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"Oh,
domi
, please don't cry."

"I have to. If I try to keep it in, I'll just go under again." It still hurt, but it wasn't the drowning flood of pain.

She was still crying when the door opened and Windwolf walked into the bedroom.

"Windwolf!" She pushed at Pony so she could get up.

Windwolf's eyes widened at the sight of her on the bed with Pony. He shouted a command, summoning wind magic. It spilled into the room, the potential glittering at the edge of her teary vision.

Pony was jerked backward off her and thrown across the room. His shields flared seconds before he hit the wall with a crash—elaborate inlaid paneling splintering under him. He landed on the floor, coiled to spring, one of his swords miraculously in his hand.

"No!" Tinker leapt between Windwolf and Pony. Sword aside, she could guess which one was the more dangerous of the two. "Stop it, Windwolf! Don't hurt him! He did nothing wrong."

"It doesn't look like
nothing
to me." Windwolf glared furiously at the
sekasha
. "Did he hurt you?"

"No!"

"Why are you crying then?"

"I killed Nathan!"

Windwolf went still and quiet, gazing down at her. "You did?" he finally asked.

"Yes," Tinker said.

"No, she did not," Pony murmured. "I killed him, as is my right."

"He only did what I told him to do!" she cried and realized that, in the same manner, Pony had made love to her. He had thought it unwise, but he had done what she asked of him.

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Oh gods, she had made love with Pony.

"Oh, shit," she sniffed. "I think I'm going to cry again. I'm sorry, Windwolf. I didn't realize Pony would do anything I told him.
Anything
. That he trusted me to do the wise thing—not the stupid. This is all my fault."

Windwolf sighed and glanced at Pony. "Leave us."

"
Domnae
." Pony used the nonpossessive form, bowing slightly to Windwolf, but didn't otherwise move.

"Pony," Tinker murmured in Elvish. "Go, I need to talk to Wolf Who Rules alone."

Pony sheathed his sword and bowed out of the room.

That left her alone with her husband, wrapped in Windwolf's silence.

He reached for her and she flinched back. "I would never," he said huskily without dropping his arm,

"strike you."

She closed the distance between them and allowed him to take her in a loose embrace. "I'm sorry. I was so hurt and confused. I've been through so much lately. Do you know that there's a slickie out there with pictures of me in my nightgown? That when I get attacked, it makes headlines in the newspaper? That women scream when they see me?"

He said nothing for several minutes and then whispered into her hair. "Are you unhappy being my
domi

?"

She hugged him then, suddenly afraid of losing him. "It's just—it's just . . ." she sobbed. "When humans get married there's a ring, and a church, and people throw rice at you and you get your picture next to the obituaries, and there's just the two of you, together, all the time, and nobody else to get in the middle and confuse things. There's no oni or royal princes or dragons or nudie pictures!"

"Beloved," he said after a minute of silence. "I'm not sure if that's a yes or a no."

"Exactly!"

He considered another minute and picked her up and carried her to the bed.

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"I'm sorry," she cried. "I'm sorry. I've broken us."

"We are not broken." Windwolf eased her down and lay carefully beside her. "You are hurt and need healing—that's all."

Tinker was trying to write her full elfin name in the sand of the enclave's garden. She knew the runes but any time she went to scribe them out, the letters would creep and crawl oddly.

"You're dreaming," Stormsong stood beside her, a ghost of sky blue. "Those kinds of things never work.

The part of your mind that processes them is asleep. You need dream runes. I could write what you want."

"No, no, I have to be able to do this. I'm the only one that can do this."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

Something moved in the darkness of the garden around them. Stormsong activated her shields and they enveloped both of them, brilliant pale blue that was nearly white. "Go away. You're not wanted here."

"Give her to us." Esme prowled the darkness. She was the color of old blood. Black stood weeping in the woods with her host of crows oddly silent—only a rustle of many wings in the night. "We need her.

We murdered time and now it's always six o'clock."

"No. I won't let you have her."

"You're not stopping us." Esme pressed a dark hand to the gleaming shell of Stormsong's shield, the light shafting through her spread fingers like solid spears. "You might be able to keep them out, but not me."

"You're hurting her!" Fear filtered into Stormsong's voice. "Leave her alone."

Esme moved counterclockwise around them, trailing her hand across the shield's radiance, a dark mote on pale brilliance. "There is too much to lose to worry about hurting her."

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"Go away," Stormsong growled.

Esme had made a complete circle around them, testing the boundaries of Stormsong's protection. They stood as odd mirror reflections of each other—hair short and spiked—red, dark to the point of almost black versus blue paled to nearly white.

"I won't let you in," Stormsong said.

"We don't have time for this!" Esme balled up her hand into a tight fist of blackness, and punched into the light.

Stormsong's shield failed like a candle snuffed. Tinker fell into darkness.

". . .
focusfocusfocus
. . ." she whispered into the black.

A world snapped into being around her, but she ignored it to focus on the control panel in front of her.

She punched a set of keys, ones she had practiced until her hands ached. Even as she entered the codes, and the world jerked hard to the right, alarms screamed to life.

She hit the intercom pad. "All hands suit up! Suit up!" She shouted, knowing what was coming. "Brace for impact!"

She looked up and found she hadn't seen the full truth. Instead of one colony ship looming in the great blackness of space, the feed from the front cameras showed several ships colliding together—heaving, twisting, and buckling. For a moment, she could only stare—stunned. Compartments of the ships were collapsing like crushed soda cans—their atmosphere spraying out in plumes of instantly freezing gushers.

She wasn't able to stop it. It was going to happen anyhow.

