Val’s hurry to find a way into the caves wasn’t spurred only by her need to retrieve Kitty and get to her destined role as warrior. She knew well her father would come after her, and soon. She was a bit surprised he hadn’t found her yet. General Merin — though he had not been an actual general for many years everyone still called him that— was unrelenting in all things. Most especially his love and protection for his family.

After the night when he’d tried to dissuade Val from her mission, Cyrus had become oddly unhelpful. For someone who’d worked his father’s farm all his life, he wasn’t particularly strong, and since she’d rejected his advice it had gotten worse. Perhaps this adventure had proven to be more difficult, or more lengthy, than he’d imagined. Whenever Val climbed up the side of the mountain which was blessedly green on this side, Cyrus would stay behind, calling out encouragement, but not scaling the mountain himself.

She had never thought him a weakling before, but he had begun to act like one. And to think she had once found him so handsome. He was handsome, still, but he wasn’t very manly. Yes, this adventure was wearing on him. Maybe he wasn’t meant for anything other than farming and the ordinary life offered in a small village. Was that fair? Did it matter? Life was rarely fair, so why should she be? She did feel some disappointment that he wasn’t all that she’d initially thought him to be. Perhaps that’s why her observations had turned harsh.

He did climb, though, when Val finally discovered what had to be a narrow entrance to the cave. She knew this was the place because when she put her head into the crevice she heard rushing water. Not far beyond this crack in the side of the mountain flowed the underground stream of rainbows and whispers. She had heard much about that river.

Kitty was in there somewhere. At this moment the magical sword was oddly silent.

Val looked over her shoulder, to watch a huffing and puffing Cyrus move close enough to see the entrance for himself. There was only a narrow ledge for them to stand upon, and soon he stood very near. He was tall, taller than she had noted before now. Then again, they were usually not standing so close. It was disconcerting.

Once they slipped into the crevice it would be dark for a while. How long, she did not know. When they reached the caverns — if this passage did not narrow so they had to turn back — there would be a glimmering light from the stone walls, and from the river, but as they made their way toward her destiny, it would be dark.

Darkness didn’t bother her. Would it bother Cyrus?

“You can wait here, if you’d like,” she said. “It will be a tight fit, from what I can see.”

Cyrus shook his head. “I cannot let you go in there alone. It might be dangerous. You might need me.”

Even though he was kind of, well, spineless, and not quite as dashing as she had initially thought him to be, it was chivalrous of him to think of her safety. Perhaps she’d judged him too harshly, and too quickly. “I’ll be fine.”

He nodded his head once, rather sternly. “I’m coming with you, Val, and that’s that.”

Maybe he wasn’t entirely spineless…

“Let’s go.”

She led the way, slipping into the crevice and snaking slowly toward the sound of the water. On her belly, using her knees and elbows, she inched forward. It was indeed dark, for a while, but soon she found herself moving toward a strange and beautiful light. There was a faint glimmer at first, just barely touched with color, but with every forward movement that light grew stronger. All was well, so far. As long as the passageway remained wide enough. As long as the opening at the end of this crawl wasn’t a hole in a wall too far off the ground to do her any good or too small for her to fit through. She and Cyrus could back out, if they had to, but it would be such a disappointment.

Val scraped her hands, as she pulled herself along. Her trousers caught on a sharp rock and they tore, just a little. Another sharp rock dragged along the newly exposed skin there on her thigh, stinging, drawing blood.

A few scratches and scrapes meant nothing. She’d always been a fast healer. This narrow passage wasn’t the worst of the dangers she’d face in the weeks and months to come. It was an insignificant obstacle, no more.

The light grew stronger, brighter. There was a decidedly odd quality to it, which was not a surprise. What drew her forward was a wavering bluish light. Then a purple. Then pink. Nothing about the light from the caverns was natural; she knew that.

Finally, she reached the opening and slipped her head free of the passage. For a moment she was speechless. She even held her breath. In all her life, she had never seen such beauty. The stone walls gleamed with light and life. Rock, smooth mixed with rough, was alive with light that ebbed and flowed, and seemed to have a heartbeat, of sorts. The stream winding through the cavern rushed along, a colorful ribbon leading, she knew, to a waterfall.

A waterfall which might be their only way out. The stream and the waterfall were a part of the story she’d heard all her life. If no other method of exiting this place presented itself, she’d make the jump. Her parents had survived the fall, and so would she.

“Move!” Cyrus said. He sounded annoyed, and she couldn’t blame him, not really. His view was of her rear end and her boots, which was not nearly as interesting as this.

While the hole in the cavern wall was not so high that it made egress impossible, neither was it going to be easy. Val carefully and slowly eased out and onto a narrow ledge. The ledge was not quite wide enough to accommodate her entire booted foot, but it was sufficient. Barely. There was no evident place to grip the stone, to secure herself before proceeding downward. The fall to the cavern floor might not kill her, but it wouldn’t be pleasant, either. The last thing she needed was a broken leg.

