"He's not outside, is he?" eibhear gazed at her with those silver eyes. "Don't make me sleep alone, Izzy."

Gods, how could she resist that? Pathetic weakling that she was. It was the blue hair. It had to be the blue hair. She'd been enamored of it since she'd first met him. And if he lost it all? Well . . . all right. Perhaps she'd still be attracted to him, but she doubted she'd be so weak about where she slept and with whom.

Removing her travel clothes, Izzy slipped on a long cotton shirt that reached her knees and got onto the bed with eibhear. She turned away from him and he settled in behind her, his arm around her waist, his face buried against the back of her neck.

"You worried about tomorrow?" he asked.

"Probably more than I should be."

"Don't worry. I'll be there every step of the way."

"To protect me from my grandmother or my grandmother from me?"

Soft lips kissed the back of her neck before she heard, "Both."

Annwyl sat up in her bed, a book open on her lap. Fearghus would be coming home late tonight, but that just meant she had a little time to herself to read. Unlike most nights when she ended up happily wrestling with Fearghus.

In fact, she was so looking forward to some time to herself, when she heard that knock on her bedroom door, she sighed and crossed her eyes before she said, "What?"

The door opened and to Annwyl's surprise, her son stuck his head in. "Hello, Mum. Got a minute?"

"Of course. Come in." She put a leather strip in her book to mark her place and put the book aside.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

"A history about wars in the Eastlands."

"Interesting?"

"Very. But you didn't come here about books, my love. What is it?"

Talan closed the door and walked into the room, sitting on the bed by Annwyl's hip. "I have something to show you."

"Then show me."

The boy sighed before pulling a scroll out of the top of his boot and handing it to his mother.

"Someone sending you messages?" Annwyl asked, taking a look at the once-sealed document. Usually Annwyl was informed about any messages that came in for her offspring, but she'd heard nothing about this. Not even from Dagmar.

"Aye."

"Instead of me reading it, just tell me, Talan."

He cleared his throat and Annwyl realized this was the first time she'd ever seen her son look . . . uncomfortable. And, to be honest, knowing he had the ability to feel that emotion was surprisingly soothing to her.

"It's all right, Talan. Go on."

"Promise you won't get mad?"

"No."

Her direct answer made him laugh. "True, I shouldn't ask the impossible."

"I thought you'd have known that by now. So what is it? What's in this scroll you think I should see-without your father here?"

"Far, far to the west, past the Sovereign Provinces, is a brotherhood of monks."

"Monks?"

He shrugged. "Monks."

"And what do the monks want?"

"They've offered me a place to be trained in Magicks involving nature. Powers almost completely pulled from the earth as opposed to the gods." "You want to join a monastery?"

"Not permanently."

Annwyl had to quickly scratch her head to stop herself from laughing. "Do they know that you don't think of this as a permanent solution?"

"I don't know what they know. I just know what I know. And I know I've learned all I can from Aunt Morfyd, Aunt Talaith, and Grandmum. But I'm not done learning."

Annwyl glanced down at the scroll in her hand. "Can I ask you a question?"

"I know I can't have sex while I'm there."

"That wasn't going to be my question, although your immediate response was quite telling. Best not have that same response around your father. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Now my question is this.... Are you and your sister leaving because of me?"

It was only a moment, but she saw the look of surprise on her son's face. The fact that Annwyl knew, without anyone telling her, that Talwyn was also getting ready to leave blindsided him. But he quickly concealed his surprise and answered, "I promise, Mum, if we could, Talwyn and I would stay here forever. Just . . . loafing around and getting in fights."

"But you can't because . . ."

"You know why. This isn't the end of it for us. We're not meant to be nobles like Lord Pombray's boy or even our uncles. But what you've been telling us from the beginning is that without knowledge, we can't lead, we can't fight, we can't do anything but hope others protect us. And, Mum . . . we just don't have that luxury anymore."

Annwyl nodded. "My own words thrown back at me . . . and yet they were brilliant words."

Talan grinned. "Just like your son."

Annwyl took his hand. "Are you truly comfortable with your sister going off with the Kyvich?"

"No. Not because I think it will be bad for her. But I know she has no intention of staying. And when she's ready to go, that will be a problem."

"For her?"

"For them."

"And this . . . monastery? This is what you want?"

"No. But this is what I need. I will admit, I almost turned it down. Almost walked away. But you always said to trust my instincts and my instincts tell me to do this. Now. Not later. Right now." He kissed the back of her hand. "And because I know you're thinking it, I only look like I'm not listening to you. But I hear every word. And thank you. For surviving. For doing what you've done. I know for a fact, no other female in this universe could have been my mother."

Fighting tears, Annwyl wrapped her arms around her son's massive and still-growing shoulders and hugged him tight. They stayed like that until the bedroom door opened again and she heard Fearghus's voice.

"Remind me why I bother dealing with that old bastard. And don't say it's just because of blood ties." Fearghus stopped and eyed his mate and son. "What did the boy do now?"

