Page 97 of Dark Destiny: The Fates' Bargain

His eyelids were still, glistening from the lotion the medical staff had applied, and his fingers lay motionless on the blanket exactly where she had set them down. And his face, his beautiful, strong face, with its chestnut shadow and its familiar mouth, slept on without a flicker while his guards climbed toward the light.

The strongest body in the room. The best readings. The fastest regeneration.

And the only one of the five who was not coming up.

"You said there is no rule," Annani said quietly, without turning around. "Tell me what you believe, Bridget. Not what you can prove."

Bridget came to stand beside her. "I believe he is going to wake up. I believe he is taking longer because he is a god, because none of us has ever done this to a god before, and because five thousand years is a very long time." She paused. "I also believe that you are terrified, and that nothing I say this morning is going to change that."

"No," Annani admitted. "It is not."

What if he did not wake at all?

She had read of humans who slipped under because of a terrible injury or illness and never surfaced, sleeping on for years while their families kept vigil, while their bodies curled and withered and finally, mercifully, died. But Khiann would not wither. Khiann was a god. His body would remain perfect, radiating health and beauty for endless years, while there was no onehome. A sleeping prince in a tale with no spell to break. She could sit beside him and hold his warm hand until the sun burned out and still it would never once close around hers.

The prophecy, a small voice whispered in the back of her mind.The prophecy promised you two more children.

Usually, remembering the words of the blind seer was enough to restore Annani's spirits, but today the fear was roaring too loudly in her ears for her to hear whispers.

"Mother?" Alena touched her arm. "Would you like to sit?" She motioned at the chair that was now a permanent fixture next to Khiann's bed.

Not trusting her voice, Annani nodded and sat down.

She arranged her skirt, took Khiann's hand between both of hers, the hand with real flesh on it now, still thin but warm and beautifully made, and she looked at his sleeping face and began to silently pray.

This was between her and the Fates, and she addressed them formally.

Dear merciful Fates, you have taken so much from me. You have taken my one truelove mate, my family, and my entire people, but you have given me a prophecy, delivered by a blind human seer with second sight, and by doing so you have given me the strength to start anew. You have given me my children, who formed a clan, and in exchange, I carried on the work of my people as best I could, standing against the evil of darkness and bringing light to this world.

Do not forsake me now that I am so close to reclaiming the one I love.

I know that every gift requires a sacrifice, and although I have already sacrificed more than most, I am willing to sacrifice yet more.

Let Khiann wake. Let him wake whole with his mind and his sense of self intact. Let him wake up as Khiann and not someone else, and if the price you demand is his memories of me, I am willing to pay it.

Accept my bargain, and I promise to keep bringing light to the world. Deny it, and the light would go out because I would lose the will to keep fighting.

It is not a threat. I would never dare. It is just a statement of fact. I am tired. I have been fighting for five thousand years, and every two steps forward I was dragged one step back by the forces of evil. I am at the end of my rope, and I need Khiann back, with or without his memories, but whole.

I will keep the memories for him and remind him of our first kiss, our wedding, and every morning of the short, blazing months we had together. I will court him again.

I courted him once against every expectation the world had of me, and I won him with nothing but stubbornness, and I am far more stubborn now than I was then. I will be the petite stranger with flaming red hair who visits him and tells him wonderful stories, and I will make him fall in love with me again, counting myself the most blessed being who has ever lived.

We are fated mates. You made us so. I refuse to believe the bond died, because I have carried my half of it for five thousand years, and it is still warm. Let him wake, and it will find him.

His life for his memories of me. That is my bargain.

35

KHIANN

There was the dark, and there was the voice.

He did not know how long there had been only those two things, because time was a thread he could not hold. There was warm dark, deep and shoreless, and there was the voice that came and went like a distant sun. When it was with him, the dark took shape, wrapping around him. When it was gone, there was nothing surrounding him, nothing holding him close.

He did not know who the voice belonged to. He did not even know who he was. He only knew that he turned toward it and that when it spoke, the darkness felt warm and soothing.

The voice was speaking now, telling a story. A world was beginning to emerge as it spoke, assembling around him out of the words.