I couldn’t believe my luck (bad or otherwise) when I heard a horse nickering and the soft tones of two male voices. My first thought was that Roshan, his tender feelings hurt by my threat, had probably immediately run to tattle on me to Therin. The voices drew closer, the rain obscuring their words. But then I felt it…

Some kind of pull toward the two voices, specifically toward one. It was a weird familiarity and as I crouched behind the fallen log, the water soaking my human body and imaginary clothing, I felt the whisper of my mistress coming from one of the rain-shrouded figures.

The taller one was clearly Therin, his wide shoulders draped in his devastatingly pathetic chainmail, his stolen mace slung over a shoulder dramatically. But the other figure was not Roshan. With a gasp, I recognized the soaked silver hair and the tall but thin frame.

Noran.

Using a small reserve of the worshipful power Roshan had given me earlier, I faded into the rain, keeping my shape but distorting it so I could slip through the drops and fade into the trees lining the muddy drive.

My mistress was, of course, tied to the blade of this witch, the bulk of her soul trapped inside that blood-red gem. I had felt that through Alira when she had left her body behind with the blades. When we had lost Shadesorrow…

I knew that Noran had the blade on him. He would never have parted with it. He was a witch, though male and less powerful, and the font of his power was the soul inside his Witch Knife. I paused my thoughts, my head cocked, the rain slicking my curls to my shoulders.

I had assumed that some lesser spirit of my own kind was Noran’s font. But a new idea was taking root and I felt myself shudder, half of me repulsed, half of me impressed. Had the devious Mara really baptised this bizarre manifestation of Witch-hood with my mistress’s soul? Had she actually used a human spirit to grant power to this abomination of female magic? The pull toward Noran was unmistakable: he was tied inexplicably to my mistress.

Jealousy, as I had never felt before, flooded me. Erin was…

Well, she wasn’t mine but…

The complicated relationship was ours, it needed no third party to make matters more intense.

I wondered about the connection I had with Erin as I watched the brothers crouch behind the log I had just vacated. Was it merely her soulstone I could feel radiating this kind of soft whisper of her from Noran? What was the meaning behind her sudden emergence in my mind? Her demands were not as they had been before. While I could not shrug them off, I felt a slightly lessened potency to her commands. I would obey, of course, but it was not imperative I do so immediately. This slightly malleable will of my own was comforting, grounding me. I had time before I had to set off to get Alira and bring her back to her mother, the ultimate family reunion: my mistress and my soulmate and me.

The jealousy lept again as I watched Noran take a blade from Therin. That the idiot had had his hands on the blade that held my mistress’s soul made me sick. How could Noran stand letting Therin touch his Knife? The witch lept the log and I shook my head as he landed awkwardly, falling. Was Noran…unwell?

He entered the low storehouse and after several tense minutes, the rain soaking both me and Therin, both of our eyes stuck to the building, Noran bolted from the door, beckoning for Therin to follow. Seconds later, I threw my arms over my head as an explosion rocked the dim, wet air and I felt…it.

The two men scrambled back to their feet, Noran hobbling as fast as he could and they made a run for the winery building, the rain washing their scent away as soon as they had gone. It was just the acrid, burnt smell of charred flesh and burnt hair somewhat dampened by the rain that I could detect.

The hound emerged, its wide, square head rolling, scanning as it sniffled and rumbled. The rain sizzled on its super-heated flesh and I felt my heart thud painfully. I froze, knowing exactly how this hound had come to be, remembering the night Erin had tried her hand at perverting the Light, the poor soul that had been human twisting in the crucible, emerging as…this.

The hound was not a true hellhound, though I think only those in the know would be able to tell the difference. Shadesorrow’s use of Unmade souls into these hellish creatures was perfect, the proportions never wrong. This hound’s head was too big, the snout too short. Its pricked ears were small and the eyes were too big.

Shadesorrow was able to take the entire soul and make a horror whereas my mistress had had to improvise, unable to truly Unmake the man she killed. The floor of the room at the Temple had run red with his blood as he died, his skin peeling off in long strips, her knife ready to capture the soul as it left his body finally. I wrung my hands as I watched the beast bound forward, washing the long-gone blood from my skin in the rain.

She had thought at the time that the key to Unmaking was suffering. Shadesorrow promised the final revenge and what better revenge than unending pain? But my beloved Erin was wrong, on so many fronts. Suffering was merely the beginning of the process. Shadesorrow was a goddess, she was Divine, and her gifts were the ultimate distillation of suffering and anger. It was her power that Unmade, not for human hands this terrible gift.

