Chapter 1

The thundering falls pounded in Diavanae’s ears. Hot waves of fear and anger swept over her. One mistake was all it had taken. One mistake…and now she was helpless, powerless in the hands of her captors.

The iron-plated door of her cell banged open and Lord Kiaric swept in. He was a tall, imposing man with a delicately curled brown mustache and clothes cut in the ornate style fashionable in court. His frippish manner was belied by his gem-hard eyes.

"What do you want of me?" Diavanae demanded, her heart sinking. If Lord Kiaric himself was her captor...he was an enemy to fear. Diavanae had never met him, and only recognized him from brief glimpses at court, but she had heard tales of his feats in the Eighth War. If he had turned and joined the Rebels…. I must escape and warn the Allies! With Kiaric go the King and Council of Ruath.

But the lord did not seem to be in a great hurry to begin his interrogation. Instead he took a seat on one of the velvet-upholstered armchairs in the room and gestured for Diavanae to do the same. "Please sit down. You are angry…I wish you weren’t. We are truly allies, you see. And perhaps we will become much more.”

Diavanae remained standing. "I don't trust you," she said bluntly. "And you didn't answer my question. What do you want with me?"

Lord Kiaric smoothly dropped to one knee before her. "I want to marry you." And he pressed into her hands the one object that convinced her that not only was Kiaric completely on the side of the Allies but that he loved her utterly, with all his heart, and always would.

Diavanae stumbled back and half-fell onto her armchair. "Yes!" she exclaimed breathlessly, looking at the thing in her hands. "I--nothing could make me more joyful. But…why?"

"Because we were happy together once. And because we can be happy together again."

Diavanae closed her fingers tightly around the ring. Her ring. It had been her mother's before Diavanae's. After it had come to her, Diavanae had worn it constantly as a good luck charm.

Constantly until her lover had told her he was leaving her. He'd not told her why, but something in his eyes had made her press the ring into his hands. She'd told him that he could return it to her when he returned.

But thoughts of the past brought back more than just memories of sheer happiness. It brought back the bitterness…the anguish...the anger..

And most of all, it brought back doubts. Doubts she wanted to deny but couldn't.

She didn't know him. She'd known--thought she'd known--Dairick. But he'd left her with little notice and no explanation. And despite the ring, she couldn't be sure that this truly was Dairick. Or that if it were him, that she could trust him. For one thing, he had imprisoned her. For another--she had only his word that he was still loyal.

So while Diavanae's heart wanted to trust Dairick--Lord Kiaric--completely, she couldn't. Neither her duty to the Allies nor her good sense would allow her to let him sweep her off her feet with no explanation. Nor, for that matter, would her pride.

"Dia?" said Lord Kiaric/Dairick. "My love, whatever is the matter?"

Diavanae looked up at the man she thought she had known and smiled. Behind her cheery façade, her thoughts raced, doubting her freshly made agreement to Dairick. She needed answers, but would he tell her what she wished to hear?

"I am so happy. Happy that we will soon be together, never to be torn apart. Never to hide anything from each other," she said pointedly.

"Of course, Dia, we will be like one."

"Then I must ask you something. If you answer me satisfactorily, I will marry you with no second thoughts. Why did you leave me?"

Dairick sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He suddenly looked much, much older. "Because I received a summons from the Three Singers. If I had had any hope of returning alive I would have told you, but…I didn't. The Singers gave me a new face and a new mission. I became Lord Kiaric, the new lord of a small manor. When they freed me I tried to find you, but you were gone. That was two years ago. I didn't manage to find you until now."

Dia stared at him. "You were taken by the Three Singers?"

Dairick nodded. "I know it's hard to believe, but...."

"No, no, that's not what I meant at all. Just…you thought you were going to die, and you went anyway. For the good of the realm. Surely…surely there was something that I could have done to prevent that," she said fiercely. "Surely I could have spared you that pain."

He smiled sadly. "That's exactly why I didn't tell you the reason that I was leaving. " His smile faded. "But it tore my heart apart."

Dia took his hand and stroked it. Yes, this was Dairick. The Three Singers may have changed his face, but his hand was the same. There were his calluses, the birthmark on the back of his palm. This was him.

"But then…why did you capture me using your men? Why couldn't you have come to me yourself?"

Now Dairick looked distinctly uneasy. "Well, you see, it wasn't me who captured you." Sudden shouts and running footsteps rang out. "This is a rescue attempt, and I think they've just discovered that I'm here."

He sprang to his feet, grabbed Dia's hand, and dragged her towards the door.

Just in time to run into a large group of guards gathered outside her cell.

"Aha!" cried one. "I knew it! I told you he'd be here!"

"Oh, shut up," snapped another. "You said no such thing. Stop trying to take all the credit."

"But I did!" insisted the first. "I said, 'Let's go to the spy's cell--one spy will flock to another.' And he did! I told you.."

"All right, all right, just be quiet," said the second irritably. "Now then...."

But, turning their attention back to the two 'spies', the guards found that Kiaric/Dairick and Diavanae/Dia had fled.

And so two unarmed people in unfamiliar territory escaped a group of nine well-armed but unintelligent guards.