 
### King of Swords

**and other prequel stories to** Tarot Queen

by Stephanie Barr

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2018 Stephanie Barr

Discover other titles by Stephanie Barr

Conjuring Dreams: Learning to Write by Writing

Tarot Queen

Beast Within (First of the Bete Novels)

Nine Lives (Second of the Bete Novels)

Twice the Man (Third and final Bete Novel)

Saving Tessa

Musings of a Nascent Poet

Curse of the Jenri

Legacy

Ideal Insurgent

The Taming of Dracul Morsus

Pussycats Galore

Catalyst

The Library at Castle Herriot

Dedicated to Stephanie, Roxy and Alex, always.

To Chuck, Mirren and many other beta readers, proof that good beta readers are worth their weight in gold but I'm too scatterbrained to keep track of who read each story.

"Tarot Queen: Melan" stories edited by Fiona Skye.

All stories were first published in _Legacy_.

Cover Art by Stephanie Barr

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

King of Swords (Tarot Queen: Melan, Part 1)

King of Wands (Tarot Queen: Melan, Part 2)

The Hanged Man (Tarot Queen: Melan, Part 3)

Wheel of Fortune (Tarot Queen: Melan, Part 4)

Where Credit Is Due

About the Author

Preview of Tarot Queen

**King of Swords**

Melan knelt in the dust, a voluminous robe of amethyst silk spread around her. Before her was a low platform covered in soft purple cloth. It was there she plied her trade, but there were no customers now. Today, the cards she turned over were for herself.

She had turned over her card of future influences, Swords X, when she felt rather than heard _the_ someone coming. She closed her eyes and could just distinguish the sharp sound of booted footsteps above the noisy hum of the marketplace. Without turning another card, she opened her eyes and saw him, knew him amongst twice a hundred people. He was half a head taller than the natives around him and as different in appearance as she was herself. He was someone she had foreseen. He was someone she knew would affect her life, even if she didn't yet know how.

With practiced skill she swept the cards back into the deck without looking at them. She whispered a question to her cards and pulled one from the deck. She blinked at the card: The Lovers. That wasn't quite what she'd expected, but the cards had never lied to her. There was always a reason for what they foretold.

She returned the card to the deck, shuffled, and spread the cards, face down, on the table before her in a sinuous arc. Then, she studied the man who cut an easy path through the milling commoners. She knew who he was, aside from her destiny. The Black Count was a famed native of lands as far off as Melan's own, and his appearance was stunning in a land abounding with fair beauty. He wore black and silver from head to toe—even a black fur-lined cape, despite the stifling heat. His hair was crisp and black, and flowed freely down his back. His skin was darker and deeper than the pale skin most common to this part of the world. His eyes were said to be a dark violet-blue that glared fearlessly from beneath thick black brows. She could not see, from where she knelt, the color of his eyes or the famous birthmark below his jaw, but from his extraordinary height, his flowing black hair, and his unmistakable air of assurance, he was the Black Count. He was a Presence.

Shod feet were a rarity in this mountain village and his boots were decorated with silver. His was the walk of a man who had appeared from nowhere, taken charge of a failing king's armies and given them victory when all was thought lost. His was the walk of a man who has been promised everything, through merit, and who means to collect. His was the walk of a man who had proved himself to all around him on whim; he had always known his own worth. There could not be two such men in all the world. He _was_ the Black Count.

The booted feet stopped before her platform.

She could tell he wasn't sure whether he stopped because of her unusual appearance or because she stared at him fearlessly, without a hint of obeisance. She knew she was strange to any eye on this continent. There was a filled circle of silver embedded in her forehead. Her face was round, her lips very full, her nose quite wide and her eyes glittering black. Her coarse and wiry hair was black as well, and pulled back from her face. He glanced at her body and frowned. Clearly, he could not see her body in all that flowing silk, but he wanted to. He reached out and touched her hand. "Is it real?" he asked.

Her eyes flickered to her skin, almost blue-black in color. She smiled, knowing her teeth were glaringly white in her black face. "It is my own skin."

"And you are like this, everywhere?"

She could have laughed out loud at his question, could sense how her skin aroused him, how the very thought of her difference excited him. He took pains to show nothing in his face, but his eyes... His eyes were so expressive, it was as though he were a deck of cards to her.

She could not forbear a smile. "All of my skin is like this."

He was forced to control his breathing. He stared at her for a moment. Then, sat in the dust before her platform, with the ease of one who had done so many times before. "What are these cards? Do you play a game of chance?"

"Tarot, my lord. Not a game but a tool, an avenue to find one's future."

He snorted derisively. She smiled again and added, "Choose a card and it will tell me of your past."

He stared at her. A pulse began to throb in his throat. Without looking, he pulled a card from the deck. For only an instant, his eyes broke with hers to glance at the card before they returned to her face. He slid the card back into the deck. "It said 'The Sun.'"

"As well it might. This is a card of victory, of triumph, of wealth and success gained through effort and merit. It speaks, as well, of arrogance and ostentation, of directness and health, of freedom and glory." She leaned forward. Her robe gaped to allow him a glimpse of her dark nubile body. "The cards know who you are."

"Can you tell my future in one card?"

She shook her head. "I must first know who you are. Choose the card that reflects you."

He chose another card and glanced down. "The King of Swords," he told her as he slipped the card back into the deck.

"You are a lover of truth, clever, fierce, forceful and ambitious. You are blunt and tenacious, authoritative and unimpeachable. You are wise and severe and are the most intelligent with regard to combat. You are endurance. Now, choose a card and I will tell you your most immediate future, something still to happen which will affect the rest of your life."

He pulled a third card but, this time, stared at it for a full minute, before leaping to his feet and stepping over the small low table. He dropped the card, face-up, on the table as he passed. He pulled her to her feet, thrust his fingers into her long coarse hair, and crushed her thick lips under his hard mouth. His hands ripped open her silk robe to glory in her slender body while his lips moved down to her dark shoulder.

"But the card?" she whispered as she unbuckled the cape from his shoulder and pressed her hand to his pounding chest.

"The Lovers," he growled and carried her into her tent, under the carefully incurious scrutiny of the market crowd.

The tent was made of thick cloth, so no sound, no movement came from within throughout that day, despite their noisy lovemaking. The moon was, in fact, high overhead when Melan came back into the now-deserted marketplace. The silver circle embedded in her forehead gleamed in the reflected light of the full moon overhead.

She knelt before her table and stared at the card he had thrown. It was indeed The Lovers. Well, she had known that already. But Swords X had warned her of betrayal and despair, so she shuffled the cards again and asked them whom she had lain with. They told her. The _inverted_ King of Swords: ruthless, treacherous, perverse and cunning. Deceitful. She thrust his words of love, of undying faithfulness from her mind. In her heart, she had known them for falsehoods when he had whispered them. "How does he deceive me?" she asked and was answered with the inverted Page of Coins. Adultery. The Black Count was married already, it seemed. He would probably be gone from her life in a matter of hours.

She laughed, but it was a bitter sound. Tarot Queens, as she was, as her mother had been and her mother before her, were allowed but one lover. One lover, chosen by the cards, loved without limits. The price for power.

He had no idea what he had taken, or what it cost her. She stared at the cards until her knees went stiff before she began to smile, slowly, even wickedly. He didn't know her pain, but he would. Oh, yes.

He had had his reading. There was always a price.

She pulled a ring from her middle finger, silver and set with a six-sided amethyst. She murmured a prayer from her heart, words that, from a Tarot Queen, could enchant the violet stone in its bed of silver. She crept back into the tent.

He woke with a start and reached for his sword, but she soothed him with a stroke of her hand. "Rest, my proud conqueror. I have gift for you." His eyes glittered in the light from the open doorway as he reached for her midnight body instead. She avoided him deftly and pushed the ring down his smallest finger, where it fit perfectly. She smiled at her lover, her only lover, and her heart ached within her. "With this ring, you will always know what I feel better than I do myself," she whispered to him, binding the spell to the man who wore the ring. Then she lowered herself upon him and lost herself in the last hours of passion she would ever know.

When she opened her eyes, late the next morning, he was gone as she expected. Sated, he would return to his wife in Corrinn, Melan decided. For her on foot, it was a journey that would take weeks or even months, using money she did not have. Not yet.

She shuffled her cards with a distasteful grimace. Insight gave her the option of blackmail against those with secrets as well as wealth, but it was a course she despised. But there was a child in her belly to think of and it was no time to be fastidious. She must reach Corrinn before the child was born. She needed gold, and so, she cast the first fortune.

Six months later, she had more than enough gold to make her journey and establish herself at Corrinn, enough to care for the daughter she would bear. It was time to leave. Even if she had wished to stay, her efforts to gain capital put her life very much at risk if she remained. So, with a swollen belly thrusting before her, her wealth and her Tarot in the pack on her back, a pair of deadly sharp knives at her belt, and sturdy sandals on her feet, she started for the mountains she must cross alone to reach Corrinn. The journey, even taken slowly, would be hard on her. But not on her alone. She hoped the Black Count was enjoying her morning sickness.

A little over two months later, she reached the gate of Corrinn, but did not enter. Instead, she begged shelter from an outlying farmer, using gold and her swollen ankle to gain pity and a place to sleep. "Funny thing," the farmer said as he tossed in fresh straw for her bed, "they say the Black Count himself tripped and hurt his leg. Never known the arrogant bastard to ail before, but I guess it can happen to anyone."

Melan smiled even when her ankle gave with a small twinge of pain, secure in the knowledge that someone else was feeling the brunt of her pain. Surely, by now, the Black Count had realized that, short of cutting off a finger, the ring could never be removed, but then, maybe he hadn't realized just how much pain he faced.

She leased a small stone house on a hill overlooking the city, secluded but comfortable. It was just what she needed. The day before she saw she would begin labor, Melan went down into the city for the first time and asked a midwife to come to her home the next day. Melan saw the midwife was startled by the odd request, but with a gold coin in her hand, she was not reluctant to oblige.

The labor lasted three long days. Sweat poured down her face, but the vestiges of her pain were readily borne. If the midwife was surprised that she never cried out, she said nothing, content in the gold Melan had promised her.

But then the midwife didn't know that someone else lay abed in violent agony, that the city waited tensely to learn the fate of their Black Count, laid low by a strange, incomprehensible malady. Melan knew and smiled. Rare indeed was the opportunity for men to truly understand the pain of birth. With two sons of her own, would Count's quiet, golden-haired wife recognize his "illness" for what it was? Would she understand the implications? Even the justice?

When Melan, exhausted, lay resting with the tiny wrinkled babe she named Roxell, the Black Count, weakened by three unremitting days of agony, called his captain to him. The captain waited as his invincible leader, white of face and nervously twisting a ring on his smallest finger, said, "You must journey to the village of Epilandown in the Northern mountains. Go with your fastest horses and find a woman of black skin and bring her back here. And bring her _gently_."

The captain raised his eyebrows at the mention of black skin, but the Black Count was still the King's general, even if his mind had gone wandering. It was not the captain's place to say him nay. He snapped his heels together and left in a swirl of cape.

The swiftest horses could travel through the mountains in summer quickly and the captain returned within a fiveweek. He returned with news, cheered with the realization that his general had not lost his wits altogether after all.

He knelt before the Black Count, now quite recovered though still twisting the odd ring, and told him that the black woman had disappeared months before. He told him that no one was certain where she was now. The captain lifted his head. "But, your lordship, I asked as I traveled back and there were many who recalled a black-skinned woman, big with child, journeying in this direction months ago. Outside the castle gates, I found a farmer who gave her shelter and, in the city, a midwife who delivered a baby from her." He pointed out a narrow window. "She lives in a stone cottage on that hilltop." The Black Count leapt to his feet and stared at the distant hill through the window, a look of almost longing on his face. The captain cleared his throat. "Shall I fetch her to you, your lordship?"

"No." The Black Count didn't turn around, but only stared out the window. "Make it swift and painless," was all he said, then turned sharply on his heel and left.

Melan shuffled the cards and asked them of the future. She could sense something in the pit of her soul. The baby lay sleeping in the back room, out of harm's way, for harm was coming. Melan could feel it. She pulled out a card and stared before unexpected tears slid down her face. Never had she planned for _this_ to happen. Never had she wished it! Oh, Gods! But the cards always told her the truth. "Not this!" she begged in her heart, but she was powerless to stop it. She was the servant of the cards. They did not do her bidding. The card she had chosen was Death, and she knew it meant that he had sent soldiers to take her life.

Clearly, the Black Count, triumphant in so many campaigns, didn't recognize his black lover. She was The Moon. She was darkness and intuitiveness. She was his hidden enemy. She, too, knew of subtlety and deceit. They had been well-matched. Couldn't he see that it was _her_ ring that bound him? For all his tactical genius, he didn't understand the _power_ of the ring she had given him. Death was in the cards indeed.

But not hers.

Not hers.

