Kismet
                         Prologue
            247, Age of Newness, Early Winter
    Luckily, I heard his footsteps before he entered the 
room, and I was able to make the knives vanish in midair 
so he wouldn't see them.
    "Maln?"
    I turned towards him, one hand resting on the blade 
that hung at my belt. "Yes, Suppho?" I kept my voice low 
and bored, while noticing the way that he balanced, one 
foot forward as if he had meant to take a step that my 
voice interrupted, one hand clenched in a fist, and the 
other slowly closing into one. Such gestures told me more 
than my partner ever did, or would ever know.
    He adjusted his posture almost at once, putting his 
hands at his sides and his feet together. But I had 
already seen what I needed to see. The decay that had 
begun some months ago to the friendship between us 
continued in his eyes.
    And, try as hard as I could, I still couldn't guess 
the reason.
    "We have an important visitor here to see us," he all 
but chirped, smiling as widely and as falsely as he could- 
though I was sure that the second part wasn't deliberate. 
"Isn't that pleasant?"
    He was speaking to me as if I was a child, and that 
wasn't how he usually treated me, either now that he 
seemed to dislike me or before, when we were friends. I 
frowned at him. "Well?"
    "Well what?"
    "Who is he?"
    Some tension that I'd barely noticed being there 
drained out of him. "She," he corrected, and this time the 
smile was genuine. "She is the Lady Eleriad Deerfriend, 
and she's come a long way just to see us."
    I raised my eyebrows, knowing that I couldn't hide how 
impressed I was, and not really wanting to try. The Lady 
of the Land Elwens was usually too busy fighting the 
humans to make the journey away from the main lands of the 
Tableland, where the War raged, to the Council of Arcadia 
building, where we were. It wasn't that far, usually, but 
in winter, with the snow blocking the roads and the 
passes, and getting worse the higher into the mountains 
that one rose, most of the war-leaders wouldn't have 
considered it worth the trouble of coming. They would 
simply have sent a telepathic message.
    And certainly the most important of them all shouldn't 
be here. She should be planning the spring campaigns, or 
fighting in the south, where the snow and the winds were 
less fierce, sometimes weak enough to permit the waging of 
the war as she would do it in early spring.
    "She came to see us?" I asked at last, seeing that 
Suppho wasn't about to leave, presumably until we had gone 
to see the Lady.
    "Yes."
    "But why?"
    He darted a glance at me that turned into a sneer. 
"Three guesses, Maln," he said, turning towards the door. 
"And I think you know as well as I do that she wouldn't 
waste the time that it would take you to guess."
    I threw the knife that I had drawn from the sheath and 
been toying with, and watched it rebound from the stone 
wall just a few inches from his wrist. He froze in shock, 
even though he was a sapphire Elwen, and the blade would 
have had a damned hard time cutting his skin; it was more 
planes of living gem than anything else.
    "Don't do that again," I said, flowing forward to pick 
the knife up.
    "Do what?" His voice was high and shrill, and he 
didn't turn to face me.
    "You know very well."
    "Damn shadowed Elwens," he muttered, setting off up 
the hall. "So touchy." But he couldn't hide the tremble in 
his voice, and I followed him, smirking at his back as I 
did so.
    Those who saw us stepped out of the way. No one wanted 
to get in the way of Enders normally, and between two 
Enders having an argument- especially the most skilled 
pair under the command of the Council- is one of the worst 
places in the world to be.
----------------------------------------------------------
    "My lords!"
    I made a face the moment that I heard her voice. 
Clariara was the representative in the Council for the 
birch Elwens of southern Minamar, and she always sounded 
like that when she was trying to pretend that nothing was 
wrong or that she wasn't impressed. Just honestly showing 
her emotions would have been less annoying, and less 
revealing.
    "My lady, they are here!"
    "I can see that," said a clear, silvery voice I had 
heard a few times before, when Eleriad had come to make 
speeches before the Council arguing that everyone needed 
to contribute to the war effort against the humans, or 
they would destroy all the magical races in the end. "Send 
them in. I don't have much time to spare from the southern 
campaign." Her voice danced and lilted towards the end, 
nervous and on edge.
    Why didn't you send a message, then, my lady? I 
thought as we entered the room. Suppho went to one knee at 
once, and then both. 
    I stared at him. I had never seen him that subservient 
before. 
    "My lady," Clariara was babbling as I looked up, "the 
lords of the Enders, our most sophisticated and successful 
killers in the name of peace, the Lord Suppho Diamondblue 
and the Lord Maln Shadowdancer." Her voice faltered, as if 
she didn't like giving me a title.
    I ignored her, studying the woman who had come to meet 
us- and that was what it was, no matter how we had been 
summoned into her presence. That might have been part of 
the cause for the tight lines that tugged her face into a 
grotesque parody of the strong one that it should have 
been. "My lady," I said at last, bowing but not sinking to 
a knee. Even then, I didn't like bowing, and I did it only 
to those whom I felt deserved it. Kneeling was out of the 
question.
    Eleriad looked tired. Of course, any of us probably 
would if the continent was looking to us to save them from 
the terrible hands of the round-eyes, who possessed no 
magic themselves and so wanted to destroy it in everyone 
else. She sat bolt upright in her chair, though, showing 
nothing of her more than six thousand years, her hands 
clasped rigidly before her. Her silver eyes shone with 
determination, and her white hair was bound severely back 
from the lines of her face with a silver band that came 
just short of being a coronet. I pursed my lips in a 
silent whistle. She came close to being a queen, and to 
looking like one, and no Elwen race save the most backward 
has had a queen in over five billion years. She was taking 
a chance-
    Or was just utterly confident of her power. That was a 
thing that I would have to remember, if she hired us for 
something. The ones who had morals and still hired us 
didn't usually question themselves, but they were the most 
demanding employers, perfectly willing to question us 
about a matter of competence or almost anything else.
    I waited for her to say something, and was a little 
surprised when she didn't. She had claimed to be in a 
hurry. Why would she want to sit here looking at us, when 
those silver eyes had probably told her more in one glance 
than an extended study ever would?
    "I didn't know," she said at last, "that my Lord 
Shadowdancer was a curalli." Something beyond sternness 
began to glow in those silver eyes.
    My greetings to you, too, I thought. Her people, the 
land Elwens, have a hereditary hatred for my kind, the 
shadowed Elwens, and sometimes have to kill us; they have 
no choice. I pity them for that, but that doesn't mean 
that I have to like them.
    "With all due respect, my lady, you should have, from 
the name," I said, looking at her calmly.
    "Maln!"
    That was Clariara. "That's Lord Maln," I corrected 
her, and looked back at Eleriad. "Whom do you want 
assassinated, my lady?"
    A strange, grotesque smile had come over Eleriad's 
lips, something between the smile of grudging approval 
that I thought she was readying, and the grimace of hatred 
that her blood was forcing her to make. "No one, right 
now," she said. "But when the time comes, I think you will 
be the right one to do it."
    Well, now she had my interest. Even then, that was not 
easy to achieve.
    "My lady?"
    She looked away from me, drumming a fist in her palm. 
All land Elwens show their emotions that way; they have 
the strongest passions of any Elwen race, and they can't 
help it. I watched in interest this display, though. It 
wasn't what I would have expected from a land Elwen who 
was also the most feared battle-leader in the War, the one 
who had once ordered a thousand human prisoners butchered 
in various ways by magic in retaliation for the human 
killing of one Elwen prisoner, the one whose banner of the 
Running Stag, a variation on the Leaping Stag symbol of 
the Deerfriend line, actually made people run away before 
the battles began. Such a one would have had to learn 
self-control. And her people wouldn't have worshiped her 
like they did if she was a hothead.
    "I need," she said, and then stopped. She turned and 
looked back at me. And I had the feeling that she was 
talking to me, out of all of them, instead of the nervous, 
fluttering Clariara or the kneeling Suppho, even though 
both of them had shown her more respect than I had. "I 
need someone who will end this War if it goes on too 
long."
    "My lady?"
    To say that I was surprised would be an 
understatement. She would end the War, of course; almost 
everyone was agreed on that. Sheer human numbers and the 
diseases they carried with them might be winning out now- 
might still be winning out, even nearly a hundred and 
fifty years after the War had begun- but she would 
triumph, finally. That was an item of faith for the nearly 
million soldiers who followed her, and the millions more 
who went into battle in other parts of the continent with 
her name on their lips and the tale of her most recent 
victory to inspire them.
    "Two hundred years from now," said Eleriad, staring at 
me with eyes more vivid than starlight, "if the War still 
goes on, whether or not I am alive, I will need Enders. I 
will want the human leaders killed. That will be the one 
thing that will break them." She closed her eyes. "So far, 
that hasn't been their backbone; numbers, and hatred for 
magic, has. But they are learning from the Elwen example. 
If the War still goes on two hundred years from now, it 
will be because they have learned completely. I will want 
them all dead." She opened her eyes and looked at me. "I 
will want to hire you for that task."
    "Why?"
    "Because you are the deadliest Enders among them all, 
and you can get past the kind of protection that I think 
the humans may have learned to give their leaders by then. 
That will be required."
    And again, I had the impression that, though she 
looked at and spoke of us both, she spoke only to me.
    "My lady!" Suppho jerked his head up and down. "Be 
assured that we will do everything we can to fulfill such 
a contract, if you need us! But I hope by all the stars 
that you never do!"
    "Yes, I hope so, too," said Eleriad, and then nodded 
to two guards that I hadn't really noticed, standing in 
the far corners of the room. I had seen them, of course, 
and noted their strengths and weaknesses, but I had 
thought them Clariara's.