She studied the wall around and beneath her and found some small, shallow crevices that might serve as footholds and handholds. Holding her breath, planning each move carefully, she swung herself around and over. The tip of one boot found a cleft. The fingers of one hand gripped another.

Cyrus had worked his way forward so he could look out onto the caverns. He didn’t take any time at all to admire the beauty. He merely glanced about as if this were any old ordinary cave; then he turned a scowl to her. “How am I supposed to get down?”

“Watch me, and follow my moves precisely.” She had a plan, a route in mind. The drop from the final foothold that she could see from her vantage point was no more than eight feet off the ground. With care, and a little luck…

Cyrus did watch her closely. He watched as she slipped and barely caught herself. He watched as she hugged the wall and searched for the next tenuous toehold. Finally, she reached the final crevice. Val took a deep breath and jumped, landing, as always, like a cat. What a relief!

Her companion, her friend, did as she’d instructed and made his way down. He was slower than she was, and once she heard him utter an absolutely filthy phrase which shocked her, but finally he reached the last hold and after taking a deep breath, he jumped.

Cyrus did not land as gracefully as she did, but then he had not been trained from birth for this mission.

Again, he muttered a curse she had not expected, but he recovered quickly and stood, giving her a shy smile. “My apologies. I should not say such words in front of a lady.”

No one had ever called her a lady! Warrior, destined one, pain in the ass. But never lady. At that moment she forgave him his imperfections.

“Which way?” he asked.

Val looked at the river. It flowed toward the waterfall, which meant that Kitty had been secured in the opposite direction.

She pointed. She and Cyrus both shifted their packs into more comfortable positions and started walking.

Kitty was in here somewhere, but Val had no idea of the precise location.

She took a few steps, then stopped to look up at the crevice in the wall. She wondered if that might be a way out, one safer than the waterfall. It could also serve as a marker, in case they found themselves lost.

The crevice and the holds they had used to climb down were gone. The wall she searched sparkled with color and light, and was as smooth as the cavern floor she stood upon. The opening in the wall, the one she had so recently crawled through, was gone.

She borrowed one of Cyrus’ words.

* * *

The air was cooler here. Thinner, perhaps. Linara found that she liked it more than she’d expected she would. The coolness. The quiet. She even liked the spots of snow. The snow was melting with the new spring warmth — even here. It remained in shady spots, here so high the cold of winter hung on as long as it possibly could.

She could not deny that the view from the top of the world was exquisite. Pax spoke on occasion, but not without purpose. He went for long stretches of time without uttering a word. So did she. They moved along in an oddly comfortable silence. He did not insist upon carrying her again.

Linara was not alone, she had her guide, but she felt apart from the rest of the world. It was…peaceful.

For the past four years she’d lived in the company of others like her, their servants and their victims, Stasio and others of his kind. She had never been alone, not really. She had never known peace. No wonder she had so enjoyed her nightly excursions to look up at this mountain and the dragon.

For a moment she turned away from Pax and looked outward. The village that had been her home for so long was out of sight, and had been for days. The Southern Province where she had been raised was so far away, it might as well not even exist.

Thinking of the Southern Province naturally made her think of her mother, Sophie. A powerful witch, Sophie and her sisters could have tracked Linara and imprisoned her. For her own good, they would say. To protect her. But they had not.

Not because they didn’t care, she knew that. How many times had Sophie told Linara that for good or for ill, she had to choose her own way?

She had chosen her own way, hadn’t she? She had chosen her demon sisters, as well as the evil she had learned to accept was in her blood. It had been hard, but she’d willingly thrown off the blanket of false security her family had always provided. Had that been a mistake? How much had Stasio’s invasions into her mind influenced her? In truth, she had never entirely accepted either part of herself, not the human or the demon. She’d been caught in between, denying both halves of herself. That denial was a luxury she could not keep for much longer.

She’d been so young when she’d run away from home, so naive. At sixteen, every problem had been momentous. She’d seen no way out, no other viable option. How many times had she looked at her adoptive parents and experienced an intense jealousy? Their love, for one another and for their family – including her – was deep and abiding. And it was something she could never know, no matter which part of herself she chose to embrace. No man could truly love her. She could not lie with a man or give birth to a child. It had seemed she had no choice but to accept her demon nature. Now, four years later…

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her words deeply felt and directed at her mother, her father, the family she had betrayed when she’d run away from home. “I wish I could go back.” But she could not undo the impulsive actions of a confused girl who’d been searching for her place in the world.

For a moment, one precious moment, she was almost certain her mother spoke to her in response. Not in actual words Linara could hear, but in waves of emotion. Accepting her apology. Sending love and forgiveness.

