Fern was standing above the woman on the couch, her eyes closed, her hands hovering over her, her lips moving in silent wording.

True and Farah were already there, and Aramus and Ha-Lah ran in moments after Cassius and Elena had arrived.

Elena dropped down to a knee beside Melisse, one hand on her friend’s back, bending to her.

“What’s happened?” she asked.

Cassius stood close to them but looked to his right to see Mars jog in, holding Silence’s hand, (though, Silence wasn’t jogging, she was on the trot to keep up with him).

“What’s the urgency?” Mars demanded, his gaze snapping about the room, taking it in.

“Melisse, what’s happened?” Elena asked.

Everyone drew in close as Melisse tipped her head back.

“Rebecca. Nandra,” she said.

But then said no more.

“Rebecca?” True asked.

“What of Nandra?” Mars bit off.

“We…we killed one. It…she…it had not quite recovered from its emergence, I think. Vulnerable. They…my sisters, my sisters are gone, but before they were lost to us, they made it so it is also gone,” Melisse said.

“It? What it?” Elena asked.

Cassius watched as Melisse looked into Elena’s eyes before her gaze moved all around.

She finished, however, back on her sister-daughter.

“There is not but one beast,” she whispered.

The air in the room stood still.

“There are four.”

149

The Examination

Silbury Henge, Argyll Forest

AIREN

The zinging stopped and mists of snow and ash bloomed up when the tridents struck it all around the slab in the center of the circle.

Immediately, there formed ten men, two to each trident.

They stood in the circle, motionless, alert, hands on their weapons.

When they heard nothing, they glanced about.

The clearing all around was mostly covered in black soot, with some disturbances, indications of the movements of beings.

The origin of the ash, it was clear, was the area in front of one of the stones, where there was crater in the earth, the frozen dirt that was exposed oozing with some form of black sludge.

King Cassius Laird was the first to move, his boots crunching in the snow.

He went to the crater and crouched beside it, staring into it in contemplation.

King True Axelsson of Wodell shifted next, going to the slab in the center upon which, covered in fallen ash, there was the corpse of a woman who, through the dark powder that covered her features, he noted had been quite pretty.

But now the skin of her face he could see through the dust was ashen, except about her lips and eyes, where it was blue.

The lifeblood that had flowed from her onto the slab was a muddy red-black color, as it had dried or frozen, but before doing so, had soaked up the ash. Though he could see it was fully crimson where it had seeped over the side into the snow.