called Death’s Queen, who now huddled in her shrouded hovel on Sanctuary’s White
Foal River, beset from within and without.
Once she had been nearly all powerful; once she had been a perpetrator, not a
victim; once she had decreed Suffering and marshalled Woe upon human cattle from
Sanctuary’s sorry spit to Wizardwall’s wildest peaks.
But that was before she’d fallen in love with a mortal and paid the ancient
price. Perhaps if that mortal had not been Stealth, called Nikodemos, Sacred
Bander and member in good standing ofTempus’s blood-drenched cadre of Stepsons,
it would not seem so foolish now to have traded in immortality for the ability
to shed a woman’s tears and feel a woman’s fleeting joy.
But Niko had betrayed her. She should have known; if she’d been a human woman
she would have-no man, and most especially no thrice-paired fighter who’d taken
the Sacred Band oath, would feel loyalty or honor toward a woman when it
conflicted with his bond with men.
She should have known, but she hadn’t even guessed. For Niko was the tenderest
of souls where women were concerned; he loved them as a class, as he loved
fine horses and young children-not lasciviously, but honestly and freely.
Now that she understood, it was an insult: She was no waif, no fuddle
-headed twat, no inconsequential piece of fluff. And there was injury to
add to insult’s sting: Roxane had given up immortality to love a mortal who
wasn’t capable of appreciating such a gift.
She had been betrayed by her “beloved” over a matter that should have been