Erik de Bie - Downshadow

"This is about Kalen," Myrin accused.

Fayne looked genuinely surprised. "Why would you think that?"

"You're leaving me here," Myrin said, "so I won't fight you for him."

"Would you?" Fayne knelt before Myrin, her hands a dagger's length from Myrin's bonds. "Would you fight me for him?"

"Yes." Myrin stared her down, looking right into her gray eyes.

Fayne stared back, that same ironic smirk on her face. "You'd be wasting your time," she said. "Kalen's a killer-a hard, brutal killer. He'd never love a softling like you."

"He's different now," Myrin said. "He's changed."

Fayne shook her head. "Folk never change," she said. "They just wear different faces."

Myrin shivered at the words. Her mind raced. "If fighting you for Kalen is useless," she reasoned, "then you would as well release me. So why don't you?"

Fayne shook her head. "You're a clever girl. But I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"I have reasons, I assure you." "I'd like to hear them."

Fayne said nothing, only leaned in to kiss Myrin on the lips, in a gesture that was as sisterly as it was mocking. It lingered, becoming warmer, but Myrin felt trapped-paralyzed as though by a spider's venom.

Dimly, she felt Fayne freeze taut as well. Her hands clasped ineffectually, as though she was trying to escape the kiss but could not.

It felt strange. She'd never kissed a woman-that she remembered, anyway-and it stirred odd, tickling feelings on the back of her neck and down deep in her stomach. She wanted more of Fayne-to drink Fayne in, absorb her into herself.

Myrin saw, reflected in Fayne's widening eyes, blue runes spreading across her forehead.

When Fayne's lips touched hers, Myrin saw her clearly-saw inside he, r. She couldn't say how-as with the lich woman and her magic, Myrin simply saw and did not question.

She was in an underground chamber, she realized, smoky with torches and the reek of burning flesh. She could see no more than half a dozen paces around her.

An elf woman in leathers stood a few steps from her. She looked familiar, and Myrin knew her: Lady Ilira, only younger. Young enough that she could see the difference, which for an elf meant seven or eighr decades, mayhap ten. She held a crossbow pointed at Myrin-no, at Fayne.

Myrin realized she was watching this through Fayne's eyes.

"Where is she, Cythara?" Ilira's voice burned her ears. "Where is the child?"

Myrin felt strong hands grasp her shoulders. "What child?" a woman's velvet-dark voice asked over her shoulder. "I hold none but my own daughter. Why-lost one of yours, did you?"

Myrin saw Ilira shiver in rage.

"By the Seldarine-don't fire!" a man cried from behind Ilira. "You'll hit her child!"

Myrin looked: a tall, handsome, gold-skinned elf, clad in shimmering mail, with a sword that gleamed in the torchlight. The sword should have pulsed with magic, but she felt a pressure she recognized-as a magic-killing field radiating from the elf. A spell he had cast. Bladesinger, she thought, though she had no idea what the word might mean.

She understood that he had meant her-Fayne. She had a sense of feeling childlike. If Ilira was almost a century younger here, how old was Fayne? What was Fayne?

Myrin looked up through Fayne's eyes at the woman holding her protectively. Mother, she realized: a gold-skinned elf, half-dressed in a sweaty black robe. She could have been twin to the bladesinger, were it not for her cruel beauty. Shadows danced in her eyes.

"Kill me if you will, slut, only let my daughter live," Fayne's mother said to Ilira, with a cruel smile. "You see, /can have a child, while you are barren, no matter how my brother ruts you. I am well pleased with that and can die smiling."

Ilira gave a strangled cry and would have fired, but the bladesinger stepped in the way.

"Twilight, please!" the elf lord begged. "Please-she's my sister, and she has a-"

"That is not a child, YIdar," Ilira said. "That is a demon. A demon!"

Myrin felt white-hot loathing for Ilira wash over her like a wave and knew it was Fayne's hatred. It suffocated her, and she could not move.

The bladesinger put his arms out. "You'll have to kill me, too. I'll not move."

Ilira grasped his arm to pull him aside, and Myrin-as-Fayne saw smoke rise where their skin touched. Yldar's flesh burned, and yet he stood firm. They both looked startled by Ilira's use of her power, and she quickly let go.

"How can you defend her?" Ilira cried. "She murdered your betrothed!"

"That was an accident," he asserted. "She meant to kill-"

"Don't you see?" Ilira cried. "She's controlling you! She's controlled your life since you were a child. She rules you now, though you refuse to see it. She-YIdar!"

The bladesinger had fallen to his knees, clutching his chest. Ilira reached for him, then flinched away as though her touch might kill him. She looked at Fayne's mother. "Stop it!"

Myrin looked up to see a bloody mass in her mother's hand. A heart, Myrin knew-Yldar's heart. She realized Yldar's attention had waned, and his counterspell with it.

"Flee," her mother said, "or he dies."

"Do not do this, Cythara," Ilira said. "He is your brother. You saw how he-"

"Only that he stood between us," Fayne's mother said. "Now you owe him your life-don't waste his. Flee'

Myrin heard the imperative-the magical command in that word-but Ilira fought to hold her ground. Myrin saw something move in the shadows behind her-thought she saw a face-but it was only for an instant. "Flee." Cythara squeezed the heart in her hand and Yldar, still moaning, screamed loud and long. "I won't say it again."

Ilira, tears streaking her face, rose to go. "You win, Cyth." She turned her back.

Myrin could feel Fayne's mother smile.

Then she heard a click and felt a sharp slash across her cheek. She screamed in Fayne's youthful voice and fell. As Fayne fell, Cythara looked down at the crossbow bolt that had sprouted between her breasrs. Myrin realized Ilira had fired behind her back, under her cloak.

Blood-bright red blood-trickled from the corner of Cythara's mouth and she fell.

Something caught Myrin: Ilira had appeared, seemingly from the shadows. Their skin touched and Myrin's flesh tingled but did not burn, as had Yldar's. She wanted to speak-Fayne wanted to speak-but the elf only set her down and ran to the bladesinger, who was coughing and trying to sit up.

Myrin looked at Cythara's corpse. Blood leaked around it-hot, sticky fluid that cooled to tacky sludge. Her open eyes stared. Yldar's heart had vanished from her hand, and she lay like some stripped, crumpled doll. Abused by the world, humiliated, and discarded like refuse.

Myrin felt hot inside-Fayne burning with anger, crawled to her mother's body.

Stop, child, came a voice in her head. You cannot.

But she didn't listen. She drew Cythara's wand-a shaft of bonefrom her mother's limp hand and turned it toward Ilira's back. The woman was fussing over Yldar and wouldn't see the attack.

Stop, Ellyne, commanded the voice-and she knew it was distracted. A battle was going on, somewhere, between the speaker and some shadowy foe. It is too powerful for you.

Myrin leveled the wand and uttered syllables in a language she couldn't possibly know. But she recognized them, horribly, as the tongue of demons.

— Your worst fear," she said in those black words. "Your worst fear to unmake you!"

Searing pain swept through her, burning every inch of her body. She fell ro her knees and screamed as the horrible power ripped from her and struck the woman she most hated.

And Ilira straightened, back suddenly taut as a wire, and turned toward her. She did not see Myrin, but something between them. Her mouth spread wide in a terrified O.

"No!" she screamed. "No-I don't need you! 1don't needyou!"