**King of Wands**

Melan knelt on the red carpet, stripped of her amethyst robe. Her bare knees were pressed into the plush wool below her and there was a spear digging into her back. But there was nothing of subservience in her face or her posture. Despite the spear at her back, she did not press her face to the ground as would be expected from a subject to her King. No. Melan was subject to no one. She sat straight and tall on her heels and looked the fair-haired King straight in the eyes.

The King was so easy to read. He did not expect her to stare at him, unafraid. Clearly, he struggled to believe that she could destroy the formidable Black Count. His eyes took in her blue-black skin, her spare body almost devoid of curves. A small smile touched her lips as his eyes lingered on her bare form. She knew she was a strange creature to him, with her long, textured black hair pulled back from a round face, glittering black eyes, and a gleaming circle of silver embedded in her forehead. There was another crescent of silver just over her left breast now, where the arrow meant to take her life had entered her body. She could see it in his eyes as they finally returned to her face. He was repelled and yet intrigued by her strangeness.

And he was repelled and intrigued by her power as well for, when the arrow had pierced her heart, she had not died. The man who had ordered that arrow, _he_ had fallen instead, his hand to his own chest. _Her_ heart had been pierced, but it was the Black Count's heart that had stopped beating.

For that loss, the King intended her life be forfeit. The Black Count had been the victorious general, the champion and the favorite of the King, so much so that his only child, the Princess, had been given to the Count as wife. But any woman who could survive the bite of an arrow through her heart, who could visit immediate vengeance on her enemy, was not someone to be taken lightly. Certainly not someone to be killed precipitously. She could see how he wanted to know the extent of her powers, and perhaps how he could use these powers to his advantage.

Infinitesimally, her smile widened as she saw how he fought his temper at her open defiance. How his lips compressed and his nostrils flared. As his eyes blazed. It was with effort he swallowed his displeasure. He leaned forward in his gem-crusted throne. "Who are you?"

"I am Melan, the Tarot Queen."

The Queen, before a study in disinterest, became suddenly attentive at this, but it was the King's sage who spoke. "You call yourself a queen?" he mocked. "A queen with black skin!" He laughed, and not kindly.

Melan smiled indulgently. There was no need to tell them that anyone with pale skin in her homeland was killed out of hand. "One can be a queen of a country or a queen of a skill. I am a Queen of Tarot."

The King was losing patience. "You killed my general, Tarot Queen," he sneered, his voice making an insult of the title. "Tell me how you killed my Count."

Here, of course, was the question. Melan briefly touched the crescent of silver at her breast, sickly aware that her newborn daughter was in the hands of the King's guards. The bald truth would be her death and the death of her daughter. The King and his court _must_ fear her. If Melan told them that she had punished her lover by giving him a ring that would make him, instead of her, feel her pain, even the pain of her own death, they would know she could be killed with safety.

And she was still too weak to protect herself. When the Black Count had died, struck through the heart with the pain and shock he had meant her to feel, the pain had come back to her. There was no one to feel the pain for her when she had poured molten silver into the wound to stop the bleeding, to heal her witch's heart. It was not something one recovered from easily.

But they knew nothing of the ring, of the spell she had cast on it, or the reasons she cast it. That she was alive at all now meant that they feared her and the power they saw in her. She must feed that fear, or her life, and that of her daughter, would be forfeit.

Neither could a Tarot Queen tell a lie for such a question without forfeiting her power. She hid all her terror deep down in her soul and found the form of the truth she needed on her lips: "He paid the price of betraying me, of lying to me. True betrayal can be costly."

"And what is this Tarot?" the Queen asked, still curious.

Melan bowed her head slightly. "If someone will bring me my robe, I can show you."

The King, nodded his head to his Captain who tossed the silk garment before Melan. Melan's long fingers reached into its folds and pulled out a worn deck of cards, wrapped twice with silk. Completely ignoring her own nudity, she laid her silk robe on the carpet before her and shuffled her cards.

The King leaned forward impatiently. "What are those cards, some kind of game?"

"These cards foretell the future, both yours and mine. But they do not speak to everyone."

The King's sage smirked. "I should like to see them _speak_ to you. That would be a trick." The room laughed.

Melan didn't even smile. She spread the cards before her and pulled one from the deck, laying it facedown on the silk robe. "Here is the card for your future," Melan told the sage. The card was The Hanged Man. "There will be great suffering and punishment in your future. You will know pain, will be abandoned and renounced, and die, alone and unloved."

"You can do that to him?" the King asked, interest piqued.

Melan shook her head. "I do not make the future. I only tell what is in the cards."

"And the cards determine the future?"

Melan shrugged. "They know the future."

"Prove it. Tell my future."

Melan bowed her head. "You must come and choose a card."

The King gestured to his silenced sage. " _He_ did not choose one."

"I must know who you are to tell your future. That creature was easily read." She picked another card at random from the deck and turned it over. The Fool. The laughter was loud and immediate, with even the Queen cracking a smile. Apparently, the sage was not popular.

She saw the King weigh the dangers against his very real curiosity. If not for her flattery, she thought, would the curiosity have won? He pulled his robe tight around himself and stepped gingerly down from his throne. A page rushed forward immediately with a velvet cushion and the King knelt down before Melan. She had reshuffled the deck and spread them in a fan before him. With a hand that shook slightly, the King pulled a card from the deck and laid it on the cloth. It was the King of Coins, inverted.

Melan brushed the card with her fingertips, then nodded but said nothing. The King would not be pleased with her Tarot's reading of his character. The card spoke of impatience and scheming, a lack of mercy and a petty nature. It spoke of corruption and greed and hinted at a hidden physical ailment. Nothing there Melan could not have guessed for herself. But she need not tell him the meaning of his significator. He asked for the future, not his character.

Laying his significator to the side, she picked out a card at random and laid it face-up on the cloth. Wands VI. Ah. She closed her eyes and pressed her hand against the card.

In a moment, she opened her eyes and intoned, "You will receive news of a victory before the sun sets on this day."

The King smiled widely. "What else?"

"There is nothing more in this card."

"Then turn over more! I wish to know it all!"

"You asked for proof of my powers. You will have it before the day is over. If you wish for a reading, you must pay my fee. For all, there is always a price."

"I am the King!"

"You are a mere mortal for all that," Melan told him with a dry tone. "Nothing of power comes without a price."

"What did my general pay?"

Melan glanced at the babe held in the guard's arms, but kept her features neutral. "I never said I gave the general a reading."

Her glance had not been quick enough. With a wicked smile, he said "And I have the daughter you cherish in my power."

Melan's voice was hard as steel. "If Roxell is harmed, you won't need cards to know your future." There was no mistaking her meaning and the King swallowed convulsively.

Whatever the King might have replied remained unvoiced, for there was a clatter of hurried footsteps from the anteroom before the double doors burst open. A soiled and sweaty soldier all but tumbled into the room. "Your Majesty!" he gasped.

"How dare you intrude upon your monarch in this state!" the King snapped, pulling himself up from the floor with the aid of a courtier's arm.

The soldier fell instantly to one knee. "Forgive me, your majesty, but we have been attacked by Toonnan at Alsater. We were taken entirely by surprise, but we were able to defeat them with the throwing weapons the Black Count installed."

"Ever my servant," the King murmured to himself. "Alsater's defenses held? And Toonnan attacked unprovoked? Ha! I knew they would. Well, perhaps we can put a stop to this constant skirmishing—"

The Captain of the guard cleared his throat. "The Black Count has always warned against attacking the mountain defenses of Toonnan..."

"Well, the Count got himself killed," the King snapped. "And I have a new weapon. Now we can know _ahead of time_ what the results of my campaigns would be."

He nodded as if he'd made a decision. "Everyone from this room. I have something to discuss with the black witch."

"Melan," the kneeling woman corrected gently.

There was a quiet muttering as courtiers and guards shuffled from the room. The Captain of his Guard protested. Melan imagined he wouldn't like leaving his monarch alone with a woman he had shot through the heart only the day before. The King was adamant and sent him from the room.

The Queen did not leave her seat, but looked at Melan speculatively, motioning the guard to leave the small brown baby in her arms before he left.

"My dear," the King prompted gently, cautious in his tone with her. But he wanted her to leave.

She didn't move. "Forgive me, beloved," she said with overt meaning, "if I choose not to leave my King alone with a naked woman. Again."

The King pressed his lips together but said no more.

When the door had closed behind the Captain, the King turned to Melan. "Tell me the future of my country. I have to know what will happen."

"And my fee?"

"What do you demand?"

Melan considered him dispassionately for a moment. "I want a death."

The King stared.

"The death of someone I name at my pleasure. And I want your promise in writing."

"You wouldn't trust my word?" the King asked aghast.

"That is my fee."

"And you will answer my questions?"

"I will tell you what the cards say in answer to your questions. But the answers are rarely simple."

"And the cards always tell the truth?"

"The cards have never lied."

The King took a ledger from the clerk's podium and blithely tore a page. In a clumsy hand, he scribbled his promise and signed his name. "Now, tell me, witch, what the future holds for me and my country."

Melan stroked the significator and then pulled seven cards at random from the fan of cards and laid them in a row, face-up. For only a second, she studied them. She touched the first card, the inverted Emperor, which spoke to her of the self-indulgence of an ineffectual king. "At the beginning of your reign, your country was a state of upheaval, plagued with war and unrest." Her hand caressed the next card, the King of Swords, and knew it to represent her lover and the King's savior, the Black Count. A soft note of longing slipped into her voice as she said, "An outsider came and gave new life to your country, and, with his battle acumen, forceful personality, and patient endurance, repulsed the invaders against impossible odds." She recovered her tonelessness as she touched the next card, the Empress. "And this card is another strength for your country, your wife the Queen. But things are coming to a crisis. You have before you a life and death decision, involving pain and death." She gestured to Swords X and then lightly touched Wands V. "There will be conflict, a need to prove oneself."

She hesitated, knowing from the cards that the king would not like this future, but Tarot Queens were adept at telling the truth in a way the listeners wished to hear. "A man of your blood will follow on the throne." Her finger outlined the King of Wands.

"A son? I shall have a son?" the king asked eagerly, as his wife gasped. The Queen was approaching her fourth decade, considered past more children. Her face was more intent, tension clear around her eyes and mouth.

Melan touched Cups III. "The Queen who sits now at your side will give her King and his kingdom a child," Melan said firmly, then stroked the card of ultimate results: the Page of Cups. "The conflict will be resolved successfully and your country will regain all its former strength and glory, enough to last through three centuries of peace."

The king rocked back on his heels, speechless with wonder. He let his breath out in a low "Aaaaaah," of satisfaction as he absorbed her predictions. After a moment's deliberation, he found his voice again. "Then I will win! I _will_ triumph! I knew it!" He rubbed his hands together in anticipatory glee. "And I can safely lead the army myself! I've still a son to father!" He leapt to his feet and began pacing excitedly. "I am a charmed man! Untouchable!" He stopped suddenly and glared at Melan. "You will speak of this to no one! Or I shall have your daughter destroyed!"

"The readings are always private," Melan soothed softly, hating him for his weakness, his foolishness at the expense of his kingdom. More, she hated his power over her daughter.

He reached over and pinched her round chin painfully between his corpulent fingers. "They had better be, black witch, or we'll see if black skin burns."

Melan's eyes glittered dangerously, but her face remained impassive. He only _thought_ he knew the future.

Minutes later, she left the castle wrapped again in her amethyst silk, but her footsteps dragged and the wind felt like it whistled through her slender frame.

They had kept her daughter.

For weeks she waited while the king readied his army. The morning the army rode outward to the mountains of Toonnan, Melan watched them from her stone house atop a hill. "Fools," she thought, but couldn't bring herself to smile.

That evening, there was a frantic knock on her door. The Queen, swathed in blue velvet, stood at the door, dripping with wet. There was a dark-skinned infant in her arms.

"Roxell!" Melan uttered, her heart in her voice, as she snatched the babe from the Queen's arms.

"I couldn't keep her from you any longer," the Queen explained softly as she entered, pushing aside her dripping hood. "I had to wait until the King left before I could return her. He did not understand." She stared intently into Melan's eyes. "But I, too, am a mother."

Melan spared a moment to examine her child and the child's clothing. "You have cared for her well."

The Queen nodded regally, before saying, with a curious intensity, "As if she were my own child." She stared at Melan stiffly for another moment, before her haughtiness deserted her. She stepped forward uncertainly. "What you told the king about my son... Tell me, tell me—is it true?"

Melan stepped back and gestured to the table swathed in purple silk, so that the Queen could see the cards waiting there.

The Queen was not a stupid woman. "What is your fee?"

"Clemency for anyone I or my daughter request."

"One act of clemency?"

"One."

The Queen considered only for a moment. "Agreed. If you have paper, I will give it to you in writing."

"Your word is enough."

The Queen raised her eyebrows in surprise. "But you asked for the King's promise in writing."

Melan's face was devoid of expression. "Yes."

The smile that just barely touched the Queen's lips spoke volumes. "Then you have my word."

Wordlessly, Melan sat down at the table and shuffled the cards.

