When she had finished her meal Lara descended from the prince’s palace into the great meadow of horses nestled between the cliffs where she knew she would find her friend the giant Og, who was the prince’s horsemaster. “Og,” she called. “Where are you?” And then at the far end of the meadow she saw his red head. “OG!” she called as loudly as she was able to, and she waved to him.

He was not a large giant, but Og quickly covered the mile separating them in several great strides. “Lara!” He set his palm down, and she stepped into it. Og raised her up so they might converse face-to-face.

Leaning forward, Lara planted a kiss on Og’s ruddy cheek.

He beamed at her, his light blue eyes crinkling with delight. “It is good to see you, Lara. How goes the battle between the light and the dark?”

“As always,” she said, and then she brought him up to date. “My youngest daughter will be at Shunnar for a while. Will you befriend her?”

“I thought she was with your mother,” Og said.

“She was until she did the unthinkable.” And Lara explained what had happened.

“She undid the prince’s spell?” He was amazed.

“Undoing it was the easy part for her. She got into difficulties because she could not reweave it back together,” Lara replied.

Og could not help but chuckle. “What a minx the lass is,” he said. “Reminds me of a certain someone not so long ago.”

“I certainly never did anything like that,” Lara said. “She had no right to do what she did, and now I must begin again with the Hierarch because Anoush is gone.”

“I will befriend the lass,” Og promised. “It would appear she is amazingly talented as Dillon was. She will make you proud one day.”

“She is so eager, Og. But she has been forbidden the use of magic until she gains self-discipline. Marzina is so anxious to be grown. Perhaps because she is the youngest of my children she feels a need to be taken seriously. But for now she needs to be diverted. Will you help her to find a horse?”

“Aye,” he promised. “Some wild little thing that needs training. That will keep her busy while she is here. Especially if she can’t use magic.”

“Thank you, my old friend,” Lara said. “Now I must be going, but you need not put me down. I’ll just transport myself from your hand.” And her words hadn’t even died when she was gone.

Lara reappeared in Cam’s privy chamber. He had fallen asleep as he sat at his worktable, his head upon his arms. She touched him gently. “Awaken, Nephew,” she said softly, but as he tensed beneath her hand Lara knew he was now awake.

Cam raised his head. “What do you want?” he asked her.

“The Darkling has stolen Anoush away. Do you know where she is?” Her faerie green eyes looked directly at him.

“Nay,” he answered. “She would not tell me. All she would say was that she had Anoush now, and if I ever expected to make the faerie woman’s daughter my bride I would obey her every command.”

“Do you see now, Nephew, the evil of this creature? Or are you still not certain if your ambition is greater than your love for Anoush?” Lara said.

“Why can I not have the power and the woman I love?” he wanted to know.

“Because you are not worthy of both,” Lara said candidly. “You are a mere mortal, Cam, for all of Ciarda’s plans. Had she not chosen you to be her cat’s paw you would be herding Sholeh’s cattle in the summer meadows of the New Outlands now.”

“And would Anoush be my wife?” he asked her.

“Perhaps,” Lara said.

“And perhaps not,” he responded.

“I have not lied to you,” Lara told him.

“Nor I to you,” Cam replied. “I am torn, yet whatever choice I make I would like it to be my choice and not one that is forced from me for expediency’s sake.”

“I find the fact you struggle with the choices before you oddly encouraging,” Lara said to him. “In anger I said I should not return to your side, Nephew, but it would be easy for me to leave you to the darkness. However, I cannot do that. I have made a hard choice. Now you must make one.”

“I love her,” Cam admitted. “But I love the feeling that power gives me, too.”

“Use this masquerade to help the people of Hetar, Nephew,” Lara encouraged him. “Go to the Lord High Ruler Jonah, and stand by his side. I will make the magic that you need if you do. And when this battle is over I will do as I previously promised you. The Darkling underestimates my powers, for she is young, ambitious and foolish.”

“She will kill Anoush if I betray her, Aunt,” Cam said, and his eyes were fearful.

“Think, Nephew! What did she say when she told you she had Anoush in her power? She had to have said something,” Lara prompted him.

