Fear rose in him, along with the urge to run, but there was nowhere to run to, and these creatures would be faster than any man. Better to stand and fight, but they couldnt fight. Devin looked around, hoping that one of the others would have a plan, but even Rodry was standing there in obvious fear. They knew just as well as Devin what was about to happen:

They were going to die.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Nerra crept out of the castle, leaving the doors to her rooms closed so that no one would come looking for her. One advantage of people knowing how often she was ill was that they didnt question her not being there at the heart of things.

She slipped out, picking her route carefully, so that if anyone saw her they would probably assume she was going out into the gardens. She neednt have worried. All the attention was on Lenore, and on the growing array of guests in the castle. Almost no one paid attention to the slender, almost gaunt figure drifting through it all. Maybe if shed cared about the attention, Nerra might have worried about that, but she was grateful. It made it possible for her to slip out to the forest, taking her horse and making the ride down to the cave that sat there.

She clung to the saddle as she rode, feeling the weakness that came from her illness. Here, away from people, she felt isolated enough to lift her sleeve, checking on the creeping tracery of black lines on her arm. Nerra quickly yanked her sleeve down again. She needed to focus on the cave and what lay within. It wasnt far.

Carefully, Nerra levered away the rocks in front of the entrance, slipping inside. The egg sat there, in the nest that Nerra had made for it. It looked as impossible as ever, blue and gold, as if someone had pieced together a fractured thing with molten metal. Nerra knelt beside it, staring at it and running her hands over the surface to feel the warmth of it.

All I have to do is break you, she whispered to it. If I crack you open, Im cured. I can have a life.

Nerra could barely imagine it. What would it be like to be well; to be the same as everyone else? She could go out into the world and be the healer that shed always wanted to be. She could help people; she could have a family. There would be no more fainting fits, no more black lines growing darker and darker on her arms, threatening to change her into something she had never wanted to be.

All of it could be done, she could be cured, and all she had to do was break the egg, destroy the burgeoning life within.