Visitant Visions

I watched as he dressed me, carried me outside and set me atop the tharlarion. I could see the grief on his face. I knew then how true it was, that he did love me, even though I knew he would never be faithful to me. It was a price I was willing to pay. He took me back to the inn, never realizing how hard I was warring against the current of an endlessly dark sea. I could feel the pulling of my body, the fight for survival, then suddenly the boundlessness of a beautiful horizon. One that slowly waned into blood.

“A storm of wings will fall upon the city, a swarm so dark it will block out the light of lar torvis. The streets will fill with seekers and children will cry in their mother’s arms. The great man locks himself within walls of stone, a fortified city in its own right, and from there he shall rule.”

Lashes fluttered and quiet whispers filled the room, I grabbing his hand with an unusual strength.

“He tricked you. Even now he plots, for you have gone against him too many times. You are a man who is quickly running out of options. But you should know that others are plotting against him, for his friends.. those that he can trust, become fewer with each passing day. And you should also know that there is another man that waits in the wings of his defeat, to take over where he leaves off. It does not stop, and the next man to sit on his debauched throne will be.. worse. It is not your Phelps that is the darkness. It is his new blood, one he has been training in secret, where there are no eyes to disapprove."

“You speak of these things as facts.. I will not allow them.. I love you. We will be happy together. I want to think of nothing but you Astraea..."

The birthmark on the inner recess of my wrist was burning, as if someone had laid a brand to flesh. Only now did the full force of it hit me, as well as its odd shape. The number seven.

And the voices were back.

I took him like a starved lover, hungry for the warmth of flesh, wanting to devour the man whose very heart and soul I had seen into. "I will always love you."

Words that were riddled with familiar farewells, even though saying goodbye was the last thing I wanted. I could feel the end. It was nearing. My end, but how or why or when, I did not know. I kissed him as if it would be our last and I clung to him like a woman that would melt away with the early coming of dawn. But I would not. With Kane it was truth, all pouring into an empty soul and he would be the only man that could ever fill me as such. "I love you so much." The rhythm of sexual faith continued and quickened, I breaking the kiss to arch backwards, the curve of my back crescenting like a Taharian's scimitar, the rain falling and pelting across my body like a hundred small stinging bees. We made love in the midst of a storm, the balcony doors left open. I convulsed against him, wrapped in his embrace, as he was my own. While worlds raged around us, we were safe in our own little haven. At least safe for now. Kisses collided over his face, his cheek, his chin and down his neck. And when we were both spent in our passions, I collapsed against him, warm with the knowledge that he would, when the time came, make the right choice.

I would soon bear the bastard of Kane.

Flesh and Fire

I was healing. Odd that I would think such, but I was happy, for once simply allowing myself the enjoyment of Aiden's company, along with this father. Trapped between two men, two so different, and yet, so alike. It had been a quite awhile since I'd seen Castor, so I decided to go to his room. I didn’t knock, but allowed myself entrance, hoping to surprise him.

"Kane?" I no longer called him Castor, for that name was but a layer to the man who wore it. I found him resting on his couch, apparently napping. "Are you .. " No, not dead.. ".. Awake?"

He turned when I touched him, blinking, then looking at me. "I thought you were going to say dead." He smiled at me. His smiles always touch me, I suppose because he doesn’t do it often. "Hmm, so you finally got lonely enough to come find me?"

"Dead. Well, I did think it, but we both know you're not ready to die. No more than I am." I shifted him over, taking a seat next to him, as much couch as he would allow. "I'm not lonely. I just wanted to see how you were doing. It's been quite some time since I saw you last. You've not called me, which leads me to believe I've been replaced in your life. Something I always knew would happen. Or have you merely been.. busy? Taking care of the pikes of Ar? Or maybe Helix has had your attention. Have you not missed me, lover?" I had missed him greatly. But then, I always do.

“Replaced... hardly, I was giving you time to acclimate, as well as spend time with Aiden and his mother. But I'd be lying if I didn't mention the pikes of AR have seen slower days.. Helix? Oh yeah.. " He laughed and leaned up to look at me. "You're not fucking that boy are you?" I never know if he’s joking or not. He pulled me down and ran his fingers through my hair. "Come closer and I will show you how much."

"No, I'm not fucking Helix. I've not even seen him of late." I shrugged and leaned down to kiss him. "But I'll bet you would like to watch if I did. I'm quite acclimated to my new world, though I will disappoint you in saying I've not yet decided on exactly what I want to do. I didn't realize you knew that Aiden’s mother was here. Has she contacted you?"

"Of course I do, very little in AR happens without my knowledge. I’ve been given some leave from duties. A boy is bringing my 10% solution and a case of cosian wine. You will stay with me and we will have a party what do you say?"

"Of course I will stay, you have only but to ask, you know that." I moved to straddle him, the palm of my hand on his chest. "I have missed you my Kane, missed you so much. Have you missed me as well? So maybe we should play a game, something sinful? Hmm. Let me think, what are you in the mood for tonight. A red headed temptress with a temper to match? Or perhaps I should find me a wig and play the part of a blonde bombshell, or maybe a dark haired woman that has all the answers. Or maybe tonight, I will be the evil one. Give you a respite from your days' work."

Someone knocked at the door and our revelry was put on hold, the box he had ordered earlier delivered.

Wine was poured, his special solution readied by way of injection. I asked him what it was. "You're going to inject in into yourself?"

"I was planning to injecting it into you. It's a 10% solution.. iociane, kanda, and wingfish poisons. It's very powerful shit." He stabbed the needle into his arm and released the drug into his system. His look was euphoric.

"What does it do to you?"

"I can not explain it other than.. it is what being alive ...true alive feels like. I can give you a small taste if you'd like it?"

I gave him consent by way of my arm thrust in his direction. Briefly, I wondered if it would.. kill me. It wasn't that I wanted to die, but that I wanted to feel as if I were on the edge. I have to admit I have never before felt anything like that.

"Oh Kings I need you so much Astraea." When I touched him I could see a blond woman pinned to wall, though I couldn’t quite make out her face. "Who is she?"

“Is it coming back slowly?" He held me as if I were a child. "I did something foolish Astraea. I just.. can't." He closed his eyes, the drug coursing through his veins. Through my veins. "Astraea... I have told you a great many things about myself. I have confided in you when I could not anyone else. I have killed people for knowing much less. I am so tired of this game Astraea. I am leaving Ar for good."

If he thought he was leaving without me, he had another thing coming. "Take me with you. Where ever you want to go, I would go with you. We need not stay in Ar, I don't care about that. But I can't be without you. Not today, or tomorrow, or ever."

"You will see what I did sooner or later. You will know. I was directed to separate you and Aiden. I did a great deal of the things I to you when we first met because I wanted him to stay way from you. But the band.. when you submitted.. When I... I fell in love with you Astraea. I can not be in love. Castor Minos Can not ...be in love.."

"I know. I've know all along that you were trying to separate Aiden and me. I knew it and I ignored it. Don't get me wrong, I love Aiden. He's a good person, and I would do most anything for him, but I don't love him as I love you. I don't care that you are Castor, creator of evils, perpetrator of crimes committed against those of.. whatever. I don't care, do you hear me? I want to be with you and I will do whatever I have to to make that happen. I submitted because I love you. Castor Minos does not have to love me.. But the man Kane, if he wishes it, can."

"Get dressed we are going to my house." Our gait was slow, simply enjoying the chance to be with each other without any outside interference. "Do you remember the first time I had you? Do you remember every time I'd had you? I thought at first I could get my jollies off on you while using you for you gift. That was why I did it. Do you remember that night I took you on the floor in bathroom? It made me realize how much I wanted to be with you. I needed to be close to you. I paced my room for ahn talking myself out coming to you."

