Dhampir

Chapter Seven

Teesha waited patiently down near the docks for the right drunken sailor to pass by. The wonder and enormity of the ocean never ceased to please her, especially at high tide. The shore was a wall between worlds that guided the movement of all things between water and land along its lapping edge. She walked in bare feet, occasionally digging delicate toes into the sand, not caring if the hem of her purple gown dragged slightly and became soiled.

Many years ago, before her arrival in Miiska, one of the docks had collapsed due to rotted support poles. On its way, it had pulled down a small two-masted ship that couldn't be untied in time. Workers had dragged some of the remnants from the water, and the remains of ship and dock lay a short way down the shore. Perhaps they'd once thought to salvage materials from the accident, but nothing had ever come of such plans. Now, piled high on the shore out of the tide's reach, dock pillons and ship's struts stood up in the dark like the remains of a beached sea monster left to rot away to the bones. Weatherworn, but still partially solid, they offered a perfect haven. Teesha strolled calmly around the columns, listening to the dark rather than seeing it and periodically sniffing the breeze.

Then came the scent of warm flesh nearby. She tensed in anticipation and slipped behind a thick wood strut that could have been an old dock support or maybe a ship's beam. Only appearing to the solitary, she would pull back into the shadows if a pair or group approached. She peeked out carefully into the wind.

A lone sailor made his way along the shore toward the harbor. Canvas breeches with ragged unstitched hems hung to just below his knees, the salt-stained garment held up with a rope belt. On his feet he wore only makeshift sandals strapped at his ankles with leather thongs. His skin was dark from the sun, but his face looked soft, with only the wisps of an adolescent beard.

Teesha did not rush into view but relaxed by the pole, waiting for him to come nearer and see her. When he did, his step slowed only for a moment before he turned his course toward her. No more than five arm's lengths away, he stopped, staring at her pretty face, wild brown hair, and bare toes.

"Are you lost?" she asked him in a soothing tone that hummed behind the sounds of light wind and waves. "You must be lost. Where is your ship?"

For an instant he frowned in puzzlement, thinking she was the one lost or confused. Looking into his young face, Teesha could see her words playing over and over in his mind until he wasn't sure if she or he had asked the question. A haze crossed his eyes as his frown deepened.

"Lost… lost?" he stuttered. Then he asked more urgently, "Yes, where is my ship?"

"Here," she said in the same soothing voice, the same humming tone. "Here is your ship." And her delicate fingers slid lightly down the side of the wood pillar at her side.

The words seemed to push at his mind, not unlike an erratic breeze in the sails after a long calm at sea.

"Come and I'll show you the way," she urged.

Teesha held out her hand to the young sailor, and he took it. She urged him to follow her as she stepped back into the aged wreckage of dock and ship. She never even looked over her shoulder to find her way, but kept her eyes always on him as they moved. And he followed her willingly under the makeshift roof of broken poles and old bleached planks, back into the shadows.

"Here it is." She smiled with perfect teeth.

The sailor was indeed young, maybe seventeen, with a hint of ale on his breath, but not enough to make him drunk. That didn't matter either way. He looked about uncertainly.

"Yes, you're home again," she said, laying her free hand on one of his, the one she held gently to guide him. "This is your ship, your home that goes with you."

His features softened. Teesha heard a sigh of relief escape his lips.

"Come sit with me." And she guided him down to the sand.

She ran her fingers through his uncombed hair and kissed him gently on the mouth. Feeding had never been difficult for her, once she'd learned her own way to hunt.

His hands reached out and grasped her arms so he could kiss her back, and she tried to shift upward to her knees. He was stronger than he looked, but obeyed when she whispered, "Shhhh, not yet," and pulled his head against her shoulder. When his neck was fully exposed, she wasted no time.

Sometimes she fed from their wrists, sometimes from the vein at the inside joint of the elbow. Whatever worked best in the moment. But tonight, she punctured one side of the sailor's throat, gripping his head tightly, both to support his weight and keep him from reflexively jerking away. His body bucked once. Then he was lost in his dream again.

She took what she needed, no more, and drew her fangs away without tearing his flesh. Taking a small dagger from her sleeve, she precisely connected the punctures on his neck but made certain the cut was shallow and slightly ragged. She could have just cut him and drunk from the wound, but that wasn't enough for her. The touch of warm flesh on her lips, slipping around her teeth, was so much more pleasing than the aftertaste metal left in the first drops of blood.

Laying him back in the sand, she untied his purse-not that she needed money, but this was also part of the deception. She placed one hand on his sleeping brow and stroked his eyes closed with the other. Her lips brushed against his ear as she whispered. "You were walking to your ship tonight, home once again, and two thieves came. You fought them, but one had a knife…"

He flinched in reflex. One hand rose sluggishly, trying to reach for his own neck, but she gently pushed it back down.

"They stole your purse, and you crawled back here to hide, in case they returned, and you slept… now."

When she heard his breathing deepen, Teesha rose quickly and left. He would be safe there. But if anything happened to him after their encounter, that fate did not concern her.

In this same manner she had fed for years. And she always tried to pick the ones who'd not be around for long. Miiska was such a perfect place, with sailors and merchants coming and going. Occasionally, she killed one by accident when need and hunger overbalanced her careful control, but that had not happened in a long time. And if need had caused her to choose a local citizen of the town, she always buried the poor unfortunate, and Rashed blamed Ratboy whenever some mortal went missing. She saw no need to alter his perception.

Now she ran lightly along the shore, feeling the warmth and strength of the sailor's blood, glad for her own innate ability to sometimes put the past and future from her mind and to live only in the moment.

"Teesha?"

She stopped in surprise, looking at the water and the wind in the trees above the shore.

"My love?"

Edwan's empty voice echoed from behind her, and she turned. He floated just above the sand, his green breeches and white shirt glowing like white flame through a fog. His severed head rested on one shoulder, and long, yellow hair hung down his side all the way to his waist.

"My dear," she said. "How long have you been there?"

"A while. Are you going home… already?"

"I wanted to check on the warehouse and see if Rashed needs anything."

"Yes," he said. "Rashed."

Edwan's visage changed subtly, as if the corpse image were no longer freshly dead, but had been lying in decay for a week or two. The glow of his skin was now sallow, whitened, with the hint of bruises from stagnant blood beneath his tissue.

Teesha lost the moment's joy of strength and heat. She stepped lethargically up the shore and wilted to the ground against a leaning tree.

"Don't brood. We need Rashed."

"So you tell me." Edwan was by her side, though she hadn't actually seen him move. "So you told me."

Together, they listened to shallow waves lapping at the beach. Teesha did not know how to respond. She loved Edwan, but he lived in the past, as did most spirits among the living, barely able to grasp the present. And she knew what he wanted. It was always what he wanted. He was the hungry one now, and with no true life to live, memories were all he had.

But it drained her so much, depressed her to do this for him. Every time he needed, and she relented, for the next five or six nights, it destroyed her ability to live only in the delicious present.

