“Your coming was foretold me,” Cam said.

“Who told you such a thing?” Ciarda said, surprised.

“The shade of my mother,” he said. “Before her spirit was taken into Limbo she reached out to the little child I was. She said someone would come to me one day, and that I should be a great man.”

“Indeed,” Ciarda replied. “Well, I know nothing of your mother’s shade, Cam of the Fiacre, but it is my duty to see you reach greatness. You are the Hierarch of legend, and you will return Hetar to its former glory.”

“Indeed,” Cam said. And then he burst out laughing. “Darkling,” he said to her, “you would use me for your own purposes. I am no simpleton to believe what you tell me. But I will help you if you will help me. I would take my revenge against she who slew my parents. I have waited many years to do so. Your power will aid me, and in return I will help you to gain whatever it is you desire. Do we have a bargain?”

“Upon whom do you seek revenge?” Ciarda asked him.

“The faerie woman Lara,” he replied.

“What form will your vengeance take?” she wanted to know.

“I will take something from her that she holds dearest,” Cam answered. “And that is all I will tell you, Darkling.”

Ciarda nodded. Revenge that black she understood, and she didn’t care what he did to the faerie woman as long as she gained her goals, her father’s goal of uniting the worlds in darkness. “We have a bargain,” she agreed, “but we must seal it by exchanging tokens. Take pleasures with me now, and I will keep your seed in pledge of our covenant. In return I will give you the ability to go where you want by simply asking to be there.”

He stood up from beneath the tree where he had been lounging. Reaching out, he grasped her by her long black hair, and pulled her to him. “I will have you here and now,” he said, loosening his garments and turning her about and pushing her up against the wide trunk of the tree.

Ciarda was astounded by his boldness. She magicked her garments away, but her nakedness neither shocked nor surprised him. His hands slid beneath her buttocks. The brief glimpse she gained of his manhood delighted her. He was large and he was thick. She moaned as he rammed himself into her. She gasped as he used her roughly until she was whimpering with her great need. Need such as she had certainly never known. And he satisfied her again, and again, and yet again. This mortal was the finest lover she had ever had. She clawed at him, pushing him even further until they were both groaning with the pleasures they were gaining from one another, and wet with their exertions. Finally he flooded her with his juices, which were so copious that they overflowed her womb, and ran down the insides of her thighs.

“You are magnificent!” Ciarda gasped as her legs fell away from his torso, and she clung to him because she could not quite stand on her own right now.

“Your sheath is narrow and tight,” he told her. “I quite enjoyed it. Now give me the small power you promised me.”

“You had it the moment you gave me your seed,” Ciarda told him.

“Let’s see if it works,” Cam said. “Take me to Ciarda’s bedchamber!” And he suddenly found himself in an exotic room with a large round bed covered in red silk. And there in the middle of the bed Ciarda lounged temptingly. He looked at her. “You are tempting, but I cannot shirk my duty as Sholeh’s herder. ‘Take me back to the meadow,’” he said.

“Come back tonight!” Ciarda called to him.

“Perhaps,” his fading voice answered her.

But he had not come back that night. She waited for several nights for him, and to her annoyance he did not come. She expected him to be surprised when he found her in his rustic bed several nights later, but he was not. He complained that it had taken her long enough to come to him. Then, mounting her, he rode her hard the night long, sleeping briefly and leaving her without a word in the first minutes of dawn to attend to his duties. Ciarda didn’t know whether to be furious or not.

In the end, however, she decided not to be angry. There was no mortal sentiment in Cam, and that was a good thing. In the weeks that followed she discovered his insatiable need for power. He would be ruthless with his enemies, and that was a good thing. Ruthlessness inspired fear in the masses, and fear gave one the ability to control.

As Hierarch Cam would rule Hetar for her with an iron fist. And for now she would give him the girl he desired for a wife because in the end when she controlled it all, the faerie woman’s daughters would be taken from the men who cherished them, and given to the Wolfyn for playthings. She expected Magnus Hauk’s daughter to last longer.

“You are smiling,” Cam said to her.

“I am thinking of our future,” Ciarda answered him.

Cam laughed. “You are so deliciously vile, Darkling,” he told her. “Let us hope your powers are strong enough to do all you seek to do. If my aunt decides you are an annoyance she will quite happily destroy you as she did your father,” he told her cruelly.

“Hateful mortal,” she snarled at him. “If my father had succeeded in his plans you would now reside beneath his boot, and not in my bed.”

“I enjoy your bed,” he said, grasping one of her large, round breasts. “Slaking my fierce and unquenchable lusts on your body allows me to play the gentle suitor with Anoush. She is falling in love with me, Darkling.” He squeezed her breast hard, and she was unable to restrain a whimper of pain. “In the spring I will make her my wife.” His mouth took Ciarda’s in a hard kiss. “And eventually you will both come to my bed together, and we will take pleasures. Anoush is a gentle maiden, but she will have her mother’s appetite for passion, I am certain. I will have you lick her secret treasures while I plunge myself into you over and over and over again. Will that please you, Ciarda?”

He forced the Darkling onto her back and pushed his fingers into her sheath, moving them back and forth until she was begging him for release. “Or perhaps I shall mount her while you kiss her lips until they are bruised. Would you like that, Darkling?” He was atop her now, entering her body, driving deep, relishing her cries. He cared not if they were of pain or pleasure.

“Yes!” she sobbed to him. “Yes! I should like it, Cam. I would!” She writhed beneath him in a frenzy of lust unsatisfied.

