“I can hardly believe what I am hearing from your mouth, Father,” Lara said. “I was the wife of an Outlands lord. These are not wandering tribesmen. These are people with villages, flocks, herds, ancient customs and a civilized way of life. Gaius Prospero and his minions have not lived among the Outlands clan families, but I have. Whose word is more valid in this instance?”

“Lara, you were always a difficult girl,” her father replied. “Only your great beauty saved you. You could have been a famed Pleasure Woman in the City but for your intransigence. The emperor was very disappointed in you and your behavior. Whatever fate you have suffered has been your own fault.”

“Difficult?” She was astounded. “When grandmother died I was still a child, but I cooked, and cleaned and mended your clothes for you, Father. When after several years you took Susanna to wife I welcomed her as a dutiful daughter should. I taught her how to bargain in the marketplace, and deal with the tradespeople. I helped with my baby brother Mikhail. I soothed your conscience when you sold me to Gaius Prospero. I was never difficult, and for you to accuse me of it now is despicable. As a Mercenary you were an honorable man, but I see that you have now become a true Hetarian in every sense of the word. You rewrite history to suit your ideas and actions. You are only interested in what you can acquire. I see you have gained a larger house than the one that was originally assigned to you. What service did you perform for Hetar to merit it?

“I should not have attempted to see you but that Susanna recognized me in the market, and I realized it was my little brother Mikhail by her side. He looks like you, Father. But your wife did not even bother to introduce me to my brother. I was foolish for wanting to know him even briefly. I have a faerie brother, you know. His name is Cirilo, and he is just a bit younger than Mikhail. He will one day be king of the Forest Faeries. My mother welcomed me as you have not. I shall not forget it.”

“Mikhail doesn’t even know he has an older sister,” Susanna said suddenly. “He was still an infant when you left. He believes he is the eldest of your father’s children. Why would we tell him of you? A traitor to Hetar! A murderess!”

“You have other children,” Lara said. It wasn’t a question.

“I have given your father four sons. Mikhail, Haemon, Vili and Anyon,” Susanna said proudly. “Four sons for the order of the Crusader Knights. And each child I have borne is healthy and strong. You asked what your father did to merit this house? It was not your father. It was me! Successful breeders of sons who are wives to the men of this order are rewarded with larger homes and more servants. Even now another son grows in my belly, and Anyon is not yet a year!” she said proudly.

“And do your sisters envy you now, Susanna?” Lara asked her stepmother softly.

Susanna giggled, and for a moment Lara saw the girl she had once been. “You remembered,” she said. “Aye, they do envy me.”

“Then you have everything you ever wanted,” Lara murmured.

A knock sounded upon the door.

“I said I was not to be disturbed!” Susanna cried.

“Mistress, a messenger from the emperor is at our door,” Nels called to her.

“What does he want?” Susanna asked.

“He will only speak with you, or Sir John,” Nels responded.

Susanna looked to her husband, who appeared unsure of what to do.

“We will be invisible to the messenger,” Lara said to her father.

“Show the messenger in, Nels,” John Swiftsword called to his slave.

Several moments later the door to Susanna’s privy chamber was opened, and a smartly uniformed messenger stepped through into the room. Lara and Magnus were no longer visible. They had just faded away before Susanna’s eyes.

“Sir John Swiftsword?”

John nodded, and the messenger handed him a tightly rolled parchment.

“From the emperor, sir. I am to await a return message.” He stood at attention while John unrolled the scroll, and perused it slowly.

“The emperor invites us to join him for dinner,” John Swiftsword said. “And we are to bring our guests.” He grew pale, and suddenly silent. Then he heard Lara whisper in his ear.

“Say, yes, Father! And say it now before the messenger wonders why you are near to shaking with your fear,” Lara said in a hard voice that only he could hear.

“Tell the emperor we will be delighted to join him,” John Swiftsword answered the messenger, regaining his courage.

“Two litters will be here at sunset to take you to the emperor’s home,” the messenger said, bowing again, and then turning he left the room.

Lara and Magnus returned to their view, and seeing them her father’s face grew tight with his anxiety. His daughter’s magic was, he found, very unnerving.

Susanna began to moan. “We are ruined! You could not be satisfied unless you brought ruin upon us, could you? My poor children! What will become of them?”

“How did he know?” John Swiftsword wondered aloud.

Lara laughed. “His spy system is even better than I would have given him credit for,” she said admiringly. “I see the fine hand of his slave, Jonah, in this.”

“Jonah is no longer a slave, but a freed man. He is the emperor’s closest advisor,” her father told them. “He is called the right hand of the emperor.”

“Yes,” Lara said slowly. “He could accomplish much more as a free man than as a slave. I certainly did,” she concluded with a chuckle.

“You will get us all killed!” Susanna sobbed. “Why did you have to come back?”

“A proven breeder such as yourself would not be killed, Stepmother,” Lara said scornfully. “Gaius Prospero has somehow found out I am in the City. If murder were on his mind we should already be dead. No. He wants something, and he is willing to be charming in order to obtain it. Magnus and I must return to our lodging. I am certain that your emperor’s litter will be waiting for us there at the appointed hour, and not here.” And then she and Magnus were gone from John and Susanna’s sight.

“Whatever the emperor wants we will agree to,” Susanna said nervously.

“He desires nothing of us but an assurance of our loyalty,” her husband said. “We would not even be asked to dine with him but that he wants Lara there. I wonder if she will go, or if she will disappear from the City. I thought she looked like her mother when she was a girl, but now the resemblance is even stronger. And she has gained much magic, it would seem. She is more faerie than mortal now,” he said almost regretfully.

