family. I am even bound by blood to Cadarn and Palben. But before they are returned home I mean to seed both Yamka and Divsha with a daughter. The female seed will remain dormant within them until after they have each borne their husbands a son. After a year has passed my seed will bloom in each of their wombs. They will bear my daughters and one day those daughters will wed with their cousins. My daughters will become Domina of Terah and First Lady of Hetar.” He chuckled, very well pleased with himself.
“But what of our son?” Nyura wanted to know. “Who will he wed?”
“Only the Book of Rule can tell him that when the time is right. It will be several centuries before our son becomes the sole ruler of the World of Hetar, my sweet Nyura.”
And then it dawned on Nyura that she was nothing more than a mortal chosen to bear an immortal. She began to weep.
Immediately Kolgrim was back at her side. “What is it?” he wanted to know. “Why do you weep? You must not be unhappy. It will harm the child.”
“I am mortal. I will never live to see my son’s success,” Nyura sobbed.
“Is that all that troubles you?” Kolgrim laughed. “When you give me Ulla’s powers, Nyura, I will be able to give you a lifetime that matches mine if that is what you wish, my pet,” he promised her.
Nyura sniffed. “Really? And you would do that?”
“Of course I will, my sweet.” He kissed her on her forehead. “We will be together always. Now I must go lest I break with tradition. Sleep well, and I shall see you on the morrow when we break our fast, Nyura.” Rising, he walked over to where Divsha and Yamka sat unseeing and silent, and snapped his fingers. The two young women immediately arose and followed after him.
In the corridor outside of Nyura’s bedchamber he found his chancellor waiting.
“It is done, Alfrigg,” he told him.
“Excellent, my lord,” Alfrigg replied. He looked curiously at the naked women.
Kolgrim chortled, and told him how he had brought his mate’s two cousins to her bedchamber, and for what purpose. Then he explained what he would do with the two women now. “The mortals I allow to have some certain power in this world will be my own blood,” Kolgrim said in a satisfied tone.
“Your plan is truly inspired, my lord. Your daughters will manipulate their husbands to your wishes, giving you and your son an easier world to manage,” Alfrigg said. “My lord Kol would be so proud of you.”
“I mean to send my father and brother a cask of wine to celebrate Nyura’s seeding. After I finish with these two I shall do it. Have the cask brought to my library, and prepare a note of explanation that I will attach to it.”
“At once, my lord. May you enjoy the rest of your time with your mate’s toothsome cousins, if my lord will permit me to say so,” Alfrigg said, smiling.
Kolgrim laughed. “You may say it, Alfrigg. You are ancient, but not without eyes.” Then the Twilight Lord walked down the corridor followed by the naked Divsha and Yamka. Entering his private bedchamber, he snapped his fingers, and the two women were immediately aware again. He laughed at their surprise, and then told them that Nyura was now carrying his heir.
“Then why are we still here?” Divsha asked him.
Kolgrim explained his plan to her and to Yamka. They giggled conspiratorially when he finished and, taking his hands in theirs, led him to his bed. Soon the three bodies were entwined in sexual play, and when Kolgrim had finally satisfied his lust on them, and the Lustlings had bathed them, he sent them home.
But not before Yamka said, “How can you be certain I will give Vaclar a son first?” And Divsha nodded.
“I can be sure,” Kolgrim said with a smile. “I will soon be the master of this world, and you can trust in what I say, my pretties.”
14
LARA AWOKE WITH A START. SHE WAS HOME AGAIN in Shunnar, and Kaliq was by her side. She sat up gasping for breath. She had heard the screams, and knew immediately what the sounds portended.
“What is it?” Kaliq asked, immediately awakened when he sensed her distress.
“He has mated her,” Lara said. “I heard her screams in my dream state. In just a few months she will give him his son.”
“We will be long gone,” Kaliq said quietly.
Lara found herself still torn with her need to save Hetar, and her awareness that she could not. It was painful for her, and once again she questioned her life span. What had she really accomplished? If the Twilight Lord was to have Hetar after all, what had it all been for? She understood from what she had been told that her birth, carefully planned by the magic powers of this world, had only been an opportunity to change Hetar’s fate. The chances were that she would not succeed, for as strong as she was Lara knew she was a young power by the standards of the Cosmos. But what had she done wrong that she had failed? She questioned herself over and over again yet could find no answer. Finally after several days she asked Kaliq.
“You did nothing wrong,” he said to her. “Why do you believe you have?”
“Should I not have been able to hold the powers of darkness off longer?” Lara said. “Why did you all tell me I must wait for my destiny? If you had told me what was involved in the first place, perhaps I could have overcome the evil now encroaching upon Hetar and Terah. I am young, I know, but with each year I grow stronger. Why was my birth not planned sooner, Kaliq? If I had been born earlier then I should have had the time I needed.”
“Our warrior had to be born of a specific bloodline, Lara. It was not by chance your faerie mother mated with John Swiftsword, a man thought to be mortal by his fellow Hetarians, but who was actually more faerie. You know that in mortals the bloodline weakens with passing generations, but in the faerie world it strengthens. Your great- grandmother, your father’s grandmother, bore her faerie lover a son that was believed to be her husband’s child. She kept the secret, but it was known in our world and set down in the Book of the Faerie Record. That son bore your father, and you were the third generation born of the line of Lord Rufus and his Hetarian lover, Thea. We had to wait. We had no chance if we did not. And it had to be a female child.”
“Why?” Lara wanted to know.
“While the mortal world considers its females weak, we in the magic world know better,” Kaliq said. “We did not choose to confront the Twilight Lord head-on. A woman has not only her intelligence but her sensuality with which to work. We wanted a female warrior who would be able to sow confusion in the Dark Lands, and you did. It was a great triumph, my love. Never believe your life has been worthless. You gave Hetar more than a century in which to correct itself. For a time after our battle with Ciarda and her false Hierarch, I thought we had turned the tide of Hetar’s fate.”
“But we did not,” Lara said.
“Nay, we did not, and now it is too late.”
“I cannot shake off the feeling that I have failed, Kaliq, and that if I just had a little more time I might turn the tide,” Lara told him.
“That is your son’s influence, Lara, attempting to deceive and beguile you into believing that if you stay just a little while longer you can change Hetar’s fate. You cannot. Come, I would show you something, my love.” Enfolding her within his cloak, he brought them to the oasis of Zeroun, which was one of Lara’s favorite places. He flung back the cape so she might step forth.
Lara looked about her, puzzled. “Where are we, Kaliq?” she asked him. They stood in a desolate and sandy place. She saw the tumbled stone ruins of what looked to have been a well, and the rotting trunks of what had been palm trees. The sand beneath her sandaled feet, and for as far as her eye could see, was bloodred.
“This is Zeroun, Lara. A month ago, the desert sands turn crimson. The waters of the oasis dried up overnight, the well collapsed and the trees and other greenery that once flourished here died in a span of two days. Kolgrim destroyed it because he knows you love it, and he sent to me to tell me what he had done.”
Lara’s face mirrored astonishment. “To destroy such beauty,” she said softly.
Kaliq nodded, and wrapping her again in his cloak, transported them back to Shunnar. “Look down into our valley,” he said.
When she did Lara saw it was empty of the horse herds of the Shadow Princes. “Where are the animals? Where
