Snow White: Part Two

Since Amelin would not go to the temple, the old crone brought the temple to Amelin. Wheezing and sputtering for air after slowly maneuvering the many steps to the royal chambers. Inside, Amelin neither eaten nor spoken to anyone. Thinking perhaps she might need a friendly face, Leovan sent for Jovar, but the boy would not come.

"You have created this mess," he rebelled, "so you must set it right, yet we both know you have no intention of doing so." And so Jovar remained in the stables, looking up at the balcony now and again. Amelin stood, staring out over the kingdom. Jovar was no longer welcome, the crone ordained, since he himself was an abomination. Upon hearing this, Amelin screamed in fury, sealing her fate.

The elder priestess shook with rage, and demanded Amelin be contained within the chamber. Most certainly, she decreed, the poison had spread from the child into the mother, and both were lost. The ancient woman slavered and licked her lips with a nearly malicious grin. She forbade all but the king and herself contact with Amelin, of whom she hoped to make an example. Leovan listened in horror as the crone outlined a list of lies to tell the kingdom.

First, the absence of the queen would be explained away my simple malady, a difficult pregnancy that would require the young queen to lie in bed all day. Once the child was born, of course, another lie must come, that the birth itself had torn her inside in ways even the most skilled hand of the divine could not mend. The child itself would need to be turned over to the priestesses at once, and if need be, they would cut it from the mothers womb. All protests Leovan made were met with threat of exile or execution, or fed in pieces to the harpies of the pit.

Leovan, regretting his decision, expected Amelin to make a mad dash for the door but she only turned and left the balcony. She moved slowly to the center of the room, a hand on her growing belly. Her gown clung to her frame and accentuated every curve and dip and rippling muscle as she moved. Her beauty caused Leovan to stop, but they both knew it was too late. The crone approached and examined her, before Leovan and the guards, and grabbed her by the arm. The strength in that old woman's grip was surprising, and Amelin found herself dragged to the bed.

Amelin could not bear to witness the ritual, so she closed her eyes. The first thing she felt, almost as soon as the old woman began to speak in a harsh, ancient tongue, was pain. It began in her fingers and toes and shot suddenly to the center, and Amelin could only scream in agony. Her womb felt as if it were twisting, tearing, and the air was sucked from her lungs as the ritual progressed. She was only dimly aware of Leovan shouting, yet the sound came to her as if from a thousand lands away.

Amelin begged for her life, begged for freedom, begged for the Sisters of Fate to save her, yet they did not come and the elder priestess did not stop. Dark, foul liquid was sprinkled over her, and it burned on contact. Amelin opened her eyes to see thin tendrils of noxious smoke rising from her body. Amelin pleaded for the life of her child, certain the foul concoction would eat through her and take her babe's life, until finally, blessedly, oblivion took her into its emotionless embrace.









When Amelin woke, her first thought was of the child, and the frantic flurry of motion in her belly assured her all was well. Turning onto her side, she rubbed her belly and sighed heavily, dreading the next moment, and then the next. With her faith and trust in Leovan shattered, she did no know what was to happen next, and she was uncertain what the crone had done to her. She reeked of strange magic. Leovan, waiting silently in the corner, came to her and sat upon the bed, but she turned onto her other side, away from him. Though he tried to communicate with her, it was impossible to cross the rapidly expanding divide. As weeks passed, Amelin's belly continued to swell and the kingdom rejoiced, unaware of the personal hell King Leovan and Queen Amelin's lives had become.

The best artisans and craftsmen sent wagons daily laden with fine textiles, fragrant hers, luxurious oils and spices. From the balcony of her bedroom prison, Amelin would only bow her head in sorrow. Yet while Amelin mourned her freedom, the kingdom celebrated the impending birth of the prince or princess. While Amelin forced herself to eat only enough to sustain the life inside her, the citizens of Nadari feasted and carried on.

Amelin remained on the balcony as much as possible, hoping to catch glimpse of Jovar, desperate for news of him. She fretted and worried that he might think she had abandoned him, when her whole heart ached to see him smile, to hear his voice. Yet she saw little of him, and began to notice that each night he rode from the kingdom toward the sisters of fate, returning only in the morning. She was comforted only a little that he was seeing his mothers, since she was not one and could not be with him.





