'You're not?' Lord Sixx asked quietly. 'Do you mean to say that you have traveled so far, been through so much, lost friends to horrible deaths, seen living nightmares that will scar your dreams until you die, and now that the truth is before you, you would turn away?'
'Yes,' Myrmeen said. A part of her wished to hear Lord Sixx's words, even if they turned out to hold only a glimmer of truth, because now she was left with much less than she had before entering the city.
'All I ask is a favor now and then, nothing of great import,' Lord Sixx said, his delivery powerful and seductive.
That was his mistake. Myrmeen had dealt with men who had tried to use her all of her life. She knew how to resist them. 'I'm not interested.'
Lord Sixx frowned. 'Fine. If you ever wish to find me, you will not have difficulty. And if you ever wish to know the truth of what happened to your child, the price will be the blood of this one.'
His hand moved quickly, a dagger shaped like black lightning slapping into his palm. He pressed the knife against Krystin's throat as Zeal grasped her arms from behind. Tamara's arm's already had transformed, and the point of a steely spider-arm suddenly was pressed against the hollow of Myrmeen's throat.
Krystin's hand brushed hers, and Myrmeen realized that despite what the girl had revealed, she still meant what she had said to Krystin earlier that night. Losing her would be like losing her daughter a second time.
'Go to hell,' Myrmeen said.
'Only if you'll join me,' Lord Sixx said as he held her with his dark-eyed gaze. He then withdrew his blade and instructed Zeal and Tamara to lead the humans to safety.
Twenty
Imperator Zeal and his wife led the humans to the makeshift stables where Shandower had secured their mounts. The gags maintaining Ord and Reisz's silence had been removed, but the Harpers had said very little during the journey. Myrmeen had surprised Krys-tin by taking her hand while they were being ferried across the tiny lake where glowworms laid glittering traps for their prey. When the troupe had reached the shore, each of the humans was given an armful of provisions for the long ride to Calimport.
Tamara's dark eyes followed Myrmeen, her gaze clinging to the woman with the strength of the webs she had expelled while in her other form.
'I don't understand,' Myrmeen said. 'Why are you letting us go?'
'Because you no longer are of any consequence,' Zeal said coldly. 'And this is what my lord desires.'
The wall leading out to the cliff vanished as Tamara kissed its cold surface, revealing a shoal of stars above the gently surging waters of the sea below. The humans led their mounts to the difficult trail outside, Myrmeen intentionally going last so that she could face Tamara, who remained close to her at all times.
'Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?' Myrmeen asked. Tamara raised her hand, and the wall appeared, separating them.
Myrmeen, the Harpers, and Krystin led their mounts along the rise, where they retraced their steps and eventually made their way to the top of the cliff. They mounted their horses and rode toward the city as if the red- haired man were chasing them, spitting fire at their heels.
Near the cavern's entrance, Imperator Zeal confronted his wife. The candles and torches lining the walls flared as if they were about to explode. 'What was the Lhal woman talking about?'
'I went to her room,' Tamara admitted.
'You were going to kill her?'
'I had planned to, yes,' Tamara said. 'She burned our home to the ground, destroyed all I had, all that was important to me.'
'Those were just objects. They can be replaced.'
'You never had a family,' she whispered. 'You wouldn't understand.'
The fiery-haired man touched her arm with a gentle caress, his anger fading. Upon the walls, the brilliant light waned until the fires resumed their normal intensity.
'What stopped you?' he asked.
'You did,' she said, burying her face in his hard, muscular chest, 'I thought of the displeasure you would face from Lord Sixx if she were found dead. I couldn't do it.'
He knew she was lying but held her close. 'I love you, wife.'
'And I love you,' she whispered.
These words he believed. As he brushed her hair with his nearly smoldering hands, Zeal formed another explanation for his wife's actions. He decided that his wife had grown tired of having him ignore her urging to take Lord Shoe's power. She had planned to assassinate the Lhal woman to force the two men into confrontation. Sixx would have wanted Tamara's life for her actions, and Zeal would have murdered the man to protect her. At the last moment, she had changed her mind, granting Zeal the opportunity to decide for himself if he would try to usurp Lord Sixx, something that would be nearly impossible now that the man had the apparatus.
Imperator Zeal pulled back and kissed his wife's hungry lips. As he felt the flames of passion stir within him, several torches exploded, startling them both. Once they realized what had happened, Zeal and his wife began to laugh uncontrollably. They sank to the ground, their arms still around one another as they rolled on the hard stone, giggling like children.
Between gasps of laughter Zeal said, 'Yes, I will do it.'
The smile faded instantly from his wife's face. 'What are you-what do you mean?'
Cupping her face in his hands, Zeal whispered, 'I would die for you, Tamara. If you ask me, I will kill for you as well. I know why you wanted the Lhal woman dead.'
'You do?' she said in a small voice.
He explained his theory, and she did not deny his words, though he was completely incorrect in his assumptions. 'It will be difficult, and we will have to wait until the night of the festival, but that will give us time to plan and make our plans a reality.' He kissed her hard on the lips. 'This is what you want, isn't it?'
'Yes,' she said softly, imagining the sheer joy of watching Lord Sixx die, for reasons that even her husband knew nothing about. She threw her arms around him and held him tight. 'Yes, my love, this is what I wanted.'
Around them, the light grew brighter. Had they been more aware of their surroundings and less lost within each other, they might have noticed a patch of darkness in the shape of a slightly hunched, long-haired figure that suddenly detached from the wall. The creature stole away quickly to the comforting shadows where it allowed itself to become enveloped. It huddled in the forgotten cavern where it had gone to hide and wondered what it should do with the knowledge it had acquired.
The being that had been Alden McGregor pulled up its knees and begah to cry.
Miles away, as the hours quickly stretched toward dawn, Krystin rode beside Myrmeen. She said nothing to the older woman and Myrmeen acknowledged her presence with only a weak smile, but the gesture was enough to keep them together for the entire following day, their conversation picking up where they had left off before Shandower's death.
Evening was approaching, and Myrmeen had found shelter for the party behind a group of towering gray obelisks. Reisz sat atop the tallest of the stones, watching for any signs of the night people. Myrmeen, Krystin, and Ord tended the mounts and prepared the evening meal.
Krystin knew that eventually they would have to talk about what had happened and the revelation that she was not, in fact, Myrmeen's daughter. The girl fully expected Myrmeen to raise the subject, and when she did not, Krystin decided she would mention it. Before she had the chance, Ord surprised her by breaking the silence he had shared with Reisz as he strode before her and stopped. He stared at her with a flat, disinterested expression that suddenly gave way to a mask of rage. He struck her in the face with the back of his hand, knocking her from her feet. She landed with a grunt of surprise, her head striking the ground inches from a sharp stone jutting from the soft earth.
'Whore!' he shouted. 'That I ever could have been attracted to such as you…'
Myrmeen was upon him instantly, shoving him back and away from the fallen girl. 'That's enough!'
'She betrayed us to the monsters who killed my parents!'
