"It'll be true then, too." His black eyes were tender. "Whatever happens, I want you to know that I love you with everything inside of me."

She caught her breath and said shakily, "If… if nothing's changed and the Council orders you…"

"We'll find a place for ourselves somewhere," he assured her. "Somehow. I love you, Serena. I'm not going to lose you, no matter what."

She lifted her face for his kiss, virtually certain now that she was lit up like a Christmas tree with happiness. "I love you, Richard. I've always loved you."

They looked at each other for a long moment, black eyes and green bottomless with love, their fingers twining tightly together. And then, with the past spread out behind them, they stepped together into the future.

Varian didn't bother to reconstruct one of the ruined buildings in the Old City; instead, he merely erected a small, plain structure amid the rubble. He gave his creation two rooms that were separated by a closed door, some fragment of shrewdness warning him that Antonia might take offense if she found only a bedchamber awaiting her.

He made the bedchamber inviting, however, with a large and comfortable bed piled high with soft blankets, and a fireplace to provide warmth as well as golden light. In the main room, the one Antonia would first enter, he was more diplomatic, conjuring two comfortable chairs of precisely equal dimensions and setting them across from one another near that room's fireplace. Then he produced a table on which were a number of delicacies, two pretty jeweled goblets, and a generous flagon of wine.

It was far more trouble than he was accustomed to going to in order to set the scene for seduction, but Varian didn't begrudge the effort. Ever since he had been confronted by two pairs of wizards his curiosity- and his arousal-had been growing steadily. He'd found no satisfaction with his concubines; all he could think of was the intelligence, fire, and spirit he had seen in Serena, and the delicate beauty of Tremayne's female. Riding a wizard had become his sole ambition.

He knew himself well enough to be aware that a part of the anticipation he felt lay in the risk: Any woman of power could injure him, and Antonia could quite possibly kill him. But he had thoroughly explored every avenue of sexuality except a coupling snatched from the very jaws of death, and the potential danger of such a ride, he had found, was a more potent aphrodisiac than anything else he'd ever known.

In fact, he'd been forced to hide his swollen arousal by making his trousers more baggy than usual and adding a loose tunic over his shirt. He had briefly considered conjuring a far more regal outfit than he normally wore, but in the end decided he had no need of fine trappings in order to impress anyone. So his shirt and trousers were of everyday quality, and the tunic was merely leather.

He stood by the main room's single window, gazing out as he waited impatiently for Antonia to arrive. like the nearby front door, the window was completely open, without glass or shutters; he'd decided they would both feel more relaxed if they weren't "dosed up" during the first tense minutes of their meeting.

It occurred to him that their meeting-most especially if it ended in the bedchamber-could last the remainder of the afternoon and into the night, which meant they'd be caught beneath the Curtain. The whore was accustomed to it, of course, but he wasn't. He had, years before, descended several times into the valley at night merely to experience the effects, and he had once ridden one of his concubines beneath the Curtain to find out what it was like (incredibly exhausting, it turned out; he hadn't been himself for days afterward), but otherwise he'd remained on his mountain.

Still, he reminded himself, if he and Antonia were caught here after the sun went down neither of them would be able to use power. And riding a female wizard beneath the Curtain might, after all, prove a different experience, one well worth attempting…

Antonia arrived nearly an hour later, leaving only a few hours of daylight for their meeting. As agreed, she was alone; if any of her Sentinels had accompanied her, they were to wait at the outskirts of the Old City unless and until they were summoned to attend their Leader. She approached Varian's new building with a brisk and confident step, and he watched from the window as she followed the path among the ruins.

He was pleased by her red hair, having forgotten she was one of the rare redheads of Atlantia, and the graceful vitality of her slender body certainly belied her years; he knew she was roughly his own age, but she certainly didn't look it-at least from a distance. She, too, wore plain clothing, a shapeless robe over a white shift, belted to hint at her slim waist, the colors drab. But that hair… Bright red, long, thick, and unbound, it was all the color she required to present a vibrant appearance.

Varian stepped back into the center of the room, his gaze on the wide, open doorway, absently adjusting his tunic to better disguise his arousal. He adopted a relaxed, unthreatening posture, arms hanging loose at his sides as he stood squarely on both feet.

Antonia entered the building, halting several feet from Varian. Her blue eyes studied him, and her expression was somewhat detached without being especially unfriendly. She even smiled slightly when she spoke in a cool but curiously intense voice.

"Hello, Varian. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I'm sure neither of us will regret it."

He bowed slightly. "Anything to keep the peace, Antonia. I have every faith in our ability to come to some understanding. Shall we sit down?"

She went to the chair he indicated while he went to the other, both of them smiling and courteous and guarded. Varian was a bit disappointed to discover she looked nearer her age now that she was closer to him, but that didn't change his state of arousal. He'd been less excited by the thought of riding a beautiful woman than by the thought of riding a female wizard, so a few frown lines and the slight roughening of the skin hardly mattered to him. Besides, her body, though slender, was certainly voluptuous enough to suit him.

He poured wine for both of them (she seemed pleased by the jeweled goblets, just as he'd expected; even the most lofty of females enjoyed pretty things), and for a time they merely sipped the wine, sampled a few of the delicacies, and talked politely about neutral topics-though there were few enough of those once the deplorable condition of Atlantia's groundwater and the upsetting tremors had been discussed.

When the first silence fell, Antonia broke it with a smile and a matter-of-fact statement. "You know, of course, that Atlantia cannot survive under the present conditions."

"I suppose not. But we have attained a kind of harmony, wouldn't you agree?" He returned her smile, leaning back in his chair, with his legs extended and spread apart.

"Not so much harmony as an armed respite," she disagreed in a polite tone. "You males keep to your mountains for the most part, we females cling to our city-and our society grows ever more shattered."

"What do you suggest?" he inquired lazily, only one hand moving as he held his goblet and swirled the red liquid inside around and around rhythmically.

Antonia set her goblet on the table at her elbow and folded her hands in her lap, studying him. She had been a little disappointed at first; he was rougher and coarser than she'd expected, with none of Merlin's grace or elegance-or strength. Though Varian was tall and solidly muscled, and his thick hair was the deepest shade of black, he seemed to her like a drawing of beauty and power that had been rubbed and smudged by an unkind hand. Lines of dissipation marked his handsome face, a certain heaviness hung about the jowls, and his black eyes were not liquid but were as hard and dull as two pieces of coal.