The Second God by Pauline M. Ross Page A

who knows how much is underground.”
    “We have the fortresses, too,” Hethryn said. “And several training camps.”
    “Even so,” Rythmarri said. “They must outnumber our total strength many times. If they choose to invade, they could wipe us out.”
    “Then we must hope they stay where they are,” Yannassia said crisply.

5: Magic
    For more than a ten-sun I waited for Ly’s return, my anxiety increasing with every passing hour.
    “He will come,” Arran said, but I couldn’t get rid of the creeping fear that had me in its grasp.
    “What if the magic changes him?” I said. How could I bear it if he turned once again into the rage-filled creature I’d found hidden in the cellar on the Blood Clans’ sacred island?
    “Stop worrying,” Arran murmured, holding me tight as we lay in bed. “He will be fine. Flenn said he was perfectly normal.”
    “But every sun, his magic will be getting stronger. I don’t know… what he’ll be like.”
    Arran rolled over to face me, stroking my hair. “Sweetheart, we will find out when he comes home. And then we will deal with it. Go to sleep now.”
    I knew he was right. I had the power to take Ly’s magic in an instant, so why was I so restless? In a corner of my mind, I acknowledged my real fear: that he wouldn’t come home at all. For five years, he’d been the meekest, most docile prisoner, and seemed content with that. But now, he had his magic back, he had an eagle to fly – why would he come back to me when he could be free? He would return to his people and be the war leader he was destined to be.
    The thought terrified me. I’d got so used to his gentle ways, his shy smile, his excitement when it was his turn to sleep with me. I’d made the mistake of assuming that would last for ever, that nothing would change. But Ly was a captive from the war, he’d been under my control for five years, of course he would take the first opportunity to escape. Then we’d be enemies, and how could I bear that?
    But he came.
    Slowly, hopping from hill to hill with Sunshine and a flock of her over-protective kin, he came. And I knew exactly where he was. His magic blazed in my mind like a little sun, overpowering my link to the eagles’ minds, so strong that I could close my eyes and turn to face it. The moment he landed on the roof of the Keep, I knew it.
    I went to Ly’s rooms in the apartment to wait for him. I’d cancelled all my engagements for the afternoon, sent Arran off to the barracks to train, made my bodyguard stand outside. Then I paced up and down, back and forth. If I’d been a nail-biter, I would have been chewing them to the quick.
    My mind was full of evil memories of Ly with magic. The jittery way he’d walked on the balls of his feet. The smiling, always smiling, but not with friendliness or affection. His inhuman rage when his magic grew unchecked. And the sex – when I’d first met Ly, his magic had drawn us inescapably together, forcing us into horrifying couplings that both of us had hated. I could never forget that dreadful feeling that I was falling, out of control, my body impelling me into a fiery maelstrom.
    And yet… there’d been something dramatic about all that urgent passion. Magic heightened the senses in an unforgettable way. I could get the same effect by taking Ly’s magic into me, so that I would be the one driving us together. That would be the simplest, safest solution. Take his magic as soon as he came within range, then he would immediately be his normal self, and I could dissipate my extra magical energy by regular sex, without the falling and the lack of control.
    But I knew I wasn’t going to do that. I told myself that it was a sensible experiment, testing how he coped with magic in his blood again. It would tell me whether he was ready to go to the Challenge this year. But the reckless part of me wanted to see what happened, to remind myself what it felt like, that strange coupling we’d experienced. The worst