“I’ll kill you before I let you rape her again,” Una said, and pushed herself to her feet, mud clinging to her rough gray breeches and baggy tunic. She retrieved her blade and cleaned it on the grass, then held it lightly in her palm, playing with it, showing her comfort with the weapon. “This is your only warning. Turn around and go, now, while you still can.”

Shock left me gaping. Rape? Incest? Daughter?

“I’ll risk it,” Maerlin said.

Una tensed to spring, but Maerlin had the tip of his sword under her chin before she’d done more than sway toward him. “Don’t tempt me,” Maerlin said, his voice both soft and sad.

Una made a high noise of frustration deep in her throat and spun away, diving off through the underbrush. From high on my horse I could see her white hair and the shaking of branches, and then she was gone, like a rabbit gone to ground.

Maerlin slowly sheathed his sword, his face blank. His horse shifted. We sat in the silence of the winter forest, nothing moving, and I tried to sort out what had just happened. Was his stillness the quiet of a man confronted with a guilty past? Or was it something else?

I reached out and touched his arm.

He jerked and turned his head.

“Who is Una? What is Una?”

“The nightmare from which I can never wake,” he said, his voice a raw rasp.

“It’s true, what she said? You . . . raped your sister?”

A hoarse laugh scraped its way out of his chest. “I was fourteen, just starting to build my powers. My half sister Tanwen is eight years older. Skilled. Powerful. She forced me to her bed and used me like a puppet, making me . . . Again and again, she made me come inside her. Night after night.” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “And all with my mother Akantha’s blessing.”

I was too stunned to make sense of it, and teetered at the edge of disbelief. I could not imagine Maerlin as such a vulnerable boy, being so perversely used by his sister. “But why?”

“For that,” he said, and flung his hand in the direction Una had fled. “I’ve told you that powers are almost never found in Phannic men. They thought that if Tanwen and I—that rarest of rarities, a Phannic male with power—had a child, she would have double the gifts, double the strengths. Instead, they got Una.”

“So she only has normal gifts?”

He snorted. “She has no gifts. No powers whatsoever.”

“Maybe she’s still too young, and they haven’t shown themselves.”

He shook his head. “Mothers begin to sense their daughter’s future powers while still in the womb. The tattooing begins long before the child begins to come into her gifts. Una has none, and is useless to Tanwen and my mother except as a weapon against me. A weapon they’ve done a good job of honing by raising her on lies.”

“You should have told me. I wouldn’t have made you come here. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You should have trusted me, when I said this place was no good.”

I dug my hands into my hair and squeezed my head, a shriek of frustration tearing loose. “Maerlin! We’ve talked about this: trust cannot be blind. You could have trusted me to hear the truth.”

He bowed his head and pressed his fingertips against the ridge beneath his brows. His chest heaved with jagged breaths.

My anger shifted to alarm. “Maerlin?”

He mumbled something.

I leaned closer and lightly touched his thigh. “What was that?”

“I hoped she wouldn’t be here.”

“Where would she have gone?”

He shrugged. “Dead. Run away. Sold.”

“You can’t have wanted any of that for your own daughter.”

“It’s worse to have been raised here by Tanwen.”

I hesitated, then said, “You never tried to take her away?”

He dropped his hands and looked at me. “I last saw her when she was a babe, and even then I could barely look at her. I never wanted her to exist; I almost convinced myself she didn’t. I cannot think of Una without seeing Tanwen’s eyes glowing blue with power. I feel Tanwen’s fingers digging into my buttocks, trapping me inside her. I feel her mind gripping mine, controlling my will, my desire.”

I realized then that he feared his sister; maybe even feared that the same thing would happen again. “You’re stronger now,” I said.

“So’s she.”

I took his hand and squeezed it, feeling the back-and-forth rush of power and arousal that came with the contact. “You aren’t alone this time.”

“You can barely protect yourself.”

I pulled his hand up to my mouth and kissed the backs of his fingers, closing my eyes and trying to open myself so he could fully see the forces I dimly sensed churning in my depths. I heard his indrawn breath, and opened my eyes to find that some of the color had returned to his face. A spark lit his green eyes. “I have no skill, no control,” I said. “But what strength I have is yours, if you need it.”