"I hated you that first day I met you. I knew you were up to no good. I knew that you were going to use me for every thing you could, but as time passed, I found I didn't care. I fell in love with you, not by choice, but by chance. I am yours, no matter how you look at it."

"I want you.. flesh and fire." We bathed and talked and drank as the night wore on.

"Tell me Astraea, have you missed me?" He knew I had, but somehow I felt he needed to hear it. Even as he was injecting me again. "I did not realize it until tonight just how much I missed you, but I did miss you."

"Yes, I missed you. I always missed you, the one true man that makes me weep with pleasures wrought." It didn’t even cross my mind that it was a dangerous thing I played with. I was intoxicated, not only by the drug, but by the man himself.

"Where should we go? Bazi? Schendi? Thentis? Maybe Treve? If we travel can I put a collar on you and have you naked and at my feet?"

"Anywhere you like, I care not where we go, so long as you take me with you, be that by way of free woman, or slave. Either way, I will always be naked at your feet. Even now, though invisible, I wear your collar. And I always will."

"I love you Astraea."

I knew it to be true. I could see it when I touched him. In fact, I could see many things. It was as if a whole new world had opened up to me. My eyes revealed not the muddied color of lost sight, but a brilliant green, one that was almost fluorescent in hue. "I love you Kane, I love you." I'd given myself over to him long ago, obeyed his commands with little heed for myself, and kept his secrets, a price reaping greater than anything I’d ever allowed before. I felt a closeness with him, one I'd never felt before. One not only of hearts, but of souls.

I saw it all. The various misdeeds, rapes, murders, tortures, double dealings, things that were part of Castor. I saw Phelps and Kane’s hatred of the man he worked for and how Castor had hid that man's secrets. A holy man who raped and murderer for profit. How it had never sat well with him. He had grown stoic to protect the last piece of his heart from the monster he had become. It mind became a hallway of doors and I dared to open as many as I could, the succession of flashed images pulsing past my eyes, the gruesome as well as the benign. "Kane." My hand glided down over his side, my finger tracing the scar of 'loyalty', trying to glean the truth from it as well. "So much pain." I saw him as a very young man perhaps a few years old than Aiden now. He was speaking to someone a few years older then he, of the resistance about Castor Minos and the unique opportunity that Kane must take. He was carving an L into his chest, but it was Trevion who had finished the task, so that he would always remember, so he would never forget who he was.

I saw him sitting with a small group of children. He had been a scribe, a teacher when he lived in Amarna. I saw him on that warm spring day on the coastal land.. A red head woman beautiful and innocent staring at him from behind the corner of a building. When the lesson was over he would went to her. Lovers.. Aiden’s mother, she too so different. He was happy then. I watched the voyeaurous creation of their son, Aiden. So much to take in, so little time to decipher it all. I watched the scrapbook of visions parade past, trying to consume every bit of information.

Lovers, brothers, children and more, each holding their own private place in the catacombs of his mind. My finger moved from the word, upwards over the numbers that somehow had always seemed a symmetrical obsession with him. I wasn't even shocked by the fact that I was seeing into a man with a vision that had eluded me, one that I thought had been stolen by his son. The kisses that collapsed over flesh began to make me dizzy, my head turning to the side in order to stabilize the .. vision sea sickness. But still, I didn't want it to stop. I was seeing into a man who had never given his secrets up easily. The rhythm of bodies was kept, motion for motion. "More. More..." The greed of wanting to see into his past, to the truth was consuming me, but I knew I could not stop.

"Astraea..." I was already a part of him and had been since our very first encounter. I'd just not realized it then. Had he? I heard my name whispered, even as the first number was touched. Six, for the six high members of the brother's of light the men who had stolen children, killed, lied, destroyed cities. I felt an unnatural rage, one that was almost inhuman. Five, an ancient library in his mind's eye. I could hear his voice in my head reading the written word of a Scholar of the ancient city of Amarna. I felt a tear. The journal entry bespoke of a city made of glass that stood in the place where AR did now. A war or perhaps an attack, and the city was no more. Four, children sitting in a courtyard, suddenly seized by two men. I saw him, his head in his hands. The children were being taken upstairs to be raped by Phelps. When Phelps had finished, Castor was sent to kill the children to prove his loyalty. The children already close to death. He killed them quickly, small necks broken to end their pain. I watched as he sat on the floor that night weeping. Three was again the brother, a blond woman and another young man named Lir, now dead. Castor had killed him. Two. Aiden and his mother interlaced with a deep feeling of loss. One. This was the most frightening of all. It was Castor himself, how he saw himself. A fearsome monster, disgusting and violent.

Sensory overload was beginning to take its toll, on both body and mind. Rage, sorrow, pain, possession, all enormously equipped for the final emotional revolution. I cried out, the tears that fell from no where fusing with the outward seeping of my own. The plunder of my body commingled with small lost souls, the screaming overridden by first terror, then such a telling hatred I thought I would suffocate. The aura of despair was thick, like a ghostly fog I couldn't seem to pull myself out of, one that coiled and tethered me in wisps of regret. The aberration of abandonment. The hand that had caressed each of the numbers so carefully was pulled back as the last vision faded, the tips of my fingers feeling as if they had been burned. And indeed they had, the metaphysical of one universe coagulating with the impossibilities of another. I had not moved, at least not at first when he had pulled away from me, still reeling from all the honesties I had wrenched from him. My breathing was erratic, as was his, and my flesh had paled to an almost translucent hue, skin that caught the low light with fleeting iridescent glimmers of quicksilver, pinks and turquoises never seen before, the solution working its way through me in its oddly effecting way. When air once again was able to fill my lungs, I rose, though the stand was unsteady. "Kane." One hand reached out to him, fingers wavering slightly as if I was already touching him, the slight spectral glow pulsing just beneath my flesh. Lashes fluttered, intermittently revealing the strange color of eyes beneath, before I folded and fell to the floor near his feet. I had done something I'd never done before, I had fainted, and by the expression on my face, I was still trapped in his world of torment, all hope forsaken. His hell my prison.

No movement save the butterfly effect of dark lashes and the rapid eye movement that one always associated with dreams. I seemed to be cursed with a knowledge I couldn't depart, though slowly, the paleness waned and color began to fill my cheeks. I could see him, from above, a man distraught at what he had done, his head resting on my stomach, though I couldn't quite feel the touch. I was calling out to him, trying to reach him, trying to gain his attention by ways of another path, my body lost in the recesses of some odd coma like eclipse. I could hear him, I could feel his inner turmoil, but I could not break through the barrier that yet separated us. It was as if I were on the wrong side of a mirrored glass, where I could see in, but he couldn't see out. My fists pounded against the translucent wall, though my body made no such moves. I was trapped in time. His time.

Meeting of the Mother

The woman I knew as Aiden’s mother was waiting for me in my room.. reading my journal.

"Find everything you need?" I was sure which irked me more, the fact that she was reading my most private thoughts, or that she was so comfortably lounging on my sleeping couch. "Why

are you in my room?"

"Not really though I suppose it's all ripe for the plucking."

She closed it, but made no attempt to give it back."I thought that would be very obvious. I came to speak with you Mekaré." She set the journal in her lap and motioned for me to take a seat.

My obedience wasn't immediate, but still, this was Aiden's mother, and even though he hated her, she did owe the woman a certain amount of respect. "You must be here for a reason. Or do you just make it a habit of going from room to room and reading other’s personal writings?"

"You can cut the snotty short tone. I am unimpressed, especially when given by a woman who thinks I need this sad piece of tat to tweeze out her inner most secrets." She tossed my journal to the floor. "Scurry for it.. like you do every thing else in your life Mekaré." She did, to her credit, get up and retrieve the book, putting it back where she had gotten it from.