"No, Edwan," she said tiredly.

"Please, Teesha. Just once more," he promised-again.

"There isn't enough time before sunrise."

"We have hours."

The desperation in his voice hurt her. Teesha dropped her chin to her knees and stared out to where the water disappeared into the dark.

Poor Edwan. He deserved so much better, but this had to stop. Perhaps if she showed him the sharpest of memories, played out to the end, he might be able to accept their current existence-her new existence.

She closed her eyes, hoping he'd someday forgive her for this, and reached out to him with her mind, reached back…

High in the north above Stravina, snow fell from the sky more days of the year than not, and it seemed the clouds continuously covered the sun. Day or night made little difference, but Teesha hardly cared. In her tightly tied apron and favorite red dress, she served up mugs of ale to thirsty patrons and travelers at the inn. The place was always warm with a burning hearth, and she had a smile for whoever came through the door. But that special smile, as welcome as a break in the clouds when she could see the sun, was only for her young husband, working somberly behind the bar, making sure all was right and not one guest had to wait for an ordered drink.

Edwan seldom smiled back at her, but she knew he loved her fiercely. His father was a twisted, violent man, and his mother had died of fever when he was just a child. He had lived in poverty and servitude. That was all Edwan could remember of childhood, until he left home at seventeen, traveled through two cities, found a job tending bar, and then met Teesha, his first taste of kindness and affection.

At sixteen, Teesha had already received several marriage proposals, but she'd always declined. There was just something not quite right with the suitor-too old, too young, too frivolous, too dour… too something. She felt the need to wait for someone else. When Edwan walked through the tavern door, with his dark yellow hair, wide cheekbones, and haunted eyes, she knew he was her other half. After five years of marriage, he still rarely spoke to anyone but her.

To him, the world was a hostile place, and safety only rested in Teesha's arms.

To her, the world was songs and spiced turnips and serving ale to guests-who had long ago become close friends-and spending warm nights under a feather quilt with Edwan.

It was a good time in life, but a short one.

The first time Lord Corische opened the inn's door, he remained standing outside and would not enter. The cold breeze blowing openly into the common room was enough to set everyone to cursing, and Teesha ran to shut the door.

"May I come in?" he asked, but his voice was demanding, as if he knew the answer and was merely impatient to hear it.

"Of course, please," she answered, mildly surprised, as the tavern was open to all.

When he and a companion entered, and Teesha could finally shut the door, everyone settled down again. A few people turned to look in curiosity, then a few more, as the first curious ones did not turn back to their food again.

Nothing about Lord Corische himself stood out as unusual. Not his chainmail vest and pieces of plate over padded armor, for soldiers and mercenaries were seen often enough. He was neither handsome or ugly, large or small. His only true distinguishing features were a smooth, completely bald head and a small white scar over his left eye. But he was not alone, and it was not Lord Corische the tavern guests stared at in any case. It was his companion.

Beside the smooth-headed soldier walked the tallest, most striking man Teesha had ever seen. He wore a deep blue, padded tunic covered in a diamond pattern stitched in shimmering white thread. His short hair was true black against a pale face with eyes so light she wasn't certain of the color, like the smoothest ice over a deep lake.

The two men walked to a table, but the bald soldier still hadn't taken his gaze off Teesha.

"Can I bring you ale?" she asked.

"You'll bring me whatever I find pleasing," the soldier answered in a loud voice, enjoying the moment. "I am Lord Corische, new master of Gдestev Keep. Everything here already belongs to me."

When the villagers around them heard Corische's announcement, hushed murmurs began, but all words were kept low enough not to be heard.

Teesha held her breath and dropped her eyes. Over a year had passed since the previous vassal lord had died of a hunting wound. No word of a new lord arriving had reached them in all that time.

"Forgive my familiar manner," she said. "I did not know."

"Your familiar manner is welcome," Corische said quietly.

He did not look remotely noble to Teesha, but then she had rarely seen a noble in her life. Corische did have a look about him that fit these mountain lands, cold and possibly cruel to the unwary. But if either one of these two strangers were a lord, Teesha would have thought it his companion.

Corische's striking companion did not speak. He even appeared detached, not listening to their conversation. After a slow gaze at the crowd, as if gauging for possible dangers, he settled back and ignored his surroundings.

"This is my man, Rashed," Lord Corische said, without motioning to his companion. "He's from a desert land far across the sea and despises our cold weather, don't you, Rashed?"

"No, my lord," Rashed answered flatly, as if this were a ritual simply to be completed.

"May I fetch ale, my lord?" Teesha asked politely, wanting some reason to move away from the table. "No, I came for you."

The answer stunned her into confusion. "Beg pardon?"

Corische stood up and pushed his cloak back. His skin was pale, but his shoulders and upper arms were thick beneath the armor.

"I have already been in the village a few nights, watching you. Your face is pleasing. You will come back to the keep with me and stay while I'm detained here. A few years at most, but you'll want for nothing."

Fear hollowed out Teesha's stomach, but she smiled as if his request were an ordinary flirtatious remark.

"Oh, I think my husband may object," she said, turning to go back to her work.

"Husband?" Lord Corische's brown eyes moved beyond her and settled knowingly on Edwan-fragile, fierce Edwan, who was tightly poised, ready to jump over the bar.

"This is not the time, my lord," Rashed said quietly.

A long moment passed. Then Corische nodded to Teesha, stood, and left without a word. Rashed got up and followed.

That night in bed, Edwan begged her to pack her belongings and slip away with him.

"To where?" she asked.

"Anywhere. This isn't over."

The small northern village was her home, and she foolishly insisted they stay. Two nights later, a local farmer that Edwan once quarreled with over the price of bread grain was found stabbed to death behind the inn. When Lord Corische's men came to investigate, they found a bloody knife hidden under Edwan and Teesha's bed. Rashed was there, seemingly overseeing the search, yet all he did was enter, sit at a table before the hearth, and wait. When the knife was brought out by Corische's soldiers, neither surprise nor anger registered in his transparent eyes. He simply nodded shallowly, and the guards proceeded as if their orders had already been given.

Teesha was too stunned to cry out when soldiers dragged her husband from the inn in shackles. She saw Rashed's eyes, and how empty they were, except for a twitch she couldn't be quite sure of before it was gone again.

Before Teesha could lunge after Edwan, a third guard snatched her by the arms from behind. Lord Corische then entered the inn and stood patiently in front of her, waiting for her to give up her struggling.

For the first time, Teesha began to believe his crude appearance and rough speech were a disguise to mask some hidden self. There was no life in his face, no feeling at all.

"What will happen to him?" she whispered.

"He will be sentenced to death." Corische paused. "Unless you come to the keep with me tonight."

Had she been stupid or just naive? She had heard stories around the inn about nobles and their abuses, destroying the lives of others without concern. She thought such tales were merely exaggerations.

"If I come with you, he will live?" she asked.

"Yes."