“You and I,” he said.

I tilted my head in question.

A small smile touched his lips. He looked at me with the same awareness, the same appreciation as when I’d suggested our prophecies were so vague because they could mean what we intended them to mean; that we could make them come true in the way we wished. It was a look that spoke of equals.

“We can both turn around, right now,” I said. “We can leave.” Yes, I wanted my answers about my mother; I wanted to know the secrets of Phanne womanhood. But to beg the answers from such as Tanwen and Akantha . . .

Maerlin’s smile twisted into wryness. “I won’t give them the satisfaction of scaring me away at their very doorstep.”

“They knew we were coming?”

“They’re Phanne.”

As we nudged our mounts back into motion, I wondered for the first time in my life whether that was a good thing. As I thought about it, I wondered. If they knew we were coming, and sent Una to harass Maerlin, it begged the question that I now asked him. “Do they fear you?”

“Fear? No. Hate, yes. I didn’t give them what they wanted, and fled from them as soon as I was able. I wouldn’t stay and be a part of their ‘college.’ ”

“There is no hate without fear to lay its foundation.”

“You haven’t met my mother and sister.”

In a short time we came out of the forest, and before us lay a placid lake rimmed by reeds, their stalks broken and dull yellow-brown. To the west of the lake lay a complex of gray buildings with walls built of stacked stone, their roofs high and peaked, covered in a dense layer of reeds. Layers of woven wattle mats made slowly sinking walkways between the buildings, the only protection for feet from the ever-present mud. Smoke rose from the roof holes, and we heard the normal sounds of life: animals bleating and quacking, a pail of water sloshed onto the ground, the thump of a churn. Female figures appeared and disappeared, going about their work and paying us no heed. My gaze skimmed over each one, wondering, Could she be my mother? but none of them reminded me of Ligeia.

Maerlin led the way to the largest of the buildings, which had a wide, wood plank porch before the double doors at the front, and half-height wings stretching out to either side at the back. No one came to greet us. We dismounted and tethered our horses to a nearby post, and then climbed the two steps to the porch. Both of us stared at the closed doors, each caught up in private hopes and fears for what lay beyond, each delaying the moment of discovery. As long as the door was closed, I could hope that my mother was behind it. To open it and know she was not would be to force me back upon my search for her.

Maerlin raised his fist to knock.

As his hand came down, the door jerked open and an overripe, red-haired woman burst forth, cried Maerlin’s name, and threw herself onto him, her arms wrapping tight and squeezing until his stiff body seemed to vanish into her plush depths. She had one hand on his head, pulling it down to bury his face in her soft neck; she planted loud, smacking kisses on any bit of his flesh her mouth could reach.

The welcome was so warm, so exuberant, it took me a moment to see Maerlin’s hands straining against the woman, and the arch of his back as he tried to free himself from her embrace.

“Little brother, it’s been too long,” she said, gripping his shoulders and holding him away from her as if to look him up and down, but her blue eyes flashed to me, a quick glance as if to gauge my reaction to this homecoming. She beamed at Maerlin, ignoring the tight set of his mouth.

“Tanwen,” he said in Phannic. “You’re looking well fed.”

She pealed with laughter, a bell rung too hard and too fast. “Aren’t I? The college is prospering, and I along with it.” She patted his cheek, a little harder than was friendly. “We’ve done well for ourselves, without your help.”

Tanwen turned to me, and reached out to take my hands. “Nimia. We have waited so long to meet you.”

A hundred questions tumbled through my mind at that simple statement, confounding me so that it wasn’t until my hands were in hers, a soothing heat spreading up past my wrists, and I felt the first brush of her mind against my own that I raised my inner shields. Her mental touch slid away, making no attempt to press or test my strength, and by the friendly grin she was giving me, I might almost have thought it was meant as a greeting, nothing more. If Maerlin hadn’t told me all that he had, I would have taken Tanwen’s warmth as genuine.

“I am so pleased to meet fellow women of the Phanne,” I said. “It is something I have desired for as long as I can remember.”

“We are sisters of the Phannic blood. I hope you feel that we are family, for that is how Mother and I think of you.”

