Part 1:

Chapter 1: A Night of Lamps and Candles

"No, stop it, oh do stop!" Squealed Valînia, beaming, trying unsuccessfully to catch and pull a silky handful of her sister's long jet-black hair.

Laughing with uncharacteristic abandon, the elder girl relaxed her hold and Valînia, still squealing and giggling with the uncaring abandon of a child, struggled free, grinning and panting, bearing her teeth in mock imitation of the ferocity of a Vashar's anger as she struggled, still beaming, to her feet.

Today was the last day of the comparative freedom that cavern society, with its taboos and its strict adherence to custom and religious discipline, would allow her, the last day she would be considered truly a child. Tomorrow would be her tenth birthing-day and with it would come përflêdri and the additional maturity and responsibilities her new status demanded of a young Veshêra, a daughter of the imperial family. Not that the title meant now what it had for the founder of that illustrious family, now long dead although far from forgotten.

The imperial realm consisted now of little more than the cavern city of Vërdas and its distrada, the boundary defined by the raging Vërda, the once placid subterranean river for which the city and the realm had been named. Valînia knew well, as did every one of the four-hundred and twenty-six Veshêra and the two-hundred and thirteen Veshêrem that made up the immediate descendants of the empress and her emperor-consort, just how far they had fallen from their once exulted status, when there realm had spanned almost the entire length and breadth of the world they had called their own. Not even their exulted mother, Vîda Velîna Avâra, last surviving child of she who had founded their once so glorious empire and whose name could never again be spoken until the ending of their exile, supreme majesty and divine empress of Vërdas though she was, could say how they had so offended Kërmla, supreme goddess of Terradêm and supreme protector of this last stronghold of her people. The goddess alone knew why the demon lord Hezhêsu had been able to take it, piece by piece, from them; why, after so few generations of comparative respite after the terror and humiliation of their exile, she had permitted the rising of the terrible waters and the terror that the fast-flowing Vërda had brought to those alone she held worthy to be called her own. Yet the ways of the goddess were unfathomable and her retribution upon her people unwavering until the allotted span should pass and they complete at last their penance for the loss of the world that had once been theirs. Now, only beautiful Vërdas and the ever-narrowing Bažîra peninsula remained above the dread and yet needed waters of the terrible raging Vërda. Thus did Hezhêsu exact, even in their exile and even of the Vashar-Kindrêa who were his sworn enemy until time itself should end, the fear, if not the love, of her people. Without the holy waters of life which were his domain, Kërmla could not care for and protect them and her power would fail; thus, so the songs told, had it been in those last desperate days of their earthly empire; thus indeed had they failed and fallen in that time to the demon lord and the terrible Humêda-Kinêdra, those most dreadful of all creatures who now held the earth and all that had once been so dear. Now, with every passing birthing-time, the waters rose and the people of Vërdas cried seemingly in vain to the goddess for forgiveness and respite from the terror of the demon lord, and for the blessing that only she could once more bestow.

Such thoughts had troubled ever more of late the mind of the tall flighty girl whom, her brief abandoned smile fading and anxiety settling in its place, reached a suddenly fiercely protective arm tightly about Valînia's slim waist to lead her back once more to the imperial palace and the ever-watchful eyes of their elder and least-loved sister, recently sworn to celibacy and thus free to claim at last the so newly vacated title of high-priestess she had coveted, it seemed, ever since she was a squalling, viciously ill-tempered child. Not that her younger sister believed for a moment that she had done so for any reason save her own lust for power and the depravities so appallingly to hand for the imperial clergy. Vesta was a gynêdra, a condition utterly anathema to her younger sibling but a condition ever more accepted it seemed within the ranks of the servants of the goddess. Little wonder, she thought, that Kërmla was so ill-served. She shuddered.

"You're pouting again." Valînia complained, reaching up with sudden deference to touch her elder sister's pale cheek. "You said you'd try to be happy all day. You promised."

Suddenly her small arms were twining fiercely about her sister's neck and their were tears in her eyes. "Vërna you did promise, you did!" She pleaded, her voice keening and catching in a sudden choking sob.

Vërna gathered her into her arms, her expression softening and the smile, a little forced at first, returning as she held her little sister close.