Not long after the ritual, the changing leaves became lost beneath a blanket of snow, and Death came to the kingdom of Nadari.

The temple of the Unnamable Goddess, the last of its kind in all the lands, was ancient even when Nadari was new. Though its true history had been lost, the mystical shrine was rumored to have belonged to the beings referred to only as the Order of Night and Day, and their roots were spread wide across the seven lands, perhaps even reaching across the seas. Few spoke of what came after, but it seemed to some that one day the followers of the Unnamable Goddess appeared and took the temple as theirs.

Now ancient and in poor health, the keepers of the temple dreaded the coming of this winter deeper than any other. They could feel, upon the winds, the cold hand of fear clamping tightly at their throat. A chill had entered their blood and settled in their bones. There was not an inch of them that did not ache. As heavier snows fell, the keepers of the Unnamable Goddess's temple seemed to fade and withdraw.

And so it was not surprising to any in Nadari when Death came for the Elder Priestess first, and quickly took the lives of the rest within a week. Since the frozen ground prevented their immediate burial, the bodies were dragged to the farthest edge of the kingdom, the place where the lands of reason ended and the savage pit began. Builders and artists labored several das and nights on end to fashion an ornate ice shanty where the bodies were to be kept until the first spring thaw.

Plans changed, however, when an unseasonable war spell settled over the kingdom, melting the frozen tomb. Leovan ordered a great bonfire to be assembled, and the bodies were laid out over the enormous mound of brush and wood. Amelin watched from the balcony as the torches were lit and touched to the pile, and smiled at the thick black smoke rising from the pyre. She saw shapes in the blackness, long writhing figures of the damned in torment, and Amelin so hoped they were tormented.

She had seen Leovan little till the deaths of the old crones, yet it had been too much for her heart. He had tried to explain his absence, knowing it looked as if he had fully taken the side of the priestesses, but she could only weep in his embrace, on the rare occasions she had allowed him to hold her, and he did not think she ever heard him tell her how truly sorry he was for his part in all this.

With the women dead, he freed Amelin from her prison, but by this time she was too weakened from her self imposed near starvation to more than she had while imprisoned. Leovan never left her side, and fed her as often as she would eat. They spoke little, both trying to feel their way blindly back from the brink of their own personal hells, both knowing there may have been too much damage to ever be as close as they once had been.

When she was stronger, she felt the baby kicking inside her, as if fighting to get out, and each tumble inside of her, each twitch and movement, filled her with a sick worry. What if the elder priestess had undone the magics of the sisters of fate? What if her child was an abomination now, having been forced to disobey the sisters words? Unable to bear the thoughts plaguing her, she sent for Jovar, who came immediately.

Their reunion was bittersweet. He had grown, yet there was a hardness in his eyes that had not been there before. Amelin wept and held his cheek to her breast, whispered soothing lullaby and fervent prayer to the sisters of fate to relieve him of his pain.

"They fear for you, Amelin," he confided. "I have told them all that has passed. They know it was not your doing, the ritual, yet they say there is little they can do. What can I do, Amelin? How can I make this better?"

Wiping the tears from her eyes, she rocked him in her arms, though the action was more for herself than anything. "There is nothing you can do, Jovar. We must wait and see. I wish only that I had stayed with them in the caves. Then perhaps this would not have come to pass."

Amelin paused and pulled away, searched his eyes. "I need you to know that I do not hold Leovan responsible for this tragedy, Jovar. The faith of a man is a powerful thing, and coupled with man's best intentions, the outcome can never be predicted. It was my faith that led me to seek out the Sisters, just as it was my faith in love that led me to confess to my husband. Leovan only did as his faith proscribed. I can no more fault him for his beliefs than I can fault you for yours."

A sudden pain stole her breath and bent her double. Recovering a moment, she cried out, and Leovan leapt to her side, having given her space to speak with Jovar in private. Each took an arm and eased her back onto the bed. Leovan raced to the doors, flung them wide, and called for the midwife. The guards, alerted by his cries, searched the kingdom, yet found none. Midwifery had been assumed by the priestesses, who were by now merely ash drifting in the winter breeze.