I smiled as brightly as I could. I didn’t know how much they knew of me beyond the message I had sent; the little I knew of them made me hesitate to claim them as kin.

Even knowing what I did, as Tanwen led us inside and made all the sounds and motions of a jolly, welcoming hostess, doubts about Maerlin’s story crept in. Maybe Tanwen had been as much at their mother’s mercy as Maerlin when Una was conceived; maybe she had long ago tried to put it all behind her, and was genuinely happy to see her brother. Maybe the quick looks she shot at me were eagerness to befriend a stranger, and not the reptilian assessment of a snake watching its prey.

Maybe.

Inside the great front doors was a dim foyer lined with benches, its walls made of vertical planks and a heavy curtain hanging over the doorway to the interior. Girls and young women giggled and whispered as they took our cloaks and helped us exchange our muddy footwear for soft, clean slippers, and brought warm water and towels for cleaning our hands and faces. Others dashed outside to tend our horses and gather our things. They were so practiced that it seemed guests were frequent, and this cleaning-them-up-before-entry a common ritual.

With each moment that passed, my small flame of hope that my mother was here fluttered more weakly in disappointment.

I caught Maerlin’s eye, seeking a hint of how he was feeling during all this fussing and greeting; all I got was stony neutrality. Whatever he was feeling, he wasn’t going to risk showing it. He submitted to the ministrations of the girls with an uncharacteristic passivity, his arms limp at his sides, his shoulders loose. It was as if now that he was in his mother’s hall, he was no longer the fierce wizard-warrior feared across the lands, but a boy waiting to be told what to do.

A shiver crept up the back of my neck: I hoped it was an act. I’d been counting on his protection and support, perhaps more than I’d let myself admit.

“We met Una on the road,” I said, as the girls filtered away and Tanwen put her hand on the curtain. “She attacked Maerlin.”

Tanwen tilted her head and made a sorrowful tch sound. “The girl has . . . strong emotions. Some say I shouldn’t let her run as free as I do. I’m too indulgent—a mother’s failing. I hope she didn’t cause you any harm?”

“Does she often try to stab visitors?”

She shrugged. “Not as often as she used to.”

Her casual attitude annoyed me. “Una shouldn’t be allowed a knife if she can’t control herself.”

“But then, how would she dress her kills? Una is a skilled huntress, and I couldn’t take that away from her. We all need to feel as if we have a special gift, don’t we? And she has no other. Now, let’s do come through.” She pulled back the curtain. “Akantha is eager to see you both.”

I flicked another glance at Maerlin, and got nothing in response. I stepped through the curtain.

And into a world of gleaming gold and jewel tones.

It brought me to a stop, gaping at the hall. Small windows high overhead let in cool winter light, enough to see past the shadows to the couches covered in layers of rich fabrics, furs, and embroidered cushions, scattered about as if awaiting revelers at a Roman banquet. A young woman dressed in dull workaday clothes was setting out silver goblets on ornate brass tables, making ready for the first pour of wine or ale. Other women fluffed pillows, washed stains off furs with rags, and swept. From the beams overhead hung great lengths of diaphanous silks, shimmering like water in sunlight. I reached out to touch one and saw that they were dotted with small bits of bright tin. The silks partially sectioned off groups of couches from one another as if to give an illusion of privacy. Down the center of the hall, great copper braziers smoldered with spice-scented smoke, their glowing coals taking the sharp edge off the cold but failing to hide the lingering smells of spilled ale, gamey meat, sweating bodies, and sex.

This was not how I had imagined a mystical college to be. I’d vaguely expected racks of scrolls and long tables for studying and eating; shelves of jars and herbs hanging overhead, and mysterious brass tools for studying the passage of the stars. The only thing that fit my vision was the beaten clay floor and the rough, damp stone walls devoid of plaster, which formed an impoverished, scholarly backdrop for the luxurious furnishings on display.

Tanwen led us through the length of the hall and past the low dais at the far end, with its one large couch piled deep with pillows. Curtains hid the back wall of the hall, and we went through them to find doorways leading off in other directions. From one hallway I heard the distant sounds of kitchen work and conversation. Tanwen took us down another, past what looked to be dormitories with a few dozing women, and finally to a carved door at the end, its wood black with age and banded with scrolls of aged brass. The oak leaves, mistletoe, and wild animals adorning it spoke of its origins with the druids.