    That was a little silly, in retrospect. They were land 
Elwen, and they looked at Eleriad with the kind of 
fanatical devotion that every paleskin displayed in her 
presence. They stepped forward the moment that she nodded 
to them, and held out two bags that made them wince under 
the weight.
    I could smell the metal in the bags from where I 
stood, and looked at Eleriad in wonder.
    "Pyrite?" Suppho asked, his mouth gaping, naming the 
metal that is used to make most coins of large 
denomination all over Arcadia. I could almost see him 
drooling, though he had risen to his feet with his back to 
me. "My lady, you would spend this much on us, when we 
might not even be needed to do the task that you want to 
hire us for?"
    "You will be needed," said Eleriad. "One way or 
another." She nodded to Clariara. "The Council has decided 
that the War of Acceptance has tattered the peace of 
Arcadia long enough. This is the reward for the breaking 
of that peace. Enders are to be sent all over the 
continent, to do what they can to break the back of the 
human war effort."
    I could tell from the flash in Clariara's brown eyes, 
quickly hidden, that she wished Eleriad hadn't told us 
that. She probably hadn't been ready for us to know. The 
Council preferred to keep its Enders a little in the dark 
and use them like tools, as if that mitigated the sin of 
using them.
    "Will you accept my commission?" Eleriad asked us.
    "The money?" I put in, before Suppho could commit us 
out of star-struck fancy. I had noticed the way that he 
stared at Eleriad. The man hadn't had a lover in the 
almost six hundred years that I'd known him. No wonder he 
was ready to commit his heart to her.
    "Yours, if you accept the commission. If the War still 
continues two hundred years from now... you know what to 
do. If it ends before that, then I will come for 
whatever's left. You can give it back to me, or serve me 
until you've worked off the rest of the debt."
    I held her eyes for a long moment, wondering why she 
wanted to do this when she didn't like Enders, or curalli. 
But she gave me the answer in a moment, with her smile.
    She was fighting a war. She wanted to end it. She 
would use whatever means she could to do it.
    "We would be honored to accept, my lady."




                        Chapter 1
                      The Gifted One
             447, Age of Newness, Late Spring
    "If you have a gift, then you have to follow it. It 
doesn't matter what it is, music or poetry, or even a gift 
for killing. You'll never have any peace until you do."
    -Attributed to the Master of Sager, called the Mad 
Mage.

    "Is it much farther?"
    I rolled my eyes. None of the others had been this 
bad. "Not so much further," I said, looking back at him 
and doing my best to smile as if I really was excited 
about betraying my people's cause. "But he refuses to come 
any closer to the camp." I dropped my voice and looked 
around darkly, as I thought that the shadows hid something 
more perilous than I was. "Everyone's a traitor to the 
true cause these days."
    "Of course," said the human, and followed me behind a 
tree and into the shadows there.
    I turned and sighed, stretching my arms for a moment 
and then dropping a hand to the pouch on my belt. I had 
insisted on being allowed to carry it. "Is this really all 
you'll pay for the secrets he wants to sell?"
    The man's jaw firmed. Aside from being taller than 
most of his kind and having gray eyes- unusual in both 
their color and their clarity- he was like an Elwen in his 
strength of will, too. "I told you. More if it's actually 
worth something. No more if it's nothing more than what 
you promised, and I'm taking the money back if he can't 
tell me anything that I don't already know."
    Smarter than most humans, but still an idiot, I 
thought. An Elwen who actually would betray his people's 
cause would be desperate to get enough money that he could 
run somewhere where they wouldn't find him. He wouldn't be 
inclined to let the human take the money back.
    ^Stop playing with him,^ Suppho's voice hissed in my 
head.
    ^Shut up,^ I told him, and said to the human, who of 
course hadn't felt a word of our telepathic exchange, "I 
think he'll be here soon."
    "You told me he would be waiting."
    "He comes, he goes," I said indifferently, though my 
eyes scanned the shadows. "He's nervous, sometimes, about 
actually doing something like this. You know how it is."
    ^Shut up,^ Suppho told me in turn.
    ^You're angry about my description of a person who 
doesn't even exist?^
    He ignored me, and I could see him slip around the 
bole of the tree. I smiled.
    "Well?"
    I turned my head and glared at the man. Spending most 
of the year so far among humans hadn't improved my opinion 
of them. After so much time, even their voices grated on 
my nerves and ears. "He'll be here soon," I said shortly, 
and then, ^Won't you?^
    ^Yes. Calm down.^
    ^Do I seem nervous to you, Suppho?^
    He snarled back at me, and then stood up and strolled 
around the side of the tree.
    The human heard him at once- he had good hearing for 
one of his kind, too- and turned around. "There you are!" 
he said, and from his tone he might have been talking to 
one of his soldiers who had abandoned his sentry post. 
"Where have you been?"
    "Forgive me, my lord," said Suppho, bowing. I 
snickered behind my hand. The words would taste like ashes 
in his mouth, but he had to say them, to keep up the 
pretense just a little longer. We had tried, a few times, 
to play it with him being the one who walked into camp, 
but it didn't work. He looked too strange, too alien, full 
of the magic that the humans hated. I wasn't that much 
better, with my dark silver skin and dark hair and eyes, 
but I could either make myself look half-Elwen or land 
Elwen, and at least my skin was skin, not living planes of 
jewels. "I was delayed." He flicked a hunted glance over 
his shoulder. "My lord doesn't like me leaving his company 
without permission."
    "I was told," said the human, taking a step closer to 
him, "that you were commanded by a woman."
    It was a touch that I had added to the story, knowing 
that it would make the human's willingness to deal with us 
stronger. Humans despise women, for some reason, and don't 
let them command or even fight. Our prey would be eager to 
believe that someone male under a woman would betray her 
the more readily.
    But Suppho saved the plan by putting his own spin on 
the story.
    "In name only, my lord," he said scornfully, digging 
at his belt as if in pursuit of the sheaves of 
information. "But do we not all know that men, whether 
from the front or from the bed, truly command armies?"
    The man's eyes lit, and he laughed appreciatively. "I 
do like you, my Lord Diamondblue."
    Suppho flashed me a glance this time. I had revealed 
his last name. But I only shrugged. He had given away my 
name on our last hunt. Turn about was fair turn about, and 
I wasn't about to let him score something over me for long 
in our continuous game.
    "Where is the information that you have for me?" asked 
the man, drawing our attention away from each other and 
back to him.
    "Here," said Suppho, and held out the sheaf of paper. 
"You won't believe it, my lord. Troop movements, supply 
lines, the plans for the next battle..." He shook his 
head. "It's all there."
    The human smiled, but still appeared a little 
suspicious. "Where did you learn this?"
    Suppho smirked. "It is amazing, isn't it, what a woman 
will murmur in the throes of lovemaking and afterwards," 
he said with mock innocence. "And some of it is so easy to 
overhear when you're hiding right beside the tent."
    The human laughed one more time, and took the papers 
from him. He unfolded them and stared at the first one, 
his face still lit by a lingering smile.
    Then it fell flat. "These are blank-"
    His voice cut off with a gurgle. Suppho had also taken 
a cord from his waist, and he darted behind the human now, 
binding one of his arms to the tree. Then he took up the 
man's other arm.
    Neither of those was the reason that the man's speech 
had cut off with a gurgle, of course. I had come up behind 
him and used another cord to begin strangling him. It was 
something that an Elwen wouldn't normally be able to do, 
because we're not that strong compared to humans and the 
victim of a strangling tends to flail around quite a bit.
    But with his arms bound behind his back, and a curalli 
who had made a study of strangling holding the cord at his 
throat... well, let's just say that it would look as if a 
human had done it. And that was part of the point. Besides 
killing the human leaders to break the back of their war 
effort, we set them against each other, made each group 
think that other round-eyes had done it. The War was 
already collapsing into a small series of struggles, that 
human band against this, and the land Elwens, still 
enraged by the death of their Lady Eleriad almost two 
hundred years ago, moving in behind and cleaning up the 
blood quite handily.
    That part had been all my idea.
    Not that I got that much thanks for it, of course. Of 
late, the Council had grown more ashamed of its Enders 
than ever, thanks to new elven philosophical doctrines out 
of the south that condemned killing and divided the world 
into Darkness and Light, this Wrong and that Right. No one 
felt like thanking a curalli who was part of the Darkness 
anyway- had been born there, according to the elven race- 
sages- and had thought of a way to make killing even 
better.
    "Maln? Maln, you can let him go now."
    With a start, I realized that the man had stopped 
struggling some time ago, and was now just a body. I 
stepped back and let him fall, though I did work around 
him so that I could look into his face and make sure that 
he was dead. I have been nastily surprised a time or two 
before when I didn't make sure.
    He was. I put a hand over the marks on his throat, and 
then wrinkled my nose at the smell. He had done what most 
victims of strangling do, and shot his bladder free as he 
died. I stepped back and nodded to Suppho, who was looking 
at me with the kind of expression on his face that I 
reserved for humans.
    "You want to do the honors?"
    "You make me sick," Suppho murmured as he stooped over 
the man's hands. "You truly do."
    I was surprised into a laugh. Little sniping comments 
he might make, little insults he might give me, but he 
hadn't said something as open as that before, which 
sounded as if he was starting to believe in the doctrine 
of Darkness and Light himself. "If I make you sick, you 
should take up playing the harp, or reading poetry, or 
something else. Shouldn't be killing."