He did not let her pack so much as a spare dress. She was escorted outside to two bay horses held at the ready by one of Corische's men. Corische mounted one, and Rashed the other. Edwan was nowhere to be seen.

"Rashed is your servant as well now," Corische said. "He will protect you."

Rashed leaned down and gripped her under the arms. He lifted her in front of himself as if she were parchment. Although horror prevented her from taking note of the moment, it came back to her many times later. On that night she was still Teesha the serving girl, who loved her husband and believed life consisted of songs and spiced turnips, Teesha the serving girl who couldn't understand where her Edwan was or what was happening to him. Sitting sideways on the saddle, she leaned back and clung to Rashed's tunic as his horse jumped forward.

The ride to Gдestev Keep took forever. With no cloak, the freezing air cut through her dress. Rashed did not verbally acknowledge her presence, but after she shivered once, he rode with both his arms covering hers to shield her from the wind. Corische rode on ahead, with his remaining soldiers bringing up the rear of the procession.

And still there was no sign of Edwan. Had he already been dragged off to some damp cell?

The keep loomed ahead, and her fear shifted to her own fate. It was an imposing construction of stone, a squat and wide tower with a stable and guardhouse built against its sides. When Rashed lifted her down, she considered running but had no notion of where to go, and she feared what would happen to Edwan if she did run.

The inside of the keep looked as bleak as the outside. No welcoming fires burned, and the bitter wind was exchanged for the bone-chilling cold of air trapped within stone walls. No pictures or tapestries hung on those walls. Old straw covered the main floor. Stone steps running around the inner wall led to the unseen upper levels. The only furniture visible was a long, cracked table and one massive chair. Two small torches on the wall burned to provide light.

Lord Corische did not notice her chattering teeth and walked past her to lay his sword on the table. Torchlight glinted off his smooth head.

"Ratboy," he called out. "Parko."

The timbre of his voice dropped to an echoing, angry growl. Skittering, running feet on the stairs made Teesha unconsciously pull back behind Rashed. Two strange men-or creatures-entered the room.

The first looked like a street urchin, covered with dirt down to the surface of his teeth. He could have been a boy or a young man. Everything about him was brown except for his skin, which she glimpsed beneath smudges of grime. The second figure, however, terrified her instantly, even more than Corische.

An emaciated white face with bestial eyes that sparked in the torchlight looked as if it were carved from bone. Strands of filthy black hair hung down his back beneath a tied kerchief that she guessed had once been green. But it was his movements that frightened her most. Quick as an animal, he darted into the room, springing off the steps before reaching the bottom. He caught himself on the table and used his hands to propel himself around, smelling at the air.

His eyes settled in her direction, and he lunged across the room, stopping halfway, neck swiveling and craning as he tried to see her behind Rashed.

"You do not wait to greet your master?" Corische said coldly.

"Forgive us," Ratboy answered in a lilting tone. "We were preparing the woman's room as you asked."

His polite voice belied the hatred and mischief in his eyes. Parko dropped low to crouch on all fours and did not turn to face Corische.

"Woman," Parko said, nodding.

The numbness of Teesha's emotions faded as she looked about at the pit into which she'd been cast. These were the kind of men who served her liege lord? Where were the fires? Where were the guards and the casks of ale and the food?

Rashed stepped forward, exposing her to view. He crouched down to Parko's level.

"You cannot touch her, Parko. Do you understand? She's not for you."

The odd, gentle quality in his tone surprised Teesha.

"Woman," Parko repeated.

"He does not need your warnings," Corische said, removing his cloak, "and you forget your place."

Rashed stood and stepped back. "Yes, my lord."

Corische then turned to Teesha. "I am not cruel. You may rest for a night or two before taking up your duties."

"Duties? What are my duties?"

"Acting as lady of the keep." He paused for a moment, then laughed as if he'd finally understood some elusive joke. The sound brought Teesha's dinner to the base of her throat.

"If I am to be lord here," Corische continued, "I must have a lady, even a floor-scrubbing tavern wench like you."

That was her first hint that Corische harbored no desire to play lord of Gдestev Keep. Most feudal overseers were assigned fiefs as gifts from nobles wealthier than themselves or from their own liege lords. But what did Corische want from her? She knew nothing of ladies or playing at nobility. She looked again at Ratboy and Parko in confusion. If Corische surrounded himself with lowly creatures in order to feel more important, then why enlist someone like Rashed? And why bother with a woman to play at being lady of the house?

She was locked in a filthy tower room that night and left to shiver with no fire and only a thin, moldy flannel sheet as a blanket. No one came all the next day, but the following night, she heard the door unlock and was caught between relief and terror. Rashed entered with a tray of tea, mutton stew, and bread, and he carried a cape over one arm.

"It's freezing in here," she said.

"Put this on." He held out the cape as he set the tray on the floor in front of her. "The keep is ancient. There are no hearths, only a fire pit in the main room. I found wood and lit it. Some heat might rise, but do not go down there without the master or myself."

She couldn't tell if he was being kind or just instructing her in one more rule of the house. Then she realized it didn't matter. He seemed the closest thing she had to a friend in this vile place. Unwanted tears ran down her cheeks.

"What about Edwan?" She stood, taking one step closer to Rashed. "Will he be released soon?"

Rashed was silent for a moment, not moving, his eyes staring at the wall behind her.

"Your husband was sentenced this morning and executed at dusk." He said it without any change of tone in his voice.

He turned toward the door, preparing to leave. "Do you wish to sit by the fire?"

A kind of madness tickled Teesha's brain.

"Do I wish to…?" She began laughing. "You bastard."

For nothing-she'd come to this nightmare pit for nothing, and Edwan, who deserved a peaceful life more than anyone she'd known, was dead simply because some twisted lord fancied his wife. The vicious comedy of it all became more than she could bear. Death was far preferable to this existence.

She bolted past Rashed, running down the short hall. She didn't know if Rashed pursued her or not as she ran down the stone steps to the main room. Lord Corische sat at the cracked table writing on a scroll with a feather quill. Teesha ignored him and ran for the great oak doors.

As she reached out for the iron latch, Parko sprang in front of her as if sprouting from the earth, snarling and sucking in her scent. She staggered back in reflex, but did not turn around, her eyes focused watchfully on the disheveled figure in front of her.

"Let me out of here!" she ordered Corische. She had nothing left for him to take, nothing that mattered to her, and so no more reason for fear.

Then she saw the enormous iron bar across the door. She hadn't even noticed it while rushing to escape. It was wider than her own upper arm and so thick and heavy it didn't seem possible that any one person could have lifted it alone. It was most certainly impossible for her to do so by herself.

"Take this down," she said, her back still to Corische. "Our pact is over."

"Rashed put that bar up. Even I would have difficulty removing it. Did you enjoy dinner?"

Hatred was a new emotion for Teesha, disorienting, and it took a moment to think through Corische's insulting chatter.