Tanwen rapped once with a knuckle and pushed open the door. “They’re here, Mother.”

The room was the hall in miniature, only more richly done. Here there were clay tiles on the floor, and the walls had been plastered and painted a deep earthy red. The air was close, fuggy with human breath and the smoke of the brazier, and the unique sour stench of illness. Akantha was a pale face amid a sea of pillows upon a bed. She did not rise.

Something white flicked by the corner of my eye, and I saw Una take a sentinel position in the shadows near the head of Akantha’s bed. She moved with the silence of a ghost. Given the little heed her mother and grandmother paid her presence, she might have been one.

“Maerlin,” Akantha wheezed, and raised one weak arm, her pale hand beckoning. “At last.”

Maerlin stayed where he was just inside the door, his nostrils flaring and his hands clenched.

“I feared I would not see you before I was gone.”

“You knew we were coming,” he said.

“What one knows and what one fears are not always the same. Come closer.” The white fingers curled, demanding. “Let me see my only son.”

“She’s dying,” Tanwen said under her breath to her brother. “She does not toy with you.”

“She doesn’t know how not to play games,” he said.

“And yet, she dies. Choose for yourself how you wish to part from her.”

Maerlin turned furious eyes on his sister, his body straightening with sudden energy. “I will.” He spun around, caught my eye for one moment in which I saw the green pierced with bewildered pain, and fled.

Akantha’s hand dropped. Silence filled the room, tangible and uncomfortable. We could all feel the space where Maerlin had been.

“He’s only here because I made him come,” I said, and felt the insensitivity of my words too late to bring them back.

“Maerlin,” Akantha sighed, and in the sound I heard a lifetime’s frustration.

Tanwen touched my back and urged me forward, coming with me to the bed. Una watched from her shadows, caught my gaze on her, and frowned. I turned my attention to Akantha.

Her thin, unwashed hair was sandy white, her skin rough, her nose a pink lump atop a dry, sunken face. She still had a glow of young green to her eyes, though; the only thing about her that seemed alive. I did not know what ailed her, but could sense the presence of death.

Akantha tapped the side of her bed, inviting me to sit. I did, trying to take in this, my first meeting with women of the Phanne since I had been separated from my mother at the age of nine; the two of us had separated from our tribe long before that. Maerlin’s tales of evil fell aside, my only thoughts, Is this who I am? Do I see myself here?

Is she like my mother?

Akantha’s hand landed on my thigh, and from it I felt a warm comfort seeping through my flesh—the touch of both her and Tanwen was a mild, heated variation of what happened when Maerlin and I touched, and I wondered if they did it on purpose, or if it was beyond either their or my control. “You have so many questions,” Akantha said. “Know that you will find their answers here.”

I felt her seeking for my mind, and kept my shield in place. “My mother, Ligeia. You got my message about her?” I asked, and felt her mental touch retreat.

“We knew you would get here before we could reply; and it’s better this way. We are grateful, always, to find a lost daughter of the Phanne. When we pool our powers together, we become capable of so much more than when we are alone.”

I leaned forward, excitement blooming anew. “There are other Phanne here?”

“At this moment . . . no.” She took a rasping breath and shifted under the covers, her face betraying discomfort. Tanwen took a vial from a table and held it to her mother’s lips, holding her head up so she could drink.

“It’s for the pain; she’ll sleep soon,” Tanwen said.

Akantha rolled her head back toward me, and her eyes traced my face, and then began to close. “You have much of your mother in you,” she said.

I grasped Akantha’s hand in both of my own, not willing to let her escape into sleep just yet. “You know her! When did you last see her? Did she come here?”

Her eyes opened again. “She came to us four years ago, seeking.”

“Seeking what?”

“Refuge. Recovery. And answers to mysteries as old as our blood.”

I pressed Akantha’s hand, willing her to stay awake. “Where did she go?”

“Into the wind, as must we all,” Akantha said on a fading sigh.

“What does that mean?”

Tanwen put her hand on my shoulder. “She died, Nimia. Your mother died.”