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“Oh!” Nina turned in surprise to see an old woman standing just behind her in the forest. She had a kindly, wrinkled face and very unusual eyes—they seemed to be a bright yellow. Of course, maybe that was normal for some Tarsians, Nina had no way of knowing.

  “I’m sorry, did I startle you?” The old woman gave her a kindly smile and tucked a wisp of gray hair back into the thick bun at the back of her neck. A large ring she wore on one of her fingers flashed in the sunlight as she did, blinding Nina momentarily.

  “Oh, no,” she said, blinking. “I just…’

  “I thought I heard you asking for a guide, and you look like a stranger here.” The woman smiled again.

  “I am a stranger,” Nina confessed. “I’m…not for around here at all. I just, uh, flew in last night, and I was wishing I knew more about the local flora and fauna and customs…really just everything.” She returned the old woman’s smile. “For instance, how old are these trees? We have some like them back where I’m from, and they’re some of the oldest living things on our planet.”

  The old lady nodded thoughtfully. “Well now, these trees are ancient and very beautiful, but we have something even rarer farther in, toward the center of the forest—near the swamp.”

  “The swamp?” Nina’s heart began pounding for some reason. “Did you say swamp?”

  “Why yes, of course. It’s a very fertile area. Some of the most beautiful flowers on all of Tarsia bloom there. Would you like me to show you?” As she spoke, she pushed another wisp of white-blonde hair out of her eyes.

  Nina frowned. Hadn’t she had gray hair before? And why were her fingers so long? She tried to examine them more closely without being obvious about it, but the flashing of reddish sunlight on the pink jewel in the old woman’s ring kept getting in her eyes.

  “What do you say, my dear?” The old lady smiled at her again, showing extremely white teeth.

  “I…” Nina shook her head. For some reason her thoughts felt sluggish. “I guess so,” she said at last. “Only I can’t be gone too long—I have to be back for the gathering tonight.”

  “But that’s hours and hours away,” the old woman said soothingly, her ring flashing again as she spoke. “Plenty of time to see the sights of the swamp.”

  “I…suppose.” Nina blinked her eyes. Why did she feel so sleepy all of a sudden?

  “Come.” The old woman wrapped her surprisingly long white fingers around Nina’s wrist and pulled her forward, deeper into the woods. “Let’s go see what we can find.”

  * * * * *

  “For the last time, I do not want to be joined to you.” Reddix crossed his arms over his chest and sighed wearily. Tilla was like an animal, reluctant to let go of a bone she wanted to chew—only in this case, he was the bone. Her stubbornness gnawed at him with blunt, grinding teeth.

  “I don’t care what you want,” she said, putting a hand on her hip. “You promised—you swore I would be your bride.”

  “If and only if I became the OverChief. That may not even happen now—Saber is back.”

  “Right and he brought that little tzeeba-haired Lissa with him,” she scoffed. “Who ever heard of a clan leader who joined with his amalla? No one, that’s who—it’s disgusting. Face it, Reddix, you are going to be the next OverChief, and I will be there by your side when it happens.”

  “You don’t want to be with me any more than I want to be with you, Tilla—you just want the status that goes with being the OverChief’s wife.”

  “That’s not true,” she protested.

  Reddix sighed wearily and rubbed his right wrist which wouldn’t stop itching. “You can’t lie to me about how you feel. Your loathing for me is almost as strong as mine is for you. You’d rather find a half-eaten grubba bug in your meal than touch me.”

  “That’s not true, and you know it. We could have a very good joining—a very amicable partnership if you’d just be sensible. I’ll even let you…touch me when you want to. Until we finally get a child, that is.”

  “You’re too fucking kind,” Reddix growled. “But what makes you think I want to touch you any more now than I did before? I’d rather put my hand in an open flame than make love to you, Tilla. At least with fire the pain is clean.”

  Tilla’s face went from red to white. “How dare you insult me this way?”

  “I’m not trying to be insulting—well, not much,” he amended. “Just trying to get my point across. I don’t want you. And if you’d just admit it, you don’t want me either.”

  Suddenly, the itching in his wrist intensified until it was a sharp pain he could no longer ignore. Doubtless the swamp witch was calling him, reminding him of his obligation.

  “Reddix,” Tilla said, but he ignored her.

  “All right, witch,” he muttered, looking down at the blood red lthss on his right wrist. “I’ll be there to deal with you soo…” The words died on his lips as he saw what had happened to the tiny creature Xandra had imbedded in his skin.

  Reddix had expected the thing to have grown again—that it would have completely encircled his wrist by now. Instead, it was…shrinking. Already it was half as big as it had been. What the hell was going on?

  “How dare you call me a witch?” Tilla’s shrill, demanding voice pierced through his contemplation. “And look at me when I’m talking to you, Goddess damn it!”

  “It wasn’t you I was talking to.” Reddix kept studying the lthss. It was shrinking even as he watched, growing smaller and thinner every moment that passed. There was no way it should be doing that until he had fulfilled his obligation to Xandra, which he most certainly hadn’t. No way she would ever free him of his debt…unless someone else was paying it.

  Reddix felt his heart clench in his fist. “Nina,” he muttered. “Gods, no…what did you do?” Pushing past Tilla, he bolted for the door. He had to get to her before the witch did something awful to her.

  Before it was too late.

  Chapter Thirty

  Nina blinked as the old woman led her into a gloomy little hut in the middle of the vast swamp. She felt she’d been walking for hours, but it couldn’t have been that long—could it? Looking down at herself she saw that her shoes— the little blue slippers Lissa had loaned her that went with her gown—were soaked with stagnant water and stained with purple mud. The bottom of her gown was in a similar state. Why had she agreed to let the old woman take her through such a messy, hot, unpleasant area? It reminded Nina of the Everglades back home—that miserable area of swampland past the vast urban sprawl of Miami that was crawling with snakes and gators.

  “Well, well, dearie—let’s just get you comfortable, shall we?” the old woman said. Taking Nina by the upper arm, she bustled her over to a three legged stool right beside a large, bubbling caldron.

  Nina wanted to protest that it was too hot to sit by a fire and a huge boiling pot, but to her surprise, the pot wasn’t hot at all but cold. In fact, it was so cold she felt like she was sitting right next to an AC unit blowing full blast. Inside of a minute she was shivering.

  But it wasn’t just the weird variance in temperature that bothered her. The smell coming out of the thin, bluish broth in the pot was perfectly indescribable. It both disgusted Nina and made her hungrier than she’d ever been in her life. Her mouth watered even as her stomach rolled—what was going on? She wrapped her arms around herself and moved away from the pot. She wanted to get up and get away from it altogether, but she suddenly felt weak…like she couldn’t even get off the stool. What was wrong with her?

  “Now, then,” the old woman said facing her…only she wasn’t old anymore. Her gray hair was completely white-blonde now, and all of the wrinkles in her ancient face had been magically been smoothed away. Her pale yellow eyes were large and luminous and wrong somehow. It took Nina a moment to realize that her pupils weren’t round but vertical, like a cat’s.

  “What are you?” she breathed, shrinking back from the strange woman. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “Come now, dearie.”