Hanging On - Chapter One
 
The gallows were still, the rope hanging from them twisting in the breeze.

Andrea shivered as she looked at the faces of the crowd. People she knew, and yet seemed not to know at all; they seemed carved in wax, pallid and glistening. Every pair of eyes was focused on the slender noose that swayed and danced like a snake charming its prey.

 And if it sought prey, the pale-skinned girl standing in the crowd was a prime suspect. Her thick golden hair was hidden beneath the hood of her cloak, only a few fey strands escaping to float over her face like spun sunlight. Her eyes were a pensive amber, clear and heavy as sap, and filled with fear.

 She drew her cloak a little tighter around her slight form and tried to remain unnoticeable.

 The man clad in black who stood on the gallows let his gaze sweep the crowd. He was an imposing figure; she had seen this routine too many times now. Like some terrible judge, he looked into their hearts, seeking out the corruption he hated so.

 "Ain't he something?" a woman murmured behind her, satisfied. "Gettin' rid of all the filth."

 "They all dances the hemp fandango," agreed a man. "Can't hide behind their cheatin' magics now. No one hides from him."

 But I have, Andrea thought grimly.

 It had been two gruelling months since the first hanging, and every time he came to their village, she feared she would be next. Eleven deaths already, one only a little boy who screamed and screamed until the rope choked off his voice, and each time she felt her own mortality - her own corruption - choking off her breath in shocked sympathy.

  Not me, she thought, and tried to shrink back among the still crowd. But each time his eyes slid near her, she felt a tingle down her spine, like iced lightning. The thought began to congeal into something else, something fast and panicked.

 Notmenotmenotmenotme...

 Her crime? Her corruption?

 She was Gifted. Gifted; and cursed because of it.

 And not all her magick would save her from that stark man upon the gallows. One man had been a battle-mage, and even though he had thrown fire, he swung like all the rest. What chance did her gentle healing power have?

  Oh, not me, she prayed silently. Please Mithros, Lady Goddess, I never even used my powers! Please, please, not me.

 The executioner lifted one hand and pointed.

 The crowd parted from that finger like waves rolling back, one solid mass of human fear. Their faces turned, blank as eggshells, as one to follow the direction of that accusing, pointing finger.

 Drawing back, splitting to leave a clean path on the cobbles that led to...

 Andrea.

~*~

 She woke trembling, sweat-soaked, tracing a pattern that lit the air with the golden light of her Gift before she remembered that that way led only to the gallows and instead, shivered in the darkness, hearing her own harsh breathing.

 "It's all right," she whispered to herself. "It's only a dream. It doesn't mean anything."

 But it was the third time she had had that same dream, identical to every fearful twitch. There was a vividness to it that she could not ignore.

 I have to get out of here. I have to get out of this place.

 After all, she had nothing to stay for. Her parents were dead from the plague that had decimated the town because these Gift-fearing fools had killed their healers. And what did the same fools whisper while they coughed their last?

 That the Gifted had sent it.

 Andrea had no one. She lived alone in her parents' house, pretending that she didn't mind the dark or the silence, because either of those was better than what awaited her in another house.

 The dawn was seeping through the cracks in her shutters now, a pale thin light, but light nonetheless.

 She banished the dream from her mind with an effort and got up to begin another day.

~*~

 "Out of my way, Hana!" Ryan hissed as he slithered over the threshold to hide behind the splintered wood of the door.

 "Guards after you again, are they?" Hana murmured, wagging a finger at him. Her emerald eyes danced as she took in his muddy state and the small bag of coin he clutched to him.

 He shook his head, touching a finger to his lips as he crouched in the shadows of her home. She looked at him, puzzled, then heard the shouts as men came running up the narrow street. With an infuriated hiss, she stepped into the doorway as if she were any other gawking commoner.

 "Seen a boy, missus?" A man's voice. Ryan scrunched himself up small in the dubious concealment that the door offered him. "Short, scrawny, dark hair. Carrying coin. Streetrat."

 Hana's voice was smooth as honey and every bit as sweet. "A boy? Why, I've not seen anyone but you handsome soldiers."

 Ryan would have loved to see the soldier's face. Hana Dharaz's charms were notorious in their district, and her exuberant prices equally famous. With her snaking dark-red hair and full, curving mouth, she could tempt almost anyone, and did. Hana classed herself as a working women, but most of Corus classed her as something else entirely.

 "He's a thief," the soldier said, but some of the business-like tone had vanished from his voice to be replaced by admiration. "Robbed a noble."

 "The nobles should learn to keep their purses close to their hearts," the woman said dryly, and gave a husky laugh. Through a crack in the door, he could see her slide her hand along the soldier's arm.

 Don't overdo it, Ryan thought, squirming a little in his cramped hiding place.

 "Aye, they should." The soldier sounded amused now. "But it's not for the likes of us to give nobles orders."

 "Not unless we want a floggin'," Hana agreed. "As you can see, there's no boy here." She stepped back to let the soldier see the empty room. Ryan prayed he didn't decide to take a closer look around. "My taste runs to men."

 "Does it now?" The soldier was smiling. "Perhaps I'll pay you a visit when I'm off duty."

 "I'm always happy to help the King's men, and at a very reasonable price," she said, and glanced over her shoulder. "But I've bread burnin', so if you'll excuse me...?"

 "Of course. Later, madam."

 The door shut and then Hana was scowling down at him, her hands planted firmly on her hips. "Stealin' from nobles, Ryan Talver? I thought you knew better!"

 Ryan stood up, shaking the kinks out of his limbs and threw the bag to her. "Bread burnin'? That ain't the kind of dough ye be known for, Hana. Ye must have fuddled him to get away with that lie."

 "And it ain't yeast I make rise," she capped, and he couldn't help but grin.

"Anyway, he continued, "I wouldn't a' got caught if he'd not turned to look at a woman. And I got ye some new business, didn't I?"

 "I can get my own business, lad," Hana retorted coolly. "But I can't afford the fines if I'm caught hidin' you. And a damn good hidin's what you need.." Then he heard her inhale sharply as she opened the bag. "Mithros' shield, boy, you've done us proud this time!"

 She upturned the back and a collection of coins tumbled onto the floor, all glittering gold or silver.

 "Not only a rich 'un, but a fool too." She split the pile into half, raking her fingers through the metal, and took her share with a rueful smile. "More than I earn in a month."

 More than either of them had ever earned when they had the protection of the Court of the Rogue, before Hana decided they'd make more profit alone. They had worked together for almost all of his life, ever since the strange girl with vivid green eyes had taken him under her wing after he had been beaten and left to die in an alley.

 "I've never seen so much," he said in soft awe, his thin face alight. "We'll not need to work again, Hana!"

 She shook her head, amused. "It'll not buy as much as you'd think, lad."

 "We could get out of here," he whispered, and Hana's heart ached at the innocence and hope in his dove-grey eyes. "Be proper, like. Not have to live in the slums. We could live in the country, Hana!"

 Oh, you poor dreamer, she wanted to say. Ryan was fifteen and one of the toughest streetrats around. He'd had to be to survive. But she hadn't realised that little flame of naivety still burnt in him and she didn't want to destroy it.

 "Aye," she said gently.

 She was twelve years older herself, and had never forgotten her first glimpse of him, a battered child with startling strength - he should have died the day his da beat the life and magic from him, but he had clung on, his eyes ferocious under the bruises, glaring out at her with more anger than pleading.