"Better!" Valînia conceded after a moment, her own face lit once more by a sudden impish grin as she plucked at her sister's dress to wipe her eyes.

"Stop that you little Bean-Sidhe!" Vërna exclaimed, snatching Valînia away and holding her at arm's length, baring her teeth and trying to glare with appropriate ferocity.

Valînia giggled and lunged to cling all the more tightly. Today was her last day as an infanda and she was determined to enjoy it and to make the most of the traditional licence allowed her for this last day, and that would be taken from her when the tollman of Hezhêsu struck the midnight hour, the time on this night for sleep for Vërdas and its people and the moment at which Valînia would be surrendered until dawn to face alone the first terrible temptations of the demon lord.

* * *

"And where exactly have you been hiding!"

Vërna stood, still clutching Valînia in her arms, and stared with scarcely concealed revulsion at the new high-priestess. Valînia had insisted upon being carried back to the palace and had burst into fresh (and Vërna was sure, very convenient) tears when her sister had told her that becoming Përflêdi did not ask elder siblings to carry them, as though they might not yet have reached their fourth or fifth birthing-day. Now she regretted her malleability. Valînia would pay for it later rather than herself with an icy glance and a viciously humiliating lecture from their elder sister, of that she was certain. Vesta was glaring at her, ready to strike her even though she had been Përflêda for four years and would be Flêda-Vashar within two. The first blood-binding to the goddess had come for her a year and a little before and their mother, her supreme majesty, had decreed that she would be Flêda-Vashar and fully initiated before the ending of her fifteenth birthing-time. She was in no hurry. It would be, after all, Vesta who would, as befitted her status as a Veshêra, initiate her and the thought had begun to trouble Vërna's dreams with nightmare phantom visions of her sister leering and laughing at her.

"You are not worthy!" She would taunt, her green eyes spitting venom and contempt and her red lips curled back into a predatory snarling smile of malicious triumph as she gloated, laughing at her sister's terror and hatred, her slender hands with their sharp glittering nails reaching out, long fingers curling to seize her. Vërna had woken from such dreams more than once in the last year, screaming and thrashing, whilst Valînia, with whom she shared her sleeping-place, would cling to her and try to comfort her as best she could. Vërna would clutch her younger, strange little sister close to her and murmur almost incoherently: "I will protect you my precious. She shall not hurt you my Valînia. She shall never touch us, I sware that. Do not be afraid." Although it was she it seemed, rather than Valînia who truly feared their sister.

No more clearly did Vërna recall such nights than now as she stood, Vesta's frigid green stare fighting to overwhelm her, her lip curling with gloating amusement and other things infinitely more terrifying as her eyes held her own for a moment before turning from her at last to regard the child curled close in her arms. Vërna hated her. She had begun to hate her from the moment the screaming, red-faced infant sister for whom she had waited with such excitement had burst kicking from their mother's womb to be greeted by incredulous gasps and then by Vesta's shrilled: "Oo! She has funny hair! Oh mother her hair looks simply awful! Why isn't it black? She should be given to a peasant or enslaved or...or...or cast out! And her eyes! Oh mother she really is just too horrible!"

Vërna, then not much passed her fourth birthing-day, had rushed at her elder sister, then in her eleventh year and already showing signs of the condition that was to mark her for the priestess-hood of the goddess, and bitten her as hard as she possibly could.

"I hate you!" She had shrieked as Vesta had screamed, as much from fury as from pain, and lunged viciously at her in return.

From that day forth, Vërna had set herself to guard the strange imperial child with fair hair and blue eyes of whom, custom demanded, all should try to disapprove, but whom no one seemed able to resist despite the cavern taboos. Even Vesta herself, Vërna thought, found it difficult to resist her appeal, though in her the struggle seemed to inspire malignant hatred rather than acceptance.

Vërna drew herself up and faced her sister's numbing jade stare.

"This is Valînia's last day of infandri oh highest servant of her most divine supremacy."

Her tone dripped with sarcasm and her look showed clearly that she considered none save an imbecile need have asked such a question. "We have been walking whilst I made certain, as befits my position as our youngest sister's noble guardian that she understands all concerning what is to happen tonight. Does that displease you?"

