It occurred to me as I wheezed for what little air I could gain that I had never actually beheld the entranceway to Margine Keep. Under other circumstances, I might have looked forward to the experience.

“I have allowed this to continue long enough, daughter,” spoke the Lord. I knew that he was only using the trader's tongue for my benefit, for both he and Rahamel had mastery of at least two or three other languages. “Bind him,” he growled and two of his lackeys complied, attaching first manacles and then – once the beast took hold of the chain – a collar to me.

In short order, the entire party – if indeed I may use such a term to describe such a motley group – began descending through the Keep. It did not seem like it was taking nearly long enough.

The Lord Margine towered over me, of course, and gloated down at me; the cruel curve of this full lips probably was meant to look like a smile but, to me, looked more like the embodiment of my utter defeat. And, of course, this made the fiend actually grin. “I am going to make your dreams come true, boy. You once thought you would be sold for slaughter,” he stated as simply as he might have said, “Those draperies are lavender.” I did not need to wonder how he came to this knowledge, for I was suddenly sure he knew my mind just as intimately as his daughter did. “So shall it be.”

“No,” Rahamel cried, then, “Unhand me!” So bade, the Stigmatic loosed its grip and Rahamel fell to her knees at her father's feet. “Please, please do not do this... I will do anything!”

With a wave of his hand, the procession stopped as the Lord had already. I assumed he would have thought nothing of trampling his daughter underfoot, but was likely more amused by the fact that she was actually groveling at his feet.

Whatever it was he said to her in that undefinable language only he and Rahamel seemed to know caused her to actually gag and claw at the polished floor while she struggled to retain some control of herself. With a shudder I could see even from several paces away, she nodded and then dropped her head. I think she may have been crying from the way her back and folded wings moved.

Lord Margine laughed then, that same cruel sound that echoed up from my memories of the banquet room where the furniture wept and wished for death. He spoke again, this time at some length, and all the while I struggled at my bindings, desperate to get even a hand free for that one, small step might produce momentum. The cuffs bit into me and my blood slicked my skin, but I gained not even a fraction of a finger's width of freedom.

Rahamel did not growl, nor did she shriek exactly, but the awful sound that came out of her was so bestial as to pause me in my struggles to marvel at the revulsion in her tone. She leapt to her feet and pummeled her father's muscular torso with her small fists. It looked as though she might well have been attacking a statue for all the damage she caused. This, of course, only made him laugh harder and, seizing her opal locks, he tossed her away while signaling the procession onward. Murderous rage welled up from my heart and out of my mouth in a gutteral scream that closely mirrored the howl of defiance Rahamel had loosed.

I was grateful to see the Stigmatic's speed and dexterity were more than adequate when it stepped across the hall and, coming between the girl and the wall, spun Rahamel through the air and gently deposited her on her feet with what appeared to be a single, fluid movement.

The Zhyvrood had the lead, the pillars it had for legs thudding down the hall's curving descent ahead of the Lord and his sycophants. I assumed it to be a primary pathway through the Keep, but it was wholly unfamiliar. I was not surprised.

I kicked and clawed at the beast but found its flesh as unyeilding as Rahamel's wrathstone dresser. I spat and cursed at it. I contorted in my restraints to I might face Lord Margine and to him I begged and pleaded. When that did nothing but move him and his followers to mirth, I spat and cursed at them, as well.

The echoing increased mightily as my heels were struck from behind by a threshold and I tumbled over, my skin squeaking across flagstones, each the size of a house.

The entry hall of Margine Keep served also as... Well, a great hall, I suppose. It was enormous, easily one of the largest enclosed structures I have ever seen. A bit larger than one of your modern sporting stadiums, and without all of the seating, it was a room designed to comfortably house an entire city in a time of either emergency or celebration.

The great hall was, of course, buzzing with activity in preparation. That was the moment at which I really despaired, for I suddenly realized that the coming cycle was Festival.

One era I'd spent at Margine Keep.

One era to fall in love, to find purpose, to feel I was finally home.

Took less than a phase to lose it all.

“This is where we must say 'Farewell', so much to do before the cycle passes... Good riddance, boy.” The Lord Margine spat on me, then. I actually saw it arc through the air and, had I been unbound, I could probably have easily moved out of the way. Things being what they were, however, it landed in my hair and I screamed wordlessly, impotently at the despicable monster.

Part of me noticed just how hard all the people decorating, arranging, managing, painting, sewing and so on – and when I say “all the people”, there were easily a thousand beings all around us – were pretending to not even notice the commotion. The presence of Lord Margine's personal guard, six battle-scarred and brutish Brüghs, who had joined us at the entrance to the great hall, probably helped everyone to mind their own business.