    "I don't take the enjoyment in it that you do," he 
said as he snapped off a small piece of his skin, which 
left a sharp edge that would cut through skin and bone and 
sever our prey's wrists. Those would make it clear, if 
left, that it wasn't a human who had strangled him. "You 
always look into their faces. You make it seem as if you 
enjoy seeing them dead."
    "I want to make sure they're dead."
    "You feel them stop breathing, hear their hearts stop 
beating. Isn't that enough?"
    "I didn't hear him stop breathing. I was thinking of 
something else."
    The silence of disgust came from behind me.
    I snorted a laugh and turned my back completely to 
look out over the camp, shaking my head.
    The camp was still silent. The human battle-leader had 
kept his acquaintance with a shadowed Elwen, even one who 
had information to sell, very quiet. There were some 
humans who thought of consorting with Elwens as treason to 
the human cause. He hadn't told even his guards that we 
were going somewhere tonight. I studied the fires closely, 
but didn't see anyone moving away from them, save the 
sentries pacing their endless rounds. I nodded at last, 
and turned back as Suppho called my name again.
    "Done," he said, holding up the hands. They dripped 
blood on the ground, and I wrinkled my nose again. Human 
blood smells too much like iron to suit me.
    "Then we move," I started to say, and then stopped 
myself, cocking my head. I hadn't heard the sound before; 
it either hadn't been loud enough, or had been blocked by 
the noises of cutting from behind me. But I could hear it 
now: a loud and steady screaming, sometimes breaking with 
a sob in the middle.
    "What's that?" I asked Suppho.
    The sapphire Elwen shook his head. His brilliant green 
eyes, vivid against his deep blue skin, were narrow but 
not particularly concerned. "I don't know. They're 
probably torturing someone. We should go." He turned his 
back and started to trot off.
    "Listen," I said, catching his arm.
    He gave me an impatient glance. "I have. It's a human 
voice. Yes, if it was an Elwen one, I would suggest we 
stop and do something about it. But who cares about a 
redblood? Let them kill each other if they want. It'll 
make the War better for us."
    "Not what race it is," I said, still listening, and 
shuddering all over as the scream scraped down my spine. 
"What gender. Female."
    Suppho shuddered and closed his eyes, listening. 
"Still nothing that we should do," he said. "Or could. 
It's coming from the other side of camp. Let them sort it 
out for themselves." He turned his back and started to 
walk away again.
    "Give me the hands."
    He stared at me, then the severed hands that he had 
already bound to one of the cords that we had used to 
strangle the human. "You really want them?" he asked. It 
was the first time that I had ever made such a request. I 
really don't like the smell of human blood, and taking the 
hands would insure that I got it all over myself.
    "Yes," I said, listening to the scream.
    He shook his head, wondering, and gave them to me. 
"All right," he said, and then turned and walked off 
again, pausing when he saw that I wasn't following. "You 
coming or not?"
    "I'll catch up."
    He sighed, rolled his eyes, and then made his way into 
the darkness, moving with light steps that belied his 
heaviness. I went the other direction, avoiding the 
sentries like one of the shadows that my kind is named 
for, now seeing the silence and peace of the sleeping camp 
as a kind of obscenity. They had to be able to hear the 
scream. How could they sleep through it?
    If such things happened here all the time, of course, 
I thought grimly as I came up to a tent that was set some 
ways apart from the others. It had two guards at the 
front, but they were staring boredly into the darkness. 
That must mean that they didn't think anyone would have 
any reason to interrupt what was going on inside.
    It only made my blood run colder.
    I circled around to the back, took out the blade that 
I wear on my left wrist, and slit the canvas. I peered 
inside, blinking and wincing as the lamplight stung my 
eyes. I would have been able to see even if it was pure 
darkness- better, in fact- but humans are deficient in 
that regard, as in so much else. They do need light to see 
at night.
    I wished I couldn't have seen what was taking place 
before me at all.
    Two human men stood in the corners of the tent, one of 
them watching the low bed in front of him, the other 
staring into thin air and smiling. I couldn't decide if he 
was some kind of idiot or- or if he'd had his turn 
already, I thought, loathe to complete the thought. It 
made it seem more evil, more real, somehow.
    The man beating into the woman on the bed didn't need 
the thoughts of anyone to make it more real, though, and 
neither, I thought, did the woman. She was still 
screaming, and the man raping her must have given up on 
silencing her. He was intent on taking his pleasure, eyes 
half-closed. I saw him smile as the woman gained back a 
little breath and the screams grew a little louder.
    Might even make it more pleasant for him, the screams.
    I took a few deep breaths, and the world seemed to 
slow down, to go clear and soft, as if I was looking at it 
from behind a cloud. It's like this, sometimes, I thought 
as I slipped forward. I had known that this place existed 
for me, but it was the first time that I had ever 
consciously thought about what I was experiencing. It was 
soft and at the same time clear, my mind repeated, and all 
my body had to do was follow the murmured, detached 
instructions of my mind.
    I stayed in the shadows cast by the lamps, and that 
meant, with the magic of my people, named for our kinship 
to the shadows, that they didn't see me until I stepped 
into the light. By then, I was ready, still caught up in 
that clear, soft world, and at the same time so incredibly 
angry that I didn't have to pause to think about what I 
wanted to do.
    I flung my hands wide.
    Two knives born of nothing but my will, looking like 
metallic slashes of light because of their lack of hilts, 
formed in the air and flashed towards the two men who 
stood gaping at me. I had always had that gift, and I 
controlled the knives as easily as I had birthed them, 
sending them into the groins of the two men. That would 
have been enough; they collapsed with shrieks, more than 
blood, streaming out of their mouths.
    But it wasn't enough.
    I called on the knives, dismissing them, and making 
them explode as I did so. The blood flew around the room, 
and their screams grew louder than ever.
    The guards at the door waited until then to come in. I 
supposed that the screams must finally have gotten too 
much for them. But what it said, that they had waited 
until now, that they had stood guard outside a tent where 
such a thing was happening in the first place-
    But I couldn't think like that for too long, or I 
would shatter the fragile glass that held back my anger. 
And I was barely controlling the press of the fury as it 
was. I turned to the guards and bared my teeth. They 
hesitated, and one of them looked ill at the sight of the 
blood that coated the walls of the tent, but they came for 
me anyway.
    I met them.
    I dropped to the floor as they leaped over the 
sprawled bodies of their comrades, and struck up with two 
more knives, this time regular steel knives that I pulled 
from my wrist sheaths. I could have used more 
flightknives, but I didn't want to. That much magic would 
just exhaust me, and I wanted to save my gift for 
something very special for the current rapist, who hadn't 
stopped raping the woman even though he should have tried 
to save the lives of his friends.
    The two guards above me went down on either side of 
me, one with a knife in his groin, the same as the other 
two, and screaming like- like a dying human, I thought as 
I stood. There really was no other sound that could 
compare with that one, even in the mind of one who has 
heard most of the death screams that the world has to 
offer.
    The other, as I saw when I turned to him, had a cut 
artery in his leg and wouldn't be alive for much longer. I 
grimaced regretfully. Not only did that unleash more blood 
than I wanted and increase the smell in the tent, but it 
also meant that he would be dead more quickly than I 
liked. He should have been forced to watch, as the others 
would be.
    I moved past him, and laid another knife, this one 
taken from the back of my neck, against the throat of the 
laboring man. "Stop," I told him, using his own language, 
the same one I had used with his leader. He froze for a 
moment, but his body continued to move, and he turned his 
head slightly to smirk at me.
    I drew back, keeping one hand clenched near his 
windpipe and letting him feel the power in my fingers, and 
then brought the knife smartly down in just the right 
place. I could cut very carefully when I wanted to, and I 
didn't scratch an inch of the woman's skin.
    He wasn't so lucky.
    His scream was the loudest of them all, but I snatched 
up a piece of flesh that had been severed from the leg of 
one of my kills when his groin exploded and stuffed it in 
his mouth. The cry died.
    "Now," I told him, not caring that he probably 
couldn't hear me, what with the pain demanding almost all 
his attention, "lie down on the floor, and try not to pay 
attention to the blood."
    He didn't pay attention.
    I sighed, caught his hand, and pulled his fingers 
back. He screamed again, or tried to; I could feel the 
vibration in his throat.
    "Lie down," I said.
    This time, he obeyed.
    I looked over at the human woman, and was saddened to 
see her watching me with wide eyes that had likely seen 
everything. I would have comforted her, but I knew that 
that would only cause her more pain. I turned away, for 
the moment, and stooped over the man on the floor.
    "Can you hear me?" I asked, and took my hand from his 
throat so that he could nod.
    The humans, even as Elwens and most of the intelligent 
races do, had a fine instinct for survival. He looked me 
in the eye, and the desire to live won out over the pain. 
He nodded quickly.
    "Good." I held up the knife that had already been 
stained with blood from cutting off what he was using to 
rape the woman with. "You are going to die, but do what I 
want and I won't make it as painful as I could. Will you 
do that for me?"
    Humans had learned from Elwens in the years of the 
War, and not all of it was sensible. He was as full of 
pride as if he had been one of us. He tried to head-butt 
me, and spit out the flesh that I had stuffed in his mouth 
to call for help.
    I grabbed his throat again, and forced him back on the 
ground, shoving the flesh in his mouth and holding it 
there as I knelt on his chest and fetched the severed 
hands from the floor. A knee in his bleeding groin quieted 
him when he might have done something else. He lay there 
and did something that might have been moaning and might 
have been whimpering; I've never really been that 
interested in distinguishing the difference. I leaned back 
at last, and bound the flesh in his mouth with the cord on 
which Suppho had strung the hands.
