Kara moved into the room on leaden feet. Her vision narrowed from the large well lit window overlooking the fortress city to the much slimmer woman standing before it, arms cradling the infant she'd been expecting the last time she'd seen her.

"Feniece!" Kara hissed through her broken vocal chords.

Feniece's eyes told their own story as she turned to face Kara. Wonder and the need for reassurance froze on Kara's face.  "What is it?" She forced the words into her throat in anguish, wishing she could speak clearly.

"Oh, Kara!" Feniece crumpled in front of her, falling to her knees, the baby resting on her lap.

Kara rushed to her, awkwardly lifting the baby into her own arms, and setting it on the bed behind them before turning to her sister-in-law, fearing the worst. "The children?"

Feniece nodded, her head bowed and her tears wetting the front of her nightgown. Her hands twisted urgently over her stomach in gut-wrenching agony. Her eyes rose, her lips parted, but she couldn't speak the terrible news. She didn't need to, Kara saw the face of her beloved cousin, Faherdin, in her mind.

"No!" Kara dropped to her knees, her arms finding their way around Feniece's quaking form.

"Gone! Gone! They contracted the Etrusian plague before they even knew it was there." Feniece wailed in blistering denial.

Etrusian plague? The flow of recent developments forced their way into her conscious Zalez from Feniece's unguarded projections. Her mind rebelled. It was almost more than any one person could bear. Archer! Taan! Lailoken! Faherdin! The army! The City! 

Feniece pushed her away. "But you are not here for me! They have been looking for you! They thought Quildor had captured you!"

"Your baby...." Kara motioned and looked to the wailing child. 

Suspicion warred in Feniece's ravaged features."Where have you been, if not captured by Quildor?" 

Her eyes rose as Galantyne thrust into the room. Feniece turned in astonishment.

"I wasn't expecting you!"

His eyes were on Kara, disbelief at war on his handsome features. He was completely decked in armor and heavy weaponry. He noted Kara's self-same accouterments in one glance.

"And I wasn't expecting you!" He strode across the room as if to grab her and shake her, but he could see she was already shaking, and her eyes were tortured and frozen in inner panic. "Where have you been? I thought you were dead!"

"You'd have known if I were dead." She managed,  in his head, not looking up, and then changing her mind she met his eyes in defiance. "But there are things you should know, and things I think you should tell me."

"In my study." He ground out in tightly controlled anger, not immune to the onslaught of Kara's newly discovered and enhanced Zalez. Galantyne marshaled his reserve, grabbed Kara by the arm, and pulled her to her feet. In a swift jerk, she freed herself, knocked his hand away from her and preceded him to the study.

"How did you get here? Why can't you speak out loud?" 

Kara projected the walk down the tunnel to his fortress. "I walked freely past Quildor's men, who were bound by the powerful magic of the mountain that is manipulated by the Talisman."

"What twisted parity is this?!" Galantyne yelled, slamming his fist against the table.

Kara strove for calm, drawing on her own Zalez . "I meant what I said, Galantyne." She showed him the incident wherein she had lost her ability to speak. His eyes grew round and shocked and his head swiveled in agony as he watched the Foeman who had hurt her, become the one who loved her. 

"Start at the beginning. Why did you leave here when I told you not to look for Jerrika?"

******

He pulled out a padded chair and forced himself to sit in it, ignoring the vision she had presented to him in favor of a more comprehensive approach. 

Kara placed herself out of reach. "I felt you wouldn't mount a rescue quickly enough. You have so many other concerns."

"So, in typical Kara fashion, you took it upon yourself. And why, when I came for you, when I risked life and family to save you from the Foeman, why did you defy me?"

She allowed him to see and understand the events that had led to Rion healing her outside the mountain and then resumed actual verbiage confidently.

"It was night, we were met by two Quarso, they fought. I tried to save Rion from a severe attack and was caught in the throat. I lost consciousness. When I woke, Korlon was tending me in the Aerie next to Village Quildor, the army was amassed, the castle was destroyed, and Korlon was weak from healing me. While I slept, he left and didn't return. I don't know what happened to him, except that there were large contingents of men moving at Quildor's bidding."

"You have also received much by way of natural planetary magic." Galantyne's voice in her head whispered gently. "I can see the truth of your story."

A wave of embarrassment washed over Kara as she thought of what else he may have been privileged to see and understand. 

