'Hey,' cried Slip. 'I'm no one's accursed cave shrimp but my own!'
Twilight wasted no breath protesting the argument.
Instead, she walked into their midst and shoved Taslin bodily away. The sun elf staggered, dumbfounded. Twilight put a finger in her face. ' 'Twas your insults that took us off our guard,' she said. 'Asson's injury is your fault. Take responsibility for your own actions, sun.'
Taslin stared.
'And Davoren,' Twilight said. 'Try and focus, if your little mind can stand it, on the matter at hand, lest something more than scarring befalls you next time.'
His gray face went red. 'How dare you lecture me, you-'
She unsheathed her dusky blade in the blink of an eye and leveled it at Davoren's throat. The others flinched at her speed.
Twilight stared at him. 'Care to finish that bit?'
The warlock backed down with a scowl.
'The next one of you who insults another of us loses a tongue,' Twilight said sharply. 'Then a nose, then an eye, then the other. Then I get creative. Understand?'
Davoren nodded, smirking.
Twilight drew the blade away and looked at Taslin. 'And if anyone doubts I have the sand to do it, as we say in the Shining South, I'd be more than happy to demonstrate.' She traced tiny circles through the air with her blade.
No one spoke. Oblivious to their camaraderie in it, Taslin and Davoren both stared at Twilight with shock and loathing. Slip looked horrified. Even Asson, who had struggled to his feet again with many coughs, fixed Twilight with an angry look.
'We survive together, or we die apart,' said Twilight. 'If those wights are any indication of what's waiting, we need everyone. Understand?' She stared hard at Davoren. 'Everyone.'
Davoren sneered, but nodded curtly. He moved away, presumably to find a soft spot to rest. The other adventurers followed suit.
Twilight stood for another long moment, then sheathed her rapier. When no one spoke, she whirled away and padded off.
Before she had taken two steps, Taslin caught her by the arm. Twilight expected a rebuke, but instead the sun elf's eyes revealed shame.
'You were right,' the priestess said. 'I apologize for my foolishness.'
Twilight eyed Liet, watching her surreptitiously from a distance, as she answered.
'I don't want you to apologize,' she said evenly. 'I want you to obey.'
Taslin gaped.
With that, Twilight shook herself free of the priestess's grip and sat down on one of the overturned sarcophagi. She pulled a knee up to her chin and rested her head on it, watching the others. Silence reigned. The others ignored her, except Gargan, who stared. Once again, that odd sense of eternity manifested in his eyes. She had seen that gleam of wisdom before, and knew enough not to trust it.
Twilight looked away for a time, then back. Gargan was still gazing at her. Was that esteem in his strange eyes, or disdain for her methods?
Either way, at least someone understands, Twilight thought.
Then she looked down at the cut on her arm. She tore a strip from her precious blouse and cleaned the wound. It would have to do. She wiped the blood from her cheeks and forehead as best she could.
She was the captain of this band, and damned if she would show any sign of weakness. They would absolutely follow her lead-they had no alternative. Twilight hated the responsibility, but she knew they had no choice.
Watching the disjointed band and ignoring her growling stomach, Twilight slowly drifted into reverie. At least, she hoped so. She did not think she could stand another night of the barbaric human sleep she had been finding so often lately.
For some reason, she couldn't keep a certain laugh out of the back of her mind.
Gestal stood over the slumbering Twilight, watching the way her sweat-streaked face gleamed in the torchlight. Only one of them stood guard, running her fingers gently over the brow of a sleeping, withered man. She was completely oblivious.
It mattered little to Gestal. His gaze stayed upon Twilight, who slept apart from the others, where no guard could see her easily-or admire her, for that matter.
Twilight's eyes flickered under her lids, the eyes of a girl caught in violent nightmares. After a single candle's burn, she had dipped into true slumber. It surprised Gestal that the she-elf slept like a human, rather than lying in trance like most of her people.
How innocent she became when asleep, how frightened. Perhaps this was why she stayed away from the party-to keep such fragile, vulnerable beauty to herself.
Gestal, on the other hand, would have none of that. He bent down, fingers extended. Twilight shifted in her sleep, recoiling as though she sensed the hand coming.
Lord Divergence ran his fingers through her raven locks. She shivered. They stretched out their thoughts with the softest chant of magical power, and…
Nothing.
Gestal had expected as much. Through that sapphire amulet, he could not see into her mind. Nor could he divine her location or watch her from afar. Only through the eyes of others-or his own-could Gestal see her.
He could take it now, but why? He enjoyed her pretensions.
Gestal smiled. This trifle added to the game.
CHAPTER SIX
Twilight awoke in a groggy murk. Sometime during the night, she had slipped once again into the sleep of humans. In that unnatural chaos, she had experienced dreams as humans do-uncontrolled, nonsensical visions that would have frightened her to wakefulness had she not been used to them. Most of the dreams had been nightmares-as usual. She had wanted desperately to awaken, but as always, she had not. And some dreams, even stranger, had been the kind she hadn't wanted to wake from.
Many of those visions had centered on the young Liet Sagrin, of all folk.
She sniffed and rolled her eyes. Barbaric. Enjoyable, but simply barbaric.
Twilight dismissed the dreams as more of the unpleasantness she encountered with greater frequency than others in her profession. Most elves, she well knew, never slept more than twice or thrice in as many centuries, but Twilight was not like most elves.
Like most, though, she desired to eat at sunup-and, of course, to relieve herself.
As she made her careful way into a chamber removed from the huddled band in order to do just that, Twilight met Slip coming from the other direction. The little thief, wearing her mace and a dagger that she had apparently found somewhere, smiled when she saw the elf.
'Good morrow!' the halfling said brightly.
'Yes,' Twilight managed. The halfling wandered alone? 'What are you doing?'
'Oh, just a morning walk.' Slip's smile didn't fade.
Twilight's suspicion did not fade either. 'A morning walk,' she repeated.
'Absolutely!' said Slip. 'Nothing gets the vim and vigor flowing like a good jaunt around the meadow'-she looked around-'er, crypt. Anyway, we take them all the time back in Crimel. Gets the body ready for the day, and makes breakfast at the Tumbling Troll taste even better!'
'Crimel,' said Twilight. 'The village in Luiren?'
