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Domi, the traitor you once rode
as a firedrake, too foolish to recognize the ploy. Fidelity and Cade,
the sneaky worms who spread their books of Requiem across our empire.
And Korvin." Beatrix tightened her fingers around her skirt, and
her jaw locked. "And you let Korvin go."
    Beatrix
sucked in breath and had to close her eyes.
    Korvin.
    She
scoffed at herself. Funny how that name still hurt her. Funny how
after all these years, thinking of him still raised that sickening
mixture in her breast, a rotting potion of hatred, rage, and love.
    Korvin.
A brute. A traitor. An enemy to kill. The man a young priestess had
loved with all her heart. The man who perhaps, deep within this cold
heart of hers, a heart hardened after years of bearing the burden of
an empire, Beatrix still loved. Still loathed. Still swore to break.
    You
will suffer more than them all, Korvin, she thought.
    As
she walked here in darkness, Beatrix remembered herself as a young
woman. By the Spirit, it had been thirty years ago! It was the curse
of the old that years flew by so swiftly. In her childhood, Beatrix
would measure the passage of time in days. As a young woman, a year
seemed an era, two years the passage of ages, the rise and fall of
empires. Now, a woman approaching fifty years of age, she marked the
passage of time by decades. Often she would remember a moment--only a
recent moment!--and realize it had occurred twenty, even thirty years
ago, yet still felt so fresh in her mind. Thus were her memories of
Korvin. Thus did he still remind her of her mortality, of the
impossible speed of time, of her looming death, or her lost love,
lost youth, lost innocence and joy.
    I
was only a child, Korvin. I was only a child when you broke my heart.
    She
no longer stood in the graveyard. In her mind, Beatrix was a young
woman walking through the city of Nova Vita, idealistic and pure,
dedicated to the faith of her mother. How she had prayed then! How
she vowed to serve the Spirit always, to bring light to all corners
of the world! If not for her faith, she would never have met Korvin,
never have met the man who saved, changed, and later ruined her life.
    She
had been riding through the city that day, her horse a snowy mare of
splendor, seeking to preach her faith to the poorest folk of Nova
Vita. She had ridden up a hill, calling for others to gather, to hear
her words, when the mob attacked. For many years afterward, they
haunted her nightmares--crude men, wearing only rags, their faces
twisted with rage. They pelted her with rocks, and they cried out
against their hunger, against the wealth of the Temple. Beatrix had
tried to stop them, tried to beg, but their rocks kept flying,
cutting her, breaking her--until Korvin arrived.
    The
young soldier had stood tall and wild. With bloody fists he beat back
the mob. He seemed to Beatrix less like a man then, more like a wild
stallion, his dark mane flying in the wind, his fists like hooves
pounding into the ruffians. When finally the mob retreated, he knelt
above her, helped her to her feet, and she loved him, and she knew
that she would always love him.
    What
a summer that had been! The hottest summer the elders could remember,
a summer that wilted gardens, that beat down on crops, that made her
sweat on those long, sweet nights when she made love to him, riding
him as if he were a true stallion, crying out in her passion for him,
for Korvin, for this soldier, lowborn, who had saved her life, who
gave her life its light.
    Until
you took my heart in your hands and shattered it.
    She
had risen in power. He had not liked that. He could not accept her
zeal, her might, her army of firedrakes that hunted down weredragons.
He wanted her demure, weak, a petite little damsel to save. When she
grew older, grew stronger, groomed for High Priesthood, Korvin shied
away. He spoke of accepting weredragons--accepting them! He even
spoke the forbidden word, saying "Requiem" to her. He saw
her strength as cruelty. He saw her rising