Karen Chance - Claimed by Shadow

The answer to a riddle that had been bugging me for two days suddenly clicked into place. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it earlier. If Myra had been hiding in Faerie, land of the radically unpredictable timeline, then instead of having a week to heal from her injuries, she could have had months, even years. No wonder she'd looked good!

Tomas kissed the side of my head, the only thing he could reach, and looked at me somberly. "You should not have come back for me-it was a terrible risk. You must promise never to do it again.”

"I won't have to," I said, brushing his hair out of his eyes. It was always so beautiful, long and black and as soft as a child's. I picked a few leaves out of it with a slightly trembling hand. I was so glad to see him alive that I felt giddy. "We'll find some way to hide you from the Senate.”

Tomas was shaking his head before I even finished speaking. "Beautiful Cassie," he murmured. "It has been a very long time since anyone was willing to risk themselves for me. Very few ever have. I will remember what you tried to do.”

"I told you, we'll find somewhere for you to hide. The Senate won't find you!”

He laughed slightly, then stopped abruptly as if it hurt.

"Do you not understand? They did not find me this time. I went back to them, to him. I thought I could fight it, but I was wrong.”

I didn't have to ask who he meant. Louis-Cesar, on loan to the Consul from the European Senate, was Tomas' master. He had defeated Tomas' original master, the hated Alejandro, in a duel a century ago and then laid claim. Tomas was a first-level master, but even they vary in strength, and Louis-Cesar simply outmatched him. He'd never been able to break the bond between them.

Tomas shuddered lightly. I couldn't see it, but I could feel the slight tremor against me. "Every moment, I heard him, an endless voice, deep in my head driving me half mad! I could never relax, not for a moment. I knew as soon as I did, my will would break and I would go crawling back like a beaten dog. I told myself that soon the war would distract him and he would let me go. But tonight I awoke in the Senate's holding cells, and a guard informed me that I had walked into the compound and surrendered myself. Yet I remember nothing of it, Cassie! Nothing!" He shook more violently, a visible shudder passing over his limbs. "He pulled me to him like a puppet. He will do it again.”

I was confused. "You mean he's calling you now?”

Tomas smiled, and it was blissful. "No. There is something about Faerie-I have not heard him since we arrived. Not having to fend him off has helped me heal, now that I can use all my strength for it. I had not completely repaired lesser injuries than these in a week with his call draining me, but in this brief time my wounds are closed.”

"You can't hear him here?”

"For the first time in a century, I am free of him," he said, and his voice held awe, as if he couldn't quite believe it. "I have no master." He looked at me, and there was a fierce joy in his face. "For four and a half centuries, I was someone's slave! My master's voice controlled me completely, until I thought I would never break free!" He stared around the dank little cell in wonder. "But here, none of our rules seem to apply.”

I felt my eyes start to burn. "Yeah, I noticed." If our magic worked here, Mac would have wiped the floor with the Fey.

"What is it?”

I shook my head. I didn't want to think about it, much less talk. But suddenly everything came pouring out of me anyway. It took me less than half an hour to bring him up to speed on what had been happening since we last met. That seemed wrong somehow, that so much pain could be summed up in so few words. Not that Tomas seemed to understand.

"MacAdam was a warrior. He understood the risks. You all did.”

I looked at him bleakly. "Yes, which is why he wasn't supposed to come with us. That was never the plan.”

Tomas shrugged. "Plans change in battle. Every warrior knows this.”

"You didn't know him, or you wouldn't sound so… indifferent!" I snapped.

His eyes flashed. "I am not indifferent, Cassie. The mage helped to bring me here, to get me away from the Senate. I owe him much that I will never be able to repay. But at least I can honor the sacrifice he made without belittling him.”

"I'm not belittling him!”

"Aren't you?" Tomas held my eyes without flinching. "He was an old warrior. He had experience and courage and he knew his own mind. And he died for something he believed in-you. You do him no honor by questioning his judgment now.”

"His judgment got him killed! He should have stayed down." And I should have searched for Myra on my own. I'd said that no one else was going to die because of me, yet here I was, adding another mark to my body count. "He shouldn't have believed in me. No one should.”

"And why not?" Tomas looked genuinely confused.

I let out a half-bitter, half-hysterical laugh. "Because getting close to me is a one-way ticket to trouble. You ought to know." Tomas had brought a lot of his problems on himself, but I had to wonder whether he would have made those same bad decisions if he had never met me.

Tomas shook his head. "You take too much on yourself, Cassie. Not everything is your fault, not every crisis is yours to solve.”

"I know that!" But however much I might like to think otherwise, I was to blame for what had happened to Mac. He'd been here because of me, he'd been vulnerable because of me, and ultimately, he'd died because of me.

"Do you?" I felt Tomas' arm slip around me. "Then you've changed." Warm lips ghosted against my hair. "Perhaps I see things clearer, because I've been a warrior longer.”

"I'm not a warrior at all.”

"I thought the same once. But when the Spaniards came to our village, I fought with the rest, to save the corn that would feed us through the winter. I lost many friends then, Cassie. The man who had been like a father to me was taken, and because he would not betray where we had hidden the harvest, they fed him to their dogs, piece by piece. Then they carried off the women and burned the village to the ground.”

He sounded so matter-of-fact about it that I stared. He smiled sadly. "I grieved for him by honoring what he fought for, by keeping our small group together and free.”

He stopped and I knew why. It was one of the few things he'd told me about his life. Alejandro had eventually finished what the conquistadors had begun, by killing Tomas' village in some sort of game. I'd never heard the whole story, only a few small fragments, but I didn't want to make him relive it.

I decided to change the subject. "Louis-César said your mother was a noblewoman. How did you end up in a village?”

"After the conquest, no one was noble, no one commoner. You were either European or nothing. My mother had been a priestess of Inti, the sun god, and had taken a vow of chastity for life, but a conquistador took her as booty after the fall of Cuzco. She had expected to be treated with honor, according to the rules of war, but he knew nothing of our customs and would not have cared if he did. He was merely a farmer's son from Extremadura out to make a fortune, and didn't care much how he did it. She hated him.”

"How did she get away?”

"No one thought she could scale a wall ten feet high when seven months pregnant, and they failed to watch her closely. She got away, but she had no money, and her defilement made her an outcast from her former calling. Not that it mattered. The temple had been plundered and the land was ravaged by disease and war. She fled the capital, where the Spaniards were fighting among themselves, but found things no better in the countryside." Tomas smiled bitterly. “They forgot, you cannot eat gold. Most of the farmers who had not died had run away. Famine was everywhere. Grain became more valuable than the riches the conquistadors had wanted so badly.”