With the passing of the priestesses, the sisters of fate were no longer banished from the kingdom. Whatever powers had kept them in the savage pit were gone, however there was no celebration. They raced against time to the castle and were taken to the royal chambers.

Relieved beyond measure, Amelin wept and laughed and returned to weeping as the agony intensified in speed and discomfort level. The dark haired sister took Leovans place at one side, and the red haired sister took Jovars place at the other, and thel pushed her forward by her shoulders once the fair haired sister adjusted the placement of Amelins legs and drew the skirts free. Another pain tore through Amelin and the darkness took her into blessed, numbing silence.



Once Amelin regained consciousness, the newly cleaned babe was swaddled in warm linens and placed in her mothers arms. Amelin peered into the tiny face, certain to see pointed teeth, extra eyes, anything grotesque. To her delight, the child was free of obvious physical defect. In point of fact, Amelin believed her to be the most perfect creature ever born of man or magic.

It's flesh was smooth, unblemished, and so fair it seemed to sully the freshly fallen snow. Even now, only an hour old, the babe's lips appeared bright as blood, with eyes shut tight against the world. Amelin held the babe to her breast and fed, and wondered why she had ever been so afraid some terrible thing had happened. The sisters remained for several days, tending both mother and child, even offering counsel to Leovan, who wept openly at their feet and begged forgiveness fro the past, and for his abhorrent treatment of Amelin.

In gratitude, he offered them all that their hearts desired and they asked only one thing. They wished the temple, theirs by right. Leovan was being offered the chance to rectify the horrors of the past by offering his people a brighter future, and Amelin urged him to consider. He said nothing, simply nodded, and the sisters took this as his word. Within days the were ensconced within the temple and it seemed to passersby that the place was brighter now, as if three lights had been lit.

Before clearing the debris left behind by the passing of the old ones, the sisters called for Leovan to witness the extent of the horror the followers of the unnamable Goddess.

The walls of the wine cellar had grown thick with twisted, blackened vines, and as Leovan walked he felt and heard crunching beneath his feet. Lowering his torch, the king cried out in disgust. He fought back a wave of nausea and bent to pick up a small skull.

"What manner of fiendish trick is this," he asked quietly.

"There is no trick, King Leovan."

He turned it over in his hands, pale with horror and grief. There was a hole in the back, and the edges of the would were deeply cracked. So small, he mused, this child could not have been past more than two or three summers.

"Why? Why am I seeing this?"

The solemn sister touched his shoulder lightly and took the skull from him. Gazing mournfully into the little face that once was, she whispered a prayer for its owners soul and lifted her face to Leovan's.

"Because if you are to welcome us back into the kingdom, it be only fair you know both facets of truth."

She stopped and started often, seeming to pick up a thread and follow only so far before dropping it to begin anew in some other angle. Leovan so far understood that when she and her sisters were young a sudden, violent illness took the lives of most of her people. The three of them left their home to travel, to find a place where they could belong, where they could be happy again, and this is where she invariably stopped, always at a loss. Brow creased with concern and uncertainty, she rose and paced the short length of the wine cellar as she mulled over how best to explain the next. At length she turned to face him, and the discomfort in her eyes caused Leovan concern. He marveled at how far they had come so soon, that he should feel concern for a creature he once mildly reviled.

"There is no delicate way to put this thing to spare your feelings. Perhaps I should begin by simply asking after your own experiences as king. When death comes to your kingdom, do you burn the bodies as you did the women to whom you gave this temple?"

"If the ground is soft and willing, we bury our dead. If it too cold, we attempt to house them in the cold until the ground complies."

Her voice dropped low, soft. "King Leovan, so children die in your kingdom?"

"Most often times during childbirth, yet others have fallen ill and passed. Every few years one wanders too far from its parents and is lost and eaten by the wilderness."

"Are the children who pass buried, as the men and women are?"

Still, understanding of the path her questions took eluded him. "The Priestesses take them and..." His words trailed off as he stared at the skull in her hands, and his mind played before him the image of the hole, the unnatural round empty space.

"No," he said.

"I am truly sorry, King Leovan, but there is reason their goddess was unnamable. Though they appeared to worship the divine, they had perpetuated a violent and bloody cult whose only manner of being accepted into a society was to claim religion."