The Queen sat in the facing chair. At Melan's prompting, she chose a card from the deck, the Empress. That much Melan already knew.

Melan chose seven cards as she had for the king and laid them face-up before the Queen.

Gently, Melan touched the inverted Star card. "Long ago, you had a dream, a longing that went unfulfilled." Her fingers moved to the Devil card. "Instead, it was duty that bound you to a different fate."

Melan's fingers skirted along the Fool card, then slid them to the inverted Cups III. "You have an influence in your life, reckless, thoughtless, inconsiderate. He has not changed you from who you are, but he has brought sorrow and disappointment to your life."

The Queen raised a brow. "Are you trying to offend me?"

Shaking her head, Melan spoke softly. "The cards don't lie and I can tell you only what they say."

The Queen pointed to the next card: Death. "Am I going to die? Is that how the king gets the son he's always coveted? I paid you for this?"

"You paid for the truth. Should I stop?" Melan asked. "Many find a truth they didn't bargain for, but I'm bound to tell the truth only."

The Queen bit her lip, then shook her head. "I'll take the truth."

"In truth, if you die, what would your promise buy me?" Melan returned. Compassion glowed in Melan's eyes. "Death is not always death, though it can be, of course." For a moment, her eyes unfocused, as if she remembered something that grieved her. "Sometimes, though, it is nothing more than a significant change." Melan smiled and indicated the Cups IX card. "It's a change that will bring a dream to fruition, a realization of a treasured wish. Ultimately, you will find what you have long given up, will find the love you have thought was impossible, will carry a future king within you."

Gingerly, the Queen touched the last card, the Knight of Cups. "I don't see how that's possible. It's—I saw the King's future. How can they both be true? Will I find love with him after all this time?"

Melan raised her face. "Do you doubt I speak truth?"

The Queen's gaze was drawn to the first card that spoke of a dream that never came true. "No." Tired eyes, almost colorless blue, met Melan's black ones. "No, I don't. Thank you, Melan."

Melan bent her head as the Queen rose. "Your Majesty." And, a moment later, Melan was left alone with her sleeping child.

For many months, Melan waited. Desperate citizens often bringing their most priceless treasures, found their way to her door to ask for guidance, comfort or hope. They brought the news: of the invasion, brash and bold, into the mountain fortress of Toonnan, of the brutal rout by the fortified Toonnians. Others came with news of the surprise ambush of the pursuing Toonnians by the regrouped soldiers of the captain, now general, and the resounding victory.

People came with stories of celebrations in the city below her small house: a King once more on the throne, the Queen at his side, peace at last through diplomacy with the Toonnan kingdom and, most thrilling for all, the Queen increasing again with child.

Roxell was just taking her first tottering steps when Melan was summoned again to the castle.

As she knelt before the King, her head as high as always, Melan was more struck by the differences. She knelt before the King, but still clothed. Her child was safe at home with a nursemaid. There was no spear at her back.

Nor was the King as she remembered. Oh, the facial structure, the fine clothes, the curling fair hair, all were as she remembered. But this was a face that knew suffering and compassion, lined with care, a body that was not soft with self-indulgence. The eyes were cool and, this time, she could not read the mind with a quick glance. These eyes were not without soul or compassion, but they were guarded. The eyes of a thoughtful man. Beside the King sat the same Queen, unmistakably, despite the gravid belly. Time and sorrow had faded from eyes since last they'd spoken, and now, she glowed with an inner beauty that rivaled youth.

Melan didn't tremble, for she had known she would be summoned again someday. "Your Majesty," she intoned, bowing her head slightly.

Rage did not touch the King's eyes. In fact, a small smile touched his lips. "So, you are the Tarot Queen who sent the king to his death with a lie."

"The cards never lie, Your Majesty."

"Perhaps not, but he can't read the cards. He was dependent on you to tell him his future. Did you not tell him he would father a child that would be remembered through time?"

"No, Your Majesty. I told him someone of his blood would take the throne. It was he that assumed it was a child. Not his brother."

The King glanced at his wife, once his twin's widow. "Is this true?"

"Yes. And the child she predicted would come from me, a son for the King and his kingdom." Her hand reached to touch his hand, gently, even caressingly. "A child for you."

With eyes that still glowed with love, she turned back to Melan. "She knew I loved you, that I had always loved you. I was afraid to believe she had told me the truth, afraid to revive the dream that had all but died in my soul. But she did tell the truth, just as she did for your brother, even if I didn't see it at first."

Wordlessly, the King's fingers gripped hers. She turned back to him, smiling with tears in her eyes. "I couldn't believe that when she pulled the King of Wands, the man she meant was you."

"You are the gift I have given this kingdom, to repay it for the general I stole. Your wisdom and patience will bring a prosperity to this kingdom that the Black Count, for all his skills, could never achieve." Melan's voice was soft, but of such clarity that it carried to every corner of the room. "Even a Tarot Queen must repay her debts, must pay the price for the power she's taken."

The Captain of the guard, now general, spoke now. "She cannot be trusted. Her power is too great, a risk for king and kingdom."

The King turned back to Melan, his eyes contemplative, even a little sad. "I fear I have to agree. Even if I understand your actions, it does not make you less dangerous, for us, for our children, for the subjects of this kingdom. Nor do I know how to neutralize you except to have you killed."

Her face impassive, Melan said nothing, regarding the King straightly. Only after searching his eyes for several moments, did she turn her face again to the Queen. And nodded.

The Queen nodded in return. "Dearest, the price for the reading she gave was clemency for one at her request. She asks me now. Will you honor the word I gave her? The promise your brother made when she calls for that? There is still the matter of her babe. If she has such gifts, will you have the child killed as well?"

The King sighed. "I will honor your word—and his." His eyes narrowed as he thought. "Since your life _must_ be spared, and I must protect my people, you must leave the city and go to the top of Sunrise Mountain, where only the most intrepid can find you. I will ensure that you are cared for so that you will never want for money, will never be tempted to trade your skill for gold. Only those who most need your skills will find you.

"Perhaps it will not be enough," he continued. "But I fear I tempt the fates if I remove your skills entirely. And the Queen's debt will be paid."

Melan rose with neither smile nor tears, resigned to her fate.

After all, isolation had been the fate of Tarot Queens for more lifetimes than not.

**The Hanged Man**

From inside, Melan could hear the wind howling beyond the shuttered window, could imagine the swirls of snow. She pulled the blanket closer to her, grateful for the cheery fire. Age, however, was descending quickly, and she felt the cold more and more every year; the fire warmed her less and less. Four decades before, she had left her homeland, a land that had never known snow or the cold wind that blew so readily here. Drought, though, and other hardships were abundant. Always, there is a price.

For years, she had made a home of this foreign land, or as much of a home as one can when one is so very different from everyone else. Her heritage and her fate, as she had waited for the one who would be her lover, had slowed time so that her face was unlined and her body still supple when he at last came to her and warmed her tent with one night of passion—before abandoning her.

Years past, he had paid the ultimate price for that betrayal and she had nearly lost her own life as a result. Since his death, time had reclaimed its lost years, filling her long limbs with aches and weakness, crippling her once nimble fingers, dimming her mind.

She and her daughter were exiled here, deemed dangerous—and who could argue the logic, even if the constant cold weakened Melan further? Knowledge, even of the future, was a double-edged sword. The house the King had built them was small, but sturdy and comfortable. There were always livestock in the shed out back, cared for by Melan, and sometimes her child, Roxell, when Melan could no longer move so easily. Foodstuffs were sent regularly, as well as other comforts and luxuries.

But it was a solitary existence. Melan missed people. Few indeed made the treacherous trek to her tiny house to seek her aid. Only Roxell, her precious child, made life bearable. Inexorably, Melan's eyes were drawn to the slim girl kneeling on one of the furs that covered the stone floor. As her mother watched, Roxell shook some tiny blocks of wood and tossed them before her. Only seven years old and she had already mastered the bones, the runes, even the crystal ball that Melan herself had never conquered. Only the cards remained to be mastered, and Roxell already understood them.

Melan shook her head. Roxell was too powerful. Even her touch on Melan's cards could ruin them for Melan. Tarot for Roxell would have to wait until she was old enough to create her own cards.

Roxell lifted her head and smiled at her mother as if she felt her mother's thoughts—and she likely did. Those eyes, of a clear and beautiful amethyst, were so like her father's, but without his coldness, his ruthlessness. He had provided the nose as well, the silky black hair and the strange black birthmark beneath her pointed chin that was barely noticeable on her warm brown skin. Everything else came from Melan, except for those traits, like Roxell's power, which were beyond even the sum of her parents.

Though still small, Roxell's voice was crystalline beauty, perfectly pitched and capable of singing all the songs Melan sang and even those songs she had heard in passing from supplicants. Roxell was agile and strong. She noticed everything. If Melan's life had not been all she had hoped, the Gods had granted her the most wonderful child. Thus, was balance provided.

"Someone comes, Mama," Roxell said.

Melan raised a brow. "In this storm? Maybe they'll come after it's over."

"She is desperate. She is cold. Shall I make her tea?"

Melan raised a hand to protest, then heard the knock. "Do, child, and make enough for me as well."

Melan pushed herself up from her chair, hating the aches, the stiffness, the slowness with which she moved. The blanket slipped from her chilled fingers, but she left it, a puddle of deep blue-purple wool. Bending was no longer trivial and the knocking was becoming frantic.

At last, her shuffling feet brought her to the door. Her fingers fumbled with the latch. She stumbled back, as the door slammed open, dumping a snow-crusted bundle at her feet.

Compassion overrode pain as she helped the bundle upright while Roxell pushed the door closed and latched it. Melan supported the visitor's tottering steps, helping her strip off the soaked cloak and gloves. Led to the chair, the woman sat wearily as Roxell draped the discarded blanket over the woman's damp clothes.

As Roxell ran for the tea, Melan took her first look at the newcomer. Huge pale eyes of clouded sky blue were rimmed with red from weeping, sunken and shadowed in a pointed face of translucent white. Some of the pallor could be from the cold for the slim nose was tipped crimson, the lips blue, the fair hair darkened and plastered to her head.

Around her slim neck, a collar of platinum, amethyst, and black topaz glittered in the firelight. She was a well-to-do patron then, likely beautiful, perhaps imperious under other circumstances. Tonight, though, she was desperate, a wounded animal and all but hopeless. A poor frightened child. Melan felt her eyes tear as her gut tightened. For those this desperate, the cards could rarely provide solace.

That could wait, Melan thought, as Roxell brought steaming and fragrant tea and steadied the woman's trembling hands so she could drink. First, she would need to be warmed and fed. Melan sank into the cushion Roxell gave her and willed herself to ignore her discomfort.

Some time later, as the wind began to die outside the confines of the cozy hut, the woman set aside her tea at the table at her elbow. Her hair was dry now and framed her face with golden waves. But her eyes were no less desperate than before and still her fingers trembled.

"Thank you," she said, at last, her voice a gravelly thread of sound Melan suspected was not her normal voice. "I—I need help. My—my husband..."

With care, Melan spoke in a voice of sympathetic gentleness. "I cannot change the past or the future, child. The best I can do is reveal the truth."

The woman flung herself from the chair and fell, prostrate, at Melan's knees. "Please, please, tell me. I have to know where he is, if he's alive. It's the truth I need, Witch Queen, the truth I need to know." She reached for Melan's skirt, and pinched it between her fingers. "Only then will I be able move forward, even if it's without—" She gasped and closed her eyes, "I have to know."

Melan bowed her head, her eyes closed. "There is always a price," she said at last, her voice a whisper of sound.

The woman moved to her knees, then reached beneath her hair and unclasped her choker. Melan opened her eyes and saw the gems on the woman's open palm, a handful of glittering starlight. "Please," the woman said, "Before Kobol married me, this was all the wealth I owned. It was a gift from my grandmother—" she stifled a sob, before continuing more resolutely. "Even when I faced disaster, I never relinquished this." She thrust it forward. "Take it, please."

Melan wanted to say no, but it was a fair price. Tarot Queens had obligations as well as powers. With long, knotted fingers, she picked up the beautiful piece. "Agreed."

Roxell brought the table and set it in front of Melan, unfurling the violet silk cover with a practiced movement. Then, Roxell brought the bag that held Melan's cards as the woman took the cushion facing Melan.

Melan opened the bag with stiff fingers, unconsciously caressing the cards as they slid into her hands. Silky smooth from years of wear, she could still remember when she made them, coloring them with youthful skill and only the best pigments. Over the decades that followed, they had shown her so many things, so many dreams and destinies. They had made her fortune and threatened it.

"What do I do?" the woman asked, her eyes wide.

"What is your name, child?" Melan asked.

"I am Sandel, wife of Kobol."

"Is it your fate you wish to learn or that of your husband?"

Sandel licked her lips before answering. "Kobol's."

Melan swept the cards across the table in a long line. "Find your mate so I can know his fate."

