Sinner. Sara Douglass

body stiffened and he barely restrained himself from letting his power bolt in anger about the chamber. “My title is Talon, CloudBurst. I command that you use it.”

      “Brother, you must stop this madness. Nothing gives you the right to murder so many –”

      “Murder?” WolfStar leaped down from the lip of the Gate and grasped his brother’s hair, wrenching CloudBurst’s head back. “Murder? They are adventurers, CloudBurst, and they have a duty to their Talon. And they are doing that duty badly!”

      “WolfStar –”

      “My title is Talon!” WolfStar screamed and twisted CloudBurst’s head until the birdman’s neck creaked and his face contorted in agony.

      “Talon,” CloudBurst whispered, and WolfStar’s grip loosened. “Talon, you are throwing these children to their deaths. How many lives have been wasted now? Two hundred? More, Talon, more!”

      “They would not die if they crawled back through the Star Gate. They have wasted themselves, not I. They have failed. Their blame, not mine.”

      “No-one has ever come back through the –”

      “That is not to say no-one can, CloudBurst.” WolfStar finally let CloudBurst go and stood back. “Perhaps they are not strong enough. I need young Enchanters of powerful blood. Very powerful.” His eyes locked with CloudBurst’s.

      “No!” CloudBurst sank to his knees, quivering hands outstretched in appeal. “No! I beg you. Not –”

      “Bring me your daughter, CloudBurst. StarGrace has SunSoar power. Part of her shares my blood. Perhaps she will succeed where others have failed.”

      “No! WolfStar, I cannot –”

      “I am Talon,” WolfStar hissed. “I am WolfStar SunSoar, and I command you! Obey me!”

      But StarGrace did not return, either. WolfStar muttered instructions and orders to the terrified, sobbing sixteen-year-old girl as he seized her by her wings and hurled her into the Star Gate. But like all the others, she only cartwheeled into the pit of the universe to vanish completely. WolfStar stood at the lip of the Star Gate for two full days, watching and waiting, taking neither food nor drink, before he cursed StarGrace for all eternity for her weakness and failure and stepped back. He jumped, startled.

      “You are tired, my husband. Will you not take some rest?”

      StarLaughter stepped forward from the shadows of the arches. “Come with me, my love, and let me warm and soothe you to sleep.”

      WolfStar reached out and smoothed his wife’s dark hair back from her face. She was his first cousin, close SunSoar blood, and second only to him in Enchanter power. So powerful.

      Perhaps too powerful. For months now WolfStar had good reason to suspect StarLaughter plotted against him, plotted to take the title of Talon for herself.

      WolfStar almost laughed. She must be mad to think she could wrest power from him.

      He caressed her cheek, his fingers gentle, and StarLaughter forced herself to smile, even though her love for her husband was long dead.

      WolfStar leaned forward and kissed her softly, allowing his hand to slide down over her body until he felt the energy throbbing through her swollen belly. His son, and so powerful, so powerful … did his unborn son conspire with StarLaughter? Was their son the reason she thought she could best him?

      WolfStar’s hand stilled. His son. Even unborn he wielded more power than any other Enchanter he’d sent through the Star Gate. His son.

      Perhaps he could succeed … his son. And it would certainly solve the more immediate problem of StarLaughter’s treachery.

      StarLaughter’s hands closed over his and wrenched it away from her body.

      No! she screamed through his mind.

      “I need to know, beloved,” WolfStar whispered. “I need to know if I can come back. I need someone to show me the way. Who better than our son?”

      “You would throw a newborn infant through? You would murder our son?”

      StarLaughter took a step back. The birth was only weeks away – how far could she get in that time? Far enough to save her son’s life? Far enough to save her own life? What did WolfStar know? How much could he know?

      “Too much!” WolfStar cried, and leaped forward and grabbed her. “Consider yourself a fit sacrifice for your son, StarLaughter. Your body will protect him from the ravages of passage through the Gate, my lovely. Will you not do this for our son? He will come back, I am sure of it.”

      And once he does, WolfStar thought, I shall divest him of his knowledge and then of his life.

      Now so terrified she could not even speak with the mind voice, StarLaughter shook her head in denial, her eyes huge and round, her hands clasped protectively over her belly.

      “WolfStar, not your wife! Not StarLaughter!” CloudBurst stepped into the chamber, accompanied by several Crest-Leaders from the Icarii Strike Force.

      WolfStar growled in fury and lashed out with his power, pinning them to the floor. “Anyone I choose … anyone!”

      He dragged StarLaughter across to the Star Gate. In her extremity of fear she found her voice and screamed as she felt her legs touch the low wall surrounding the Star Gate. “No! WolfStar! No! No! No!”

      It was the last thing anyone heard from StarLaughter for a very, very long time.

      Five days later CloudBurst’s remorse and grief gave him the courage to plunge the twin-bladed knife into WolfStar’s back in the centre of the Icarii Assembly on the Island of Mist and Memory.

      He gave one sobbing, hiccuping sigh as WolfStar sank to the mosaic floor, and then he relaxed. It was over. The horror was finally over.

      There was no grief among the peoples of Tencendor when WolfStar SunSoar’s body was laid to rest in his hastily constructed Barrow above the Chamber of the Star Gate. With WolfStar dead, entombed, and on his own way through the Star Gate, Tencendor was at last safe from his madness.

       Four thousand years passed. Tencendor was riven apart by the Seneschal and then restored by the StarMan, Axis SunSoar. The Icarii and the Avar returned to the southern lands, and the Star Gods, Axis and Azhure among them, were free to roam as they willed. Even though WolfStar had managed to come back through the Star Gate, he vanished once Axis had won his struggle with Gorgrael. Control of Tencendor, and the Throne of the Stars itself, passed from Axis to his son and heir, Caelum. Tencendor waxed bright and strong under the House of the Stars. All was well.

       1 West and North

      His wing-span as wide as a man was tall, the speckled blue eagle floated high in the sky above the silvery waters of Grail Lake. The day was calm and warm, the thermals inviting, but for the moment the eagle resisted climbing any higher. He tilted his head slightly, his predatory gaze undimmed by his vast age, taking in the pink and cream stone walls and the gold- and silver-plated roofs of the city of Carlon. The eagle’s gaze was only casual, for it was almost noon, and the streets so busy that all rodents would have secreted themselves deep in their lairs many hours previously. The eagle was not particularly concerned. He had feasted well on fish earlier, and now he tilted his wings, sweeping over the white-walled seven-sided tower of Spiredore.

      The power emanating from the tower vibrated the eagle’s wings pleasantly, and made the old bird reflect momentarily on the changes in this land over his lifetime. When he had been newly feathered and only just able to stay aloft, he’d flown over this same lake and tower with the eagle who had fathered him. Then the tower had been still and silent, and the land treeless. Men had scurried below,