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All his life. All his life he had been afraid. Had there ever been so much as a day when he was not aware

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that he was a coward vainly pretending not to be afraid, pretending bravado so no one could see what a cringing worm he was, what a helpless sham, what a poor thing wearing the shape of a man? His life mattered so little to him, he would rather have faced death than expose himself as the craven, shameful weakling he was.

But now they had threatened the one thing he truly could not bear, would not bear, would not endure. Itwould be easier to die now, to put his knife through his throat, rather than live blinded, mutilated, acorpse walking in the pretense of life.

Slowly he became aware, through the fog of panic and dread, that Andrew was kneeling at his side,troubled and pale. He was pleading, but the words could not reach Damon through the deadly fog offear.

How Andrew must despise him, he thought. He was so strong…

Dismayed, Andrew watched Damon’s silent struggle. He tried to reason with him, but he knew hesimply wasn’t getting through. Did Damon even
 
hear
 
him? Trying to break through to him, he sat beside Damon, bent to put an arm around him.

“Don’t, don’t,” he said, clumsily. “It’s all right, Damon, I’m here.” And then, feeling awkward and shy as he always did at any hint of the closeness between them, he said, almost in a whisper, “I won’t let them hurt you,
 
bredu
 
.”

Damon’s agony of frozen terror broke, overwhelming them both. He sobbed convulsively, the lastremnants of self-control gone. Shaken, Andrew tried to withdraw, thinking that Damon wouldn’t want Andrew to see him like this, then he realized that was the last vestige of his Terran thinking. He
 
could not
withdraw from Damon’s pain, because it was his own pain, a threat to Damon a threat to himself. Hemust accept Damon’s weakness and fear as he accepted everything else about him, as he accepted hislove and concern.

Yes, love. He knew now, holding Damon sobbing against him, Damon’s terror washing through him likean invading tidal wave, he loved Damon as he loved himself, as he loved Callista and Ellemir—he was avery part of them. From the very beginning,
Damon
 
had known and accepted this, but he, Andrew, hadalways held back, had told himself Damon was his friend, but that there were limits to friendship, placesnever to be touched.

He had resented it when Damon and Ellemir had merged with his attempt to make love to Callista, hadtried to isolate himself with her, feeling that his love for her was something he couldn’t, didn’t want toshare. He had resented Damon’s closeness to Callista, and had never, he knew now, understoodprecisely what had prompted Ellemir to make the offer she had made. He had been embarrassed,shamed when Damon found him with Ellemir, even though he had taken his consent for granted. He hadregarded his relationship with Ellemir as something apart from Damon, as it was apart from Callista. Andwhen Damon had tried to share his euphoria, his overflowing love for them all, had tried to express Andrew’s own unspoken wish—
I wish I could make love to you all
 
—he had rebuffed him withunimaginable cruelty, disrupting the fragile link.

He was even wondering if they had both married the wrong women. But Andrew was the one who waswrong, he knew now.

They were not two couples, changing partners. It was the four of them, all of them. They belongedtogether, and the link was as strong between Damon and him as between either of them and the women.

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Maybe even, and he felt the thought surface in absolute terror, daring a kind of self-knowledge he hadnever allowed himself before, stronger. Because they could see themselves reflected in each other. Find akind of affirmation of the reality of their own manhood. He knew now what Damon meant when he saidhe cherished Andrew’s maleness as he cherished the femininity of the women. And it wasn’t what Andrew was afraid it was.

For it was just this, suddenly, that he knew he loved in Damon, gentleness and violence combined, thevery affirmation of manhood. It now seemed incredible that he could ever have found Damon’s touch athreat to his manhood. It confirmed, rather, something they shared, another way of stating to one anotherwhat they both
 
were
 
. He should have welcomed it as a way of closing the circle, of sharing theawareness of what they all meant to one another. But he had rebuffed him, and now Damon, in the terrorwhich he could not share with the women, could not even turn to him to find strength. And where wouldhe turn, if not to a sworn brother?

“
 
Bredu
,” he whispered again, holding Damon with the fierce protectiveness he had felt from the first toward him, but had never known how to express. His own eyes were blinded with tears. The enormity of this commitment frightened him, but he would not turn back.

Bredin
. There was nothing like this relationship on earth. Once, trying for analogy, he had mentioned to Damon the rite of blood brotherhood. Damon had shuddered with revulsion, and said, his voice tremblingwith loathing, “That would be the ultimate forbidden thing between us, to shed a brother’s blood. Sometimes
 
bredin
 
exchange knives, as a pledge that neither can ever strike at the other, since the knifeyou bear is your brother’s own.” Yet, trying to understand, through the revulsion, what bloodbrotherhood meant to Andrew, he had conceded that, yes, the emotional weight was the same. Andrew,thinking in his own symbols because he could not yet share Damon’s, thought now as he held him that hewould give the last of his blood for Damon, and that would horrify him, as what Damon had tried to givehim had frightened Andrew.

Slowly, slowly, all that was in Andrew’s mind filtered through to Damon. He understood now, he wasone of them at last. And as Andrew held him, letting the barriers slowly dissolve, Damon’s terrorreceded.

He was not alone. He was Keeper of his own Tower circle, and he drew confidence from Andrew,finding his own strength and manhood again. No longer bearing the burden of all the others, but
 
sharing
the weight of what they were.

He could do anything now, he thought and, feeling Andrew’s closeness, amended out loud, “
 
We
can doanything.” He drew a long breath, raised himself, and drew Andrew to him in a kinsman’s embrace,kissing him on the cheek. He said softly, “Brother.”