"If you wanted a lady for your house, why didn't you find one? Are you afraid she would detest your crude manners and lowborn airs? No, you wanted someone beneath you that you could lord over"-she looked at Parko, no longer frightened by him, then caught sight of Ratboy hovering in the corner-"like the rest of your wretched little mob."

She heard something slam down on the table hard enough to make it slide and grate on the stone floor. He was easy to anger. Good. She turned about to face him and saw clean, unmasked rage.

"You live at my mercy," he said, "at my whim. Do not forget that."

"Your mercy?" The madness in her laugh matched Parko's eyes. "And what makes you believe living has anything to do with this? You murdered my Edwan, and I will do nothing to bring you pleasure. Do you understand me now? I will not grace your table nor entertain your guests nor do anything you desire. I will try to escape every day until I succeed or you tire of it and kill me."

Corische appeared stunned into silence.

Teesha only blinked once, reflexively, and he was suddenly across the room at her side.

His hand lashed out and grabbed her arm. The stale smell of him filled her with revulsion, but his grip hurt so badly she couldn't help crying out.

"You will do as I say," he hissed. "I am master here. This keep may be a pathetic hovel, but I am still lord and you will obey."

"No," she whimpered. "You murdered my Edwan."

Corische swept the floor with one foot, kicking aside the straw to reveal a worn wooden hatch with an inset iron ring. Before Teesha could resist, he jerked up the hatch and shoved her inside.

Teesha expected to fall straight down, but instead she tumbled along stone steps in the dark. When she reached bottom finally, her head banged against a stone floor she couldn't even see in the half-light spilling down from the open hatch. A hollow thud echoed through the chamber as the hatch slammed closed, leaving her in complete darkness.

She sat up, feeling along her limbs for any wounds greater than bruises or scrapes. At least now she was away from him for the moment.

A savage grunt came from the dark.

"You will do whatever I ask," a voice said, "because you won't be able to stop yourself."

Corische had come down the steps behind her and was somewhere in the chamber.

Teesha slid back from his voice. Finding the bottom stair with her hand, she turned to scramble upward to the hatch. Something tangled in her hair, jerking her back, and she felt fingers coil tighter just before her head was slammed to the floor.

She couldn't be sure if she'd lost consciousness for a moment, but she became aware of someone large crouched over her, pinning her down. The smell of Corische's breath hit her in the face. His hand was still in her hair, pulling hard enough to hurt as her head tilted back. She tried to thrash free and cried out instinctively. Her scream was cut short as she felt canine teeth bite down on her throat.

Teesha gasped in panic, wondering from where the animal had come, and became rigid with shock when she realized it was Corische. Air became harder and harder to take in as she heard him suck her blood through his teeth. As he continued to drink, the dark around her began to tingle on her skin. Her head swam, her breath grew shorter and shorter, until she could barely feel the air move in and out through her slack mouth.

He pulled back suddenly, and she wheezed in a lungful of air just before she felt herself jerked up to sitting position. Her arms were still pinned to her sides by Corische's thick legs. Both his hands clamped across the back of her head, and he crushed her face into his chest.

The stink of his flesh made her gag, but his skin felt chilled. And there was something wet smearing against her face.

She opened her mouth, trying to breathe, and the wetness spread across her lips. A coppery taste hit her tongue. The liquid was as cold as his skin, but she could still recognize the taste from the times she cut a finger or thumb while preparing food in the inn's kitchen-and she'd raised the small wound to her mouth, trying to stop the drops of blood.

Corische pressed her face tighter against his chest until she could not breathe at all, only feel and taste the slight bit of his blood escaping into her mouth. Every sensation in the dark became unreal and distant until all feeling in her body faded and her breath stopped altogether.

Teesha awoke on the stone floor in the dark. Had it been hours or days? It felt… somehow felt even longer. There was light in the room, yet the hatch above was not open. Rashed kneeled over her, a small oil lamp in his hand. Something flickered across his cold features. Pity? Regret? She sat up to look about anxiously, but Corische was nowhere to be seen. A heavy wooden door with an iron slide bolt was set in the wall opposite the stairs that led up to the hatch. Otherwise, the room was empty.

Rashed stood and opened the door to expose a long hall angling downward into the earth. Along its sides were other doors like the first, each with a slide bolt, but also looped steel at the jambs where the door could be secured with a lock.

"This used to be a dungeon of some sort," he said.

Teesha was too weak and confused to either question or object when he scooped her up in his arms, lantern still in hand, and carried her into that hallway. He did not stop at any of the doors but walked to the end of the passage, and placed his free hand firmly against the end wall, careful not to drop her. The stone under his hand gave, sinking into the wall, and he reached inside to some hidden pocket of space.

Teesha heard something akin to grinding metal, then the grind of stone as the hall's end pivoted open to reveal a set of stairs angling farther downward. Rashed slipped through and descended.

He walked on and on until finally he reached an end chamber. Within it was nothing more than five coffins. Four were of plain wood and little more than long boxes, while the fifth appeared to be of thick oak with iron bindings, crafted for the final rest, yet without any handles on the outsides of its lid.

"This is where you must sleep now," he said, "in a coffin with the dirt of your homeland. If you go out into the sunlight, you will die." He set her down in one of the four wooden coffins. "You will rest here near my own. I've already prepared it for you."

And so Teesha, the carefree serving girl, was gone, and something else was born in her place.

She learned many things over the next few nights: That she could not refuse the wishes of her master, that she needed blood to exist, that Rashed's coffin was half full of white sand, and that she was undead. Rashed taught her everything with his endless dispassionate patience, and although she sometimes wished for the rest of true death, hatred for Corische kept her rising every night.

He was more than lord of the keep. He was a master among the Noble Dead, those beings among the undead who still retained their full semblance of self from life in an eternal existence no longer subservient to the mortality under which the living grew old and weak. They were the vampires and liches who possessed physical bodies, their own memories, and their own consciousness. The Noble Dead were the highest and most powerful of the unliving. The only weakness for vampires, however, was that they were slaves to the one who created them. Corische's master, his own creator, had somehow been destroyed, and so he was free to create his own servants.

Teesha found that when he gave a verbal order, she could not refuse him. Internally, she could despise him, fantasize about seeing him scorched in flames, and think whatever she pleased. But when he spoke, she could not stop herself from obeying. Neither could Rashed, Parko, or Ratboy-not that Rashed would have refused anyway. The tall, composed warrior seemed honestly loyal to his master. This revolted Teesha, as Rashed was clearly superior to Corische on every imaginable level.

Rashed taught her how to feed without killing, harmonizing the thrum of her voice to the exertion of her will, until the victim became pliable and docile.

When she asked Rashed why he cared so for mortals, that he did not wish to kill them, his reply was coldly practical.

"Even a heavily populated area like this one cannot support four of us recklessly. We must be careful or lose our home and our food supply."

She came to understand that their kind developed different levels of power. Rashed thought her mental abilities were quite pronounced. His own and Ratboy's were adequate. Parko couldn't express himself well enough for the others to gauge his abilities, yet his senses were highly acute, even beyond the average heightened senses of a Noble Dead, and he was a constant trial for Rashed to control. Corische's telepathic skills were so limited that Teesha sometimes wondered how he fed.

