Free Depths of Madness by Erik Scott de Bie Page B

her, txcept Gargan, who stared. Once again, that odd sense of eternity manifested in his eyes. She had seen that gleam of wisdom before, and knew enough not to trust it.
    Twilight looked away for a time, then back. Gargan was still gazing at her. Was that esteem in his strange eyes, or disdain for her methods?
    Either way, at least someone understands, Twilight thought.
    Then she looked down at the cut on her arm. She tore a strip from her precious blouse and cleaned the wound. It would have to do. She wiped the blood from her cheeks and forehead as best she could.
    She was the captain of this band, and damned if she would show any sign of weakness. They would absolutely follow her lead—they had no alternative. Twilight hated the responsibility, but she knew they had no choice.
    Watching the disjointed band and ignoring her growling stomach, Twilight slowly drifted into reverie. At least, she hoped so. She did not think she could stand another night of the barbaric human sleep she had been finding so often lately.
    For some reason, she couldn’t keep a certain laugh out of the back of her mind.
    Gestal stood over the slumbering Twilight, watching the way her sweat-streaked face gleamed in the torchlight. Only one of them stood guard, running her fingers gently over the brow of a sleeping, withered man. She was completely oblivious.
    It mattered little to Gestal. His gaze stayed upon Twilight, who slept apart from the others, where no guard could see her easily—or admire her, for that matter.
    Twilight’s eyes flickered under her lids, the eyes of a girl caught in violent nightmares. After a single candle’s burn, she
    had dipped into true slumber. It surprised Gestal that the she-elf slept like a human, rather than lying in trance like most of her people.
    How innocent she became when asleep, how frightened. Perhaps this was why she stayed away from the party—to keep such fragile, vulnerable beauty to herself.
    Gestal, on the other hand, would have none of that. He bent down, fingers extended. Twilight shifted in her sleep, recoiling as though she sensed the hand coming.
    Lord Divergence ran his fingers through her raven locks. She shivered. They stretched out their thoughts with the softest chant of magical power, and…
    Nothing.
    Gestal had expected as much. Through that sapphire amulet, he could not see into her mind. Nor could he divine her location or watch her from afar. Only through the eyes of others—or his own—could Gestal see her.
    He could take it now, but why? He enjoyed her pretensions.
    Gestal smiled. This trifle added to the game.

CHAPTER Six
    Twilight awoke in a groggy murk. Sometime during the night, she had slipped once again into the sleep of humans. In that unnatural chaos, she had experienced dreams as humans do—uncontrolled, nonsensical visions that would have frightened her to wakefulness had she not been used to them. Most of the dreams had been nightmares—as usual. She had wanted desperately to awaken, but as always, she had not. And some dreams, even stranger, had been the kind she hadn’t wanted to wake from.
    Many of those visions had centered on the young Liet Sagrin, of all folk.
    She sniffed and rolled her eyes. Barbaric. Enjoyable, but simply barbaric.
    Twilight dismissed the dreams as more of the unpleasantness she encountered with greater frequency than others in her profession. Most elves, she well knew, never slept more than twice or thrice in as many centuries, but Twilight was not like most elves.
    Like most, though, she desired to eat at sunup—and, of course, to relieve herself.
    As she made her careful way into a chamber removed from the huddled band in order to do just that, Twilight met Slip coming from the other direction. The little thief, wearing her
    mace and a dagger that she had apparently found somewhere, smiled when she saw the elf.
    “Good morrow!” the halfling said brightly.
    “Yes,” Twilight managed. The halfling wandered alone? “What are you