The Time Weaver

with one foot up, his back against a pillar; his head had slumped forward and his eyes were closed. That's all I had time to take in before the headache hit me.

I went to my knees. Through the vicious pain I saw my blood splattering the floor, great big circles of red that splashed back up to fleck my legs.

I don't know if I made any sound. I couldn't hear.

But the world tilted suddenly, a nauseating slur of color and light. I glimpsed the clouds again, the inner bowl of the tower ceiling. The cracked wooden beam that had once supported a bell.

My body clenched, another bout of agony ripping through me. My breasts felt warm and wet, warmer than the rest of me, and I realized it was because the blood from my nose now ran down my front.

I was held. I was being carried. More awful shifting light—my head limp against a cool, firm surface. Sandu's chest.

I didn't hear his heartbeat but I felt it. It pounded through him and into me, its rhythm carving into me like a path, a deep steady drumbeat that led to merciful darkness.

I followed it so that I wouldn't have to feel the pain a moment longer.

There was blood everywhere. It soaked the shirt she wore, and her hair, and his stomach and breeches, slipping slick between them. It was an appalling amount, and at first he thought she'd been shot or stabbed, but a frantic quick search of her body showed him no wounds.

It was all a nosebleed. But by the stars, he'd never seen a person lose so much blood from such a thing.

Sandu kicked open the door at the base of the stairs; the hinges failed and the wormy wood crumbled apart. He ducked through the threshold with her, dribbling a trail of crimson through the fresh dust.

Before he'd gone more than ten feet, the Roma emerged from their unknown places to surround him, to touch her sleeves and face, to prattle in their staccato, unknown language and try to pull her from him.

He ignored them, walking more briskly. He made his way to her chamber and laid her carefully atop her bed.

'Aigua,' he commanded, but they were already there with basins and towels.

The bleeding slowed a few minutes later, then stopped, although Honor didn't wake. Her body was boneless as a doll's as he lifted her and removed the shirt, mopped the blood from her chest and stomach, careful, so careful with the towel around her face.

From the corner of his eye he spotted the boy pretending to be invisible by the armoire, thin and avid. When he noticed Sandu's impending snarl, he ducked swiftly back into the hall.

The women found a chemise for Honor, snapped fresh sheets beneath her while rinsing out her hair, for all the world like they'd done this countless times before. One of them had lifted Honor's arm, was rubbing a damp cloth up and down it to clean the last of the blood when she made a surprised exclamation.

Honor's hands had fisted with her faint. It was more than a faint, he imagined, it was nearer to a seizure, but now her fingers relaxed enough to show that she was holding something.

It was made of gold. He heard the metal, didn't see it, until the Roma scowled at it closely and then held it out to Sandu.

A pair of golden rings. A crumpled piece of paper with writing, speckled red on one side. He didn't know the rings, but he knew that handwriting anywhere. She'd been to see him, after all.

Alexandru blew a breath through his teeth, his gaze drawn back to the bone-white mask of her face. Lips of lavender ice.

What the hell had he done to her?

Worth it.

Two words circling me, repeating themselves, and I didn't know what they meant but there they were, blooming and circling, persistent in the dark empty stage of my mind.

Worth it.

What was? I wondered groggily. Had I purchased something? Done something? I couldn't quite recall.

But I was cold. I realized that. So cold I wanted to shiver, but for some reason could not. A whisper began to reach me beyond those words, which were fading now in any case, distant, like they no longer mattered. The whisper grew louder, became a rushing patter of water striking rock and ... glass? Rainfall. On walls. On windows.

I opened my eyes. Everything was gray. Even the man seated beside me.

'That,' said this younger, somewhat harder-looking version of Prince Alexandru, 'was bloody frightening. Forgive the pun.'

I was in my own bed at the cathedral, and the rain was stinging down hard. Sandu had taken a chair from the corner and pulled it close by. He was wearing Roma clothing and looked extremely fine in it, a tight shirt and wool breeches and a kerchief tied around his neck. In both posture and demeanor he presented a portrait of a rogue at his leisure: eased back in my paisley-striped chair with one leg crossed casually over the other, his hands folded over his stomach. But for the paleness of his skin and the truly inhuman beauty of his face, he might indeed have been one of the Gypsies, those lanky, freeborn men made of sinew and laughter and dark polished glances.

When Sandu turned his head to regard me more directly, however, his expression was far from laughing. It was frozen and fierce.

I lifted a hand to my face, my fingers finding my cheek, my lips and nose, all still there. 'Was it very bad?' I asked, unsurprised at how hoarse I sounded.

'Very,' he said. 'Ridiculously bad. I had no idea someone so small could bleed so copiously. I've seen stuck boars bleed less. Are you vampir, perhaps?'

My lips twisted into something I hoped resembled a smile. 'Not quite. I've turned out to be a fiend of a different sort.'

'Honor,' he said, and paused. He seemed to be searching for words. 'Did I . do that to you? In the future?'

'What? The nosebleed? No, my prince. That's what happens every time.'

'Great God,' he said faintly.

'Although this one did seem rather worse than normal.' I touched my face again; all the pain was really gone. 'It didn't used to be so extreme, but as I've aged—do you mind? There are blankets in that chest over there. I can't seem to get warm.'

'As you've aged,' he prompted, moving at once with his lithe grace to the Spanish chest. It was pushed beneath one of the windows, and the gray light fell softly pearled across his hair and the breadth of his shoulders.

'The ... physical consequences of the Weaves have grown noticeably more severe. It's one of the reasons why I try to save them up. When the Gift first took me, I could flit here and there without even a suggestion of a headache. But now ...' I had to clench my teeth to stop them from chattering. A shiver wracked me, my body finally waking to the fact of the chilled room and the wet September air.

'Yes, now,' Sandu said curtly, shaking out a fleece blanket above me, letting it float down to my body. He tucked in the corners with brisk efficiency, as impartial as a nurse to an ailing child.

I watched him through my lashes. By moonlight and rainlight, the same man, the same lips and eyebrows and tone of voice. The same hands that pushed a fold of fleece beneath my shoulder now, just last night stroking me to heaven, to vibrant, ecstatic life.

Last night. Months ahead.

I'd long since become accustomed to thinking of time as being malleable, and all of us within it as unfixed as toy boats bobbing in the sea. But it was disconcerting, even for me, to know that one day, a year from now, this frozen and savagely handsome male was going to meet me in a forest meadow and feed me paella and kiss me until I melted.

'The rings,' I exclaimed, remembering. 'Oh—did they make it? The rings and your note?'

'Yes,' he said. I shivered again, and he folded one of my hands in both of his, looking restlessly back toward the door. 'There's no hearth in here. I want to get a brazier. I think I saw one below.'