 She had taken him back to her home, thinking he should at least die in peace. But he hadn't died, he had lived and become a useful thief, bringing his fair share to their odd partnership.

 "I'm goin' to go an' get us a fittin' dinner," Ryan announced cheerfully. His dark hair clung to his face, briefly hiding the long scar that ran from his ear to his jaw. "Reckon there won't be no need for scavengin' others' leavings now."

 I reckon money won't get us as far from the slums of Corus as you think, Hana thought sadly.

 It was enough to keep them well-fed for a year or two, no more. But she would let Ryan keep his dream.

~*~

"Is that it?"

 There were malicious giggles echoing across the still air like windchimes.

 "No wonder it wanted to be a knight." The clear voices, toned by hours of elocution, made her flush angrily and run the currycomb over Peachblossom's back painfully hard. He shifted, one hock nudging her. "It's far too ugly to get married. Who'd want that for a husband?"

 "Sorry," Keladry of Mindelan whispered to her horse, feeling her face burn angrily. Goddess blest, she was tired of hearing those useless girls giggle and snigger. They followed her around, she was sure, enjoying watching her hurry away hastily whenever she heard the whisper of expensive fabric.

 "No one with any breeding," an arch voice declared. Without turning to look at them, Kel knew it was Bruna.

 Bruna, with her long twisted brunette hair that Kel thought was long enough to throttle the scheming witch with. With her sultry eyes and promising smile that had half the squires sighing and the other half writing songs that were murderously dreadful.

 On second thoughts, maybe she should encourage them to go and caterwaul at the noblewoman.

 "I hear it has Cleon of Kennan lusting after it," said a chiming voice that rang so loud, Kel buried her face in Peachblossom's side as Faleron stopped arguing with Neal and both turned to look at her.

 "I hate them," she said wearily, lifting her hazel eyes to them. "They've been at it all week."

 "Well," said Bruna, lifting her drawling voice to make sure the entire stable could hear, "*I* hear he has a bet on with Vinson of Garvey. Who can kiss a pig first. It seems to me that Cleon's winning."

 Kel felt heat tingle through her entire body. I am stone, she counselled herself. I am stone...and they're a bunch of-

 "Bruna's only joking, Kel," Faleron began in the usual half-dazed, besotted way he adopted whenever her name came up. "She's lovely really. She smiled at me yesterday..."

 "It was probably just wind," Kel said sourly and winced at Faleron's outraged glare. Here we go again, she thought. Extolling of virtues, part one, followed by lecture on gentlewomen.

 Her handsome friend took a deep breath while Neal caught Kel's eyes and grinned. Why you? she thought as Faleron began to tell her about the beauty of Bruna's eyes, though she privately noticed his eyes were on two things somewhat lower. Of all the people, why my best friend?

 It still hurt her a little to see Neal and feel that pang of sweet-sharp pain. It wasn't love...after all, at fourteen, she was scarce old enough for that, but it was certainly something strong enough to throw little splinters into her life.

 "Fal!" Neal interrupted, his wry smile lighting candles in her heart, "Enough! She's pretty, but she's not *that* pretty. But if we're going to talk about women, well, Isobelle of Garfen, I swear she must be descended from a sylph, the way her feet barely seem to touch-"

 Kel left her two friends waxing lyrical about the ladies living in their hearts temporarily, and crossed over to the palace, making sure she avoided the gaggle of giggling ladies.

 I hate my life, she thought miserably. I just want to get away from here.

 Maybe bright Mithros, sitting in the Realms of the Gods, took pity on this most unique of his warriors; maybe he smiled, and drew a finger through the shimmering webs of human fate. Maybe Sithri, the Fate-god wished to weave a more interesting thread in the warp of humanity.

 Either way, her wish was about to be granted.

 But what Kel didn't know was that gods like entertainment as much as anyone.

Andrea clutched her cloak close as she meandered through the streets. She kept her strange, hawk's eyes down, her Gifted, cursed hands clasped tight around her bag. People drifted by like wraiths, every stare hard and apprehensive.

 She knew that they all watched her; after all, her mother had been a hedgewitch, hadn't she? She surely would have hung if the plague hadn't come.

 They suspected...but they had no proof. Andrea took care not to give them that. For oh, Goddess blazing, the walk was so short, and the last drop so long.

 But she was in trouble and she knew it. What little money her parents had left after they entered the Realms of the Dead was running out; no one would employ her, but neither could she leave - they told such terrible tales about the outside world, about the thieves, the murderers, the dreadful, wicked sorcerers, and worse.

 Worse than the gallows? a voice asked her.

 There must be worse things, part of her whispered back. And what if...what if they're right? What if I am cursed?

 It was a doubt that had niggled in her heart since the executioner arrived. But how could her golden, healing light be evil? She had never harmed a soul, nor would she have refused anyone help, had they ever asked.

 She reached the market and hurried over to Jaton's stall. He was a dour man, with dark, shifting eyes, but his produce was good quality and low priced. She watched him finish his haggling with a stout woman before timorously stepping forward to buy her meagre lot for the week.

 She gasped at the price. "But that's gone up from last week!"

 "Aye, what of it?" His eyes piercing her so Andrea wanted to shield her face, to let her hair hide her from his eyes. "Some has to pay more. You just happen to be one of them."

 "But..." Her protests died. "I have so little money," she tried.

 "Mebbe you should marry then." His eyes glittered greedily, looking her over in a way that made her insides squirm unpleasantly. "There's some as would be glad to look after you."

 She felt her face flame as she paid the money, trying to avoid touching his hand. She had seen the looks many of the men cast her way, looking no doubt at the seething gold of her eyes and the wind-tossed tumble of her hair.

 Child of a Scanran father, as much of an oddity as her hedgewitch mother, Andrea was unusual in a village of dark, sullen men and women, a stray gem fallen in dirt. Glowing, rare, throwing rainbows where she passed.

 "Jaton!" The sharp voice was the man's wife and his appraising leer quickly faded as he turned to look at the woman.

 "Aye, Lethna, what is it?"

 The woman's dark eyes were glittering with malice and she stared hard at Andrea. Her voice was rich with satisfaction. "There's a meeting today. The Executioner has found another. There'll be a pretty dance this evening."

 She felt her stomach plummet. The dream! Gods above, it was coming true! Andrea turned away hastily, but not fast enough to miss that insinuating, triumphant whisper.

 "That girl'll swing, you mark my words."

~*~

"Ouch." Ryan winced as Hana bathed the cut on his head. "That stings."

 "O' course it stings, you fool," she snapped, half-tempted to put salt into the water. "That's what happens when ye get yourself involved in street brawls. What was it this time?"

 "One of the thieves was..." Ryan squirmed uneasily, and his eyes, flecks of bright, impossible blue like shattered sapphires glinting in them, slid away from hers. "...he was sayin' things about you, like."

 "You were fightin' over my honour?" Hana snorted, but sobered at the hurt in that thin face. "Lad, I sell my honour for a pretty price. I don't care what they say about me. I say far worse about them."

 "Yeah, well, I got them good. An' there was three of them." Then he glanced at her uneasily. "Hana...one of them said somethin' funny."

 "Funny?" she asked, and was startled to see the blue flecks swell and flood his eyes until they were pure, blazing blue, like the sky at false dawn. She tried not to be afraid; the magic that ran in Ryan's blood was Gods-gifted, even though the lad wasn't aware of it.

