"Oh. That's alright then. Want to stay for lunch, Dolanna?"

"Thank you, but no. I have some matters to attend, and they do not get done when I sit here and while away time with Tarrin."

Jasana climbed into Tarrin's lap, seating herself sedately. He put his arms around her. "Aren't you going to say hello to Dolanna, cub?" he prompted.

"Hullo," she intoned. She was still just a bit shy around his friends.

"Did you have a good time with your grandmother?"

"Umm," she said, opening up. "She read me a story, and Thean took me out in the gardens and showed me all the different flowers, and even picked a pear for me. I like Thean. He's nice."

"So do I," he agreed.

"Well, I should be off," Dolanna said, standing up and smoothing out the skirts of her dress absently. "I will see you at dinner tonight?" she asked.

"We'll be there," Jesmind answered for him.

"Until then," she nodded, and then let herself out.

"I hate to say it, but I like that woman," Jesmind chuckled ruefully after the door closed.

"You have good taste, love," Tarrin told her with a smile. "Now pass me some of that mutton."

The rest of the day, and the next day, passed in an intense flurry of preparation. Tarrin watched as he walked with Jasana through the Tower grounds as soldiers and Sorcerers scrambled to finish their preparations. The Tower grounds became a fortress, with fortifications dug in on the Tower side of the fence, and manned by Vendari and Knights, with Wikuni musketeers reinforcing their lines. The rest of the soldiers went to the walls, Sulasian and Ungardt, Wikuni and Arakite, and Selani and Were-kin, and the Aeradalla took out their crossbows and made them ready. The Centaurs were placed on the streets beyond the walls, an interior line of defense should anything manage to breach the walls and gain entrance to the city. It was only logical to set them so, since their equine bodies were unsuited for manning the walls. Swords were sharpened, muskets cleaned, cannons prepared, catapults tuned, and nerves were steeled for the inevitable arrival of their opposition.

The activity in the Tower was as heavy as outside. Tarrin heard about it from Keritanima as she took a rare break and walked with him in the gardens. The generals were tweaking their strategy constantly as scouting reports came in from the Aeradalla, many of whom were now visible flying over the city in wide, lazy circles. Shiika, whom he was still avoiding, was having almost constant arguments with the Keeper over exactly what should be protected. Shiika wanted to stop them at the walls, so she wanted all the troops there. The Keeper wanted to protect the Tower, so she kept trying to pull men off the walls and put them on the Tower grounds. The generals that were doing the real planning kept having to separate the two of them during their staff meetings.

But he couldn't avoid the Demoness forever. As the sun set on that fateful day, the beginning of the time when the ki'zadun could arrive, she tracked him down in one of the hallways near the kitchen. The unnaturalness of her scent warned him too late that she was approaching, and he found himself trying to avoid breathing in that ghastly smell when she cornered him against a doorway. She looked very unhappy, glaring at him, wearing the form she had used to appear in public back in Dala Yar Arak, the dusky-skinned, beautiful Arakite woman with the unusual reddish hair. "It's about time!" she snorted. "Why have you been avoiding me, Tarrin? Aren't I good enough to talk to you anymore?"

He knew exactly why he'd been avoiding her, but he didn't want to say anything.

"Oh, is that all?" she scoffed. "I learned about that not a day after you did," she told him. "You may have had a good idea, but some of the others aren't quite as clever as you. I've kept it a secret, and I intend to go right on keeping it a secret. You forget, Tarrin, it's in my best interest to not pass that information along. We may not be trustworthy, but when my comfort is at stake, you can always depend on where I'm going to go."

Tarrin felt a bit abashed. He had been avoiding her, and not telling her why. It seemed sort of silly that he'd been stubbornly refusing to get anywhere near her when it was obvious that it was a fruitless exercise. "All right, I'm sorry," he apologized. "But I'm sure you can understand my position."

"Of course I can," she said, raising one of her elegantly shaped, reddish eyebrows.

"Are you ready for them?" he asked pointedly.

"As ready as we're going to get," she replied. "I've found out who's on which side, and already arranged for certain old friends to arrive and engage them before they can cause too much trouble. I've called in about every favor owed to me for this. I hope you appreciate it," she snorted.

"You're doing this for you, Shiika," he said mildly. "Remember?"

She looked at him, then laughed ruefully. "I hate clever mortals," she told him. "That reminds me, I have a bone to pick with you, Tarrin."

"What did I do now?"

"It's what you did a while ago," she told him. "Remember when you got the book from me? Well, you rendered my entire palace non-magical in the process. When all this is over, I fully expect you to go back to Dala Yar Arak and fix that!"

"I did?" he asked in surprise, trying to remember that little adventure. Then he remembered that he did shift the Weave, to rob his opponent of his magical advantage. He didn't realize that it stayed that way.

"Yes, you did!" she accused. "You owe me, Tarrin, so I want that fixed!"

"I can't make any promises, Shiika," he told her. "But if I live through this, I'll try."

"Well… alright," she huffed. "Now that we're friends again, want to take a walk with me? I want to hear about what happened after you left Arak."

"You already know."

"True, but I want to hear it from you," she said with an inviting smile. "Besides, you owe me for avoiding me for so long. I think a little bit of your time won't kill you."

Tarrin found the idea a bit disconcerting-he still didn't absolutely trust Shiika-but in her defense, she had been forthright so far. "Alright," he agreed. "But I don't have long. My mate will come looking for me in a while."

"I'll take what time I can get," she assured him.

They went out into the gardens, and walked the brick pathways as Tarrin related some of the tale of what happened to him after he left Arak. He was frank with her, mainly because her telepathic ability would allow her to tell when he was covering something up. Despite the vile repulsiveness of her scent, Tarrin found that just talking to Shiika was a rather pleasurable experience. The Demoness was intelligent and quite engaging, asking questions that piqued his mind, forced him to expand himself to answer her. He very nearly began enjoying their time together when Shiika suddenly stopped dead in her tracks, her dusky skin sallowing a bit.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

She looked at him, and then she changed her form, taking on her wings, the form in which he always envisioned her when he thought of her. "It's time," she announced in a grim voice. "Zabelle just spotted the advance scouts."

She looked at Tarrin, her eyes dark and foreboding. "They're here, Tarrin. Now, things get ugly."

To: Title EoF