Most of the Noble Dead developed mental abilities, but these often were dependent on the individual's inclinations in life. Teesha had always loved dreams and memories, for her life had been filled with the best of them, and so she eventually found she could easily reach into the mind of a mortal and project sweet waking dreams and alter memories.

The first time Rashed took her hunting was a revelation. They rode his bay gelding together for a while and then dismounted and tied the horse to a tree. Slipping through the forest, she realized they were hiding in the shadows on the outskirts of her home village. A farmer came out of the tavern and stepped into the trees to relieve himself. Teesha recognized him. His name was Davish.

"Watch me," Rashed said. "This is important."

He stepped out of the shadows. "Are you lost?" he asked Davish.

The farmer started slightly at the sound of a strange voice, and then he looked in Rashed's eyes and seemed to relax into a kind of confusion. "Lost? I…? I'm not sure."

"Come. I will help you home."

Davish appeared.to be frightened, but not of Rashed. He kept looking around as if he should know where he was but did not. Rashed reached out as if to help him, but then gripped his arm, pulled him over, and wasted no time biting down on his throat. Teesha watched in fascination.

Rashed did not drink much and then pushed the dazed farmer toward her. "Feed, but not too much. You must not kill him. You'll be doing this on your own soon enough."

Teesha grabbed Davish and began feeding, unable to stop herself, and surprised by how right the act felt. She was not repulsed at all. Then she realized how delicious his blood tasted, how warm, how strong she felt. Pure pleasure seeped through her. She could not stop.

"That's enough." Rashed pulled her off. "Don't kill him." He laid Davish out on the ground and then used a knife to connect the holes made by his teeth, but he did this carefully and did not cut too deeply. He leaned close and whispered, "Forget."

"What did you do?" she asked.

"You simply reach inside their thoughts with your own. Force the fear, the moment, the emotion to fade."

And so she learned that Rashed was able to manipulate emotions, and able to create a blank space in his victim's memory. Teesha herself learned to create dreams and manipulate more complex memories.

Ratboy, on the other hand, hunted through his ability to blend. No one noticed him. No one remembered him. He did not hunt with finesse or by creating dreams, but he was able to feed by mentally intensifying his own innate ability to be forgotten. That was all.

Parko quite often killed his victims, but they were mainly peasants. As master of Gдestev Keep, Corische was responsible for looking into these deaths so, of course, little investigation took place.

Teesha hunted either alone or with Rashed. His forethought and consistently rational manner impressed her. He wasn't exactly predictable, which would have made him mundane, but rather, he was constant. His intelligent, calm nature was the only thing she could count on besides herself in this new existence.

Corische, on the other hand, exhibited mood swings she never learned to understand. One night, her choice of dress might please him, and on the next night, the same dress would disgust him and give him cause to humiliate her. The unwashed state of his armor and his yellow teeth sickened her. True hatred was a new emotion for Teesha, and because of this, she did not question how often it consumed her. She began to wonder about the nature of his control and to consider how she might be forced to obey her master and yet thwart him at the same time. Since she was only compelled to obey him when he gave a verbal order, a subtle approach seemed the only possibility. The answer took a month but was simple enough in the end.

She would become exactly what he claimed to want.

Half a year passed, and Teesha made only small changes at fast. She took up fine needlepoint and hired a talented local woman to come three times per week for lessons. She asked Corische for money and ordered fine dresses in the styles that most often seemed to please him. And he began to smugly revel in her efforts.

Since her master was masquerading as a feudal lord, he could not completely ignore his duties. A good portion of land profits remained in his purse, so he collected rents and even occasionally sat in judgment over peasants who were accused of petty crimes. But in that first year, he had a new barracks built on the north side of the keep, and afterward forbade any of the soldiers to enter his home. A competent middle-aged soldier named Captain Smythe, along with Rashed, handled the typical workload required for overseeing a fiefdom with four villages.

One night, when Corische and Rashed were leaving to collect rents, Teesha watched Rashed lift the iron bar off the door. He was physically the strongest creature she had ever known, an immortal incarnation of bone and muscle. But she had also begun to see through his cold dispassion, catching him at times staring intently at one of her needleworks or the small items she'd ordered for the making of a proper noble household. Rashed hungered for the trappings of the living. She saw no shame in this, and knew she could use his hunger to her advantage. Teesha decided that night to accelerate her plans.

First, she had every room above the cellar cleaned by hiring a temporary housemaster, allowing him to believe she and Corische were a pair of lazy nobles who debauched all night and slept all day. She ordered tapestries, braid carpets, and muslin bedding for the two small guest rooms, a chandelier with forty candles, silver goblets, and porcelain dishes. Every night, she had a roaring fire laid in the pit to create an illusion of life and warmth. Although she told herself this was all simply a ruse for Corische's benefit, she began to see layers of herself she'd never realized before. Weren't taste and style simply learned skills that the wealthy taught their children? Isn't that what she'd always believed? Back in the tavern with Edwan, Teesha cared for nothing beyond warmth, love, and the friendship of others. She'd worn one dress in the summer and another in the winter. Why had that never bothered her? Why hadn't she seen how much more there was to desire? She hated Corische, but part of her appreciated how his curse had opened her eyes.

Corische watched with a growing arrogant satisfaction as day after day she slipped deeper into the role he expected of her. And she watched Rashed's fascination grow as the cold keep slowly changed into a living place. She even found that she derived some comfort from pleasing him. And he was the only one she entertained any interest in pleasing.

Eventually, Corische stopped taking notice of all the things she did. She was doing what he wanted, and he made little or no comment on it. Rashed, on the other hand, could not hide his growing approval, which seeped out for a blink or two to wash away the grim coldness of his features. He'd ask where she'd found the latest tapestry or how she would use the strangely shaped flowered vase. Once, he even complimented the knotted pattern she was stitching into a pillowcase.

Then one late evening, when Corische was out, she slipped downstairs to spot Rashed alone in the main room, unaware of her presence. A wrapped and tied bundle of new cloth she had ordered was sitting on the table, and he was trying to peek inside without leaving any trace that he'd been inspecting it.

For a moment, Teesha forgot about Rashed's place in her half-formed plans and stood entranced by his bizarre obsession with mortal trappings. A forgotten softness filled her briefly while she watched him. Firelight almost gave his face color, and he looked so handsome standing by the table, as curious as a boy about her bundle. Then she remembered herself and shook off the feeling. She must think of him as a tool. He would be her instrument, and she could not let emotion sway her from using him.

In another month, Corische began to invite guests to the keep-at first only a nearby lord from a neighboring fief, then a few others as the visits were a success. Teesha could see he sought to improve his social standing and rise in mortal political ranks. After the year's end, she stepped up her studies, using house accounts Corische put at her disposal to order scrolls and books.

