Oh, let it be word of death! Let it be word of vengeance!
“How you must have longed for his death,” breathed the Dark Father. “It need be only one death for him, for he is no true Faerie king, this thief of mortal lands. But when you came to yourself, when you recalled your fire and blazed once more, you did not kill him. Why not, Hri Sora? Why did you not destroy Amarok?”
The Dragonwitch bowed her head. She could not bear to admit it, though she knew the Dragon must have guessed already. His laugh told her that she was right.
“He knows your name. He knows your lost name just as you know his. The name that should be forgotten. He knows who you really are!”
The Dark Father leaned down, his hands upon her shoulders, and whispered in his daughter’s ear: “Ytotia. My Lady Who Dances.”
With a moan, Hri Sora pulled away, burying her face in her hands. If only she had tears with which to cry out her shame! How could she have let him discover her name? In what moment of madness or passion had she let it slip? Now, as long as he hid within his own self-made demesne she could not kill him. Amarok, her lover, her enslaver, her dear and hated one! He had made her think she loved him. He had made her believe she was weak and mortal, that it was her honor to be his bride. How she had rejoiced when she carried his children, how she had wept with joy when she bore him twins! Those monsters.
He had made her a silent woman.
Foolish! Hateful! She had loved because she knew no better, and she had made herself vulnerable before him. The fiend. The Beast, unfit to lick the soles of her feet! And he must die. He must die, for she had loved him, and love was not to be borne!
But her flames could not hurt him in his own demesne, stolen though it was. If she’d been in full power, with her wings and her mighty dragon form, the tale would have been different. No one in the mortal world could withstand the Flame at Night!
Her wings were gone, however. Her power reduced. She could not kill Amarok.
No matter! He could not stop her flight from the Land, her escape through the mountains and out into the world beyond. He could not keep her children from her, so the three of them fled and stood beyond the Circle of Faces, beyond his power. Then she had called him. She knew his Faerie name. She had heard of Amarok the Wolf, if only in passing, generations before she took her Father’s kiss. She stood on the isthmus separating the Land from the Continent, and she called to him.
“Amarok! Wolf Lord! Come to me and meet your doom!”
He could not resist the call of his true name. And the moment he stepped beyond the Circle of Faces, her fires would consume him.
But then, the worst truth was revealed. His voice called back to her from the caverns: “Ytotia! My ladylove! Your voice has no power over me!”
The sickening. She felt it even now like a knife in the gut, the strength of her name spoken on his lips. Or rather, the name of a Faerie queen who was gone but whose memory, however faint, yet lived within the Flame at Night. For though Ytotia was long destroyed, her name spoken in Amarok’s mouth still held power. Enough to prevent Hri Sora from commanding him.
With a roar that blasted the mountains and boiled the ocean on either side of the isthmus, she cried: “Stay in your prison, Wolf Lord! Stay in your stolen world! But know this, my husband, and know it well: The moment you set foot beyond the Circle of Faces will be your last. For I shall send the Black Dogs, your own two children. And they will rend you to pieces and drag your spirit to the Netherworld where you belong. So I have vowed in fire!”
Hri Sora, sitting on Omeztli’s rooftop, whispered again, “So I have vowed in fire.”
“It will never work, you know,” said the Dark Father. “You’ve sent the mortal girl to her doom. She cannot lure Amarok from his demesne. She is but a pretty toy! He will catch her and do what he wants with her. She cannot hope to trick him. Is Amarok a fool? He made a dragon and queen into his willing bride! He is not about to fall prey to the manipulations of a mortal wretch.”
“I gave her his name,” said Hri Sora. “She has his Faerie name.”
The Dragon laughed mockingly. “It matters little. The girl is a mute! The name is useless to her as long as she cannot speak it.”
“That,” said the Dragonwitch with something almost like a smile, “shows how much you know.”
3
MIDNIGHT RESTED HEAVILY upon the Wood, but the Black Dogs remained out of sight. So Imraldera sat alone in that dreadful place, knowing that her escorts were near, yet not knowing how near, scarcely able to see her hand before her face.