“I believe we’re as ready as we’re going to get,” Belkynn announced at sunrise three weeks later. She had spent the past two hours moving through a routine Damar had taught her with the spear, her tsudavai, Kariastra. Damar had moved through a similar routine, though he tended to work in more closed styles than she preferred.

“Are we?” Damar gazed at her thoughtfully. He had chomped at the bit since waking from the troll attack. It galled him terribly to remain in the cedar forest, as he constantly reminded her, but he had listened to reason. They both needed to mend with time; the herbs and arcane tricks would not fortify them the same as time.

“Are we not?”

“We’re not dressed for the occasion,” he announced shortly.

“You anticipate me,” Kreathania’s voice drifted from the shadows. She stepped into sight, an ornate bag of scaled hide in hand. She offered it to Damar with no further word, disappearing when he had accepted it.

“I thought as much,” Damar grunted, inspecting the bag’s contents.

“These are from me,” he said, handing her a small bundle of gossamer fabric. She unfolded it from its neatly folded square to find a one-piece undergarment.

“How . . . delicate,” she muttered, brows knitted but a smile across her lips.

“Spider silk,” Damar told her. “Beast to weave, really. But it’ll offer a great deal of protection without hindering movement. I’ve got a similar suit on under this robe.”

“What else is in there?” She tried to look into the bag.

“Armor,” Damar announced, pulling a rune-marked outfit from the bag. “This is yours, obviously.”

The armor consisted of a breast plate that covered from her collar to her navel, a matching plate for her back. The two were connected by chain-reinforced leather buckles at key points, as though the armor were specifically designed for duelists. Damar pulled out matching vambraces to protect forearms, cuisses to protect thighs, and greaves to cover shins and calves. All were made of the same strange metal as the tsudavai.

They donned the armor swiftly and headed down the slope, toward the northwest. Belkynn was pleased with the fit of her armor. Unlike the plated armors she had worn in practice, this fit her form without chafing, and without impeding her movement at all.

Damar led her at a demanding pace. He seemed distant again, as though hiding secret knowledge. His pensiveness put her on edge. She kept her mind empty as much as possible, picking her way behind him with the ease of ranger training and a lifetime living in the mountains. He strutted ahead of her, full of purpose. Only the nervous habit of thumbing the ring on his left hand left any clue of his anxiety.

The sun was just past its zenith behind a cloak of green-grey clouds when Damar stopped at the foot of a tall rock. Belkynn glared balefully at the place, recalling it from what Kreathania had shown her. Despite its natural formation, the tall stone had the look and feel of an altar stone. A level rock shelf spread out from it for thirty yards in a semicircle around it before dropping down into scree sparsely populated with trees and shrubbery so twisted as to seem alien.

“I need to teach you one thing more,” Damar said softy, voice matching the resignation in his expression.

“What is that, my love?” Belkynn tilted her head and batted her eyelashes, failing to break the tension.

“Tsudavai will not suffice against our enemy,” Damar looked down to where the mists obscured the mountain less than a hundred strides away. “You must learn a bit of sorcery.”

“I have no sorcery,” Belkynn objected.

“Nonsense,” Damar huffed. “All sentients have sorcery. Even trolls.”

“Then why have I no luminorbs?”

“I didn’t say you were a sorcerer,” Damar sighed, relaxing himself consciously.

“Belkynn Kallon,” he smiled sadly, “your sorcery is strong. It is what makes you the best Ryllidan Ranger I’ve yet encountered. Better even than me. And it is what brings others to your dreams . . .”

“That is the gift of my Ryllidan blood,” she corrected him proudly.

“Yes,” Damar nodded. “And it is sorcery. Sorcery is simply a matter of life-force and willpower, Belkynn Kallon. And you have quite a lot of both.

“I need your permission to come into your mind.”

“Into . . .” She unconsciously shifted to a defensive posture, staring at him suspiciously.