"Oh assuredly not my little serpent-tongued viper," Vesta answered, her tone and eyes over-matching her sister's with the effortless ease of experience and authority and the added influence Vashari gave her. "but there are preparations to make and I would not wish to suffer our exulted mother's displeasure should your incompetence compel me to delay the ceremony."

By the time she had ended her lip was curled in a feral snarl and her eyes blazed as she glared malevolently at the impudent Përflêda before her, sister or no.

Vërna stepped back a pace, her pulse racing with anger and disgust. She should not hate her own sibling, she knew this, and to hate her most exulted divinity's high-priestess was anathema to all she held dear, but Vesta's open perversion, so apparently accepted, and her naked unparalleled brutality sickened and terrified her.

"My apologies, imperial sister." She managed, all but choking on the attempt at appropriate decorum and civility. "I wished to be certain our sister knew the whole of the tale she must tell and the litany she must speak at the ritual."

Vesta's look became suddenly one of predatory indulgent understanding and her low contralto was suddenly silkily warm as she purred: "Then you are forgiven. Take our Valînia to her cavern and see that her slaves are feasted, cleansed and rested ere they prepare her." Then with sudden brisk authority: "See also that she is given nothing before the ritual tonight. She has had nothing today?"

Her eyes were suddenly locked on Vërna's once more and her tone was again hard and demanding.

"Nothing." Vërna assured her.

Even she knew better than to desecrate the holy ritual of Përflêdri. Hatred of Vesta or no, Kërmla was the protector of the people and they had already insulted her more than quite enough.

"Very well." Said Vesta with sudden dismissive finality. "Take her, and for the honour of Vërdas Vërna, make her walk to her cavern. Do you want the palace slaves to see you carrying her?"

And with a wild peal of malicious laughter she turned on her heel and was gone.

* * *

"I don't care!" Valînia shrieked, glaring, her face screwed up and her eyes wide. The Vashar slave-girl, a woman who had been tutor-governess to every one of the imperial daughters and who had, she was certain, been able to exercise more control even over vicious, unpredictable Vesta than the youngest of that illustrious line, stood before the young imperial princess, her hands raised in helpless desperation as she watched the petulant fury flash in Valînia's unnerving blue eyes. Elizabeth knew, none better save perhaps Vërna, that her precious could be difficult; she had been, it seemed, impossibly difficult and impossibly endearing from the moment she had first been placed in the imperial nursery, but today she was being particularly trying, playing on the additional privileges allowed her on her last day as an infanda and the imperial governess was almost at her wits end. Her divine highness would be here soon and she would be beaten or worse if the young supreme highness was not prepared.

"Your raiment is chosen highness; it cannot be changed." She said, her tone warm and soothing in a desperate attempt to placate her.

What the young supreme highness really needed was a fine thrashing about the legs and a reminder that although she was a Veshêra, Elizabeth too had a certain licence where a misbehaved imperial princess was concerned, last day of her direct authority over her though it might be.

"I hate black! You know I hate black!" Valînia screamed, raging rather than tearful, though they weren't so far away either, Elizabeth guessed.

"You'll have far more than black to worry about in a minute you little angêla Hezhêsu if you don't do as you're told." Hissed Elizabeth in sudden real anger.

Valînia looked up at her in startled surprise. It usually took longer to anger her governess, but she had no time to wonder further.

"Elizabeth?" Came Vërna's voice from just beyond the curtains to the chamber she and Valînia shared.

A moment later they were pushed aside and she hurried in. She opened her mouth to speak, then at the sight of her sister with her hair still unbound and the jewellery of the ceremony still laid out on the sleeping platform, she rounded on her former governess.

"What have you been doing!" She exclaimed, her voice almost reaching a shriek. "Valînia is in enough trouble as it is without this. You know Vesta will do all she can to make it difficult for her tonight. How could you?"

She whirled and struck the slave-girl an open-handed crack to the cheek. Elizabeth knew better than to flinch, sun-time though it was.

