"Part?" she said. "I thought you would help me return to Darkon, or at least help me to go elsewhere. I thought-"
"You were mistaken."
'lMo. You said we would talk of it. You were going to take me back to Darkon, I can't go alone. I need your help to get safety through the mists."
Ramus turned and looked at her strangely. "I could not take you through the mists, Marguerite, even if I desired it. If Donskoy chooses to seal you in, there is nothing I can do to stop him. Now get dressed. I'm taking you back to the keep,"
"No, I can't. I don't want to return to the keep." Her words quickened. "How can you suggest such a thing? You have told me that Donskoy murdered your tribe. If you send me back, you'll only be adding my blood to his hands. Surely you can't be so cruel. Surely-"
"You are wrong, Marguerite. I hear his hounds in the wood. Your husband is searching for you even now. It is your fate to return to him."
"But he will kill me!"
"He will not. Lord Donskoy wants one thing more than all else. A son, And now he believes you are pregnant, Zosia showed him the test last night. He will never let you leave, so you must return to him. Unpleasant, I agree, but he will not harm you so long as he believes you are with child."
"How do you know these things?"
"I know ali that occurs in the castle. I share a bond with Zosia. . and with Donskoy as well."
"Bond? What sort of bond?"
Ramus did not answer.
"What bond could you share with Donskoy?" Marguerite demanded, struggling into her clothes. "He is a fiend. I don't-I can't go back to him. If Zosia has deceived him, she has only delayed the inevitable. He will find out soon enough. A month will pass, and then he'll know. He'll see that I have not conceived. And then I'll be dead. Or worse." Her voice ascended to a higher pitch. "Or worse. He has warned me. Let me leave here with you. Else! shall certainly depart this domain in a long black box!"
Ramus merely chuckled.
"It is true!" she cried.
"The truth is, a month wili pass and you shall grow round with child."
"You can't possibly know that."
"But I do. I have given you a gift, Marguerite. Our paths may part, but I have left something behind."
Marguerite stared at him with a shocked expression. "What do you mean?"
"The web, Marguerite," Ramus said. "Or do you think Zosia's potions as barren as your husband?"
Marguerite's jaw fell, and she said nothing.
"You wanted me to keep you safe," said Ramus. "I have done so in the only way I can. Lord Donskoy is rotting from the inside out. He can no longer spawn a son. So I have done you the courtesy. I have spared you your head, pretty giorgia. How I suggest you use it wisely. Return to the keep and act as though nothing has happened. Play the role you seized upon so eagerly just a short time ago. Donskoy will dote on his burgeoning bride. Play him well, and you wilI survive to see my son born."
Marguerite sat down hard. Of its own accord, her hand passed over her stomach. "I don't believe you …"
Ramus shrugged. "That is nothing to me."
Outside, in the distance, Marguerite could hear the hounds baying. They were growing closer. Her panic rose.
She scrambled back to her feet. "Did you use me only to win your vengeance? Is your heart as black as Donskoy's?"
Ramus threw his satchel over his shoulder, then turned to look at her. "It is not."
'Then take me with you," she whispered. "You must."
Ramus shook his head sadly. "You do not know what you ask. You do not know what I am."
"I know enough," she said. "I know I cannot bear to stay here, i know that only you can help me escape. I know your touch."
Ramus choked on a bitter laugh. "You know nothing. You have no idea what [am."
Outside, the dogs began to howl.
Ramus continued, "Shall I show you then, what you must fear?"
"I am not afraid of you," she said. "Whatever secrets you hold, I do not fear them,"
The Vistana shook his head. "You should, This is what I am." He closed his eyes and clenched his fists. "Watch carefully, and then ask yourself whether you want to go with me still."
Slowly, he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it from his body, and then each garment in turn, until he stood naked before her, adorned only by the play of light and shadow that fell across his smooth, sculpted skin. Each muscle was cleanly defined; compared to Ramus's body, Donskoy's seemed a statue of soft white dough. The Vistana's powerful arms bulged with muscle and vein.
And then it seemed that the veins rose higher and propagated, pressing themselves up against the restraint of his translucent skin, until a pale blue net covered his entire form. The whole of his body rippled beneath the strange mesh, quivering as though his flesh were a separate entity, struggling to break free of the restraining blue web.
Some of the veins darkened, becoming blue-black as they rose higher than the rest. They marked the joining of each appendage to his trunk, of each finger to the palm. Like seams. Like someone had sewn him together.
Ramus raised his index finger high, and the nail lengthened into a long black talon. It was a strange, ugly thing that sprouted from the end of his finger, not like an overgrown fingernail, but like a bone grown too long. He began to cut himself, slicing three deep gashes down his chest, then another across his stomach. Three diagonal lines, raining down to a fourth. The Vistani sign of the curse.
Snakes of red mist poured forth from the wounds. They hissed with blue forked tongues, writhing until their tails slipped from his body; they wriggled away into the night, dissolving into smoke as they left the cavern.
Marguerite sat shaking upon the ground.
"You are flesh and blood." Ramus's voice seemed to rise from the cavern floor. "And what am I? Do you know, Marguerite?" His wounds began to close and disappear.
Marguerite's lips quivered, and she felt tears spilling from her eyes, burning on her cheeks like fire. Her head shook slowly.
"I am blood and mist," Ramus continued, "the thing that steals your breath while you sleep, the thing that pours nightmares into your ears, the thing that makes you grow old and feeble before your time. Do you still want me, Marguerite?"
Horror-struck, she said nothing.
He laughed, then turned toward the mouth of the cave. "I thought not."
Marguerite heard a small voice speaking close to her. It was herself, uttering something softly, a half-choked reply. "Yes," she rasped.
Ramus paused. "Yes, what?"
"Yes. . i still want you." She tasted the salt of her tears in her mouth. "I still want to go with you."