Dreams of Lightning and Black Earth "One Deep Ettin killed with hot oil and dragged from its tunnel at Northmarch was more than twice the height of a man. King Lander later brought the bones back to Syan as a trophy.The monster's hand was said to have been as large as Lander's great shield." -from "A Treatise on the Fairy Peoples of Eion and Xand" SHE WAS DIGGING DESPERATELY through dark earth, but every time she caught a glimpse of her twin brother's pale, sleeping face he sank farther into the soil and out of her reach.
Once or twice she actually managed to touch his garments before he slid deeper into the ground, but no matter how hard she worked or how fast she threw aside the dirt she could not catch up to him. Barrick seemed alive but unaware of her, writhing as though trapped in a frightening dream. She called to him over and over but he wouldn't or couldn't answer.
She touched something at last and her fingers curled in the damp cloth of her brother's shirt, but when she braced herself and pulled up hard, what appeared out of the black loam like the cap of a mushroom was not her brother's pallid features but those of Ferras Vansen. Shocked and startled, she let go, but as the soldier disappeared back into the dirt the earth beneath her abruptly collapsed as well. She fell down into smothering, gritty dark.
She was in a tunnel, bits of white roots worming down from the rocky soil above her head. A flash of silver now appeared ahead of her-just a glimmer, but enough for her to recognize the thing she had chased before… in another…
When? She couldn't remember. But she knew it was true, and knew that the silvery thing had eluded her once more. She was determined it would not happen again. Still, although she scrambled after it as quickly as she could, she was not meant for traveling on all fours while the thing she chased clearly was: it remained always a turn ahead of her, giving her only glimpses of a pale, fluttering, brushlike tail.
Then she stumbled and bumped against the wall. The tunnel fell in on her and Briony Eddon woke up.
She shook her head, disconcerted to find she was wearing a heavy headdress-why would she wear such a thing to bed? Briony opened her eyes to find herself in her sitting room. Her ladies were sewing and talking quietly among themselves. She had fallen asleep sitting up, in midday, and probably drooled on herself as well like some ancient crone.
Her friend Ivgenia was watching her with a little smile on her face. Briony hurriedly wiped at her chin. "How terrible I am, how rude!" she said, sitting up straight. "I must have dozed off. Why do you look at me so, Ivvie? Did I say something terrible in my sleep?"
"Oh, Highness, no." The smile widened. "Poor thing. Too many late nights."
"You're teasing me. It was only one late night-and it was the last night of Greater Zosimia. You are the one always telling me I should go out and be seen by the people of the court."
"And you were seen. And you even danced! No one will ever again criticize you for holding yourself aloof, my dear."
"Danced? " Briony winced a little. She had intended no such thing, but the revelries had come at the end of a long, tiring day and she had clearly taken at least one cup of wine too many. "You make it sound terrible. Did I make a fool of myself?"
Ivvie smiled again. "You attracted much attention, but it was the sort many of the other girls envied, I think."
"Stop. You are cruel."
"We shall see. Your secretary has a few things for you to look at."
"What? " She really did feel terribly thick-headed. These nights of poor sleep and strange dreams-forests, digging, dark tunnels full of roots-were clearly taking a toll on her. Still, that was no excuse for playing the fool.
Feival Ulian had been standing in the doorway with his arms folded on his chest. He had taken to court life very quickly: no other secretary or cleric in Broadhall dressed so well or so colorfully. "Have we finished our little beauty nap?" he asked. "Because there are several messages awaiting your reply-and a few other things as well." He rolled his eyes. "One of the packages is addressed to 'The Lovely Dancing Princess'-I suppose that's you."
"Oh, dear. You'd better let me see it." She took the small fabric-covered box from Feival. "What is it?"
Ivgenia giggled. "You goose! Open it and find out."
"Is it a gift? It says it's from Lord Nikomakos." She fiddled it open and drew out a small velvet bag.
"He's an earl's son-the one with the yellow hair you spent so much time dancing with last night." Ivgenia laughed. "Surely your Royal Highness didn't drink so much wine that you can't remember him at all?"
