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“fingers.” He turned from the window to face her, fearlessly meeting her golden eyes. As one of her many children, those eyes held little power over him.  
    “Your performance was convincing,” the Prince said grudgingly.
    “I would have done better if I tasted Isil herself instead of Maelyn’s memories.” The Mara still wore the illusion of Isil’s form and face, but her voice was entirely her own.  
    The pulse point of her throat drew his eye. Her blood was beyond intoxicating. Even with his protections against her, the Blood Prince understood the legends that men eagerly threw themselves to their deaths for her sake. He could only imagine the strength of her power at the height of her glory, in the midst of the Nightmare Wars, gorged on all the rage and fear of battle. She was, after all, Ard Ri’s remaining queen, and the only one of the three Mara that survived the war.
      “I must say I’m not impressed with Maelyn’s sense of the chit, weeping like that.” She casually flung her fingers through her hair, changing it from Isil’s shiny black mane to bright red curls.
    “Isil has been too closely guarded to reach, despite my agent’s efforts. If matters change, you will be the second to know,” the Blood Prince said. “What of Maelyn?”
    “No change in the little princess.” The Mara settled into the niche of the window. She glanced back over her shoulder at the training soldiers, her face indifferent. No doubt a few orcs and terradi were nothing to the armies she once commanded.
    “I had hoped Princess Maelyn would be more useful,” he said. “I despise wasted resources.”  
    Princess Maelyn had not awakened from the catatonic state she entered when the Keystone shattered. The Prince had her returned to her prison chambers, cared for by trusted servants, but it seemed that shattering the Stone shattered her mind as well. Pity.  
    The Mara’s head tilted onto her shoulder, her red curls artfully falling across her shoulder. “Then why waste any more time?” she said, deceptively silky. “Kill her and be done with it.”
    The Prince’s eyes ran over the Mara’s chosen form, taking in the beauty of her lissome curves, and the sunlight painting gold fire through her curls. He crossed the two steps to the window and laced a lock of that fire red through his fingers. She smiled at him languidly, but her deep green eyes were still sharp, wary.  
    Annoying harpy.
    The Blood Prince planted his spread hand in the center of her chest and pushed with all of his enhanced strength. Her eyes flung wide in shock, her mouth dropping open as her body fell free of the windowsill.
    Her body, with all of its false beauty, dissolved into pale green mist that swirled briefly, angrily, and dove back through the window. She corporealized, her skin poison green and her hair black and swirling as shadows. Her void eyes blazed her pure rage, her ivory fangs bared in a snarling grimace, her talons long and reaching for his neck. He caught her wrists easily and held them away while her mental storm raged against his shields.
    “How dare you!” she shrieked.
    He supposed it was too much to hope. Pure malice did not die so easily.
    “I despise wasted resources,” the Blood Prince said again, slowly, as if to a child.
    The Mara’s snarl deepened, but her physical strength was no match for his. The Mara’s power was that of the mind, feeding on the emotions triggered by her illusions. Her children, the vampires, may have inherited only a measure of her abilities, but they had inherited all the physical strength of their father, Ard Ri, lord of death.
    “Return to the princess,” he said. “Do not leave her side until you have something of significance to tell me.”
    The Mara stabbed him with a flesh-rending glare. “I dislike being used as a common nursemaid.”
    “What you like or dislike is of no consequence,” he said. “Obey. Do not kill her. Yet. But you may delve into her mind to see what may be