    "All right," I said, and sat back, ignoring the sounds 
of pain from the other men, which had mostly subsided by 
now to the point where they wouldn't have needed gags. 
"Can you hear me?"
    He stared at me, but it was doubtful that he was any 
more sane than the woman he had been raping. A pity, but I 
supposed that he couldn't help it. Most people exposed to 
what curalli were couldn't.
    "No matter," I murmured, and then reached down and 
nicked my wrist with my blade. My blood flowed out, white 
and smelling cleanly of starlight. I breathed it in under 
the iron of the human blood and smiled gratefully as the 
scent cleared my head. I couldn't be in the soft, clear 
world where killing so often took me for this. This was 
punishment, not murder.
    I poured my blood over the severed end of the 
general's hand, murmuring two words over and over in a 
rising, falling chant. "Tano. Tamo. Tano. Tamo." Death and 
Life, in the tongue of my people, and it was not by chance 
that they sounded so similar. At last, the blood was 
enough, and I closed my eyes and ceased the chant, 
focusing my will on the hand.
    That was something that elves and the humans and the 
rest of them in the world never understood: that Elwen 
magic was no more than the combination of inborn talent 
and sheer, focused will. I wanted something to happen 
badly enough, and it did. Someone who had never done this 
ritual could have done it as well, if they wanted it to 
happen badly enough.
    Although it wasn't likely that someone who wasn't 
curalli would ever want this particular thing to happen.
    The hand flexed beneath my hand, and came alive. It 
fell on the man's chest, and lay there a moment. Then it 
turned and crawled up his arm and along to his hand. It 
squeezed his fingers to a bloody pulp, and then took his 
hand's place. It flexed again, and then sat there awaiting 
my command.
    "Choke him," I said, and turned to the others. I chose 
the only man not dead yet- I really had to learn to kill 
without that much blood loss when I was angry- and set the 
other hand to doing the same thing. They would feel the 
helpless agony as the hands choked them, knowing that it 
was the hands of their own kind, essentially pieces of 
their own bodies...
    Well, maybe not. I knew how the punishment would 
affect an Elwen; it was used on rapists, traitors, and 
adulterers in my home town. But the race-sages were still 
arguing about whether humans, who thought of themselves 
more as one people than as individuals like Elwens did, 
would feel the same combination of pain and savagery and 
helpless indignation.
    I shrugged, and made my way to the bed where the woman 
lay.
    I really didn't know what to do with her. Yes, I could 
show her that those who had hurt her so much were dead. 
But that would have helped an Elwen woman; I couldn't be 
sure that it would help her.
    Nothing to be done about it. She was more than half- 
mad already. I didn't think that seeing her rapists like 
this would hurt her the more, and if it might help her, 
all to the good.
    I lifted her gently off the bed, and let her see. She 
stared for a long moment, with no expression on her face 
at all, and then turned her head away and wouldn't look 
again. She struggled and came close to screaming, in a raw 
and broken voice, when I picked her up and tried to carry 
her. That made an already hard task harder. I wasn't that 
much taller or stronger than she was in the first place, 
and I couldn't have her kicking if I was to get her out of 
here.
    Softly, I called on the magic of my people once more 
and began to sing. She relaxed at once, eyes focused on 
something beyond my head. The siren song of the curalli 
does that to people.
    Still singing, dark and wordless notes that had 
nothing to do with anything, but would force her into 
contemplation of the world all about her, I backed out of 
the tent and managed to haul her a little way away from 
it. She stared up, still smiling, as I laid her on the 
ground and considered what to do with her. I didn't know 
anyone nearby to take her to, and Suppho wouldn't have let 
her travel with us, even assuming that she'd want to be in 
the company of Elwens- or males- until we reached the 
Council headquarters.
    But I couldn't just leave her there, where they might 
find her and drag her back for some more "sport" so 
easily.
    I at last scooped her up again and made my way, 
wheezing under her weight and barely able to sing, into 
the forest. The shadows enfolded me at once, and I knew 
that anyone following me wouldn't see or hear a thing, 
save my voice. The camp still slept on. The screams in the 
tent had awakened them not at all.
    I had to pause and fight back my fury at that. Yes, I 
could have gone back and killed the lot of them- I knew 
how to do that- but what purpose would it have served? 
They would never have known why.
    I came to rest at last in a clearing where Suppho and 
I had camped for a little while before we entered the camp 
after our quarry. I dug about, and at last found the cache 
that I had buried one evening when Suppho was out hunting. 
I had a habit of doing this wherever we stopped, but, I 
thought as I stooped over it, I would have to stop doing 
this soon if I was losing my memory of where I put things. 
They were meant to be of use to me, or to someone else who 
could find them if I didn't get the chance to come back 
for them, not to lie undiscovered and rotting in the earth 
forever.
    I pulled out the dried fruit and jerky that I had 
buried, and the few pyrite coins, almost the last of the 
stores that Eleriad had granted me. I laid them in front 
of her, then dragged up a few of the pieces of deadwood 
that were left from the fire and piled them in front of 
her. Then I stepped back and stopped singing.
    She woke up at once, surprising me a little, and 
stared at me vaguely. Then she uttered something between a 
sob and a whimper, and tried to draw the tattered remains 
of the dress she wore a little tighter around her breasts 
and legs.
    "I won't hurt you," I said in her language.
    She stared at me.
    I sighed. She might be from one of the tribes who 
didn't understand this tongue, the most common one among 
the humans but still far from the only one. Or she might 
be frightened out of her wits, something that would make 
responding next to impossible. In case that was true, I 
squatted down, keeping my hands out so that she wouldn't 
see me as a threat.
    Appearances could be deceiving, of course. I was 
always a threat- but I hardly thought that I would have to 
protect myself from her.
    I gestured to the material for starting a fire, the 
coins, the food. It was hers now, I tried to tell her with 
that motion. She could do with it as she pleased, 
including throwing it away, but it was hers. I wouldn't 
touch it.
    I wished, as I watched her shiver at the touch of my 
gaze, that I had a blanket to leave her, but I didn't. My 
people throve on cold, and didn't use blankets, or heavy 
clothes, even in the dead of winter. I didn't think she 
would freeze to death; but it would have been nice for her 
to have something to cover herself with.
    I did try words one more time. "This is yours. I'll 
leave now. Do your best to heal yourself. The coins will 
buy you sanctuary in any of the Elwen armies, especially 
if you can bear to tell them what happened to you." I 
smiled a little. "If you do do that, then please tell them 
that the men who did- this- to you are dead. It'll prevent 
fruitless hunts."
    A spark of life came to her eyes. "I can't go to 
Elwens," she whispered in her ruined voice. "They're- 
monsters. All of you."
    "We don't rape women, my lady. Not without paying for 
it in the way that those men did, anyway."
    She gave a shiver, and I couldn't tell, given her next 
words, if it was fear or longing. "To live in a place like 
that must be wonderful."
    I nodded and stood. "I like it." I bowed to her, not 
missing her tension when I moved even that little bit 
closer to her. "Farewell, my lady, and I do hope that you 
manage to heal a little."
    I turned, trotted into the darkness, and listened. I 
couldn't hear her bolt, and decided that that was a good 
sign that she meant to stay in the clearing for at least a 
little while.
    I spent an hour or so rigging up traps that would harm 
anyone who approached the clearing from outside but not 
someone coming from inside it- tripwires, spring knives, 
and the like. I also set up several piles of stones that 
would fall if toppled, and wake her- or should. I doubted 
that she would be sleeping very deeply tonight.
    Then I turned and sped north, under the coming dawn.
----------------------------------------------------------
    "That took you a long time," said Suppho in disgust, 
as I entered the camp from the south the next evening. 
    I ignored him, stretching and yawning. I had gotten 
some sleep on the journey, but not as much I would have 
liked to have had. But it would suffice, I decided, until 
I was in my own bed in the Council headquarters again.
    Five months, I thought as I knelt and began the 
stretching exercises that kept my arms and legs supple, 
and we were going home at last. We had fulfilled the 
commission that the Lady Eleriad had given us so long ago. 
Fifty-two human leaders dead, and we were to meet the one, 
in a few days, who would be sent to negotiate the 
beginnings of a peace treaty with the humans. A good 
year's work, I thought contentedly as I rolled on my back 
and began to juggle knives.
    Suppho watched me, now and then turning to stare at 
and rotate something roasting on a spit over the fire. 
"What happened to the hands?" he asked at last.
    "Left them behind," I said, flipping over and doing a 
handstand, letting the knives fall to earth about me. i 
frowned as one almost nicked me. I would have to work on 
that, if I valued my life.
    "What?"
    I looked at him. "Trust me, the last thing anyone will 
notice now is marks on the wrists indicating that it 
wasn't a human who killed him. They'll be wondering how 
those hands appeared in a tent strangling-"
    "Maln!"
    I laughed at him, showing my teeth. "What? Don't you 
want to hear what happened to the men who raped a woman?"
    "That was it, then? Rape?"
    "Yes."
    "And then what the hell happened to her? Did you think 
that it would be kinder to cut her throat and get it over 
with?" I couldn't even tell if he was accusing me or 
saying something that he thought should have happened.
    I shook my head. "I left her in the woods with what I 
thought she would need to survive. As much as I could give 
her, at least."
    "That was cruel."
    "Why?"
    "You know how important virginity is to human women. 
What kind of a life will she have, even if she does go 
among Elwens? She'll be ready to die of shame anyway. You 
should have cut her throat and been done with it." He 
turned to stare broodingly into the flames again.