"I don't.. scurry." Did I? "Aiden is gone, as you may well know. Are you going to see him?"

"Mmhmm. Do always you argue over the petty parts of every conversation you have?" She was a beautiful woman, I’d give her that. "I am here to speak to you, about you. I saw last night what happened to you. With Aiden, with Castor.. what is it you think you will do now?"

The wonder all question. I’d been asking myself that very thing, though I was no closer to the answer. "I don't know. It's all I've thought about. Castor says I need to pick something and apply myself, but .. this .." Turn was made, eyes landing on what were now the quiet cards that sat ever patiently on her dresser. "..those.. is all I've ever known. I suppose now they'll have to wait for my daughter, if I ever have one. They'll be her legacy."

"Your mother? Did you know her well? For once Kane and I are in agreement. You do need to apply yourself to something other than your gifts, Mekaré there are times in our lives when they do not always do us the services that we need them to do."

"Yes. I knew her well. She was.. is a quiet woman. What? I have no idea what to apply myself to. I've never studied a caste, I would be starting over.. completely. And why do you keep calling me that?"

"Tell me about her? Take small steps, Mekaré. Learn first how to live without the guidance of the voices. You rely on them heavily I can tell in the way you speak.. you are still searching for them, yes?" She frowned and shook her head looking at me puzzled. "You have never heard that name before?" She sighed ever so softly. "That is your true name child.. the name spoken by the spirits before you were born.. when the world was new. We are all given names.. that is yours."

"It's a pretty name. I've never heard it before. She was a loving mother and companion to my father. She lost the gift when she was won by a Turian in the love wars. She became his slave, then he died, leaving her to a scribe, who freed her, my father. He companioned her and I was born the first of six, all girls. We always have girls, it's a part of the curse. Yes, I search for the voices, but they no longer come out to play. They're gone, just as they always do when a woman is not pure enough to receive them." My gaze cut to the cards again, betrayers of faith.

"If you could have the gift back, you'd take it wouldn't you, Mekaré? What if I told you that your mother did not tell you the truth, but she did not necessarily lie to you either? What if I told you that Aiden was drawn to you for a reason.. What if I told you why Aiden did what he did to you? What if I asked you to trust me? Could you do that?"

"I would take it, yes." I was in agony, not a pain from limb, or any tangible part of my body, but one that came from inside, one that emanated from my very soul. "Trust you. I think first you would have to tell me what it is you know. All of it. Tell me all of it."

"You don't get to know these things. You have not proven yourself Mekaré. You have lost your gift not because you have lost your purity but because you were foolish enough to covet it. We all do, we are taught the arcane and forget that others are not blessed like us. It is stolen from us from time to time to give us the chance to be normal. Do you love my son? Like I loved his father? Yes, it is over between you I know.. but do you love him?"

I nodded, the sadness in my eyes palpable. "Yes, but he hates me now. And he has every right to hate me. I lied to him. I betrayed him. I traded him for his father. Tell me, what does he have to do with all.. this." There was a touch of cracking in my voice, but eyes never strayed from the woman. Eyes that were no longer the island green they once were, but were melded with the darker hue of a muddied brown.

"You and Aiden, are related.. distantly of course.. all of our kind are. We come from one blood line that passes this gift from mother to child. Do you remember when you first laid eyes upon Aiden? Were you drawn to him? That was the source.. inside of both of you drawing you to each other. Finding safety for each other in each other."

"And he .. took it from me. It wasn't something I offered. Not my virginity. He was.. he wanted me to tell him I loved him, even though he loves another as well."

"You need to pull yourself together you are too erratic, one moment you are upset the next you are confused. You can blame him if you want to but this is your fault. You have no one to blame but yourself. These things happen to all of us, and until you take responsibility and focus yourself you are doomed. I can help you if you let me.. but I will not push you. Good night Mekaré. I hope you find whatever it is you are looking for"

"My fault. Though I would take some of the blame, I don't think I can very well swallow it all. Help me? How can you help me? What is it you can do?" It was there, a flicker of interest, seen by the reflection of light in of eyes.

She paused and turned and looked at me. "You can say what you like, but you chose this the moment you sat down at the table with Kane that night. The moment you chose Kane's lies over Aiden's truths. Kane is an easy man to love. He is charming and brilliant when he needs to be. But the decision was yours and yours alone. You kept it from Aiden. You kept it from him. So by doing so, surely you must have expected that when this all came to a head it would not have been peaceful. Especially when you continued not to tell him. When you continued to lie. He is a man Mekaré, they say we are ruled by our emotions. So too are they." She went quiet for a moment. "Has it not seemed strange to you that I know these things as though I was there? Surely you are not so foolish to think I could have read that little bit of taft and gleen all of that?"

"Ah, yes, the night he threatened Aiden's life. I made the choice I had to, the best choice at the time for Aiden's safety." I remembered that, and remembered it well. "So what do I do? You said you would help me, Then, if you truly can, I'm asking for your help. I want my gift.. back. Just tell me what it is I need to do and I'll do it. Tell me where I go from here." I paused, then shook my head, defeated again." I did what I had to do, what I thought I had to do to protect Aiden. I truly thought that Castor would kill him if I did not comply. Even after I came to love him, Castor, he threatened his own son's life. Mine as well." Silence again. "If it meant saving Aiden's life, I would do it again." Arms crossed just beneath my breasts, as if I was hugging myself. "The thought did cross my mind. How do you know these things? At first I thought you might be seeing it from Aiden's eyes, but he wasn't always present."

"But there in lies the problem Mekaré, you raped him surely as he did you. You took from his right to say no. You forced him to take what his father gave." She took my hands in hers. "I know Mekaré, but you can not blame Aiden for his wrath.. Anymore than he can blame you for lying."

She removed her gloves and then leaned in to kiss me. My eyes closed, as if I was trapped in the after image of a dream. Lips met in the soft sensation of a kiss, then the pulling, the tugging that seemed to pull a part of me outward, beyond the mortal shell. For a moment I thought my knees would buckle, my breath caught, though it wasn’t stolen, my body seemed magnetized. The feeling ebbed to a thin cord, then was completely gone, the kiss broken. At first I could say nothing, wondering if that was what other's experienced when touched by me, but soon my voice was found, even if it was reclaimed within the walls of a hushed whisper. "I tried to open myself up to him, but I could not. Something inside me wouldn’t allow it. Perhaps he did free me, but not in the way he had hoped."

"Things seldom work they way we hope. Do you think I had wished to find Kane with my sister, to lose him, to lose my son? The curse is in your mind.. the blockage of your gift.. It’s in your head."

"Then you know too, that Kane did not realize who the sister was. He thought it was you. So why did you still leave him? And I think Aiden has more to do with this then you are letting on. What is it you haven't told me?" Even as the question was asked, I was wondering if the woman's words were true. Could the gift still be there? Hiding, lurking in the deepest dark of my mind?

"Kane needed me too.. This was not a new development.. you, Aiden, the blond.. I foresaw this all turnings ago. When I told you that our children would be siblings.. I was not lying. You will give birth to another child of source. A sister or brother of gift. We each have a part in this ..in this child's life. I can not yet tell you these things, you are not ready. But you need to be.. you will not get your gift back until you can focus yourself. You will need to find in yourself a need, something beyond just those cards. You will need to learn to adapt. It is easier said than done I know, but when has anything in your life been easy. I think you should go to Aiden and start by telling him the truth. That’s what he truly wants."

I wanted to tell him. But I knew I could not tell him everything. Did I dare? I was still fearful, afraid of what Castor would do. He seemed to be a man of his words, especially when he threatened."

