A couple of days of forced isolation. He hoped Sarraya could take it. He hoped he could. The eyeless face made him restless, and a day or more of being stuck in the shelter, with nothing more than Sarraya or the walls to look at, would not do him very much good.

He was right to worry. After retreating into the shelter, just as the wind wall struck, he immediately felt enclosed, restricted, isolated. Sarraya sat down in the back corner of the dark, triangular structure, where he could not possibly hit her by accident, where she yawned. "I don't think this is going to be very fun. Want to play some chess?"

"We'd better do something," he replied. "I'm already starting to get anxious."

But games only went so far. After playing chess, stones, cards, even little stupid games of words and gestures, Tarrin grew bored. Sarraya laid down to take a nap after conjuring herself some dinner, leaving Tarrin to sit and ponder and stew over what had happened in the last few days. He had nearly killed himself with Sorcery- again -but this time he'd learned a new trick. That trick of using High Sorcery on himself had worked, and had worked well. He couldn't see any reason why it wouldn't work again, and that made him relieved. At least now he didn't fear getting Consumed as he had before. With Sarraya to help, he could cut himself off from the Weave before it got out of his control. If things came down to him using his full power to survive, at least that option was again available to him.

Perhaps the Goddess did send him out here to learn. He had certainly learned that little trick. He had learned things about himself he preferred not to know, and the eyeless face made sure he couldn't forget. The desert was boundless, and it was empty. It left him with little more than Sarraya's companionship, and though that was enough, it was still little enough to feel that he was out here more or less alone. Tarrin didn't depend on Sarraya like he had Allia or Dolanna. He loved the little pain, but she wasn't Keritanima or Jesmind or Triana. She had a place in his heart, but she wasn't the closest of his friends. She would help him, but he still couldn't feel as if he could open up to her as he could with Allia, to speak everything in his heart and seek wisdom and support. She just wasn't like that in his mind. Even now, after admitting how badly the dream scared him, he couldn't bring himself to admit it to her again. Part of it was pride, part of it was uncertainty. Sarraya was a friend, but she wasn't family, not like Allia. He didn't feel comfortable saying things like that to anyone not family, like Allia, Keritanima, Triana, or even Jesmind.

Jesmind. Still it was Jesmind. Why couldn't he get her out of his mind? He hadn't seen her in so long, she'd probably forgotten about him by now. She was a memory, and a rather dim one at that, but there was still something inside him that yearned for her, the way plants yearned for the sun. In her was a woman that understood him, didn't judge him, was one of his kind. She was a bad-tempered witch, but all female Were-cats were like that to varying degrees. It was a racial trait. She had been the first woman he'd been intimate with, and he guessed that a part of him just couldn't forget that. That she had been the first to hear his deepest secrets, to become privy to his most private thoughts. She had shared a part of him, and though they had been enemies, he hadn't really been able to bring himself to do her any true harm, outside that one ugly incident when he thought she was threatening his parents. A part of him loved her, that was true, but a part also couldn't forgive her for abandoning him, hated her for her actions. She had left him alone and exposed, and when she left, he became easy prey for Jula's scheming. If she'd been there, she would have stopped Jula before any of that nasty business under the Cathedral happened, and he wouldn't have become feral.

Or would he? So many had tried a hand at killing him, who was to say how it would have affected him? His ferality was a reaction to that, just as much as it was a rejection of humans and their society. Kravon's group had been the most adamant about it, but Sheba the Pirate had tried, the Wikuni had tried, the Zakkites had tried, and Shiika had tried, and who knows who else had plans, but hadn't had the opportunity to carry them out. He was the most sought-after being in the world right now, and outside the Wikuni and Shiika, the rest were still out to get him. That would easily be enough to turn him feral.

There was no real easy answer to that question. So much had happened over the last year, too much. It was all a jumble. The black moods after leaving Suld, the fight with Sheba and the first outward signs of his feral nature. The battle with the Zakkites, the wounding from the silver crossbow quarrel. Learning from Triana, accepting her as his bond-mother, as much a part of his intimate family as his birth parents. Just about everything that happened in Dala Yar Arak, from Jula to the battle to recover the book from Shiika. And now he was out here in this barren wasteland, following nothing more than blind faith, seeking to cross the vast, dangerous desert and finding himself to be more of an enemy than the desert and all its dangers. He was stronger now, both in body and magic, but that power carried a double-edge that cut him as much as it cut his enemies. His powers were growing stronger and stronger… he could feel it. He could still feel it. His connection to the Weave was changing, growing, evolving, expanding, opening the sense of it to him at all times. He knew that the power of the Weavespinners was out there, and if he could calm the eyeless face within his mind and find peace inside himself, he could find a way to touch that mysterious power.

A power not seen in the world for a thousand years.

But did he want that power? He was already insanely powerful. A single Weave from him could destroy entire ships, lay waste to large tracts of land, cause even Demons to fear him. He could even change the weather. But what did that power bring him? It brought him more and more danger. It brought him newer and more powerful ways to unleash his primal rage, to slaughter the innocent on scales inconceivable to the average killer. It brought its own danger, for it was a power he could not control with his rational mind. It brought him protection from his enemies-who would be foolish enough not to fear his power?-but that protection came at a cost he didn't think he was capable of paying. He had gained power, but he lost his humanity in the exchange.

Too great a price to pay.

He flopped down on his back, hearing the wind howl outside, smelling the dust and the rock and the faint traces of sand drifting in through the airholes, felt the warmth still gathered inside the bare rock beneath him, feeling the Weave surround him, felt the pulse of the magic within the strands like the beating of the heart of the Goddess. And if he had it all to do over again, what would he change? Such a simple question, but with no clear answer. Every act of dark intent he had done had ended up having a benefit he couldn't deny. Every sacrifice he had made had brought to him a greater gain. He had given away some of his humanity, and had received the power to do what the Goddess commanded him to do. He had killed many, but had the Book… and that was the most important thing in the world right now. He had become Were… but if he had not, then he probably wouldn't have Allia and Keritanima and Jesmind and Triana in his life, probably wouldn't have anyone in his life. Mainly because he'd be dead. Jegojah would have destroyed him the first time they met if hadn't been Were, if his own power hadn't burned him to ash.

He had sacrificed his life in order to keep living. He had sacrificed his soul to surrender it to a goddess. He had sacrificed his humanity in order to save the very people he no longer cared about.