"No. No, I cannot accept this."

"King Leovan, allow me another question, if I may. When the elder forced you to lock Amelin away, did she speak to you of a plan to mask the deaths of both mother and child from the people?"

"Aid Amelin tell you?"

The dark haired sister shook her head. "You wife will not speak of that time. I have not pressed her, for I believe she will come to us for guidance when she is ready, but I will speak of it no more for now. I know it was not a pleasant time for either of you, and I for my part am sorry that events played out as they have. As to the child, I can not speak of that. It is a matter most delicate, and only time will tell what their twisted magic has done."

"What do you mean? What were they?"

The raven haired sister pushed a long cascade from her face and tucked it humanly behind her ear. Leovan found it a telling sign that these beings he once considered harpies were not as all powerful as was previously thought.

"Once, before we found this place and made it ours, we found the remnants of a village. There, where the castle sits, were dilapidated hovels, and the people that lived there were ancient even then. Do you know the true story of why my sisters and I were banished by your ancestor, King Terodar?"

"I suppose now I know little enough of the truth and more of deception. You poisoned the princess."

Her wry smile belied the hurt at the perpetuation of such untruth. "Do you wish to know the truth?"

"I do not see what harm would be done now. I have betrayed my heritage and allowed the monsters to take control of my kingdom. Tell me."

"My sisters and I built this temple as a home, a sanctuary from the priestesses. At the time, there were four children left in the hamlet. We saw them only once before news spread that another had died. The old hags took the child and fled to the woods under cover of night, and I followed them. There were thirteen of them, and I feared that one night they would creep in and slit our throats if they found me, but I had to know what was happening to the children.

"What met me in the dark has haunted me these many years. One held the child by the hair; another clung to each limb, and after an unholy shriek, the fell upon the body in ravenous attack. I fled that place, and though I became lost in the dark, I returned to my sisters and told them of what I had seen. We were young, not fully in control of our powers, but we were determined to save the people. We performed a ritual to remove the causes of the disturbance from the hamlet, but our request was not worded as we would have liked, and the results were...let us say, it was unpleasant and only seven of the crones remained.

"We did the only thing that we could; we burned the hovels to the ground and buried the dead behind our temple. I do not know how, but the foul crones survived and then your ancestor, King Terodar arrived. He was badly wounded, he and his men, and the women were unwell. We established them within the temple and healed them as best we could. Those who healed quickest began to build, and within a single moon cycle, each family, each single man, and each woman had a home of their own. Terodar thanked us by hearing our counsel and we became his royal advisors. We used our magics to call the stone from the very earth, and within two years, his castle was complete.

"We had thought we were the last of our kind, and so it was not uncommon for us to fantasize about having children. Yet the King demanded that we would need to mate with one of his chosen, so we remained unattached. It was at this time when one of our own arrived, having by our own means divined our presence in the world. We each thought we were alone, the last of our kind. It was a joyous reunion, yet it did not take the Sight to see what was about to happen.

"The king arrived to seek advice on the ceremonies at the summer festivals, and upon seeing our newly arrived sister, fell sick with longing. Celestia too was struck and they were married before all at the summer ceremonies. She became with child after only a few months and gave birth shortly before the next summer festivals. During this time, we neither saw nor heard from the crones who had retreated into the woods, yet Celestia's was the first royal child to be born to the new kingdom of Nadari. We, the Order of Night and Day, kept watch over the child and nurtured him and taught him many of our ways. But the peace was not to last, for the crones attacked in the night when the prince was but five summers old.

"They poisoned the king and our sister, his queen, with a concoction that bent their perceptions. While they slept, they whispered the story of our coming to this land, with ourselves as the flesh eaters who preyed upon the children. In their fevered states, their minds absorbed the stories. My sisters had gone to the temple and I stayed behind to watch over the prince as he slept.

"I blame myself for the events that followed, but not for the reasons taught to your bloodline. I fell asleep, and was awoken by the sounds of feasting. I need to draw for you a portrait of the scene before me. Using my magics, I forced the foul creatures into the night and fell upon the prince's ruined body, weeping for my failure. His blood touched my face, my hands, my hair, and when the king burst into the room, I need not imagine what he thought."

Leovan cleared his throat gruffly and hung his head. "And so you were banished and the old crones took your place."