"I do remember. He reminded me of Kendrick, my… my brother. But he wouldn't stop talking about his hawks. Hawk, hawk, hawk… Why should he send me…"-she lifted it out of the bag-"Zoria preserve me, why should he send me a gold bracelet?" It was a lovely thing, if a trifle gaudy, the kind of ornate work that she seldom wore by choice-a twining white rose, the blossoms picked out in pale gems. "Oh, merciful goddess, are those diamonds? What does he want from me?" She was horrified-she would never drink wine in public again. Instead of sounding out the nobles who might be sympathetic to her family's cause and could help put gentle pressure on King Enander, as she had meant to, she had apparently made a spectacle of herself to shame the worst provincial.
"Are you really such an idiot, Highness?" Ivvie demanded.
"I mean, certainly I know what he wants, and I suppose I'm flattered, but…" She stared fretfully at the bracelet. "I must send it back." She thought she could actually hear Feival pursing his lips in disgust. "Are all of these gifts from him?"
"From him and others," her friend said.
"Then I must send them all back."
"Truly? All of them? " Ivgenia held out a large parcel wrapped in cloth. "Even this one from Prince Eneas himself…?"
Briony took it and opened it. "It's a book-A Chronicle of the Life of Iola, Queen of Syan, Tolos, and Perikal. Of course-the prince and I spoke of her the other day."
"How romantic," Feival said with a certain asperity.
"So are you going to keep it?"
"It is a very thoughtful gift, Ivvie-he knows I am interested in such things. Iola lived in secrecy for several years when young because her family had been usurped during the War of Three Favors."
"Which means you want to keep it, Princess. What of the bracelet? Do you still mean to send it back?"
"Of course. I hardly know the man."
"So you will keep a book and send back a jeweled bracelet? Do you wonder why half the court thinks you have set your cap at Eneas and the other half thinks you mad?"
It stung. There was something in what Ivvie said, of course-Briony did have some feelings for the prince, and it had been clever of him to give her such a gift instead of something merely pretty. Eneas understood that she was not like other girls.
Which made what she planned to do to him even more terrible.
"What about these others? There are half a dozen more letters and gifts." Ivgenia held out a carved wooden box. "This is pretty."
"I don't want any of these." Briony shook her head. "You open it."
"Truly? May I keep what's in it…?"
"Ivvie! You are terrible! Very well, I might as well know-what is it?"
"It's… empty," said her friend, but her voice sounded odd. "Oh. I've hurt myself. On the clasp." Ivgenia held up her finger to show Briony a single drop of blood like a carnelian bead. A moment later the girl swayed and then fell heavily to the floor.
Briony didn't like the formality of Broadhall's Great Garden at the best of times, but today it felt utterly barren and oppressive.
It wasn't the size, although it covered many acres, but the tamed, controlled nature of the place. None of the hedges or ornamental trees were taller than a person's head, and most were far shorter; between them lay only geometric arrangements of low box hedges and careful, concentric flower gardens. You could stand in any part of the gardens and see almost all the rest, including who shared the garden with you. Perhaps the Tessians liked it that way, but she preferred a little more solitude, especially now, when it felt like malicious eyes watched her everywhere she went. The much smaller residence garden back home had several little hills and stands of tall trees that effectively divided the space into many separate locations-a world in miniature, as her father had once called it. (He was talking sourly of how parts of it had been allowed to go to seed, but what he said was still true.)
"I am sorry to keep you waiting, Princess." As Eneas emerged from the back of the scriptorium Briony had a momentary view of a legion of beetle-black scribing priests sitting side by side at the long tables, hard at work. "And even more sorry to keep you waiting at such an unhappy time. There is no way I can express my sorrow and shame that such things should happen in my father's court-and twice! Please, how is the Lady e'Doursos?"
"She will live, thank the gods, that is what the physician told me… but she will be a long while getting better." Briony fought back tears for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last few hours. She was so tired she felt as though she were made from frail glass. "It was a near thing. I sat up with her all the night as she passed in and out of her fever. I thought many times we would lose her, but it seems the sharpened piece of the clasp only barely pierced her, or it might have been the poison was weak." Briony still could not guess who had tried to murder her this time. Surely Jenkin Crowel had been frightened out of trying such tricks again, but if it hadn't been the Tollys' envoy then who could be behind it?