She studied history and languages on her own. Lord Corische knew she was trying to improve herself and did not interfere, but neither did he take an active interest, seeming to shy away whenever she was entranced in some text. Rashed, however, openly approved of her efforts and, to her surprise, started teaching her mathematics and astronomy. He showed little interest in most of her books, but was apparently educated, instructing her from memory alone. It was the most she'd learned about his origins somewhere in the great desert lands he referred to as the Suman Empire. Her ability and interest in academics gave her more cause to appreciate her new life-should she call it life? There was so very much to learn and study and absorb, and she'd never given any of it a moment's thought. She'd never known that anything beyond her small world of spiced, turnips and Edwan even existed. How droll, how sad.

Although she studied astronomy and languages diligently, Teesha learned little about the other household members. Parko grew more difficult to speak with as time passed. Often he would be out at night, only appearing when Corische wanted him for something. He seemed to have an awareness that told him when his master would expect his presence. On the other hand, Ratboy would annoyingly pop out of dark corners whenever he felt like it. She caught him watching her intently several times, only to have him turn away with dramatic disinterest when discovered. He was always polite but bored and discontent-something of which she took careful note.

Throughout that second year, Corische began to make guests in the house a regular event, at least once per month.

In the third year, a caravan came through the village. She hurried out early after dusk in time to purchase a large piece of rich, dark burgundy brocade and silver thread before the merchants closed their tents for the night. For the next month, she worked in secret, sewing Rashed an exquisite tunic. She finished it early one evening and sat waiting in the main hall, knowing he would be along sometime soon, as always.

"Here," she said. "I thought you could use something new in your limited wardrobe."

He offered no response when she handed the wrapped bundle to him. He took it with only a slight twitch of puzzlement in his left eyebrow, wasted no time snapping the binding strip, and unwrapped the muslin to display the tunic.

Rashed looked at Teesha once, quickly, then back down at the tunic, staring for a long moment. He said nothing to her as he turned away, but his hands shook slightly as he carefully refolded the muslin around the tunic and then walked toward his own chamber. It was not until later in the year that she would realize why he didn't start wearing it immediately. He would only wear it on the rarest occasions when expected to look his best for guests, and when he did, he was conspicuously concerned with anything that might cause the slightest stain or smudge on the fine fabric.

But that evening, Teesha sat quietly satisfied as Rashed disappeared down the side hall, her gift in his hands. He thought himself so guarded, but he was so easy for her to read. She told herself the gift was only meant to sway him further to her side. But he had looked pleased, hadn't he?

It took a moment, distracted with Rashed as she was, before she sensed the eyes watching her. She turned her head slowly with a scowl, expecting to catch Ratboy lurking in the corner again, but she couldn't have been more wrong.

The sight that met her eyes would have made anyone else, even one of her current household, back away-but not Teesha. She froze, unable to speak, and perhaps experienced a moment's fear. Then her eyes grew forlorn as if her heart had been shattered all over again. No tears fell, for the dead no longer had the ability to weep. She tried and failed three times to speak, then stumbled halfway across the room to stop short. A smile finally came to her lips.

Edwan stood at the foot of the stairs in his hideous, transparent form.

Perhaps she'd been living in a nightmare so long that seeing the ghost of her dead husband did not strike her as traumatic. Perhaps death was too intimate a thing for her to be repulsed by his visage. She smiled wider, cutting short a small laugh of relief.

"How long have you been here?" she asked.

"Since… beginning," Edwan said, though the sound didn't quite match the movement of his sideways lips speaking from the half-severed head upon his shoulder. "I saw… he did to you."

Teesha's smile faded. "And you left me alone?"

Language seemed difficult for him, but she could still read his familiar face, pale and bloodless as it was.

"You have not been alone," he said, almost petulantly, his words growing clearer. "I was afraid to show myself. I exist at the moment of my death." His body turned, for he couldn't move his severed head and it was the only way to pull his closing eyes away from her.

Teesha stepped close, glancing quickly about to make sure no else was there. She reached out to touch him, but her hand only passed through his chest without even a tingle on her flesh. Edwan's eyes opened.

"You are beautiful to me," she said, and she meant it.

"Then leave this place. I am bound to you, and if you leave, I can follow."

She was astonished. "Edwan, I can't leave. I'm bound to my master."

"Is that why you've changed yourself? Why you work to make this place and yourself so beautiful for him?"

For a moment, she thought he spoke of Corische, then she caught the quick twitch of his eyes toward where Rashed had left just moments ago. She couldn't find any way to make him understand the years that had passed. There wasn't enough time before someone would come in and discover him, so she comforted him with soft words.

"We will be free, my Edwan. I have planned it."

Another year passed. Sometimes Teesha could feel Edwan nearby, even when others were present. None of them appeared to notice the spirit, only she. She studied and never once let pass even the smallest opportunity to do some kindness for Rashed. She bought special irons to heat, so she could curl her hair elaborately before pinning it up. Her dresses became simpler and darker in color but more elegant. Occasionally, Rashed would knock on her door and come in to find her primping or trying on some gown. After he left, Edwan would reappear in thinly disguised agitation, and Teesha would parade for him, telling him all she had worked for and how it would soon be time to leave. She did not allow herself to dwell on the unwanted thought that Rashed's opinion of her gowns was the only one that mattered.

During this phase, she actually had little to do with her master. He never touched her and rarely sought her company unless they had guests. He even stopped reveling in her obedience and simply took it for granted, as he did with Rashed. Then one night, Corische invited six lords and their ladies from southern Stravina for roast pheasant and aged spring wine.

Both Corische and Teesha had become skilled at pretending to eat. Consuming food wasn't impossible for the dead. It simply provided no sustenance, and only raw foods, particularly fruits, had any real flavor for them. Cooked flesh tasted bland and nearly repulsive. Wine was at least tolerable, sometimes pleasant.

While Corische tried to draw one of the noblemen's attention to an exquisite tapestry that Teesha had ordered from Belaski, she politely interrupted and asked the gentleman a question. She phrased it in the old, little-known Stravinan tongue spoken mainly by nobles with too much free time and too high an opinion of their bloodline. It was easy enough for her to snatch the surface thoughts from the gentleman's mind to perfect her accent by the time she finished her first sentence.

The nobleman smiled in delight, thumping his glass down as he responded. Everyone at the table suddenly switched to conversing avidly in the nearly dead tongue-everyone, that is, but Lord Corische. He sat in mild discomfort at first, perhaps a bit nervous that he had no idea what was being said around him, and then Teesha caught his eye.

She looked at him with all the disdain she had amassed in the years with him, and it flooded through her gaze to wash over him.

Realization dawned on Corische, and his discomfort turned to barely contained outrage. Teesha felt the initial sweet bite of satisfaction, a unique blend of triumph and revenge. The culmination of her plan was coming soon.

Shortly before dawn, after all guests were safely in bed, Corische found her by the fire. Lately, he had begun to dress like Rashed and now wore well-tailored breeches and a dark orange tunic, his chain mail abandoned.

