The Time Weaver

alone, regardless.

But in every case, the drakon left behind would wither. I witnessed it with Lia, nearly every day. I didn't really know if Zane considered her his mate the way I knew she considered him hers. But watching her dwindle into slow, wistful mourning whenever he left her was misery for us both.

I did not want that for myself. The passionate excitement, yes. The ardor. But that depth of attachment that meant you were no longer whole, that your entire existence depended upon another's .

No, thank you. I'd be pleased enough to become Sandu's consort. I liked my heart just as it was.

Still, there was the promise of that passion ...

So I tried twice more to Weave back to him. The first time I discovered myself in a gray, gloomy hut of some sort. It had been furnished as a house, but a very rudimentary one: three rooms, a hearth built from river stones, a chimney that clearly didn't properly draw. The room I was in contained a roughly planked table set with thick, chipped earthenware and pewter—I heard the songs—knives. Four chairs of unpolished wood. Dirt floor.

Smoke from the fire simmered against the thatched ceiling, curled sharp inside my nose. The sole window to the hut had been left open to siphon out what it could, revealing pine trees and a cobalt sky.

A woman's crooning floated from the adjacent room. I sidled over to the doorway and peeked inside.

She was seated in a rocking chair, a fine one, much finer than anything else surrounding us. She was cradling her black-haired baby in her arms, smiling and humming, and he turned his head and looked over at me.

There was no mistaking those clear silvery eyes.

The second attempt was stranger yet. I ended up back at the castle, standing outside alone in a huge, circular courtyard of crushed gravel and dead grass. An alabaster fountain cast a frozen shadow across my legs; it wasn't functioning. There wasn't even any water in it. A magnificent carved phoenix at the top was obviously meant to spit a stream from its mouth, but its wings had been broken off, and the lead pipe protruding from its beak had been bent.

I looked up at the castle. At first it appeared the same as it always had. White sparkling blocks of quartzite. Tall beveled windows. Crenulated towers, balconies, everything blinding as snowfall in the sun.

But there were no people. Not human, not drakon, no sounds or scents or stirring of them. Squinting up at the walls, I noticed that quite a few of the windows had been shattered. Some even had curtains tugging at their edges with the wind, their fabric faded and tattered.

Scorch marks scarred the upper frames of the upper windows. Marks from a fire.

I approached the huge double doors of the entrance, holding a hand to my eyes to shield my vision. I smelled the ruin before I saw it. The doors were of iron and oak, very ancient oak, and they had been forced apart into splinters. The bolts and hinges that had been their solid spine hung twisted from the wood. When I passed them they did not sing. They whimpered.

Zaharen Yce had been raped and gutted. I stepped around the broken glass in wonder, hardly feeling it when I cut my heel. The beautiful paintings were gone, the vases and chandeliers and marble statues, gone. The chunks of diamonds in the walls were gone. A few smashed chairs and what was left of a marqueterie firescreen tipped drunkenly on its side were all that remained of the main-floor furnishings.

Dust blanketed every inch in thick, gritty layers, undisturbed. The air was ghostly with the perfume of stale cinders and panic. Whatever had happened here had happened a long time ago.

I lifted a hand to push back a cobweb dangling from a doorway and felt the eyes of the spider high above me, diminutive life crouched back in the pitted mortar of a corner.

No one answered my calls. Outside I heard a falcon scream, but that was all.

I couldn't imagine what time this was. Where Alexandru or his people might be.

When I stepped out again into the glaring light of the courtyard, I was home, in my bedchamber. I was never able to return to that bleak, burnt castle.

I sank down to the rug on my floor. Wrapped once more in the heat of that Spanish afternoon, I'd hoped it had been just a dream. But the gash on my foot was real and deep.

 He would not go to her.

The mere thought of it was absurd. He could not leave his people and his territory for any extended period of time, not even for the time it would take to fly to Spain and back.

Just to see her. Just that.

No. He'd traveled well over the years, but those had been steadier days. He'd enjoyed touring the cities of man, enjoyed their crowded opulence and astonishing innovations. He had a favorite restaurant in Bucharest, a favorite park in Potsdam. There were few sweeter small pleasures than a cup of steaming coffee in the Cafe Suleiman overlooking the banks of the Danube, but he'd been younger then, more convinced with the certainty of youth of his place. The threat of the English had been little more than a gnawing at the back of his thoughts.

Aye. Times had changed.

It would require days to fly to Barcelona. Taking a carriage was, of course, out of the question. Human travel barely crawled along the surface of the ground. That would consume weeks.

But days in flight, some of it over open waters. And then to hunt her, to find her, that river-girl who'd haunted him so long now .

He remembered her face from that night in the library. The dark bruised eyes holding his. The rosebud lips, never smiling. She was more lissome than she used to be, he thought; lissome yet still lush, any childish contours melted away to reveal the bones and angles of one of his own kind. A beast of beauty beneath pastel skin and copper-rose hair. He'd craved her from the moment she'd slid into the light.

Married, she'd announced, as easily as if it were already fact. It was insane.

Yet he could not wipe her face from his memory, any more than he could wipe away the true words of her note. The second one. Words describing the things he would do to her, what she wanted, what she craved of him. Positions, taste, scent. Words in English and Catalan and he barely knew what, so thick was his red haze of desire, and Sandu knew that he was doomed, because he would go to her, after all.

Amants. Lovers.

He'd see.

Chapter Seven

H.,

 Tonight is the night. Be at the Palau de la Diputacid on Carrer de Sant Sever at nine for the king's Revelry. Listen for the bells.

—H.

Barcelona was on fire.

Even though he arrived after sunfall, Alexandru realized from leagues away he'd have to navigate a celebration of some sort. He let the soft sea winds lift him as he studied the grid of the city below, every lane, every little passageway, it seemed, aglow with pinpoints of golden light. What appeared to be a parade was winding through the larger streets, brilliant with torches, trailing carousers in a long, bobbing tail. When the winds shifted he heard snatches of music as well, clanging bells and drumbeats striking off the hard, flat waters, soaring to heaven—sweeping through one lone black dragon first.

He was not entirely black. That was a significant portion of his dilemma. He was also silver at his edges, with bands of amethyst and deep azure scoring his flanks in diminishing lines. Nighttime was usually a most excellent cover for him. He'd traversed half of Europe in such a way, landing in tucked-away places, emerging from alleys or parks or empty warehouses as an ordinary man. He'd not expected to have to return to earth tonight amid a festival; the silver tipping of his wings and talons would gleam like the sun in all that firelight.

He could go somewhere else. He could come back another night, when it was done. But she was down there, somewhere, and he knew he wouldn't.

So Alexandru hovered awhile in silence with his satchel in his claws, eyes closed, miles above, and listened