Painfully aware he was losing precious seconds, he tried a Sapphire thread. When he got no answer, he used a Green communication thread, putting a bit of temper in the sending. *Lady.*

The Gray Lady whipped around to face him.

*How do we quiet the protection spells?* Jared demanded.

Her fear pounded against him. *He said you’d know the key. I thought he told you.*

Jared’s mind blanked for a second. *Why in the name of Hell would he think I’d know?*

*I don’t know.*

With the words, Jared caught a whiff of memory from her. Your Warlord will know the key.

Your Warlord. The words assumed a bond a slave would never dream of, an honorable bond of service between a male and his Queen.

Damn that rogue bastard to the bowels of Hell, was this some kind of test?

It didn’t matter. If they were going to survive, he had to stop thinking like a slave and start thinking like a Warlord.

Jared turned back to the posts. Garth had sensed—or understood—something about them, and it made sense that the key wouldn’t be hard to reach if the rogues weren’t going to put themselves at risk every time they entered the clearing. Which meant it had to be here!

Damn you, he thought as he felt the wild stranger pushing at him. Damn you. Help me!

It exploded from its hiding place. He wanted to howl as its savagery filled him, flooded him, as razor-edged instincts blinded his ability to think. A moment later, it retreated, leaving him feeling raw and viciously clear-minded.

Sweating heavily despite the cold and the rain, Jared created a large ball of witchlight.

On the facing sides of the posts, someone had carved the thirteen ancient symbols of power deep into the stone—six on the left post, seven on the right.

How was he supposed to choose the right three?

Jared paused, then shook his head. Of course it was three.

He found the symbol for male on the left stone. His finger hesitated over it before moving to the triangle beneath it. Using Craft, he traced the triangle’s deep lines with one finger, filling them with witchlight.

In a court, the male triangle of Consort, Steward, and Master of the Guard formed the tightest bond with the Queen. They were companions, advisors, protectors.

None of the other symbols on the left post pulled him, so he turned to the right. His finger traced the outline of the symbol for female.

The male triangle was the core of a court, but the Queen, the female, was always its heart.

He sank to his knees and traced the last symbol carved into the post, the Blood’s most revered symbol—the symbol for the Darkness.

The Blood honored the Darkness because it meant endings and beginnings; it was the fertile dark of land and womb that nurtured the seeds of life; it was the psychic river the Blood came from and returned to; it was the abyss the Self descended into to reach its own strength; it was the vastness that contained the spiderweb-shaped psychic roadways called the Winds. It was all those things, and more.