With his head resting on Annwyl's shoulder, Talan replied, "Everything you've only dreamed about."

Annwyl immediately caught Fearghus's grasping hand and snapped, "Fearghus, no!"

"Just one punch to the head! Just one!"

Chapter 36.

For a half an hour Izzy sat there and watched her grandmother-and the commander general of the city's protection force-try to negotiate Izzy's entrance into the Nolwenn temple. Her aunts and uncles, a few of her older cousins, and her grandfather stood with her and eibhear, waiting as well. But as the suns moved overhead, the heat beginning to sear Izzy's brain inside her skull, she began to get more and more annoyed.

She tried not to get annoyed. She tried to focus on other things. Like the beauty of the city. Sefu was a grand city with a major river that connected it to the ocean and several major Desert Land ports. Bustling and well-designed, Sefu boasted one of the largest libraries and a major theater.

Yet even thinking about those things only managed to irritate Izzy more because she wouldn't be able to enjoy them. Not when she had things to do.

Maskini made her way down the long stairs.

"I'm sorry, Izzy," she said when she was close enough so that she didn't have to yell her failure. "They suggested that you come back tomorrow. They're expecting one of their appointments to cancel and they say-Izzy? Where are you going?"

"All of you wait here."

Taking the stairs two at a time, Izzy walked up to the temple doors. She pressed on them, but they were solid marble and bolted from inside.

"Izzy?" She looked over her shoulder at eibhear. He'd followed her up the stairs and now watched her.

She stepped back and motioned to the doors. "Get them down."

eibhear glanced around. "You sure about this?"

"You have no idea how sure I am. Now do it."

eibhear shrugged and took a couple of steps down. He stripped his clothes off and handed them to Izzy. He motioned her farther away with a wave of his hand, and then he shifted, his natural powers even stronger when dragon.

Once in his dragonform, he took in a deep breath and unleashed a stream of flame at the doors. The thick marble buckled, the heat melting part of the door. But still it stood strong. With his flame still shooting straight, eibhear ran forward and rammed his shoulder into the marble. The doors were torn off their hinges and flew inside, crashing into the walls and ceiling before landing several feet away.

Stepping back, eibhear gestured to the now open doorway with a tilt of his head. Izzy placed his clothes down and walked up the stairs and into the temple. eibhear glanced back at Izzy's shocked family, their eyes wide, some with their mouths open. He winked at them and followed Izzy inside.

Izzy entered the Nolwenn temple. It was quite a beautiful place. And big. So big, eibhear was able to follow her inside without shifting back to human.

Looking around at the marble statues and marble floors, she demanded, "Where's Haldane?"

"So you're Talaith's daughter?" a young witch asked her.

"Haldane," Izzy repeated as she walked up to the young witch.

"She has much to do, I'm afraid, and I don't think she'll be able to find the time to meet with the child of a traitor-"

Izzy cut off the witch's words by laying her out with a right cross to the jaw. The witch dropped to the floor and Izzy stepped over her.

"I want to see my grandmother," she said loudly, her voice echoing amongst all that marble. "And I want to see her now."

As she walked down the long hallway, witches emerged from smaller rooms, looking at her, but saying nothing.

Finally, Izzy reached a huge doorway. She turned inside but after a few feet stopped, blinking several times.

eibhear came in behind her and she heard his quick intake of breath.

"Gods," she heard him whisper.

Even before Izzy had been reunited with her mother or known what she looked like, Rhydderch Hael would always tell Izzy that she greatly resembled her mother and father. She had her mother's face but her father's eyes and smile, he'd say. And, after one night with her birth father's family, Izzy knew the truth of that just from what they all said about her. So she'd expected her grandmother to look quite a bit like Talaith. Yet she never thought she'd look like a mirror copy.

"So," the witch said, "you're the one that my daughter gave up all this for." Dark brown eyes looked Izzy over. "You." And she could hear the disappointment in the witch's voice. "Well . . . your mother never was very smart."

At more than four hundred years old, Haldane, Daughter of Elisa, showed no signs of age except for a few gray hairs at her temples.

It was, to say the least, disconcerting, for Izzy to see her "mother" standing there but know it was not her mother. The last time this had happened, her mother's body had been taken over by Rhydderch Hael so that he could get into another god's realm and kill her. But this witch standing on a dais, looking at Izzy as if she were completely meaningless, was simply not her mother. She wasn't possessed with anything but a cold, calculating mind. A heartless bitch.

And Izzy wanted her dead.

"Oh," the Talaith lookalike announced to the other witches slowly walking into the room. "She's brought a dragon for us. Is he a gift?"

"I need to talk to you, witch."

"After all these years? More than three decades and you come to my door now?"

"It's not for me. It's for my sister."

"Right. The child that should not exist."

"But she does exist."

"And you fear her power."

"I fear nothing about my sister. But I want what's best for her."

"So you'll hand her over to me?"