"You tell him everything Mekaré you tell him. Answer everything he asks you until he stops asking.. and when he does. You say what you have to... what your heart tells you.. You can tell him whatever you want to. You are the one who gives Castor his power. You are the one who lets Kane control you.. and thereby control Aiden. You castrate Aiden. Who are you to decide what Aiden does and does not know?"

"And how would I live with myself if something happened to Aiden, because of something I told him? That is what I fear the most. That I would be the last needed ingredient, the catalyst for the chaos that would follow."

"So ultimately. this about you? This is not about Aiden, your love for him. Your love for Kane.. or even your honor. It's about you not wanting to deal with the possibility of guilt. That my dear is selfish and foolish and rude. Again I ask. Who are you to make that decision? Do what you feel is right, but remember that this life is about balance cause and effect.. You made a decision.. it cost you. What will the next one cost you?" She moved to me and kissed my cheek.

It sounded so self serving when she said it that way, and that wasn’t it at all. "Do we not have a certain obligation to be careful of what we say? Do we not have an obligation to protect, if it is in our power? What's been done to me is done, it cannot be changed. But do I not have a duty to take care in releasing something that could be.. devastating?"

“No dear. No we don't. We are truth tellers. If we do not tell the truth, we alter the fate of others. We force them into avenues they may not have chosen had they been aware of the all the facts. You have a good kind heart and I know that though your word could have been taken as selfish and rude it was not from those things that you spoke. You love my son and he you. You may not understand now why he did what he did.. but it will unfold to you. And though you two may or may not be meant for each other.. you will need each other times to come. Make amends with him Mekaré."

When she left I went for a walk. I had much to think about. I needed to talk to Aiden but I had no idea where to look. But destiny had handed me another card, even though I couldn’t read them.

I found him in the square, sitting beneath one of the large statues, but the moment he saw me he lifted to his feet and began to walk away. "I have to talk to you. There is so much you need to know, so much I have to tell you. I know you think it's over between us, and perhaps a certain part of us is lost, but there are forces working against you, against us both. Please, stop, Aiden, will you stop and listen to what I have to say? Please?"

"No." However he did grab my hand immediately and leading me to a dark alley. "Talk."

"Several hands ago, I was sent a letter. One that bid me to attend a meeting, a meeting I had no choice but to attend. A man, Castor Minus believed me to be a charlatan. He and the High Initiate, my.. gift coming into question. He said that if I did not help him, that he would.. kill you, and I would be impaled... or enslaved." I paused just long enough to catch my breath." So I agreed to help him. It was he that I spent my days with, it was not with any in study of the arcane. It was he whose scent you smelled upon me. It was he who continued to hold the reins of both our futures. It was he who I fell in love with, even as I loved you. He is the one that wanted you to be my first. I suppose, in a way, I was his gift to you, a gift from a father, to his son."

"You did not trust me enough to tell me. I was your guardsman, Astraea. I was your man. You would lay with me, but not trust me enough to protect us from him. And what am I to do with this knowledge.. that You think me partially a boy? You compromised yourself for me.. for a man that flaunts and manipulates you. I do not understand you Astraea. I am sorry I let you down." He stepped around me and started to walk away.

"I did not, because of what Castor had told me. Even telling you now I am fearful at what he will do in retaliation. Understand, I thought I was protecting you. I thought what I was doing was saving your life. I warred with this knowledge, day after day, I wanted to tell you, but didn't want to be responsible for what my words might bring. I will tell you anything you wish to know. You have only to ask. I should have told you. I know that now. I allowed fear to over ride my senses. I was wrong. You had a right to know, I realize that now." I hastily stepped in his direction, then in front of him, hoping to block his path." Wait.. There’s more."

He turned around to face me."IT WAS NOT RIGHT! Don't you realize I would have died for you. Don't you realize I only ever feel safe around you?"

"I did die for you." The words were said in such a way he may not have heard. He may not have understood. "Your mother is here, in Ar. Staying at the inn, I presume. Why do you only feel safe around me? What could I possibly offer you in the way of safety?"

He glared at me. He glared down at me like I was the most evil and wretched thing that had ever lived. He backed away from me. "My mother is dead. I saw her die. I do not know what your game is."

"She is not dead. She's alive Aiden, as is your father. You do not have to take my word for it. I wouldn't expect you to, see for yourself. Go back to the inn. You will find them."

"Even if she is... what is the point of telling me this? Does this absolve you of lying to me? Of all your wrong doings to me? I don't need you to save me. By the very admission of action you are implying I am too weak to do so for by myself. If my father wishes to kill me ...or my mother for that matter let them come."

I had wanted to make things right, but I seemed to only be making things worse. He shoved me against the wall behind me. "I loved you Aiden. I love you still. I didn't know he was your father until it was too late. I can't help that I love him as well. I need him. But I need you too. And I think you need me. We have.. a connection, the two of us. Not only did something happen to me the night we lay together, but to you as well. Can you feel it? I can."

"What are you talking about? Are you talking of the gift? The voices?"

"Do you hear them? Do they talk to you Aiden? Can you understand them? You can't tell me that something isn't different with you. I may not have you in my bed, but I need you in my life, as you do me. We are.. connected in some way I cannot explain. Do you feel that as well?"

"I don't hear voices Astraea.. I see things.. I dream of things. The night that I took your gift.. I do not wish to talk about this in the streets like a sleen. There are things I need to tell you .. that I don't want others to hear.. where can we go?"

"There is a small empty room over a store I've been looking at. I still have the key; we can go there, if you wish." Now it was my turn to take his hand, leading him to the abandoned storefront, then skirting around behind it, by way of back alley. "It's quite empty of furniture, but it's private. I don't really know what I thought I'd do with it, but it caught my eye when I first seen it, called to me... before.. We can talk here."

"Are you angry at me for what I did? Do you know why I did it?"

"Angry.. no. Saddened, yes, I suppose I am. I'm.. so lost now. I have to start completely over, and I have no idea where to begin. That's why I thought maybe this place.." My shoulders lifted and fell in a despairing shrug. "Your mother says you thought you were saving me. Is that really it? Did you think I was being consumed by it?" I had taken his hand in mine again.

"There are many reasons why I did it, that being the most important and at the fore front. I wanted to show you that you were so much more than your gift. That you were desirable.. beyond just something carnal. A piece of ass... isn't that what he called you? I needed you. I was scared and confused.. I wanted to prove I was a man."

"I need you to Aiden. But I need you as something more than a lover. I don’t know, I can't explain it.. but I feel together we are stronger, even though I don't yet understand why. I know if our friendship fails, that something terrible will happen. You'll need me, and I won't be there. Or I'll need you, and you won't either. Does that make any sense?" My hand had tightened on his, turning to look at him. "He calls me many things, but he doesn't really mean them." Love was blind, deaf and dumb.

"You haven't seen it then? They haven't told you have they? There are things that come to me all the time.. things about you .. about what I did and your gift.. but I am not sure that I should tell you. Does that not change the outcome of things? I have had this gift in some form for many years, it is only now that I have had sex that it is at it's full potential and only when I did so with you that I ... It doesn't matter... do not hide things from me.. please."

Tell me, Aiden, what is it you see? People have a right to know what their future might bring, so that they are given the chance to change it for the better. Once I believed this, then I was unsure, but now I believe that again, with ever fiber of my being. If you know something, you have to tell me. It's the only way that I can prepare."

"I didn't take your gift from you. It's still there. You just have to find it again. I can not tell you much more, without you thinking I have ulterior motives, but you will bear me children.. and we will be companioned for a spell.. in the future. It will not be for romance. We will fulfill a contract."

"Find it? How do I find it? I was told I would bear Kane children. Please, I've been completely honest with you, you have to tell me whatever you've seen. Please Aiden. I'm afraid. Afraid of so many things I've never been afraid of before. If you have insight to give me, I'm asking you to tell me."