 As a child, he'd often had prophetic dreams - his foresight had saved them from the Provost's men, from the vengeance of the Rogue, from a thousand things great and small. When he had realised that this was not normal, he had been so scared by the thought something was wrong with him, she had lied and said it was the gods blessing them, pretending to have had the same dreams herself.

 "One of them called me...a...a..." He flushed abruptly. "He said I was a fireborn freak. An' that they should a' drowned me at birth, an' that my da had tried to, afore you came along."

 Oh dear. Hana stopped tending his hurts to try and hold that power-filled stare.

 What she could say? Deny it? How often had she seen that azure halo shimmering round his body while she slept? Hadn't she shivered at it, a gleaming mist cloaking him when he lay in that alley some ten years back, battered and broken? What about the rains that howled from the sky when he sorrowed, the winds that tore apart the streets when he raged?

 Maybe it was time he knew. She had heard that unlearned magic could be dangerous. And though every sense told his this quiet, cunning streetboy who was so fiercely protective of her could never do harm intentionally, well, what about unintentionally?

 "They was right, Ryan," she said, sitting back and watching his face carefully. "You have the Gift. All those strange things you ain't never been able to explain...the way you always knows where anythin' I lose is, how you sometimes dreams true...it's all your Gift."

 "My...Gift?" he whispered uncertainly. And suddenly he didn't look fifteen at all, but frighteningly vulnerable and afraid. "But I ain't never done anythin' magic, like."

 "You have, lad," she murmured. "You just didn't know."

 "I got the Gift." Not a question, but a stumbling truth. "I got the Gift."

"Yes," she answered, her emerald eyes a little worried. "Look, I'm goin' to get a potion to heal them bruises. You stay here...try an' sleep, that'll help. Dream sweet, Ryan."

 And with those now wholly blue eyes filled with wonder, all traces of grey eradicated, he curled into a corner of her dark house and slept.

 The moment it began, he knew it was a true dream. The air held that oddly clear quality, the harsh lights and sharp planes of reality, not the misty softness of imagination.

 The gallows confirmed that. The gallows - and the screams.

 Evening fell swift as an axe.

 And Andrea, huddled amidst the swarming crowd of people, felt the sigh of its blade rushing towards her. The cool of the evening reflected the icy fear wrapping itself around her heart, and she clasped her hands tight together and wished only that the glowing sunset should not be her last.

 She hadn't wanted to come, but Jaton had knocked on her door and offered to escort her. There had a note in his voice which said refusal would be - unwise. Now he and his wife flanked her, blocky and forbidding.

 The gallows stood, so tall and imposing, in the centre of the courtyard. She could hear the gleeful, excited hum of conversation that ran all around her, felt the spiteful gazes that swung to her. Did they know, or did they only suspect?

 It might be all right, she told herself. It might not be you he wants. There must be other Gifted here. Surely...surely I cannot be the only one left.

 But the dream, another, darker voice whispered. The dream that comes to you every night. You will die. You know it.

 I know it, she thought dully. Goddess bright, I know it and I cannot stop it.

~*~

 "Don't you think it should know how to walk at least?" Bruna said coolly. Her brown eyes scorched Kel with her contempt. "Instead of striding along. Like a man."

 "I'd rather stride than shuffle like someone had tied my feet together," Kel said sharply and immediately regretted it. She shouldn't have answered. That was acknowledging that the 'it' they referred to was her. It was letting them see they were irking her.

 "Oh!" One black eyebrow arched in mock horror. "So it does have a voice. But it doesn't seem to realise what it's saying."

 The other girl with her giggled. She was a vapid, pretty thing, clad in lavender silk that was cut low and long. Kel shouldn't have envied her big confused violet eyes or glittering, empty smile, but she did.

 For all the parts of her that loved the thrill of a fight, the wind rushing in her hair when Peachblossom charged the quintain, there were the others parts that quailed at the thought of mud and shivered at the thought of Neal of Queenscove's clear green eyes.

 "Does it have anything else to say?" Bruna drawled, beginning to circle Kel with tiny, delicate steps. She held her skirts up, so as not to trail them through the imaginary dirt of the pristine floor. "Or is that the limit of its intelligence?"

 I will not hit her, I will not give in...

 "Bruna!"

 Kel wouldn't have thought she would actually be glad to see the lovesick Faleron, but she thanked Mithros and heaved a silent sigh of relief.

 Her dark-haired friend was smiling sweetly at Bruna. "There's to be jousting on the practice courts soon. I...that is we," he said hastily, looking at Kel. She was amused to see he was actually trying to hide the fact he had fallen for that dark-haired witch faster than a first-year off a startled horse. "...would like you to watch."

 "I'll think about it," Bruna said off-handedly, fanning her hand out to examine her nails. "I'm very busy."

 "After all," Kel put in, astonished at the depth of her hate, "she has paying customers to attend to."

 Bruna went a shade of scarlet that Kel had only seen on sunrises. "You-"

 "Kel!" Faleron said in horror, his handsome face aghast. "How could you say that?"

 She blinked. Why was he turning on her? Had he really thought all the nasty comments Bruna and her pack had been making were jokes? He'd happily have pounded Joren for the same insult to her, but passed of Bruna's malice as humour.

"It was easy," she snapped back. "I just looked at that witch and inspiration struck me."

"Kel!" His mouth was hanging open.
 
Her hazel eyes were no longer dreamy but fierce as a firestorm. "We've established that's my name." She glared at Bruna. "Maybe you'd do well to remember it."

 The noblewoman's face didn't look so lovely now, twisted with anger. Her vapid companion was gazing about blankly, as if she didn't quite understand what was going on.

 "I shall report this to your knight-master!" Bruna declared in a furious flurry.

 "Go ahead," Kel said coolly. "It was worth it. Do your customers say the same?"

 And she walked away before the wrathfully mouthing courtesan could reply.

 Thank you Mithros, she thought, for letting me speak my mind to that witch. She smiled.

~*~

 "We have come to hear the truth..."

 Dear Goddess, that voice, so dark, so deadly, its harmonies choking her.

 It would have been better if the executioner had shouted, if there had been anything in his voice except calm and darkness. For the darkness had no compassion, and without compassion there was no hope, no life. Only the clutch of a rope and the long drop.

 "And the truth is this. There is a plague that walks among us. It is a disease that we have destroyed, piece by piece, until the final shreds of it crouch in the shadows, trying to defeat us by stealth. But we will not allow this. We will wipe out those cursed with the Gift, not to save ourselves, but to save them."

 The slice and bite of those fatal black eyes razing the crowd while Andrea felt tension tight in her chest...for this was how it began.

 And the words came to her as if underwater, until she felt as if she drifted on an unstoppable tide that waited to drag her onto rocks, to batter her until there was nothing of Andrea Kirisra left, only this gibbering fear.

 "And these monsters, these creatures deformed not in body, but in spirit cannot understand that we are saving them. They will fight, and they will kill; but know this...that whatever they throw at us, we will save them all the same, and take the poison from them with this."

 He held up the noose and the crowd murmured in approval. She could see the change in them beginning; they no longer thought as individuals but as one shadowy mass, becoming more and more bestial as their faces contorted through hate, through anger and finally, through the most dreadful thing Andrea thought she would ever see.

Fear.

 Goddess burning in the moon, they feared her.

 Am I so terrible? she wanted to cry. I would never harm you...I could never harm any of you.

 "I have found the last that cowers in our midst. And I shall seek it out, and we shall take the curse from it and set it free."