"That is the truth, King Leovan. We were forced from our home and sent into the wilderness, but that was not enough. Queen Celestia, blinded by her love for the king, would not stand for us, and I bear her no malice. And you, king Leovan, we tried to help your wife because we do not bear you any, either."

The king stood, suddenly weary to his bones, and nodded to the dark haired sister. Without a word he ascended the stairs and left for the castle.



When Snow White, who had been born Caliste, was six, Amelin gave her a large, round mirror. The frame was a masterwork of gold leaf, and Amelin had paid dearly for it. She gave it to the girl, whom she had difficulty referring to as her daughter, during an awkward moment. Caliste simply smiled with her mouth, vivid blue eyes still and cool like frozen pools, and said only "Thank you, Mother." Amelin nodded and left the castle, feeling as if she would crawl out of her skin, too intimidated by the creature that masquerading as a girl.

Leovan had, the night the Sisters of Fate were given back their temple, told her the history of Nadari, and of the wicked beings who would partake of the flesh of children. He wondered aloud to Amelin what form of creature their daughter would become. Inwardly she shuddered, having the same thought. Yet where Amelin became more ill at ease with their offspring, Leovan's love flourished to the point of obsession. He doted upon Caliste constantly, and the two were seldom separate unless it was after dark. Leovan would spend his nights begging Amelin for a second child, an heir to the throne, and would only pout and rage when Amelin protested.

What broke Amelin's heart was not that she had had such dreams for her child, none of them including any resemblance to the creature she truly was.

What broke her heart was that Leovan refused to see Caliste was becoming.

First, there had been the biting. The sisters had taken to organizing a type of school for the children, but Amelin was asked to remove Caliste at the request of tearful parents. In her teething, she had taken to gnawing upon the limbs of any who held her too long. Then there were the accidents. Children she would play with would suffer mysterious injuries, and refuse to explain how it truly happen. Amelin could only stammer apologies.

While the death of Queen Amelin, Daughter of Night and Day, began with the betrayal by Leovan, it ended in much the same way, with the betrayal by their daughter. Amelin brushed the hair from her eyes and stopped at Caliste's chamber door. When she reached for the handle, she thought she heard voices and peeked inside. Caliste, who at twelve was still more coldly beautiful than anyone Amelin had ever seen, sat in the open window wearing only a simple sheer shift. For a moment, Amelin envied the child her freedom; it was stiflingly hot and oppressive.

Though it appeared Caliste was alone, there was a second voice in the room, deeper and lower. The girls laughter came like a shower of needles; Amelin fought a wave of skin crawling apprehension and took another step. Her breath was stolen in a harried gasp; Amelin turned and fled.

Footsteps followed her and she ran into her bedchambers and slammed the doors shut. She fumbled with the bar but dropped it.

"Mother, what is the matter with you?" Caliste asked quietly.

Turning, Amelin fell against the door.

"Mother," Caliste asked, stepping closer to Amelin, "you don't look so well."

"No," the queen moaned, you're out there, on the other side…"

"But Mother, I am right here. And you do not look well at all," she repeated. Caliste cocked her head to one side. "You were in my room."

"I heard voices, that is all."

"That was my friend. I made him"

"You what?"

"I made him, Mother. I created him. Befre that, it was simply a mirror. But there is something in me, Mother, something astounding, and I am kept so lonely. I needed a companion that would not break as easy as those simpering fools in town. So I made one. And now you should lay down."

Amelin cried out and grabbed at the door, trying to keep herself upright, but her legs would not comply. Her knees weakened; she pitched forward, suddenly unable to move on her won. Caliste turned her over with a foot. Hot, frustrated tears flowed down the queens face. Her whispered please for benevolence, for help, went unanswered.

"You are not well, Mother. You look as if you are about to die. Is it your heart? Doesn't it ache so?"

And it did, it burned, it ached into her entire being. Amelin's heart felt as if it were being compressed into a tight, cramped box that was being ripped apart. She gasped, fishlike, and writhed at Caliste's feet, Caliste, who smiled in her cold way down at her mother as she lay dying. Amelin's lips began to turn blue. Caliste laughed and stepped back.