His brow furrowed as he sought to remember the conversation with Ciarda. Then Cam said, “She told me she had hidden your daughter in the one place you would never consider looking. She was almost gleeful as she told me.”

“I will find Anoush,” Lara said firmly. “For now, Cam, do nothing. If she gives you a task, do it so slowly that it takes forever to get it done.”

He nodded. “But I cannot deny her forever, Aunt. The Darkling is no fool. If I demur too greatly she will suspect something.”

“Then do what all men do when they seek to avoid an issue,” Lara instructed him.

He cocked his head questioningly.

“Give her pleasures, Cam,” Lara told him with a small smile, and then she was gone from him in her green mist, and it seemed he heard her tinkling laughter faintly in the air as she vanished.

He considered her words. Was it possible that she could find Anoush and retrieve her, bringing her to safety once more? He had been surprised that Ciarda had managed to gain possession of his love, especially given that she was protected by not only her mother, but a powerful Shadow Prince. He should have asked Lara about it.

He would ask Ciarda about it, although he suspected she would lie to him or evade his questions. If his aunt could aid him with her magic bolstering his persona as the Hierarch, and he actually helped Hetar’s ruler, could he, having tasted power, be content to disappear into anonymity and return to the New Outlands? Could he be happy being just a propertied member of the Fiacre clan family? A man with a wife he loved, and children? Again there was no easy answer to his questions, and no help for him. It was he who must make the decision. Cam didn’t know if he wasn’t ready to make it, or if he simply couldn’t make it.

When Ciarda appeared a short time afterward needing to take pleasures with him, he made certain that they were both well satisfied before the pillow talk that invariably followed their passions. The Darkling was never truly at ease, as if she feared to show a vulnerable side to her nature. Cam knew she relaxed a little if he brushed her long black hair, and so, taking up a brush, he began to do so.

“Anoush is safe?” he asked. “You are certain of it?”

“Of course she is safe,” Ciarda said impatiently.

“I am amazed that you were able to destroy the spell put about her,” Cam murmured.

Ciarda giggled. “It was not just my magic,” she admitted to him. “And my half brothers aided me in spiriting her away. They now possess the Twilight Throne that was once our father’s. In the Book of Rule, which contains our history, past, present and sometimes future, there are spells to be had. None of us individually has the real power. We are too young. We used the power of three to gain your Anoush. Together we are powerful.”

“Powerful enough to break a spell cast by a Shadow Prince?” he queried her.

The Darkling cocked an eyebrow but neither confirmed nor denied his question. She just smiled mysteriously.

Cam could not help but wonder whether the power of three was stronger than the power of a Shadow Prince. It wasn’t something with which he had a familiarity. When his aunt came again, and he was certain she would, he would ask her. He had to be very careful of the path he chose lest he be destroyed, for he stood haplessly between two forces of magic, and he wasn’t certain which held the real power.

Lara had returned to her privy chamber in the Dominus’s castle. The windowless chamber was quiet, and she was able to think without distraction. She considered carefully what Cam had told her. The Darkling had told her nephew that Anoush was hidden in the one place that Lara would not consider looking. Where was it? Where would she not consider looking? And then it came to her in a burst of certain clarity.

“No!” She heard herself say the word aloud.

You must go, Ethne, her crystal spirit guardian, said.

I cannot! Lara answered her in the same silent magic.

Would you leave your daughter in that dark place?

I barely escaped with my sanity and my soul last time, Lara cried. Perhaps she is not there. I am surely mistaken.

You cannot know for certain unless you go there yourself, Ethne said.

The Dark Lands. The castle of the Twilight Lord. Lara had spent many months a prisoner in that terrifying place. Memories of Kol assailed her, and she struggled to push them back. Kol had been handsome and he had been seductive. His rapacious appetite for pleasures had been legendary. He had stolen her memories and stolen her to be his mate. Lara shuddered. She remembered every moment of the time she had spent with him, even those minutes when she had no memory of who she was, and he had fabricated lies to make up for the loss.

And then Kaliq had gotten her memories restored, and Lara learned that everything that had happened had been carefully planned by those in the magic realm of light, including Kaliq and her own mother. Planned so that she would birth twins sons, causing chaos in a line of rulers who traditionally only birthed one male a generation. And it had all come about as they had planned it.