"We must praise the Three Brothers for that blessed bit of good fortune, then." Eneas offered Briony his arm. "Will you walk with me? I am mightily tired of the sound of pens scratching. I have been sending letters to every garrison between here and Hierosol about the autarch's attack. A damnable amount of work." He colored a little. "Not that I had to do all the copying myself, thank the gods!" He was speaking swiftly now, as though afraid to let silence fall. "I must get one of those writing machines the pamphleteers and poets use-or stamping machine, I suppose it should be called, for they work by stamping out letters and words as a royal seal stamps signs into wax. It would certainly speed the giving of orders to our field commanders…" He shook his head. "Listen to me, prattling on when you have just survived an attack on your life!"
"An attack that harmed me not at all."
He frowned. "You say that as though you wish it had succeeded."
Briony shook her head, although even such small movements felt nearly beyond her strength. "I don't wish that, Prince Eneas, of course I don't. But I feel terrible that others should suffer on my behalf."
"You are an admirable woman, Briony Eddon. I promise that I will do everything I can to keep you safe. I will send more of my guards. There are no more loyal men in all Syan."
"I'm sure of that, Highness," she said. "But even the finest soldiers are scant protection against poison."
He seemed more upset than Briony was herself. "Still, we must do something. This is an outrage, Princess-a deadly insult to my father's name and throne. Here in our own court!" He turned then, stopping them in the middle of the path, and took her right hand in both of his. "And it is especially disheartening to me, Briony Eddon, because I hold you in such high regard. There is nothing I would not do for you."
She blinked. His hands were warm. He had taken his gloves off.
"Surely you are not surprised." The prince looked troubled. "Was I so foolish as to be completely wrong when I supposed you might also have some feelings for me?"
Briony held her breath for a moment. She had been working toward this moment for weeks, but now she was confused. Eneas was admirable, kind, and clever. Everyone knew he was brave. And, as she looked at him now, she saw his strong, even features and knew that although he was no godlike beauty, any woman would be glad to have him even were he not the prince and heir of mighty Syan. But he was. And she needed his position and his power desperately to save her people, her family's throne. So why did she suddenly feel confounded and tongue-tied?
"I have struck you silent, Princess. You are not the type to be silent in the presence of men. I fear that I have offended you in some way."
"No. No, your Royal Highness-Prince Eneas-you have done me great honor." For a moment her imposture and the truth of her heart were so close she could not tell one from the other. "I think a great deal of you. I think you are the most admirable man in this whole great kingdom…"
He gently tugged his hand away from her, disguising his unhappiness a little by pushing his dark hair back from his forehead. " 'But,' you are about to say. But there is someone else to whom your heart has already been given-maybe your troth even plighted in the temple."
"No!" But it wasn't completely untrue-she did have feelings for someone else, as confusing and inappropriate and even ridiculous as those feelings might be. But that person could not save her kingdom. Eneas could-if any human agency could perform such a task. "No, it's not that. It's just that… I cannot let myself have feelings for anyone, even someone like you, though you are the dream of any sensible woman. I cannot." She tried to pull away, caught in the moment like a leaf scudding on the wind.
"But why?" Eneas would not let her go. He was strong. He would be masterful for anyone, she sensed-especially any woman-who wanted to be mastered. "Why can't you let your heart lead you?"
She had planned just such a moment-imagined it almost gleefully, as a hunter might dream of the moment the stag stood exposed and unaware on a hillside, breast vulnerable to the killing shaft. Now that it had come, though, it filled her with unease. How could she take advantage of a good man this way, even to save her family's throne? How could she pretend to love him just to gain his help?
Even worse, what if she was not pretending?
"I… I must think," she said. "I had not expected anything like this. I had hoped to find allies here in your father's court against my family's enemies, the usurping Tollys. I had not expected to f ind… someone I could care for. I must think." She looked off across the ordered rows of the garden. Distant figures acted out their own dramas, too far away to be recognized-each of them, herself included, as helpless in their actions as characters created out of air and smoke by Nevin Hewney or Finn Teodoros, ideas committed to paper and performed for the price of a night's food and lodging. How had she come to such a strange pass? Was she the player or the thing being played?
"Of course," Eneas said at last. The prince could not disguise the heaviness of his words. " 'Of course I will give you time, my lady. You must be true to yourself."
She should have slept like the dead that night, but instead she rolled and tossed through more nightmares of tunnels collapsing and dirt always beneath her fingers. This time there was no silvery shape to lead her, and the longer the dreams went on the farther down into choking darkness she went.
At last she found herself in a deep place, so deep that she understood somehow she had dug out on the other side of the world, that what lay beyond the small patch of ground on which she stood was the empty blackness of a sky with no stars, a blackness into which a single misstep could send her tumbling forever. And there, at the center of that dark otherness, she found her brother.