“We have no time,” Damar’s voice was clenched, his brow heavier than the growing thunderheads above them. “I need to show you. Please, Belkynn, trust me. Hide what you want. I’m not going to search your mind; I’m simply going to show you . . .”

“Like you’ve done in my dreams?”

“By invitation,” Damar reminded her.

“Teach me that, and I’ll let you in.”

“To dreamwalk?” Damar frowned, searching her face with his intense sapphire stare.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “Teach me to walk into others’ dreams.”

“You already know,” Damar said. “You’ve done it every night since the troll attacked.”

“That was you,” she said, less certain than she wanted to be.

“No,” he shook his head, his shoulders relaxed and his face lit up with his roguish smile. “That was you, Belkynn Kallon. It was always you. Either pulling me into your dreams or stepping into mine. I only came when you called.”

“Me?” She glared at him, trying to grasp the reality of his assertion. She had learned to detect every nuance of deception in his voice, and there was none in it now.

“Kreathania has trained you thus?” Damar sobered again.

“Yes,” Belkynn nodded.

“Don’t trust her too completely,” Damar said darkly. “She has ulterior motives.”

“So do you,” Belkynn said, voice neutral but assertive.

“True enough,” he nodded again.

She flinched as his consciousness penetrated her own. His was a familiar presence by now, but she was hiding too many secrets to be comfortable. She slammed the doors shut on all those secrets and met him in the focus of her imagination.

These grips on your spear are purposeful, he showed her. You’ll need to keep your hands here and plant the butt of the spear into the ground . . .

She saw in his memories a vision of Damar holding a staff to the clouds and crying out “Melltennu!” Lightning struck from the clouds where he willed it to. She experienced in his memory everything he did while summoning the lightning. There were several variations of the summons, numerous ways to influence the lightning to focus or scramble, to hit one point or spread out.

She wandered at a tangent from his memory. A small garden with strange, tall thistles and a small pond in which three golden fish swam lazily under a kind yellow sun. A woman there turned to look through her. She was half a head taller than Belkynn, and more beautiful by far. Austere. Queenly. Peridot eyes pierced her heart with longing, her mind exploded with impossible implications of betrayal. Flaxen hair blew in the soft breeze as the woman turned away. A small dog, similar to a red fox, glared at her balefully and barked.

Damar’s presence left her. She staggered, as though she had been leaning on him. He caught her gently, and helped her right her footing. She gazed up into his eyes and pushed back a sudden and overwhelming desire to make love to him one more time before . . .

“I have a thing to teach you as well,” she told him, stepping in close as though to embrace him.

When Damar leaned in toward her as though to hear a secret, she grabbed the top of his breastplate and jerked him forward. Overbalanced, he lunged forward to catch himself on an outstretched leg. Before he could right himself, she brought her fist down like a hammer on the back of his skull. He dropped.

Tears streaming down her face, Belkynn Kallon dragged her daughter’s father to the face of the altar stone. Despite her hope to the contrary, she found the chains she expected there. Her stomach rolled as she clapped the manacles closed on Damar’s wrists after stripping him of his armor and dressing him in his ochre robe. She swallowed against the harsh taste of bile as she worked his ankles into their manacles. Once he was securely affixed to the stone, she turned to stride away before her determination had a chance to fail.

“Belkynn Kallon,” his voice stopped her in midstride.

“Don’t do this, Belkynn Kallon,” he said. His voice was soft, almost mournful. She hated him for it. If only he would be angry or pleading, she could just walk away.

“Not like this, Belkynn Kallon,” he said.

She spun on him then, her own inner turmoil expressing itself in fury against his calm.

“How, then? How exactly should I betray the greatest man I’ve ever known? Softly? In sleep after sweet embraces?”

“Why betray?” Damar held her eyes with his, which were placid and inexplicably empty of accusation.

“It is needful!” She kicked a small rock at him; it struck him above his left eye where he still bore a faint scar from her fist.

“No,” Damar shook his head in denial. “This is not needful, Belkynn Kallon. This is villainy.”

