I am feeling very positive these days, like not even my sister can ruin things now. She knows about this. Her crows have been watching. I have let them, hoping it irks the devil out of her.

Here is Ram, back from his bath. I swear, the closer I get to my date the worse he gets. You would think it was his child.

He is scared to death that what happened to his wife and baby will happen to me and mine. I think. He has grown a little strange, almost haunted. He is terrified of something. He jumps at every little sound. He searches the corners and shadows every time he enters a room.

Chapter Seventy-Five

Chapter Seventy-Five

Ram was scared with good reason. He had learned something he should not have. He knew something he was not supposed to know.

Ram is dead.

Ram died fighting his Strangler brothers when they came to take my daughter.

Narayan is a dead man. He is walking around somewhere out there, maybe grinning that grin, but he will not wear it long. He will be found, if not by soldiers hunting men with indelible red stains on their palms, then by me. He has no idea how strongly my powers have returned. I will find him and he will become a sainted Strangler much earlier than he would like.

I should have been more wary. I knew he had his own agenda. I have been around treacherous men all my life. But never, ever, did it occur to me that, from the beginning, he and his ranking cronies were interested in the child developing within me instead of in me myself. He was a consummate actor.

Grinning bastard. He was a true Deceiver.

I never even chose a name before they collected their Daughter of Night.

I should have suspected when the dreams went away so suddenly. As soon as I had been through that ceremony. I was not the one consecrated there. I did not change. I could not be marked that easily.

Ram was only a yellow rumel man but he knew they were coming. He killed four of them. Then Narayan killed him, according to the women. Then Narayan and his band fought their way out of the fortress. All while I still lay unconscious.

Narayan will pay. I will tear his heart out and use it to choke his goddess. They do not know what they have awakened. My strength has returned. They will pay. Longshadow, my sister, the Deceivers, Kina herself if she gets in my way.

Their Year of the Skulls is upon them.

I close the Book of Lady.

Envoi: Down There