He was pale, senseless, as he had been before. He lay stretched before her as Kendrick had lain while the servants prepared him for burial, but Barrick was not dead. She did not know how she knew it, but she did.
The three shapes that crouched over him were no servants or funerary priests but something else entirely-dark, eyeless shadows singing wordless songs as they moved their hands above him. Then one of them lifted Barrick's crippled arm up to the emptiness of its face and her brother began to fade.
Tears, one of the shapes whispered, and the echo was swallowed by the damp, dark earth all around.
Spittle, said another.
Blood, said a third.
She tried to call to her twin, to wake him and warn him about what these terrible specters were doing, but she could not. She felt the change spreading through Barrick like flame, a train of fire from his arm to his head and heart that was also a spreading, burning agony through her own body. She tried to throw herself forward, but some invisible hand held her back.
Barrick! Her cries seemed all but silent. Barrick! Come back! Don't let them take you!
And at the last, just before the thing of cobweb shadows that had been her brother grew too dim to see, Barrick opened his eyes and looked at her. His stare was empty, utterly dead and empty.
She woke up choking on her own tears, feeling as though the most important part of her had been cut out with a dull knife. For long moments she could only lie on her bed sobbing helplessly. Barrick… Would she truly never see him again? The dream had felt so terrible, so final. Had something happened to him-something bad? Was he…?
"Oh, gods, no…!" she moaned.
Briony dragged herself up. She could not even bear to think of the possibility. These dreams-the nightmares-they were stalking her as though she were their prey. Would she never sleep again without seeing some parade of horror? So tired that she could barely set one foot in front of the other, she stumbled to the chest she had brought with her from her time with the players, the locked box with the clothes she had worn and the few small objects she had picked up on her journey south.
Briony opened the lid and began digging through it, scattering the boy's breeches she had worn and the pamphlets that had been handed to her, not even knowing what she sought until her fingers closed on it and she felt the fragile bird's skull and the tiny dry flowers.
Lisiya's charm in her hands, she crawled back across her dark chamber and into bed. She held the charm tightly to her breast and tried not to think of the dream-Barrick's dead eyes. One of the maids whimpered a little in her sleep, and that was the last thing she remembered before the dark took her again.
She was in the forest once more, but this time she could see the thing she had been chasing so long. It was a fox, black on the underside but tipped all over its back with silver, and silver on its tail and sharp face as well. As it sped away it looked back at her, teeth bared in a grin that might have been fatigue but seemed more like mockery. Except for a thin ring of orange, the creature's eyes were as black as its belly.
The fox leaped over the roots effortlessly, but even in her dream Briony could not move with such liquid ease. She must have stumbled, for she found herself falling forward, the trees suddenly turned into whirling torrents of black. For a moment she thought she was back in the terrible, crumbling earth, but then she passed through that spinning darkness into a forest glade. The silvery fox had stopped running and now crouched with its back to her in front of an ancient tumbled altar of stone.
Briony staggered up and fell to her knees. Things seemed curiously painful for a dream: she could feel twigs and rocks digging into her skin.
"Who… who are you?" she gasped.
The beast turned. This time there was no question: its grin was one of mockery and disgust. The fox shook its head. "I said it before and I'll say it again-I fear for the breed."
The little animal hopped lightly up onto the ruined altar and lowered its muzzle to sniff. Thunder rumbled distantly. "Look at this," the fox said, and there was something familiar in the creature's voice that cut through the fog of Briony's dreaming thoughts. "Is this what people think of me, that my sacred places are left untended even here? Even in the dreamlands?"
"Lisiya?" Briony whispered. "Is that you?" But as soon as she said the name she knew it was true.
The fox turned; a moment later the black and silver beast had vanished and the old woman sat upon the altar, her gnarled bare feet dangling as if she were a child. "Lisiya Melana of the Silver Glade, do you mean?" she said with more than a trace of irritation. "Bad enough you summon a goddess and then fail to meet her, but to forget her name as well…!"
"But… but I did not summon you."
"You most certainly did, child. Three nights running, although I could barely hear you the first few times. Weak as a newborn kitling's, your voice was, but finally tonight I could hear you well enough to find you." Thunder boomed again above the forest, as though mirroring Lisiya's irritation.
