of his power so that Isaiah had to crawl through Isembaard and then through the Salamaan Pass
in a desperate attempt to reach us before—” again Maximilian pressed the ring into Ishbel”s flesh
“—I slipped this ring on your finger and bore you down to my bed. Isaiah was always sure he
would be too late…but by a miracle he found a horse to speed his journey, and then by another
miracle he discovered Lamiah, and then, another miracle, the Enchanter StarHeaven, who got a
message to Axis…just in time.”
“Then we must take the chance that has been given us, Maxel.”
“Indeed we must, Ishbel. I will slip this ring on your finger as soon as you say I might.”
“Maxel? But that would mean—”
He laughed, kissing her mouth to stop her words. “Ishbel, think about it. Think about how
carefully staged all this was. The One waits until he falls over Isaiah to create this curse, allows
Isaiah to recognize its reality while Isaiah still has power to understand it, then strips Isaiah of his power and sends him on a long wander into despair in a futile attempt to get a message to me
before I put this ring on your finger. But, lo! A miracle! Isaiah finds a horse that the Skraelings
had somehow managed not to eat, then he rides it all the way through Skraeling-infested territory, still without it being eaten, and, lo, Isaiah manages to get the message to me just in
time!”
Ishbel”s mouth curved in a small smile. “Ah.”
“Ah, indeed, my beautiful love. I think that the One is desperate that I do not slip this ring on your finger. I think that the very last thing he wants is you and I, united, and bound to
him…what if that does not curse us, but gives us power? He is giving us a reason not to marry,
because that is what he fears more than anything else. Yes, the curse exists…but what if it is a
curse against the One, not us? He made sure we were warned, Ishbel. He made absolutely certain
that we learned of the message in time.”
“You think that the curse can work for us, not against us?”
“Yes. The One is terrified of us united, because somehow—I do not know the full
intricacies of this yet—we are all three tightly bound.”
“You are asking me, us, to take a huge risk.”
“Yes. I know.”
“The One”s curse corresponds to Ravenna”s vision, Maxel.”
“And where did that vision come from, eh?”
“What if it was true?”
“The One has been doing all he can to make me set you aside, Ishbel.”
She was quiet a moment, thinking. “Could we unwind this curse?”
“I don”t know. It”s probable that we can”t. We”ll know more when Isaiah arrives.”
“But in the meantime…”
“We can do what we want more than anything, and which the One desperately hopes we
don”t. I slip this ring on your finger, and we marry.”
“Axis knows about this curse?”
“Yes.”
“He”ll be furious.”
“He”s not in this chamber, right here and now. Ishbel, I don”t want to talk about Axis.”
“I”m trying to hedge for time while I think.”
“Ishbel, the One fears us. I think he fears you far more than me, but more than that he
fears us united. He doesn”t want us to marry.”
“So you keep saying, but that could be just desperate hope. Why would the One fear
me?”
“Because of your heritage. Because of your direct blood link back to the time when Boaz
and Tirzah defeated the pyramid but failed to destroy it. Tirzah was pregnant with your
ancestress during that battle. I think that there is something, some lesson or some power, that the
growing baby imbibed about the pyramid, or from it, that has been passed down through her line
to you.”
He paused. “Besides, Ishbel, do you honestly think we”re stronger apart than together?”
She smiled, and he knew he had her. “No.”
He held her close, again pressing their hands together around the ring. “Do you trust
me?”
“Yes. Utterly.”
“Do you want to be my wife, the Lady of Elcho Falling?”
She smiled again. “Absolutely.”
“Will you wear this ring? Ishbel, in asking you this, I am asking you to jump off a cliff
blindly. As you said, it is a huge risk, and I have no idea how to play this curse. I do not know how to keep the One out of Elcho Falling if he appears at our gates. I do not know how—”
Ishbel put the fingers of her free hand over his mouth. “Yes,” she said, “I will wear your
ring.”
Then she leaned back, taking her hand from his mouth and held it out, spearing her
fingers, for the ring.
He grinned. “Not just yet.”
He removed his hand from hers, taking the ring, and placed it on the bed. Then he came
back to Ishbel and gently tipped her face up. “Look.”
It was full night now, and the night was blanketed in stars. All the Icarii and Lealfast had
gone.
The vast rings of the crown rotated slowly, appearing almost as if they caught some of
the stars in their golden orbits.
“Tonight is a night of great power,” Maximilian murmured, kissing Ishbel”s neck and
slowly unfastening her gown. “It is a good night to make a marriage.”
“And a good night to make a curse,” Ishbel said.
Maximilian slid the gown from her shoulders, running his hands over her breasts. “It is a
good night to make an alliance,” he said, “and to make love.”
“It is a good night,” Ishbel said, stepping out of her gown and moving into Maximilian”s
arms, “to come home.”
They lay naked on the bed, touching, kissing, not talking.
The Queen”s ring lay to one side of them, its gems glinting gold from time to time as,
outside, the bands of the crown drifted lazily by.
Thrum.
Thrum.
Thrum.
They kissed, moving more urgently against each other now, and finally Maximilian
reached over and picked up the ring.
He ran his hand down her outstretched arm, using the ring to caress her skin, his other
hand in her hair, holding her head still so that he could kiss her once more.
“I prefer this night to that when first you put this ring to my finger,” she said, finally
moving her mouth away from his.
He smiled, moving his body against hers, running the ring down over her hand. Their
eyes met, his again asking the question.
“Yes,” she said, “I will wear your ring. Let us make this marriage, Maxel, here and now,
in this chamber that you have made for me, and on this night of power. Let us make this curse,
and let it give us power.”
Maximilian shifted the ring so that it sat poised at the end of her finger. He took a deep
breath, hesitant in this final moment, and she smiled for him, and moved her hand so that the ring
slid down to the base of her finger.
“See,” she said, “it is done.”
“It is done,” Maximilian whispered, and raised himself up and slid inside her body.
The One looked up from where he stood just outside Hairekeep. Behind and stretching
far to the west ranged the Skraeling army.
They were crouched low, ready, awaiting a single command.
Their eyes stared north, unblinking.
“So,” the One said, “it is done.” He took a deep breath. “If that is the way you want it, my
Lord of Elcho Falling, then that is the way it shall be. It is of no matter to me.”
To one side the red tabby cat rose from the ground, stretched, then wound about the
One”s legs.
The One sighed, concentrated, then spoke a single word.
Eleanon.
He waited, and nodded in satisfaction as Eleanon responded in his mind.
We begin soon, the One said. Be ready.
He glanced up into the night sky.
Bingaleal? the One said. Are you ready?
Ready to kill, Bingaleal said, and the One smiled, and nodded.
“Soon,” he whispered. “Soon.”
They spent that night in the bed under the stars and the slow sweep of the crown of Elcho
Falling, talking, touching, and making love. They spoke of their separate lives with each other:
Ishbel”s time alone in the house of her parents with their corpses, her life at Serpent”s Nest, the
men she had sent to the grave when she”d slit open their bellies; Maximilian talked of his
childhood and training and his father”s tutelage, of the black despair of the seventeen years in the
Veins, and of his years as a resurrected king, marking time until he met Ishbel.
They talked of their daughter eventually, Ishbel weeping a little, Maximilian kissing the
faint marks left by her pregnancy on her belly.
“Salome wanted me to hold her newborn son,” Ishbel said to Maximilian, cuddling as