"Do not forget your place, my lady" he said sarcastically. "I was displeased at supper."

"Truly?" She raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows and watched him take in the sight of her low-necked, black gown and plaited chocolate hair. "That is because you are not noble and could not share in our discussion. You are not even ancient." Her tone remained even and polite. "I know Rashed believes you to be old, but his good heart is easily fooled. What were you in life, my lord! A mercenary? A caravan guard? However did you escape your own master?"

Her goading struck a chord, and he stepped back, voice ragged. "You will not speak to me this way."

"Yes, my lord."

She could not disobey, but she would now openly despise him.

It took a little more time for Corische to fully grasp what she had become, and in turn, he began losing his contentment. More often than not, his frustration caused him to behave like a mannerless thug. Teesha, so much the noble in all things that mattered now, made him look coarse and low when they were seen together. No matter how he tried, he couldn't catch up on the few years she'd spent training herself while he played at his rank like an uneducated soldier. He reacted with anger, threatening her into submission, which she readily gave because she knew it wormed into him even sharper. If she altered herself and began looking and behaving like Teesha the serving girl again, how would his noble acquaintances respond? She was the only true hold he had upon his place in rank and society.

He changed tactics and began anew. First came the compliments whispered in her ear at feasts for guests-and all watching saw the eagerness in his eyes and the revulsion in hers, mixed with a touch of well-played fear. Then came the gifts, such as a pearl necklace shaped like petals he presented her at a holiday dance given by a neighboring lord. She flinched with a shudder as he put it around her neck, her eyes like a doe's running from the hunter. And last, and only once, in private he tried to confess how fond he'd grown of her-how deeply fond-and was answered by her flat and cold expression.

Corische began going on long hunts, sometimes staying out all night, only to arrive home in time to beat the dawn.

If Teesha felt even the slightest sorrow regarding her existence, it only involved Edwan, who watched somewhere unseen. But she hid it away carefully, especially when she began to play seriously with Rashed.

By now, it was no secret to any in the household that he adored her in a white knight manner. For all his passionless ways, Teesha had made it so. She sewed him fine clothes, comforted him with kind words, and took over mundane tasks like arranging for his laundry. She made a point of seeing to his needs first. Stepping up the process, she began to sometimes approach him as he worked on "accounts, placing a tiny hand on his shoulder while speaking with him. As always, she pushed aside thoughts about the solid feel of his collarbone and reminded herself that he was her tool. When she was alone again, Edwan appeared in her room, on the verge of despair.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Seducing that desert man."

"We need him, Edwan." She spoke flatly and calmly, without anger or sorrow. "Can I drive a stake through Corische's heart? Can you? Can you lift the bar from the doors?"

Her husband moaned and vanished in a flash. She regretted his pain, but the situation couldn't be helped. They needed Rashed.

The next night, her master rose and left at full sundown. She sat by the fire pit, sewing. When Rashed walked in, she smiled at him. He nodded, turned to leave, and then stopped.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Sewing a table runner."

Rashed shook his head as he stepped up to stand in front of her, knowing she was well aware of what he meant.

"I know you despise Corische. But there are aspects of him you don't know. He is glorious in battle. That is where his power lies."

"Is that why you followed him?"

Rashed looked hard at her, perhaps finally suspicious. "Do you honestly want to hear this? I thought you cared little for the past."

"Certain aspects of the past are quite important to me. I'd like to know how someone like yourself became a slave to a low-born creature unfit to kneel at your feet."

Stunned by her bluntness, Rashed paced for a moment, his face filled with puzzlement.

"I was fighting near the west of il'Mauy Meyauh, a kingdom of the Suman Empire across the sea. My people were at war with a group of the free tribes of the desert. I don't know where Corische came from, only that his own master died by accident in a fire. I did not understand at the time, but now wonder how one of our kind could ever fall to an accident. Once free, Corische wanted to secure himself by creating his own pack of servants. He was careful, and only chose men easy to control like Ratboy… and Parko, my brother.

"Parko disappeared from our camp one night. I followed his trail and found Corische. We fought. Even as just a mortal, I made him earn his victory. In the end, he pierced my heart. As I bled to death, he made me an offer. At that moment, all I could think of was that Parko would never get along without me. Strange, foolish thought. When I awoke, I was Corische's servant. He took my inheritance and forced us all to travel north. We crossed the sea into Belaski. In Stravina, he found patronage under a powerful mortal lord. The master and I distinguished ourselves in battle for him. In five short years, we were appointed here, to Gдestev Keep. After the warmth of the south, this place was a frozen prison until…"

"Until I came and made it beautiful?" Teesha finished, almost impishly.

He nodded silently.

Teesha could see him slipping into the relief he'd gained since she'd started making changes in the keep, but this time she wasn't going to allow him that release.

"This isn't our home," she hissed, and Rashed back-stepped once in surprise at her sudden change of tone. "No matter what I've done to it, it's his. We merely exist here. And that's all we'll ever have!"

Rashed stared at her for a time longer than any silence Teesha could remember between two people. His eyes were no longer filled with suspicion. He was confused, and Teesha's long careful nurturing of his desires began to take hold.

"What would you have us do?" he finally asked.

"Leave," go southwest to the coast, make our own home."

"You know we can't," he said gently. "He will always be our master."

"Not if he's dead… finally dead."

Now it was Rashed who changed his demeanor, voice cold, hushed, and almost vicious.

"Don't say such things." He dropped to sit on the bench, glaring at her, but his eyes shifted about as if he was looking for Corische to suddenly enter the room.

"Why not? It's true," Teesha retorted. "You serve him, but I see the anger under that cold mask you wear. You bought his rise in power with your family's money and your own skills. Yet he treats you-all of us-like property, nothing more, and we will never escape until he is gone." She slid off the bench and knelt, touching his leg, her voice low to match his. "If I stay with him much longer, I'll find a way to end my existence."

Rashed pulled back but continued to stare down at her. "If he were gone, would you leave this place with me?"

"Yes, and we'd take Ratboy and Parko. We could make our own home."

Rashed finally stepped completely away and walked toward the heavy front door. He stopped and half turned, but he did not look at her. His jaw clenched.

"No, it's not possible." He jerked the door open with both hands. "Don't speak of this again."

But the seeds were properly planted. Alternately kind and cruel to Corische, Teesha easily managed to keep him home more often. Sometimes she flattered him, and he drank and fed upon her words. Sometimes, out of Rashed's presence, she would quietly insult Corische, making cutting guesses about his low birth. Behaving more and more like a fool of desire, he restrained himself from lashing out, shrank back, and sought some new way to solicit her approval. He never gave her verbal orders. She became the master and he the slave, and she despised him all the more for it.

Corische may not have let his anger out at Teesha, but it still burned inside him. In a fit of rage and frustration one night, he broke the handle off a broom and beat Parko with it. Such an action could never have harmed one of them, but Rashed came running in to see why his brother yelped out in fear. He did not interfere, but Teesha saw clouds darker than disapproval pass over his desert warrior's face.