"If you were a child, I would eat of you as they once did," she whispered and was gone. Amelin reached out to the nothingness where her daughter stood and fell back into the nothingness of the great beyond.





Following the death of his beloved queen, Leovan slipped into a darkness from which not even Caliste could drag him. Alone in his room, he would drink until he passed into unconsciousness, then wake only to drink again. He ate less than he truly slept, and would take no company of anyone. He wasted away, biter with regret and drowning in his loss.

Amelin's absence felt to him as if he were missing half of himself; it was not until her passing that he truly understood how deeply he had loved her and how wretchedly he had behaved. Everything had gone wrong from the moment she confessed she was with child, and that child, the one they had dreamed of and prayed for and begged the divinities for, had come out wrong.

It was not an idle thought; he heard them whisper it when they thought he could not hear. It was all around him, in every unspoken silent moment. Every word that Amelin had ever uttered came back to him now, everything she had ever said about the girl down the hall. Wrong, she's protested, the child was wrong, and the servants gossiped that she had killed her own mother.

Jovar came to visit every day, yet not to see Leovan. He believed in his heart this was all Leovan's doing, though he knew in his uncanny way that Caliste had killed his queen. He came each day to see Caliste, to understand the creature that had snuffed out the only light that had ever entered his life.

There was no denying how beautiful she was; her endless blue eyes glittered even in darkness, and her lips twisted into a malicious grin each time she saw him, yet it only enhanced her appearance. Yet of the things about her that beckoned to him, he was most consumed by her skin. Where his was warm and golden, bronzed by the sun and years of outdoor work, hers was alabaster perfection, bleached, seamlessly white. No blush touched her cheek, only her blood colored lips broke the pale expanse.

There was no need to hide their motivations from each other; they were kindred, after all, created from the same Magics. Each day he spent with her he learned more of what she was, and more of how she had become this thing, this wicked and cruel creature. He explained his findings to the sisters each night, but ignored their counsel. Jovar was forming a plan to rid the kingdom of the demon in the castle, but to speak of it to his mothers would be to damn himself before he was ready. The sisters of fate traded their flowing white silks for the black of mourning. Losing Amelin had been like losing on of their own.

Leovan would not see them, but allowed them to remain. For his part, he was slipping further into madness, and the sisters had to act in his stead. They arranged for a constant stream of women from neighboring kingdoms to come by, but none pleased the king. In the end, the sisters were forced to choose one, and so they chose a simple woman who dreamed only of making people happy.

The kingdom rejoiced, though their hearts were not in it. Soon after the wedding, the new queen set about tending to the ill and the elderly. She commissioned a house be built where all those unable to care for themselves would live and be tended to by healers who underwent training with the sisters. Another house was built to house the elderly, who were looked after by others trained by the sisters. A third was built in which to teach the students, and this was run by the sisters, though most classes were undertaken out of doors.

Leovan, meanwhile, ravening and fully mad, confronted Caliste one evening in her chambers.

When he stopped screaming his accusations, She stood sweetly, hands behind her, head cocked.

"Daddy dearest, do not be cross with me. Am I not your darling daisy? Come closer and I shall tell you a secret." Caliste's lips curled back into the smile she had graces her mother with as she lay upon the floor, begging for her life. Leovan, drunken, stumbled forward and lowered his ear to his daughters lips.

"I killed you wife," she whispered.

The words burrowed into his ear, to his brain, where they spawned and festered until the pulsing grey mass in his skull bubbled and oozed. Thick black viscous fluid ran from his nose, his eyes, his mouth, his ears; the lie dead at her feet and she smiled as she walked away.

The princess, knowing only that only one stood in her way, found herself content to wait until she knew her quarry better. She began to question Jovar about the new queen, but he said little, only that she was the best thing to happen to Nadari since Amelin. He asked if she missed her mother.

"My mothers are dead, thanks to yours."

But the queen, whose given name had been lost when she became Leovan's wife and known only as Selan, took refuge in the temple. Sheltered by the sisters, Selan continued to build up the kingdom as best she could, but each night she felll into fits of nightmares that ended only with her screams in the night.

The sisters sat her down one evening and laid upon the dining table an enormous mirror.

"Caliste has one," she murmured and fingered the edges of the frame. The sisters sighed heavily.

