Amren’s wife staggered and held on to the doorjamb to keep from falling. “Oh my!” she said in a weak voice, her eyes locked upon Kaliq and Lara.

The Shadow Prince stepped forward and gallantly put a hand beneath the lady Clarinda’s elbow. “Please do not let us distress you, my lady. We have but come to help.” He led her to where Prince Vaclar stood. “May I introduce you to your husband’s great-nephew, heir apparent to the throne of Terah, Prince Vaclar. Your Highness, this lady is your great-aunt Clarinda. She will see to your comfort before you must leave for the Lord High Ruler’s wedding.”

Vaclar bowed with an elegant flourish and, taking the lady’s hand, kissed it. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, my lady great-aunt,” he said.

Soothed by the Shadow Prince’s gentle voice and normal behavior, the lady Clarinda was eased in her mind. “Your Highness,” she said curtsying to Vaclar.

“Dear great-aunt Clarinda,” Vaclar said, smiling at her, “we are family. You need not curtsy to me.”

“Oh nay, dear boy,” the good woman answered him. “It must never be said that a Hetarian lady of rank such as myself forgot her manners in the presence of royalty.” Then she brought him up to the High Board and called to her servants to feed him immediately.

“We will leave you to do what you must,” Lara said to Amren.

“If I need you,” he answered her, “how can I find you?”

“You have but to say these words. Grandmother Lara, hear my plea. Cease all else and come to me. If you call me, Amren, I will come.” Then she put a hand on his arm. “Thank you,” she said to him. Then Lara disappeared in a puff of lavender mist.

Amren blinked. Her mode of transport always surprised him. He looked about for Prince Kaliq, but the Shadow Lord had also departed. Amren Hauk chuckled softly to himself. How foolish he had been. How foolish his whole nation was that they had put magic from them. Magic existed. And it was fascinating.

RETURNING TO SHUNNAR, LARA immediately turned to Kaliq, who was by her side. “I believe we have begun this campaign well, my lord. We shall again defeat the Twilight Lord, and all his ilk. I will not let the darkness come! I won’t!”

The Shadow Prince took her into his arms. “You are a brave faerie woman, my love,” he told her. She was brave, he thought. But her efforts this time were for naught. Still Lara was not a woman who would blindly accept a fate she could not live with for she was an optimistic creature of light and of hope.

He stroked the soft gilt-colored hair beneath his big hand. Soon the exodus would start, and the magic would slowly slip away from Hetar, leaving it vulnerable to the darkness. Kaliq wished it were otherwise, but Hetar now must accept the fate it had carved out for itself. Lara would resist until the bitter end, he suspected. But then they would depart into the Cosmos. His beautiful faerie woman would help to create a new world. She would shed tears for Hetar, but she would also be happy again because they would be together.

Lara looked up into his handsome face. “You are thinking,” she said with a small smile. “I can almost hear the cogs and wheels within your head.”

“You have devised a clever plot, my love,” he told her. “If we can get Vaclar wed to the last of Grugyn Ahasferus’s granddaughters, the bond between Hetar, Terah and the Dark Lands will be unbreakable at least for the generation to come. Kolgrim will not be pleased. I’m certain he meant to pit Hetar and Terah against one another to their detriment. But now, my love, you must return his bride, Nyura, to him. Our time is short, and he will take his revenge upon Marzina if you do not.”

“I know,” Lara replied. “I will go now. Do not come. He will not harm me.”

And suddenly she was gone from his arms.

“MOTHER!” KOLGRIM LOOKED UP from his throne where he had been seated. “Will you tell me now where I may find Nyura so we may be wed tomorrow?”

“Release Marzina to me, and I will,” Lara said. “You know my word is good, Kolgrim. You cannot harm your sister by your own law.”

“Allowing the chamber in which she is housed to drop into the endless abyss would only make it impossible for you ever to see her again. Nor could she escape for I have put a spell upon the chamber. Her magic does not work there. Now where is Nyura?”

“Well hidden in a place you cannot find, Kolgrim. Now release Marzina, and Nyura will be safe in her own bed again. They will be coming soon to awaken her for her cousin’s wedding to the Lord High Ruler,” Lara said in a calm voice, but her heart was pounding violently. This was a battle of wills between them, and she knew her son did not like to lose such battles. Especially to a woman. She smiled encouragingly at him.

Kolgrim laughed. “Very well,” he said. “Soon enough your influence over this world will weaken and then fade altogether. The power will be mine, Mother dear. I can afford to be generous to you this time.”

Outside Kolgrim’s Throne Room the skies darkened from pale gray to dark gray. The clouds thickened as the winds rose. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and jagged lightning flashed. Marzina, to me!

And there was her daughter standing between them.