"Out!" Vërna snapped furiously. "Go and see that her escort are prepared. I will finish with Valînia. Oh, and see that they feed no more before the ceremony. Tell them that I...no, tell them that the high-priestess will have the heart of any that dare so much as imagine a taste of food ere midnight. Now go."

"Highness." Said Elizabeth quietly and departed.

"If I were not so fond of you you little Morrigan I would beat you within an inch of your life." Vërna exploded softly, seizing her little sister by the shoulders and giving her a shake. "Now, not another squeak out of you until you're ready; do you understand?"

"Yes my sister." Said Valînia softly. "I understand."

* * *

Virden was afraid, something he found almost impossible to admit to himself. Never could he have imagined that, as both Vashar and perhaps the most feared and powerful man (save for the emperor-consort himself) in the caverns, he could ever again know fear. Yet, standing before the acolyte in his cavern as the përflêdem fastened the last cord of his chasuble and set the black crescent of the goddess upon his forehead, Virden felt true fear for what was to happen that night. A single mistake, the most insignificant of deviations from the prescribed ritual of përflêdri and Vesta (if not her imperial majesty) would have him silver-bound, tortured and blood-cursed ere the rising of tomorrow's dawn. Of this he was certain; the new high-priestess, always delighting it seemed to gloat with every opportunity to gain an advantage in the perpetual struggle for ascendancy between the male and female servants of the goddess, had made it abundantly clear what would be done to him should he, nearly as green in his power as herself and lacking the blind maniacal ruthlessness that was so much a part of her nature although he was very many years her senior, fail or falter during the coming ceremony, high-priest of the goddess though he was. Not that he had any illusions as to her regard for the triumph of the young Veshêra. She could not have cared less, he was certain, whether supreme highness Valînia should triumph, sister though she might be. As for himself, he knew, none better, the depth of loathing and hatred in her heart for him. He knew also that it could no longer be returned. He was entrapped; he had been so from the moment he had first seen her as high-priestess, hate and despise her though he had. It might even be that she had soul-bound him to her for her own amusement and his torment, he did not know. He knew only that his rage and loathing had soured and faltered, to be replaced by a terrifying, helpless fascination. She had proved impossible either to read or to dominate and Virden, who had been second to the so recently lost high-priest from the very founding of Vërdas and whose memory stretched back even to those last desperate days of struggle upon Terradêm (though he had been then little more than a child) who had wielded power subject only to her supreme majesty, the emperor-consort and his former master and who had not known true fear since he had been raised to that exulted position, shuddered in scarcely concealed terror as the young acolyte finished his work and stepped back to study the tall imposing figure before him. Not that the lad could see or sense the high-priest's agitation. At the least, Virden thought as he seized savage control and pinned down the terror to a faint gnawing at the pit of his awareness, he could be certain of that.

At the sudden deferential rustle at the closed hanging Virden turned, dismissing the acolyte with a gesture and moving himself to follow him from the cavern.

"Master." Said the young Vashar priest, stepping aside and moving to stand before the high-priest as the acolyte hurried away.

"The mask is prepared?" Virden asked, his tone hard and his mouth set in savage ferocity as he studied the Vashar before him.

"It is prepared master." The priest answered uneasily. "You wish to see it?"

"In seclusion." Virden answered. "Do you wish half the temple to know who is to play tollman for Hezhêsu? Come. We shall go to your cavern and you shall show me. Your acolytes are dismissed?"

"Until sun-time." The other said. "I would not trust them to keep silent until midnight. Two have already been silver-bound until dawn for trying to see more than was good for them."

"The price for idle curiosity." Virden observed with an amused smile. "Or perhaps not so idle. The prestige for the unmasking of the tollman is high, although higher still I imagine is the promise of reward her divine highness is offering for the name of the advocate of the demon lord. You are certain she does not know? You know I cannot save you should you be unmasked? The priestesses will tear you limb from limb, and that if you are fortunate."

"She does not know master," He answered. "unless by means forbidden by the ritual. The mask has remained undisturbed and the crystal has shown no probe or tie of reaching."

"Then you are secure, for the time being at least. Not even Vesta I think would dare the anger of the goddess with a spell of seeking or a sojourn herself throughout my own domain. Very well, let us go."