    "She was strong enough to stay sane through the rape 
and the sight of what I did to her rapists," I said, 
rolling on one side to look at the meat over the fire. I 
felt my lips pull back when I recognized it; I didn't like 
grouse. "I thought that she deserved a chance," I added, 
climbing to my feet and looking into the forest. The wind 
brought me the scent of a game trail.
    "Yes, but the problem is, Maln, you don't think about 
things like that-"
    "You didn't, either. You didn't remember that I don't 
like grouse."
    I turned my head, wanting to see from his expression 
if he really had forgotten or had done this on purpose to 
annoy me. But I learned nothing. He looked bewildered, and 
then his face twisted with rage. 
    "You do this on purpose, don't you?" he all but hissed 
at me.
    "Do what?"
    "Talk about the things that don't matter as if they 
were as important as the things that do."
    I shook my head. "Never mind. I'll hunt vespermeal for 
myself." I turned and slipped into the woods, leaving him 
to grumble at the grouse, which would give him no more 
sport, behind me.
    I sighed and bent my head to the game trail, letting 
the clean though heavy scents of the animals that ran 
along it fill my nostrils. For the first time in a day, 
the stench of human blood left me, let me go, and the 
stink of my own rage departed as well.
    I rose and loped off into the darkness, moving with 
the easy stride that I had used to run north. I would need 
to rest later, but at that moment, I needed food much more 
than I needed sleep.
    I hadn't used that much magic in a long time. I 
didn't, usually, just living from day to day, and the 
kinds of killings that we had been doing lately had cut 
out the use of magic in assassination as well. I was 
aching throughout my body, from the stress of the run and 
the power that I had expended, and I wanted something to 
eat so badly that I began to salivate the first time I 
managed to separate out the scent of a deer from the other 
smells.
    Yes. The thought of the venison jerky that I had left 
with the human woman had remained with me, and I wanted a 
deer. I bent down again to trick out the prints of a young 
buck from the rest.
    I heard a hiss from somewhere behind me, and turned 
around, my knives in my hands, and a blade of light 
hovering in front of me.
    Nothing.
    Eyes narrowed, face wary, blades at the ready, I 
backed up a little and tilted my head, my being focused on 
my nose, ready to bolt or fight the moment that I smelled 
something out of place.
    As it happened, I did smell something out of place, 
but it was out of place in a pleasant fashion. I 
straightened and smiled, edging towards the scent, the 
deer forgotten.
    This thing would make a fine meal, if I could trick it 
into landing.
    I came into a small clear place among the trees, where 
I would be visible from the sky, and stared at the air. 
Nothing. I put away my own knives, let the flightknife 
hover in front of me, and then began to blaspheme the name 
of Suulta, Goddess of the Land Elwens, as creatively as I 
knew how.
    The hiss came again, and extended as I didn't stop, 
turning at last into a long, shivering screech of rage. 
The thing appeared above me and hurtled down towards me, 
dangerous hind legs extended, wings beating and jaws open.
    But the flightknife was ready, and at my command it 
darted up and struck the suulta's unprotected chest. I 
told it to explode, and it did, blowing out most of the 
chest and both muscle and bone. The winged cat, which had 
antlers like one of the deer I had been hunting crowning 
its head, and spotted and patterned white fur, crashed to 
the ground in a tangle of limbs and drifting feathers and 
bits of hair.
    I waited a moment to be sure it still wasn't kicking- 
the clawed hind feet could disembowel like any other 
feline's- and then went a little closer.
    Yes, it was dead.
    I didn't bother with finesse; I was hungry, and I had 
eaten worse, many times. I fell on the hole in the body 
that the explosion had torn open, and pulled out the 
liver. (The blast had taken the heart, and the lungs, but 
the lower organs and the liver, most of all and as I had 
hoped, was undamaged).
    For a long time, the clearing was filled with the 
sounds of my eating and not much more. I saw golden eyes 
appear around me as the predators and the scavengers alike 
scented the sweet feline meat and came closer, but I 
warned them off with growls and sometimes just a baring of 
bloody teeth. The timid ran or flew away altogether; the 
other, bolder ones like the wolves and the vultures, 
settled, content to wait.
    At last, I had had enough. I had consumed the liver 
and a little raw meat, and wanted only to sleep. I stepped 
away with a yawn, only remembering to cut the suulta's 
antler points off at the last moment. Those could be sold 
for a good price to someone in the small town that 
sheltered in the Council's shadow. For some reason, 
jewelry made from suulta antler points was in fashion 
there- some strange reason, because the land Elwens 
regarded suultea as sacred and didn't want anyone hunting 
them.
   I didn't care, but the antler tips would come in handy 
if I needed some more money. I expected to be among the 
Enders and the Council members for a long time. We had 
been five months on the road, killing the human leaders 
and making sure that things went as badly for the round- 
eyes as possible. Money wouldn't be amiss, especially if I 
saw Ualia again...
    Smiling, I took the claws as well. Ualia had told me 
that claws from any kind of cat were also in fashion right 
now, though I wasn't sure that that wasn't just her own 
fascination with the strange and unusual speaking. They 
might buy me a little of her time, though, and that was as 
good as money to me.
    I stretched and then followed the scent of water to 
bathe. I heard the wolves and the birds fighting over the 
corpse I had left behind me before I reached the stream.
----------------------------------------------------------
    Hours later, I woke up. I had fallen asleep in the 
warm, shallow water, the first time that that had ever 
happened to me. I sat up and shook the water out of my 
hair. It finally ran clear, no blood of any kind or color 
coming with it.
    Getting old, I thought to myself again, as I had when 
I couldn't find my cache the night before, but I knew I 
wasn't, not really. I had seen only a little over nineteen 
hundred years; I had a good eight millennia left to live, 
if I was careful. I could spend at least five of those 
millennia in the Enders, again if I was careful.
    Did I want to?
    I snorted to myself as I bent to scrape at some dried 
blood that wouldn't come off on the back of my neck. I 
asked myself the question occasionally, more out of 
curiosity than anything else. The cynical side of me 
couldn't believe that I wouldn't get tired of being an 
Ender someday.
    But I had never really wished for any other life. I 
had a gift for killing, and I liked- most of the time- the 
people who worked and lived in and around the enormous 
building that the Council of Arcadia had made its 
headquarters. It didn't have the chances of a mercenary's 
or ordinary assassin's life, the only other professions 
where I could have put my gifts to good use. And I worked 
only when the Council said I did, which was actually rarer 
than some people would think. The Council didn't like 
threats to the peace of Arcadia, but, on the other hand, 
the Enders could be a kind of threat. They didn't use us 
unless they thought they had to. This five month stretch 
was the longest I'd worked at once since I had become an 
Ender, about eight hundred years before.
    I bent upside down and wet the back of my neck at 
last, without putting my head beneath the surface of the 
water. I couldn't see or smell or hear that well that way. 
I was feeling edgy with my head as low as it was already, 
and I wouldn't have done it at all if the blood on the 
back of my neck hadn't been so irritating.
    The dried blood came loose at last, like the peeling 
off of a scab, and then I straightened back up and stared 
around.
    Nothing.
    I relaxed a little.
    But it wouldn't always be nothing, I reminded myself, 
and pulled my soaking tunic back over my head. I would 
sleep this way tonight. It didn't really bother me to be 
wet, as I almost never got cold, and my clothes had knives 
tucked into them that I wouldn't be able to reach nearly 
as easily if I slept naked.
    I came back out of the water, stretching, and then 
stopped as I saw a footprint in the wet grass and mud at 
the edge of the bank.
    Elwen.
    And I hadn't seen or heard him, though the scent was 
easy enough for me to identify, I thought as I stared 
warily about. Suppho had come down and stood on the edge 
of the bank and watched me bathing. What in the world had 
he had in mind?
    Time to ask him, I thought in determination, and 
headed back to the camp.
----------------------------------------------------------
    "I should have asked you this months ago, but I didn't 
have the courage. Years ago, when you first started making 
these little sniping comments. I didn't have the courage 
then, either."
    My quiet voice startled him. I didn't know why. Maybe 
he hadn't thought that I wouldn't bring it up this time, 
either, or at least that I wouldn't notice.
    "What do you mean?" He sat up and watched me warily as 
I stalked into the firelight.
    "I should have had this out with you," I repeated. 
"Why did you come down to the stream and stand there 
staring at me?"
    His mouth worked, and for a moment I truly believed he 
wasn't going to answer me. But he must have gathered his 
courage, too.
    "I was looking for a mark."
    "A mark?"
    He nodded, and stared at me as if he thought he would 
still see one, whatever it had been that he was looking 
for. I stared steadily back. He looked away at last and 
gave me the rest of the answer. "The mark of someone sworn 
to the Darkness."
    "Stars-" I cut the oath off as I saw his mouth tighten 
stubbornly, and closed my eyes, rubbing at the beginning 
of a forming headache. I wanted our old friendship back if 
I could possibly get it, and making him angry was no way 
to begin. "What did you think it would look like?" I 
asked, and try as I might, I was unable to keep the anger 
completely out of my voice. "A black stain, spreading from 
my shoulders to my groin, or something else ugly that I 
should take pains to keep covered up?"
    "How did you know?"