Sandel reached hesitantly for a card, hand visibly trembling, then chose it, pulling it from the line. Melan took the card from her and smiled. "Temperance. Here, your mate is shown to be a friend, a picture of balance, a man of both reason and creativity." She laid it, face up, on the cloth.

"Yes," Sandel breathed. Her hand touched the card lovingly. "Kobol."

Melan touched it as well, then pulled seven cards from her line. She turned the first and smiled at the Lovers. "This is his past, true love." Next was the Knight of Wands. "He recently went on a journey, unafraid of any risk."

"Yes," Sandel said, her eyes locked on the cards as Melan revealed them. "What is this card?" she asked as Melan turned over the Wheel of Fortune.

Melan regarded it calmly before answering. "Wheel of Fortune, inverted. It is a reflection of the most recent events in his life: bad luck, sudden ill fortune."

"Is he dead?"

Melan turned the next card, the Chariot. "In his present circumstance, he is facing an obstacle or adversity."

"And?"

Melan found herself hesitating, reluctant to know the truth, certain, somehow, it would not be auspicious. At last, she turned the card and sighed: Death. Sandel stared, her heart in her eyes, at the implacable card. Melan swallowed before saying, "The card of Death can mean many things, change—"

"Is that what it means now? Tell me the truth." There was just the slightest hint of contempt in her voice. "I came for the truth. I _paid_ for the truth."

Melan found tears in her eyes. "There is Death in his immediate future." She blinked the tears away and looked at Sandel straightly. "I'm sorry."

Sandel returned her gaze solemnly, her eyes dry. Her eyes flicked to the card and then back to Melan. "Thank you." She pointed to the last cards still unturned. "If he is dead, what are those?"

Melan turned them over and nodded. "This," she said, indicating the Tower, "is ruin and destruction of mind in the further future." She frowned. Something didn't feel quite right. "You are so important to him, perhaps it is the dashing of his hopes for your happiness. And this," she added, indicating the Hanged Man, "this is the ultimate conclusion: punishment, suffering, and remorse." She found herself reaching for Sandel's hand but Sandel withdrew it and slid back on her cushion.

Melan looked up at her as Sandel stood up, her eyes moist again. "I would that I could have given you a different future, child."

Sandel lifted her chin, eyes still desolate, but free of tears. "No, I asked for the truth. I have to thank you." The smallest sigh touched her. "I must go."

"Mama," Roxell said softly at Melan's elbow. "There's something wrong."

Melan nodded at her and pushed her back. "Give me a minute, baby. Is it still snowing?"

"No, Mama, but—"

"Sh, baby." Suddenly, Melan felt terribly old, every ache, every stiff sinew communicating her inadequacy. Feeling helpless, she saw Sandel, wrapped in her tragic dignity, let herself out of the door and out into the clear cold. Melan found herself stroking her child's silky hair.

"She's gone," said Roxell in a voice of great solemnity. "Mama—"

"Yes, baby?" Melan said tiredly, trying to convince her body to rise and bar the door. She noticed only now that Sandel had left without her cloak and gloves. Her internal sense of wrongness increased, but she couldn't pinpoint what...

"Mama, it was the man's fortune you were telling."

"I know, baby," Melan said, levering herself to her feet, using the willing Roxell as a crutch, trying to quell her inner disquiet.

"His remorse, his pain."

"Baby, he's dead." Melan's voice was patient, but she found herself arrested.

"It's his fortune," Roxell insisted, "but it wasn't his death."

All at once, Melan couldn't breathe. "Show me, sweetheart," she said faintly, bracing herself on a cupboard. Roxell scurried away and returned with the silk-covered ball. Roxell's hands were unerring as she unwrapped the ball and set it on the stone stand. Then, as Melan looked on, Roxell gently touched the clear crystal until it darkened and opaqued, then gleamed white with snow, a small dark figure at its center.

Melan stared, transfixed, as the dark figure struggled through the heaped snow, driven to her destination, a cliff's edge that dropped to nothingness only footsteps away from a wooden door. Her voice strangling in her throat, Melan tried to warn her, tried to cry out in dismay, but she knew, just as the figure slipped over the edge to her doom, Sandel had made her own future.

Melan felt herself crumpling, collapsing to the ground. The cards had told the truth, as they always had, but she had misread their meaning and killed an innocent. She hugged her child to her as the sobs consumed her. "Roxell, Roxell, what have I done?"

"You have let your cards use you for their own ends," Roxell said calmly, stroking her mother's back.

*

Roxell sat on the floor, throwing her runes as a storm raged outside. Her mother rocked only a few steps away, wrapped in blankets, her eyes focused on the fire. Outside, as the wind raged, there was the sound of pounding. Roxell tried to ignore it as she knew her mother did. Roxell didn't need to use the crystal or the runes to know who pounded. It was a man, someone who had survived a near-fatal journey, risking his life again to find out what had happened to the woman he loved.

Just as she knew her mother couldn't bring herself to tell him how his love had met her fate. The Hanged Man spoke of remorse and destruction of the mind, even as the man's pounding became more desperate.

But remorse and destruction for more than just the man.

**Wheel of Fortune**

Melan woke from her doze with a start. She was unsurprised to find a shawl draped over her stooping shoulders, a fur on her knee. Roxell was always thoughtful.

Melan grunted, then shifted, painfully levering herself to her feet using the rocking chair as an unstable brace. Not two decades past, before Roxell was born, Melan could have leapt to her feet from the kneeling position or walked across the tiny cabin on her hands. But she had lived nearly eight decades before she found her lover, her youth preserved by magic. Only after Roxell was born did she begin to age, her body accumulating years at an accelerated rate. Now, her sight dimmed by cataracts, her bones brittle and in constant pain, she was a crooked shadow of her former self, incapable of all but the most minor activities. Even walking across the room was an agonizing and time-consuming event, one that would generally require her daughter's help.

Melan didn't want Roxell's help. Beyond her distaste for making her daughter her servant, Melan found herself more and more resentful of Roxell's health and youth. Melan knew the resentment was unreasonable and its bitterness left a bad taste in her mouth.

"Mother," Roxell said softly, as if she had materialized at her shoulder. Melan cursed her growing deafness. "Mother, can I help you?"

With gentle hands, Roxell steadied and supported her, directing her stumbling steps to the privy and then back to the cabin's single chair. Melan found herself humbled by Roxell's unfailing patience and consideration and hated her own uncharitable thoughts all the more.

Unbidden, Roxell offered her a tray to set across the arms of her chair. Melan took it with a sigh. "Someone comes?" Once, Melan had been able to sense visitors of significance; now, only Roxell sensed them.

"Yes, Mother," Roxell said gently. "I'll bring your cards, unless you want me to do the reading?"

Melan bit her tongue on the bitter retort. Of course, Roxell _could_ do the reading better than Melan could do herself, better than Melan had ever done herself. Melan fought her envy.

But that's not why Melan still did the readings. Melan didn't want Roxell to bear the burden of Tarot Queen, not yet. She didn't want Roxell to have the responsibility for telling a fortune that could change a person's life.

Or even end it.

Of course, few came to ask their fortune any more. The path to the Tarot Queen had always been difficult, almost impossible. Since Melan's fatal error with Sandel, her husband had not been the only supplicant to pound in vain for attention at the front door. Many questioners had also left, ignored, as Melan trembled within the cabin, afraid of misleading them, afraid of sending them down the wrong path, afraid of being a tool of the cards for whatever reason. They came in desperation, need, with a fading hope for guidance, for comfort, and, sometimes, for acknowledgment of their worst fears. Their pain wore on Melan. Their needs grated on her. She lived in constant fear of yet another error, yet another needy soul sent away with an unintended lie in their hearts because of her failure.

If Melan felt her strength, felt the power in her, she would let them in and answer their questions, confident the cards worked her will. Or, if Roxell sensed their coming, they could not be gainsaid. Those sensed before their arrival were pivotal. The power within her would not brook her ignoring their pleas, whatever their questions, whatever their needs.

Someday, Roxell would have no choice but to be the Tarot Queen, to carry that burden. But, for now, Melan would bear it. Not for herself, but for Roxell.

Melan managed a smile for Roxell. "It's my responsibility, Roxell," Melan said. "Soon enough—too soon—you will bear it."

Roxell touched her mother's withered cheek, eyes kind. "But it grieves you, Mother."

"Yes, dear one, yes it does," Melan replied, because those one loves deserved the unvarnished truth. "Would you fetch my cards for me?"

Roxell moved to do her bidding, a graceful picture in peacock silk. The voluminous folds could not disguise Roxell's fluid grace nor the perfection of her proportions. She was so beautiful. As Roxell opened the cupboard where the cards were kept, a knock sounded on the door. Roxell raised an eyebrow and was rewarded with Melan's slight nod. Accordingly, Roxell unbarred then opened the door.

The world tilted and rolled. Melan closed her eyes and willed herself to calmness. It couldn't be. Her eyes... Perhaps they had at last betrayed her.

With a cleansing breath, she carefully opened her eyes and regarded the man at their door as dispassionately as she could manage. Her pulse hammered in her throat. Her fingers gripped the arms of her chair, her knuckles white. Her breath tried to back up in her throat. She could only hope the shock was not evident in her face.

Standing in the open door, framed with the cerulean beauty of a cloudless sky, the Black Count stood. Half a head taller than Roxell, he was resplendent in black and silver, his fur-lined cape thrown negligently over one wiry shoulder. Luxuriant locks of raven curls tumbled from his silver circlet. Amethyst eyes of scintillant beauty stared curiously at her daughter, at _his_ daughter.

He had been Melan's only lover. He had been the man she had unwittingly killed seventeen years before.

Of course, he wasn't the Black Count, not the Count she had known. Even with her weakened vision, she realized quickly that this man was younger by several decades than the man she had known, only a year or two older than Roxell. As both Roxell and the man turned their attention to Melan, regarded her with two pairs of near-identical violet eyes, Melan realized that this must be the Count's only surviving son, Roland.

Roland marched across the floor with no sign of clumsiness, but Melan could sense awkwardness, as if his current dignity were only newly acknowledged and learned through dedicated drill. If the Roland's eyes lacked the sharp genius of his father's eyes, they were also warm and kind rather than ruthless and cold. Roland bowed with precise shallowness as befit a nobleman.

Melan inclined her head in return. "Roland, Count of Aginvale, how can the Tarot Queen serve you?"

"The name day when I attain my majority approaches, Tarot Queen. My mother has suggested that I come to you for any advice you might give me for my future."

Melan had to school her features. Why would a woman send her son to his father's murderer for advice? Even if she had never surmised the true nature of Melan's relationship with the Count.

Whatever his reason, he had come for a reading, and she was honor bound to provide it—for a price. "What will you pay me for this service?"

His lips thinned. "It is common knowledge that you have cost my family my father."

"That debt has been paid."

His eyes narrowed at her response. "Not to me. However, my mother thought you would not agree with me." His fingers toyed with a silver chain at his throat that disappeared beneath his tunic, a frown between his slitted eyes. He dropped the chain after a moment and, instead, brought forward a heavy package tied at his waist.

With meticulous care, he unwrapped his treasure from the oilskin and showed her four books on magic and demonology. Books! Such treasures were more rare than gems!

She nodded her assent. "Please forgive my remaining seated, m'lord," Melan said, extracting her deck from the bag Roxell had left on her tray. She began shuffling the worn cards. "I am old and movement is no longer—"

"I understand," he replied, regarding her critically. Perhaps he was comparing her advanced age with the relative youth of his mother. He glanced sharply around the room. "Since there are no other chairs, I shall stand."

Melan did not apologize. She spread the cards in a fan in front of her over her tray. "Find yourself."

Roland hesitated, then chose one from the middle. Melan was not surprised when he dropped the card on the tray, face-up. He'd drawn the Fool, the ultimate card of youth, innocence and potential.

For someone so young, she pulled only five cards: Far Past, Recent Past, Present, Near Future, and Ultimate Fate.

Page of Cups and the Empress spoke of a happy childhood and a loving mother looking out for his interests. Until recently, of course, he could have had little pressing on him, for his brother had stood to take the title until a riding accident two summers before. Melan's gnarled fingers lingered over The Empress, feeling the boundless love Roland's mother had for her son. "Your mother is a significant influence in your life, has provided you a privileged and contented childhood."

Roland's eyes softened at the mention of his mother and he reached forward as if he would touch the Empress card himself. Instead, he contented himself with nodding.

Melan turned the card that represented his present, Wands I. "You are poised to inherit something significant, facing a new future, a new life." She hardly needed to see the cards to guess that.

Melan felt herself relax a bit. Perhaps this would be one of those benign and toothless readings, no shadows, no ugly surprises. She turned over the card for the near future, the Hanged Man. Pain lanced through her, pain that was only a reflection of the potential in the card. Sacrifice. Stagnation. A life suspended. A crossroads where one path lead unmistakably to incredible suffering.

