The High Druid of Shannara Trilogy

“Well,” he said, pursing his thin lips. “I didn’t expect this. Do you find me so attractive?”


She shrugged. “Not in the way you might think. Attractive in a different way. Women and men don’t always think alike about these things. Accept my offer, and I might even explain it to you one day.”

He stared at her without answering, looking directly into her eyes and searching for what she was hiding. She let him hold her gaze, patient and unflinching. “You could move into my quarters, of course,” she said. “You could sleep with me or not, as you choose. What matters is that others see us as a couple. We would be seen as joined in all things, not necessarily by proclamation, but otherwise openly so. I am Ard Rhys, but you would be my shadow half. Your word would be mine. We would advance the cause of the order together.”

He let his eyes drop to her body, then rose and walked away and stood looking at the wall. “I will not say I am not tempted. You understand me well enough to know I am. We both crave power in all its forms. Your submission would be immensely satisfying. But where does this lead? How does it end?”

She laughed openly. “Do you need to know in order to be persuaded, Gerand Cera? Aren’t you excited by the idea that neither of us can know how this will end, that it is a gamble we must accept? Life is risk! What is the point otherwise?”

He turned back to face her. “What of your other allies? How will they view this change of plans?”

She shrugged. “They will accept it. They haven’t any choice. I am the one they answer to.” She reached up to touch his cheek. “And now to you, as well, if you accept my offer.”

He shook his head. “You would dispose of me in an instant, discard me with not a second thought.”

“You would do the same with me,” she countered. “We do not fool each other in any way about this arrangement. We make use of it until it no longer suits us, and then we see how things stand. It does not necessarily have to end in killing. It can end in any number of other ways. Are you so committed to my death that you cannot imagine any other possibility? Do I appear no different to you than Grianne Ohmsford did?”

He smiled. “You are different in more ways than I can count. I do not mistake you for her. But I do not mistake you for anything different from what you are, either. I would have to watch my back constantly were I to accept your proposal.”

She put her hands on his narrow shoulders and drew him a step closer. “Oh, come now. What would be the purpose of making this offer if all I wanted was to see you dead? There are much less complicated ways to achieve that end. Once I have joined with you openly, it immediately becomes more difficult for me to dispose of you, doesn’t it? Besides, what would be the reason? I need you alive and at my side if I am to achieve what I seek. You can see that, can’t you?”

His lean features showed nothing, impassive and unrevealing as she pressed herself close and kissed him on the mouth. “Can’t you?”

Then he was kissing her back, and she knew she had him.


Later that night, when the Druids of Paranor were asleep or at work in quarters kept open for that purpose, the night fallen in a thick black veil through skies so clouded that neither moon nor stars could penetrate, she slipped from her bed to walk the empty corridors and think. She spared only a single glance back at the sleeping and sated Gerand Cera before closing the door on him. Her seduction of her most dangerous enemy had been a success. It had even been enjoyable. She had not lied to him. She found him attractive enough. His menacing look and poisonous mind drew her much the way she thought the Ilse Witch must have felt drawn to snakes. They were treacherous by instinct and unpredictable by nature and one could not trust what they would do because they frequently did not know themselves. But they were fascinating, as well. She flushed with heat and passion imagining how it would feel to hold one close to her breast and feel its deceptively silky skin sliding against her own.

She slipped down the empty corridor outside her room, hugging the shadows as she moved to the stairwell that led upward into the central tower and the parapets that ringed it. She wore her nightgown and nothing more, disdainful of clothing, of armor and weapons, of trappings that hampered and slowed. She feared nothing in this world, so why should she care how she appeared or what she revealed? Convention and conformity were for others. She would be what she liked.