"Finding it is, is something no one can tell you, but I will advise you to listen to my mother. She is wise.. and she will and wants to see you healed." He touched my lips as though he was admiring the kiss I’d left, however brief. "I know what you're asking me, but you know this gift as well as I, better It does not come always in ways I can explain. Perhaps I can only see what you will have with me? Perhaps you will have a fleet of children. Perhaps I am wrong, but I will be here with you. I will tell you what I know."

I told him of Kane, that he asked about him often. I could see in his eyes that he hates his father.

"One always remembers their very first love, and you were mine. You still are, the love has only changed, not dissipated. I wasn't lying to you when I told you I needed you. I do. You are my, strength."

"Promise me something. You find one night where you can slip a way from your lover, maybe in the day if the night is not possible. Where we can meet here.. and we sleep together? I will bring furs and a lantern.."

And so plans were made. One I cheated on the son by way of the father.

Now I would be cheating on the father.. because of the son.

No Rest for the Weary

No sleep for the mad

No peace for the weak

No dreams to be had

No whispers of comfort

No craving of fate

No pretense of warmth

No desire to sate

No feelings roam

In this vast empty shell

For no life is present

In my vacant hell

Aftermath

I was still laying there when Castor came to my room some time later. How much later, I didn’t know, for time had lost all its meaning to me. Blood still smeared over the inside of ivory thighs and my eyes were red rimmed and weary, knowing there was nothing I could do to fix what I had so badly broken. My fingers clutched tightly at the fur beneath me, no cover veiling my damnation. In a moment when I should have had it all, I had nothing.

He called out my name, but at first I didn’t answer, wishing I would never have to answer anyone again. "What's wrong with you? Going to spend all day in bed?" And then he realized and I could see the flash of anger over his face. "Who? Who?!"

"Aiden. He did not rape me, but he does hate me. It was what you wanted, yes? For him to be my.. first." Even now I felt the need to protect him, even after what he’d done. What he’d said.

"I do not hear them anymore. They have .. abandoned me." Aiden? The cards? Had he guessed either he would have been right.

He picked my up and I curled against his chest, where he ran me a bath. Sometimes I find it strange how a cruel man can relay such bouts of kindness. "You are frightened?"

"Yes." I could not look at him. I dared not see what I thought would be found in his eyes. I was ruined and in more ways then one. "You will not need me now, for I can tell you nothing. The cards are silent." I slunk down into the water, then curled to one side of the tub, hugging its edge. "He left me, laying there." I tried to eradicate the seen from my head. "What will I do?"

"For as smart as you are you have to be the stupidest of women I have met. Do you remember me telling me you that you should cultivate other skills besides your gifts? And now you are useless.. to me.. You forget that is not up to you. You have submitted. You belong to me. But you are not of any use to me, so I should kill you right?"

I didn't dare speak, for fear my voice would crack, only a simple nod of my head in answer to my death. Ehns passed before I could force myself to look up at him. "You knew he would recognize the slave bracelet you gave to me, didn't you? You wanted him to.. be angry at me. Did you know that it would push him over the edge as well? That he would take my virginity for such an offense?" Or maybe he hadn't. FI was so confused right now I couldn't seem to see past my own grief. The words had been soft, no animosity within, nothing but quiet desperation.

"What do you think? You think a man that loves you could be stilled by the fact that you wear a man's collar. Do you honestly believe that man didn't know I've been fucking for hands. He would have been a fool.. He knew already my dear.. and still he had sex with you. You said he did not rape you, so what was it then? What did he say? What did he do?"

I recanted the story to him once again, trying my best not to fall apart. Not an easy task for a woman who was.. falling apart.

"Perhaps now with the loss of your gift, with having disgusted the one good person who loved you, and with being nothing more than a worthless piece of ass you will begin to understand that what I said to you about you having more skills than just one to fall back on. Get out of the tub dry yourself You have a very simple choice to make." He removed the blade from his sleeve, cutting the slave band from my wrist. "If you’re not worth having I do not want you."

I felt like I was walking through the mist of a dream. Or to better describe it, a nightmare. I watched the leather fell to the floor, tempted to pick it up, but I did not. I rose from the tub, towel draped, neither sitting nor kneeling. merely just.. existing.

What, what could I possibly be good for? I didn’t know anything else. I’d never been in a position where I had to. Eyes drifted towards the window, then the hall door, before they at last swept back to the man sitting in the chair. I couldn’t seem to keep my thoughts on one thing.

"Focus Astraea. I do not tolerate failure or weakness. So if you have nothing to offer me then I will simply kill you. You have a choice to make Aiden took your gift but as I have said many times before, your gift does not define you. It is a part of you. You asked me what I can teach you once.. I can teach you to adapt. You are not meant to be a kneeling, serving slave, it is not in you, but neither are you meant to be free. So what is it? Adapt or die?"

Focus. Yes, perhaps if I focused I'd be able to ... what? Learn to cook? Sew? Sell flowers on some Arian street corner? Adapt. Die. Wasn't it all the same? "I don't understand. If I am not meant to be a slave, but neither am I meant to be free.. what possible choices do I have left?"

"Foolish wench have I taught you nothing? Let me guess, you believe that the things I do are all about viciousness and cruelty. They are not about moving between the lines of social norms. I teach, regardless of whether the lesson is desired or not. I am not exactly a villain, but no one would ever call me a hero. Did you think that perhaps like me you can create a space between to hard lines to be. A space between free and slave? And once you have figured it out, find a niche in which to thrive...a use? Come here.."

How very logical he made it all sound. But even so, I was drowning in the emotional aspect of it all. Two steps was all it took me before I was standing in front of him, unsure whether to kneel, stand, sit or crawl. A use, yes, I needed a use. Perhaps a project. Something to throw myself into,

something that would force me to forget all my woes and self pitying sorrows. "What do you think I would be.. good at."

"This is not for me to decide. You can not find purpose in something I define. If I was to do that you would enjoy it at first.. pleasing me but after a while it would come to you that this is not what you want. Decide and tell me. You have time. For now your decision to live and adapt is all I require." His touch was gentle, soft, pushing the still damp locks from my eyes, his hand cupped against my cheek. "I had longed for sometime to be your first, but I could not." Why he could not he would not explain, telling me only that in time, I would understand.

He kissed me, then turned me around, a blade set to my throat. "Death.. of Adapt.."

Death or adaptation. How I had wanted to scream for death, to push my neck into the defeated sharpness of blade and end it all, but I couldn't. There was still a thread of hope, though distant, that I could live.. and maybe even be .. happy. My eyes closed, my breath raspy with the words that would seal my destiny, one way or another. "I will.. adapt."

"Yes you will." He grabbed my hair wrapping it viciously around his hand, cutting it, before he sent me stumbling to the floor. "This is the old you." He held aloft the hair he'd cut away in his hand, motioning to the mirror with his other. "And that is the new you."

Of all the things I might have expected from him, that wasn't one of them. My hand had raised to see what he'd done, even as I moved to the mirror. He hadn’t cut it all off, he hadn’t shorn it to the scalp, but left me plenty enough to work with. A new look, for a new woman. I was certainly.. that. Or if not new, then different.

"What is it you want Astraea?"

To change the past, the one thing I could never have.

"What is it my love.. did you expect from me companionship?"

"No, of course not. I've never said as much. I know you're not the companionship type. If that was all I wanted, I would have stayed with Aiden. I know what kind of man you are. And still I submitted to you. I know what you do, but it didn't matter. I didn't even care how you treated me, I just wanted to be near you, by whatever means possible. I don't really know what I expect from you, any more than I do myself."