Andrew grinned, patted him on the back. “You’re all right,” he said. The words were meaningless, but

Damon felt what was behind them.

“What I said about blood brotherhood once,” said Andrew, struggling for words, “it’s… the same

blood, as of brothers… blood either would shed
for
 
the other.”

Damon nodded, accepting. “Kin-brother,” he said gently, “Blood brother, if you wish.
 
Bredu
 
. Only it islife we share, not blood. Do you understand?” But the words didn’t matter, nor the particular symbols. They knew what they were to one another, and it didn’t need words.

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“We have got to prepare the women for this,” Damon said. “If they bring those charges in Council—and make those threats—and Ellemir is not warned, she could miscarry or worse. We must decide how we will face this. But the important thing”—his hand went out to Andrew again—“is that we face it together. All of us.”

Chapter Twenty-one

«^»

For three days Esteban Lanart hung between life and death. Callista, watching at his side— Ferrika hadforbidden Ellemir to sit up with him—monitoring the apparently dying man, ascertained that the greatartery from the heart was partially blocked. There would be a way to reverse the damage, but she wasafraid to try.

Late in the evening of the third day he opened his eyes and saw her at his side. He tried to move, andshe put out a hand to prevent him.”

“Lie still, dear Father. We are with you.”

“I missed… Domenic’s funeral…” he whispered. She saw memory flood back, with a spasm of sorrow crossing his face. “Dezi,” he whispered, “wherever I was, I… I think I felt him die, poor lad. I am not guiltless…”

Callista enfolded his rough hand in her own slender fingers. “Father, whatever his crimes or wrongs, he isat peace. Now you must think only of yourself, Valdir needs you.” She could see that even this littletalking had exhausted him, but under the faded lips and bluish pallor the old giant was still there, rallying. He said, “Damon…” and she knew what he wanted and reassured him quickly. “The Domain is safe inhis hands and all is well.”

Satisfied, he slipped back into sleep, and Callista thought that Council must accept Damon as regent. There was no one else with the slightest claim. Andrew was a Terran; even if he had had any skills atgovernment, they would not have accepted him. Dorian’s young husband was a
 
nedestro
 
of Ardais, andknew nothing of Armida, whereas it had been Damon’s second home. But Damon’s regency still hungunder the shadow Leonie had threatened, and even as she wondered how soon the showdown wouldcome, Damon opened the door in the outer suite and beckoned.

“Leave Ferrika with him and come.”

In the outer room he said, “They have sent for us in the Crystal Chamber, an hour from now, for me and

Andrew. I think we should all go, Callista.”

In the bleak light her eyes hardened, no longer blue but a cold flashing gray. “Do I stand accused ofoath-breaking?”

He nodded. “But as regent of Alton I am your guardian, and your husband is my sworn man. You neednot face the charges unless you choose.” He grasped her shoulders between his own. “Understand this, Callista, I am going to defy them! Have you the courage to defy them too? Are you strong enough tostand by me, or are you going to collapse like a wet rag and lend strength to our accusers?”

His voice was implacable, and his hands on her shoulders hurt her. “We can have the courage of what

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we have done, and defy them, but if you do not, you will lose Andrew, you know, and me. Do you want to go back to Arilinn, Callista?” He put his hand up to her face and traced, with a light finger, the red nail-marks on her cheek. He said, “You have still the option, for you are still a virgin. That door remains open until you close it.”

Her hand went to the matrix at her throat. “I gave back my oath of my own free will; I never thought tobreak it.”

“It would have been easy to make a clear choice, once and forever,” Damon said. “It is not so easy to do when you must do now. But you are a woman and under wardship. Is it your will that I answer for you to the Council, Callista?”

She flung off his hand. “I am
 
comynara
 
,” she said, “and I was Callista of Arilinn. I need no man toanswer for me!” She turned and walked toward the room she shared with Andrew. “I will be ready!”

Damon went toward his own room. He had roused her defiance deliberately, but he faced theknowledge that it might as easily turn against them.

His own instinct of defiance was high too. He would not face his accusers like some sneak thief draggedto judgment! He dressed in his best, tunic and breeches of leather dyed in the colors of his Domain, ajeweled dagger belted at his waist. He rummaged in his belongings for a neck-ornament set withfirestones, and in a drawer came upon something wrapped in a cloth.

It was the bundle of dried
 
kireseth
 
blossoms he had taken from Callista’s still-room, without knowingwhy.

He had acted on an impulse he still did not understand, not sure whether it had been a flash ofprecognition or something worse. He had not been able to explain to her, or to anyone else, why he haddone it.

But now, as he stood holding them in his hands, he knew. He never knew whether it was the faintestwhiff of the resins from the cloth—it was widely known to stimulate clairvoyance—or whether it was justthat his mind, now holding all the information, had suddenly moved to synthesize it without his consciouseffort. But suddenly he
 
knew
 
what Varzil had been trying to tell him, and what the Year’s End ritual musthave been.

Unlike Callista, he knew precisely
 
why
 
the use of
kireseth
 
was forbidden, except when distilled andfractioned into the volatile essence known as
 
kirian
 
. As
 
Dom
 
Esteban’s stories had reminded them,
kireseth
 
, the blue starflower traditionally given by Cassilda to Hastur in the legend—called the goldenbell when the flowers hung covered with their golden pollen—
 
kireseth
, among other things, was apowerful aphrodisiac, breaking down inhibitions and controls, and now all the links in the chain wereclear.