    I closed my eyes again, this time to try to hide the 
disgust that was blooming in them. I was sure that he 
wouldn't understand. "I've heard the same stories that you 
have, Suppho, including, I think, the stories where you 
got this ridiculous idea. They've been telling them all 
over the continent for the past few months. Now, I 
understand that the elven tales are popular and probably 
appeal to the kind of simplistic mind that you've 
developed in the past few decades, but could you not 
listen to them? Please? We have to work together as 
Enders, as partners. Enders don't have time for that kind 
of rezt."
    "You think it doesn't matter? That it isn't true?"
    I opened my eyes again, and was confronted with the 
expression of a child whom one has just told the truth 
about his parents to. "Of course it isn't true," I 
snapped. "The Darkness and the Light don't exist. Nothing 
in the world is completely good or evil." I hated these 
kinds of debates, considering the things that I had to say 
self-evident, but if that was what he wanted to do, then I 
would say them.
    "But how do you know that?"
    "How do you know that they exist?" I countered. When 
he looked as if he might protest, I added, "I would say 
that I have a lot more evidence on my side than you do on 
yours."
    He opened his mouth, closed it, and then said, "It's 
all around us, Maln- and even then, I think that you don't 
really understand the nature of the question. The 
important thing is to have faith, to believe that they 
exist, not to know that they exist. It's more like 
religion than anything else."
    "Spare me."
    He stiffened. "It's what I believe, Maln," he said 
with dangerous quietness. "Are you going to tell me why I 
shouldn't believe it?"
    "Yes." I sat across from him and linked my hands in 
front of me in the professorial posture that he hated. I 
grinned at him, feeling better now that I knew the thing 
eating away at our friendship was just Suppho acting like 
an idiot again. He did it regularly, every decade or so, 
and I managed to lay it to rest without too much trouble 
every time. "It's interfering with our work, Suppho. It'll 
lead you to kill for the wrong motives, and it's making 
you mistrust me. And it means that you'll spend more of 
your time thinking about this, and trying to adjust your 
behavior to fit some kind of imagined moral code, than 
doing what we should be doing."
    "'What we should be doing.' It's evil, Maln. It's 
wrong. You should see that."
    "Then stop being an Ender," I said, even as pain hit 
me beneath my breastbone. This was as serious as I had 
originally thought it was, then. He had never spoken of 
abandoning the Enders before. "Go somewhere else, do 
something else."
    His eyes darted away from me. "There has to be a way 
to make it honorable," he muttered. "I just have to find 
that way."
    I bit my lips to keep from laughing. "You really think 
that you can change the way the Enders work?"
    His head flashed up, and his eyes narrowed on me. "I 
have changed the way I work!"
    "In what way?"
    "I haven't killed anyone who didn't deserve it for 
months!"
    I shrugged. That was just because we had been on the 
road after the prey that Eleriad had ordered us to kill, 
and hadn't had time for personal grudge-matches. I told 
him as much, and he shook his head, scowling.
    "I'm ridding the world of the Darkness, by scrubbing 
it from my own soul, and helping you to kill those who 
carry it further," he told me, with a virtue I never 
thought I would hear from his mouth.
    "But, according to you, killing is still wrong."
    His eyes slid away from mine, and the fire died in 
them. "But-" he said in a soft, protesting whisper.
    I laughed and leaned over to slap him on the back. "I 
understand how difficult it can be," I said. "I went 
through the same thing when I first realized that I was as 
good at killing as I am. I thought I had to have some 
purpose, some reason, some excuse. I racked my brains 
trying to come up with it."
    "And?" He had turned his head and was watching my face 
with a hungry intensity that I hadn't seen since he gained 
confidence in his own abilities as an Ender and thought 
that he could stop watching my every move.
    "And what?"
    "What is it?"
    My brows rose. "You will notice that I said 'used to," 
Suppho? I found none. I don't think it exists. There isn't 
some grand reason behind everything that you do." I nodded 
to the remains of the grouse on the spit over the fire, 
wrinkling my nose at the smell. "Why did you kill that 
grouse tonight?"
    "Wha- I was hungry."
    "Yes. Exactly. And did you rack your brain before you 
flung the dart?"
    "No."
    "Exactly."
    "But that's different, Maln. There's a difference 
between killing a grouse and killing an Elwen- or even 
killing a human, when you get right down to it." He looked 
pensive. "I should have been thinking about this before 
now, but I suppose I didn't. I wonder if I was doing 
wrong, all these months?"
    "You are confused," I said, staring at him pityingly.
    "What do you mean?"
    "You told me that you hadn't killed people who didn't 
deserve it. That implies that you don't think killing's 
wrong, if it's for a good cause. But at the same time, you 
doubt your cause, and your right to kill at all, and you 
don't want to have to reason out killing a grouse any more 
than you want to reason out killing someone whom you think 
deserves it. Make up your mind."
    "How do you reason it out?"
    "The same way I always have," I said, standing up, 
deciding that he would understand this and then I could go 
get some sleep. "Because you kill a bird instead of an 
Elwen or a human doesn't mean it's any less dead. Killing 
is part of everything. Death is part of life."
    "You're only saying that because you're so good at 
it," he accused me.
    "Yes."
    He appeared taken aback by my simple answer. I rolled 
my eyes at him and turned towards the forest. "I'm 
sleeping in a tree tonight," I called. "I saw a suulta in 
the forest, and some other things that I didn't entirely 
trust. Wake me when you want me to take my watch." I 
vaulted into the branches and closed my eyes.
    He didn't say anything to that. I decided he had 
understood, and closed my eyes.
----------------------------------------------------------
    I opened my eyes, my body tensing for no reason that I 
could understand. I was awake and on the ground before I 
realized what it was.
    Something had moved or sounded out of place. I had 
lived in a city that not only punished rapists, traitors, 
and adulterers in spectacular ways; it also killed those 
who slept deeply. My people have a saying, "Those who 
dream by night burn by morning." It had always been true 
for me, at least in a dangerous place. Despite what I had 
said to Suppho, I had not really considered the forest a 
dangerous place. I had killed the suulta, after all, and 
all I had seen from the other creatures I might be 
concerned about were tracks that didn't even look all that 
fresh.
    But something was wrong.
    I flared my nostrils, and then snarled softly. 
Something had come near the camp's border, and I could see 
that Suppho had fallen asleep when the end of his watch 
came. He hadn't sensed it at all; he had trusted me to do 
that.
    And I had, of course, but he shouldn't have trusted 
that. One can't trust anything where's danger concerned, I 
thought, dropping to my belly and squirming into a shadow. 
The scent that filled the air was disquieting, but I 
didn't want to attack until I saw what it was. That was 
another lesson that I had learned from years of killing. I 
might kill a friend, and that would be embarrassing and 
annoying, not to mention hurting like hell.
    I saw a shadow move, and then separate itself from the 
night. The golden eyes it bore gleamed in the darkness. I 
wouldn't have worried, given that they had the slit pupils 
of a feline, but they were also diamond-shaped, like mine 
and Suppho's.
    That thing out there was a cat, but it was also an 
Elwen, and I wanted to know what business one of the 
shapeshifting Elwens would have with us.
    I slipped into another shadow, and saw the cat turn 
its head towards me. I slipped closer again, and could see 
now that it was a panther, and female. She turned again, 
sniffing the air with rage and suspicion. She tore at the 
ground with her claws.
    I threw a knife that near pinned a paw to the ground. 
She pulled the paw back in startlement, but didn't make 
any noise, and then a moment later I saw the golden eyes 
wink out like stars drawn away by dawn.
    I half-closed my own eyes, so that I saw only a 
wavering blur. I had no desire to witness an Elwen in the 
process of Shifting.
    "Fair-night."
    The greeting brought my eyes open. I hadn't thought 
that she would be so polite. Obviously not come about a 
territorial matter, then.
    She smiled at me and bowed her head slightly. She was 
a tall torkan, a panther Elwen- of course- with a tail and 
claws and short fur growing all over her body even in 
Elwen form. Her skin was blacker than the night around 
her, her eyes golden, and her hair a truly magnificent 
cascade of darkness that fell almost to the middle of her 
back. The women of my own race had hair as dark, but rare 
was the curalli woman who wore it so long. It would give 
enemies more of a hold in battle, and curalli women, like 
most of my people, thought about such things every day of 
their lives.
    "Fair-night," I said, letting her see that I had other 
blades. Of course, to do that, I had to step out of the 
shadow and let her see me, which was a gesture of trust in 
itself. She smiled, and I tried to offset the mistake I 
might have made by putting my back against a tree. "Why 
are you here?"
    "My name is Lucinda Clawtap," she said, tilting her 
head and waiting. When she saw that I didn't recognize the 
name, she added, a little impatiently, "The negotiator for 
the treaty with the humans?"
    "Maln Shadowdancer," I said, and then shook my head. 
"The lords and ladies of our kind decided to send a 
woman?"
    Her eyes turned the color of autumn frost. "Have you 
been around humans so long that you have picked up their 
unfortunate attitudes, Shadowdancer?"
    Calling me by my last name was an insult, implying 
that my family was more important than I was. It was an 
insult I let pass. "No," I told her, thinking of the woman 
I had rescued last night. "But I don't think the humans 
would deal with a woman, and what's the good of uselessly 
antagonizing them to prove a point?"
    Lucinda smiled. "True. I would have come anyway, of 
course- I welcome the chance to antagonize humans, 
uselessly or not- but the negotiator for the humans is a 
half-Elwen. He won't mind as much."
    I nodded. "Very well, my lady. You are a surprise, but 
we will do our best to escort you. You are to meet your 
counterpart where?"
    "Not far from the Forbge Forest," she murmured, 
studying me as if I had said something puzzling. "Not far 
from Esshellen."