Tears pricked the back of her eyes and her hand shook as she turned over the last card, praying for redemption and relief for the babe before her. It was not to be. Wheel of Fortune. Destiny. Cosmic law. Fate for good or ill. The future, the ultimate fate depended on the decision of the Hanged Man. She could feel the two paths, one leading to good fortune and a long life, the kind of life any fine young man should lead. The other led to suffering, to being sacrificed for a karmic debt.

As quietly as she could, she cleared her throat. "Your fate is facing a crossroads, a moment where one decision can transform your future from bright and fine to a world of unspeakable despair."

"What decision?" he asked, trying to appear unaffected. His face had paled and his hand tightened on the grip of his sword. "What must I choose?"

Melan's fingers caressed the last two cards, seeking answers, but none came. "Roxell—"

Roxell materialized at her side and, without quite touching the cards, her hand hovered over them. "It is clouded. You will need another card for clarification." Roxell looked up at him, stared into eyes nearly identical to her own. " _You_ should pull it."

Wordlessly, Melan fanned the deck in her hands and offered it to Roland. He glanced down and swallowed. But, the hand that pulled a card was steady. He studied the card for a moment before flipping it back over with a twist of his fingers. "It says, 'The Tower.'"

Melan could only see the destruction, the danger, ruin, captured in the garish colors and lurid details she had painted nearly a century before. On this boy. She closed her eyes.

"The card you pulled," Roxell asked. "Was it upside down to you?"

Melan's eyes snapped open.

"Yes."

"Inverted," Melan said, unsure whether it provided hope.

"Outside catalyst," Roxell said with conviction, her voiced deepened with her sight, her power. "It is not your decision that will determine your fate, but someone else's."

Roland bent his head, brooding at the back of the card for a moment, then back up. "So. Someone else will make a decision that will determine whether I face a success or ruin?"

Melan wanted to offer him words of hope, but the cards had given her none to provide. "Yes."

Roland tucked the card back into the splayed deck, with a near silent sigh. With sobered eyes, he caught first Roxell's gaze, then Melan's. "Thank you." He bowed. As he did, his hair tangled at the neck of his cloak. When he yanked it free, a strand caught on the silver chain and dragged it over the edge of his collar.

On the end of the chain was a dainty ring, silver, adorned with a six-sided amethyst. "Where did you get that?" Melan blurted without thinking.

"It was my father's. When I reach my majority, I will have earned the right to wear it." His eyes narrowed. "My mother wanted me to pay you with this ring, but I wanted it for myself. When he died, it was the only ring he wore. He never took it off. It _meant_ something to him."

Melan's mind was too stunned to protest, to keep him from taking his deadly treasure with him.

He bowed his head again, slightly. "A pleas— well, not a pleasure, perhaps, but certainly interesting."

_So like his father_ , Melan thought inconsequentially, as he left the house, shutting the door firmly behind him.

All at once, she understood. It was her ring, the one she had given Roland's father, the one she had spelled to punish her lover for his abandonment of her. Once on the Count's hand, it could not be removed and had forced him to feel every pain, every ache, every agony Melan had experienced. When he had ordered her death, he had been the one to die. And Melan was left to her own hurts.

But, if a man of his blood wore that ring, put it on his finger of his own free will, the spell would bind him to Melan's fate and take the brunt of her pains, her agonies, and, eventually, her demise.

Melan slumped in her chair, dislodging her tray, spilling the cards on the stone floor, a splash of paper and ink, vivid against the gray.

"Mother!" Roxell cried, wrapping her arms around her. "You're shaking. Are you alright?"

The sobs shook her, silent at first, wracking her tired frame as she grieved at long last for the man she had loved, for the man she had unwittingly slain, for the loss of her talent, but mostly for the boy who would suffer because of her vindictive spell.

Roxell waited patiently, holding her as she wept, until the paroxysms of grief had subsided. Only then did Roxell straighten and say, "Will you tell me?"

It was long past time for Roxell to know about her father. "Yes."

Roxell sat cross-legged among the scattered cards. Melan no longer worried about Roxell's touch corrupting the cards. Melan's insight was gone—she was the Tarot Queen no longer. Instead, Melan told Roxell about her homeland, about her own mother who had died before teaching her the extent of card magic, before Melan had honed her skills. She told her about the cards directing her journey to a different continent where none were colored as she was, about a tiny town in the Northern mountains.

Then, at last, she talked about Ramdas, the Black Count of Aginvale, who had stirred her as none had before and claimed her many times in their one night together before Melan had realized he belonged with another. She told about her spell on the Ring of the Seer, the effects on the Count, the aftermath. She explained why they were exiled on this mountain. She explained how she was so very old.

And she told Roxell what would happen to her half-brother, Roland, when he donned the ring Melan had spelled once in spite. Tears streamed as she told Roxell how he had doomed himself by giving her books rather than the ring.

The fire had died to just an ember by the time she'd finished, the morning and afternoon swallowed by the remembrances of the past. When Melan finished, her voice only a thread of sound through her parched throat, Roxell climbed to her feet. She bent and kissed her mother's forehead, then went to stoke the fire, setting a kettle to boil.

"Roxell?"

"I'm going to make some tea, mother," Roxell said gently, wordlessly collecting her mother's spilled cards. "Another will come before nightfall."

Melan's heart lurched. "Who?"

Roxell smoothed her mother's hair back, "My father's widow."

*

Her mother's trembling had finally subsided after a second cup of tea. As Roxell set aside the tray and put her mother's cards away, she was struck by how fragile, how tiny her mother seemed. In her earliest memories, her mother had seemed impossibly tall, impossibly strong, infallible, perfect. Since the death of Sandel, it was as if she had collapsed within herself, no longer confident, no longer herself. She'd become a slave of the cards instead of their mistress, an unwitting dupe of their will.

They wanted to use her mother again. Roxell had no intention of helping whatever powers played so handily with her faltering mother. Her mother didn't see it, and Roxell was sure, if she stayed silent, her mother would not be trapped into fulfilling their wishes.

The last rays of sunset had faded before Roxell felt their visitor without the door. She rose quickly, but the pounding, fist and palm, on the door began before she could reach it. Roxell opened the door to a woman with desperate tears on her cheeks and tangled hair beneath her costly circlet.

She paused at the sight of Roxell, recoiled really, but pushed past a moment later to throw herself before Melan's chair. "How can you do this?" she demanded, gripping one of the arms of Melan's chair. "How can you take everything from me? When will it be enough? He's just a boy!"

"I know," my mother said. "I never wanted any of it to happen."

"It's your ring, isn't it? That's what killed Ramdas, your ring and the spell you put on it! Tell me it won't kill my son, tell me, and I shall leave and never bother you again. Tell me he is safe and I will give my library, wealth, I will have my uncle set you free, whatever you ask—"

"I cannot," Melan whispered, her own tears sliding down her cheeks. "I'm sorry."

"But, why? Why would you take my husband from me, from his family? Did you hate me so much? Why would you kill my children? My eldest, slain in his prime and Roland, Roland, so young, so innocent— You can't take him, too! I beg of you!"

Melan raised a weary hand. "Your first son's death had naught to do with me! As for your remaining son, it is not within my power. I had no chance to ask for the ring or I would have taken it."

"There must be something!"

Melan bowed her head. Roxell bit her lip, uncertain how her mother could _not_ know. When Melan looked up again, her eyes were dry. "Countess, you must ask the Tarot Queen."

"But—?"

"Roxell, you know something. Tell us."

The Countess shook her head, confused. "But you're the Tarot Queen, aren't you?"

Melan shook her head. "I have lost the power to see. My daughter is the Tarot Queen now. I have given her my burdens." Roxell expected some bitterness, but she spoke with relief. "Now she must tell us if there is another path."

Roxell gasped. "But, Mother—"

"You have been paid, however unfairly, with the mantle you've never coveted. Is her son's path set in stone?"

Roxell wanted to lie, but loved ones deserve the unvarnished truth. Her own cards, drawn by her own hand, were not necessary. She already knew what they would say. The words came slowly as if pulled unwillingly from her throat. "No. His path is not his own to decide."

"Ah, yes, the Tower was inverted." Melan's eyes, black, all but lost in her withered face, regarded her with a sharpness Roxell had not seen in years. "You know how to find the other path, don't you, Roxell?"

The truth was a compulsion. "Yes."

"Who can save him?" Her mother was inexorable.

Roxell sighed. "Only you."

"Me?" her mother said, clearly surprised. "How could I convince him not to wear his father's ring? Perhaps the Countess could have it stolen or physically removed—"

"I've tried," the Countess said grimly. "I wish I had had the ring destroyed when I had the chance." She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

"It is a ring of power," her mother said, "harder than you would think to destroy. If he is determined to wear it, and we can't take it from him, I don't see what I... Oh..."

Roxell closed her eyes, knowing her mother saw the path, knowing what her mother would do.

When Roxell opened her eyes again, she saw the Countess was looking up at Melan with hope in her ravaged face. "You can break the spell?"

"I can," Melan said gently, stroking the woman's blonde hair.

"Is it hard?"

Melan nodded. "Yes. There is always a price."

"I'll pay anything. Books, jewels—"

"It isn't your price to pay, Countess." Melan looked up at Roxell, her eyes clear, with no sign of fear or sorrow or regret. She looked content. "Roxell, my child, will you fetch me my silver box?"

Her silver box? Roxell had seen the box, of course, in the lean-to where her mother kept her most precious treasures. Yet never, in all the time Roxell could remember, had her mother opened it. Curiosity consumed her as she went to fetch it. Roxell found herself irritated. She had been so certain she saw the future.

When she returned, the long flat box cold in her hands, she was struck at how different her mother seemed. She still sat hunched in her chair, but her black eyes were bright and there was a lift to her chin that reminded Roxell of her old strength. With gnarled fingers that no longer trembled, Melan took the box, then opened the lid.

Inside, there was a broken hair comb made of some black material and several pieces of folded paper. With care, Melan fished out a sheet of paper, torn along one side. Then opened it.

"Roxell, can you fetch me a quill?"

Roxell did so wordlessly, baffled as to what her mother was doing.

Melan took the quill and dipped it in the ink bottle Roxell held for her, then, painstakingly, wrote several words at the bottom of the page. From where Roxell stood, she could not read the spidery scrawl above her mother's words, but she could read her mother's elegant script: "Melan, the Tarot Queen."

Melan handed the quill back to Roxell, then pulled a pin from her hair. With one sharp movement, Melan pricked her thumb and then pushed the skin of the thumb up to force out a drop of blood. She pressed her thumb to the paper behind the name.

Roxell looked to the Countess for clarification, but the Countess seemed just as confused.

After folding it again, Melan held it out to the Countess. "You must take this to the King," Melan said. "To his hands only and remind him of his promise to me seventeen years ago. Go carefully and swiftly. He must act before your son's name day."

"But that is the day after tomorrow!"

Melan closed her eyes. "Then you must waste no time. Did you come up here alone?"

The Countess shook her head. "Have your escort help you," Melan said implacably. "I'm sorry. It will be treacherous in the dark, but the night is clear and the moon is full. You must talk to the King as soon as you can. There is so little time. Be safe. You carry your son's life in your hands."

The Countess looked down at the paper in her hand, and then nodded, pulling herself to her feet. With new purpose, she opened the door, Roxell a shadow at her back, filled with questions. At the door, the Countess turned abruptly, and briefly touched Roxell's cheek. "You... You have the look of your father."

Roxell nodded. "So does your son."

And the Countess was gone.

When Roxell had barred the door and returned to her mother, she found Melan asleep in her chair, a look of peace on her face. Roxell spread her mother's bedroll, than lifted her slight weight easily and put her to bed, wishing she understood what had happened.

Had Roxell misunderstood the implications? Had her mother found another path? What had been on that paper she had sent with the Countess?

All of her questions would have to wait until the next morning.

But, when Roxell woke, her mother was already up, shuffling around the fire. Roxell couldn't find a way to voice the questions that plagued her. Her mother was lively and spoke at length about the parts of the world she'd seen, about people she'd met, about everything but what had happened the day before. And she said nothing about their life together.

Roxell had been so certain that the only chance for Roland was for her mother to take her own life. She'd half expected her mother to jump from the summit some time in the night. Yet, her mother seemed relaxed, happy. What had Roxell missed? And what was on that paper? Was there a solution that would not cost Roxell her mother?

It was nearly noon and Roxell was helping her mother back to her chair when her mother stroked Roxell's riotous black hair lovingly and said, "Let's go outside."

Roxell swallowed her heart. Her mother had never stepped outside, not in Roxell's memory. She wanted to protest, to argue, but her throat was constricted. "It's cold outside," she managed at last.

"Only for a few moments," her mother insisted. "I want to tell you a story."

Roxell wrapped her mother's shawl more closely about her thin shoulders, and opened the front door. Somehow, she knew her mother had not intended that they go out into the tiny back yard. Without hesitation, her mother stepped across the path at the door toward the edge of a sheer drop that overlooked the treacherous climb to their cabin. But she made no move to jump.

Instead, she stooped and, using Roxell's support, managed to seat herself at the edge, her feet dangling above the abyss. She patted the ground next to her. "Sit, Roxell."

