Part 18 (1/2)

Losing him was not an option. Jenny might not be ready to confront, or even understand, her feelings, but she'd spent sixteen years of her life looking for him. Sixteen years searching for answers to one moment on a beach.

Like h.e.l.l she was going to let that go.

She grabbed his hand. He looked down at her with surprise. ”Jenny.”

”Go on,” she muttered. ”You're stuck with me.”

Only because Jenny was looking at his eyes did she see them s.h.i.+ft with grief. Grief or loneliness, or something born from pain. Whatever it was, she felt her heart answer. Her hand tightened.

”Jenny,” he said again, but this time his voice was low, quiet, almost a caress. Utterly at odds with the hard, brittle mask he wore too well. Bent or broken, she thought. Raw with more scars on the inside than out.

Perrin walked into the sea, pulling her close against his side as the waves buffeted their bodies. He was big as a mountain against her, and moved with unwavering strength. Jenny tried to do the same. She held her rock in her free hand. The woman watched them, her eyes mere glints of light behind her tangled hair. Up close she seemed even more unreal. A little too perfect. A little too human. As though she were trying too hard to be something she wasn't.

”We learn to pretend in order to survive,” said the woman, as if she'd read her mind-and if Jenny hadn't seen her mouth move, she would have thought those words were inside her head. ”Perrin O'doro knows this. As do you, Jennifer Jameson, whose blood flows from the daughters of the Magi-who was born from the blood of the fae and twisted that magic into death.”

Jenny went very still. The woman whispered, ”You are not so ordinary.”

Perrin tensed. Jenny could not look at him. All she could do was listen to the rumble of his voice as he said, ”My lady. The kra'a.”

”It is with you,” she said shortly, still watching Jenny with unnerving intensity. ”And you must go now. Your father is coming. He brings hunters.”

He stiffened, fingers flexing painfully around her arm. ”What do you mean, the kra'a is with me?”

The woman ignored him, and to Jenny said, ”We are not so far apart, in blood. You know this, in your heart. You know what your family is.”

”I know enough to be wary,” she replied, unnerved. ”But you seem to know more than I do.”

”The kra'a,” interrupted Perrin impatiently, and the woman hissed at him: a rattling sound that rose from deep inside her throat. All that pale white skin wavered, revealing rough scales against her torso, s.h.i.+mmering from green to brown in one strong, muscular ripple-while beneath all that long blond hair, a tangle of glinting golden eyes and dripping fangs.

Jenny stumbled, swearing. Perrin caught her.

”Blind fool,” said the woman, her golden eyes glowing. ”Look between the two of you for the answers you seek. And do not return here until you have found them.”

She backed more deeply into the sea, her human illusion falling apart: she did not have legs but balanced on a ma.s.sive tail that coiled and flopped through the shallows like the body of a giant snake. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s sagged brown and heavy, and her fingers were little better than claws.

Jenny's mouth went dry, but she stepped forward, pulling against Perrin's hand. ”The children. Are they illusions, too?”

The woman slowed, stilled. ”Human. Real. Mine.”

”Yours,” echoed Jenny, terrible fury making it hard to speak even that word. ”Now who's the liar?”

Perrin's fingers tightened again. Jenny shrugged him off, and this time he let go. She took another step, swaying as the waves crashed against her legs, and gritted her teeth as she stared unflinchingly into the woman's golden, inhuman gaze.

This is nothing, she told herself. You've dealt with worse since you were five years old.

She'd learned to walk in the shadow of men and women who could kill with a thought. But those had been good people. Good hearts. First to be murdered on that bad day, years ago. She could still smell the blood and see it on her hands. Her stomach suffered a ghost ache, and the parasite pulsed, shuddered. Fever stoked Jenny's skin in one p.r.i.c.kly wave.

The woman tilted her head, and the human mask faded completely, leaving a creature of primal, alien beauty, purely serpentine in every way but her features: nose, mouth, eyes, ears. Black hair fell around her high-boned face, tangled and cut with green strands. She touched her face with surprising tentativeness, as though she had only just realized that others, too, could see her true form. Her clawed hands trembled.

”The past and future do not lie,” whispered the woman, closing her eyes. ”The world is changing, and there will come a time when all that is known now will be torn, and the old days will rise again. Magic, and chaos, and war. It can be delayed, but not stopped. And if humans are to survive . . .”

The woman paused. All Jenny could do was stare, wavering between horror and fascination. Words, much like the ones spoken by her uncles, aunts, and cousins, who had broken away to form the Consortium. Jenny had listened to the debates for years before the break and family war-and since then. All those precog warnings of the future, and the terrible arguments concerning what to do, if anything.

”We must all do something,” said the woman, looking away at the sea. ”Those children were unwanted, abused, tossed aside. So I took them. Not to hurt, but to save, to train. I will protect as many as I can, teach them what I can, and when the time is right, they will know what to do. They will know how to live in the world to come.”

Jenny tried to speak, but her voice stuck. Perrin brushed close, something terrible in his eyes. ”If the beast wakes, what you've seen-”

The woman turned away, interrupting him. ”Go. You have what you need.”

Perrin snarled. ”I have nothing.”

She glanced over her shoulder-gave him a look of pure, shriveling disdain-and her tail lashed out of the water and smashed against his chest, knocking him backward. Jenny tried to grab his arm. She was taken down with him, and the sea closed over both their heads. They couldn't have been more than a hand below the surface, but the pressure was immense, crus.h.i.+ng, and when she clawed at the water, she could not break the waves. Perrin was not beside her. She had no air.

You will understand before he does, murmured the woman inside Jenny's mind, her voice slithering, rubbing, crawling cold. When you are away from here, and those bonds begin to stir. Listen to the voice that comes, the voice that is waking.

Time is running out.

Chapter Ten.

In darkness, Perrin fought. He had no weapons, no fists, no bones. He was a ghost, and all he had was rage.

His father was there.

”You killed her,” said the old Krackeni. ”There are witnesses. You destroyed her mind, then broke her neck.”

”No, listen to me,” Perrin tried to say, but he had no voice.

Listen to me, he thought, rage melting into desperation. Listen, please listen. What she did, what she was going to do- ”I trusted you,” whispered his father, floating above him, pale eyes blazing with grief as each word bore its own spectral light inside his throat. ”We all trusted you.”

You can trust me. Please, don't say that. Please.

”But I can taste it now, inside you. I can taste the . . . the contamination . . . in your mind. It goes . . . so deep. Into your dreams. Oh, G.o.ds, it truly is in your dreams. How could you? How could you do this?”

No, Perrin raged. No, you do not understand. She did not understand. Just listen, please- Please, do not- Do not- DO NOT- Perrin woke up, gasping, clawing ineffectually at the air. He could hear his father's voice, echoing so raw inside him.

But that presence died when he opened his eyes and found himself sprawled in gra.s.s. He stared, numb, taking it in: trimmed, neat, with an edge of color nearby. Roses.

I'm on a lawn, he thought, knowing that must be wrong.

As wrong as the scent of smoke, and the strange rat-a-tat-tatting sound that filled the air.

Gunfire. Then, screams.

Jenny's screams.

Perrin rolled to his feet, but couldn't stand. No strength. His muscles were made of water. He continued to fight, though, as he had in the darkness-but even wilder, more desperate. He screamed Jenny's name. He could not see her. He could not see anything but gra.s.s. She was sobbing. She was choking on sobs.