His eyes rested on her. "I will not take information unless you allow it, sister. I understand the arts inside Zalez. You are the one who is unskilled, although tremendously endowed."

"How? How do you know these things? Rion awoke the skill in me and tutored me as much as he could. I was told that his people have way more skill than I have, and—"

"I told you before I have been in Auditorium!"

She shook her head, not understanding. "And in Auditorium they taught you Zalez?"

He stared up at the ceiling, tapping his booted foot against the tapestry carpet.

"How do you know so much about Zalez, Galantyne?" Kara whispered, coming around in front of the chair, her eyebrows lowered in dawning realization. A sudden wash of revulsion began to creep into her frontal lobes as his experience manifest in her mind. The vision of his fight with the Shadow Eater, his subsequent assimilation of it, his capture by the Foeman, and his being thrown into Auditorium. Her denial was great as she watched the memory of his escape by assimilating the Salimantor/ Foeman who guarded Auditorium. Kara turned away from him, her hand covering her mouth.

"I am a warrior, sister! I did what I had to to survive." 

She made it to the closest anti-chamber where she could empty the contents of her stomach in private. Tears of futility and rage overcame her as she thought about Rion... about Galantyne... about others. 

"Where did you get the power? How?" She rubbed her hand across her face as she straightened and looked at herself in the mirror. In her mind, the answer came. The planet power that had created the Shadow Eaters in the first place had been usurped by those on the surface who needed it to survive. It wasn't dark magic, it was the planet power itself.

"And that is where the Zalez comes from as well." She finished her own inner thoughts.

"Yes. The Zalez , any amount of it at all, comes from the planet. The more association with the land, the higher the form of the art. But that is not my primary concern at this moment. You have revealed two things to me, my dear." He was standing too close to her, his masculine warrior scent assailed her nostrils and Kara turned again to the privacy of the bathing chamber. He heard her retching and covered his eyes with one weathered hand.

"You have... found the Talisman." He said as she cleaned her face and leaned heavily against the doorframe. "That was what you said to me when you first saw me moments ago."

She struggled to overcome the nausea that still threatened. "Yes."

"And the Talisman is not what we thought."

"The Talisman is an... animal... a sentient, very large... dragon." 

"Did the Council Ladies know this?"

Kara searched inside herself for the answer and found it. "Some of them did. Nimiane did, Ondrea, Mathilde. I don't know if Adara Sebille knew. It matters not, she is dead."

Galantyne's eyes snapped up to her face. "Adara the Witch is dead?"

Kara nodded, still feeling weakness from having vomited. "Ondrea is alive, but Adara is dead, Nimiane is dead and.... Belakane is dead."

She wasn't surprised that he already knew Ondrea, their mother, was alive. He didn't even flinch at the mention of her name. But his eyes rose to hers as the list of those who had died went on. "The Council is decimated!" 

"No, the Council is rejuvenated. Avarona, Jerrika and I have been inducted. That's how it works, Galantyne. The Council will never be alone, unfilled. The magic was held by enough people that there will always be the proper blood to fill the council."

"This is magic you speak of that I cannot comprehend."

"I know. We were carefully cultivated as children only to know what they wanted us to know and nothing more. Now that the ones who tried to use the power for their own selfish ends are dead, the rightful ladies will come forth. Trust me Galantyne! I have seen the way the power is transferred, the way it is safeguarded."

"How did Adara and Nimiane pervert it then? If it is safeguarded, then why was it able to be used for ill?"

Kara pressed her fingers into her temples. "I don't know it all, and neither does Talisman, but we are learning fast. Talisman is willing to help us get to Valdemar." 

"Will I be meeting Talisman soon?" 

"Yes. Today. Soon, as soon as I can convene the council, or retrieve Pellanor and Sossana from Aquaria."

"They are already on their way. I sent Belakane to--." His voice trailed off. "What did you say about Belakane? What did you say?"

Kara blinked. "You didn't know? I felt her in Zalez, her death, just a day ago."

"But I just sent her and Dmitri to Aquaria to retrieve Sossana and Pellanor. I just saw her yesterday!" Genuine perplexion was in his voice as he pulled at the reddish wiry mass that was his hair.

Kara laid her hand against his chest. "Do not grieve too hard Brother. She is at peace. She couldn't face this new war. She lost so much in the last one!"

******