"I do not expect... anything. I want from you nothing. That is why you are mine to possess.. You are the first thing I have ever just wanted.." He looked at me then into his cup. "Is that wrong?" He smirked. I hate it when he smirks, never knowing if what he’s telling me is true, or simply something more to reel me in.

"No. You are right, I am yours to possess. If it is a coinbox girl that you want me to be, then, for you. I would. But that doesn't mean I would like it." Something he had called me earlier. I thought perhaps he had been joking. I still hoped he was. "My love for you knows no bounds. It's unconditional. Knowing you want me is enough."

He laughed as if he were privy to some joke that I was not. He ordered me to him and fashioned a cup held by a strap to my throat, producing a gold tarn from his pocket and dropping it in. He was smiling. Waiting.

I smiled too. Not because I was a coinbox girl, but because I was his coinbox girl.

I cannot change the past, I can only learn from it. Soon my present will melt into my future. Things will change. I will change. I can only pray that it is for the greater good.. and heal the wounds as best I can.

Virginity Washes Away

I’d found Aiden's room empty when I'd gone to see him, not a shred of evidence that he had ever been there. The Karian's room too, was empty of body or vice, the room now waiting for its next occupant. I was too late to tell him, not everything, but as much as I could. There was a part of me that hoped he was gone and a part of me that was empty, an emptiness I'd not felt since leaving the island all those vars ago.. as a slave. Odd how things haven’t really changed for me. Life it was coming full circle.

And then came the knock, with Aiden on the opposite side of the door.

I pulled him inward and closed the door behind him, though my hand quickly dropped from the intimate contact of touch. He was a man that had a new woman now. A woman not me. I told him I wished to answer all his questions that I could, but he somehow seemed.. Disinterested.

I had turned away from him, an error he was quick to correct, grabbing my arm and turning me to face him again. "I felt bad about our.. parting. I felt I owed you explanations that I did not give you. And in not giving them to you, I'd lost you as a friend. I never wanted to lose your friendship Aiden. But neither did I wish to hurt you with my secrets. I thought I was.. protecting you."

"Friendship.... Friendship? Did you not love me? Did you lie to me Red? You touched me.. you kissed me. You let me speak to you of companionship to you. I wanted you.. I would have laid down my life for you.. Why ...for what?"

I did love him. I do love him, but not the way he needed to be loved. I would never be able give myself completely over to him, as a woman should. I tried to explain this all to him, but I didn’t seem to be doing a very good job. "You're angry, you have every right to be. I .. I did lie to you. I betrayed you. I took what you offered and gave you back nothing but deceit. For that I am truly sorry. I would understand if you never forgave me."

"I do not understand Astraea, what is it you could not give over to me? What is it? Why am I not good enough? Was it because I am not as aggressive as your lover? Am I not a man... that should be loved?"

He is so innocent, in so many ways and his words broke my heart. "Aiden, of course you are good enough. In fact, you are too good for me. I don't deserve a man like you. Don't you see, there is a darkness in me, one I try hard to control, but surfaces when I least expect, or want it. You have a woman who loves you, and though I always wish to be your friend, I do not think that we would have lasted together. I love you, but not the way I love another. I didn't mean to fall in love with him, it just.. happened. Like it did with your Heavyn Lee. Did you know you talked about her in your sleep? You cried out her name more than once. "

"I will not listen to this. A darkness too you? Do you not think I know this? Do you not think I can feel it? You wanted to hurt me.. you succeeded and Heavyn Lee was dear to me.. if I called out her name it was only out of dreams of telling of you. I loved you.. and you spit on me. You brought yourself into bed with me still dirty from his touch... And I knew.. all the time. I could feel him on you. I could smell him.. You were different after him." He turned away from me and move to door. You know she isn't taken with my ways I am slow she is fast.. I am quiet ..she is loud. She is demanding and I am not.. and she was my very best friend even before I loved her. I wanted to share you with her. She is not taken with my ways.. and I do not see this lasting long. Perhaps I am just one of those men who is meant to be alone. My mother said this of my father once. I wonder if it's in my blood."

"I did not want to hurt you Aiden. I never wanted to hurt you." My voice had lowered, no longer able to look at him, the guilt of my actions heavily bearing on my expression. "You will make it work with her. She loves you, I don't need to be able to see into the future to know that. And you love her. It's obvious the way you look at her, the way you say her name." I had risen from where we had been sitting on the edge of the couch, wanting to step closer to him, but not wishing to further damage an already damaged relationship. "I had hoped you would forgive me for my errors. You are right, I came to you.. dirtied with another man's scent upon me. That was cruel. It was wrong, but it's something I can not now change. I can only apologize and beg your forgiveness."

"Come here." He was dark and brooding and I could see his father in him. "Do not speak of Heavyn Lee again." It was a command. As were his next words. "Disrobe."

There was only a moment's hesitation, this conceived by the fact I didn't want to lead him on. But neither did I want to have to atone for her non compliance to Castor. I undressed, then stood before naked.

He immediately grabbed my wrist and turned it to face him, I only now realizing what he was looking at. The band Castor had given me in lieu of a collar. "Where did you get this."

Even though I’d tried to turn away, it was too late, he’d seen it. So I told him the truth. "It was a gift, from a friend, why?"

He hit me. Sweet Aiden had raised his hand to me, something I would have never thought him able to do. "Stop lying to me."

"I'm not lying, it was a gift. Why, do you care?" My hand lifted to my face, shocked. "Its from the .. man I love."

"You submitted! You knelt to a man! Were you laying in bed with me, a slave to another?" He was angry, more so than I had ever seen him before. "This is a slave band of Amarna.. I have never seen one outside it's border. WHO GAVE IT TO YOU!"

I paled, flesh a stark contrast to the vibrant shade of red hair. Slave band? He'd knowingly marked me as a slave! He known Aiden would see it! "I.. didn't know." I was totally defeated, my head bowed, even as my knees seemed to buckle. I neither confirmed nor denied his claim, only offering what I could. "I will not tell you who he is. What does it matter now anyway? I love him Aiden. And he is a man of harsh judgments. He would kill either of us if he even thought I had betrayed him."

"Did you kneel to him of your own free will? Did you submit to him Astraea?" His anger was quickly turning to sorrow. Sorrow I had caused. “Is this why you could not love me...because I was not the master you needed?"

I had fallen to my knees in front of him, they now too weak to hold me. Tears pricked the back of my eyelids, then fell unfettered, small little rivers streaming down my face. I did not answer him, could not, only able to bow my head in shame. Not for the shame of submitting, but for the shame of hurting him, over and over again. "You hate me."

He too, fell to his knees with me. "Tell me? If you do not want this I will help you. But you say you love him.. if this is what you want." He kissed my knuckles and drew me into his arms. "No.. I do not hate you."

I clung to him when he offered comfort, half sobbing with my words. "I love him Aiden. I would die for him. I can't explain it, what happens to me when he is near. He has a hold on me like no one ever has. I was in his chains the day we met, though then it was not what I wanted, I have come to expect nothing less from him. He is cruel, hurtful and often times maddening. But I do not wish to escape. I .. need him."

"Then why do you cry? I do understand."

"Because I have saddened you with my .. wantonness. I have craved two men, but one I feel the need to surrender too, while the other I feel the need to protect from all the evils of the world."

"You think I am weak."

"No, I do not. I think you one of the strongest men I have ever met. But I fear for you, for there are forces that you do not know of, that endanger you. Webs that tangle and weave about us, until there is no hope of movement." I still clung to him, the side of my face pressed up against his chest. "If I could do things differently, I would. I would not have hurt you as I did. I would have been honest from the time I realized I loved this man, but I can not undo what is done. The end would have been the same. I would still want him, despite his .. short comings."

