The Time Weaver

dragons, and she didn't know where the hell they thought they'd all land, but she herself was going for the inner courtyard, because it was graveled and open, and she'd likely break only one of the fountains in her skid.

She broke two.

They were oversized and placed too close together, but she still might have avoided them if her escort had only realized what she was entirely about. Instead, a dragon with a yellowish back and an actual gray beard attempted to head her off at the last moment, and Lia was forced to duck beneath him, snapping at his flank. It shattered her concentration just enough to sacrifice that second fountain, which had featured a large bird or a dolphin, and was probably ugly anyway.

She left furrows of brown dirt easily nine inches deep, starkly visible against the crumbled white gravel.

With all four legs on the ground again she Turned to smoke, allowing the valise strung around her neck by a rope to fall free. She resumed her shape standing beside it, holding a hand to her eyes as the beasts above her Turned as well, one by one, slithering down in plumes to the courtyard.

The valise contained, among other things, a robe, which she removed and slipped on, ignoring the eyes of all the men materializing nude around her. She belted it, bent down, retrieved the nearly empty valise and let the rope drape over her arm.

'I've come to see my daughter,' she announced in Romanian, her words clear and carrying in the thin, fragrant air.

From the dense pocket of shadows that concealed the main doors behind her, her name was spoken.

Lia turned around. Prince Alexandru—God, so grown, how many years had it been?—stood at the brink of the gravel, the light splashed just along the toes of his boots. When he moved forward into the sunlight and his hair went to indigo and his handsome face was thrown into sharp relief, she had a moment of vertigo so intense she had to ease a step back from him to preserve her equilibrium.

This place. The crushing magic of this place. How did any of them stand it?

'I must see her,' she said, glad to hear her voice revealed nothing of her momentary weakness.

'Lady Amalia,' murmured the prince again, and had the courtesy to offer her a bow, one complete with that unique Zaharen salute of curved fingers to his forehead. 'Welcome, Noble One. Please come in. We'll speak inside.'

'Yes,' said Lia, holding her balance with a lift of her chin. 'We will.'

He was unsurprised to see she was still beautiful, this female who'd stolen the child Rez from the shire, and who'd summoned a faint tinge of unconscious jealousy in adult Rez's voice. Yet Amalia possessed a different sort of beauty than his beloved, more typically English, he thought, and in that sense, at least to him, more commonplace. She was lovely, yes, but Rez was extraordinary.

He knew they were unrelated by blood, except perhaps through some distant kinship probably all the members of the English tribe shared. But guiding her now into the cool, marbled vestibule of his castle, Alexandru imagined he glimpsed in Lia a distinct resemblance to the woman he'd left sleeping upstairs: the blaze of her eyes, the stiff column of her spine. It was nothing of color or size but entirely of attitude. Lady Amalia seemed prepared for battle, at least mentally.

It set a knot between his shoulders, one he couldn't shake off.

And it wasn't merely that, her straight back and her wary resistance to his smiles. She had music with her —issuing from that valise she carried, which she'd refused to hand over to him or any of the footmen—strange, dulcet music that both soothed and alarmed him on some deep, primal level, because he was very much afraid he knew what it might be.

Poison. A Draumr had ever been to his kind was poison in one form or another, and even though he knew it was broken and its power diminished, there was no question he felt it. Stronger, sweeter, more alluring than any of the other stones.

Aware of the servants stationed about, aware of the nobles trickling down the sweep of the main stairs on their way to breaking their fasts, Radu and Lucia and all the rest, staring, staring, Alexandru kept the cadence of his footfalls unrushed and exact. He led Amalia past the gradually bunching cluster of Zaharen aristocrats at the base of the stairs to the closest parlor, the East Room, and closed the door behind them. He was careful to do that, to keep his hand on the knob, to stand against the wood so she could pass, to listen for the soft tick of the latch to tell him it was all the way shut.

It took more willpower than he liked to simply lift his hand then and offer her a chair.

He wanted to snatch the bag from her.

He wanted to rip it open, and close his fist on the source of that sweet song. He wanted to gobble it up.

Instead, Prince Alexandru waited for the Lady Amalia to take her seat, and then calmly, cordially, took his own in the leather armchair opposite.

The parlor was referenced by its wide bank of windows, which faced the courtyard and the rising sun; the walls and floors were streaked with light.

'You hear it,' Lia said in English, not a question. She sat very prim at the edge of the cushion, her ankles crossed, her bare toes pressed into the rug.

He nodded.

'Good. I wanted you to. Where is Honor?'

'In our room. It's still early, you know. She likes to sleep.'

'When will she be down?'

'I don't know.' He managed another peaceful smile. 'When she is.'

Lady Amalia regarded him silently for a moment, a steely look entirely at odds with her charming, mussed appearance. Through the panes beyond her he could see a trio of groomsmen and a scullery maid encircling the remains of one of the broken fountains.

He felt as if the light was congealing around him, thickening solid as jelly. It was growing so thick he could hardly move it from his nose into his lungs. A sense of weight settled atop him, atop the restriction in his chest.

It was cold, pure dread.

'I have a letter for you,' she said. 'Two of them, actually.'

He said nothing. She held him in that hard gaze for a moment more, then opened the valise. The sweet poison song of Draumr swelled.

He was leaning forward in his chair before he realized it. He was rising to his feet. 'Do not approach me, Your Grace,' said Amalia, without looking up.

He stopped, again without meaning to. With a very great effort, he dug his fingernails into the meat of his palms, and that woke him some.

He sank back to the chair.

Amalia stood, crossed to him. The sheet of paper in her hand fell open in folds.

'I mean you no harm,' she said. 'I hope you believe that. But what I'm about to do is ... unprecedented. You are to read these two letters, Alexandra You're to start with this one.'

He took it from her, shook it out and lifted it to the sun.

It was from the English tribe. It was written in the form of a formal proclamation, dated over eight months past. The language was stilted, the script embellished with tails and curls so dramatic they seemed to swallow up the actual words.

But the message itself was stark enough.

Proposal for the Unification of the Drkkon Tribes, he read.

One Alpha, two lands. Rule by proxy. Reasonable rights and privileges of the prince retained, all primary laws of Darkfrith to be upheld. Shared expenses. One rule.

One Alpha. Not two.

'Where did you get this?' he asked slowly, still reading. 'I never received this.'

'No, you wouldn't have. Apparently, they decided not to send it to you. Perhaps they realized the wording wasn't quite genial enough for what they really intended.'

'Subjugation.' He labored through a breath of the thick jelly light. 'They mean to rule Zaharen