    I nodded, recognizing the name of the valley where the 
Lady Eleriad had died in battle. "Whose idea was that?"
    "I don't know." She paused, then added, "Why do you 
care about it anyway?"
    I snorted. She was one of those who thought that 
Enders were just killers, then, and not interested at all 
in the ramifications of their actions. "I helped to end 
this damn War- or rather, bring it to the point where the 
humans are willing to deal with us. I would like to know 
if they are insulting us. It could imply that they haven't 
a notion of keeping the treaty."
    Lucinda's lips twitched. "You think too much like a 
land Elwen, my lord. I have just come from spending days 
with them. That is the kind of thing that they debate, 
too, questions that they can't possibly know the answer 
to, and nuances too subtle to be of concern to true 
Elwens." She said that as if hoping that I would challenge 
her, tell her she was wrong.
    With a shrug, I stepped away from the game. I didn't 
want to debate her as I had Suppho earlier. "I only 
wondered," I said, and turned back to the camp. "Would you 
like to meet the Lord Diamondblue?"
    "There are two of you?"
    I turned back, my eyebrows raised. "Yes. Enders 
usually travel in pairs."
    "I didn't think that they would give me two," she 
murmured, and came up to walk beside me.
    I kept one eye on her, partly out of intense and 
innate paranoia, partly because I didn't understand what 
she had just said. "Why wouldn't they give you two- 
guards, or guides, or whatever in the name of the stars we 
really are?"
    She didn't pick up on, or else purposely ignored, the 
implied question. "I don't know," she murmured. "Why would 
they want to give me guards at all? And if they did, why 
would they want to give me more than one?"
    "My lady?"
    Lucinda shook her head as if waking from a dream and 
looked at me with her lips twisted into something that 
might have been a smile and her head on one side. "Put it 
like this, my Lord Maln: how much do you trust the Council 
of Arcadia?"
    "They're my employers. I trust them to give me my 
commissions and pay me when I complete the task."
    She nodded, as though I hadn't said anything at all 
shocking. I knew several people back in the Council 
headquarters who would have denied that the Council kept 
Enders after all, never mind the evidence all about them. 
It didn't bother her, then, thinking about people who went 
around killing for money. That was interesting.
    "And do you trust them not to send you into situations 
that they know could get you killed?"
    I shook my head slowly. "What difference would it 
make?"
    "What do you mean?"
    "I don't think anything that they thought could kill 
me would actually kill me." The Council didn't know about 
my gift of creating and hurling knives made of will, for 
one thing. "I would do what I could, and then go back and 
ask some hard questions."
    Lucinda laughed quietly. "Confident, aren't you?"
    "With reason. Are you saying that you think they've 
sent you into this situation on purpose, to kill you, not 
with the thought that you're the best negotiator?"
    "I think so." She shrugged. "I've negotiated a few 
treaties, but never anything even approaching this in 
importance. My training in the art of diplomacy isn't 
anywhere near the level that it should be for something 
like this, either. And here it is, the treaty that will 
bring peace between two races who have been fighting for 
almost three hundred fifty years- why are they sending 
someone who probably won't succeed?"
    I shook my head slowly. I couldn't see any reason. 
Yes, sometimes the Council did things for the sake of 
political expediency that would make someone on the 
outside shiver in fear or hatred. But anyone accepting 
employment with them knew that was a risk. An Elwen would 
just do the best he could, and save his own life if he 
couldn't do anything else.
    But it was unlike the Council to work against its own 
interests- and they had a vested interest in peace on the 
continent, calling themselves its defenders as they did. 
They should have sent the best they had, and not taken 
this as a chance to kill someone troublesome, as Lucinda 
was saying they had.
    "Yes," she said, and I realized she had been watching 
me. "It doesn't make sense, does it?"
    "Couldn't they have seen and recognized greatness that 
you haven't had the chance to show them yet?" I suggested, 
not really believing it myself. But then, I had never been 
the best at seeing latent talents in others. I was too 
consumed with myself.
    "Thank you," said the panther Elwen, "but no, I don't 
think that's it."
    "Why would they want to kill you?"
    "I would prefer to keep that my own business, if you 
wouldn't mind." She kept her voice calm and almost 
friendly, but her claws shot.
    I put a hand on the blade that hung at my waist, one 
of two only readily visible ones that I wore, and smiled 
at her in turn. "I understand completely. And I would 
prefer if you didn't ask me any more questions about what 
we have done, either."
    "I know what you've done. I think it's brave, but I 
fear you may be punished for it."
    I blinked. "In what way?"
    "They don't like Enders that much anymore, you know 
that. And you two have just completed the highest-profile 
assassinations in years, maybe in the history of your 
kind. And you have done it at the order of a woman who was 
the greatest hero of the War, and that after she ordered 
you to do it two hundred years ago. You have the potential 
to become a legend, with this added to your previous 
reputation, and that would be the one thing that a Council 
consumed with fear of the Enders and what you could come 
to represent doesn't want."
    "Observant, aren't you?"
    "Yes. And realistic." She eyed me. "I will give you a 
warning if you will tell me something."
    "What do you want to know?"
    "What race is your partner, and has he been saying 
anything strange to you of late, about the Darkness and 
the Light?"
    I froze. Yes, I shouldn't mention it, given that it 
was private and part of the bond that Suppho and I shared. 
Enders don't betray their partners, not in any way. But, 
if this woman might be able to tell me why he was acting 
the way that he was...
    "He's sapphire Elwen," I said at last. "And he's been 
saying some things, yes. Just this night he told me that 
he was looking for the mark of evil on my body." I winced 
as I saw her eyes flare. That might have been more than I 
should have told her. But I had become used to taking 
risks in the past few months. I had to hope that this one 
would pay off as all the rest had.
    And Lucinda only gave me the warning that she had 
promised me in the next few seconds. "I will tell you 
this, my Lord Shadowdancer: I believe that bad times are 
coming for any race perceived as part of the Darkness. 
That includes yours as well as mine-"
    "I wasn't aware that panther Elwens were considered 
part of the Darkness at all."
    "We kill," she said, and then drew back her lips in a 
snarl. "And don't apologize for it."
    "You do that to live."
    She shrugged. "It doesn't matter to the elves, and 
their exaltation of life above death. They consider us 
part of the Darkness. And they're sending me on this 
mission to get rid of me, even though I've done nothing 
more than be torkan and somewhat ambitious. You, an Ender, 
and a curalli, and just having done something that could 
change the way that Enders are looked at so easily... they 
won't be kind."
    "They never have been. Thank you for the warning, but 
I do believe that I'll survive."
    She inclined her head, eyes still fixed on me. "It has 
never been this serious before."
    I smiled. "The world has never needed the Enders and 
their arts as it does now."
    "I know that, but that is all the more reason for them 
to try to fiercely repress those who kill to live and try 
to pretend that they aren't using this even when they 
are." Lucinda snorted. "As if they could live without us! 
But they might strike first and then consider their need 
of us later."
    "What are you going to do?"
    "I'm going to negotiate that treaty with the humans." 
Her smile became almost sweet. "And become so noticed and 
noticeable that it doesn't matter what they do, they'll 
never be able to get rid of me."
    "I wish you luck."
    "And you?" she asked me.
    I shrugged. "I hope that I won't have to do anything 
about it. Thank you again for the warning." I had turned 
slightly as I spoke, and was in time to see Suppho looking 
suspiciously at me from out of the bushes. I bowed to him. 
"My Lord of Diamondblue, so glad that you could join us. 
This is the Lady Lucinda Clawtap, the negotiator of the 
treaty with the humans and the woman we are supposed to 
escort to her meeting place."
    I thought that Suppho might make some remark about how 
she couldn't be the negotiator, and the Council must have 
made some mistake. But he only nodded to her, and then 
looked at me. "Your turn with the watch."
    I nodded, and took up my post in the tree I had been 
sleeping in. Lucinda passed under me and into the camp. I 
heard her speaking softly to Suppho, but even though I 
strained my ears, I couldn't make out what was being said. 
    And really, why should I care if she asked questions 
about me, or he told her anything that he liked, anyway? I 
would go on past it and survive it, just like I always 
did.
----------------------------------------------------------
    I looked up sharply as Suppho turned towards me. But 
he only motioned me forward. "The humans are already 
there," he said, "and sitting with their diplomat. I think 
we should escort the Lady Lucinda out, to put her on an 
equal footing with him."
    I didn't say anything for a moment, more caught up 
with studying him than with looking through the bushes and 
studying the view.
    "Maln?" He snapped his fingers in front of my eyes and 
nodded sharply towards the gap between the bushes. I 
blinked, wondering in turn what was wrong with me, and 
nodded to him as I stepped past and bent my head to look 
through it.
    He stayed beside me.
    That should have reassured me, but I found myself 
tensing. Ridiculous, of course. He was my partner, and my 
friend, and he wouldn't hurt me.
    But the feeling, the twinge, was the same that I would 
have received if someone had been about to plunge a knife 
into my side. He was close enough that the ribs wouldn't 
have been such a problem for him, and he could have struck 
me in the heart.
    "Well?" he urged, still hovering close. It wasn't 
closer than he normally was, but that didn't mean 
anything, either, my paranoid mind continued. It could 
just mean that he was doing this so that I wouldn't 
mistrust him and his intentions. "Don't you think that we 
should accompany her?"
    I looked out again, and on the pretext of shifting, 
put one hand on the knife that hung at my belt. Yes, it 
likely was a stupid and pointless thing for me to do. At 
this point, I didn't care. I had to do something like that 
to appease the affronted instincts that clamored in my 
head.