“You!” She raced up and slapped him hard enough to split his lip. “You speak to me of villainy? You’ve manipulated me the entire time I’ve known you! You’re famous for it! Legendary!”

“No, Belkynn Kallon,” he remained calm. “I did all I could to see that you made your own decisions as informed as you could be.”

“Great need calls for great sacrifice,” she quoted.

“That is precisely my point,” Damar’s voice was still neutral, but his eyes had darkened with a desperate plea for her understanding. “Belkynn . . . Sacrifice me if you must. But . . . I beg you, please, Belkynn Kallon, do not sacrifice yourself.”

“Myself?” Spittle showered his face. Her blush had become dangerously crimson. He had seen her this furious only one other time—when she had attacked the troll to save his life.

“Unchain me,” he said, voice soft but stern.

“You must be sacrificed to the Empress,” Belkynn’s eyes shone. She felt on the verge of murder. Shame and love and need and confusion seemed to create of her heart and mind an unquenchable inferno. Only once had her passions climbed so high, become so dangerous. That last morning in Damar’s cave.

“You need not sacrifice me,” Damar said. His eyes were shadowed now with need as well.

She crushed her lips to his. The salt of his blood fueled her own. She felt her emotional turmoil turn to raw physical need. How could she chain this man to an altar stone? Leave him to die an unknowable death to appease some abstraction her mind refused to make sense of? No.

Panting with her need, her unquenchable desire, Belkynn stripped off her armor. She stripped down to the flesh. Then she stripped Damar, too, pressing her lips to his lips, his face, his neck. She wrapped herself around him as though to meld her very flesh into his.

When he did not return her embrace, she felt her resolve melt into fury for an instant. But then she recalled the shackles and worked to loose him. He held her to him with his first free arm, kissing her passionately as she removed the other manacles.

She felt her own fire reflected in his embrace. His kisses were here gentle, there crushing and sublime. She clung to him, forgetting all else. Their mouths worked together furiously, tongues dancing together. Desire roared to flame in every fiber of her being. His chest pressed to hers felt as heated. She groped down to find the hard symbol of his love and slid her own welcoming wet warmth onto it.

Her undulations spurred him to greater ardor. Damar lifted her to him, standing and turning to crush her to the altar stone. His thrusts matched her tempo precisely. They worked together as one, driven by passion and nature into the primal act of union. She worked herself against him, receiving his hard shaft time and again. She worked her hips to bring him into her at the most pleasurable angle.

They were both covered in sweat as he slowed the rhythm of his thrusts. She worked frantically to renew their vigor, but he resisted her calmly. Then, suddenly, he thrust himself savagely into her hard enough to bruise her back against the stone. But pain was nothing. The wave of ecstasy as her body climaxed became the single moment of her life.

Damar pivoted on his heel and fell with her awkwardly to the ground as her muscles went slack from the release of her orgasm. He chuckled an apology between kisses, lingering long on her throat. He rose to kneeling and continued his slow rhythm of long, languid strokes. She felt the heat build again. This time it was no overwhelming inferno, but a hot spring of unendurable pleasure prolonged.

She moved herself in rhythm to him, keeping her mind occupied only on the pleasant pulse between her legs as Damar moved into her time and again. Heat and pleasure built slowly now. She felt the cool air caress her taut nipples as he moved his hands down to cup her buttocks. Her own hands moved to caress every part of him.

All at once the heat rose again to flashpoint. Belkynn pulled herself up to embrace him as they moved together. He thrust. She ground her hips into him. He thrust. She tilted her hips, pulling him deeper into her. Suddenly their eyes met. Both gasped quietly as they peaked together. Belkynn’s soul soared with the thrill of her body, as though both had climaxed at once together.

They remained what seemed forever in their embrace. It seemed a long time before their ragged breathing steadied into normal rhythms. The sheen of sweat that covered each of them cooled and dried in the breeze. Soon after the sweat had cooled, the wind grew uncomfortably chill.