"We're going to hit! We're going to hit!" Alan Voecks screamed those hated words that had haunted her nightmares for months.

Something cartwheeled toward them, jetted on a haze of frozen oxygen. As it grew larger, she realized it was a human—without a space suit. There was time to recognize the face—Nicole Pinder of the
Anhe
Hao
—before the body hit the camera. That screen went to static . . .

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Tinker bolted out of the dream. She was tight in Stormsong's arms, panting from the remnants of her terror. "Oh gods! Oh gods!"

"It is over." Stormsong rubbed her back soothingly. "You are safe with us."

"Something went wrong," Tinker cried. "That's what they've been trying to tell me. Something went wrong."

"Well?" Windwolf spoke from the foot of the bed.

Tinker sat up to discover the room was full of silent people, all watching her sleep. In addition to Windwolf and Pony, Wraith Arrow and Bladebite stood guard. "What the hell?"

"There are other dreamers," Stormsong said, as if answering a question Tinker had missed. "One seems to be
domi's
mother. The others might not be able to reach
domi
alone, but her mother's blood connection is giving them all access to
domi
.
Domi
's mother is quite strong but untrained and with the morals of a snake; she does not care that what she's doing is hurting
domi
. They are crowding into
domi's
dreams, leaving her unable to cope with her own nightmares."

"Why now?" Windwolf asked. "It's been eighteen years."

"It might be that becoming an elf awakened latent abilities in
domi
," Stormsong said. "Or it might be something that happened when the dragon pulled magic through her at the edge of the Ghostlands. I can't stop them. United as they are, they are too strong. Something must be done or they will drive the
domi
mad."

"Will giving her
saijin
help?" Windwolf asked.

"Please, not
saijin
," Tinker whimpered. "I hate that stuff. The oni forced it on me."

Windwolf gave her a look full of raw grief.

"No,
saijin
will only make things worse," Stormsong said. "Now she can wake up from the nightmare, breaking its hold on her. Drugged, she would be trapped in her dreams."

"Oh please," Tinker cried. "Not that."

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"There are some drugs," Stormsong said, "that she can take for a limited time that will keep her from dreaming completely. Someone more trained and gifted in dreaming would know better what to do."

"I like the idea of not dreaming." Tinker crawled across the bed to Windwolf, who took her into his lap.

"You need to dream," Stormsong said. "Dreams are how your mind heals you from emotional harm. The oni rode you hard, but you were able to heal yourself each night and stay strong. Your mother is raping the very core of you. She will destroy you if we don't stop this."

"Can we use some other terms for this?" Tinker asked. "Something nonsexual? This is my mother we're talking about. Ick."

"Find what she needs for now," Windwolf ordered. "I will send for a dreamer."

15: STICKS AND STONES

Wolf made time the next morning to pray at the enclave's shrine. Last night, he'd had the hospice deliver drugs for Tinker and sent a message to the
intanyei seyosa
caste in the Easternlands, but now there was nothing more he could do for his
domi
except pray. It filled him with helpless rage that the ones tormenting her were so far outside his reach. He had thought the time he spent wounded and helpless in Tinker's care was the worst possible torment, but this was far, far worse. Even when she had been held captive, there had at least been something he could do, the illusion of making a difference. Now he could only watch as the female he loved slowly went mad.

Worse, he could not even stay with her and comfort her. He needed to attend the formal negotiations between the clans. For the sake of everyone who counted on him, he needed to be centered and calm when he wanted to be raging at the universe. At least he had the comfort of knowing that his
domi
was in the care of Little Horse and Discord, who both loved her well, and they were supported by the rest of his household. He prayed to the gods that they too lend their aid to his
domi
.

* * *

Maynard said in greeting.

"I do not have time." Wolf headed down the street toward Ginger Wine's enclave. It had been decided before the Stone Clan arrived that Ginger Wine's public dining area would be considered neutral ground for the three clans. At that time he had liked the idea of keeping the sanctity of Poppymeadow's—now he wished he could stay close to Tinker, even though she was still sleeping.

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"I have a dead cop missing a head on Ohio River Boulevard," Maynard continued in English, falling in step with Wolf. "And people are saying they saw a lot of
sekasha
in the area before he died. Tell me that this isn't what it sounds like. My people are scared enough without your people killing cops."

Wolf gritted his teeth to control his anger. Lashing out at his ally would not help the situation any. "You have a dead rapist missing a head."

"How could he have raped her? She doesn't go anywhere without her
sekasha
. Do you know how bad this looks?"

"It was after I transformed her. I left Tinker at my hunting lodge with a full Hand to guard her, but somehow, she ended up back in Pittsburgh with only Galloping Storm Horse." It put Little Horse in a difficult position as there was no way for him to communicate with the rest of the Hand, short of driving back to the remote lodge. "Your police officer forced his way into Tinker's home, stripped her nude, pinned her down, and tried to enter her."

Maynard looked like Wolf had just handed him a poisonous snake. "Tinker says that Czernowski forced her?"

"My blade brother does not know many English words, but he does know 'no' and 'stop' and 'don't.'

My
domi
was threatening to gouge out Czernowski's eyes when Storm Horse intervened."

"Oh, fuck," Maynard whispered and then sighed. "That was two months ago. Why did they kill him yesterday?"

"The
domana
are forbidden to take lovers outside their caste other than their
sekasha
. I made Tinker
domana
caste because it was the only way we could be together. It also means she is now strictly off-limits to humans. Czernowski would not keep his distance. He stated at the photographer's that he would take Tinker back. Last night, he attempted to pull her into his car."

Czernowski's intentions might have been innocent, but he had crossed the line of Little Horse's patience.