    "Well?"
    I managed at last to concentrate on the people across 
the plain from me, and had to admit that they were 
surrounding the man who sat on the horse among them like 
an honor guard. From this distance, I couldn't see if he 
was half-Elwen or not, but I could believe he was. The 
humans wouldn't send someone human to negotiate with us, 
anymore than we would have sent a woman to negotiate with 
a human. Both sides wanted this treaty; they wouldn't work 
against themselves.
    Would they?
    Part of me tried to argue that something was wrong 
with Lucinda having been sent, and that the humans might 
be pulling a variation of the same trick themselves. But 
as I hadn't even figured out what the Council's trick was 
yet, I could hardly say that they were pulling it with 
their diplomat.
    I rose to my feet, and almost froze. Suppho was 
drawing a blade. The change in his posture and the faint, 
almost unheard hiss as the steel came free of leather 
proclaimed it.
    I whirled on him, snarling.
    He blinked at me and stepped back, both hands open and 
in the air. Empty. "Maln?" he asked slowly, staring at me. 
"Are you all right?"
    I managed to calm down at last. "Yes," I said shortly, 
darting one last glance at the humans. "We should follow 
her out, circle her around, and make it clear how ready we 
are to kill if they give us trouble."
    "Killing's your answer to everything, isn't it?" he 
muttered at me.
    I showed him my teeth again. "In this case, it will 
have to be. We're Enders, Suppho. We've been sent here for 
a very specific reason." It couldn't hurt to remind him, 
just in case he was forgetting.
    "I know, I know," he said. "I'm going to think about 
that long and hard after we've taken some time to rest, 
I'll let you know."
    I slanted a glance at him as I began to walk back to 
where we had left Lucinda. "Then you are thinking about 
leaving the Enders."
    "You make it sound worse than it is."
    "I'd just like to know why you're leaving. If you're 
dissatisfied, or you're bored, then that's one thing. It's 
another thing to leave because someone is babbling to you 
about how the work you do isn't moral."
    "Leave it, Maln." The quiet, threatening tone in his 
voice might have made me back off if I could have seen his 
eyes. As it was, he looked straight ahead as if ashamed to 
face me, and I saw a muscle twitch in his cheek in what 
looked like pain.
    "It is that," I said, pressing my attack. "Well, 
Suppho, do you think that you could forget about your 
personal moral matters and at least look calm and like a 
killer until we've guided Lucinda to her place? Be an 
Ender for at least that long?"
    He snarled at me in turn, and then nodded. "Just a 
little longer."
    "Yes," I agreed, though I still didn't know why this 
had taken him so suddenly and so completely. "Just a 
little longer, if that's what you want."
    He shot me a glare. "I don't really know if it's what 
I want."
    "Then why think about staying in the Enders at all?"
    "Not all of us are like you, Maln- knives and arrows 
to the target. We don't always know what we want, or even 
what the best thing to do is. I know that's hard for you 
to understand."
    "I've felt like that in my life."
    "How many times?"
    "One or two."
    He snorted and turned away.
----------------------------------------------------------
    Lucinda nodded to us when we explained our plan to 
escort her out, and smoothed back her hair with a swipe of 
one clawed paw. That was one use for claws that I hadn't 
considered, I thought as I stared at her in fascination. 
You could use them like a comb. Why had I never thought of 
that?
    "What?" the panther Elwen asked, when she saw me 
staring at her.
    "Nothing." I turned away to hide my grin. I didn't 
think I could explain it so that she would understand, or 
at least so that she wouldn't take offense. "Are you 
ready, my lady?"
    She nodded. "I wish I had a horse to ride, but 
approaching on foot like this is the best that I can do," 
she sighed.
    "I'm sorry, my lady," said Suppho.
    She stared at him. "What for?"
    "I wish that we could have had a horse ready to ride, 
one that you could have used to face him as an equal."
    "But you couldn't have known that the humans were 
going to bring their diplomat on a horse. Why would you be 
sorry for not providing one?" She shook her head and 
snorted a little. "If anyone should be sorry, it's me. 
I've studied humans, and this is just the kind of trick 
that they like to pull. I should have been expecting it," 
she said, and sighed again.
    "But-"
    I stepped on Suppho's foot, not causing him any actual 
pain but shutting him up. They could stand here and argue 
until the end of time, and neither of them would 
understand why the other was so bewildered. "Come on," I 
said, and we moved.
    Lucinda paused at the edge of the small rise that 
slanted out and down from the forest into the field where 
the humans waited. She closed her eyes, and I felt almost 
as if she had Shifted again. She didn't become a cat, but 
she did seem to stand taller, and her hair was longer and 
more flowing, somehow, with the way that she moved and 
cocked her head. 
    Amazing.
    Maybe the Council had picked her for her skills, after 
all, I thought, taking up the position of point. Suppho 
fell in behind her, and when I felt her hand brush the air 
near my shoulder, I began walking.
    The humans hadn't been expecting us. They must not 
have had scouts posted. I kept my face smooth, and tried 
not to show the contempt that I felt for that. Any Elwen 
would have known about us ten minutes before we walked 
out, for the exact purpose of countering the kind of trick 
that Lucinda was intent on pulling.
    She came after me, walking with her head up and her 
robe flapping loosely about her. The humans might think 
that looked indecent, but the overall effect would cow 
them, I knew. It would make her seem as if she had the 
right to that confidence, if she could wear something like 
that around them, knowing full well their opinions of 
women.
    Her head was high, eyes narrowed and blinking slightly 
against the sunlight, as mine were, but they wouldn't be 
able to see that at this distance. She would seem as proud 
as a queen, and the lack of a horse could actually be a 
good thing. The cat Elwens don't make very good riders, as 
a rule; horses don't like their scent. This lent truth to 
her picture of confidence.
    And finally, there came Suppho, beautiful and very 
alien to human eyes.
    I couldn't tell what sort of picture I would present, 
if they would pay any attention to me at all. I had long 
been a student of the arts of appearance and respect- one 
has that forced on one, working with the Council- but I 
was less skilled at applying such rules and laws to 
myself.
    We halted some distance from them, close enough to 
give the principals a view of each other's faces, not 
close enough to let them make a move that could have 
killed her. I glanced back at Lucinda, and she nodded to 
me, as if I were her herald.
    I shrugged. It was a role that I had played often 
enough, and it would give me an excuse to get closer to 
the round-eyes before she did and look for weapons.
    "The Lady Lucinda Clawtap," I said, stepping near to 
the first humans in front of the horse and bowing, "sent 
by the Council of Arcadia and the lords and ladies of 
Elwenkind to negotiate a peace with the humans." There was 
a great temptation to say something more, but I restrained 
myself. I stepped back, not able to see any weapon any 
more dangerous than a knife among any of them.
    I tilted my head back and saw the face of the human 
diplomat for the first time. Half land Elwen, he was; 
despite their objections to the humans, despite their 
having started the War of Acceptance, land Elwens bred 
with humans more than any other race. He had black hair 
and silver eyes, the silver eyes the only sign of what he 
was if one looked only at his face. The other signs of 
Elwen blood were smaller: slender hands and build, a 
slightly greater height that was less noticeable on the 
horse, and something in the way that he held himself, 
something that I would have called inborn nobility. He 
looked as if he had been born for this role; it was a look 
that humans only very rarely had.
    One of the humans came forward then and did his best 
to echo my performance. "The Lord Marasen Germone," he 
said, in the human language- which all three of us 
happened to understand, luckily. "Sent by- by the gathered 
tribes to speak for the humans." He stopped, tried to 
think of something more to say, couldn't, and wisely 
stepped out of the way.
    Lucinda came forward, staring at Marasen as intently 
as I had, and doubtless seeing far more than I had. She 
was the trained diplomat, after all, the one who would 
know what to look for to make sure that someone else was 
trained as she had been. She looked, and I thought I saw a 
smile playing about her lips for a moment before she did 
the utterly unexpected.
    She bent her knee. 
    The robe made the gesture, and the distinction between 
the respect implied by it and the subservience that would 
have been implied by both knees on the ground, sharp and 
clear. She kept her eyes on Marasen's the entire time, 
conveying a mixture of respect and challenge that would 
have- well, I wasn't sure what that meant in the language 
of diplomacy, but it would have impressed me.
    Marasen stared at her for a long moment, his face 
betraying none of his thoughts, if he had any. Then he 
leaped to the ground and took her hand, lifting her to her 
feet.
    "Do not bow before me, my lady," he said, his voice 
soft and filled with something that might have been 
anything from reverence to the acceptance of the challenge 
she had offered him. "You do not know how to do it well." 
He bowed to her instead, as if to show her how it should 
be done, casting his eyes modestly on the ground.
    Lucinda watched him with her mouth slightly open; I 
could see some of the humans wincing at the sight of her 
teeth. Then she laughed softly, whether at the implied 
insult or the implied compliment I didn't know.
    The humans, from their satisfied murmuring among 
themselves, hadn't caught the compliment. They only saw a 
woman accepting an insult, as they thought was her proper 
place. Lucinda laid a hand on Marasen's arm as he 
straightened, and said, "I think we will have this treaty 
negotiated in good time, my lord."
    He nodded, smiling a little, gravely, at her. 
    Lucinda turned her head, then, as if to say farewell 
to Suppho and me. But her eyes found only mine, and her 
telepathic message came only into my mind.
    ^Do what you can in your part of the game. I'm sure as 
hell going to enjoy mine.^
    Then she turned and swept away with Marasen, the 
humans closing around them.