Briony could not shake off the feeling that she was misunderstanding something. "I… I dreamed of you-or at least of chasing you. Through the forest. And through tunnels in the earth. But I did not see you before, only your… tail."
Lisiya levered herself off the edge of the altar and dropped to the ground; Briony almost cringed, afraid the demigoddess' bony old legs would snap like twigs. It was strange to feel so awake and yet to know she was dreaming! Other than a light-headed feeling such as came upon her when she had more wine than she should, she felt quite ordinary.
"Come along, child. I suppose it doesn't matter why you summoned me. In your heart you must have known you needed my help." Briony followed the demigoddess past the altar, out of the clearing, and into the trees. Thunder boomed again and a faint shimmer of lightning lit the sky overhead. "Restless," Lisiya commented, but did not explain.
In many ways the journey through the forest was as dreamlike to Briony as the pursuit of Barrick through the crumbling earth, but it was maddeningly ordinary as well. She could feel every step, every breath, even a moment of discomfort when she scraped her arm against the trunk of an oak tree.
"Where are we?" she asked at last.
"At the moment? Or in some larger sense?" Lisiya was laboring along at a good pace and Briony had to hurry to keep up. "We are very close here to the lands of the dreaming gods-all the old gods that Crooked sent to sleep. Your kind call him Kupilas, of course. Even we didn't always call him Crooked-that came after the three brothers and their clan tortured him. When Crooked was born he was named Brightshine-a son made by the dawn and the moonlight-you can guess why he was thought a beautiful child. No wonder he hated his uncles so much for what they did to him, let alone the tricks and cruelties and even murder they performed on the rest of his family."
There was a brief pause as lightning whitewashed the sky for a moment, but before Briony could ask any more questions, Lisiya began again as though she had.
"We are not on Crooked's roads here-a mortal cannot pass through them safely-but we are traveling in some of the lands that those roads traverse-do you see? Such roads belong to his great-grandmother Emptiness, of course, but she gave him safe conduct to travel them, and he made much of that freedom."
Before Briony could ask Lisiya to start over because she hadn't understood a word, the demigoddess abruptly stopped.
"So here we are," Lisiya said. "Now you can tell me what you need."
They stood before a small, rough house made of unfinished logs, its roof thatched with leafy branches. A crash of thunder shook the air and for a moment turned the house as flat and pale as one of Makewell's Men's painted backgrounds. Shoots of green grass grew between the dead leaves on the ground, but the house itself looked old and long deserted.
"Don't just stand there gawking, child. Follow me." Lisiya bent and clambered through the low door.
The rain was coming down now like arrows, but the hut was dry and surprisingly warm inside. Briony settled onto a fur rug, one of many that covered the dirt floor. Still, though, for all its homely comforts, it did not quite seem natural: every time Briony stared at anything very long it seemed to grow farther away in a way that made her feel a bit dizzy. She jumped as the thunder crashed again, rattling the walls.
"Not just restless," Lisiya said with a disapproving frown. "More like a sleeping bear smelling spring. Quick, girl, we may not have much time. Tell me what's troubling you."
Briony told her of the dreams, first those of her brother Barrick, especially the most recent and most frightening one. She still could not remember the way his eyes had looked without a chill on her heart.
"I can give you scant help there, I fear," Lisiya said after a long moment's silent thought. "Your brother is hidden to me-whether because of where he is or the company he keeps, I cannot say. Still, something tells me he is not dead."
"Praise the gods! As long as he is alive, there's hope," Briony said-and meant it. Her heart already felt lighter. "Thank you."
"You thank a goddess with a sacrifice," Lisiya said. "Honey would be nice-clover or apple blossom make my favorites-but a pretty stone will also do. You can leave it on one of my altars…" She looked up, suddenly distracted.
Briony did not want to tell the demigoddess that she had never heard of an actual altar to Lisiya-not in the waking world, anyway. "I will. May I ask you another question?"
Lisiya slowly returned her attention to Briony. "I suppose. But swiftly, child. The weather is growing strange."
Briony quickly told her of the dilemma-how her kindly feelings toward Eneas seemed likely to destroy her plan to enlist his aid. "He's a good man! A truly good man. How can I do such a thing to him? Even for a good cause?"
The demigoddess cocked a draggled eyebrow. "But he is a man, for all the things you say-a grown man and a prince. He will make his own choices-to be with you or not, to do what you wish or not. Have you promised him, 'Help me and I will marry you'-or even, 'Help me and I will take you to my bed'?"