"What? What does it mean?"

"It means that it is as we have feared. The child is an abomination, an unholy creature brought about by the opposing magics. It has created a negative space in her soul, like a void, and she is at war within herself, or so we had longed to believe. Now it seems that she seeks only to destroy. She is one of them, the old ones, and there is only one thing we can do at this time."

"Anything. I can not let her continue on in this way."

"You must Cut out her heart and burn it within a sacred fire, then scatter the ashes in seven different rivers."

Selan lowered her head, shaking. She wished she had never come to this place but she could not go back now. She was Queen of Nadari, and she'd vowed to protect the kingdom.

"I will do what I must to protect Nadari," she said quietly.

Wrapping her cloak tighter around her shivering frame, Selan hurried to the stables, hoping Jovar was not in the castle with Caliste. Luck was with her; she found him brushing one of the new foals.

"I understand you and Leovan's first wife were close."

"That is not something I wish to discuss with strangers, My Lady."

"Jovar, do you not know me? Are you ill? I am you queen."

She watched him turn from her, head bowed. "My queen has been long dead, my lady. With all due respect, you are but the ruler of a broken land."

"Is this the way you spoke to Amelin?"

"I would ask you not to speak that name," he requested, his tone unchanged. "how may I be of service to the crown?

"I have a dark need, Jovar. I ask if you have ever taken a life."

"Whose life do you wish taken, My Lady?"

"The princess must die, Jovar. I must have her heart."

"My lady, that which you call Caliste has no hart, only an empty blackened space where one should be."

"Please, Jovar, this is no time for jest. I will give you all that you desire, just supply me with the heart of Caliste and we may free the kingdom of this devastation by morning. You are the only one she will tolerate."

"I ask nothing in return. I will do this thing, but not for you. I will do it for Amelin. Should I fail, it will be her face I first see upon the other side."



Caliste lay silent upon the floor in the long pane of moonlight that spilled across her floor. The cool air whispered over her bare flesh and called to a dark, base nature. There were things that spoke to her the night, things no mortal man or woman would ever, could ever, hear; these things were for her alone.

"I knew you would come to me," she whispered.

Jovar stepped from the darkness. "I felt compelled to tell you that th queen wishes your death."

"Ans so she has sent my brother to do her bidding. Will you do it, Jovar?"

"I am uncertain," he confessed. "It is true that you deserve it for the things you have done, but you and I are the last of our kinds."

"I have no kind, Jovar. I am truly alone. You, however, are more like me than they suspect if they have asked you to do this thing."

"In my hart I would like to believe we are nothing alike, yet I am not so foolish to give in to denial. We are creatures born of both man and magic. You simply possess more of the latter."

"You came for me tonight. That makes you more man than monster. You have no more intent of killing me than you had of killing your beloved Amelin."

"Amelin holds my heart even in death, Caliste. She was the first mother who truly cared for me."

"Yes, and by loving you she had none left for me. Do you see now that it was you who caused her death? Had she given me even but a portion of the love she gave to you, would I still have taken her wretched life?"

"Caliste, you would have killed her sooner if it suited you. There was no sick longing in your heart. It was no crime of denied passion." As they spoke of Amelin he tried to keep the heat and anger from his voice but now his control was faltering. "You know noting of love."

"It is yet another thing that makes you more man than monster. Come to me, Jovar. Lie beside me here and feel the moon upon your flesh. It is a truly magnificent experience."

Drawn to her he went and stood beside her, staring down at her naked form. She was a marvelous beauty, and he burned suddenly to touch the milky thigh by his foot, to cup the smooth pert breasts. He was not surprised at her hairless prison; it seemed to him she was a wild, exotic creature. Breathing raggedly, he knelt beside her and reached for the long spill of shining black hair. Jovar touched it hesitantly, as if it might burn, and she tuned on her side, propping herself on an elbow and resting her other hand on her hip.

"You want me, Jovar, the way wolves can not survive alone."

"I want you for my own," he confessed throatily, aned reaching his arms around her, dragged her up to him and crushed her against his chest. He fell upon her mouth ravenously, and groaned as her breasts pressed against him. She clung to him, relishing the sensation of his rough clothes upon her bare skin, and moaned into his kiss.