lips and her fingers flexed, but she did not see the way her captors drew back. She did not see them at all. She did not know they were there.
I am lost,she thought at one point.I am destroyed, and I have done it to myself.
Time passed, but little seemed to change. Guards came and went, the light dimmed and brightened as torches sputtered and were replaced, food was delivered and taken away uneaten, and the demons that haunted her kept edging closer. She wanted to break their spell, to banish them along with the hissing and mewling of her Fury memories, but she could not gather together the will to do so.
One time only did she sleep. She did not know for how long, only that she did, and that when her dreams took the shape of her memories, she woke screaming.
The Straken Lord did not reappear. Hobstull stayed away. She did not know what they intended, but the longer she was left alone, the more certain she became that they had lost interest in her entirely. There was no use for such as her, for a woman who was willing to take the form of a monster, to assume the persona of a raver.
There was no place, even in the world of demons, for something that lacked any moral center or recognizable purpose. She saw herself as they did, a damaged and conflicted creature, a chameleon that could not distinguish between reality and fantasy, able to be either or both, but unable to tell the difference.
She felt herself sliding over the edge of sanity. It was happening gradually, just a few inches at a time, but there was no mistaking it. Each day, she felt her Ard Rhys self fall just a little farther away and her Fury self close about her just a little bit tighter. It grew easier to embrace the latter and reject the former. It grew more attractive to see herself as inhuman. If she was no better than one of the Furies, her life became less complicated. The madness seemed to ease and the conflict to diminish. As a Fury, she did not have to worry about where she was or how she had gotten there. She did not need to concern herself with the increasingly fuzzy distinctions between different worlds and lives. As a Fury, the world flattened and smoothed, and there was only killing and food and the lure of life with her cat kind.
She began seeing herself as an imprisoned animal. She began making cat sounds all the time, finding comfort in the soft mewling. She flexed her fingers and arched her back. She bit her cheek and tasted her own blood.
But she did not rise or eat. She did not move from where she lay. She refused to come out of the dark refuge of her delusions. She stayed safe and protected in her mind.
Then, as if from a dream, she heard someone calling to her. At first she thought she must have imagined it. No one would call to her, not here or anywhere else. No one would want to have anything to do with someone as terrible as she was.
But she heard the voice again, hushed and insistent. She heard it speak her name. Surprised, she stirred from her self–induced lethargy to listen for it, and heard it again.
«Grianne of the trees! Can you hear me? Why do you make those cat noises? Do you dream? Wake up!»
Her mind sharpened and her concentration coalesced, until the words became distinct and the voice recognizable. She knew the one who called to her, remembered him from another time and place.
She felt the pull of that familiarity, as if she were coming back from a long journey to someone she had left behind.
«Wake up, Straken! Stop squirming! What is wrong with you? Don't you hear me?»
Her breathing quickened, and a bit of the sluggishness fell away. She knew that voice. She knew it well. Something about it gave her fresh energy and a sense of renewed possibility. She tried to speak, choked on words that wouldn't come, and made unintelligible sounds instead.
«What are you doing, little cat thing? Have I wasted my time coming here? Are you not able to speak? Look at me!»
She did so, opening her eyes for the first time in days, breaking the crust of tears that had dried and sealed her lids, squinting against the unfamiliar brightness, reaching up to rub away the sleep and confusion. She stirred slowly, raised herself on one elbow, and looked toward the light that spilled from the hallway into her cell.
A Goblin sentry stood pressed against the cell bars, peering in at her. The torchlight cast his shadow across her like a shroud. She stared in confusion, feeling the lethargy and hopelessness return almost at once. This was no one. She was deceived. Her head lowered once more, and her eyes began to close.
«No! What are you doing? Straken! It's me!»
She looked up in time to see the Goblin pushing back the hood of his cloak to reveal his face. She peered at it out of a fog of exhaustion and uncertainty, watched it take shape, and struggled to make sense of what she was seeing.
«Weka Dart,' she whispered.
She stared at him, not quite believing he was actually there. She had all but forgotten about the little Ulk Bog. Once he had abandoned her and she had fallen into the hands of the Straken Lord, she had not expected ever to see him again. That he was standing there was almost incomprehensible.
«You should have listened to me!» he hissed. «Didn't I tell you? Didn't I warn you not to go on without me?»
His sharp features were scrunched into a knot, giving him the look of a demented beast. His hair was standing straight out from his head and neck, bristling and stiff. His sharp teeth flashed from behind his lips as he tried to smile and failed, and his fingers knotted on the bars.
Her mind cleared a bit further, and she pushed back against the urge to mewl and spit. «How did you find me?»
He stared at her as if she were mad. «You still don't know anything, do you? What kind of Straken are you?»
She shook her head. 'The worst kind.»
«You certainly look it.» Weka Dart laughed. «I found you by paying attention to the world around me, something you seem to have failed to master. But this isn't your world, is it? This isn't even remotely like it. So maybe you aren't to blame for anything more than bad judgment.»
He was telling her something, but she couldn't make sense of it. «Was it good judgment that brought you here, then?»
The Ulk Bog spit. «I am not sure what it was. I heard in my travels what had happened to you, and I admit that I thought it best to leave you to your fate. But then chance and inspiration intervened, so here I am.»
«Chance and inspiration?»
«I was crossing the Pashanon on my way to Huka Flats, the route I had chosen for myself and advised you to take as well. As I traveled, word reached me of your capture. Such things do not go unreported in this land, and I keep my eyes and ears open. It was easy enough to determine what had happened to you. The difficulty was in deciding what I should do about it.»
He puffed out his chest. «I will admit that at first I thought it best simply to go on. You had dismissed me, after all. What did it matter what became of you? You were rude to me. You insulted me. In the end, you ignored my good advice and brought disaster on yourself. I owed you nothing. No one could fault me if I chose to leave you to your fate.
«But then, I reconsidered. After all, it wasn't your fault that you were a stranger to this country, one lacking in good judgment and common sense. You were to be pitied. I felt an obligation toward you. I thought it over and made up my mind. I would come find you. I would see how you were. If you were nice to me, I would decide whether you deserved a second chance.»
Even in her confused and debilitated state, of being not all of one thing or the other, she recognized that his words were lies. She could hear it in the way he spoke; she could see it in the rapid shifting of his eyes and body. As always, he was after something, but she had no idea what it was.
«How did you get down here?» she asked.
He gave a casual shrug. «I have my ways.»
«Ways that allow you to get past the demonwolves and the Goblins that serve the Straken Lord?»
He sniffed. «I am not without skills.»
She pulled herself into a sitting position and became aware for the first time in days how stiff and sore she was. She looked down at herself, first at the bruises and cuts on her arms and legs, then at the white shift she