Roxell did, more confused than ever. "What did you have to tell me?"

"Several things. Several things I should have told you long ago if I hadn't been so preoccupied with self-pity. I've been lucky, so blessed beyond my desserts to have a daughter like you, to have had so many years to spend with you."

"Mother—"

"I wanted to tell you that things you do, good and bad, have consequences, often consequences far beyond what you expect. I wanted to tell you that selfishness and impetuous anger can haunt you to the end of your days."

"Mother, I don't understand what you're talking about."

"I'd never really thought about any hurt I'd caused his wife. Never thought about it once in all these years. I should have, and yet, even today, I can't regret what brought me a day of joy and you, my wonderful, glorious child. I should have treasured that instead of reacting in spite and jealousy, or it might never have come to this."

"Mother, that paper yesterday, what was it?"

"When the old king brought me to his court to answer for the death of his general, I left with his price for his reading—a reading he interpreted to suit himself. When his wife came with her question, I had her promise for a reprieve from death for one person. I used that reprieve to spare my life. I never imagined that, someday, I would be using the other promise on myself as well." She took Roxell's hand. "I love you, my child."

"What was the promise?"

"A death of my choosing."

Roxell never even heard the arrow that pierced her mother's heart. As if time itself had slowed, she saw her mother lean forward and then fall from the edge of the precipice. It was all Roxell could do to maintain her place.

Finally, the spell was broken.

Long live the new Tarot Queen.

**Where Credit Is Due**

Since the door to Dante da Silva's office was slightly ajar, Captain Hollis Corber didn't hesitate to shove his way in, calling, "Dante!" Knowing Dante, perhaps hesitation would have been wiser. A pretty woman, her clothing still in disarray, was bent over Dante, kissing him. She squawked and gathered her unfastened clothing about herself before hustling from the room.

"I say, Dante," Hollis said, with some censure. "If you must dally in your office, have the sense to lock the door. What if I had come in whilst you both were naked?"

Dante, who had yet to move from his position—tipped back in his chair, his booted feet propped up on the desk—raised a sculpted brow the color of fire. "I dare say you would have been embarrassed."

" _I_ would have been embarrassed?" Hollis sputtered. "What about you?"

"We've soldiered together some years. You've already seen me naked as I've seen you." Dante said with twinkling eyes. " _I_ was never the one embarrassed, Scruffy."

"Do stop calling me that," Hollis muttered, as always. blushing at the reference to his unusual profusion of body hair. Hollis prided himself on the care with which dressed, precise and perfect, a contrast to the careless way Dante wore the same uniform. "What about the girl?"

"What about her?"

Hollis rolled his eyes. "Embarrassed by being caught naked unexpectedly?"

"Well," Dante said, in that reasonable tone that rarely failed to rub Hollis the wrong way, "I don't see why that should be my problem. If she comes into a man's public office and propositions him, seems to me it's up to her to lock the door if being caught would upset her."

"You didn't pay her to come?"

Dante did chuckle at this. "Scruffy, when have you ever known me to pay for sex?"

And it was true, the bastard. Not that Dante wasn't striking: flaming red locks that tumbled around a chiseled pale face with eyes the color of wine. Dante was tall and well-built and the negligent way he wore his uniform only made him more appealing, though why that was so Hollis had yet to understand. More importantly, Dante showed as little solicitude for the throngs of women that approached him as he did for anyone else, including his military superiors, yet they thronged anyway.

"So, Scruffy, did you have something to tell me or did you just feel the need to deliver a homily on my general dissipation?"

"You could use one, though it wouldn't do a mite of good. No, Dante, I was thinking about the next offensive."

"Good Gods, why? Any intelligent notion will be undermined by Isen and his total lack of viable strategy. If we manage to work around it, he'll take all the credit. If his policies fail, as they undoubtedly will if left unchecked, he'll pass the blame.

Hollis turned and locked the door. Dante appeared to be amused. "You're not going to argue with me on that point, are you?"

"How can I?" Hollis said. "That's why I came to you. No one has managed to keep his soldiers out of General Isen-induced harm better than you have and yet avoid censure or blame. I need you to help me convince Isen to see things my way."

"And your way would be...?" Dante reached a long arm over the side of his chair and stroked the most hideous cat Hollis had ever seen. The cat appeared to pay Dante no mind, but maneuvered to be stroked several times as if by accident. The monstrosity regarded Hollis coldly with its single milky golden eye, and Hollis did his best to ignore it. Dante's attachment to the creature was of long standing, unshakeable, and unacknowledged by all involved.

"Look, the Tensars landed off Bollybrood three weeks ago, correct? And, instead of marching directly over to fight them when they landed—though we'd been warned by our spies beforehand—we've been twiddling our thumbs here at the capitol when we should be well on our way to stop them. They haven't moved since Castle Fordren overlooks the pass and makes it dangerous even for a sizeable army but they've had plenty of time to set up to their own advantage against our attack. And their long-range archers are among the best in the world."

"Isen was waiting to bring my heavy artillery from the Northern pass. He figured that could counter their archers."

"Which is stupid, Dante. There's no way to use it to our advantage against the Tensars since the valley they're holed up in is sheltered from the only vantage point and, if we manage to flub our attack, they'll have the very weapons— _your_ weapons—that can threaten Castle Fordren."

Dante dropped his legs to the floor. "And I presume you told Isen this."

Hollis frowned. "Well, yes."

Dante threw back his head and laughed, the big hearty full-throated laughter he was known for. "I'd have given a great deal to see that."

"I'm not wrong," Hollis insisted.

"Of course you're not, but it makes no never mind to Isen. In fact, if you're right, it's all the more reason why he'll shut you down."

Hollis shook his head. Dante's logic, which had yet to fail, often made his head hurt. "That makes no sense."

The hideous cat leapt—somehow—to the desktop and rubbed itself against the arm Dante propped his chin on. "It makes no sense if he's trying to actually prevail," Dante explained. "But he doesn't care about that, or about preserving his men, or even keeping his country safe. He only wants to look good and, if he can make someone else, _preferably you_ , look bad at the same time, even better. But we both already know all this. What's your idea?"

"If I were the Tensars, I'd set up in the marsh just out from the bay. I could still retreat if beset, but I could fortify myself quite well against our strengths: cavalry and artillery with yours hampered by the boggy ground and lack of vantage and my horses hampered by the same ground and facing spear defenses that will hurt us more than them. My guess is Isen will send us ahead of the regular troops where we'll be at the greatest disadvantage and effectively useless, with high casualties."

"Granted. Your idea?"

"The bay is a caldera of an old volcano that blew away ages ago. If we circle around, behind Castle Fordren, we can come in on the lip of stone behind them, where' they'll likely have less fortification and where we can also cut off their escape. And we can take out the archers that would help decimate us if we'd attacked head-on. That will also reduce losses with the infantry who likely will be attacking head-on. "

Dante nodded. "Sound thinking. You should do that, Scruffy."

"Don't call me Scruffy. So you'll help me convince Isen?"

"Convince Isen? You'll never convince Isen. And, whatever you do, don't mention it to him."

"What? How can I do this if I don't get Isen to back the plan?"

Dante shook his head. "We've a strategy meeting this afternoon. Watch and learn. In fact, promise me you won't say a word."

*

General Cordoban Isen, of course, was the last one there. He was a short man, otherwise favoring the original renowned Black Count whose title he'd inherited, along with the original's arrogance, curling black hair and amethyst eyes. All of his officers awaited, arrayed in their formal garb, well, except Dante who had not even bothered with a cravat.

Isen paused at the door to glare at the mangy cat licking its own nether region at Dante's feet. "Major da Silva!" Isen barked. "What is your cat doing in here?"

Dante returned Isen's glare with one of guileless surprise. "I don't know what you're talking about, Isen," Dante said, forgoing Isen's rank as Dante did with everyone. "I don't have a cat. I despise pets." The matted monstrosity finished licking its filthy underside and began stropping itself back and forth on Dante's boot.

Isen set his teeth. "What is that _thing_ doing in my war room?"

Dante looked down at his boot as if he had never before seen the ugly cat that had been his constant companion for years. "I have no idea." He paused and cocked his head, then shook it. "It does not appear to be a telepathic cat." Someone in the back of the room snorted, then tried to cover it with a cough.

No one wins an argument with Dante. Hollis could have laughed himself if he didn't realize antagonizing Isen could hardly work to keep his own men safe. _Damn it, Dante!_

"Da Silva, report!" Isen said stiffly, swallowing his own ire.

"Transport of the heavy equipment is nearly complete. It should be set up in place by the day after tomorrow. If we ride tonight, we can attack at dawn the following day."

Isen grinned. "Excellent. Shall we discuss the battle plan?"

"Absolutely," Dante said with a similar smile. "I was hoping you'd tell us the kind of battle plan you had in mind. Save us a lot of useless chatter to hear it directly from you."

Isen nodded as if this is just the sort of thing he expected, but Hollis' hackles went up immediately. _What were you scheming, Dante? If Isen gives us orders, we'll have no opportunity to change anything! He'll never even contemplate a different opinion. Even_ I _know that._

Hollis glanced around and saw other officers look similarly pained, but none said anything because Isen was talking. "My thought, since we have the advantage in numbers and equipment and since they have no cavalry to speak of, is to attack head on. We'll answer their archers with our artillery and Hollis and his cavalry will bowl right through there leaving the various infantry units very little to do but to clean up the mess."

Several men gasped at the stupidity. Hollis might have done so himself if he hadn't foreseen such an ill-conceived plan.

One of the infantry commanders, a newer one whose name Hollis didn't recall, spoke up. "Won't the marshy ground be a challenge for the artillery?"

Isen opened his mouth for a blistering retort, but Dante forestalled him. "Never fear, my friend. I have found a vantage point of great benefit. We'll be fine."

Several shoulders drooped. Only Dante had the slightest chance of changing Isen's mind, if only because his war machine expertise and invention made him indispensable.

"B-but the Tensar ships? Can't they escape unharmed?" The new commander had a limited career if he kept this up.

Isen smiled sweetly. "That's the beauty of my plan. With one decisive blow, their army will be decimated. Then, who cares if the ships can escape? They'll have no army to speak of." He took a half step forward, intending, no doubt, to menace the young commander standing more than a head taller. "You're new, aren't you? Perhaps you should listen to seasoned officers before you make a fool of yourself."

Hollis glanced at the rest of the officers, all seasoned leaders, many with far more battles behind them than Isen had ever seen. The officers all looked distinctly uncomfortable, even tormented. Dante stepped in again. "I think it goes without saying that no officer who has a history with Isen would commit the folly of questioning his ideas."

Hollis' mouth hung open in surprise and his was hardly the only one. _No one flaunted Isen's plans like Dante_!

"I have to say, this may have been one of the most productive strategy meetings we've ever had, Isen," Dante continued, with a complete disregard for the truth. "I feel safe in saying we all know what best should be done for a victory two days, hence. Thank you, General Isen." Dante gave a little bow.

_Did Dante just dismiss General Isen?_ Hollis asked himself. Even if he hadn't meant to—and Hollis wouldn't put it past Dante—Dante had left Isen very little room to remain without considerable awkwardness.

Isen looked to be struggling with himself, but Dante's face was so friendly, so sincere, Isen apparently tabled his doubts, gave the tiniest bow with a boot click, and left.

The silence lasted only until the door snicked shut behind Isen. The various commanders descended on Dante with varying degrees of dismay or outrage, demanding to know how the meeting had ended with no viable options aired to counter Isen's proposal. Dante remained untouched, a calm—even smug—center to the maelstrom, for several moments until Colonel Casten all but accused Dante of sabotaging the forthcoming battle.

Dante bared his teeth in what no one could confuse with a smile and silence returned, every officer taking a step back. "You mean, I didn't allow everyone to voice their alternatives and clarifications to his plan for him to negate? For him to specifically order you not to do? Instead you know what he wants—decimation of the invaders—and he's given you leave to plan the most effective way to make it so by deferring to seasoned leaders. Which you all are. Now you can discuss among yourselves how best to deploy your various infantry units for the battle without worrying about sound decisions being negated for spurious reasons."

There was a pause as that sunk in.

"And, must I remind you, that there is not a single man among you that doesn't outrank me. It's fairly embarrassing, wouldn't you say, that you're looking to me to talk for you?"

Hollis felt that that was directed to him in particular and Dante reinforced that thinking by staring at him. Still, no one else answered either

"Well?" Dante pursued. "You've seen the intelligence reports, correct? You're familiar with Tensar tactics and the terrain? Or is planning a battle beyond you gentlemen?"

"Well, no," Casten said, in a far less contentious tone. "But what about the artillery?"

"The artillery was never required for this battle," Dante said. "Though I have found a use for it. However, I suggest you plan as if neither the artillery nor the cavalry is part of your plans."

"The cavalry? Captain Corber, what's the meaning of that? No cavalry?" Casten sputtered, but Hollis had no chance to respond.

