It was Del's turn for silence.

"I don't—I don't remember what Oziri did. What he told me, or taught me. Enough, obviously, to find and refine whatever was born in me, what bubbled up from time to time before going dormant again, until Meteiera. Apparently he brought it back into the open." I laughed sharply. "If I couldn't remember what day it was, how can I be expected to remember what he did? But what I don't understand is why."

Del pondered it. "Perhaps he realized what was in you, and wanted it for himself," she said. "I think as long as you denied what you were, he could use you. Perhaps he felt your magic might augment his, make him something more than he was. But if you knew what he wanted, you would have resisted."

"Would I?"

"Oh, yes. You let no man use you, Tiger. Not Nihko, not Sah-dri, not Oziri."

"But they have. Each of them." Others as well, over the long years. "For a time."

"And you have walked away from them all."

Or been dragged away by a very determined woman. I sighed. "So, you think if I admit what I am, I'll be safe from manipulation?"

"Maybe."

I scowled. "That's not much of a guarantee."

Del's brows arched. "With the kind of lives we lead, that's the best I can offer."

True enough. I ran a hand through my hair, scrubbing at the chill that crept over my scalp. "Dangerous."

"What is?"

"A man with a sword who lacks proper training." I grimaced, said what I meant: "A man with magic who lacks proper training."

Sahdri had said it, atop the spires. Umir's book set it into print. Oziri had proved it.

"Unless he is strong enough to find his own way."

I grunted. "Maybe."

Del smiled. "I will offer a guarantee."

I laughed, then let it spill away. "I can't believe that all dreams are bad, bascha. Everyone dreams. You dream."

"But I am not a mage."

She had said it was born in me. So had Nihkolara, and Sahdri. Oziri. Even Umir's book. Dormancy until Skandi, from birth until age forty—except for a sensitivity to magic so strong it made me ill; until ioSkandi, when Nihko took me against my will to Met-eiera, to the Stone Forest; to others like him, like me. Where, atop a spire, a full-blown mage was born.

Denial bloomed again, faded. Was followed by the only logical question there could be.

What comes next?

I AWOKE with a start, staring up into darkness lighted only by stars and the faintest sliver of moon. Sweat bathed my body. I swore under my breath and rubbed an unsympathetic hand over my face, mashing it out of shape.

"What is it?" Del's voice was shaded by only a trace of sleepiness.

We lay side-by-side in our bedrolls with the dying fire at our feet. Desert nights are cool; I yanked the blanket up to my shoulders. Muttering additional expletives, I shut my eyes and draped an elbow over my face. "I was dreaming, curse it."

After a moment, with careful neutrality, she queried, "Yes?"

"I'd just as soon not, after my recent experiences." I removed the arm and looked again at the stars, shoving both forearms under my head. "How in hoolies am I supposed to go through life without dreaming?"

"I don't think you can not dream," Del observed, shifting beneath her blanket. "You'll just have to get used to it."

I grunted sourly.

"Well—unless you can learn to control them. Make them stop." She was silent a moment. "And perhaps you can. Being you."

I chewed on that for a moment, then shied away from the concept. That "being you" part carried an entirely new connotation, now.

"What was this dream about?"

I scowled up at darkness. "Actually, it was a piece of one I had before. At least, I'm assuming it was a dream. Before, that is. You swore up and down it didn't happen."

"I did?"

"The dance," I said. "The dance where you walked away."

"Ah." She was silent a moment. "No. It didn't happen. But– are you saying you dreamed about a dream?"

"I didn't think it was a dream at the time. In which case I'd be dreaming about something that did happen. But it didn't, so I guess I was dreaming about a dream."

Her tone was amused. "This is getting very complicated, Tiger."

"Then there's the dream about the dead woman . . ." Oh, argh. I hadn't meant to tell her.

Del's voice sharpened. "Dead woman?"

I tried to dismiss it as inconsequential. "Just—a skeleton. Out in the Punja."

"It's a skeleton, but you know it's a woman?"

"It's a woman's voice."

"This skeleton speaks?"

Now she'd really think I was sandsick. "It's not the kind of dreams I had with Oziri. This is just a dream. A dream dream. You know. The kind anyone has."

"I don't dream of skeletons who speak with a woman's voice."

I put a smile into my voice. "Of course not. You dream of me."

"Oh, indeed," she murmured dryly. "What else would a woman dream about but a man? It is her only goal in life, to find a man to fill her thoughts during the day and her dreams during the night."

I rolled over to face her, hitching myself up on one elbow. "So. What kind of man did you think you'd end up with?" It wasn't the sort of thing I'd ever asked before. Nor had I ever heard a man, even dead drunk, mention curiosity about it. But that didn't mean we weren't curious.

"I didn't."

"Didn't? Not at all?" I paused. "Ever?"

"When I was a girl, yes."

"A Northerner."

"Of course. I lived in the North."

"And when you got a little older?"

"I stopped thinking about what kind of man I might end up with."

"Why?"

"Ajani," she said simply.

One word. One name. Explanation. And it came rushing back to me, the knowledge. A fifteen-year-old girl, witness to the massacre of her family. The sole survivor save for her brother, and subject to the brutality so many women suffered at the hands of borjuni. No, I didn't imagine Del had ever dreamed of a man again, except perhaps of the one she'd sworn to kill.

By the time she'd done it, we'd been partners for two years. Sword-mates. Bed-mates. I'd known the minute I laid eyes on her in the dusty, drag-tail cantina that I wanted her in my bed. I don't know when the idea occured to Del.

"What?" she asked.

I raised my eyebrows at her in a silent query.

Del frowned faintly. "You're staring at me."

"You're worth staring at." I reached out, hooked two fingers into the sandtiger necklet around her neck, pulled her toward me. "I think I know of a way to turn bad dreams into good ones."

"Ah," she said as our foreheads met gently. "But will you remember my name in the morning?"

I shifted closer, sinking a hand into the hair against the back of her head. "Who needs names? 'Woman' will do."

Stiffened fingers jabbed me warningly beneath the short ribs. "What was that again?"

"Delilah," I murmured against her mouth.

The mouth curved into a smile, then parted. The tongue flicked briefly against my own with the first word. "That will do." So would a lot of things, with this woman.

In the morning I fought the muzzy residue of too many dreams crowded together inside my skull as I grained and watered the horses. The morning promised to bleed into a typical desert day: very bright, very warm, no moisture. Which is good for the bones, but bad for the skin. It wasn't high summer yet, nor were we in the Punja, but no part of the South lacks for heat. I could taste it on my tongue, an acrid trace of dry soil and sand; I could smell the tang of creosote and what was left of our fire, burned away to a thin scattering of coals amid the ash. Del, squatting beside it, raked the coals apart to expose all of them, then took care to blanket them in a layer of sandy soil so there was no threat of sparks that might kindle a conflagration.