“You must learn to call me my lord, Darkling, for I am the Hierarch, and to be respected.” He caught her thrashing head between his two hands. His fingers dug into her scalp. “Say it, Darkling. Say, yes, my lord.” The blue eyes blazed down at her. His great manhood was suddenly still within her.

“Mortal, you forget yourself!” Ciarda cried. “It is I who command you.”

The sound of his laughter actually sent a chill through her. “Darkling, without me you can do naught. We are equals. For now. Now humor me, and do as I have asked you, my pretty Darkling. Say, yes, my lord.”

“I could turn you into a beetle to crush beneath my foot,” she told him.

He laughed, and began to ride her again. “There will be no pleasures for you until you have obeyed me, Darkling.”

Ciarda could not believe what was happening. He was controlling her, and to her shock she found it more exciting than anything she had previously experienced. She was a Darkling. She was magic, and yet this mortal man was forcing her to his will, and for all her protests she was enjoying it even as he withheld pleasures from her. She ached with her need. Her desires were running hot. She needed pleasures. She needed them! “Yes, my lord!” she gasped out, and then screamed with joy as he met her needs more than satisfactorily, groaning as his own lusts were fully sated.

Afterward as Ciarda lay in his arms she told him, “If you were not so necessary to my plans, Cam of the Fiacre, I should kill you without hesitation.”

“And if you were not so necessary to my plans, Darkling, I should have not accepted your bargain,” he responded. “We need each other. I need you so I am finally able to gain my revenge, and you need me so you may complete your father’s plans. I am curious though, Darkling. Why do you attempt to accomplish what he could not? You have not his great powers.”

“His powers were great, it is true,” Ciarda said, “but he felt he needed the faerie woman’s magic. It was a mistake. He could have done without her, but it was foretold that she would birth his son. But he did not need her for more than that. A well-coordinated and unexpected attack on Hetar should have given him the victory he sought. But by the time he sent his armies into battle the Hetarians had been warned. His mistake was in not taking The City first. If you control The City, you can control all of Hetar. But he let his forces march across the land and The City was warned. Then the faerie woman took her revenge on him, marshaling her allies to defeat my father. You speak casually of the Domina of Terah. But you do not really know her, Cam. She is dangerous.”

“She is a faerie woman, and all women can be manipulated,” Cam replied. “Do I not manipulate you? And my sweet Anoush?”

“When you speak of Vartan’s daughter you sound as if you truly care for her,” Ciarda said jealously. “Do you?”

“In my own way, aye, I do. As a child she was my friend when no others were,” he recalled. “But then her cursed brother interfered. Still she tried to remain loyal, but her mother took her away to Terah. I was sent to Rivalen, and into Sholeh’s care. At first it was just for the summer, but then I was not allowed to return to Camdene. When that happened I realized I must pretend to change my ways. I did. Even Sholeh, wise as she is, believes I am what I appear to be,” Cam said. “You are envious of my feelings for her, Darkling, but be warned. Should she be harmed in any way I will hold you responsible, and you will lose my help.”

“I will not harm her,” Ciarda said. Not yet, she thought to herself. “If the little mortal female means that much to you keep her. And then one day we will sport together as you have previously said we would, my lord Hierarch.”

“You are clever, Darkling,” he replied. “We will do well together. Now tell me. When am I to be revealed as Hetar’s great hope?” He laughed softly.

“You will appear first in the Coastal Kingdom, where you will perform several wonders that will be reported to the Lord High Ruler. I want Jonah to be afraid of what is to come. You will disappear from the Coastal Kingdom mysteriously only to reappear in the Midlands, where your miracles will be even more amazing. The gossip will race forth into The City, where eventually you will make a grand entrance. Once there we will go about winning over the magnates and others of importance. That is all you need know for now,” she told him.

“When will this all begin?” he asked.

“Toward the end of the Icy Season when the populace will have endured another bitter few months. Food will be scarce. The cold will be numbing. Sickness will run rampant as the spring rains begin. And then the Hierarch will come promising to end the want, the plagues, the general unhappiness of the population. You will promise to return Hetar to the days of her glory. You will point out that all these changes that have been made have not bettered Hetar, but ruined it. That by flouting the great traditions of Hetar, Hetar has been almost destroyed.”

“And will I be able to return Hetar to its former grandeur?” Cam asked the Darkling. “Will my promises be good? Or will they be worthless?”

“There are enough of those who wish to return to the old days to help us do just that,” Ciarda said. “The Crusader Knights and the Mercenaries are both unhappy. The magnates are not pleased that certain Pleasure Women now own their own houses, cutting the magnates out of what had been a most lucrative business. There is enough discontent among the wealthy and formerly powerful to work to our advantage, my lord Hierarch.”

“And when the Hetarians are convinced the good old days have returned?” Cam asked her. “What then, Darkling?”

“Then you will rule in Hetar, my lord Hierarch. I will give you several cohorts of Wolfyn to keep the peace. And the darkness will fall over the land even as my father desired it,” Ciarda said with a smile. “He will be so proud of me.”

“If he lives,” Cam told her. “But why would the Twilight Lord be pleased to see a slip of a female succeed where he had failed? You fool yourself, Darkling, when you say you do this for your father. You do it for yourself, for you are an ambitious woman. You will see the women of Hetar subjugated once again while you overcome all odds to take power for yourself. You are wickedly clever.”