"Why do you think I am unaware of these things.. You have a very strange opinion of me Astraea." His fingers ran down my back, one still bare of clothing. “You needn't worry. What of your want of me? Is it gone?"

"No. I want you still. Despite the fact I know we can never be. Despite the fact that I love another man, and you love another woman. There is a thread that links us, one not easily severed. I desire you as much now as I did in the beginning. Do you still desire me?"

“Of course I do.." He began to kiss my neck, nipping and biting.

"There is a way for you to have me, if you so wish it. A way to take me, and leave my virginity in tack. Do you want me Aiden?" I was returning the nips and kisses, from neck to ear, our pining passion for each other hard to quell. But even with the offer, I made no aggressive move to unlace his pants or remove his shirt.

He undressed, then whispered too softly for me to hear. I think it was more a question to himself them me. “Is that how he left you a virgin?"

"Yes." I hadn't heard it, but I'd known he asked it all the same. "I will need to oil you, otherwise you would hurt me. Do you wish me to do that now so that you will be ready to take me at your whim?"

"Not just yet, I want to taste you first." He kissed me so tenderly, my face cradled in his hands. His grasp tightened into a hug and he pressed into me. He wanted not what I offered him, but everything I had.

I froze, my eyes wide first with confusion, then fear. I’d tried to scream, to yell his name, but my voice was as paralyzed as me. What had he done! What had I allowed him to do! For the moment, I was even numb to the pain, not knowing how to react, or if I should react at all. Tears were renewed, sliding down from the corners of my eyes and into my hair. Where were the voices? Those that always filled my head with such mindless chatter. Gone. They were all.. gone. And then it happened, the mournful wave of insipid hysteria that was sure to come afterwards, I trying to push him off of me, even though it was too late. "What have you done!" Though quietly asked, it was full of emotion, my heart broken and my soul bared.

"Does it matter? It is done."

He had as surely raped the gift from my soul as he was now raping my body. But could one really rape a slave? I groaned in quiet torment, only now feeling the pain of broken innocence. Again I squirmed beneath him, trying to push him off, but he would not allow it, and as quickly as it had started, it had stopped. I didn’t matter now, it was too late. Lost, it was all lost to me now. I tried to concentrate on the pain of impalement, and not the pain of loss. My head turned to the side, not daring to look at him for fear of what he might see. Perhaps the true darkness was only beginning.

"Tell me you love me, Astraea? Tell me you still love me."

I moaned and whimpered beneath him, more so when he began to move inside of me. Even though his lips were sweet on my neck, there was still pain. I said nothing.. not wishing to give him false hope. But he asked me again.

My head slowly turned to face him, my expression flickering from blank to pained.

“Tell me that you love me Astraea. Tell me these are our last moments together surely you can tell me this? Tell me..I want to hear it."

"He'll kill you, you have to go. Leave Ar and never return." My hand lifted to brush across his cheek. So much I had wanted to tell him, would have told him. But if it allowed him to leave quicker, I would offer him simple truths. "I love you Aiden, but you have to go. Take her and disappear." And I kissed him, giving myself over to him. I did love him. Even now, even though he’d taken what wasn’t his to take. I loved him.

"It's worth it to me. And I will leave when I am good and ready and not before. I will come here to see you. Will you see me?"

"No, never again. This is the last time you will ever see me, Aiden. And you will not seek me out. You will go on with your life as if this never happened. You must." Even through the now waning pain, my body opened to him, inviting him to partake of that which he'd never taste again. "We have only now, this single ehn in time. I can afford you no more."

But neither could I afford him less.

"As you wish."

He held his fingers over the slave band I wore and made love to me. "I love you Astraea.. never forget that. I will always love you.. my friend."

Kisses were whispered across his mouth, his cheek and any other place I had access. Never again would love be so tender. Never again would love be with him. Astraea the free clung to him, as the slave Fate sought to please him.

"Aiden!" I was lost in the heady sexuality I thought I would never know. A thin layer of sheen separated us, I holding on to him tightly, clinging as the first set of fireworks began to spark behind my eyelids My body began to tremble, and I felt as if I were contracting and bursting.. all at the same time. Perhaps this was how stars were born in chaotic galaxies so far away. Perhaps it would not be an end, but a beginning. A beginning of something that even now, I would not fully be able to comprehend.

"Astraea."

I cried out, a lover's escape from the mind numbing interlude I didn’t understand. One voice, so faint, so still, so quiet. With the last biting breath of passion, my upper body rocked upwards, my fingers coiling around his wrist, locked tight and lacking in warmth. Coolness of hand combined with a hundred small static pulses, pinpricking joining of flesh, transferred through touch. Eyes were murky pools of incomprehension, pupils dilated and swamped with darkness, but clearly seeing… something. "You seek, but you can not find. There is a man, sinister and smiling. You think of him often. Dreams are your vice, the disembodied voices your penance, your pain retribution.." Pause was made, the last words no more then a whisper into the curling shell of his ear. "The dead do not forgive us ours sins." Fingers released his wrist, I falling back to lie beneath him. I knew all too well about the affliction of guilt. "He will destroy you."

The crescent of nails dug into the back of his shoulder and though there was no breaking of the flesh, he would bear the marks of another woman. I was lost in the shadowy folds of madness and sanity, neither of which were doing me any good at present.

He pulled my hand away from his head, he flipped me over and splayed my legs, still deep inside me. "You can't tell me can you? Or is it that you won't that you lied. You never cared for me. Go back to your master then." He pulled away from me, cleaned himself and dressed. "I would have always loved you Astraea."

"I will always love you." As soon as he had risen I had turned to me side and curled into a ball. Shock renewed. "Go. Just go." I didn't dare look at him, the palm of my hand covering my face.

He to laugh. "You disgust me."

I was wrong.

He had destroyed me.

Initiation

Invisible chains made for invisible slave. I had slept soundly, the soft snoring of Castor somehow soothing in its rhythmic beat. Ahns after lar torvis had risen and the glow of morning had bathed us in bright light, I awoke. He however, slept soundly. Soon I would realize the reason why.

She sat across from us, clad in black from head to toe, even her face masked. She was a woman heavily armed and unmoving, turning only in my direction once I had raised to a sitting position. Her finger immediately moved in front of her lips, a sign for me to stay silent, and then she motioned for me to follow. It didn’t take long for me to realize that she had drugged him, the evidence in the empty syringe she showed me.

I broke the silence in way of question asking what she had given him, but she would not speak to me, simply rising from her seated position and walking to the doors that would lead into the hallway. Of course, I followed.

Straight to Helix’s room.

Quiet betrayers, caught in a game of hide and seek. But it wasn't the body that hid. One step back was taken from the woman while she knocked on Helix’s door, I feeling as if I were caught up in some preordained plan.

When Helix had opened the door, she’d again put her finger to her lips and stepped inside.

Unification of three. Or maybe two. Fate followed, as was expected, but I hadn't quite made it inside before the biting jaws of the door snapped closed, catching the lower half of robed hems. May haps he thought he was protecting me, I can not, of course be sure, but once the woman was in the room, he’d stepped behind her and slammed the door. Was this to be my escape? Had he only know, if that was indeed his intention, that there was no escape for me. I had no place to flee.

I tugged on the garment caught between door and jam, the renting of fabric heard as she snatched it free. There was an altercation within, but what exactly was going on I would never know. If only the blind could see. Or at least the seeing could gaze through walls. The innocent and the unimaginable. So closely knit were the two, I could feel the emotion from the other side bleeding through the wood. After some moments, when the war of noises had declined from within, my hand dropped to the knob and I allowed myself entrance, an open invitation granted. Ragged edged robes tapped about my ankles, I quickly stepping inside, then leaning against the closed door.