My immortal heart beat hard against the body I had constructed around it, the rain raising gooseflesh along my arms and back. Lightning lashed the sky and I cringed, recalling my part in the suffering of so many at the hands of Erin.

The memories I had kept locked from Alira flooded me, the rain lashing against me wildly. I watched the two brothers and the hound disappear in the rain around the slight bend of the drive. I dashed to the mare, the beautiful creature terrified. I shushed her and soothed her with a spark of my power, the immediate connection with her animal mind begging me to abandon my shape, to join her, to run, to be free…

I shook the feeling from me and led the horse to the trees out of the worst of the sudden storm then I turned toward the estate, unsure of what I would find when I got there.

The door was thrown wide, the beast already inside. I could see where they must have gone, why Noran had brought Therin here in the first place and with a shock of surprise I realised he had freed the hellhound to use its potent blood to open the door to the portal room. I looked down at my own hands, capable of opening the door. Divinity, or something akin to it, was required.

Clever witch.

Erin’s whisper filled me as I made my way to the building, stalling me on the threshold of the once-opulent winery.

Bring her. The insistence was weaker than it had been before, almost ignorable. The pull to obey was there but I could deflect the demand, set it aside with a reassurance that I was going to do just that.

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The portals had also drawn me to the estate. Not to destroy the years of work that my mistress and Noran had done, but to use their work to first see where my mistress was, scrying in the mirror that was tied to her before using the portal to Bloody Hawk. It would save me days of travel on foot and I could feel myself solidifying, becoming fleshy and weak the longer I waited. Alira was draining my power and with us so far apart, I could not share the life-sustaining force equally between us.

I needed Alira alive, didn’t I? I tugged on the tether and tried to reel it in, winding it around the core of myself a little tighter. She tugged back and I felt the jarring wave of love thrash down the tether, relaxing my greedy grip. I needed her alive because I wanted her alive. She was my soulmate.

That jealous part of me flashed brightly, warning me that Erin would be displeased with this tether, reminding me that Erin was possessive, protective, viciously adamant in my singular devotion to her. But surely, her own daughter would be an acceptable soulmate for the thrall of the most powerful witch to ever live? Surely, she would see how much I needed Alira?

She would take her from me, I knew. She would cut this tether and remove Alira, excising her forever from me, killing her. Erin was no fool; Alira had run her usefulness and now she was a burden to both Erin and myself. My power was not infinite and could not be divided between the three of us, not while I harboured the last vestiges of Aethra’s divinity, the access to worship diminished.

Why did I need her, again? The reasons seemed to be slipping from me as I froze on the threshold. I shook myself free of the thoughts and slipped into the estate, tapping into my stores to fade into the gloom.

The noises from the cellar were alarming, a struggle ensuing, but I waited, unsure if I should attempt to intervene. Truthfully, I was unsure of who or what I wanted to help in this particular scenario. I wanted the portals intact, but I did not want to face the beast I had helped to create, knowing how weak I was, both mentally and physically. I waited, a shadow near the entrance, listening.

I cocked my head, hearing running footsteps and feeling the swirl of Light dancing across the doorway. I turned in time to see Roshan, soaked with rain and sweat, bolt down the stairs with a stunning grace, his glaive sparking with Light. Startled, I almost followed him, unsure of how he knew to find me here.

A shout in Dinari was followed by a Light strike. My eyes closed against the super-heated power, my ears full of the whimper of the injured hound.

I felt myself falling apart, the body around me falling away as a blank space in my mind suddenly coloured in, a spark in my broken memory igniting.

Roshan’s power sizzled in the air, and I breathed in the wild Light, letting it sear me as it entered my human-like flesh. The core of me, the part that was Divine, baulked at the touch of the wild power but I revelled in it, feeling wind beneath me, desert sands falling away as I lifted on a swell of sun-blasted air…

The Ka’Ti had summoned a sandstorm at the behest of the new King, blinding the city as I flew over Yshnaa, a shadow in the blotted-out sun. Three Blademasters alone had done this: changed the weather, created a devastating squall of wind and biting sand, surrounded the Royal Capital, the eye of the storm just big enough to fit the city. On my wind-scoured wings, I descended, alighting on the roof of the palace. I shimmered into my formless self and slipped into the building with ease, drawn by the wild call of their power.

“Very impressive, Blademasters,” the King was saying in Common, his long red-gold beard braided and twisted, the bright gold beads and charms in it glinting in the light of the many braziers that lined the throne room. His royal desert robes looked bizarre on him, the tall headdress of Dinaaru royalty swaying dangerously atop his foreign head.

