We eventually sat in a ring on the pillows while I did the honors of pouring the wine. The half-naked servants and guards had disappeared, and the Slave-Master gave us our privacy. We shared our experiences and our stories filled in missing components of how we’d all ended up together in a tent near the center of a Kondor desert, instead of adjoining cabins on the Gallant.
When all the questions had been asked and answered, there remained more. Kendra said to Elizabeth, “Are you still going to Dagger?”
“That is my job. How I enter the city is now up to me.”
“They won’t listen to you,” Kendra said. “They’re the ones who had you captured and intended to drag you into the city during darkness, interrogate you, and kill you. Do you have any doubt about that?”
*Did you see Emma?*
I answered Anna silently, *I saw through her. Is that what you meant?*
*Yes. I’ve been watching for her to get careless.*
*Good. Now, stop it. You don’t want to let her know you suspect.* I looked her way. Anna frowned back.
She filled my mind with her anger. *She already knows.*
Elizabeth said, “I’m thinking about a change in plans . . .”
I interrupted rudely before she said things in front of Emma that went directly into the plans of the mage behind the apparition. “I’m hungry. Starving. Can we get some food and talk about this later?”
All eyes turned to me. Kendra and Avery knew I’d never spoken out of turn in such a manner that contradicted my princess, and their shock was clear. Anna was nodding her agreement. However, it was Emma that drew my attention. Her face was one of pure hate.
Suddenly, I realized she hadn’t spoken out loud in at least two days. Her image had slipped a while ago, as well as revealing unintended expressions. Whoever controlled her was tired or distracted.
“Food,” I called to whatever servants were close enough to hear me. Emma faced me, and I wanted to change that. She watched me as I watched her.
A servant rushed up to us. I stood as if to specify what we wished to eat, as managed to maneuver her a few steps back as we talked until I stood beside Emma. When the servant rushed off to get our meal, I turned around and sat, as if by accident beside Emma.
We were sitting next to each other, but I was slightly behind and to her left, intentionally. While I’d seen through her image and believed all that Anna told me, I was not convinced. I “thought” I’d looked through her as with the Blue Woman, but what if my previous experiences were influencing what I saw? The simple fact was that such an innocent waif of a girl who looked like me and was in similar circumstances of living without parents pulled at me one way, while my mind and evidence pulled another. I needed a final scrap of evidence and intended to watch her eat—or not.
It was a small thing, but one I focused on and almost clung to as final proof. Failing to eat would convince me of her guilt. Eating would cause me to question it all. The conversation had turned to more benign subjects, and even a little laughter erupted now and then. I kept my eyes away from Emma, not wanting to warn her any more than I had, which was nearly an impossible task. I wanted and needed to watch her when the food came.
She was smarter than me. Without warning, she placed her arms over her stomach and groaned loudly as if in pain. She rocked and cried out as if a wave of pain had struck her. She fell to her side as Kendra and Elizabeth competed to identify what was wrong with her.
*She’d faking,* Anna told me.
*I know. She caught me looking through her.*
*She will kill you for that.*
Anna was right, and I knew it, but with a wailing child in pain so near, how could I explain? Who would listen?
While I tried to decide what to do, Anna stood. She shouted, “Get away from her!”
Kendra turned to Anna, confused. Conversation stilled, but the moaning rose in volume. Kendra turned back to care for Emma.
Anna snapped, “I told you to get away from her. She is not my sister. She is a mage in disguise.”
Kendra’s hands pulled back from Emma as if the girl had turned into hot coals. Elizabeth was slower to respond but followed Kendra’s lead.
Anna pointed at Emma. “You were never my sister until the storm. You pretend, but I know you were never there. The dragon was not obeying you. It does not like you. It stays away when you are near us because it senses what you are.”
Kendra was shaking her head.
Anna was not to be dissuaded. “Call it to us, Kendra. Try to get that thing to go near her. Or it. The dragon knows, and so do I. That’s why she struck Damon’s mind so hard he almost died. It is not a little girl. It is a mage stealing all you talk about and using it against you.”
I said, “She’s right. Emma is like the Blue Woman only a better image and more powerful. A stronger mage than the one controlling the Blue Woman is watching and listening to everything we do and say.”
All eyes were in Emma.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Princess Elizabeth
Damon and Anna’s revelation about the little girl they called Emma took all of us by surprise. For myself, I hadn’t interfaced with them on the ship. I’d seen them when I left my cabin but had only spoken to Kendra one time in private.
I didn’t know if I could believe their accusations. The story was so strange and wild. Even as I tried to sort things in my mind, the child at my side cried out for my help. She looked so much like Kendra had when I’d first found them in the streets outside Crestfallen ten years ago, a thin waif of a child with the features of Kondor instead of Dire. The memory was fresh in my mind.
However, as Damon spoke, the cries and moaning of the child suddenly ceased. The girl sat up and looked at Damon in an evil way that sent shivers of fear through me.
She pointed a wavering finger at him. Her voice, when it came was that of a young man, not a small girl. “You will die. You will all die.”
The image of Emma stretched and elongated until her arms became snakes. Fangs dripping poison grew where her fingers should be, her legs became those of a furred animal, and the torso massive and the head was swollen. What had been Emma stood above us a full head taller. Her eyes flared, and tiny flames licked within them.
“What do you want?” Anna shouted, advancing on the apparition without fear.
Emma ignored her and turned to Kendra. “Turn your dragon away. It cannot harm me, and I know it is almost here.”
My sister didn’t respond—but she didn’t agree either.
The creature in front of us was an abomination, a mixture of what we’d known as Emma and a dozen other creatures; all rolled into one frightening mass of glowing energy that towered over us. It emitted a sour smell that stung our nostrils and generated heat like a small sun. Claws emerged from the heads of the snake arms.
Anna stepped between Emma and us. “It’s not real. She’s making us think we smell and feel the heat, but even the claws are not real. Emma is inside our heads but can’t touch our bodies.”
As if to prove her point, she reached out as if to slap the image and her hand passed right through as if it was smoke. The image remained in the same threatening pose, but Anna was not finished. She leaped ahead, into the body of the thing. They merged as Anna waved her arms and shouted, “It is not real. Don’t believe it.”
A disturbance to my left drew fleeting attention. The Slave-Master followed by three huge guards raced into the tent and pulled to a halt at the sight. All carried weapons useless to fight an image made of light and our imaginations. All had abject expressions of fear on their faces but were not going to hesitate to attack.