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astonished him how dreadfully the more powerful of the twins had changed, even while the white light that fell on Lady Tarien's seated form found softer edges. Tarien's pale face lacked any of the anger that suffused Orien's: a young face, a bosom modestly robed in gray, a body grown strange and potent with the child inside.
    Orien stood with her hands on Tarien's shoulders, as if her sister were some sort of barrier to him—and for the first time without the cloak and in the daylight from the window he faced a woman far along with child. He saw in her not one change but an alchemy of changes, the scope of which he did not clearly imagine, and which spun wildly through the gray space, fraught with possibilities. Power was there, power over the powerful, in the hand that rested on Tarien's robed belly.
    "How may we please your lordship?" Orien asked, and, oh, there was thick irony in that salutation, to the lord who had title now to all that had been hers and her sister's.
    "I came," he began, "to see how you fared, and whether you needed anything." He proffered the sweets. "From the kitchens."
    He knew Orien would not take them. He saw, however, that Tarien wanted them, and he set them on the table near him. "At your convenience," he said.
    "Where are our servants?" Orien asked in ringing tones. "Surely the great Marhanen won't have been so petty as to harm them . Where are my sister's maids?"
    "Most of your servants fled across the river when Cefwyn came. The others are my servants now… or the gods'."

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    "I demand my servants!"
    "And I say they aren't here any longer."
    "And our gowns?" Tarien asked. " Surely Your Grace has no use for our gowns."
    "I've no idea where they are." In fact he had never wondered where the ladies' wardrobe had gone: he had supposed it had gone with them to Anwyfar, in all the chests. The gowns they had worn in their days of power here had been gloriously beautiful, and with all the jewels, he supposed they were as valuable as Lord Heryn's dinner plates—which he had in the treasury. "I've seen no store of clothes, not a stitch of them."
    "And our jewels?"
    The whereabouts of certain of the Aswydd jewelry he did know, and was sure in his heart that the province's need for grain was far greater than their need for adornment. But he regretted the beauty and the sparkle of the stones, too, all shut up in the dark treasury.
    "I shall send up some of the jewels," he said, and then added, because they took every gift as their right: "I lend them, understand, until we need them for grain."
    "For grain!" Orien cried. "These are the history, the glory of Amefel!
    These are the treasure of the Aswydds, my property ! How dare you sell them for grain?"
    "If you were duchess of Amefel, I would agree you own them. But you aren't. And I give them to the treasury."
    "I am still duchess of Amefel, and damn the Marhanen! If you hold me here prisoner in my own hall, then look to yourself, sir!"
    "I'm sorry about the gowns. I don't know where they went. I'll ask; and if I can't find them, I'll find you others. It's all I can do."
    Orien drew a deep breath, and perhaps reconsidered her position.
    "You were always good-hearted, always kind to us before. I see you still have a kind heart."
    "I wish you no harm, and ask you wish none."
    "Harm to the bloody Marhanen!"
    "I ask you not do that." He felt her anger in the gray space and rebuffed it strongly, refusing to encounter her there. In the world her fortress of dragons.html
    face seemed all eyes, and the eyes a window into a place he chose not to go. He remembered how Cefwyn had wished to kill the twins, at least Lady Orien, and he had pleaded otherwise—not even so much out of mercy, although that had been in his heart—but rather the fear of Orien's spirit let loose among the Shadows in the Zeide, set unbarriered within the wards and the Lines of Henas'amef, in those days when the sorcerous ally she had dealt with still threatened