* * *

For the peasants of the lower city, any change from the monotony of daily life and ceaseless ritual was a change to be considered a blessing from the goddess. On this night, they would gather, granted on this rarest of occasions a place nearly equal to that of the nobles of the high caverns, at the ritual in which yet another of the seemingly innumerable children of her supreme majesty would begin upon the second stage in her journey towards the pinnacle of the power the goddess (and the supreme empress) had decreed should one day be her own. For most, it was a night for unrestrained excitement, something to be cherished amidst the banality of their ritual-bound and regimented lives. For Ferrazind, fifteenth of the twenty-three children of Ferrezand and Varêna Hër-Përezon, it was a night he could have wished a thousand days away, particularly as it had destroyed his plans for a midnight sojourn to the city's farther side and the home of his almost ever-present companion and best friend. Jerrin, nearly half a year his senior but considering him far better company than the younger brother and elder sister with whom his parents, willing to let him do almost as he would in nearly everything else, complained he spent far less time than was expected of a sibling, had suggested they try to slip beyond the city boundaries and explore the old caverns, now half water-logged and thus shunned by their elders, during sleeping-time, between midnight and the rising of the dawn. This they had done more than once during sun-time, but to do it in the middle of the night when the vashar guard were so intensely alert and watchful was something the two had never yet dared. Both boys had completed their plans after school's end the day before, each neglecting to remember the fact that the young supreme highness was turning most inconveniently ten today, thus ruining everything. It was little wonder therefore that Ferrazind was in a particularly unpleasant frame of mind and not inclined to hurry, even though his mother had informed him that he was to be ready ere the water-clock reached the fifth hour beyond noon unless he wished for a sound thrashing.

"I hope supreme highness Valînia slips in her bath and...and...and hits her head and bleeds and squeals and cries and...and...and drowns too!" Ferrazind fumed with mounting petulant rage as he struggled furiously to tie the final chord of the heavy black gown he was, as were all boys and men, expected to ware to the ceremony. "I hope she trips on her dress and falls flat on her face before everyone, and everyone laughs and she screams and gets pulled up by her hair and supreme majesty is blazingly angry and ..."

Abruptly he stopped, shivering, and made the sign against evil, his thumb curled over his middle fingers with the index and smallest pointed before him. He wondered, still trembling, whether the terrifying new divine highness might somehow know what he had just thought, even though he would not truly dare wish any harm to the young Veshêra. Shifting his position to shake off the sudden dread, Ferrazind bound the last chord in place and turned about, stretching and shrugging irritably in the ceremonial robe. It had been freshly washed and starched and it scratched and crackled as he tried to get more comfortable whilst uttering curses under his breath that would have had him beaten soundly should his parents have been there to hear them. Black was the colour of ritual and high celebration and it would mean punishment beyond even Ferrazind's more than fertile imagination to conceive should he arrive in anything other than what was considered appropriate. Not that his ever-watchful parents would have allowed him to disgrace them in such a fashion, peasants though they were.

Ferrazind sighed miserably and turned, moving to stand before the burnished copper shield he had balanced precariously on his sleeping platform and against the wall. He and Jerrin had learned that, if polished, the ancient shield, found nearly a month before by the boys during one of their innumerable explorations of the forbidden caverns of the ancient realm, would show their own reflections in its surface, distorted and indistinct though they were. The shield, they had decided, must be magical and as such must remain their secret. Ferrazind had hidden it in the niche made by the low supports of his sleeping platform and as yet, like the other things they had hidden there, it had remained undiscovered. After all, why should anyone think to move the heavy platform to see what might be beneath it.

"Ferrazind?'

With a start, Ferrazind lifted the ancient shield and laying it carefully on the floor, heaved up the edge of the platform, kicking it frantically underneath and settling the heavy wooden structure once more, just as his hangings were pushed aside and his mother entered the small chamber.

