Until at long last, she fell asleep for a while, then woke to a scratching noise. At first she thought it only a rodent gnawing on some old wood upstairs. But it came steadily, and she looked around. She could see little enough by the light of Gallen’s mask, but soon she realized that while rolling around in her sleep, she had misjudged where the door was. What she had taken to be a far corner of the building was in fact the bolted door directly above them.
Maggie got up warily, wondered what to do. The insistent scratching was from something large. She went to Gallen, and pushed him gently in his sleep, praying that he would not waken with a shout.
To her relief, Gallen merely opened his eyes, took one look at Maggie, and sat listening for a moment.
Suddenly Gallen snarled, letting a low rumble escape his throat. It was a sound distinctly nonhuman, like some savage animal, and the noise frightened her. Then in a harsh voice he shouted, “Ghisna, ghisna-siisum,” and leapt up the stairs and began fumbling with the bolt.
Something shrieked behind the door. There was the sound of scurrying feet and flapping wings … followed by silence. Ceravanne woke up, as did Orick and Tallea. “What’s wrong?” Ceravanne asked.
“A scout was here,” Gallen whispered, “and it thinks it was almost eaten by a tribe of Derrits. It will not be back tonight. Quiet, now. Go back to sleep.”
Maggie lay down again, but Gallen did not follow his own advice. The last thing Maggie saw before she fell into a deep slumber was Gallen’s mask glowing in the dark as Gallen watched the stairs, accompanied by the drip, drip, drip from the seeping wall.
Just before dawn, Gallen roused the group and began preparing to break camp. He went out and righted the wagon with Orick’s help, then harnessed the travel beast.
They headed west again, and by midday they climbed up out of the valley floor to an ancient stone highway, swept by the wind. This road headed south once more, and it led through a bleak grassy landscape where there was little shelter from prying eyes. On it, their travel beast raced like the wind, and Gallen dared not slow down, though Tallea warned him repeatedly to beware of Derrit traps.
During the day, Maggie asked Gallen how he’d been so familiar with the old stone fortress, and he explained, “I played there as a child. My mother went there daily, to take provisions to my father, who was kept prisoner in the dungeon.”
Maggie did not ask him more about who those memories had belonged to, and Gallen offered no more explanation.
Shortly before dusk, Gallen pulled the wagon off the road, then he flipped it and removed the wheel again, and led the group up a narrow defile to a small cleft that went back twenty meters into the rock. Scrub oak covered the opening so fully that when they got inside, they could not see out. Nevertheless, Gallen insisted on fortifying the entrance by stacking stones around it.
As he stacked the rocks, Gallen said, “If I know of this place, then the servants of the Inhuman may recall it, too. I think it will be safe, but we must still keep watch!”
“To me, it seems more dangerous to stay here than to find somewhere else,” Ceravanne warned him softly.
“Perhaps,” Gallen said, “but last night I learned a lesson. I went to a place familiar to me, and the Inhuman searched that place. I hope not to repeat that experience. I’ve never actually visited this cavern in one of my former lives. Indeed, I was told of it only once, and sought it, but never found it. It wasn’t until weeks later that I guessed where it might be. So my memories of this place are tenuous. I hope that the Inhuman’s servants will not even consider searching for this old haunt.”
They ate another cold dinner, and afterward Orick slept on guard near the entrance of the cave, while Gallen curled up next to him and finally took some rest.
Maggie wondered at this, for it had been two nights now since Gallen had held her, and she felt that her new husband was a stranger. She tended the fire and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees for a long time, watching Gallen’s sleeping form and thinking.
Ceravanne and Tallea had been talking softly together, and Tallea must have seen how Maggie watched Gallen. “Not worry,” Tallea said. “He remembers love for you.”
“Are you sure?” Maggie wondered aloud. She did not fear that Gallen would hear her. He was so tired, he was dead to the world.
“If not,” Tallea said, “he would not try save us.”
“She’s right,” Ceravanne offered. “It takes a great deal of willpower for someone to fight off the Inhuman’s conditioning. The fact that he is working so hard is a sign of his commitment to you.”
Maggie bit her lip, feeling that something was still terribly wrong. “Aye, he’s fighting the Inhuman, but there’s something amiss. He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t kiss me. It’s keeping his distance that he is.”
Ceravanne frowned, and Maggie could see that this news dismayed her. “Maggie, I think he loves you more than you give him credit for.” Something in the way that she said it, something in the way that her voice quavered, made Maggie curious. “Why do you say that?”
Ceravanne took a deep breath. “I have something I must confess: twice now, I’ve asked Gallen to give me his heart. I wanted him to give himself to me completely, just in case this happened. I wanted him to bond with me more strongly than he might with the Inhuman.”
Maggie looked at the Tharrin and knew that Ceravanne was talking about more than just some mental bonding. The Tharrin was admitting that she had sought Gallen’s complete love and devotion. She’d tried to seduce him. “But,” Ceravanne continued, “Gallen has already given his heart to you. You’re the reason he fights the Inhuman now. But if he isn’t seeking you out, if he isn’t touching you, you need to go to him. In his mind, he’s been separated from you for a hundred lifetimes. The dronon have tried to put an incredible amount of emotional distance between you. He needs to fall in love with you all over again. You need to remind him why he loved you in the first place.”
Maggie bit her lip, looked around the cave desperately. Tears came to her eyes, and Tallea went to her side, put her hand on Maggie’s shoulder.
“Why cry?” Tallea asked.
Maggie shook her head. “That’s not Gallen anymore. That’s not the man I married. He doesn’t talk like Gallen, or move like him. He’s six thousand years old.” Maggie did not dare say what she was thinking. Ceravanne had more to offer Gallen than she did. Ceravanne was more beautiful than Maggie, and the lure of her pheromones could undermine a man’s resolve. Ceravanne, like Gallen, had apparently lived for thousands of years. On the face of it, she was a better match for him, and something in Maggie made her wonder if Ceravanne hadn’t tried to seduce him based upon such cold reasoning.
“Why did you do it?” Maggie said bitterly. “Why did you try to make Gallen love you if you knew that he already loved me?”
Ceravanne sat across the fire and licked her lips as she considered her response. “The first time it happened was when the Bock brought him to me. I didn’t know then that he loved you.”
“And the second time?”
She took a deep breath. “Was three nights ago.” Maggie considered the depth of the betrayal. She had a strong desire to pull a knife and gut the Tharrin right at the moment, but by telling Maggie of her betrayal, Ceravanne was also promising never to do it again. Still, a month earlier, the Lady Everynne had lured Gallen into her bed, and now Ceravanne was trying to do the same. Maggie wondered if all Tharrin were inherently untrustworthy that way. “Why did you do it?” Maggie asked. “Why do you Tharrin do this?”
Ceravanne was breathing hard, and she looked away, but she knew that she owed Maggie an answer. “I could tell you that it is because of Belorian, because Gallen looks like Belorian, and I love him still. It was dark, and I was frightened and lonely, as frightened and lonely as I have felt in five hundred years, and out of the goodness of his heart, Gallen was trying to comfort me. That was temptation enough for what I did.