There was no telling what the act of kissing that finger would do, now, in view of their betrayal. Superstition had it that it was death for one who had pledged her soul to the Keeper — a Sister of the Dark — to kiss that finger. While it was unclear whether it truly would invoke the Creator's wrath, there was no doubt it would invoke the Keeper's. When her hand was halfway to her lips, Tovi realized what she was about to do and snatched it away.

"You all saw Jagang?" Ulicia regarded each in turn, and each nodded. A small name of hope still flickered in her. "So you saw the emperor. That means nothing." She leaned toward Tovi. "Did you hear him say anything?"

Tovi drew the coverlet up to her chin. "We were all there, as we always are when the Keeper seeks us. We sat in the semicircle, naked, as we always do. But it was Jagang who came, not the Master."

A soft sob came from Armina in the bunk above. "Silence!" Ulicia returned her attention to the shivering Tovi. "But what did he say? What were his words?"

Tovi's gaze sought the floor. "He said our souls were his now. He said we were his now, and we lived only at his whim. He said we must come to him at once, or we would envy Sister Liliana's fate." She looked up, into Ulicia's eyes. "He said we would regret it if we made him wait." Tears flooded her eyes. "And then he gave me a taste of what it would mean to displease him."

Ulicia's flesh had gone cold, and she realized that she, too, had drawn her sheet up. She pushed it back into her lap with an effort. "Armina?" Soft confirmation came from above. "Cecilia?" Cecilia nodded. Ulicia looked to the two in the upper bunk opposite. The composure they had worked so hard to bring back seemed to have settled in. "Well? Did you two hear the same words?"

"Yes," Nicci said.

"The exact same," Merissa said without emotion. "Liliana has brought this upon us."

"Perhaps the Keeper is displeased with us," Cecilia offered, "and has given us to the emperor so we may serve him as a way of earning back our place of favor."

Merissa's back stiffened. Her eyes were a window into her frozen heart. "I have given my soul oath to the Keeper. If we must serve this vulgar beast in order to return to our Master's graces, then I will serve. I will lick this man's feet, if I must."

Ulicia remembered Jagang, just before he had departed the semicircle in the dream that was not a dream, commanding Merissa to stand. He had then casually reached out, grabbed her right breast in his powerful fingers, and squeezed until her knees buckled. Ulicia glanced at Merissa's breast, now, and saw lurid bruises there.

Merissa made no effort to cover herself as her serene expression settled on Ulicia's eyes. "The emperor said we would regret it, if we made him wait,"

Ulicia, too, had heard the same instructions. Jagang had displayed what bordered on contempt for the Keeper. How was he able to supplant the Keeper in the dream that was not a dream? He had — that was all that mattered. It had happened to al! of them, It had not been a mere dream.

Tingling dread thickened in the pit of her stomach as the small flame of hope extinguished. She, too, had been given a taste of what disobedience would mean. The blood that was crusting over her eyes reminded her of how much she had wanted to escape that lesson. It had been real, and they all knew it, They had no choice. There wasn't a moment to lose. A cold bead of sweat trickled down between her breasts. If they were late. .

Ulicia bounded out of bed.

"Turn his ship around!" she shrieked as she flung open the door. "Turn it around at once!"

No one was in the passageway. She sprang up the companionway, screaming as she went. The others raced after her, pounding on cabin doors as they followed. Ulicia didn't bother with the doors; it was the helmsman who pointed the ship where it was going and commanded the deckhands to the sails.

Ulicia heaved open the hatch door to be greeted by murky light; dawn was not yet upon them. Leaden clouds seethed above the dark cauldron of the sea. Luminous foam frothed just beyond the rail as the ship slid down a towering wave, making it seem they were plunging into an inky chasm. The other Sisters poured from the hatchway behind her out onto the spray-swept deck.

"Turn this ship around!" she screamed to the barefoot sailors who turned in mule surprise.

Ulicia growled a curse and raced aft, toward the tiller. The five Sisters followed on her heels as she dashed across the pitching deck. Hands gripping the lapels of his coat, the helmsman stretched his neck to see what the trouble was. Lantern light came through the opening at his feet, showing the faces of the four men manning rhe tiller. Sailors gathered near the bearded helmsman, and stood gawking at the six women.

Ulicia gulped air trying to catch her breath. "What's the matter with you slack-jawed idiots? Didn't you hear me? I said to turn this ship around!"

Suddenly, she fathomed the reason for the stares: the six of them were naked. Merissa stepped up beside her, standing tall and aloof, as if she were dressed in a gown that covered her from neck to deck.

One of the leering deckhands spoke as his gaze played over the younger woman. "Well, well. Looks like the ladies have come out to play."

Cool and unattainable, Merissa regarded his lecherous grin with unruffled authority. "What's mine is mine, and not anyone else's, even to look upon, unless I decide it is so. Remove your eyes from my flesh at once, or have them removed."

Had the man the gift, and Ulicia's mastery of it, he would have been able to sense the air about Merissa cracking ominously with power. These men knew them only as wealthy nobility wanting passage to strange and distant places; they didn't know who, or what, the six women really were. Captain Blake knew them as Sisters of the Light, but Ulicia had ordered him to keep that knowledge from his men.

The man mocked Merissa with a lecherous expression and obscene thrusts of his hips. "Don't be standoffish, lass. You wouldn't of come out here like that unless you had in mind the same as us."

The air sizzled around Merissa. Blood blossomed at the crotch of the man's trousers. He squealed as he looked up with eyes gone wild. Lightning glinted off the long knife at his belt as he yanked it free. Yelling an oath of retribution, he staggered ahead with lethal intent.

A distant smile touched Merissa's full lips. "You filthy scum," she murmured to herself. "I deliver you into the cold embrace of my Master."

His flesh burst apart as if he were a rotten melon whacked with a stick. A concussion of air driven by the power of the gift slammed him over the rail. A bloody trail traced his course across the planks. With scarcely a splash, the black water swallowed the body. The other men, near to a dozen, stood wide-eyed and still as statues.

"You will all keep your eyes on our faces," Merissa hissed, “and off everything else."

The men nodded, too appalled to voice their consent. One man's gaze involuntarily nicked down at her body, as if her speaking aloud what was forbidden to look upon had made the impulse to view it impossible to control. In ragged terror, he began to apologize, but a focused line of power as sharp as a battle axe sliced across his eyes. He tumbled out over the rail as had the first.

'Merissa," Ulicia said softly, "that will be quite enough. I think they've learned their lesson."

Eyes of ice, distant behind the haze of Han, turned to her. “I will not have their eyes taking what does not belong to them."

Ulicia lifted an eyebrow. "We need them to get back. You do remember our urgency, don't you?"

Merissa glanced at the men, as if surveying bugs beneath her boots. “Of course, Sister. We must return at once."

Ulicia turned to see that Captain Blake had just arrived and was standing behind them, his mouth agape.