ROWAN’S EYES BURNED as she watched the orange-red embers flicker in the great hall’s hearth. She’d begun sitting by the fire every night after the evening meal, trying to stay awake for as long as she could. She’d worked most of the week with Manath, and now every muscle in her arms throbbed. Wedge-hammering and ax-chipping the rough surfaces of the flooring logs had pushed her to the brink of exhaustion. Yet she knew the minute she closed her eyes and tried to sleep the nightmares would start again.

“You should be in bed,” Emeline’s gentle voice said as the nurse offered her a mug of steaming brew. “Here. A peace offering to help.”

“Thanks.” Rowan took a sip and tasted herbs and honey. “Nice and sweet. Will it knock me out cold?”

“Probably not.” The nurse sat down in the chair beside hers. “You look wretched. Is insomnia the reason you’ve been haunting the hall every night?”

“Nightmares.” She cradled the mug between her callused palms. “Or maybe they’re bad memories. I don’t know anymore.”

“You can tell me,” Emeline suggested.

“As long as you don’t douse me with your touchy-feely powers,” Rowan warned her, and then sighed. “Sorry. I’m trying to be nicer, but my mouth doesn’t always get the memo.”

“I’ll slap you again if you’d like,” the nurse offered, “but I think a talk might prove more therapeutic. What sort of nightmares are you having?”

“Creepy ones,” Rowan said and hesitated before she went on. “I never got along with my adoptive mother, Marion, and she wasn’t too fond of me. But before this week I always thought she treated me okay. Cinderella okay, but okay. Now I’m dreaming of things that happened to me, terrible things, but I don’t remember them at all. Emmie, they’re so bad I can’t sleep anymore.”

At Emeline’s urging she described how Marion had broken her arm while beating her, and then recounted the other strange visions.

“I tried to run away from her in another one, and she dragged me back into the house by my hair. A big chunk of it tore out. I bled all over the place before she sewed up the gash.” She grimaced. “She kept me tied to my bed in another, with the ropes so tight they cut into my skin for three days. Another time I threatened to tell someone what she was doing to me, and she slammed my face into a wall. It knocked me out, and when I came to I had a broken nose and a chipped tooth. Marion told Perrin something…” She stopped and swiped at the sweat beading over her upper lip. “I can’t remember what.”

“You didn’t recall her doing those things to you before now?” the nurse asked. When Rowan shook her head, her lips thinned. “Rowan, Marion likely had druid blood, like you and Perrin. From what your sister has told me I think she had some powers as well. She may have bespelled you to forget the abuse, in the same way she compelled you to protect Perrin.”

It made about as much sense as her former, obsessive need to watch over Perrin had. “What I don’t understand is why she did it only to me. Why would she beat the crap out of one niece and not the other?”

“Maybe you still hate Mom so much you’re just making it up, to get Emmie to feel sorry for you.” Perrin came to stand in front of the hearth, her hands knotted into fists. “She never did any of that stuff. I would remember.”

“Do you remember how I broke my arm?” Rowan demanded. “I didn’t until I had that dream or vision or whatever it was. In it I was exactly the same as I was as a little kid. I felt everything: her beating my legs with that cane, the pain when the bone in my arm snapped. The whole time it was me and her. You weren’t in the room.”

“Come on. Our house wasn’t that big. If she’d done that to you, I’d have heard you screaming,” Perrin insisted. “What you’ve forgotten is how gentle and kind our mother was. She never raised her voice, even when you got mouthy with her. Which was basically all the time.”

All these years she’d tried to protect Perrin, and now her sister was siding with dead Marion. Rowan had finally had enough.

“I haven’t forgotten anything about that evil old bitch,” she told her sister flatly. “When you weren’t around she treated me like a piece of garbage. While you went to dance lessons and glee club and all that other crap she signed you up for? She had me scrubbing the floors, folding laundry and washing dishes. You were the princess, but I was the unpaid help.”

Perrin looked uncertain now. “You never said anything to me about it.”

“Why would I? You always had new clothes and shoes. I never got anything but your hand-me-downs. When they stopped fitting she got my clothes from the thrift store. I knew exactly where I stood with Marion.” Rowan uttered a short, bitter laugh. “Especially when she bought you a brand-new car for graduation. Remember what she gave me for mine? Nothing. You even went to Juilliard on her dime, while I waited tables and scrounged for scholarships to pay for trade school.”

“No, that’s not right,” her sister countered. “Mom told me you refused to let her buy you a car, or help you pay for school.”

“Sure, because I wanted to ride my bike everywhere, and work myself to death covering tuition. Your mother the saint was so cheap she wouldn’t even cosign a student loan for me.” Rowan watched her scowl. “Yeah, go ahead, give me the evil eye. You look just like the old hag when you do.”

Perrin flinched. “Don’t call her that.”

“I think that’s enough,” Emeline said, sounding stern now. “Perr, why don’t you go and find your husband?”

Rowan watched her sister stalk off. “She really has no clue about what went on in that house.”

“Maybe she would if the two of you would stop squabbling long enough to really talk about it,” the nurse advised her.

