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  “Yes…nicely,” he muttered through the left side of Two’s mouth, being careful not to wake his sleeping host. “And now I think it’s time to make a call…”

  * * * * *

  Deep in the darkness of the Mother Ship, just a few thousand miles from where Two/Ur resided in the Dark Kindred destroyer, Six woke in the inky blackness bathed in sweat with his heart pounding.

  “Gods!” his hoarse shout brought Mei-Li awake as well.

  “Six? What is it? What’s wrong?” she gasped, sitting bolt upright and feeling for him.

  “Mei-Li?” He reached for her, gathering her to him, holding her tightly for comfort. “Oh Gods…” His deep voice was nearly breaking and she could feel him trembling against her.

  “Honey, what is it? What’s wrong?” she whispered, running a hand over his forehead as if to search for fever. “You’re drenched in sweat—was it another nightmare?”

  “No, I…” Still shivering, Six drew a hand over his face, as thought trying to wipe away the horrible images that had pierced his mind. “I had a dream…I can’t remember it now but I know…”

  “You know what?” Mei-Li urged. As a trained therapist she firmly believed in getting things out in the open.

  “I know that the people they sent to J’lorgan’s Mind—the warrior Stavros and his female companion—what was her name?”

  “Charlotte but she goes by Charlie. You know what about them?”

  “They’re in danger.” Six drew in a deep, gasping breath. “Terrible danger. And there’s something else.”

  “What, honey? Tell me,” Mei-Li urged.

  Six clutched her tighter.

  “I remember the last part of the prophesy. The one my mother taught me when I was just a child so many cycles ago.”

  “Tell me,” Mei-Li ordered. “Quickly, before you lose it again. We need to tell Commander Sylvan.”

  In a low, shaking voice, Six began to recite. Mei-Li fumbled for a pen and paper on the bedside table and turned the lamp on low, ready to record the last part of the prophesy, the missing piece of the puzzle that would hopefully tell them how to defeat the Dark Kindred once and for all.

  “Cursed to find an early grave

  Will be the one the Light to Save

  The Pain of others he must feel

  The wounds of others he can heal

  To stop the evil he must find

  The Heart of Love in J’lorgon’s Mind

  To bring it to the void and cold

  And cast it in, he must be bold.

  For when the Dark is burned to ash

  Only then will danger pass

  But when it does, it steals his breath

  To seal Dark’s doom, the fate is…

  He paused for a moment and Mei-Li touched his arm.

  “Go on, sweetheart—the fate is what?”

  “Death.” Six’s deep voice was low and harsh. “Gods, Mei-Li—the fate is death.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Charlotte held her breath as she pressed her palm to the silver plate beside the red door. She knew she was cleared to enter the inner circle but she couldn’t help expecting a shock every time she had to touch one of these damn things.

  To her relief, her hand was outlined in welcoming green light at once. She presented her eye to the ocular scanner and a soft chime sounded. Then, without further ado, the crimson door slid to the side, allowing her entry.

  “Okay, here goes,” Charlie muttered to herself. She held her chin high and walked deliberately, not rushing, trying to look like she belonged there in the inner circle. Not that there was anyone to see her—the long metal hallway appeared to be completely deserted. That suited Charlie fine but she kept up her act anyway just in case the whole place was being monitored.

  To her dismay, the long corridor ended in another red door. But before she could get too upset, it slid silently to one side to allow her to pass. Charlie walked into a large, round room with a vast metal cylinder dominating its center. The rest of the room was bare and unremarkable but the cylinder drew her eyes. It was a bright, burnished gold, so clean and perfect she could easily see her own reflection in it.

  Like some kind of a golden mirror, she thought. Is that where the Heart is?

  It seemed likely. The room was suffused with a soft, pink light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Carefully, Charlie picked her way across the metal floor to study the vast, curving side of the cylinder. It was completely smooth, with no gaps or cracks at all.

  Well how am I supposed to get to the damned Heart thing? she wondered. She circled the entire cylinder, which took several minutes—the space contained inside it must be vast—without finding a way in. It made her wonder how big the Heart was. She had been thinking that it was one of the things mentioned in the Kindred High Council meeting—a plant or a crystal or something small she could hold in her hands. But what if it was actually something huge and immovable? What if she couldn’t even lift it, let alone run nimbly off with it into the sunset with it?

  And that’s supposing I can get to it in the first place. How the hell do you get into this thing?

  Tentatively, she pressed her palm to the burnished, curving surface of the golden cylinder. Despite walking all the way around it, this was the first time she had dared to touch it and she wasn’t sure what to expect. There was a soft humming sound and an electrical tingle ran up her arm but to her disappointment, nothing else happened.

  “Damn it!” Charlie snarled under her breath. “How the hell does it open?”

  “It doesn’t. Not for the likes of you.” The hateful, familiar voice behind her made her jump. Looking up, she saw another imagine reflected behind hers in the golden surface of the cylinder. One with two faces—one male and one female. Both were filled with outraged anger.

  “Joined One!” she gasped, turning quickly to face them…it…whatever you wanted to call the creature.

  “Charlotte.” The female face’s lips were thin with disapproval. “Whatever can you be doing here in a forbidden area in the middle of the night?”

  “I was…” Charlie swallowed hard and heard a dry clicking in the back of her own throat. “I was…was drawn by the Heart of Love,” she said, improvising. “It…it called to me in the middle of the night. It spoke of healing and…and forgiveness.” God, she really hoped the Joined One was buying this! “And it said I needed to come and be near it to achieve…uh, wholeness.”

  “Wholeness?” The male face had a skeptical look. “In what way are you broken?”

  “Well, I…I’m…” Charlie groped for an answer but before she could come up with anything the female face cut her off.

  “Never mind, Charlotte,” it said, smiling cruelly. “Why should you tell us when you can show us instead?”

  Charlie began to get a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “What do you mean? Are you going to ‘scan’ me again?”

  “No indeed. We think the time for such benign, noninvasive techniques is past,” the male face answered. It, too was wearing a small, cruel smile. “We think it is time that you entered the Temple of Regret.”

  “Where you will relive your worst and most painful memories,” the female face continued. “And we will be able to observe as well.”

  “But…but…I thought you didn’t like to talk about the past.” Charlie began backing away but in a flash her wrist was caught in Ye’ha’Na’ho’s vise-like grip.

  “We will not be talking about it but only observing it,” the male face pointed out.

  “And then we can determine if you are, as you claim, broken enough for the Heart of Love—an artifact which has not spoken to anyone in the last five hundred cycles—to call to you and beg you to come and be made whole.”

  “No…no, please!” Charlie pulled against it uselessly. She had police training in hand to hand combat but she knew to attack the Joined One was death. Her only option was to try to get away but the thing’s grip on her arms was as un