not as bony as she looked.
'That's a good way to think. Always think positively, my father told me. It helps the digestion if nothing else.'
Her hand reached up to touch his, the fingers moving slowly, gently. 'It's hard being far from the one you love, not knowing if you'll ever see him again.'
'Yes, it is hard.'
She faced him squarely. 'Some say that I shall be alone forever if my betrothed does not return.'
'I'm sure that's not so.'
'Merith keeps me working the cook-fires and the garbage to keep me from looking pretty.'
'She's a good woman, but in that, at least, I think it's plain for anyone to see that she's failed.'
'Perhaps my betrothed is not lost but has fled from the sight of me. All the village girls tease me about it.'
'Then they are equally blind.'
'You think it, too, don't you?'
'No, I don't think that, Vella.'
He watched as the hood of her cloak was pushed back from her face. Somehow she'd avoided contact with the soot from the cook-fire. Her hair tumbled bright and lustrous about her face. Her beauty put Merith to shame.
Her attitude seemed to change. In place of the demure, shy servant girl there suddenly stood before him a confident young seductress. The moonlight drifting down through the trees gave her face an exotic cast.
When she spoke again, her voice was full of new confidence. Confidence, and something else: barely concealed desire.
'Tell me truthfully. Am I not worth returning to?'
Colwyn's eyes moved from hers and he cleared his throat, which was suddenly tight. He tried to think of other matters: of Ynyr on his mountain and what ordeals he might be undergoing; of Lyssa in her distant prison and what must await her. He did this because the longer he looked at her standing supple and anxious there beside him, the harder it became to think of anything else.
He'd been a long time alone. There had been the furious ride from Turold to Eirig, the tension attending the ultimately inconclusive wedding ceremony, the battle at the White Castle and Lyssa's abduction, and all that had subsequently befallen him since he'd set out to rescue her.
But Lyssa was far from this wood, and he was very tired.
Where the devil was Ynyr?
He found his gaze turning back to the beautiful peasant girl. Suddenly even Ynyr seemed very far away….
The light was inconstant and deceiving, the twists and turns in the corridors endless. Lyssa ran onward, refusing to give up, the voice of the Beast booming and echoing all around her.
Abruptly she emerged into a wide hall lit with a milky glow. The walls here were higher than many she'd passed between during her long, seemingly endless run. The light itself seemed to twist and bend as she stared, forming eerie shadows and discomfiting silhouettes on the ceiling and floor.
Ahead lay a dome of some partly translucent material, ribbed with opaque, toothlike projections. It sat by itself in the center of the high-roofed chamber. It was made of material that differed from the rest of the Fortress,
She moved forward until she stood next to it, then searched for the safest passage around. There was movement behind her and she saw another of the silent white Slayers. A gap opened in the side of the dome. For an instant she hesitated, but no Slayers emerged from the gap. The path ahead was clear.
The walls of the passageway were contorted and warped according to some alien geometry. To see them was enough to know they hadn't been designed with human aesthetics in mind. She longed for the comforting, straight walls and angles of the White Castle.
She wondered at the sudden appearance of the passageway. Perhaps she'd tripped some concealed switch. In any case, there was the threat of the Slayers urging her onward. She ran forward.
The passage was not a long one and it instantly sealed itself behind her. She found herself standing in a dimly lit chamber. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust.
The sealing of the passageway behind her was ominous, but she wasn't entirely disappointed. If she was shut in, others were shut out. The closing prevented the Slayers from reaching her. For the moment it seemed she was safe from them.
She studied the floor and ceiling, which were fashioned of the same smooth material as the walls. She ran a hand along one curving section, following the arc down to the floor, but could not find so much as a crack where the two joined.
The air in the room was much warmer than it had been in the corridors or her cell, bordering on the sultry. She moved along the wall, searching for an opening, a lever, anything that might signify an exit or a means for producing one. There was nothing.
Except… there, across the empty floor from where she stood, a darker shape outlined against the blackness. Another doorway, perhaps. She hesitated, then moved toward it. Nothing there. Maybe a little farther on …
She halted and found she was shivering from a sudden chill, which did not come from a cold breeze. Carefully she retraced her steps until she was pressed tightly against the warm wall that had admitted her. She could retreat no farther.
At first it was only a sound—a faint, brushing sound like leaves scudding along a carpet. The sound was not distinct like footsteps, but more like a continuous rush across the floor, like something being dragged. A scratchy, rustling noise, not comforting to hear in near darkness.
Then something else—a steady pounding, deep and reverberant. It reminded her of the beating of her own heart, though whether this was the pulsing of another heart she could not have said, save that it was slower than her own and seemed to vary greatly in speed and intensity. With each pulse a brief flash of light temporarily illuminated a portion of the floor. She could not see the source of the light or tell if it was connected to the beating noise, but each time it flared to life she thought she could see something standing in the far portal she had considered entering.
Her fingers dug at the smooth wall. It helped to keep her from shaking so much. The thing that stood in the portal was very tall. In shape it was roughly human, but that was all that was human about it. She could not even tell if it was clothed or naked. She did not want to be able to tell.
Only the eyes showed clearly. They were enormous—oval instead of round—with bright red, vertically slitted irises. They focused on her where she stood frozen against the wall. At least, she thought weakly, there are only two of them.
She knew what it was without being told. Tales had been handed down through generations, old stories filled with more fancy than fact. Tales used to frighten unruly children. As a little girl she'd listened wide-eyed and trembling to such stories. She was not a little girl now. It would do no good to behave like one.
With a great effort of will she forced herself to stand away from the wall and regard the apparition as stolidly as it regarded her.
'Are… are you the Beast?'
'You may call me that if it pleases you. My own name for myself you would find difficult to pronounce, though it may be that in time you will come to know it.'
'What do you want with me? The same thing that you want with the rest of my world?'
'No. If it had been my intention to destroy you, I could have done so long before now. You have been brought here not to perish before me but to give what you alone can give. You have been brought here for a marriage, though not of the sort you can imagine. It will be a much more intimate melding than you can conceive of.'
'I don't know what you mean by such words but I do know this: if you could force this marriage or melding or whatever you choose to call it on me, you'd have done so when I was first brought here. But you've waited. Something has made you hesitate. So I think that perhaps you cannot take what you wish from me without my agreement.'
'You are hopeful rather than certain. For now it amuses me to leave you wondering. What I wish from you is a part of your mind, your soul. You are special, Lyssa of Eirig. Unique. In you many generations have combined to