“Marion’s dead, so it doesn’t matter anymore.” Rowan regarded the nurse and saw the worry in her eyes. “What?”

“It matters to you, or you wouldn’t be having these nightmares,” Emeline said, and sighed. “I wish we had a trained psychotherapist to help you, but I’m afraid Ru and I are all you’ve got. Although we might consult with Bhaltair Flen, too.”

The thought of talking to the big shaman about her personal drama made Rowan cringe. And no way was she spilling her guts to that old druid.

“What would you do about this stuff?”

“I think if you’re having some kind of repressed memories instead of nightmares, then you shouldn’t resist them. Let yourself recall what truly happened in your childhood. They can’t hurt you now.” Emeline touched her arm. “Once you have, you’ll probably know why Marion tried to erase them from your mind.”

“You really think she could do that?” Before she replied Rowan groaned. “She hexed me to play Perr’s bodyguard after she died. Of course, she could have wiped my brain.”

“I’ll tell you something that my husband and I have always suspected,” the nurse said. “You and Perrin are nothing alike in personality. Physically you don’t share any resemblance at all. In fact, looking at you both, no one would ever guess that you were related.”

“Everyone said that while we were growing up,” Rowan said. “Marion told people that I took after my dad, not my mom. Evidently, he had the dark coloring and all the muscles, and he was a carpenter, too.” She frowned. “Perrin must have taken after our mother. She and Marion were sisters, and Perr looks exactly like the old hag when she’s angry. I wasn’t being a bitch when I said that.”

“I expect you do look like your father,” Emeline said, her tone careful. “But why would Marion beat you while insisting you call Perrin your sister, to the point of breaking your arm? Why would a terrified, battered child still refuse to say it?”

Rowan made the connection, and nearly dropped her mug. “Because I was telling the truth. Perrin’s not my sister.”

* * *

“Who does she think she is?” Perrin demanded as she marched back and forth the full length of Kanyth’s workroom. “Talking about our mother that way, like she was some kind of horrible monster. That’s not who she was.” She stopped and glared at her husband. “Besides, Mom would never hurt Rowan. She wasn’t capable of it. She didn’t even spank us when we were little.”

Kanyth set aside the sword he had been finishing and came around to tug her into his arms. He cradled her against his chest and tucked her head under his chin.

“’Tis likely Rowan mistakes dreams for truth.”

It made her feel a little better to be close to him, but she still couldn’t let go of her anger.

“Maybe Mom was too cheap to get her a car or help her pay for school. I do feel bad about that. I just wish I could remember exactly how Rowan broke her arm that time. But no matter how much I try, I can’t.”

Kanyth stroked her hair. “Ru believes that your mother had druid blood, and some skill with their magic. Mayhap she took the memory from you to save you grief.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, either. Why would Mom want me to forget an accident?” She drew back and studied his handsome face. “You believe me about my mother, don’t you?”

“I ken that you loved her, and saw her to be good,” he said simply. “I but wonder why Rowan doesnae feel the same.”

“They never got along,” she admitted. “My mother doted on me. Okay, honestly, she spoiled me rotten sometimes. I remember her trying to be affectionate with Rowan, too, back when we were little girls. But even then, my sister hated her, and refused to go near her. Mom stopped trying after a while, I guess. Maybe that’s why she treated my sister differently. She’s always been hard to live with, too.” She closed her eyes. “And now Ro’s trying to drive me away.”

“Brennus and I oft squabbled in our boyhood.” Her husband kissed her brow. “’Twill pass.”

She looked up, but instead of Kanyth’s black eyes she looked into the flat, lifeless face of an enormous wooden statue. The forge vanished along with her husband, and a dead clearing under a colorless sky took their place.

“I can refine the limbs with joints,” Perrin heard Rowan say, “but you’ve carved the feet too small. No way they’re going to support a ton of weight.”

Perrin turned around to see her sister walking with Hendry Greum down the line of gigantic carvings. More than fifty formed a towering line that stretched all the way into the woods. Rowan wasn’t trying to escape or even resist. Her sister was chatting with the mad druid.

“What reckon you would keep them from collapsing in battle?” the druid asked her sister.

“Another couple of legs as load-bearing struts would be nice.” Rowan stopped and crouched down to run her hand over the crude carved feet. She touched the thing as if she admired it before she squinted up at Hendry. “I could form a broader base for the foot, maybe, with some iron to reinforce them.”

Perrin shook her head, backing away until she bumped into a lean, hard form. She turned around to see a dark-haired, dark-eyed Taran Skaraven smiling at her with wooden teeth.

“She’ll become my mate,” he told her in Ochd’s grating voice, and grabbed her by the throat. “After we crush all of you to dust.”

She couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe, and as his fist tightened she knew her neck would break. She fought wildly, until his grip moved from her neck to her arms, and she stared up at Kanyth’s pale face.

“’Tis me, Perr,” he kept saying, over and over as he held her violently trembling body. “See me, aye, ’tis your Ka. You’re with me in the forge. You’ve had a vision again.”

Tears spilled down her face as she nodded. “It was Rowan, with Hendry. She was walking around some place with him and these huge famhairean. God, she’s going to help them. She’s going to use her power to build new giants.”