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Or had she? Could there have been some explanation that I’d been too angry at the time to seek? And there had been the parchment note, which I realized now must have been planted by Vohanna’s agents. Its scribblings were engraved behind my eyes:

Ruenn,

Find an excuse and meet me. You know where. Soon, my brother. Nyshphal will be ours. Then you can have your princess-wench and a hundred others.

Bryce

Who knew what else Vohanna’s operatives had done to sew confusion in the land they planned to conquer? There had been reasons for Rannon to doubt me.

Yet, she had come alone to my room. She had believed in me that far, despite the hurt the note must have caused her. And whatever she had done, I knew it had been out of concern for the people of Nyshphal, whom she truly loved.

I thought then of Rannon’s eyes, brilliant perse blue against the wicked black of Vohanna’s, of Rannon’s satin mane against the oiled, dancing tendrils of Vohanna’s living tresses, and of Rannon’s scent, clean and good while Vohanna’s lingered like an erotic musk. I thought such things and trembled, and whispered again, louder.

“Rannon.”

Vohanna’s hand stopped its slow stroke through my hair.

“What?” she asked, her tone sharpening slightly.

My right hand drifted to my thigh, toward my sword’s hilt. Vohanna was so close and for a moment I thought of killing her to stop her deadly ambitions. But even as I realized that I could not murder Vohanna in cold blood, her appeal came, and I sensed now the calculated drama of her act—everything for an effect.

“And still you fight, Ruenn. Why do you fight?”

I forced my head up, looked into her oblivion-gaze.

“Rannon,” I said, out loud.

Vohanna’s eyes went utterly and bitterly cold, and her mouth sneered in a way that robbed her of all beauty. She stepped back, her hands lifting, nails curved like talons.

“You are such a fool, Ruenn. And you will die for it.”

“Then let it be by my hand,” a masculine voice said. And I turned my head to see at last my brother.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

BLOOD FOR BLOOD

“Bryce,” I said, nodding slightly as I rose to face him.

It didn’t worry me to turn my back on Vohanna. She’d enjoy this confrontation too much to interfere.

“Ruenn,” Bryce replied, his voice mocking as he smiled with inked-black lips.

I glanced my brother over. He looked sick...and dangerous. His eyes were the rust-red of burned earth, with savage embers of bright ruby working in the depths where his pupils should have been. His hair hung lank over his shoulders to the waist, and it was white upon white where once it had been nearly as dark brown as mine. At least his features were the same, though whip-lean and with every inch of skin covered by snarling tattoos in red, green, blue, and gold.

My gaze dropped down to his right fist where it rested on the baroque hilt of a scabbarded saber. I had wondered what Bryce’s “false” hand might be. Now I saw. It was a thing of spiderweb and bone, of articulated metal wired with jeweled copper. Over it moved a translucent latex skin through which waves of scarlet pulsed. There were only three fingers to go with the thumb.

I glanced back into my brother’s eyes.

Bryce’s smirk grew as he walked past me then and leaned in to dab a kiss at the corner of Vohanna’s mouth. His eyes never left mine; nor did Vohanna’s as she reached up and stroked long, thin fingers through his hair as if petting a cat.

“You two look sweet together,” I said dryly.

Vohanna seemed to have regained the composure she’d lost when I rejected her bid to control me. Now she laughed, the sound bright and clear and as stinging as glacial ice.

“Poor Ruenn,” she said, her lips pouting. “He misses his lady. Oh, I’m sorry. He has no lady anymore. She appears to have betrayed him.”

“Appearances can lie, Vohanna,” I said. I waved a finger toward her. “For example, you look lovely.”

Bryce’s eyes flashed scarlet. A growl erupted from his throat and he half drew his sword before Vohanna’s hand clutched his weapon-arm,