not my master, Brother. I do what pleases me,” Anoush snapped.
“You are not old enough to do as you please,” he replied.
“I am six,” Anoush answered, “and that is old enough.”
“Ah, children, here you are,” Lara came toward them smiling. “I believe it is time for you to go to bed, Anoush.” She took her daughter by her hand and led her away.
Dillon grinned after them. “My mother is surely the cleverest woman alive,” he said with a chuckle.
“And you are much too wise for a boy so young,” Noss told him, ruffling his hair.
“My soul, I think, is as old as time itself, dearest Noss,” he answered.
“You will do well one day with the Shadow Princes,” Noss said.
“My mother says I am not yet ready,” he replied sadly.
“Do not stop trusting your mother now, Dillon,” Noss advised. “She has never failed any of us. If she says you must wait, then accept her decision and be patient.”
“I will,” he told her but his tone was reluctant.
“Go and fetch the boys for me,” she said. “It is time they went to bed, too.”
With a quick smile he ran off to do her bidding.
Noss looked out over the darkening landscape. A warm summer breeze touched her cheek and pushed at a loose strand of her hair. It sometimes seemed only yesterday she was a frightened girl from The City sold into slavery by her parents. So much had happened in the years that had passed. She often wondered if her parents still lived, and considered what they would think of the good fortune that had given her a wonderful noble husband, three healthy sons and a respected place in her community.
And Lara. Without Lara she might have ended up a concubine to a Forest Lord, only to be killed when she had delivered a healthy son for her master. She shivered and shook off the black thought. She was the lady Noss, wife to the lord of the Fiacre. She was loved, and she was safe. There was peace and they were far from Hetar. It was enough, she thought as she rubbed her distended belly and felt the child within move lustily. “I am going to call you Mildri,” she whispered softly to herself, smiling. And then her three sons came running toward her and Noss laughed with her happiness.
Chapter Two
THE chamber was a square one. Its walls were black marble veined with silver. Tall silver censers burning fragrant oils lined the room, their flickering flames casting shadows upon the walls. The floors were wide boards of ebony edged in strips of pure silver. At one end of the room, a square throne of gray and silver marble had been placed upon a matching marble dais beneath a silk canopy of purple and silver stripes. To the right of the throne, a colonnade of shining, veined black marble offered a view of the surrounding mountains between its pillars. The sky beyond was reddish-dun colored. On the wall opposite the throne were great double doors of silver. And directly in the center of the chamber had been set a footed silver tripod holding a wide black onyx bowl filled with crystal clear water.
Kol, Twilight Lord of the Dark Lands, waved a languid hand over the vessel. The water roiled for a moment, grew dark and then cleared once again. “Ahh,” Kol said, staring down at the beautiful woman revealed to him in the water. “Soon, Lara. Soon you will belong to me and I shall have your magic combined with mine. I shall take both Hetar and Terah, and our worlds will be one.” He smiled a dazzling smile.
He was a very tall man, his skin very pale, his hair midnight-black, his eyes a dark gray that sometimes seemed almost black. His face was a very masculine one, yet he could almost be called beautiful rather than handsome. His cheekbones were high, his nose long and straight, his mouth wide and sensual. He had thick, bushy dark eyebrows and long, dark eyelashes that were tipped with silver. He wore a simple dark robe with a round neck and long sleeves embroidered with silver at his wrists.
“Will it be soon, my lord?” asked the man who stood by Kol. He was a dwarf with the wrinkled brown visage of an old man. His back was slightly crooked, his fingers gnarled with age, but his brown eyes were sharp with curiosity.
“Aye, Alfrigg, soon, for I feel the mating lust beginning to rise within me,” Kol answered his chancellor’s question. “The Book of Rule says when that happenstance occurs, I must take the faerie woman for my mate. She is destined to give me my son.”
“She will not come willingly, for she has a mate whom she loves,” Alfrigg said. “And faerie women will not give children to those they do not love.”
“I have summoned the Munin,” Kol replied.
“The Munin? My lord, that is dangerous. What do you want of them?” Alfrigg looked concerned by his master’s news. “The Munin are not easy creatures and can be treacherous if provoked.”
“If I steal the faerie woman from her world she will resist me. But what if I have the Munin steal her memories before I take her?”
“What good is she without her knowledge of magic, my lord?” the chancellor asked. “No matter that she is the woman fated to birth the next Twilight Lord, you need her magic, as well. If she has no memory of her magic then she is of little use to you other than as a life bearer.”
“The Munin will place her memories in an alabaster jar and restore them to her as I require, but first I must convince her to trust me so completely that when I return her knowledge of magic to her she will be only too glad to aid me in my conquests. Her recollections of her husband and her children, I will not restore to her. She will have no need of them. For Lara her life will begin with me and me alone, Alfrigg.”
“She is light, my lord,” Alfrigg reminded him. “You are dark.”
“She will have no memory of the light,” he said with a smile. “And when her fears have been calmed, she will believe everything that I tell her. I will not show myself to be a threat to her in any manner. Indeed, I will be her savior.” He gazed down into the bowl. “Is she not beautiful, Alfrigg? Is she not perfection?”
The dwarf stood on his tiptoes and gazed down into the water. “Aye, my lord, she is an excellent specimen of female loveliness,” he agreed. “But once you restore her magic to her she may not be as easy to manage as previously. Women should not be allowed to have magic. They are emotional and unstable beings!”
The Twilight Lord laughed at this. “Women do have a certain intelligence, Alfrigg. In Hetar and in Terah they manage commerce and even speak their minds,” he told his chancellor who looked properly shocked.
“It is obvious there is no order in Hetar and Terah,” Alfrigg replied sourly. “Women of high caste are for breeding purposes only. Women of low caste are meant to be servants but can also be bred if the serving class is to be perpetuated. Only men of high caste can be considered fit to serve the Twilight Lord. As for the others, they serve as they are told to serve. The appropriate order must be kept, and those who would defy it must be punished so others not be encouraged to disobedience.”
“You are a hard man, Alfrigg,” his master told him with a small smile.
“Thank you, my lord,” the chancellor said with a short bow to his master.
The Twilight Lord returned his gaze to the surface of the water. Krell, Lord of Darkness, he thought to himself, I can hardly wait to have her! He felt his rod twitch beneath his robes, and fought back down the feelings of desire that threatened to overwhelm him. Just a little while longer, he reminded himself.
“My lord.” A serving man was bowing before him. “They have come.”
The Twilight Lord nodded. “Let them enter,” he said and then turned to Alfrigg. “Secrete yourself behind my throne and listen, but do not reveal yourself.”
Alfrigg nodded and did as he had been bid.
The doors to the chamber opened again; suddenly the room was