 The crowd held its breath and Andrea felt the tiny knot of tension inside her begin to build, to bloom like a flower of flames, until she thought she would scream her anguish and her terror to the indigo skies above.

 And as that dreadful, compassionless voice feel silent, she saw his hand lift, blistering a trail across the crowd as they parted from it, drawing back like dark curtains so that familiar, cobbled path arrowed away from the gallows, the path that drew from that long drop...

 It was just as she had known it would be.

 He pointed at her.

~*~

 "What were you thinking, Kel?" Lord Raoul of Goldenlake sighed. His coal black eyes were caught somewhere between resignation and amusement. "Bruna of Farbrook? Of all the people to make an enemy of..."

 "I got tired of her comments," said Kel stubbornly.

 He had found her in the stables, angrily forking hay from the loft; so angry, she even forgot her fear of heights briefly. The moment he appeared, the rush of anticipation in her stomach had nearly caused her to fall - Bruna had carried out her threat.

 But now she had dusted off the few flecks of chaff, and kept her head high and her hazel eyes firmly fixed on her knight-master. He was, as ever, imposing in his gleaming armour, but Kel was one of the few people not to be over-awed by him.

 Her knight-master's stare intensified abruptly. "What comments?"

 She shrugged, nervously washing her fingers in her palm. "All week, they've been following me. Saying...things." She swallowed. She hadn't realised just how much all those little verbal stabs had hurt.

 "Things, Kel?" Raoul's voice was gentle and he gestured for her to sit down.

 "About girls being knights. The usual." If she thought about it too hard, it made the back of her eyes tingle with suspicious warmth. No! She tilted her head up proudly. "And other things."

 "Things you aren't going to tell me?" the tall knight said shrewdly. He raked a hand through his black hair. "Can you prove any of this?" His eyes were serious; he believed her, but others would not.

 "The boys heard," she murmured darkly. "But...they thought it was a joke. They only see what they want to."

 "That's the case with most people in this life, I'm afraid," Raoul said, his bass voice rumbling soothingly. "I'm sorry, Kel. You'll just have to take whatever punishment Bruna gives you. But...some advice."

 She looked at him and saw the glint of mischief was back in his eyes. "Sir?"

 "Next time you take it upon yourself to tell Bruna the truth...make sure no one else can hear you."

 She grinned despite her gloom. "I will."

~*~

 Her paralysis broke and Andrea turned to flee.

 Hands grabbed her arms and held her back. Jaton's wife was grinning, her nails digging into Andrea's skin.

 "No, no, lass," she crooned. "You'll not be leaving that way."

 "Let go!" she shouted and tried to wrench away to no avail. "Please, don't!"

 In answer, a horrible, chilling howl came back from the crowd, a sound that had no words, but only a primal promise of blood and death and darkness.

Andrea fought frantically, managing to land several slaps and kicks on the people dragging her towards that horribly still noose, towards that dark inhuman executioner. But inch by reluctant inch, yard by painful yard, the gallows loomed and then those cold eyes met hers.

 And she was held by what she saw in them.

 She was falling, slipping into an endless abyss, inky-black as the clutches of the crypt, where not even her golden fire could bring light. Those eyes swallowed her whole and dragged her down, down, down.

 Where something was waiting for her.

 Something ancient and formless, crouched in the soul of this man with its claws ready to sink into her soul and her Gift, pitiless as the desert storms.

 Something evil.

 And oh, Mithros shield her...

 Something ravenous. It called to her magic like some terrible cousin, and she saw with uncomprehending dismay that he too had magic. Not the Gift; she knew what that felt like, but something else. Something other, black and awful-

And then that contact broke, and she found herself with the noose closing tight around her neck, and her hands held by someone behind her.

  The man with the monster in his eyes was preparing to release the trapdoor and let her swing. Ready to let that evil in him take her Gift because she understood now, she understood that it fed off the Gift - and that what she looked at was not really a man at all anymore, but something that another kind of magic had taken hold of.

 He was not Gifted. He was tainted.

 She screamed.

~*~

 In his dream, Ryan Talver heard that voice, and he saw the face of that girl, with her wide, golden eyes like pieces of the sun cut down from the sky, and the only hazy, barely incomprehensible thought that floated into his head was...

 I know you.

 I can't, I won't, I mustn't let you die.

 And then he felt something inside him uncoil like a pouncing tiger, hot and flaring and furious, and then he saw impossible, incredible blue light streaming from his hands towards the girl, and his voice calling words he was sure he hadn't thought of.

~*~

 Everything was only a blurred mess, her thoughts spinning between panic and the beginnings of a slow, calm acceptance when she saw the boy.

 His face was startling. That was the only word she had for it. As unique as her own, with eyes like shards of gleaming turquoise and a firm mouth that was hanging open in shock and horror. The tousled dark hair made his face look thin and almost vulnerable, aided by the scar that snaked over one side of his face, but the easy, graceful way he stood belied that.

 And he was somehow more real than anyone in this place, even though every sense she possessed told her that boys didn't just appear from nowhere, and they certainly couldn't just walk through trees the way this one was as he started towards her.
 
 And she heard his words, in a voice that was soft and mellow.

  We are bound, and then fiery light blazing form his body like his soul set alight, and she felt something in her answer, leaping like a golden comet to meet it.

 We are One...

 The two fires met in a clash of gold and blue; the air screamed...

In that moment Andrea felt her own voice drowned by this unnatural but somehow beautiful clash. At the heart of the two fires, she could see green blooming and spreading while around them, chaos as the villagers shouted and screamed and ran, while she viewed only dimly the hand of the executioner closing on the lever that would open the trapdoor.

 The green fire exploded outwards.

~*~

 Silence as his vision went green until Ryan could no longer see the girl, or the black figure beside her that had terrified her so, or anything except wave after wave of pure jade like that seemed to lap over his senses for endless time.

 Slowly the magic cleared away and all he could see were forms lying still, heads tilted back, arms thrown out haphazardly, as if a great wind had slammed them flat.

 Even that ominous black-clad figure lay thrown aside. Ryan had glimpsed something in him in that moment when his and the girl's Gift had combined; something lurking and primordial. It had shaken him to his bones, and he only prayed that the man would never awaken.

 He looked up to see the girl with her gilt hair disarrayed, gasping. She was looking at him with something between terror and awe. But below, he saw someone stir and groan. Ryan froze. She had to get out!

 They were joined somehow, she and he, joined by their Gifts.

 "Get out of here!" he shouted at the girl, who seemed dazed. She was lifting the noose from her neck slowly, her mouth trembling with a kind of desperation. "They're waking up!"

 She flinched back at his voice. "Who are you?" he heard her say. A tiny, shaky voice. "What have we done?" She stared at the bodies and her hands rose to her mouth. "What have I done?"

 Ryan ran forward, but the world rippled suddenly, uncertainly. What was going on?

 I'm waking up, he thought with horror. No, I can't! I have to stay and look after her...it's important...

 "Get out of here!" he shouted as the world seemed to draw away from him, fading into mists and obscurity. "Do you want to hang? Get out!"

 And as he felt himself awake, he desperately hoped that she had listened.

~*~

 Andrea began to step down from the gallows, not understanding why she was doing, only that the boy had said she should, and he seemed to understand what was happening. She could barely think, except for one treacherous idea that circled her head over and over like a hungry shark.

 You used your Gift to hurt them...you used your Gift to kill.

