"Someday you and I are going to renegotiate this little agreement, Binter," she said in a steely tone.

"You are free to try, Majesty, but our oaths to you are very clear. You are our child, and we will not let you come to harm."

"Dar and Dolanna went to go warn the Keeper, and they told us that Triana was back on the grounds, and that she'd take care of Jesmind. That's a good thing. As mad as Jesmind is at the moment, I don't think most of the Sorcerers could manage her."

"Exactly why I removed you from her presence."

"Oh, shut up," she snapped at the Vendari.

Tarrin was a little worried, and not a little embarassed. All this madness was his fault, be it directly or indirectly. And what was worse, everyone in the Tower was going to find out that he and Auli had slept together. Auli probably wouldn't care at all, but Tarrin did. Such a rumor could completely destroy one's reputation back in Aldreth, be it a boy or a girl. "Great," he sighed. "This was the last thing I needed.

"You just never seem to catch a break, brother," she chuckled. "Come on, let me take you down to the kitchens and we can get something to eat. Something tells me we're both going to need all our energy today."

"I think you're dead on, Kerri," he agreed as she took his hand in her own, and he paused to feel how soft yet rough it was, and how silky the black fur on her hand was. Just like a fox, her hands and feet had black fur on them. Her coloring was totally faithful to the animal she resembled.

Things were going to get very unpleasant. He just knew it. And the least of it was how all this made him feel. He was very angry with Jesmind for her words, making it sound like he was nothing but her possession. He had his own life, and damnit, he'd been trying to be as objective as possible. But maybe that was the problem with her. Jesmind had absolutely decided that he was going to be a Were-cat again, and him fooling around with Auli was a very direct threat to that future. He could see that now, and he could understand why it made her so furious. If Tarrin got involved with Auli, Jesmind was afraid that the relationship would make him want to stay human. It was the exact same thing he'd thought himself, so it was no stretch to think that Jesmind had reached the same conclusion. The others talked about how tempermental Jesmind was, but most of them didn't understand how intelligent she was, either. She was alot smarter than most of the others thought she was.

That knowledge was going to cause him no end of problems, he was sure of it. The next time he saw Jesmind, he could foresee quite a shouting match.

To: Title EoF

Chapter 5

Tarrin ended up waiting in Jenna's office, and truth be told, it was one of the places where he felt safest. Jenna was his sister, his blood relation, and at least she was someone he had known before he lost his memory. Even if the time had changed her a great deal, at her core she was still the sweet little girl she'd been back in Aldreth, considerate and thoughtful, and at least she understood how upsetting all this had been for him. She set him in a very comfortable chair, and then after shooing everyone else out of her office, she and him talked about what had happened as adults. It was a little strange to him to admit that he'd slept with Auli to his sister, but in many ways, she'd become more than just his sister in his eyes. She was very young, only fifteen, but she was the Keeper, and that authority made it alright in his mind to discuss such things. Her position and the knowledge she had gained from that mysterious Spyder woman had changed her, and though he knew she was different, at least the feel of her had not changed. She was older, much wiser, and she ruled the Tower, but she was still Jenna. She would look out for him, and as long as he was with her, he had the confident feeling that things weren't going to go wrong.

But for now, there was nothing but waiting. Waiting and talking. Jenna showed a great deal of maturity when he described the trouble he'd had with Auli, how she'd been chasing him, and he also made sure to explain that regardless of her behavior, Tarrin liked her and considered her a friend. It was why he was keeping it more or less to himself, and why he wasn't being more aggressive in rebuffing her. That, and the fact that part of him wanted what happened to happen. He didn't want Auli to get angry with him and have the situation cost him her friendship. It was hard for him to work it out, mainly because of his inexperience with such things, and he admitted as much to Jenna as they talked. He'd handled the situation all wrong, and as a result, Auli had seduced him, Jesmind was on a rampage, and the whole thing was almost mortifyingly embarassing for him. Everyone was going to know that Auli and him had slept together, and that Jesmind's fury was because of it.

The situation with Jesmind was a different problem, and Jenna managed to urge the truth out of him about her. He liked her, but he was very resentful of how she and the other Were-cats had been treating him. Only Jula had shown any kind of neutrality in the matter, and she was the only one he found he could confide in to any degree. She was the mother of his daughter, and that was the only thing that linked them together in his mind. He didn't see Jesmind as a mate or lover or wife, only as a shadowy figure from a lost past, a woman who had once been the love of the Tarrin that had been forgotten. But it was like he was a different person now, and instead of trying to get to know him or talk to him, Jesmind had simply decided that since he was going to change back to the Tarrin she knew and regain his memory, there was no need to go through that. He didn't understand why she was being like that, but Jenna told him that Auli's chasing of him had put Jesmind on the defensive, and he suddenly understood. She probably felt that she couldn't compete with Auli because she couldn't be intimate with him, but what she didn't understand was that alot of how he felt about Auli came from the fact that she was such a good friend to him. If Jesmind had spent the time to get to know him, to talk to him and try to understand him, he may not feel the way he did towards her now, and maybe Jesmind would have gained enough understanding of him to know that what happened between him and Auli was generally unintentional, and also that it was by no means permanent.

The first person to manage to reach the office, to his surprise, was Auli. She was literally being dragged by the ear by her mother, the formidable Sorceress Ianelle, and Ianelle did not look very happy. "I'm sorry it took so long for us to answer your call, Keeper," she said in a brusque tone in formal Sha'Kar, curtsying and kicking her daughter in the shin to make her do the same, all the while keeping a firm grip on the girl's ear. Tarrin almost found the scene funny, but he knew that if he laughed, Auli would hate him until she died. Auli was all about image and status, and if he humiliated her now, she would never forgive him for it. The trip through the Tower had probably been humiliating enough. "I had to actually use Sorcery to hide her from the Were-cat. I've never seen such determination."

"Triana hasn't caught her yet?"

"From what I've heard, she tried," Ianelle said. "But the one Jesmind attacked Triana and actually managed to get away from her."

"Jesmind attacked Triana?" Tarrin gasped. Maybe nobody would have to worry about Jesmind for much longer. Triana probably wouldn't take very kindly to that. It seemed shocking that Jesmind would attack her own mother, but then again, she'd been really mad. Triana herself said that when a Were-cat was enraged, they were capable of such drastic actions.

"Just outside the main Tower," she nodded. "It was over quickly. I think the attack startled Triana, and that was enough for Jesmind to get away from her. They've cleared the Tower halls, and the Wikuni is laying a trap for Jesmind by putting down a magical false scent trail. They're going to lead her into a position where she can't get away."