unintelligible jumble.
Jhan’s head was tilted up, a thinned broth was put to her lips that had been mixed with the juice of crushed berries. Someone understood her nervous stomach well. She was only given a small amount, and then a little more later, and still more much later than that. It gave her strength, and her heart calmed. She began to think that she might live. When warm lips kissed her mouth, and Kile’s reassuring presence made itself known as he wrapped himself about her like a security blanket, she began to smile with soft joy. At that moment, no matter what else happened, she had the one thing that she wanted most in the world; Kile.

Jhan opened her eyes to a strange sight. Tevar and Jaross were seated very close, but they had eyes only for each other. They were smiling and speaking very softly, but Jhan was surprised to see Jaross reach out furtively and touch Tevar’s hand. Jaross looked relaxed and happy, the shadowed, bitter look completely gone.
Jhan couldn’t believe it at first and then she did. Jaross’s confusion, his pursuit of women he could never have, and his oddly guilty anger after Jhan’s attack on him, made sense now. Jaross was a thekling. He had fallen in love with Tevar! Tevar’s own liquid, happy gaze told Jhan that it was mutual.
Jhan didn’t know how she felt about it at first, but then she growled at herself and called herself a choice name. Who was she to judge anyone? They were happy. She and Kile were happy. That’s really all that mattered.
“The world is not like I was raised to think it was,” Rehn said softly in Jhan’s ear. She started and turned her head. He was smiling lopsidedly, telling her he didn’t wholly approve, but that he was resigned to this change in his friend. “Tevar is older. Maybe he’ll be able to instill some sense into Jaross?”
“What’s been happening besides that?” Jhan asked and hated how weak her voice sounded. Rehn propped her head up so that he could help her drink more broth mixed with berry juice. It was thicker this time. She must be getting better.
Rehn lowered her head. He turned the cup around in his hands absently as he replied, “After you appeared out of nowhere, Thaos sent messengers to the fortress asking for a truce with the new king. There was confusion. It seemed that the rabble of farmer’s, tinkers, and crafts people that Hajian had made into soldiers, hadn’t been aware that their king was dead. They were eager to let Thaos in to make decisions for them after he promised that he didn’t wish to conquer them. He chose a likely man that everyone respected and conferred nobility on him. Of course,” and Rehn smiled grimly, “he made the man swear fealty to Karana first.”
“So, there’s peace, now,” Jhan muttered and then louder. “What about everyone else? What’s going to happen now?”
“We are going home with King Thaos in attendance,” Rehn told her as if he could hardly believe it himself. “He doesn’t wish any other ill to befall you on your journey.”
“That might not be wise,” Jhan replied sourly. “Half his men have a grudge against me.” It was strange to use that word ‘me’ and not refer to herself as apart from Jhanian. She was Jhanian; would be Jhanian until she died.
Rehn shrugged and Jhan could tell that he was confused. “It seems that walking up to the fortress, and attempting to win a war single handedly, made the men of Karana forget all about anything else you might have done. They respect strength and bravery and expect cruelty from their leaders. They’re ready to let you be king, if you want it.”
Jhan pulled a face. “No wonder Thaos wants to personally see me safely to Pekarin,” she chuckled darkly. “He wants to make sure that I’m well out of reach of his crown!”
Bheni and Kile settled down by Jhan. Bheni leaned against Rehn and she put her hand in his. Jhan smiled at Kile as he pulled her into his lap and cradled her against him. She was clean of blood and gore and dressed in men’s clothes that were far too large for her. As small as a large child and as delicate as spun glass, Kile ignored the exclamations of “perverts!” from Thaos’s soldiers as he bent his head and kissed her tenderly.
“I guess I’m not in line for the crown any more,” Jhan breathed around Kile’s lips.
Kile chuckled and kissed her again.

They made their way slowly to Pekarin. The rivers were swollen and fording them was difficult and dangerous. During that time, Jhan and her companions kept to themselves. Tevar and Jaross kept their relationship professional, but Jhan could see the strain. When she made a small joke, Jaross glared at her in obvious pain.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she settled into her blankets at that night’s camp. “It’s going to take some getting used to.”
Jaross almost decided to keep silent, but seeing that no one else was near, he confided in her, “I’m confused, but... happy. I don’t know what my father will say! I never looked for this. I never expected it of myself. When you raped me, I hated you, but I hated myself more because I had... enjoyed it. Something in me responded for the first time, something that had never even quivered with women..” He licked dry lips. “We don’t kill theklings in Petrath, but they aren’t accepted either, at least not by my father or my family.” He gripped the sides of his head as if it hurt. “I love, Tevar. I’ve always loved Tevar. It wasn’t until I was in that cell, waiting to die, and he was out here, thinking that I might be already dead, that we both realized how we felt. It was-It was very hard to admit it... even harder to-”
“Have you?” Jhan blurted out with rude curiosity and then tried to call it back. “Never mind. It’s not any of my business!”
“No, we haven’t,” Jaross replied. coloring all the way to his ears. “That’s a step I’m not ready to take yet. We have to talk first, find a better place than in the woods on the edge of an army.”
“I haven’t made you... afraid?" Jhan wondered.
Jaross turned his face away and she saw the anguish there. “You gave me a taste of what I’m expected to do with Tevar. I know he wants that...” Jaross shook his head and stood up. “I can’t talk about this! I have to think more about it, about what I want!”
“Your temper again?” Bheni wondered as she settled by Jhan with wooden plates of food. She passed one to Jhan and Jhan sat up a little to begin eating the salted meat and the almost inedible heated, dried cakes of some bland squash.
“Not this time,” Jhan muttered around her food. She looked at Bheni covertly. The woman, as always, appeared calm and confident. She wasn’t at all worried about the armed men on all sides of them or what the road might bring in the morning.
“You seem changed,” Bheni said at last. “You have always looked ill at ease in your skin. Now you look relaxed, one with yourself. You have stopped fighting with yourself, I think.”
Jhan nodded, but she countered, “And you? Have you stopped fighting with yourself?”
Bheni tensed and then relaxed very slowly, finally she replied. “I am a warrior. It is always what I have wanted to be. Having a child and loving a man has not changed that desire. Rehn wanted to put chains on me because he loved me and did not wish to see me die. I have spoken with him. I have told him that I cannot live that way. When we return to Pekarin, I shall join the guards. He will care for our child. He is better suited to it.”
Jhan was unsure. “He agreed to this? It isn’t accepted behavior for a man of Pekarin.”
“Rehn is sunshine and flowers.” Bheni replied with a small, warm smile. “I am fire and steel. We know that we have thrust each other into the wrong places. Now we intend to correct that. We will both be happier for it, Jhan.”
“I think you will be,” Jhan agreed, smiling a little t