 She drifted through the bodies like her ghost, her shocked mind repeating the litany over and over. Until it became almost hypnotic. You used your Gift to hurt them...you used your Gift to kill...

 Stepping over the flung arm of Jaton, seeing his sullen face full of dread even in death. Had he deserved that? Shouldn't she hang because... You used your Gift to hurt them...you used your Gift to kill.

 Over the crowd, out to the woodland that lay all around the village, destroyed and barely able to comprehend what she had done. She was a killer, a-

 "The witch is escaping!" It was that voice, that dreadful dark voice and it was furious. It snapped her from her reverie and Andrea turned to see the executioner had dragged himself to his feet, that his obsidian eyes had fixed upon her. He was a few hundred yards away, nothing more. "There, there she is!"

 People were dragging themselves to their feet, and turning to follow the direction of that stabbing, accusing finger.
 
 Andrea froze as pale faces turned to her and filled with hatred, with loathing, with rage. Lifted her eyes to stare at the executioner's face, and knew it for a mistake as soon as she had.

 Those fathomless black eyes caught her. Dropping into wells of darkness. She might have stayed that way as they began to advance on her, grabbing anything that lay near to hand to use as a weapon, if she hadn't heard that youthful voice in her head again.

Get out of here! Do you want to hang? Get out!

 It snapped her away from the executioner's soporific stare and she ran.

But they were hunting her now...and Andrea saw no escape.

 The Gifted were a race apart.

 Everyone knew this; everyone accepted it. Some people disliked it, some passionately loathed it. But it was a truth and whether you believed it or not made no difference.

 And on that quiet night, the explosion of magick in a small northern town rippled through the dreams of the Gifted. Most simply turned in uneasy slumber, their Gifts too insubstantial to feel the power. But those with the strongest Gifts, the ones who lay closest to the gods, jolted awake with the vision burned onto their hearts.

 A girl, standing on a scaffold, with a rope about her neck and eyes blazing with fear. Few hearts remained untouched by the mute plea in her face, the slight quiver to her lips. And a boy, appearing like a ghost, somehow connected to the girl. The explosion of magick from the pair that drove a crowd of a hundred, two hundred, more, to their knees and that hurled the Gifted from slumber.

 In the palace of Tortall, Numair Salmalín arrived at the King's quarters to find King Jonathan already awake and Tkaa the basilisk seated in the outer room.

 "You too?" Jonathan said grimly, keeping his voice quiet. Thayet was clearly still asleep. His sapphire eyes were alert even though dawn was barely lighting the sky. "A girl on gallows, that...that...explosion?"

 Numair sat down, yawning. "The same. Are we the only ones who saw this?"

 "I believe not," the whispery, smoky voice of Tkaa put in. "My magick allows me to see the state of a human's spirit if they are nearby. The Gifted, especially, appear as fires in my...vision, let us call it."

 The mage blinked. "I didn't know about this ability."

 "It is something we basilisks keep to ourselves, normally," Tkaa said, tilting his head. He held his tail in one paw, standing as gracefully as ever. "It tends to provoke accusations of spying." The last word was said with a certain distaste. "Nonetheless, this is not a normal situation. There are four Gifted mortals awake in the palace. Three of you are here. The fourth is still in her rooms."

 "Her?"

 The silver eyes remained focused and liquid. "A young lady I have had the experience of meeting. A Bruna of Farbrook. A most...forceful mortal."

 "She has only a small Gift," the King said thoughtfully.

 Tkaa shook his head. "No. She is strong - as strong as yourself certainly, verging on Master Salmalin's powers. I thought you knew."

 From both the shocked look on the King's face and the faintly angry look on the mage's, Tkaa gathered that Bruna had been hiding rather more of her Gift than she had of her body. The basilisk had always been told court ladies dressed with decorum. Bruna seemed to have taken decorum to mean 'as little as possible'. The immortal had been amused at the reactions of the human males around him.

 "All such Gifts are supposed to be declared," Numair said tightly. "Though usually, the Gift declares itself. She has had no formal training from any teacher I know of...Mithros, Mynass and Shakith, what idiot let a child like that run around with an untrained Gift!"

 "My father," a cool young voice said. "And I rather think that's the most accurate description I've heard in years."

 All heads turned to the doorway. Bruna was stood there, clutching a dressing gown tight around her. Her usually lovely face was ashen, the sullen mouth trembling slightly. She no longer looked elegant, but fragile and perhaps even vulnerable, if you ignored the flicker of steel in those scorching brown eyes.

  The King looked at her in bemusement. It was unlike King Jonathan - or, Tkaa noted, Numair Salmalin - to be ruffled by anything, let alone a precocious sixteen year-old. "How did you-"

 "Find you?" Bruna shrugged, regaining a little of her poise. "My Gift. I may have had no training, sire, but I can handle it. Almost." The last word was said very softly and she ducked her head, as if ashamed. This was a very different side to the confident courtier.

 "Sit down," the King offered mildly.

 She perched on the edge of a low table, where she could keep an uneasy eye on all three of them. There were scars on this child, Tkaa decided. There was something a little pitiful to all the pithy remarks he had seen her throw at various boys and men around the palace; something pathetic about the way she had to seize attention with every word.

 "Why didn't your father hire a teacher?" Numair demanded. The mage looking more puzzled than angry now, the sleepiness fading from his sloe-black eyes.

 "He hates the Gifted." That husky voice not alluring, but tired. "All he wanted was for me to be as far away from him as soon as possible. I went to the Mithran convent. The sisters there looked after me."

 There was more to it than that; the dart of her eyes, the sudden clenching of one hand said that. But now Tkaa could see an act slipping into place. Her confidence returned, be it real or created, the old sensuality slipping into the tiny smile she gave them. "It was probably for the best."

 "For the best?" the mage said in outrage. "An untrained Gift...gods above, don't you know what you could have done? We would have been lucky if you had merely killed someone."

 "But we were lucky," the King interjected smoothly, staring at Numair. "There's no need to frighten the girl. But you must be trained now, young lady. And it will have to be done on the march."

 "On the march?" Bruna said, frowning. "I do not...march."

 King Jonathan flashed his undeniably charming smile and Bruna, true to mortal woman the length and breadth of the country, flushed and couldn't resist smiling back. "Unless you want me to send your father a long letter detailing every court exploit that I pretend I do not know about, you will learn very quickly."

 Bruna swallowed hard, her face abruptly losing its flush. Yes, she was terrified of her father. Tkaa wondered why; he had been walking the mortal realms for over half a decade now and he still came nowhere close to understanding these turbulent, ephemeral creatures. "Sire."

 "What are you planning, Jon?" Numair asked, looking intrigued though the way his mouth quirked told Tkaa the mage was trying not to laugh.

 The King arched a coal-black eyebrow and smiled.

~*~

  Ryan opened his eyes and became aware at once that he wasn't in the warmth and comfort of Hana Dharaz's small house. He sat up fast, his heart pounding hard in his chest.

 He was shrouded in a soft grey mist that kissed his skin with tiny, cool nips. It sparkled curiously, like a handful of magick had been thrown into it. Far away, voices were singing strange, eerie songs he couldn't understand, some unearthly choir.

 "Be calm, my child." The voice was like a primal firestorm, fierce and utterly untameable.

 "I ain't your child," Ryan had said before he looked up and icy shock slid down his spine.

 The woman had black hair that tumbled crazily around her pale face like hordes of frozen waves and her skin was a perfect camellia-blossom colour with only the faintest dustings of pink across her cheekbones. Ryan thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful, not even Hana, but the moment he looked into her eyes, he was lost.