Could everything be forgiven?

“We will stay here tonight,” Pax said.

Linara tossed off her introspection and turned. Pax stood near a narrow but tall cave entrance, a jagged fissure in the rock. “Can’t we continue? We must be close.”

“We are very close,” he said. “Tell me, Linara, do you have a plan? What will you do when you find yourself face to face with a dragon?”

Stasio had told her, more than once, that when the time came she would know what to do. But she had seen the dragon up close twice now, and could think of no way she might harm it, much less take its life. Quite the opposite, in fact. The dragon was too big and strong for her to take on, and too beautiful to sacrifice.

The dark wizard had not intruded into her mind for more than a day now. Nothing. Not a whisper, not a sigh. It wasn’t distance that interfered, she knew. When he’d been in Arthes and she’d been in her bed in the Southern Province, he had spoken to her and had invaded her dreams often. In these mountains, though, his voice had become fainter, and now he was blessedly silent.

She could live here forever, free from him and free from the decision she’d been wrestling with. Who was she, woman or demon? Was she truly destined to embrace her demon blood, or could she deny her birth and choose for herself who and what she would be?

If she had not impulsively tossed away her amulet, she could stay here. She could live high on the mountain with the world spread out before and below her. But she was already hungry, and there was no one around for her to feed from but Pax.

What would happen if the hunger grew and she did not feed? She would not die, she knew that, but she would know nothing but a relentless gnawing not in her stomach but in her soul. Perhaps it would drive her to madness; she did not know. Ksana demons were not known for their self-sacrifice. To her knowledge, none had suffered for more than a day or two of hunger without taking what they needed.

Her need had not reached an unmanageable stage, but it would. The time would come when she would not be able to stop herself from laying her mouth on Pax’s and drawing out every last drop of his life force.

“You can leave me here,” she said, attempting to make her voice cold, distant. She was good at putting on the ice queen front, in facial expression and in voice, even as her heart beat too hard and her mind spun in all directions. He had been good to her. He did not deserve to die.

“I have not yet…”

“I’m close enough to the dragon’s lair,” Linara interrupted. “I will find him.” Or he would find her. Perhaps that would be for the best. The beast had allowed her to survive until now. It was unlikely to happen a third time.

Linara was oddly at peace with the idea of her coming death. She would not take her own life, and when the time came she would likely fight with all she had. It was a natural instinct, survival. And still, battle with a dragon seemed to her to be a fitting way to meet her end.

Pax shrugged wide shoulders. “I will head down the mountain tomorrow, then. Might as well get a good night’s rest before turning back.” He jerked his head toward the cave. “I come here now and then, and I have left supplies behind. Furs, some dried food. There’s a small pond just down that hill, if you wish to bathe or refill your water sack.” He pointed. “The water will still be cold, I’m afraid.”

She would feel better if he was gone, away from her, away from the danger of her hunger. But there was no logical reason for her to insist that he leave immediately. It would be dark soon. She would sleep, and in the morning he would move on.

“Tomorrow, then,” she said, and she walked past him and into the cave, where it was cool and quiet, and the walls sparkled with a quartz she had never seen before.

The deeper she walked into the cave, the more that stone lit the space that should be dark as a night with no moon or stars. Pax was close behind her, and she asked in a lowered, awed voice, “What is the light in the walls?”

“Dragonstone,” he said. “Very rare and precious, and only found here and in some areas in the land of the Turis.” He pointed in a direction that was likely east. She was too turned about to be certain. “We are not that far from their mountains. Down and up again, and we would be there.”

They turned a corner, and Linara found herself in a massive cavern. There were signs of life here. The furs Pax had mentioned. A bowl and a cup. Boots, much like the ones he now wore. A pile of rags that might be another kilt, or two.

There was no sign that a fire had ever been built here. No ash or firewood, no kindling stored against one wall. Perhaps the dragonstone was flammable, or else Pax only came here in the warmer months. In winter, such a place would be beyond cold.

The dragonstone in the walls sparkled. Lights of all colors twinkled and danced and shimmered. All around her, in the walls and the floor and even far above, that light came alive.

“It likes you,” Pax said with some amusement.

“How can stone like or not like…anyone or anything?”

He smiled. “Not everything can be explained with ease. You must learn to see beyond what you know to be true.”

She didn’t argue with him. Not today. Instead she turned around and around. She looked for patterns in the colors, for answers in the stone. And in the end, she simply accepted that while she’d thought nothing could compare with the view of the world from the great height of this mountain, this sight entranced her just as strongly.

Linara had seen much beauty, as well as ugliness, in her lifetime. She’d marveled at sunrises and sunsets, at fields of flowers, at the beast she had come to these mountains to kill. She had never seen anything to compare to this.

Pax leaned forward and whispered, his mouth near her ear.

“Welcome to my home, lady.”