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unmoving, hardly able to breathe or live, I realized he was right. I stopped praying for someone else to save me, and fought only to save myself. Not to let myself die. Not yet-I would die, I knew, but not yet.' Kalen clenched his fists. 'Then, slowly-gods, so slowly-it came back. Feeling. Movement;* Life. I could speak to Cellica again. I told her what I wanted-to die-and she cried. If I had begged her, she would have done it, but

I would not ask that of her. She pleaded with me to wait-to give it a tenday, to see if it got better.' t He closed his eyes and breathed out.

¦ 'It did. Slowly, with Cellica behind me every moment, I recovered,' Kalen said. 'But I knew it was only temporary. When we had the coin to hire a priest, he told us I still bore the spellplague within me-a spellscar fesrering at my core. Perhaps I'd had it from birth.' He flexed his fingers.

'Some bear an affliction of the spirit, mind, or heart-mine is in my body. The numbness will return-is returning-gradually, over time. And with it, my body dies, little by little.' He shrugged. 'I feel less pain-less of everything. And though it makes me stronger, faster, able to endure more than most men, ultimately, it will kill me.'

Kalen looked toward the window at the rain hammering the city.

'I had a choice,' he said. 'I could waste my life dreading it, or I could accept it. I followed the path that lay before me. I accepted Helm's legacy, and followed the Eye of Justice.'

As though his voice had lulled her into a trance from which she was just waking, Fayne blinked and pursed her lips. 'Helm? As in, the god of guardians? The dead god of guardians?'

Kalen said nothing.

'I don't know if you know your history, but Helm died almost a hundred years ago,' Fayne said. 'Your powers can't come from a dead god-so what deity grants them?'

Kalen had asked himself the same question so many times. 'Does it really matter?'

Fayne smiled. 'No,' she said, as she leaned closer to him. 'No, it doesn't.'

She caressed his ear with her lips, and her teeth. Kalen could just feel it-enough to know what she was doing-which meant she was probably hurting him. He didn't care.

She dipped a little and bit at the soft spot at the end of his jaw. She pressed her cheek to his, letting her warm breath excite the hairs on his neck.

Erik Scott de Bie

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Through it all, Kalen stayed still as a statue.

'I know you can feel this.' Fayne's eyes were sly. 'I wonder what else I can make you feel. Things that little girl couldn't dream ofthings your mistress Araezra doesn't know.'

Kalen smiled thinly. 'Only,' he said, 'only if you give me something.'

'And what,' she asked, kissing his numb lips, 'is that?' 'Tell me your name,' Kalen said.

Fayne stepped back and regarded him coolly. 'You don't trust me, even now?' He shrugged.

'Very well. Can't blame you, really,' Fayne said. 'Rien. That's my real-'

Kalen shook his head. 'No. It isn't.'

'Gods!' Fayne laid her head on his shoulder and pressed herself hard against him, kissing his neck once more. He felt her sharp teeth, which meant they must have drawn blood. She wiped her lips before she drew away to speak to him, so he could not know for certain. 'Rien is my true name, given me by my mother before she died.'

'And it means 'trick' in Elvish,' Kalen said. 'No need to trick me.'

She swore mildly, still smiling. Then she nibbled his earlobe and breathed into his ear. He knew his senseless skin awakened and went red, but he could not feel it.

Kalen sighed. 'You can stop lying,' he said.

'Eh?' Fayne clutched his lips hard enough for him to feel-hard enough to draw blood.

'You don't have to pretend to love me,' Kalen said.

With a last, lingering kiss on the corner of his lip, Fayne pulled away and faced him squarely. His eyes glittered in the candlelight.

'How dare you,' she said, half-jesting and half-serious.

'All this,' Kalen said. 'This is just an act. Isn't it?'

Her face went cold and angry, shedding all pretense of jest. 'How dare you.' %

Fayne snapped up her hand to strike him, but he caught it and held her arm in place. nan

'That time,' Kalen said, 'your anger told the truth.'

Fayne said nothing for a long time. Kalen put his hand on her ejbow and though he held it only lightly, he might as well have bound her in iron.

'It's still that girl, isn't it?' Fayne accused. She raised one finger to point at him. 'It's that little blue-headed waif with her tattoos you fancy, isn't it?'

She drew the bone wand from her belt and flicked it around her head. An illusion fell over her, cascading down like sparks to illumine her form, which shrank and tightened, billowed out a scarlet silk gown, and became Myrin.

'Is this what you want?' came the soft, exotic voice. Fayne in Myrin's image knelt and pressed her hands together. 'Please, Kalen-please ravage me! Oh, ye gods!' She caressed herself and moaned. 'I just can't stand the waiting, Kalen! Oh, please! Oh, take me now!'

Kalen shrugged. 'This is beneath even you.'

'Even me, eh? You have no idea how low I can sink,' Fayne said with Myrin's voice. 'Wouldn't you like that, Kalen? To see your little sweetling as wicked is I can be?'

'She's far too good for me,' Kalen said. 'For any of us.'

'And I'm what-a perfect fit?' She flicked her tongue at him. 'You disgust me.'

'No,' Kalen said, 'I don't.'

'Oh?' Fayne crossed her arms-Myrin's arms-and regarded him with an adorable pout.

She took out her wand again and broke the illusion. Her half-elf form reappeared, wavered over something darker, then settled. It was brief, but it made him wonder…

'Why, O wise knight of shadows,' she said, 'why don't I hate you?'

'Because you're like me,' Kalen said. 'A lover of darkness.'

Fayne stared at him another moment, anger and challenge in her eyes. Every bit of him burned-wanted him to lunge forward and grasp her, wrench the blanket from her body, throw the paladin aside and free the thief at his heart.

'I should go,' she said finally. 'You and I… she's the one for you, Kalen, not I. She is better for you.' Fayne made to leave, but Kalen stopped her. This time, his grip was firm.

'I know well what's better for me,' Kalen said. 'And I want you instead.'

Fayne blinked at him, wordless.

'Show me.' Kalen ran his fingers along her cheek. 'I want to see your face.'

He saw the shift in her stance, could almost feel every hair on her body rise. He felt her bristle, the way a lion might just before ir pounces. 'But you do see my face,' she said, her tone dangerous. 'I stand here before you, no illusions.'

'That's a lie,' Kalen said. 'I've taken my mask off for you-take yours off for me.'

He still held her by the wrist. Could he feel the blood thundering in her veins, or was he imagining it? His grip lessened.

'Run,' Kalen said, 'or take off your mask. Choose.'

'Kalen, you can't-' she said. 'Please. I'm frightened.'

Perhaps I am cruel, Kalen thought. But Gedrin had taught him the value of pain, with that clout on the ear. Pain reveals who we truly are.

'You want it to be real, then choose.' He shook his head. 'I won't ask again.'

Trembling, Fayne looked at him for three deep breaths. He was sure-so sure-that she would run. But then she drew her wand from her belr with a steady hand. He saw the tension in her body, practically felr her insides roiling and tossing like a rickety boat in a god-born storm, but she stayed calm.

She was like the thief he had been, he thought.

'Very well,' she said.