At every opportunity, Teesha drove Corische to desperation, especially when Rashed was nearby, seeking to portray their master as a petty abuser-which he was-and Ratboy, Parko, and herself as the abused. Rashed's expression grew more grim each night. Teesha bought a painting of the seacoast and hung it above the hearth as a less-than-subtle reminder, one that Corische wouldn't comprehend. She managed to quietly call Rashed's attention to it whenever possible. Large and well-crafted, the painting with its dark, cresting waves was a physical image of what they did not have-freedom to leave and see new places.

There finally came a night when she knew Rashed was on the edge. She tried several times to engage him in conversation, but he refused to respond. It was time for the last step. And Teesha waited until the following evening, when all five of them had barely arisen after dusk.

They were gathered in the main room, busy with mundane activities, and she leaned in close to Corische's ear, and whispered, "I believe I met your mother a few nights ago. She was a gypsy hag working in a caravan tent, selling herself for two coppers per man."

All her other jibes had been callously elite, copied from the manner with which she'd seen nobles insult the lower classes and carefully played so that Corische's ego might construe them as possibly goading instead of contemptuous. But this base comment was a lewd, open barb, the like of which had never passed her lips.

Corische's nostrils widened and for a moment he was stricken into stillness. He struck her across the face hard enough to knock her from the hearth bench and smash her small body into the stone wall.

Teesha blinked in pain. Her head pounded, and the room appeared to grow dark. One moment, barely a blink, stretched itself to a length she couldn't measure. All she could hear in the darkness inside her head was a ringing that played in her ears. Not a word from anyone. She had made a mistake in judging Rashed's mood. Corische would not be played with this way ever again, not after what she'd just done.

Finally, some of the darkness cleared. Corische stood over the bench, his arm just finishing its swing. Behind him, Rashed was lunging across the center oak table. His face was twisted in rage, his mouth wide with extended fangs, and a fierce growl ripped from the back of his throat. His right hand swept down to snatch the hilt of Corische's sheathed sword lying upon the table.

Corische turned at the cry of rage behind him. His eyes did not grow wide in surprise but narrowed like an angry dog's, cornered down an alley. Mouth open, his voice started to issue a command Rashed would not be able to refuse.

Rashed drew back his arm and flicked his wrist in a blur. The sheath slid up the sword's blade on his backswing, and before it even cleared the blade tip, the weapon swung forward.

Teesha heard a slight cracking sound when the blade cut through Corische's neck. His head bounced off the hearth's mantle, a spray of black liquid spattering the wall.

The sheath finally clattered to the floor.

Teesha crumpled down against the wall. Rashed landed on the near side of the table as Corische's body collapsed where it stood. The head rolled across the floor to bounce off Ratboy's boot.

Teesha blinked again. That was all the time it took.

After years of preparing moment by moment, everything changed in an instant. Teesha watched the near-black liquid, too dark for living blood, pour out of the corpse's neck stump onto straw-covered stones. It was the only movement in the room.

Parko was the first to disturb the stillness. He giggled quietly, nervously, then leaped across the floor like a cat to crouch at the body, sniffing. He laughed hysterically.

Ratboy began stammering. "You… killed him."

All the rage in Rashed was gone. He stood limply, sword dangling in his hand at his side, as he stared down at the headless body. His face looked as white as the snow. Then he looked up to find Teesha watching him.

She wasn't about to let him slip and fall back now.

"Are you sorry?" she asked almost accusingly. "Do you regret this?"

"It's too late for that now," Rashed answered. He dropped the sword to clatter on the floor and lifted Teesha to her feet gently with both hands. She said nothing, but kept staring at him, waiting as if she hadn't heard his first answer. Something of his anger came back and the muscles in his jaw tightened.

"No, I'm not sorry," he added.

She gripped his forearms, or as much of them as her small hands could take in. In the air over Rashed's shoulder, she thought she saw Edwan's wispish form hovering in the rafters.

"We're free," she whispered.

She had not failed. Corische was dead, and they had no master. They were free. Joy rushed through her, and she wanted to laugh, but she came back to her senses as Rashed pulled away.

He reached up and took the seacoast painting off the wall.

"Everyone gather what you want with you. We leave tonight."

"Leave?" Ratboy sputtered. He was still standing dumbly as before, staring at Corische's headless body. "What are you talking about? Where are we going?"

Teesha walked with a smile over to Ratboy, still slightly uncertain on her feet. He stared at her with wide brown eyes. With a gentle touch, she pushed him toward the stairs to their lower chambers for the last time.

"To the sea."

Edwan jerked away from Teesha's mind, away from memories he could no longer stand to relive. In the silence, neither of them even heard the waves collapsing onto the shore of Miiska.

"Why?" he asked, his empty voice anguished. "Why show me these ugly visions? Go back before… to the tavern."

"No."

"To the day we met, to the first time we-"

"No, my love." She shook her head. 'To understand where you are, you must see where you've been, and not just the sweet parts."

"I am in torment!" Edwan cried, shaking her completely out of the past and into the present.

"My love," she whispered, regretting his pain. "Let's walk among the dark streets and pretend we are high in the north, children again, in distant days."

"Yes." He drew near, instantly appeased, and she reached out for his hand. Although she could not grasp it, the cold mist of him settled around her slender fingers.

Ratboy watched a sleeping girl through the loose window shutters of a cottage, her dark hair spread out on the pillow, her breathing light and even. She didn't look anything like the girl he'd ripped and drained not many nights ago, but he felt the taste of blood running on his tongue with the memory. And the merchant on the road, taken so easily.

Who made these absurd rules that killing mortals would not be allowed? Did all of their kind follow such laws? Parko had not.

First there had been Corische enforcing his strict guidelines, desiring power and nobility among mortals. Now there was Rashed dominating every aspect of their existence, Rashed with his disgusting sense of honor, his obsession with safety and mortal trappings. Weren't they Noble Dead? Wasn't that enough? No undead in his right mind would wish to become a mortal lord, or own a warehouse and earn a mortal living. Lately, Ratboy had begun to suspect Corische and Rashed were the mad ones, the twisted ones, not him, not Parko.

The girl rolled over in her slumber and raised a lovely tanned arm above her head. The movement caused Ratboy to tense, to smell the warm blood beneath her skin.

"What are you watching, my sweet?" a quiet voice said beside him.

He did not jump or even turn to look. It was only Teesha. He pointed through the window.

"Her."

"It's not wise to feed in their homes. You know this."

"I know many things. I'm not certain I agree anymore."

Her hand rose and stroked the back of his hair.

"Shhhhh," she whispered. "It's not far to dawn. Come and find easier prey. You must think of our home. You must think of me."

Closing his eyes at the feel of her touch, Ratboy slipped away from the window. Yes, he'd be cautious for her. But as they turned down the street together, he still remembered the sleeping, tan-armed girl.