By luck, Ferrazind had his own cavern and tiny though it was, both he and Jerrin were more than pleased with the special advantages it gave them. Should Ferrazind's parents ever discover a fraction of the forbidden things both boys had concealed in various nooks and crannies within the small room, they shuddered to think of what might happen to them. As it was however, there was simply nowhere else to hide the things they continued to bring back from their sojourns. Ferrazind was waring one of them tonight, a good-luck charm he thought of it, settled about his neck and tucked securely beneath the warm under-tunic he wore beneath his jerkin and the robe. There would be no fires at the ritual, nothing save the flickering glow of the lamps and the alter candles and despite his protests that he would be warm enough, his mother had insisted that he ware the jerkin. Now he was glad she had. He could feel the beautiful golden chain with its curious elongated four-pointed star, hanging cold and heavy against his chest.

"Why didn't you answer?" His mother demanded, moving quickly to stand before him. Her piercing green eyes gleamed with Vashar ferocity as she studied him. She moved passed him, circling him several times until with an exclamation of irritation, she stepped once more to face him.

"You obviously saw no reason to comb your hair, and that robe! Lidêa didn't spend this morning preparing it to have it pulled into a hundred wrinkles. Oh well; if you wish to look as though you'd just clawed your way from the gates of hevêni that's your affair. I've no more time to waste with you. We're already late. Come."

Ferrazind sighed. Why was she always so irritable before a ceremony, and always more it seemed with him than any of the others?

"Has Jerrin--" He began but got no further.

"You'll find him soon enough at the ceremony I don't doubt." His mother snapped with a kindling flash of her Jade eyes. "If you spent less time worrying about that young hezhêsem and more concerned with your own soul you wouldn't get yourself into so much trouble. Don't you spend enough time with him already without expecting us to wait for him here? Although" She continued half to herself, "I shouldn't be surprised should his parents let him run here wild through the city rather than seeing he stayed where he ought. Come." She ended briskly, turning on her heel and holding the hangings aside for her son to precede her.

Sighing again, Ferrazind stepped from his room and hurried along the short passage to the larger cavern where his father and those brothers and sisters not yet Vashar awaited them.

It wasn't fair. Just because Jerrin's mother and father didn't watch him almost every minute of the day and night! Ferrazind wished, not for the first time, that his parents were more like them. Jerrin could do almost anything he wanted, just so long as he told them, more or less, where he was going and didn't get himself into trouble.

"Oh Ferrazind, just look at that!"

Lidêa, his senior by two years and already showing the first changes of approaching womanhood, glared furiously at him as he entered the cavern. "I spend my time pounding out the creases in your gown as well as my own dress and you--"

"Oh shut up!" Ferrazind flared suddenly. "Go and whine to mother and just leave me alone."

"Mother did you hear that!" Lidêa shrieked, too shocked and outraged for the moment to lash out at him herself. "Did you--"

"Shut up. Shut up." Chirruped little Lêga, pulling a delicate thumb from her mouth and grinning mischievously up at her elder sister.

At a little over two, she was imitating almost everything she heard and was very proud that she had managed these words so quickly.

Lidêa whirled, forgetting Ferrazind, just as their mother loomed up behind him, her face livid with fury whilst Lêga, no longer grinning, dived away from Lidêa's lunge and careened into Vîna, ten months her junior and only recently walking. For a moment there was pandemonium as the baby, screaming, latched on to Lêga with both arms and bit her savagely on the hand. At the same time, the two youngest boys, five and six, started a furious shoving match that ended with both locked together on the floor whilst their father roared at them to stop it. It was still sun-time and his Vashar influence was therefore limited. Right in the middle of this, Jerrin arrived, his familiar, and to Varêna's mind, impudent:

"Evenings." all but lost in the screams and shouts as he pushed the hangings aside and stepped into the cavern.

Ferrazind turned, knowing his beating was postponed rather than forgotten, and hurried to where he stood just inside the hangings.

"Hey, it's just like home." Jerrin observed cheerfully, watching as the two boys were hauled apart by their parents and Lidêa and Rennia (nearly a year Ferrazind's junior) finally managed to pull Lêga from a screaming Vîna whom she had pinned beneath her and untangle each set of clutching fingers from the other's long hair.

Varêna turned, still glaring, to see Jerrin standing at Ferrazind's side. Both were grinning in spite of themselves.

"Good evening Jerrin." She said, her tone frigid. "Your parents are aware you are here I suppose?"