The woman had disarmed herself, her gloves and the mask. Her flesh had a translucent quality and I was incensed with a strange déjà vu.

"Do you even know who I am, do you wish to know?"

And then she spoke. "I can not say that I do, but I do know someone a bit higher up?" She was pointing to the room over head, where Caster lay. "How is Kane these days?

Helix did not know his name, not his true name, for he had told only me. And then I knew.

Birth bound by memories. Temptations told by touch. Recognition realized with righteous indignation. "Kane is fine, when not drugged." She had changed over the vars, her hair no longer red. Her soul no longer pure. Once Castor’s woman, now Aiden’s mother. I stepped closer, though I was still out of her reach, though barely. "Does your son know you're here? Or have you come for a different reason?"

I glanced to Helix, introductions obviously required. "Helix, this is Aiden's mother." The

relationship to Castor yet undetailed.

"Then you don't know Kane as well as you think you do, Red. My son thinks I am dead and I am sure Kane does as well. Kane is Castor's birth name, I was once his free companion. I am guessing your wondering what the point of all this is Helix. Why I did not try to kill you, what I am here for. Haven't you said as much? I have come to offer you the aid where no one else will." She lifted her finger indicating the number one. "Before you let your pride get in the way, remember this. Castor Minos’ sole purpose in this city is the bidding of the Initiates. They wish you dead. Their reach spans almost every square foot of Gor. If they want you dead there is only one man who can stop them." She paused and smiled, and for the first time, I realized there was a tenderness to it. "And one woman that can help you get the leverage you need."

"I've yet to hear why Castor decided to spare me other than a job.... is that what you come to speak about or do you have something else in mind. I might consider your aid if you can tell me the cost."

In dreams, visions fall in a reigning mist. In nightmares, vengeance is wrought with a screaming hiss. Such an eerie similarity was seen in numbers, both the woman's visual ones, and the ones carved in Castor's flesh. An icy chill drew up my spine, shiver forthcoming though not concealed.

My voice drew only emptiness as I tried to speak, finding I was quickly becoming the vessel of kept secrets. Lies fortified by forked tongue. I turned and moved to the window, arms crossing as I looked out. I shouldn't be here, shouldn't be listening to what could prove fatal to the man upstairs, and perhaps, ultimately me. "I believe I should go check on the man you drugged." Too, I knew I had to be there when he woke up, lest he become too suspicious. "Will we speak later?" Said to the woman, though a quick glance was cut in Helix's direction.

She moved to me, quickly. Grabbing me, though she sought to use fabric between us, not touching me directly. "Yes go to your beloved monster. See to him. He will need your eyes more than ever now, the tables are turning for him. More enemies than friends these days. "She leaned in towards me and whispered. "Our children will be siblings."

And the serpents touch will steal the breath of body, even though no poison would seep into the wounds, bound by cloth. My eyes widened, light infected locks twisting over my shoulder my head turning in Helix's direction. Had he spoken? I was sure he had, but what I did not know. A step back from the woman was taken, whispered words caught in the slipstream of thoughts, I quickly circumventing her in a wider circle of avoidance. "I wish all well." Pale palm slid to the knob, pulling it inward and disappearing into the hallway beyond.

Only now am I am truly afraid. Not of Castor, but for him.

La Kajira

Lovers lost in the blink of an eye, those held forever dear and undying in the catacombs of the heart. I had not returned to Castor last night, after seeing Aiden, instead taking time in my room to pull myself together. I was saddened at my lost, but too, I knew that it was for the best. There would always be a wall between us, one that he would never understand. A quick glance shifted to Aiden's door before I hurried up the steps, hoping Castor was in. I had practiced my words so carefully, but now, with my hand on the knob, all wording was lost. A single knock and a push of door found me easily inside, closing the door behind me.

He was leaning over the conference table when I arrived, I disrobing and kneeling at his feet. "I would speak to you, Master, if you would allow it. I've things to tell you."

"You've not done what I told you to do when you greet me. You'll not be spoken to until that is what you do."

There would be no compromise and I did as told. "Please Master, your slave begs you to use her."

Though words were expelled, feeling was somehow absent, I wondering how he would react to my news.

"You didn't fuck him. So you disobeyed me...Twice... Should kill you ?"

So meek are those that refuse to war. Or maybe I knew it was a battle she could never win. "I.. He is leaving, with the girl Heavyn. He told me he loves her, and that, though he loved me as well, I kept too much of myself from him. He knows there is another man and he knows about the other night in the bathroom. He no longer trusts me. He's probably gone even now, as we speak, he and the Karian leaving Ar long behind." Each sentence had run quickly into the next, giving my excuses as hurriedly as possible, waiting for the ax to fall. "I am yours; you may kill me if you like. I have no say, my life is in your hands."

"You still disobeyed me, you did not fuck him like I told you to. He does not trust you because you did not answer his questions, did you?" He ran his fingers over my thigh. "You will be punished, but I am not going to kill you."

Little dark lies, those not so innocent when spilled by forlorn lips. "No, I did not answer his questions, though he did persist in asking them, I told him nothing that would only hurt him in the end. I did not want to see him dead for his knowledge." As to his second sentence I offered no pleas. I had known he would punish me in one way or another for noncompliance to the order given.

"Who are you to make that judgment? You are no one to make judgment. You do not know many things about the heart and minds of people. Many times you rely on your cards, rather than basic human intuition. You will leave here when I am finished and you will go to him and tell him the truth with the exception of my name and who I am to him. You will ask him what he thinks went on the bathroom.. and if he is correct you tell him what I did to you. Does he know you are virgin still?"

He knew.

My heart sunk at the command, knowing knowledge of my betrayal would only further to push the sharp point of an emotional sword into him. "Do you wish that I tell him I have.. submitted to a man as well?"

"You don't listen when I speak to you do you?" He was dragging his fingers over my body. "Your submission is for us and us alone. You will not tell him that. This woman he loves? Who is she? Did he tell you?"

"She is a Karian woman staying here at the inn, her name is Heavyn Lee. She loves him back too, I believe."

"Well at least my boy has good taste, first you then her." I was suddenly inundated with jealously at the mere thought he would think another woman attractive. "Do you know if he fucked her?"

"He did. I could smell the faint musky smell of her on him. Just as he has smelled you upon me. He told me he had given her his virginity, right before he began to unclasp his pants. He wanted to taste me before he left, but I would presume he had a sting of conscious and he refrained."

"You presume? That does not sound like a man who is decided on something. Is my son that callow, or did you deny him.. push him away?"

He was right, I had pushed him away, even though I had not resisted his touch. I had stroked that bit of conscience I’d known he had and it had worked simply by pointing out the fact that if he was to leave with Heavyn, he shouldn’t take what he didn’t plan to keep.

"What did you feel knowing he did not give you that part of him?"

"I was glad he did not. It is better he give himself to a woman that can give him everything he needs, not one like me who would lie to him of her current status in life."

I had not expected the slap, but to Castor’s credit, it was not as hard as he could have been. "You denied him. Do you remember what I told you about baker? About how you could manipulate someone into doing what they needed? You know him. You know by pointing that out he would not have you. He'd take it as you denying him and that he would not rape you. So you knowingly disobeyed me." His voice had dropped into a whisper. "Do you know why I told you to do that?"

Aiden did not love me as he loved her. He wanted me, yes, desired me, but she was the woman right for him. But alas, such words were lost on those that wielded the power. "No, I do not know

why."

"Really? Because you know all there is to humanity. All there is to a man you have told me many times you've never really talked to. And you won't... ever."

At first I thought that he had only wanted his son near, but now.. now I think that he has a darker agenda. And Kings help me, I do not wish to know..