 The only thing he could think of compare them with was the light he had once seen in the sky on a winter's morning, a startling shade of luminous green that moved and writhed and danced. He knew her then.

 The Goddess.

 "Um..." How did you talk to a goddess? Ryan hadn't exactly had much experience. "Sorry."

 Was it his imagination or was the Goddess smiling at him? But she shouldn't smile. She was a Goddess, they were meant to be terrifying and...and he had an idea there was lightning involved somewhere. Ryan was starting to wish he had been a little more religiously dutiful.

 "It is always a pleasure to meet one of my chosen." She inclined her head to look down at him, her piercing stare seeming to see to his very soul. "I have kept watch over you."

 "Your chosen?" he said, confused. "But I ain't done anythin' to be chosen for."

 The Goddess did smile then, and it was like sunlight falling into a dark pit. "No, that is true. You have wasted your life and your Gift, Ryan Talver. The gods have granted you immortal powers, and you are nothing but a thief."

 "I've had to be," Ryan said staunchly. "Life on the streets ain't soft."

 "How true." An element of ice in that voice. "And yet...can you truly say that you are everything you could be? You have powers that can sear the skies, that can heal a thousand wounds...and all you can do is steal from mortals too foolish to outwit you."

 He flushed angrily. "You ain't got no right to judge me!" he said fiercely, forgetting who he was talking to as memories flashed into his head. Spending days starving when winter came, begging and scraping to earn enough to find a healer for Hana when she fell sick with fever. Crawling home when he got beaten for money he didn't have. Fighting, holding onto life by a cobweb, thieving, learning, growing, living.

 "When have you ever done anythin' but sit here an' look down at us?" he demanded, glaring up at her with eyes that were no longer grey but swamped with a dawnfire blue. "You ain't never had to survive, all you got to do is snap your fingers an' the world's lyin' at your feet. When have you ever had to spend half an hour crackin' the ice on the river just so you can get a drink? How many times have you had to run away wi' half your lifeblood flowin' away 'cause you tried to rob the wrong person just to get enough coppers to live one more night? If I'm one of your chosen, why ain't you looked after me?"

 Silence as he stood there, too furious to be afraid, raging beneath her heartbreaking emerald gaze.

 Then the Goddess laughed gently and with a wave of her hand, she was neither imposing nor haughty, but a slender woman of his own height, almost human except for the too-perfect beauty that graced her face.

 "You will do," she said and putting two fingers beneath his chin, lifted his head to look hard at him. "Yes, you will do well indeed. You ask why I have not looked after you, Ryan Talver, but answer me this - when have you needed looking after?"

 "I ain't, maybe," Ryan said, "but it could a' been easier."

 An elegant lift of her eyebrows. "Those the gods hold close to them will never know the easy road. And you are as close to me as Andrea is to Mithros."

 "Who's Andrea?" The question tumbled out before he realised he knew the answer. "She's that girl, ain't she? The one I...she...we...what was that?"

 "You have many questions," she told him, the hunt howling in her voice. She was so beautiful, Ryan felt as though he should fall at her feet and worship there forever, but at the same time, there was something undeniably eerie about her. Something almost terrifying. "I can only give you some answers."

 He scowled. "Well, that's nice, ain't it?" He paused briefly, then decided that if the Goddess didn't want him to be honest, she would have said. "I didn't ask to be one of your chosen an' I didn't ask for that...girl to be...bound to me, like. An' now you just decide you want to talk to me? You might be a goddess, but you ain't got no manners."

 A booming laugh startled him and Ryan turned round quickly, hand reaching for a knife that wasn't there.

 "A little lion!" the formidable man in front of him said. "A shame he is your chosen."

 Ryan heard the Goddess's voice behind him. "The Gifted are mine; the warriors yours. You took the girl; I the boy. They are both Gifted, both warriors."

 "So it would seem." The sun lord stood before him, blazing brightly in golden armour that shone impossibly. His black hair was like liquid night, his eyes as unbelievably luminescent as the Goddess's. But somehow, despite the weapons, the war-filled voice that held the clash of steel and shrieks of pain, he was less frightening.

 "Are you goin' to stop makin' small talk an' tell me what's goin' on?" Ryan demanded, glaring at them.  

 "Answers, you want is it?" Mithros said, leaning close. Ryan fought the urge to back away, but he wouldn't be scared by some god who'd never done anything for him. "Very well, mortal. Neither you nor Andrea know your parents...find your mother and her father and you will have your answer."

 "Nice to know you gods ain't as cryptic as they say," Ryan muttered. "My Ma's long dead. An' I ain't goin' to find my Da again, not after he beat me like he did."

 Mithros's stare turned into chips of ice and Ryan realised the Sun-lord was every bit as terrifying. "It is not for mortals to find fault with the gods. We have Gifted you, we have given you a bond-mate...what more do you want?"

 "What's a bond-mate?" Ryan said suspiciously. "I don't want no one messin' with my life."

 Thunder rolled and a shaft of lightning seared between the fog to crisp the ground between Ryan's feet. He leapt back, realising that he was walking the knife edge with these gods, for they were not human, they were not normal; they held powers to tear the world in two.

 "What you want is irrelevant!" the god barked. "And for your insolence, I will take that which you hold most dear."

 "No." The Goddess said one word in her flat rich voice and it stilled the Sun-lord immediately. "You will not. He is my chosen and I will punish him as I see fit." She put a hand on Ryan's shoulder and spun him to face her. "But this incivility cannot continue. I will not take what you hold most dear...but it is time you learned a lesson, Ryan Talver. Argue not with gods; what we do not like, we tend to destroy."

 He was shaking now, that sudden burst of Mithros's anger throwing him back to his father's voice shouting and then pain, endless, stinging pain.  

 "Hush," the woman said gently, and touched a chill hand to his forehead. At once, a wonderful, serene calm flowed over him and he could look into those shifting green eyes without flinching. "Your bond-mate is part of you, Ryan Talver. You are bound by your Gift, by your ancestry, and by your gods. You have saved her once; only your bond allowed you to. If she dies, you will too. We have bound you together for strength, for you will need it in the coming years. Look after her; look after yourself."

 He had no words for the steely goddess whose incredible voice cut like winter hail.

 "You have a long journey ahead of you," she said. "It will be long and difficult and you may not see the end of it. But you have become a favourite of mine; know always that your Goddess watches." She smiled fleetingly and lifted her arms. Lightning seared as the air screamed...

The world was plunged into darkness.

~*~
 
 They were closing on her.

 Andrea tore through the woods in careless, painful steps. Branches slapped her face and raked across her arms, ripping scraps from her clothes as she desperately tried to escape her pursuers. Running was near impossible, her light boots no match for the rocky ground and thorny bushes that lay all around.

 "There she is!"

 The frantic howl came from her left and she swerved right, trying not to cry out as a splintering tree trunk slashed a shallow cut in her skin.

 Must-get-out, must-not-die, must-get-out, must-not-die...

 She understand what it meant to be hunted now, understood that her gentle, healing Gift could help her not at all without the strange ghostly boy there. Her breaths fell in ragged gasps, tears and fears caught on each.

 On and on and on she ran, stumbling ever further from the only home she had ever known, that heartless village, hearing the ghosts of voice in every whisper the wind brought to her ears and flickers in the corners of her eyes. On and on and on she ran, barely heeding the pain as her feet were cut to pieces, the bruises and scrapes that her flight brought.

