Sovereign

He entered her, moved easily in time with her body, His hands felt her skin as smooth as paper. He kissed the sweat off her face and it tasted like dew. Her hair smelled like the earth. In turn she kissed his chest, his cheek, his forehead, his neck and finally his lips. He felt her tongue slide over his own.

Then pain, sudden and sharp, in the back of his throat. He tried to scream but he had no air left. He struggled against her but she was far too strong. She pinned him to the ground, her lips still around his, the needle-like tip of her tongue still impaled in him, sucking out his blood.

But he did not surrender. He placed his hands over the Keys sandwiched between them and held them tight, Strength and warmth shot through his body. The vampire screeched, flew off him into the air. His own blood sprayed down on him. She flapped her giant wings and disappeared into the night sky. He gasped for breath and felt life-giving air fill his lungs, and his eyes opened wide… to see the roof of Charion's private chambers above him, its ornate paintings seeming to come to life in the flickering candlelight beside the bed.

He sat up, panting, and he could taste blood on his tongue. He felt inside his mouth with a finger. There was no wound, and when he withdrew the finger it was unstained. He swung his legs over the side and stood up. The room had windows on two walls. He went to the closest and opened the wooden shutters. Clean night air rushed in, cooling his sweat. An old moon hung low above the horizon. A few wispy clouds faintly patterned the sky.

He gasped in surprise and jerked away from the opening. He had seen something eclipse the moon, the silhouette of a wing. He told his heart to slow down, and his mind to stop imagining things. He peeped out the window. The moon was unchanged. There were no giant wings against the sky. The breeze smelled clean and dry and of ripening grain. It was the smell of autumn.

'Time is running out,' he said softly into the night. 'Time is running out.'

He gathered his clothes and dressed quickly. Two Red Hands looked at him in surprise when he left the room and immediately fell in behind him. Usually he found the close company of his bodyguards irksome, but not tonight.

He found the room he was looking for in a wing of the palace opposite the courtyard from the royal quarters. 'Just like Kendra,' he mumbled to himself. He went to a desk, found paper and pen and ink underneath its lid and brought them out. The two bodyguards stayed at the door.

At first he wrote quickly, but as the minutes passed he slowed down until he was struggling over every word. Nearly an hour later he put the pen down and read what he had written. Then he drew out a second piece of paper and started again, finishing in half the time; this too he read, then folded it carefully and tucked it inside his shirt.

When he returned to his room he found Korigan waiting for him.

'You still awake?' he asked, closing the door behind him and leaving the guards outside.

'I've been thinking about things. I was surprised to find you not only awake but absent.' She patted the bed.

Lynan sat down next to her and kissed her. 'I had some work to do.'

'In the scriptorium.'

He frowned. 'Now how did you know that?'

She held his right hand and opened it palm upwards. 'Ink stains,' she said, and smudged some of it. 'Fresh. Also there's this.' Before he could react her hand darted inside his shirt and took out the folded paper. He tried to snatch it back but she was too quick for him, retreating from the bed and dangling it before him like a lure.

'Letter to some old lover?'

'I don't have any old lovers.'

It was her turn to frown. 'Are you serious?'

Lynan nodded.

'You mean you were a… you know…'

'I am only eighteen,' he said defensively.

'And I was only fifteen,' she retorted, then shrugged. 'Well, maybe you're late developers in the city.'

'I think it's that you Chetts are early starters. It has to do with all the sex you see. The cows do it. The horses do it.'

'Our parents do it.'

'Well, yes, but you don't see…' She was smiling at him with perfect innocence. 'You're not serious?'

'Our parents teach us everything. We don't have schools like in the east, or private tutors like you had.'

'This isn't something any school in the east teaches.'

'And your private tutors?'

He shook his head. 'Regrettably.'

'So I was your first?'

'Yes.'

'I'm flattered.'

'Good,' he said levelly. 'Now can I have my paper back?'

'Personal, is it?'

'Not from you,' he admitted. 'But I'd rather not have it damaged. It took me a long time to write it and I don't want to have to start all over again.'

'I can read it?' she asked.

'Yes.'

Korigan was about to open it, then changed her mind and handed it back to Lynan. 'Not much point, really, if I'm not learning something I'm not supposed to know.'

'Fun or not, it's something you should know. It's a letter to King Tomar.'

'Saying what?'

'Setting out my side of the story about Berayma's murder and subsequent events.'

'The aim being?'

'I conclude by asking him to join me, or at least to offer me no resistance when I move through his territory.'

'So you have decided to move on Kendra through Chandra?'

'It is the obvious way.'

'Something Areava would no doubt be considering.'

'And since it is the obvious way there is no harm in Areava believing it is the way Tomar thinks I will come.'

Korigan's eyes narrowed. 'You are either very clever or very foolish. I cannot make up my mind.'

'Let me put you at your ease, then. I am very clever. Either Tomar joins my cause, in which case the letter has been well worth the time spent on it, or he rejects my cause, in which case he will be duty-bound to inform Areava of the letter's contents.'

Korigan put a finger to her chin. 'In which case the time was still well spent. But you don't expect Areava to believe that going through Chandra is your real intention?'

'As long as she is kept off balance, it doesn't matter which direction she believes I am coming from.'

Korigan laughed lightly. 'Ah, I understand. You yourself don't yet know which direction you'll take.'

'You see through me too easily,' he said.

She snorted. 'Whenever you give in that easily I know, you're not telling me the truth.'

'Aha. That could have been my very intention—'

'Oh, stop it,' she said and leaned forward quickly to kiss him on the lips.

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back. Then a memory of his dream returned, unbidden, and he pulled back. She saw the expression in his face and grimaced.

'You saw her again tonight?'

He nodded, not willing to say her name.

'She is getting stronger,' she said, then held his head in her hands. 'But I am not Silona. I am Korigan. I am queen of the Chetts and I am your lover.' She took his ink-stained hand and placed it under her own shirt, between her breasts. 'That's my heart. It is yours.'

She kissed him again, and this time he held her close and did not let her go.

Ten days after leaving Daavis, Eynon led his column over the Algonka Pass. A cold wind running from the tops of the Ufero Mountains made him shiver as he paused at the highest point of the pass. He could just make out at the edge of the horizon the first pale green flush of the Oceans of Grass, then the first of his troops trotted past, kicking up dust and obscuring the view. He tapped his mount's flanks and caught up to the lead, resisting the temptation to pick up the pace.

He was joined by Makon. They rode together in silence for a long while, then Eynon asked, 'What's your question?'

Makon smiled easily. The months they had spent together on the Oceans of Grass, first in an air of mutual suspicion and later in an air of mutual suspicion mixed with respect, meant they read each other's minds more closely than either would like.