“Indeed,” his fair queen agreed and she laid a heavily bejewelled, pale hand on her husband’s, inclining her head with a royal tilt. “You have shown your willingness to do as we ask, perhaps we shall now return the favour.”

“What is it you ask of us?” The King lifted his crystal goblet filled with nothing but water. Clearly, this usurper had not yet adjusted to the harsher, drier climes of his new kingdom.

“We wish to return to our nomadic ways, Highness,” said the tallest of the Ka’Ti in heavily accented Common, his tongue rolling strangely over the words he rarely used. His long white robes draped across him comfortably, the tassels of his belt swaying as he bowed. His clean shaven face was youthful, almost feminine, but I attributed that to the long wings of black makeup he had painted on his wide almond eyes. His dark skin shone in the light, entrancing me.

His two followers, almost as dark skinned as he was, sported short goatees, a dot of white ash under each eye and smear of red across their foreheads. They stood exactly the same, their arms, draped in the flowing cloth of their robes, folded around the glaives they clutched across their torsos, deceptively at ease. I could feel their tension, the soft swell of wild magic that had been stored carefully inside them. My incorporeal form inched closer to them.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. As you are aware, we are at war–”

“A war you have won,” said the lead Blademaster, daring to interrupt the King. “As you sit on the throne of those you have conquered. What threat could the dregs of their resistance possibly pose for you now, with their Chief's head adorning your city walls?”

The royal couple met eyes, their pale skin and fair hair both at odds with their guards' swarthy skin and black hair. I understood their glance. They had no one they trusted to protect them. The last of their kind had been allowed to return home to the East to bring back their families, their trades, their goods. Establishing a new foothold in the West would be impossible without a presence of their own race at hand.

The Ka’Ti were the only neutral members of the new court. They had no love for the previous Chief and his council of abusive, bigoted men. The Ka’Ti were outsiders almost as much as the pale skinned King and Queen, having endured the atrocities of war at the hands of their cousins, the Dinaaru. They had been run out of the city, but the new regime had seen their usefulness, seen the gifts they bore in smithing as something to be used and had offered the small tribe a place in Yshnaa.

“We must return to the Wastes,” the Blademaster leader said as the royal couple remained silent. “The Witches pose a threat to our kind that you will never understand.”

“We are aware of the Morinn.” The queen’s voice was tight and gave no hint at emotion. “But we can assure you that they are being watched.”

“I’m afraid that watching the Morinn is useless. Unless we are allowed to return to the Wastes, the Witches will find us and they will destroy us, or worse.”

From behind the Blademasters a black robed woman, taller than any of the men in the room, emerged. Her long white hair trailed after her, her black eyes sparkling in the firelight. The three Ka’Ti spun, their glaives at the ready. With a wave of her clawed hand, they froze, their glaives falling to the floor, useless.

“I think you’ll find, Blademaster, that you are quite right.” She drew her dagger, the gems on the hilt glinting wickedly and before another word could be said, my dread kin slid the dagger into the back of the Ka’Ti leader, Unmaking him. She then turned her beautiful, human-like face to where I sat, invisible above the throne room and grinned widely.

“Hrulinar.”

Hrulinar…

I gasped, clutching my chest as the locked memory flashed through me in a jolt that brought me to my knees. The memory crashed upon me, taking me down, throwing me against the floor… I knew I had some holes in my memory but that such terrible things were hidden behind the vast expenses of blackness terrified me.

I looked around me, confused about where I was.

The winery, yes.

What was I doing?

The portals.

Scrabbling to my feet, I bolted down the stairs, unsure how long I had been lost in my reforming memories. Therin’s broken mace was against one wall, discarded. The smoking corpse of the false hound lay in the middle of the room, its liquid insides blackening as the hellfire left it.

I heard the sound of breaking glass, the clatter of feet on the shards and turned to see the door to the portal room open. Roshan’s glaive, still soiled with the blood and insides of the slain beast, stood sentinel at the door, immensely useless to the Blademaster within the portal chamber.

Therin shouted and I felt them suddenly, the twisted parts of me that Erin had sheared from me so long ago.

My hounds.

I threw myself into the doorway just as the last portal, the one that I had needed to take to Bloody Hawk, crashed down upon the pile of three men, taking them away but smashing into millions of pieces, barring their return. With a devastated groan, I ran down the stairs, sliding on the mountains of glass. My hounds, recognising me as their own, bound to me, nearly barreling me over.