Dante grabbed Hollis, whose head was spinning from the implications, and tugged him toward the door. "It means," Dante said, pulling inexorably, "that Scruffy and I have plans to optimize our use of both cavalry and artillery." With that, Hollis was yanked out the door and dragged down the hall toward Dante's office.

"Scruffy," Hollis heard before the door closed behind him. "Is that the cat?"

"Dante," Hollis gasped, but Dante ignored him until they were in Dante's office, where Dante pointedly locked the door. "What are you doing? How does that help me? You heard Isen. He wants me to lead my men into certain death. _Prompted_ by you."

"He didn't order you to do so and he _would have_ if you'd proposed your alternative."

"That's just semantics. It won't affect the infantry leaders since they can still act within the general confines of Isen's plan. But I can't."

"It's not semantics. It's culpable deniability. I asked Isen's thoughts; he gave them and we can take them for the advice they were. Damn it, Scruffy, he knows how to suck up to courtiers and the king, but he's dumb as a post. You can think circles around him and _will be able_ to if you'd just stop letting him pull your strings. It's not his choice whether or not you're a leader or a lackey; it's yours. You have ethics and intelligence. If you'd just become a vertebrate, you could take rightful command of this army."

"I don't see _you_ taking charge. You won't even let anyone promote you."

"I don't have any interest in being a leader, but that doesn't make me a lackey either." Dante said with a menacing flash of his teeth. "Grow a spine to rival that brain and you could be anything you want. The men who serve under you are _your_ responsibility. Are you going to throw their lives away when you have an alternative? When you know a way to make them effective? You work for Isen or the King?"

"Damn it, Dante, you _know_ that's what I want to do!"

"So, do it. Take your men behind Castle Fordren and swoop down at dawn, saving the day, which you'll definitely be doing. I've got other plans, myself."

"And what do you think Isen will say when I'm not where he wants me?" Hollis demanded.

"Who cares? _You_ won't be there and no one else will get in trouble because we haven't told them, _either_. And, when it's all over, and you have turned almost sure defeat into success, Isen can't destroy you for violating orders he never gave if he wants to try to take credit for your brilliance. Which, by the way, he'll do his damnedest to do. Don't let him, Scruffy. Make sure you take credit for it or you'll never get the respect you deserve."

"Will you stop calling me Scruffy?" Hollis asked him. "What kind of respect can I get if you're calling me Scruffy?"

"It grows on a person. You might end up using it yourself."

Hollis gave him what he hoped was a withering stare and opened the door, letting the horrid cat in as he let himself out.

*

Da Silva and Corber rode out with the cavalry ahead of the infantry, so Isen had every expectation to see them waiting for him when he arrived as the sun set on the eve of battle. But no. Not only were they not camped out waiting, but there was no sign they had ever been there or any indication of where they might be. Nor did any of his other officers have any insight.

To say Isen was put out would be an understatement. It wasn't the first time, of course, that Dante da Silva had flaunted his orders to suit himself, but he always managed to be so much more effective than expected that Isen was never in a position to censure him—at least, Isen couldn't censure da Silva's disobedience without advertising that the success owed little to Isen's own direction. But Hollis always toed the line. Dante, with his genius on weapons and tactics, was too precious to destroy. But Colonel Hollis Corber, Isen's own useless cousin, was another matter entirely.

In fact, that would suit Isen quite nicely. Corber, as a cousin, was another heir to the Black Count's legacy and, as long as Corber was alive with his reputation intact, he was a threat to Isen's own ambitions. With this unexpected bit of insubordination, Isen could rid himself of his awkward cousin once and for all.

And yet it galled him _. How dare the little nobody defy_ him!

As the sky began lightening prior to daybreak, Isen jaw ached from clenching. Still no sign of the bastards. _Where were they?_

"General Isen, what should we do?" Colonel Casten asked, after clearing his throat. Perhaps he'd had to ask more than once.

"What do you mean, what do we do?"

"Well, the Tensars appear to be far better fortified than we expected and their archers are arrayed behind them on that lip of rock that separates the battle field from the bay. If we get much closer than we are now, we'll be at their mercy long before we can reach their fortifications. We'll be slaughtered."

"Blame Colonel Corber. He should have been here!"

As if on cue, the cavalry bugle sounded echoing through the marshy valley: Charge!

There were only a few seconds of pounding hoof beats before the cavalry appeared by way of the pass from the back side of Castle Fordren _behind_ the fortifications that bristled with spears to repel them, bearing down on the lip of rock where the archers readied. Only a handful of archers managed to loose arrows before they were pounded by charging steeds and swords. The fortifications, intended to withstand a cavalry charge from the front, were open toward the back and, after trampling the archers, Corber and company began attacking them.

Isen stared for one pregnant moment, then, galvanized by his very prominent sense of self-preservation, told Colonel Casten, "Well, you heard them, charge! We've got the advantage." Casten's lieutenant sounded the attack and, it was only then that Isen realized his infantry leaders had positioned his men far differently than he would have envisioned. Isen had been too angry to notice, but it was too late now. They were committed.

The battle itself was anticlimactic. The Tensars, who'd studied Isen's methods, had prepared well to counter them, but were ill-prepared for improvisation. By the time Isen's infantry was well engaged, retreat was already being called for, but hampered by the Corber's cavalry that harried their escape route.

Isen, trotting up on his horse as the danger ebbed, reached the lip of the rock behind the fortification to watch scattered remnants of a sizeable army take to long boats. He huffed out a breath angrily. "And where the hell is da Silva?" he griped just as a large load of small boulders crashed into one of the ships waiting out in the bay, sinking it in one shot. Another trebuchet took out a sister ship, leaving a half dozen ships intact, which were weighing anchor with dispatch and appeared ready to abandon the long boats. Da Silva's trebuchets never gave them the chance.

Isen's force could not have been more triumphant and Isen made sure his smile was brilliant as he reviewed his troops prior to their return to the capital. But, inside, he seethed. Corber's successful rear attack made him as untouchable as da Silva.

What was most important now was to get back to the capital as soon as possible and ensure that the credit for this spectacular victory fall on Isen, and not the rogues, da Silva and Corber.

With that thought firmly in mind, Isen departed as soon as possible with a handful of officers most likely to follow his lead no matter what, leaving the rest of his officers for clean up and prisoner detail.

He might not be able to touch Corber, but he was going to make sure he stole the glory.

*

When Isen was ushered into the feasting hall, having clearly ridden hard and pausing only to change his filthy garments, Hollis was hard pressed not to laugh out loud at his expression to find Dante and Hollis, with two of Hollis' officers, already sitting at the King's table and regaling him with stories from the short battle. Isen sketched the smallest bow and sat down in what could only be called a huff.

Dante didn't even pause. "So, after the strategy session, it occurred to me that the best use of the artillery was on that ridge behind Castel Fordren where they could eliminate the Tensar armada at will. But taking the cavalry to sidestep the Tensar defenses and crush their archers, well that was Scruffy's idea."

Hollis sat still in shock. _Did Dante just describe him to the King as "Scruffy"?_

The King was also confused. "Scruffy?" His eyes strayed to the mangy creature, Dante's disavowed feline, who had stolen some goose liver from Dante's plate and was eating it with relish.

"That cat may be ugly, but it's amazing," Hollis' own officer said.

The Queen, a pretty thing several decades the King's junior, furrowed her brow. "You take advice from your cat for battle?"

Isen's face broke into a smile. It occurred to Hollis that Isen would be happier giving credit to Dante's dilapidated cat than to Hollis and felt his own face heat.

"Not _my_ cat," Dante explained. "I don't actually have a cat."

The Queen regarded the cat in surprise, a regard the ugly cat returned with its single eye. Dante, following her vision, said, "Why yes there is a cat, one I've seen about frequently, but he's not mine and, if he were inclined to military tactics, he has yet to share them with me."

Isen, his smarmy smile on his face, added, "I hear he's not telepathic."

Dante's smile was undimmed. "Exactly so."

"So," the King persevered. "Who's the mastermind behind this brilliant victory? Who is this Scruffy?"

Corber leapt to his feet, goaded as much by the smug look on Isen's face as anything. "Damn it, I'm Scruffy! It was my idea."

"And a damn fine one it was," Dante agreed. "And," he told all the officers at the table with utmost gravity, "it is essential that, as Colonel Corber himself insists, we always remember that _he_ is Scruffy."

As the accolades and praise he richly deserved bounced off him, Hollis had to wonder if Dante had orchestrated this entire event just to get Hollis to acknowledge the nickname.

But then he spared a glance to see Isen fuming, and felt himself warm with the praise. Maybe he had a moniker he hated, but the credit was all his at long last.

A win for Scruffy.

About the Author

"We're all mad here." - Lewis Caroll

My name is Stephanie Barr and I write books, fantasy and science fiction and combinations thereof. A lot of them. My website (with my list of books available) can be found at stephanieebarr.us. I'm also a rocket scientist, raising my two autistic children as a single mother, and herding a bunch of cats. I have three blogs, which are sporadically updated: Rocket Scientist, Rockets and Dragons, and The Unlikely Otaku. Anything else even vaguely interesting about me can be found in my writing since I put a little bit of myself in everything I write—just not the same piece. Those pieces are all parts of my characters such as:

**A four hundred year old shut-in who reads fortunes and a care-for-nobody demon with a scruffy cat** [Tarot Queen]

A **mercenary swordsman cum sorcerer and a rule-abiding self-assured sorceress/warrior who never asks for help, and, of course, six snarky telepathic kittens**. [Curse of the Jenri] or

**A clever thoughtful young man who thinks he's weak who can turn into a dragon and a sweet generous young healer who knows her own worth and wields a dangerous wooden spoon** [Beast Within \- Bete Book 1] or

**A pugnacious firebrand who can think well in a crisis but feels in the shadow of his foster brother and a sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued engineer with a lightning temper and even quicker mind with even more snarky telepathic kittens**. [Nine Lives \- Bete Book 2] or

**A clever teen pursuing an older woman finds himself and all his friends captured by unfriendly natives who rip his powers away with their potions so he'll have to use his brain to escape as a self-righteous snake finds his notions challenged first by a tiny psychic kitten, then by a native of indeterminant gender.** [Twice the Man – Bete Book 3] or

**A teenage technological genius, short on social skills but long on dedication to those he loves and a scrappy girl who punches first and asks question later** [Saving Tessa] or

**A by-the-book analyst finds herself on the wrong side of the government she's always worked for and, with her crazy companion, takes it down. **[Ideal Insurgent **]** or

**A dragon-raised hermity mage who's given up on the world and a former slave who doesn't know the meaning of the word impossible** [Taming of Dracul Morsus] or

**A rocket scientist who finds a moment of anger turns into changing the world and she needs to do more or it will fall to darkness and she has a number of crazy men to help her** [Catalyst] or

**A repressed scholar finds the ultimate treasure, a library where the books can literally take you into other words. Coming back, however, is something else.** [The Library at Castle Herriot] or

L **iterally dozens of other characters in my anthologies** [Legacy and Conjuring Dreams: Learning to Write by Writing] **and my book of poetry** [Musings of a Nascent Poet]. **And many more feline friends to find in** Pussycats Galore **, another anthology.**

Website: http://stephanieebarr.us

Twitter: <http://twitter.com/stephanieebarr>

Facebook: <https://www.facebook.com/stephanieebarr>

Smashwords: <https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/786144>

My blog: http://stephanie-barr.blogspot.com

Or sign up for my newsletter: <http://eepurl.com/dqUBxn>

**Preview of** Tarot Queen

### One - X Wheel of Fortune

Something that defies comprehension will fascinate an intelligent mind, just as it will repel a fool.

-Wisdom of the Ancients: A Tarot Queen's Guide

Roxell rose wearily from the cushion before her tarot table. She was not in pain. Her body might have been more than four hundred years old, but there was no sign of age on her smooth skin or in her youthful joints. But she was exhausted...and bored.

The days melded into one another, filled with supplicants and their increasingly inane and repetitive questions. The longer she knelt there, turning over her cards or gazing into the crystal balanced on its amethyst base, the less she cared about the answers or the people who asked for them.

She'd spent too long living unfinished and unfulfilled, trapped for what seemed eternity in this tiny house, the extent of her world. It wasn't an uncomfortable existence or house. The house had been sturdily built of granite, as solid as when it had been first constructed four centuries before. It was simple, but well-crafted. In return for her voluntary exile within its walls, the kings and queens of Zamor throughout her life had ensured the roof remained intact and effective and that the wooden door remained in good repair and was replaced when needed.

There was only the one room, with a fireplace, a pantry, a rocking chair her mother had once used, floor cushions, the tarot table, and a cushioned sleeping mat she rolled up during the day. There were shelves all along the wall, housing her large collection of books and, in places, a few of her gleaming treasures. Her real treasures, the cards she had created herself, the crystal her mother had left her, were on the short teak table with its cloth of amethyst silk. Her clothes and other treasures, mostly gifts and payment for her readings, were in the lean-to out back where once she'd slept as a child before her mother had died so very long ago.

