set but had no choice but to step forward. He nodded his agreement.
“We will allow this.”
Tylar could not hold back his surprise and spoke too soon. “Then we have a bargain.”
“Almost… we will allow you to restrain your seed, for now, to keep it safe where it now resides. But we demand a future claim.”
Tylar frowned at this.
“Before you die, you must forfeit your seed to the Wyr.”
He shook his head. “Death can come suddenly, without warning. I cannot promise time to cast my seed.”
The Wyr-lord nodded. “We accept this risk, but in doing so, we require one last concession to seal the bargain.”
“And what is that?”
“One of the Wyr will journey with you from here, to safeguard our claim, to keep its bearer secure.”
“You wish to send a guard along with us?”
“That is our last and best offer.”
Tylar glanced to Rogger. He had remained silent. His only assistance now was a shrug.
Tylar faced the Wyr-lord. He still felt the presence of the noose, but they had no other option.
With a deep sigh, he nodded. “We accept your bargain.”
“So it is spoken, so it is bound,” the lord finished. The woman turned, obeying some unseen signal, driven and ridden like a barebacked horse. “Meet your guardian.”
Tylar prepared himself to face some heaving monstrosity, some muscled mix of loam-giant and Wyr-blasted corruption.
The guardian stepped into the doorway.
Tylar’s eyes widened in shock.
She was as tall as Krevan, stately of limb, decked in deer-skin from boots to furred collar, cut low between her ample breasts. The curves of her body seemed to ripple as she entered the chamber, moving like some feral black leopard. Her ebony hair fell straight to her shoulders, unbraided, untamed. Her skin was the hue of bitternut: dark, but mixed with cream. Her black eyes bore the slightest narrowed pinch, accentuating her feline grace. Her lips were full, nose narrow.
Her calm gaze swept the room and settled on Tylar. A perfume of crushed lilies carried in with her… accompanied by a deeper, muskier scent that quickened Tylar’s breath as he attempted to capture it.
“May I introduce Wyr-mistress Eylan,” the babe-lord said.
Rogger mumbled behind Tylar, “You’d better keep a close eye on that seed of yours. Something tells me you might be giving it sooner than you expected… and willingly at that.”
So here was the Wyr-lord’s trap.
Tylar watched Eylan bow, moving with such unassuming grace.
A trap baited most beautifully.
Deep underground, Tylar stepped from the steaming chamber where a hot spring bubbled. Smelling of salt and iron, the air had seared and drawn sweat from all his pores. Wearing only a breechcloth, he shivered as he entered the neighboring cell, ready to let his sweat be harvested by Wyrd Bennifren’s alchemist.
“Tylar…”
The new voice startled him, unexpected as it was.
Delia stood in the chamber.
He half-covered his nakedness as she crossed toward him.
Past her shoulder, at the entrance, he spotted the thicklimbed giant with the bony brow-his guard-and the wizened old alchemist who wheezed constantly. In the company of these two Wyr-men, Tylar had already emptied bowel and bladder. He had spat until his mouth was paste and had sniffed ground nettlecorn until his nose dripped heavily. Everything had been collected in crystal receptacles, ready for some dark purpose, the thought of which unnerved Tylar.
Delia spoke when she reached his side, glancing askance at his body. “I’ve convinced them to allow me to harvest your last three humours. Blood and tears are especially delicate to collect. And as a chosen Hand, I’ve the most experience.”
He nodded.
She smelled of sweetwater and lemon. Clearly she had been allowed to bathe. Her hair was damp and combed back behind her ears. It looked even blacker, almost oiled. And she had changed out of her muddy wear and into a soft shift of green linen, belted at the waist with a braid of bleached leathers. The shift clung fetchingly to her. He noted how fair shaped she was: apple-sized breasts, slender waist.
So young… too young, he reminded himself. Still, he could not discount how she shortened his breath, especially now. With the mud of the road washed from her, she came to him less like a fellow companion and more like a woman.
She stepped to his side and unrolled a silk scarf atop a table, revealing an array of silver and crystal utensils. She picked up a glass blade and crystal cup. She waved him to the table. “Lift your arms.”
He did as she instructed. “You don’t have to do this…”
“I served Meeryn,” she said. “I will serve her still.”
She drew the dull edge of the blade along his heat-dampened skin, from shoulder to waist, scraping the sweat from his body. She deftly collected the runoff into the tiny cup, then continued across his back, under his arms, down his legs, not unlike a stableman brushing down a sweated horse.
But she was no stableman.
As she stepped around to work his chest, he felt himself stir and fought against it, willing himself to distraction. But she continued her work, moving the blade up and down his chest, scraping delicately and smoothly.
Unbidden, a shiver trembled through him.
She finally seemed to note the flush to his skin. She glanced up to his eyes and saw something that widened her lashes. She lowered the blade. “I… I think that will be enough.”
Gratefully, he slipped into a cloak, covering his half-naked form before turning back to her.
Delia set up for the next harvest, laying out a silver lancet and twisting up a cord of silk.
Tylar cleared his throat, needing to break the silence. “Delia,” he began, his voice coming out strained. “You’ve done much to get me here, given up much, risked more. But now that I’ve reached the First Land-”
Without looking up, she cut him off. “I’m not leaving your side. Meeryn is inside you. She is still my duty.”
“What’s inside me is not Meeryn,” he pressed. “She died.”
“No.” Delia continued her preparation.
Tylar took a deep breath, glanced to the door, then back to Delia. He lowered his voice. “What is inside me is not spellcast daemon but one of the naethryn.”
Delia glanced up again, eyes narrowed.
Tylar moved closer. “One of the undergods.”
“How do you know this?”
He balked at telling her about his dream. “I just know.”
Delia motioned for him to kneel before her. He did. Their knees now touched. She sat silent for a long breath, her brow crinkled. “I should have considered that possibility,” she finally mumbled.
Tylar frowned. “What do you mean?”
She took his arm and rested his hand in her lap, palm up, then tied the silk at his elbow. “When the gods were sundered, they were split into three parts: the gods of flesh here, and their counterparts up in the aether and down in the naether. Meeryn had spoken of how she could sense her other parts, lost to her, but still there, tied ethereally and eternally.”
“Until now.”
Delia nodded. “Somehow Meeryn, as she died, must have used this tie to draw a part of herself into you. Her naethryn self.”
Tylar glanced down to the black palm print.