“Please... Please, wait! I...” Rahamel trailed off, apparently unsure what to say next.

“You what? Want to keep your pet? Or, better: Tell me you love him. Tell me you love this boy and are not simply using him to spite me and, if you could possibly arrange it, to kill me.” Lord Margine held me fast with the power of his gaze. “That is correct, boy. You are nothing to her and you never were... and you are far from the first.” He paused a moment to make sure that registered properly. “I thought you might like to know the truth before you die.” He yawned, apparently bored by it all. “Take him to the slavers, they are expecting you,” he said to the beast and, turning on his heel, strode away.

I, of course, wouldn't believe it. I had seen what that monster did for his own pleasure and staining my memories with his lies in order to torment me until I might be devoured by one of his compatriots was certainly not beneath him. I had gotten my feet beneath me, however, and was sliding backwards across the flagstones. The creature’s heavy tread matched the pounding of my heart against my breast.

I looked to Rahamel and suddenly everything changed.

The stunned expression on her face, sort of a “Oh, bother, I have been caught now, haven't I?” kind of look... well... it didn't do much for my confidence, to say the least.

“It's true?”

“Cofred, I...”

“Is... it... true?” My breath came hot and fast and my vision swam with angry tears. My mouth flooded with saliva while my stomach clenched upon emptiness.

“Let me explain,” she cried but, of course, there was no time for explanations. I could see my shadow on the floor, cast by the light of day streaming in through the enormous portal to this cyclopean chamber.

“How many,” I demanded, because, for some reason, that was all I could focus on. I suddenly remembered that I had no idea how old she really was. I had never asked. She could have been positively ancient. Somehow, despite what the Stigmatic had told me, I still saw her as my equal in age as well as height. I only then noticed that, as well. I had surely grown over the past era, and so, apparently, had she.

She followed, so close but many leagues might have separated us. In fact, I desperately wanted to be as far from her as I could possibly get. The prospect of being slaughtered seemed almost pleasant, suddenly.

She was crying again. “Cofred, he is wrong! Mostly...”

The hard sound of my barking laughter echoed back from very far away.

“'Mostly!' You... you terrible... how could you do this to me?! What kind of monster are you?” I was crying by then, as well. I longed for the words to convey my anguish but, of course, she knew exactly how I felt. Even had I been practicing mental defense, the Lord Margine's accusatory statements and Rahamel's resulting deflated expression had destroyed any willpower I might have otherwise been able to muster.

“Cofred, please! In the beginning it was different and I didn't know you and I didn't know who you were and I just wanted you to help me be rid of him and then you were so hurt and all I wanted to do was help you and then...” she sobbed, dropping to her knees. “I just wanted to help you...”

“Help me,” I demanded, “you wanted me to kill a Lord! They baptize you for that!”

The crowd in the street, each one busy with their own lives, their own plans and hopes and dreams, was thick as mud and the creature's progress was slowed on the steps, leaving me to strain against the bonds-- one foot still inside and the other out. It wasn't desire to embrace her that made me pull at the bonds... well, maybe it was. Strangulation could be considered a kind of embrace for all the difference it would have made.

“I hate you.”

“No,” so quietly she almost whispered it.

“I HATE YOU!”

“No! No you do not,” she yelled back, crouched on the floor, her wings opening. “I used you, yes, I did. In the beginning, yes! I used you, or planned to, and I'm sorry! But that was in the beginning! Your stupid devotion woke my heart,” she said, jabbing at her breastbone with all four fingers. “I hadn't loved anything in so long...”

“You still don't!”

The Zhyvrood grew impatient and dispersed the crowd with a deafening roar.

“Cofred,” she screamed, “don't go!”

I was incredulous. I had to be, really. I mean, it was not as if I had much of a choice in the matter as my feet were slipping down the stairs even as I said the worst thing I could think of: “You two deserve each other!”

She collapsed into herself, then, I could see it happen. She screamed so hard and loud and long that blood dribbled from her lips onto the black stones she fell to when her voice finally broke.

It was that moment – when her own defenses shattered just as surely as her heart, when I felt the pressure of her mind break across the seething rage consuming my own – that I realized I was a gullible fool.

The Lord Margine didn't care if I cried on the way to my doom. While Rahamel may have been cunning it was the Lord Margine whose carefully laid plans I had just brought to fruition. He wanted Rahamel's will broken and I was just the tool for that job. I did not know how he had managed to manipulate everything, just everything, into his design, but it worked so well it was almost beautiful.

Before the crowd closed like a slammed prison door, the last thing I saw was the Stigmatic's lenses glinting as it watched me go.