Dreams Made Flesh

heart-shattering. So she looked away and walked to the outside kitchen door.
    Jaenelle stepped back and to one side to let her pass. The door closed behind them with a gentleness that was worse than a bad-tempered slam.
    "Can you walk a bit?" Jaenelle asked when they reached the gate in the low stone wall that surrounded Luthvian's land. Marian nodded. They walked in silence for several minutes. Then Jaenelle said, "I'm
    sorry things were difficult for you. I thought…" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter what I thought. It was an error in judgment, and you paid the price for it."
    There were things Luthvian had hinted at, reasons why enduring work she knew was harming her was better than being told to leave. But now that she'd been taken from the cottage…
    "I don't want to go back to Terreille," Marian said, the words bursting out of her.
    "No one said you had to,"Jaenelle replied.
    "But if I don't serve Lady Luthvian…"
    Jaenelle swore. Marian didn't know the language, but she understand the vicious way the words were said.
    "You don't serve Luthvian," Jaenelle said tightly. "You serve in my court."
    Marian stopped walking, too stunned to keep moving. "I… Your court?"
    Jaenelle turned to face Marian. After studying the hearth witch, she said, "Eighth Circle. Don't you remember signing the contract after I explained that you needed to serve in a court for eighteen months if you wanted to stay in Kaeleer?"
    She remembered Jaenelle handing her a piece of parchment and explaining something about her needing to sign the document in order to stay in Kaeleer, but she'd still been feeling too weak and woozy to take in anything except that signing would let her stay. And when Luthvian had implied that staying or being sent back to Terreille rested on her decision…
    "What do I have to do?" Marian asked.
    Jaenelle shrugged. "Service in the Eighth Circle? A meal once in a while when I'm staying at my cottage in Ebon Rih would cover the requirements."
    A meal. Would Jaenelle supply the food for her to cook, or would she be expected to provide it? How would she provide it? "Where are we going?"
    Now Jaenelle smiled. "Your skills really are required elsewhere. I know someone who needs a housekeeper."
    Marian relaxed a little. If wages were included as well as room and board, she could fulfill her obligation to the Lady's court.
    Jaenelle looked up at the sky and winced. "Come on. We'd better ride the Winds and get there. If I'm late getting back to the Hall, Papa will give me that patient look. I really hate that patient look…especially when I deserve it."
    Before Marian could wrap her mind around the idea that the Queen of Ebon Askavi had a papa who would dare criticize her, even if it was just with a look, Jaenelle took her hand and launched both of them onto the Purple Dusk Wind.
    A few minutes later, they dropped from the Winds and landed on a flagstone courtyard in front of an eyrie. Marian winced when she saw the rock-strewn, overgrown mess on one side of the eyrie, but she didn't have time to decide if it had once been a garden or had always been a wild, overgrown tangle before Jaenelle opened the door without knocking and pulled her inside.
    "Lucivar!"Jaenelle called.
    A sharp whistle came from another room in the eyrie.
    Lucivar? Fear rushed back into Marian as Jaenelle pulled her toward the archway on one side of the big empty room.
    "I thought you…" a male voice said.
    One last tug and Marian was in the kitchen facing an Eyrien male. A Warlord Prince. Who wore Ebon-gray Jewels.
    The room spun. Her knees weakened. Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful. Not him. Please, not him.
    "Marian," Jaenelle said, "this is Lucivar Yaslana, the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih. Lucivar, this is Marian…your newhousekeeper."
    No. No no no. She'd heard of Lucivar Yaslana. Who in Askavi hadn't heard of Lucivar Yaslana, even though it had been centuries since he'd actually lived in Askavi. He was Luthvian's son? The ruler of Ebon Rih? She couldn't possibly stay here. She couldn't. When Luthvian complained to him about her leaving… He could do anything he wanted to her and no one would mutter a word. Warlord Princes were a law unto themselves. Even in Terreille the ones who weren't kept on a tight chain were treated cautiously, and everyone knew the rules that
    applied to every other male didn't apply to them. Couldn't apply to them.
    "Lady Marian," he said.
    Had she already done something wrong? Was he