 On and on and on she ran, not knowing that as the sun rolled beneath the hills, she had left them far behind and that she was walking into the shadowlands. Not caring that she had nowhere to go, no one to help her. Tears tracks ran like silver through the grime and dirt on her face as she fell down finally, too exhausted to carry on or to do anything but fall into a restless sleep, while around her, wolves howled.

 And around her, the shadows slunk closer.

 And...closer.

And closer.

 And these shadows had a magic of their own.

 "This is important," King Jonathan said quietly. His sapphire blue eyes were cool as the glaze on a winter's sky and every bit as bedazzling. "Two Gifted children running around with no control over their power? It's no joke." He stared hard at Bruna and the girl squirmed. "I believe Keladry of Mindelan owes you an apology and is owed a punishment?"

 Bruna fumed as she recalled exactly what that cheeky squire had said. "She does," she ground out.

 "Good." The King glanced at the tall basilisk who was standing quietly. "Tkaa, would you wake her?"

 It nodded and Bruna couldn't help staring at the creature. She had never seen anything so fantastic, so beautiful, except in dreams and wishes. It shone softly, silver and iridescent. The eyes held a depth of wisdom and intelligence that fair took her breath away, while its whispery voice was like the southern breeze trapped. As it left the room, she shook her head, feeling as if she had been bewitched.

 Gods above, how could magic be so terrible when creatures like this were born of it? Her father had been so angry when he knew she was Gifted, always so angry when he saw her. She had been glad to get away from his cold words and indifferent gestures. Being locked in her room, day after day, surviving silently while the fief of Farbrook laughed and lived around her, had been hell.

 And even in the Convent, all around she saw unGifted people, normal, happy. People like Keladry of Mindelan who did what Bruna's father had never let her; defy convention. Bruna had a feeling somewhere she should have respected her, but that was consumed by her vicious envy. It ate her alive.

 "Numair, can you scry to find out where that girl was?" the King asked.

 The mage smiled and Bruna felt her heart give a little flutter. Those dark eyes would melt any woman. "Easily. That kind of magic leaves signatures."

 "Do so. When you find out, you will escort Lady Bruna there. Half the land will be searching for those children. And very few of them will want to do anything but use them. The last thing we need is another Ozorne. So you, Lady Bruna will pay...a visit...to your cousin who just happens to live wherever Master Salmalin finds those children to be. And Keladry of Mindelan will go as your guardian, Master Salmalin as your teacher. You will say nothing to anyone about why you are really going."

 "But...I was to be introduced to the Court," Bruna said faintly.

 "I rather think you already introduced yourself to half of them," the King said with some amusement. "When you find the children - and you must, Numair-"

 "I know, Jon," the mage cut in, his pleasantly musical voice concerned. "When I think of what Daine went through..."

 Daine? Daine Sarrasri, the Wildmage? What could she have gone through? Everyone knew she was just some commoner who struck lucky.

 "Exactly," the King said firmly. "You must make it seem as if you are nothing but travellers." His eyes fixed on Bruna and she swallowed. There was power in that stare. "That means, Lady Bruna, no flirting. No trouble. Those children have the kind of Gift that could break the Barrier. Do you want that?"

 She shook her head mutely, the screams and howls of war resounding in her head. She had not had to fight, but the convent had been brought many of the wounded soldiers for the Mithran priests to heal.

 "Good-" The King stopped abruptly. "Ah, Squire Keladry."

 Bruna looked around to see Kel standing in the doorway, her hazel eyes dreamy and confused. Why didn't the girl try and do something with herself? Instead of that unflatteringly short haircut and the bruises that were fading to a summery green across her face. Goddess, how did she ever expect to find a man like that? Who would ever want her?

 Kel glared back with equal dislike before bowing to the King. "Sire?"

 The King flashed her one of her heart-melting smiles, but Kel's expression didn't alter at all, remained squarely on her ruler's face. Maybe she doesn't want a man, Bruna thought with contempt. Too stupid to know that they're all there is if you want a comfortable life.

 "You may as well sit, squire," he said gently and gestured to a chair. "This will take a while."

~*~

 Ryan woke up - really woke up this time - to the warmth and darkness of Hana Dharaz's house. The cracks in the shutters let in thin slices of opalescent moonlight, dust glittering in the beams. He breathed a sigh of relief, stretching lazily and preparing to go back to sleep. Then he heard it.

 It was a pathetic sound, the whimpering of a wounded animal.

 He sat up and froze in sheer shock. Ryan had never heard Hana Dharaz cry.

 "Hana?" he said in alarm, stumbling to the corner she was crouched in with her knees drawn to her chest and her hands over her face. "Hana, what's wrong?"

 She carried on crying, and alarmed, Ryan pulled her hands away from her face and gasped.

 Her eyes...Mithros' shield! Where they should have been a bright, lively green, they were a milky white. And then the words of the Goddess flew back to him, her howling voice striking chords of terror along his soul.

 Hana was blind.

 "No!" he said, horrified. "Hana, we got to get you to a healer! What happened?" He had to know if it was his fault, his fault the one person who cared anything about him had been hurt.

 "You was glowin'," Hana said in a cracked whisper. She was still crying, her breath coming in huge ragged gasps. Not knowing what else to do, Ryan held her hands and stared at that smudged, sightless face. "You was glowin' blue like you does sometimes. An' then you started shoutin', an' you was shakin' an' the light around you turned green and I didn't know what to do. I tried to wake you up, an' when I touched the light...it hurt, it hurt so much, Ryan, an' then I couldn't see..."

 "We're goin' to a healer," he said determinedly, running through a list in his mind of all the healers he knew. But he didn't know any powerful to heal this.

 "There ain't no healer can do anything about this," Hana said wearily. It was unnerving to see the tears trailing down her cheeks though her eyes saw nothing.  "'Cept maybe Duke Baird, but he don't treat common folk, he's in the palace."

 "Then that's where we're goin'," Ryan said, grim and decided. "C'mon, we got to get movin'. If anyone finds out we're gone, they'll rob us blind."

 She laughed weakly. "Oh, you're still the same, Ryan Talver. They don't let folk like us into the palace! We's commoners, lad, not nobles."

 "An' I'm Gifted," Ryan drawled. "If they don't let me, I'll blow the walls down around them. Stand up, Hana, or am I going to have to break my back carryin' you?"

 "I'll walk," she whispered. He let go of her so she could stand. "No! Don't let go, Ryan, I...I'm scared. I don't want to be alone. Not in this darkness."

 "I'm here," he said gently, though his heart raged at a Goddess who was so beautiful yet so cruel. He helped her up and kept his hand at her elbow as he guided her to the door. "An' we'll see you healed. You don't need to be afraid."

 Though when I catch up with that Goddess, he added silently, I'll give her reason to fear.

~*~

 "You want me to accompany her?" Kel said in disbelief. "Excuse me, sire, but have you seen those pigs orbiting your head?"

 Master Salmalin had a sudden coughing fit, and Kel could see his mobile mouth twitching. His soft dark eyes caught hers briefly and he smiled. It lifted her spirits; she had seen the mage only briefly, in lessons, but his husky voice never failed to hold her attention and he always had a kind word or solid advice for her.

 The King's glare was glacial. "This is not a request, squire Keladry."

 She flushed, but refused to back down. He might be a king, but wasn't he the same king who had put her on probation for a year? "Sire, I can't."