She latched the door and stepped into the center of the room. She arched herself backward and stretched, touching the floor behind her. The voluminous garment of shimmering purple silk billowed about her as she straightened again. With relief, she pulled the kaftan over her head.

And heard the door open and close.

Roxell jerked her head up, her garment released to drift in brilliant folds at her bare feet. "How dare you enter my home!"

The man leaning against the closed door made no secret of his interest and leisurely examined her head to toe. His eyes wandered over shimmering black hair, lingered over her pointed face with its upturned nose and odd violet eyes, its flawless skin the color of black walnut, the strange crescent moon of pure silver embedded in her forehead. She saw him note the almost imperceptible birthmark on her neck, before traveling down her form, scantily covered in a black linen chemise that ended mid-thigh. She knew her sweat glued it to her body so that there was little left to the imagination. By the smile on his face, she had no doubt his mind had supplied all that wasn't readily visible.

When he made no move to explain his actions or retreat, Roxell reached to the stand beside the tarot table and unsheathed the sword there, holding it protectively in front of her. "Leave at once!"

If anything, his grin widened and he tipped his head to the side, appreciatively. "Oh, I really don't see that happening," he said, his voice deep and vibrant, velvety soft. He straightened and took a step further into the room, eyes the color of burgundy intent on her own. "So this is _your_ house, is it? Lovely. My day is definitely looking up."

"The door was latched!"

"Was it?"

He stood more than a head taller than she was, dressed in the long woolen coat of the army officer. His trappings picked out in silver, he was obviously of high rank. Still, instead of the normal cravat, meticulously tied, his coat and shirt below gaped open to reveal the wink of gems and gold. His uncovered chestnut hair, much longer than usual, spilled down to his shoulders in artless curls. The red in the hair brought out the fairness in his clean-shaven face. His chin was also pointed, his face and nose thin, but his lips full. And those eyes, those smoldering wine-colored eyes seem to look right through her, like he saw the essential Roxell, the soul even she had lost touch with in her decades—centuries—of boredom. He was a very disturbing and unusually beautiful man.

Needs, dormant since forever, began to stir within her, but she set them aside. There was something..."Who are you?"

He bowed instantly, the mocking smile never leaving his lips. "Dante da Silva at your service, my lovely." Disregarding the bared sword completely, he took two more strides forward and caught her chin in his long slim fingers. "Beautiful lady, will you not tell me your name?"

The sword tip fell to the floor and he easily wrested the sword from her numb fingers with one hand. The fingers at her chin moved lightly upward as he spread his hand along her cheek and took yet another half step closer. The sword he tossed, point down, in a floor pillow, where it stood. He towered over her, just a breath away, and she had to tip her head back to see his face. She felt dazed until she remembered that she was no tavern wench and stiffened her spine. She glared at him and jerked her head back from his caressing fingers. "I am the Tarot Queen!"

"Interesting name," he said, uncowed, brushing the back of his fingers against her cheek. "May I call you 'Queen'? Or do you prefer TQ? The whole is such a mouthful."

"I have not given you permission to touch me."

The back of one knuckle continued its exploration, brushing a few times over the birthmark on her neck. "Quite true, my dear. You have a beautiful neck, so slim. I could almost circle it with just one hand." She slapped his hand away, and his grin widened in response, crinkling the corners of his eyes.

Obediently, yet with the air of someone humoring another, he took a step back. "Come now, won't you tell me your name?"

But she had caught a glimpse of color as he'd stepped away, and she followed him, pulling back his shirt from his neck so she could see the runes, writ in glowing red ink, upon his chest. She sucked air in noisily and dropped his shirt as if it were aflame. "You're a demon!" Her curiosity outweighed her dread, so she ran her finger along one of the runes instead of retreating. She hissed at the heat. "Freshly so, too. Did you sleep with a demoness recently?"

"Well, that's not how she introduced herself, but it's certainly possible. I did notice these tattoos after a largely forgettable interlude. I do believe hers were gone, but I hardly think it matters." He tipped her face toward him with a finger under her chin. "Did I tell you you could go touching my chest?"

Roxell felt the blood staining her cheeks. "Sorry. It's just that I've never met one of the soulless up close."

"Ouch," he said, laughing. "What a horrible thing to say! Absolutely true, of course, but still cutting. And I'm sure you've met soulless before, especially if you have a sign outside your door pronouncing your calling. I bet you've had a veritable parade of soulless nothings who've come here hoping you predict a life for them instead of making one of their own."

The accuracy of that observation startled her and she stepped back. "Why have _you_ come? What is _your_ question?"

"What makes you think I have one?"

"Of course you have a question, uh, Lord da Silva. Everyone who comes here has a question."

"Oh, well then, I suppose I must have a question. And, do call me Dante." He had reached down to retrieve her discarded robe and slid it between his fingers. "This is lovely material, my dear, but the style couldn't suit your stunning form. Really, you should wear something different. Or nothing at all."

"Hand it to me."

He flashed his teeth at her again, his eyes pulsing with red light. "I don't think so, lovely. You make quite a pretty picture as you are now."

She contemplated taking it by force for he seemed slender for all his height. He was an officer, she reminded herself, and he carried himself as one well aware of his strength. She called upon her innate dignity. "Do you want your question answered or not?"

"By all means."

She turned and knelt on her cushion in front of the tarot table, gathering up her cards. With a jerk of her chin, she indicated the cushion that faced her from the other side of the table. He laughed and dropped, cross-legged, to the pillow.

Roxell reached across the table, hand open. "What will you pay me? There is always a price."

"Isn't there, though? You _are_ a truthful one." He made no move to reach into his purse that bulged at his belt. At his neck, a heavy pendant embossed with a dragon on a star glistened in silver and three different shades of gold. The pendant was studded with ruby and garnet. He made no move to remove that either.

Normally, she set the price and often challenged the questioner to produce something he would not willingly part with to ensure he was committed to his question. Still, she could not bring herself to ask for the pendant and knew not what else to ask for. "Come, come, there is no fortune to be read without the price paid in advance." What would he part with? She couldn't read him. Usually discerning the question and the best price was no challenge for her. But she had no insight into him at all and found her curiosity piqued by his opacity. What would he offer?

Her hands had been shuffling the deck as she studied him, and he surprised her by nipping the cards from her hands so swiftly she never saw it. He fanned the cards before him and whistled. "What exquisite artistry! Did you make this deck yourself?"

"Yes." There was another deck in the lean-to that her mother had once manipulated but their power had died with her. "Please, return them."

He had the deck pressed between his hands, and his eyes, and what tattoos she could see, glowed so brightly they blinded her for a moment. With a half-smile, he returned her cards with a flourish. "Your payment."

She glanced at her deck and gasped. The deck had been transformed. On the back, the cards, now slick and stiff instead of worn paper, were embossed with an exquisite pattern of a dragon silhouetted against a full moon, but the faces of the cards were all blank. "You have erased them!"

"Nay, beloved Queen, I have done nothing of the kind. They are enchanted. You need only use them for a reading and you'll see what I mean." His smile and his eyes were warm. "Trust me."

She _wanted_ to trust him, and that thought was disturbing in and of itself. She sighed. "What is your question?"

"What is your name?"

"You did not climb the mountain just to ask me my name!"

"How do you know?"

"I do not need the cards to tell you my name."

He brushed a finger along the back of her hand and set it to tingling. "Ah, my lovely, then tell me."

"I'll do nothing of the kind. What is your question?"

He grinned. "You're the seer. What do you think my question is? Answer the question you think I would ask you."

She tried to examine him sternly, but she felt compassion stir within her. Poor man, she felt for him, seduced and abandoned, his soul forfeit. He put on a brave face, but, clearly, he was confused. Unbidden, she felt the urge to reach across the table and touch his face but squelched it. He was handsome, of course, but he was compelling as well. His eyes were so intent, so intelligent, so close...

She blinked. While she had been studying him, he'd leaned over the little table, his hand stealing to her cheek, his eyes closing, and, even now, she could feel his breath on her own lips. What would it feel like to be finally kissed...?

What was she thinking? A Tarot Queen was allowed only one lover, one not to be taken lightly as it meant the end of her youth. She shook her head and slapped him away, "What are you doing? You're supposed to be focusing!"

He retreated obediently, cradling his slapped cheek. "Kissing helps me concentrate."

"Liar!" she retorted automatically, then, when he didn't remove his hand from his cheek, added guiltily, "Did I hurt you?"

He laughed, and his low laughter was warm and infectious. "Not hardly. I was just treasuring your third voluntary contact with me. I'm finding you utterly adorable, and I can safely say I've never used that word to describe anyone before in my life."

He wasn't just confused; he was confusing her. "How did the demoness seduce you?"

With a lifted eyebrow as if she had surprised him, he shrugged. "She came into the tavern last night, suggestively clad, somewhat beautiful if not particularly remarkable but for the strange red tattoos. She sidled up to me and propositioned me with acts that are illegal in the provinces, and I took her up on them." He shrugged again. "I was bored, but really the entire event was completely forgettable. If I had climbed up here tomorrow instead of today, I doubt I would have even remembered it." He chuckled at the memory. "It was so dull, I doubt not the other tavern patrons have already forgotten it."

"You took her right there, in a public tavern?"

"I might have." Laughter lit up his eyes. "Does that bother you?"

It _did_ bother her, much more than she could say. She was enraged, not because of the lack of sexual ethics so much as the thought of someone else sliding against him. And she felt something else as well that was at least as disturbing—arousal. Her hands shuffled the cards as she fought through her emotions, adjusting surprisingly quickly to the different feel of the transformed cards.

Lounging now, with an elbow on the stone floor, he observed, "You know, I can see everything you feel on your face."

Not good. Schooling her features to impassivity, she shuffled the cards. "Does—does that sort of thing happen to you often?"

His grin returned. "You'd be surprised." Effortlessly, he rolled back to a sitting position. "Look, lovely, I'm happy to spend all day telling you every sordid detail of a life that, until twenty minutes ago, was painfully dull, but you said something about answering my question. I wasn't quite expecting the invasive interrogation. I'm becoming positively intrigued at what question you think I came up here to answer. Or you could tell me your name to make up for all the private things you wanted to learn from me. Which will it be?"

She closed her eyes to focus her power, breathing in and out as she'd been taught. When she opened them again, intent on her reading, she intoned, "How can Lord da Silva regain his soul?" She pulled four cards in succession and laid them, facedown, on the table. "The Questioner, Past, Present, Future." With steady fingers, she turned over the first card and stared in dismay at the blank face.

Before her eyes, a picture formed on the ivory card surface. Dante da Silva grinned at her beneath a heading in spidery script proclaiming, "I The Magician." As she stared, the image winked at her and laughed with the same rich laughter as the original. Swords in hand, the image performed for her, first a graceful blindingly-fast dance she had no doubt would have been deadly on the battlefield. Then, with practiced flicks of the wrist, he threw projectiles that exploded in noisy clouds of fiery death. She could actually smell the gunpowder. Finally, with that same grin, he juggled fireballs for her and winked again, the heat touching her face.

His voice across the table startled her. "You'll have to tell me what they show. I have linked them so only you can see them. So, who am I?"

"The magician."

He laughed. "That's hardly a surprise. Are you going to turn over another card?"

She tore her eyes from da Silva, now riding in some sort of metal contraption, and turned over the next card. "Past," she reminded him and waited for the image to come up. Beneath the heading, "XV The Devil," da Silva again appeared, but no longer performing for her pleasure but rather fighting in earnest, on battlefields, burning his way through villages. A parade of pretty women in various states of undress flitted on and off the surface of the card as well as a bevy of treasures. She cleared her throat. "Your past life has been dominated by violence, pursuit of physical pleasures, materiality. You've cared nothing for the damage you've done in pursuit of these pleasures."

"Ah." A frown formed between his brows as he studied her face. "My past disgusts you. That disturbs me."

Again, she schooled her features and turned over the next card, "Present." Almost instantly, the card proclaimed, "XIII Death" and she gasped, but the card manifested nothing more than a violet starburst beneath the heading. "Odd, the card says death, but I don't think it means death literally."

"I very much doubt it," he agreed.

"Instead, it would seem to be some sort of change, a transformation, perhaps a rebirth, but there's no picture to clarify it. It might be so recent or so immediate so that the transformation specifics are unknown or the final results are in doubt."

A slight smile, not mocking but affectionate, touched his lips. "Surely not in doubt."

She stared at him intently. "Could this be the transformation from the demoness?"

"Who?" he asked politely.

But, she was already turning over the last card. This card would indicate a solution to his question, if, indeed, there was one. The image formed almost instantly again. Before her shocked eyes, she saw herself, locked in da Silva's arms, her mouth devoured by his own. Nor was the desire one-sided for her hands were fisted in his hair, her body arched to meet his lips now burning a trail down her throat as she wrapped her legs around him. She moaned his name, "Dante," and he answered with guttural endearments with one hand gripping her butt and the other clenched in her hair.

She didn't need to read the heading to know what it said. "VI The Lovers."