"Of course not!"
Lisiya laughed sourly. "You needn't act so disturbed, child. You are a woman in all but name now, I see, and if it were so terrible an act I think there would be a parcel fewer of mortals in the world."
"No, I didn't mean… well, I did, but… in any case, I am a virgin!"
"It's a common enough condition, child. Nothing to brag about."
"But that's…" Briony took a breath as a flash of lightning made light burst in through every crack in the hut walls and ceiling. A few moments later thunder boomed again, so close it seemed right overhead. "That's not what I mean! I mean that I would give anything, even my maidenhood, if it would save my family. I would even give it falsely! But I don't want to give it falsely to… to a man who is truly kind. Whom in other circumstances I could truly care for." She shook her head. "Is there any kind of sense to that at all?"
Lisiya's expression softened. "Yes, child. But I do not think you tell me all the truth."
"I did…!"
"I think you already care for him. What is his name?"
"Eneas, the prince of Syan. But… but it is really another that I care for. At least I did-I am no longer certain." Briony started to laugh, then suddenly felt like weeping, but the laugh bubbled out anyway. "He and Eneas could not be more different, except that they are both kind men. He has no connections, no expectations-he is a commoner! And I do not even think he still lives. He went away a long time ago and almost everyone who went with him is dead."
"Your problem is like an apple on a high, thin branch," the demigoddess said, "-a branch that is too high to reach from the ground, but too thin to climb out on to reach the apple. But sometimes such an apple can be plucked anyway-with help. You can climb up to stand on the base of the branch, and thus lower the apple enough that someone on the ground can jump up and pluck it…"
Briony was about to ask her what in the name of Zoria's mercy she was talking about with all this apples and branches nonsense when the brightest blaze of lightning yet burst in through the cracks, accompanied almost simultaneously by a peal of thunder so loud that Briony and Lisiya bounced like dried peas in a bowl.
Except it wasn't thunder, Briony realized in terror as she rolled on the floor, trying to regain her balance: what she heard was a voice, too loud and low to understand, raging and bellowing as if a giant stood just above the house, shouting from the depths of the biggest lungs in the world.
"Get out, child!" shouted Lisiya. "Now!" She grabbed at Briony's arm and yanked her toward the door. Now the dream turned completely nightmarish: no matter how Briony struggled and stumbled forward, the door that should only have been a step or two away remained out of her reach. Lisiya had vanished and the hut had become an immense black space cracked like a broken pot, lit only by flashes of jagged light.
"Lisiya, where are you?" Briony screamed.
"Here! Here!"
And then she could feel the old woman's hand again, the calloused skin wrapped tight around hers. She was yanked forward, a tumble into dark space through sudden winds, then out into light and the rain-lashed forest. The sky above was frantic with lightning, burst after burst blanketing the sky and turning the trees into snapping, dancing silhouettes. The thundering voice, still unintelligible and still terrifyingly close, pressed in on Briony from all sides until she thought the very weight of it would crush her skull like an egg.
"What is it?" she shrieked, holding her hands over her ears, an action that helped nothing.
"He is starting to wake!" Lisiya's faint voice was all but blotted out by the deep, wordless roar. "Run!"
"Who is?" Briony screamed, the force of the wind and thundering voice making her sway and almost fall.
"Run!" shouted Lisiya. "It is later than I imagined! I should have told you…"
"Told me what?"
"Too late. You must go to the Stone People… they must take you to you their ancient drum… their stone drum…!"
And then the demigoddess was gone. The air was full of whirling leaves and branches stripped from forest trees, all smacking at her like angry hands, scratching her, making her all but blind. In the momentary bright smears of lightning, though, she could see one thing, a huge dark shape looming high overhead, far above the trees, blotting out the sky.
Briony covered her head with her hands and ran and ran and ran, through falling trees and hurtling branches, through air that tightened and boomed with the roar of rumbling laughter.
She woke up without screaming this time, but covered in sweat, her heart beating so fast her chest hurt. She lay clutching Lisiya's talisman to her chest, praying for her brother and herself and all she loved. Briony was so tired that she felt older and frailer than the ancient demigoddess herself, but even after her heartbeat had slowed to its ordinary pace she could not get back to sleep until dawn had almost arrived.