 "You...can't." A thoughtful drawl, soft and deadly. "Which part of this 'can't' you do, squire? Is it the riding that defeats you? The idea of having to fight? Sleeping rough? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you spent four years learning these arts."

 "Yes, sire," Kel said desperately. "But you neglected something."

 "Really?" A little edge of frost across the ice already barbing his voice. Kel swallowed. Oh, why her? Had she angered the gods? Was it some kind of divine joke?

 She looked at Bruna of Farbrook. The girl, curse her, looked stunning in a silk peignoir, her brown eyes cool and her smile glinting dangerously. "Boys aren't bitches."

 "I accept that you and Lady Bruna do not get on, squire," the King said smoothly. His face was stern and every inch the commanding royal. "But you will accompany her. I shall explain to your knight master why you are absent. If Sir Raoul has a problem - well, I am used to dealing with his temper." He glanced out of the window where dawn was inching over the horizon in a wash of soft grey and blue. "You leave at sunrise."

 Keeping her face blank, Kel rose and bowed. "Sire," she said stiffly, and left.

~*~

 Legend...speaks of wild and beautiful creatures that roam in the dark hours.

 Legend...whispers of the graceful winged beasts that fly through the sun.

But...legend often forgets the creatures that roam between the shadows and the sun. The twilight creatures, the halfling things. One foot in light and one in shadow. Creatures of strange, uncertain temperament who act on whimsy.

 Andrea slept, her tearstained face tilted into the dawn's light. Cuts laddered her face, her too-slender arms, her emaciated body. Only that riotous tumble of golden hair seemed to have any life in it, a splash of sunlight in a barren woodland.

 They crept up slowly, one by one. Light, delicate steps and oval eyes that glittered with predatory lights. And music ran with them, wind rustling through trees.

 "Want it..." A widening of hungry eyes, a parting of that small mouth with its bladed, triangular teeth.

 "Mine." A swipe of silver claws.

 A pale, skeletal hand lifting her gilt hair and letting it slip through its fingers like sand. "Pretty...want to play..."

 Feather-soft touches ran over the girl's cuts and they healed in an instant. "Not of us. Not a wildone. Gifted one."

 "One of them..." Those bony fingers touching the flawlessly smooth skin, running over the black lace of her eyelashes. "Have not seen them for a long time..."

 "Mortals do not walk here now...they know what we are..." A baring of long fangs. No claws on this one, but instead, a soft down, like that of cygnets, in place of skin. "They see our shadows passing by."

 "Want this one...make it like us." One of the strange, misfit creatures lifted the girl. It seemed to be a blend of man and creature, its hair long and trailing down to it hunched back and oddly webbed feet. It was gruesome to look at, its mouth a gaping maw, its eyes small and silver as the moon through a cloud. "Ours."

 And all around, that soft, breathy and inhuman sigh. "Yesssss..."

 Legend forgot about wild magic. It forgot what it could do.

 But the wildmages remembered.

~*~

 "Kel?" She turned from slamming her drawers to find a swaying, sleepy Neal standing there. Of course; Neal was a notoriously light sleeper. "What are you *doing*? It's the middle of the night and all I can hear is you throwing furniture around. Please, spare my sensitive hearing."

 "Sorry," she said, experiencing her usual state of mind-numbing delerium at the sight of Neal of Queenscove. Even when fogged with sleep, his green eyes were startlingly vivid and his sharp, clever face was beautiful to her. "I'm...not in the best of moods."

 He grinned and shuffled into her room to perch on her bed. "I would never have guessed. So, what has you in such a state at this time? Don't tell me you felt an urge to spring-clean at midnight in mid-winter?"

 "Not quite." She hurled clothes into a bag. "I'm going on a trip."

 "You sound thrilled," he remarked, amused. She heard him yawn. "When?"

 "Next year. When do you think, Neal? Now!" She spun, infuriated at him, mad that he couldn't see how much he affected her, mad that Bruna of Farbrook had landed her in this pretty mess, furious that it was midnight on a winter's morn and she had to ride out on the whim of King Jonathan's dreams, of all things. Why couldn't he have dreamt of her marrying Neal? Of her being knighted? Even of lettuce, anything would be better than this madness.

"What?" He shook his head, a mannerism she found curiously endearing and gaped at her. "But...for how long?"

 "I don't know," Kel said gloomily, picking up her glaive and swinging it several times in angry motion. It made her feel better. "Until his highness finds something to cure his delusions."

 He laughed. "You can't say that!" Those mischievous emerald eyes met hers and lanced her heart. "That's what I love about you, Keladry of Mindelan," he said gleefully. "Your brutal honesty!"

 She caught her breath at the words then shook herself firmly. Idle comment, she told herself. Idle comment. "You'd best go back to bed," she said with a sigh. She looked at him and grinned. "Nice robe, Neal. Pink frills are really you."

 The nineteen year-old stuck his tongue out in an oddly childish gesture. "Mine was stolen by that idiot Garvey, as well you know, Kel!"

 She giggled. Somehow, Neal could always make her feel better. "Well, go on, go! Just because I have to lose my sleep, you shouldn't lose yours."

 He arched an eyebrow. "Without even saying goodbye? Do you really think I'm as uncivilised as that...don't answer that one." Neal got up and came over to hug her briefly, then leaned back to stare down at her. "Now, don't go getting yourself killed. I need someone to prove me wrong."

 She smiled nervously. Neal was uncomfortably close. "I won't," was all she could get out. Then she was simply staring up into those eyes that seemed to go on forever, like an endless summer, mysterious and intelligent and utterly enticing.

 "Kel?" he said softly. Then he tilted his head sideways and looked at her as if trying to work something out. "You've grown up, haven't you?" he murmured in amazement. "And I think I missed it."

 His face only inches away and the distance seemed to be shrinking rapidly. Those long eyelashes falling shut and before she was even aware of anything, his mouth was on hers, sweet and tender and sensual. Kel felt his hands slide to her back and rest there and her own seemed to be moving of their own accord to curl around his neck. Moments passed, intense and shivery.

 Then he lifted his head and stared at her with bemused eyes. "Um..."

 "I'll see you that and raise you a 'huh'?" Kel said weakly.

 Neal stared at her, and then he shook his head, face flushed. "Sorry," he said. "I don't...think I should have done that. Or I don't think I should have wanted to. Or..."

 She didn't know what to think. Her heart was pounding, her mouth was tingling and she would swear she could feel the ghosts of his hands still on her back and in her hair. She pulled herself together with an effort.

 I have to go on a trip, she reminded herself. Away from here...and Neal.

 "Um..." She had never seen her eloquent friend so speechless. Then he seemed to decide something and said, "Really don't get yourself killed. I think I'd better go back to sleep...and find out if this is all a dream."

 "It isn't," Kel whispered.

 That warm gaze met hers. "I know. But I think I need to believe it is for now. Maybe I'll know what to do tomorrow."

 "Maybe," she said and lowered her eyes. He was upset. It had been the wrong thing to do. A stupid thing to do.

 A silence, and then she heard him say, "Oh gods!" in a soft, exasperated tone and he kissed her again, very little soft or tender about it this time, more furious and passionate. "Goodbye," he pronounced and gave her a brief, charming grin. "Don't die on me. It just got interesting."

 He slithered away, and Kel stared after him, mouth agape. I just had my first kiss, she thought and began to smile.

 And my second. She picked up her bags with a light heart.

 Third time takes all?