“Are you all right?” Lara asked the young faerie woman, putting her arms about her youngest child.

Marzina looked dazed. “What happened?” she asked.

Lara took her daughter’s face between her two hands. “Look at me, Marzina. Focus your eyes on my face. You’re still half-asleep.” She looked to Kolgrim. “A bit heavy-handed with the sleep spell, weren’t you, Kolgrim?”

Marzina’s violet eyes began to clear. “Oh!” she said. “Yes! I came to see my brother, the dark one. Are you angry with me, Mother?”

Lara sighed. “Of all my children you are the most impetuous,” she said. “Aye, I’m angry, but I’m also relieved.”

“Kolgrim wouldn’t harm me,” Marzina said. “We’re blood kin.”

“He thought nothing of violating the law to kill his half sister, Ciarda,” Lara reminded her daughter.

“Ciarda was foolish, Mother. I am not,” Marzina replied boldly.

“I have upheld my end of our bargain, mother dear,” Kolgrim purred. “What about your end?”

“Look in your reflecting bowl, my lord,” Lara instructed him.

Kolgrim walked over to the black onyx vessel, waved his hand over it and saw Nyura as she wakened in her bed. She wore but a thin night garment, and her breasts were quite visible to his eye. His cock hardened beneath his robes. Soon those breasts would belong to him, for his pleasure. He watched as two servant women hurried into Nyura’s bedchamber followed by her mother.

Looking at his own mother, he said, “How can I be certain what I see is real?”

“You will just have to trust me, Kolgrim,” Lara told him. “Come, Marzina.”

“I can take her back at anytime,” Kolgrim said.

“Of course you can,” Lara replied. “But so can I.” Then she and Marzina were gone from his sight.

Kolgrim laughed softly. His mother was a magnificent opponent. He was almost sorry that this time he would win in the battle between the light and the dark. And when he did, he would take her powers for himself. She owed him a debt for having deserted him and his brother in their infancy. For leaving them to be raised by traitorous giants, and vicious Wolfyn. Aye! Her magic would be his. And when it was, he would make his mother love him as she had loved the children she had born to Kaliq, to Vartan and to Magnus Hauk.

He knew the magic inhabiting Hetar even now plotted their departure. They understood that this world would now belong to him. But his mother would not leave Hetar. Lara loved this world, and she would be convinced that she could save it as she had saved it from his father. She would remain. He was convinced of it. Aye, Lara would remain. And if she did then Marzina, his little sister, would remain, too.

“My lord.”

Kolgrim looked down to see his chancellor. “What?” he demanded irritably. He disliked having his thoughts interrupted.

“My lord, you must prepare to return to The City for the wedding of your kinsman, the Lord High Ruler, and the Lady Divsha. Palben has scheduled your marriage to the Lady Nyura for two days from now, not tomorrow. Will you remain in The City?”

“I shall remain there,” Kolgrim said. “I wish to see the pleasures Hetar has to offer me, Alfrigg, for soon I will be a married man.”

“Marriage should not deter you from your pleasures, my lord.” Alfrigg chuckled.

Kolgrim laughed darkly. “It will not,” he agreed. He grew thoughtful for a few moments before posing a query to his chancellor. “Shall I impregnate Nyura immediately, or give her time to grow used to my attentions. She is a virgin, after all.”

“But she is also a Hetarian,” Alfrigg said. “Once she has been introduced to the joy of pleasures she will become greedy for them. Time, however, is of the essence in this matter. The season of the mating frenzy is a short one. A few days, but no more, can pass before you must seed her with your heir.”

Kolgrim nodded. “I agree. I shall grow quickly bored with her anyway. But once she has proved fecund, then I may depart her bed. Nothing can prevent her from bringing this child to term.” His dark gray eyes turned to look directly at his companion. “Do you take pleasures, Alfrigg?” he asked the old dwarf. “You have a wife?”

“My wife is dead these many years, my lord, but I have three nubile concubines who serve their purpose well, and please me,” the chancellor answered. He was a little disturbed to have his privacy invaded by his master. But then Kolgrim was different from other Twilight Lords. “My lord,” he reminded his master, “the time grows short. Shall I instruct Drug to pack your trunk?”

“Aye, and remind him my wedding garments must be carefully stored,” the young Twilight Lord said. He turned back to the onyx reflecting bowl, where Nyura was now being prepared to attend her cousin’s wedding. She sat before her dressing table admiring herself as a serving woman brushed her long reddish-blond hair. He observed her vanity, and smiled. She had the face of someone pure, but Kolgrim saw the wonderful darkness in her, and was excited by it. Sexually he was a creature who needed more than one woman to attend to his lust. Nyura would come to bore him, he knew. But intellectually she would be a delightful companion he decided.