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life, the same way that which you hide may sleep. That is a comforting thought, I suppose. I have done my duty in telling you what I saw. The rest is up to you, Prince Alixandyr.” Again, she looked him in the eye. Yes, this was a woman who looked too deeply and saw too much.
    “I will release you and your guards now,” he said, anxious to be rid of this woman who looked into him so. “You are free to leave us at any time.”
    “I told you, I am not meant to be free.”
    Her acceptance of her lot in life angered Alix. She seemed to think it was an honor to be owned by another, whereas she should be outraged. “Perhaps where you come from that is true, but you are in Columbyana now, and we have no slaves here. Jahn outlawed the possession of another person his first year on the throne.”
    “I answer to my own laws.”
    “I cannot believe that you don’t wish for freedom,” he said, his voice sharp with frustration.
    Her face remained calm, her eyes serene, her breath slow and even. “I would not know what to do with freedom. To be free and alone is not who I am. I was born, raised, and trained to be possessed.”
    “Everyone wants to be free.”
    Sanura smiled. “No man or woman is truly free, Prince Alixandyr. We are all owned by something or someone, are we not? You yourself are possessed by responsibilities, by your brother, by your country. Is that so very different from my own circumstance?”
    “Yes.”
    Again she looked at him with eyes which saw too much. Her smile faded. “You are also possessed by that which you hide so well. It rules your life as surely as the laws of the Agnese rule mine. May I speak once more about your own soul and heart?”
    Alix’s instinct was to say no, but he hesitated. No one else knew of the struggle within him, no one but this odd, blue, beautiful woman, and he did want to know exactly how much she saw. “If you wish,” he said.
    She lifted a hand that skimmed his face—not quite touching, but so close, so very close. “I like your eyebrows. ”
    “My eyebrows,” he repeated.
    “Yes. They slash slightly upward in a very manly fashion. With your narrowed and piercing eyes, which sometimes seem to see miles ahead of the others, and the slashing eyebrows, you can appear quite demonic. I imagine the Angel of Death himself has such eyes. And yet, I also see that you are kind and brave and much like an angel of another sort entirely.”
    Her observations made his stomach clench. “I thought you wanted to speak about my heart and soul, not my eyebrows. ”
    “I am simply taking my time, my prince. Does it bother you that I study you so?”
    “No.” What a lie that was. She had his heart beating too hard and too fast, simply with a glance, simply because she was too near.
    “You have buried a part of yourself for so long, and you think you have won this very personal battle,” she said. “You think that darkness is buried. But of late it does not always rest as you wish it to, Prince Alixandyr. Of late it awakens while you sleep and it rules. It lives. If you wish to be done with the darkness once and for all, you must first allow it to live, to breathe, to be your own. Only then can it be truly controlled.” She moved closer, rising to her knees and leaning over him so that her body almost touched his. He could feel the heat rolling off her body, and he wanted to reach out and grab her so badly that he had to clench his hands into tight fists to keep from grabbing her. Even this close, the blue of her skin was flawless and smooth. He wanted to rake his fingers across the forbidden flesh, he wanted to taste the blue. He wanted to pull her body against his.
    “I am not supposed to have desires of my own,” she whispered, as if she were afraid someone might hear, “but on occasion I do. Right now I wish you were the one who possessed me, who owned me body and soul, who took pleasure within me,” she said, so casually it was as if she were asking for a sip of water