“This man she was with,” Susanna said. “Do you think he is really her husband?”

“If it were not so she would not have said it,” John replied. “Lara was never a liar, but where is the place she calls Terah? And what of the children she mentioned? Did she tell you if they were sons or daughters?”

“I know nothing more than you do, husband,” Susanna responded. “Oh, what shall I wear tonight? It must be perfect if we are to dine with the emperor. Wait until I write to my sisters about that!” she cried excitedly, and hurried from her little privy chamber.

John Swiftsword sat back down again. He thought about what his daughter had told him, and was troubled, for as he had said to his wife, Lara did not lie. But several years had passed since Lara had left the City. How much had she changed? Gaius Prospero had promised him that she would be treated well, but obviously that had not happened. What was the truth behind her disappearance? She had not really said. He had met several Forest Lords, and they were certainly not pleasant men. And she had not, according to her version of the tale, murdered her master and fled. She had fled, and when the Forester had finally found her she had slain him. Why, if the year and the day allowed escaped slaves to gain their freedom had passed?

And the sword she carried! It was beautiful, and unlike any he had ever seen. Its craftsman had obviously had much magic at his disposal. It gave him a small feeling of pride to know his daughter had become a great swordswoman. He would have never considered his delicate, beautiful Lara as a warrior. But a sword could not fight for her. It could only fight with her. She had obviously been well trained, but by who? There was so much he didn’t know, and so much he wanted to. He had four fine sons, but only one daughter. He realized Susanna was jealous of Lara. She always had been. Alas, it could not be helped now.

He wanted more time with Lara, but he strongly doubted that he would be given that time. The invasion of the Outlands was near, and suddenly he was troubled. In the last few years it had been said that the Outlands were really Hetarian, but John Swiftsword did not recall ever having heard that before. Now, however, everyone said it was so, believed it was so. Why would the government lie to them? The City had always been crowded. And if all the Midland farmers farmed the way his father once had, resting alternating fields each year, it would have been fine. But the Squire of the Midlands had decreed that all the fields must be planted each growing season. The land had worn itself out. But when John suggested resting the fields to his brother-in-law, he had been scornful of John Swiftsword’s suggestion.

“You do what you do best, John, and I’ll do what I do best,” Susanna’s brother had told him. And then his wife had scolded him for trying to tell her family how to farm, for they had grown wealthy with their enormous crops. Now suddenly the land had refused to cooperate, and they could barely feed themselves. It was all very odd.

“Sir?” Nels was at his elbow. He hadn’t even heard the slave come into the room. “The mistress says you must hurry and dress if you are to be ready when the imperial litter comes for you.”

“Aye, I had better get ready,” he agreed, and standing up he hurried from the chamber. As he went he wondered if Lara would come, or whether she would disappear.

Lara was considering the same thing even as her father thought it. “We entered the City under a cloak of invisibility,” she said. “How did Gaius Prospero know I was here? He is far more dangerous than I had anticipated.”

“Do you want to attend the emperor? Or shall we depart?” Magnus asked her. “In a single day I have seen enough of Hetar to know that I do not like these people or their ways. I would be happy to sleep in my own bed tonight in Terah. You always spoke well of your stepmother, but I find her self-centered and selfish. And your father may be a great soldier, my faerie love, but he is a weak man, I fear.”

“I know,” Lara replied. “I saw it as a girl, and I see it again now. He is a man who trusts the establishment and what they tell him. He can see no farther than the end of his handsome nose. And I have confused him, I fear, for he knows I do not lie. Yet everything I have told him is in direct conflict with what the government has told him. But do not be too hard on Susanna. She is only protecting her family.”

“She is protecting her status and her possessions,” he said grimly.

Lara laughed. “Yes, she is. As a mother, however, she has considered her four sons in all of this. How sad that my brothers, especially Mikhail, do not know of me.”

“It’s cruel,” he declared. “I saw your face when she told you. The bitch hurt you, Lara, and for that she will have my enmity. Now, do we go and dine with this emperor of Hetar? Or do we return home?”

“We dine,” Lara told him. “I want Gaius Prospero to see what I have become, and perhaps even be afraid. But first we must drink.” And she drew two small vials from her pocket, handing him one. “Poison is one of Hetar’s favorite weapons. This will protect us against anything the emperor attempts to kill us with, my husband.”

Magnus Hauk shook his head wearily, but he took the vial, uncorked it and drank down the contents as she was doing the same. “It tastes like Tera berries,” he noted.

“Your favorite,” she said with a small smile. “Now I must use magic to clothe us, for we brought nothing but what we are wearing. Ordinary folk do not travel with vast wardrobes. You must be garbed with dignity, but not too ostentatiously.” She undid the leather belt holding her scabbard and sword. “Go into the shadows unseen,” she commanded Andraste who disappeared from her hand. “There,” Lara said. “She and Verica will keep each other company this evening, and anyone entering this chamber will not see them.”

“Dignified,” Magnus reminded his wife.

“Go and wash while I consider it,” Lara told him. She considered, and then with a small motion of her hand she produced a long white tunic with short sleeves, edged in bands of purple-and-gold, along with a pair of gold sandals, which she lay upon their bed. Another gesture of the same hand brought forth a simple long sleeveless gown with a draped neckline. The iridescent gown shimmered like it had been made with sunlight and moonbeams. Lara bathed herself in the basin her husband used, and slipped the gown on along with a pair of silver sandals. Her star crystal was her only jewelry. Her hair was plaited in a single braid.