"Oh yes." He answered carelessly with an easy grin. "Mother said I could find them at the ceremony, or stay with you."

"I see." She answered icily. "I should have thought you, and your parents, would have treated tonight's ritual with a little more respect, but I suppose that that is too much to hope for. Very well."

She turned away, still fuming. It was custom for any child of the caverns to be welcomed without reservation at any hearth (although it was not expected that they be fed or rested, save should their parents be unable to do so because of communal commitments), but Varîn Èvêliön was stretching her hospitality far beyond what she considered reasonable by custom. Jerrin seemed to spend more time in her caverns than his own and she did not like the influence his wild, unchecked upbringing was having on her son, that influence more than evidenced by the disgraceful lack of respect he had shown his elder sister only moments before. She was, in fact, very close to a complaint concerning Varîn and Merrin to the temple regarding their obvious lack of discipline towards their son. For the moment however, she could do little unless she chose to refuse what was considered proper according to the accepted law of the caverns.

"Come." She said suddenly, moving to herd the younger girls into a group about her and Lidêa whilst Ferrezand called the younger boys to him and Verredin (the eldest of their children not yet Vashar). Ferrazind, only a little under a year from përflêdri, was allowed to walk alone with Jerrin, and Rennia, after keeping up a constant barrage of pleading with her mother as they left the cavern, was at last allowed to join them.

`She could get away with almost anything.' Ferrazind thought sullenly as she fell into step beside him. `Just because she's a girl. It isn't fair.'

His younger sister grinned at him with no trace of malice. She was forever getting in their way, eager to join them on their expeditions.

"You'd only tell mother what we were doing, little witch." Ferrazind had exploded on her last attempt.

This wasn't fair, he knew that. Rennia was in fact, his secret favourite amongst all his large family. She had the same spark of adventure, curiosity and the special something that he could not yet really understand that made him and Jerrin want to find out as much as they could about everything and do things they knew could have them very severely punished should they be caught. But Rennia's seeming immunity from their mother's fierce discipline galled him and he wasn't about to admit to her that he would really have liked to invite her on their sojourns, even on the midnight expedition they had planned for that night. Jerrin didn't feel any such reservation. He had tried several times to persuade him to agree to her coming along, but Ferrazind wasn't going to give in.

Now he glared at her, again feeling angry at himself for it.

"Go away." He said irritably. "You're a little spy. Go and tell mother what you heard yesterday. Go on, I bet you're just dying to do that, if you haven't already."

Rennia's face screwed up, then twisted in rage.

"I hate you!" She screamed, the fury giving way a moment later to floods of tears. "I hope you fall into Hezhêsu's abyss and never come out again. I hope you drown the next time you go near the Vërda. I'll hate you forever, you...you...you Hevêni Zërêphem."

"Rennia!" Their mother exploded. "Come here, immediately!"

Her tone left little room for interpretation. Such language, especially tonight, would get Rennia a sound beating and here and now. Seeming stunned herself at what she had just said, still sobbing wildly, Rennia stumbled towards her mother. Ferrazind felt a moment's satisfaction at getting his younger, so perfect sister into so much trouble. Then, as he heard the crack of their mother's hand four times across her cheek and her voice, close to breaking with tears as well as anger as she forbade Rennia to leave her cavern for seven sun-times save for school, to play with anyone whilst there or to be allowed any of the delicious cakes and pastries that their mother seemed always to be making for her children, he felt the satisfaction vanish to be replaced by guilt and fury directed towards both his mother and the young Veshêra. It was all their fault. If his mother didn't let Rennia do almost anything she wanted whilst seeming to watch him all the time he wouldn't have been angry with her, and if supreme highness Valînia hadn't gone and turned ten today they wouldn't be going to her stupid ceremony and none of this would have happened.

"Go back to your brother." Varêna ended, struggling to maintain her composure. "I want nothing more to do with you tonight."

She shot a frigid glance in his direction as she said this, making it very clear whom she blamed for Rennia's behaviour.

She didn't have to make it worse. It wasn't fair.

"Sorry." He muttered as Rennia, still sobbing, fell into step once more beside him.

His sister refused to look at him.

Once to have been continued.