Krystin stared at the Night Parade's leader, a part of her so entrenched in her own needs and desires that it forced her to actually consider his offer. If she did not learn the truth and dispel the nightmarish visions that disturbed her waking hours, she would go insane. She was certain of this.
"I'm going to take my hand away from your mouth. If you scream, I will be forced to kill you and your sacrifice will be for nothing. There are more than a hundred of our kind gathered near this place. Twice that number will arrive before your friends can fight their way to safety. If you do not cooperate, they all will die. Nod if you understand."
Krystin shook her head and Lord Sixx removed his hand. She looked across at Alden, and said, "We trusted you."
The straw-haired young man turned away.
"Poor Alden," Lord Sixx said softly. "He never knew that the blood in his veins was not human. The boy is a hunter. He has senses that a wolf would envy. It was the gift of his mother, who is long dead. And he moves with the speed of the wind, the gift of his father, Dymas, who has been summoned from exile to rear him at last. Pieraccinni fancied himself the boy's father, but he could never bring himself to tell Alden the truth." Lord Sixx shrugged. "I think Pieraccinni enjoyed the company of humans far too-"
"What do you want of me?" Krystin said sharply.
"To the point. I like that. We'll work well together."
"I'll help you, but only if it will save the others."
"Oh," Lord Sixx said happily. "Very well. Then you don't want the rewards I have to bestow upon you." He dropped the locket on her chest. "You don't need to know where you came from, if Myrmeen Lhal is your mother or not."
Krystin hesitated. Slowly, like a stone wall with a hairline crack becoming wider until it shatters from immense pressure, her brave facade fell away and she began to cry.
In a tiny voice she asked, "What do you want from me?"
Lord Sixx turned her wounded arm until the gash faced outward. He motioned for Alden to come quickly. With a shamed expression, Alden crouched before the table and opened his mouth as Lord Sixx squeezed Krystin's arm until a few drops of her blood fell to Alden's flickering tongue.
Alden fell to his knees, covering his face. "I have her scent," he said. "I will not lose it."
"Very good," Lord Sixx said. "Return to the shadows. I taught you how. Do it."
Krystin watched as Alden retreated to the room's shadow-laden corner. His body appeared to become a silhouette, then he merged with the darkness and was gone.
Lord Sixx bent over her and gently caressed her hair. His breath stank. Removing his glove, he exposed to the pale yellow light three sets of eyes lining his forearm. They blinked repeatedly, then slowly opened their lids all the way as they adjusted to the luminescence. The different sets of eyes looked out in varying directions. Then he spoke:
"I will mend your wound, just as if the healer had done it himself. Tell Shandower that the old man ordered the lot of you to be gone. He will believe the words came from the ill-tempered man and will depart gladly. From time to time, wherever he takes you, reopen your wound and allow a drop or two of blood to fall. That is all you must do."
"You'll Mow us."
"Safely, at a distance. There will be no further need for confrontation. When we get to where the apparatus is kept, we will take it and go."
"Shandower," she said, slurring the word as she began to feel drowsy. Sixx's many eyes were mesmerizing her, she realized, and she was allowing it to happen.
"Do not concern yourself with him. He knew the cost."
"But Myrmeen and the Harpers-"
"They will live. We have no wish to do them harm, Krystin. I will not lie to you."
His angular features twisted up in a smile that was meant to be comforting. Instead, it made Krystin's heart beat wildly as he brought his arm to her face and instructed her to stare at the eyes. She felt the haziness of dreams quickly overtake her, then heard him laugh as he said, "Now we shall see what we shall see…"
Suddenly her world was draped in shadows. When she woke, she was alone in the room. Sixx was gone, along with the old healer's body. While she had slept, her dreams had revealed the truth. She sat up, the restraints once again dangling over the edge of the table, and heard the emerald locket clatter to the floor as it slid from her chest. Leaping off the table, she snatched it from the floor, examined its surface, and held it close to her breast.
She remained like that for a time, then rose and went upstairs to greet the others. Her wound had been dressed, and she was surprised to learn that she had only been absent for a matter of minutes.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw something move in the shadows-a reminder that not all of what she had experienced had been a dream. Dully, she recited the words Lord Sixx had given her, and Shandower laughed, not at all surprised that the old healer had evicted them. As they prepared to leave, Krystin held her locket before her. With trembling lips, she said, "My locket, the chain broke."
"I can fix that for you," Ord said. "Don't worry."
She nodded. As they left the house and became one with the night, Krystin found that worrying was the only task she still had strength to accomplish. As they carefully made their way through the streets, to the stables where their mounts and supplies waited, Krystin hurried and walked beside Myrmeen. Without a word, she put her arm around the woman's waist and rested her head on Myrmeen's shoulder.
Myrmeen had been shocked and had raised her hands. She lowered them slowly and wrapped them around Krystin, practically dragging the girl with her as they walked along, wordless, into the deepening night.
Myrmeen squinted in the harsh light of the afternoon sun. They had left Calimport the previous evening and had been on what Shandower described as the Dead Run ever since. The route he had chosen once had been favored by traders trying to make time and avoid the blistering stretches of desert north of the city. They had come east, on a trail of land that ran parallel to the shoreline. The route was hazardous and the name it had been given was well deserved. On several occasions, the mounts had refused to move any farther. Shandower understood that they were approaching pockets of land that had been subtly altered by the magical and physical upheavals during the time of Arrival, when the gods had walked the Realms. An apparently safe patch of land could suddenly shift, like a sink hole, and swallow an entire party of travelers without a hint of warning.
Myrmeen looked past the winding, craggy cliff to the gulf below. The waters were choppy and the afternoon sun sparkling on the surface dispelled the initial impression that the sea was as hard as glass. A hazy band of white gathered at the horizon, separating the vast expanse of the Shining Sea from the distant sky. As her mount carried her through the difficult path Shandower had chosen, Myrmeen closed her eyes and imagined that she was home in Arabel, lying in her scented bath with delicate tongues of water caressing her flesh. A high squeal of laughter from behind her sent the fantasy scurrying from her mind, and she opened her eyes to the blinding sunlight. Her skin was covered in sweat from the sweltering heat. She smelled foul, and she hated it.
Shandower rode point, Reisz had been beside her, and Krystin had been riding with Ord for the past two hours. The young Harper had honored his promise and fixed the chain on her emerald locket the previous evening, when they had stopped for the night. He had used the cooking fires to fuse the metal together, a crude but serviceable solution that had delighted the fourteen-year-old.