“And what did you think would happen?” asked Sevraine, who never raised her voice. “The Prince let you go, but he couldn’t promise you a cloak of invincibility, or invisibility. What did you think would happen when you walked boldly in the big cities where the young ones hunt?”

“What do you want of me!” Rhosh asked. “What? Is this mere prelude to an execution? Why drag it out? For whose benefit do you say all this?”

“You must never strike at any of us again,” said Gregory in a level voice.

“Oh, you, of such little loyalty!” said Rhoshamandes with contempt. “And I stood by you when the Mother imprisoned you for your love of Sevraine. Have you a veil of forgetfulness over those times when I served you in the Queens Blood with my whole soul! What did you teach me then about authority, about monarchs, about presumptuous immortals who made up tales of ‘divine right’?”

“I have said nothing to you about divine right,” said Gregory in a low voice. “You kept that innocent Derek, that helpless Derek, prisoner here when you knew we were under attack by these Replimoids. You knew, yet you made no move to bring him to us. And you know what we want.”

“Tell us where this Roland is hiding, the one who kept him for ten years,” said Sevraine.

“And why would I do that?” asked Rhoshamandes. “Why would I betray the only blood drinker in the world who befriended me after I was cast out by all of you, yes, all of you, and forced to wander in exile! And what is it to me if Roland kept this strange prisoner? Am I the keeper of Roland? Am I the keeper of anyone?”

“They are our friends now,” said Seth. “They are our family and they demand justice for what happened to Derek. They demand this to seal the pact of peace with us.”

Benedict drew close to Rhosh again, and Rhosh motioned for him to stay back.

“Don’t let it be the last thing I see,” he said to Benedict, “that you’re destroyed with me. I beg you. Not that.”

“All right,” said Benedict to Gregory and Seth. “He kept Derek here. Rhosh struck off Derek’s arm, the same way the Prince had struck off Rhosh’s arm. Surely there’s something he can do or say to settle this! I don’t believe the Prince wants this. I know he doesn’t. The Prince would be here if this was what he wanted.”

Face streaming with blood tears. Poor Benedict. Rhosh couldn’t bear to see Benedict suffering like this, and the appalling reality struck him that if and when they brought this to a close, he’d be gone, and there would be no one to console Benedict and Benedict would be alone, really alone for the first time ever in all these long centuries.