Ingrey, startled, said, “The Old Weald warriors only took one animal spirit to themselves, one in a lifetime. And even that risked madness. Miscarriage. Worse.” As I know to my everlasting cost.
Her velvety voice was growing faster, breathless. “He hauled the leopard up by its strangling cord. He hit me and threw me down on the bed. I fought him. He was muttering under his breath, spells or raving or both, I don't know. I believed him, that he had done this before-his very mind was a menagerie, howling. The leopard distracted him in its death throes, and I wrenched out from under him. I tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. The door was locked. He'd put the key in his robe.”
“I suppose so. I scarcely know. My throat was raw, after, so I suppose I must have. The window was hopeless. The forest beyond seemed to go on forever, in the night. I called on my father's spirit, on his god, for my aid, out of the dark.”
Ingrey couldn't help thinking that in such an extremity Lady Ijada would call on her proper patroness, the Daughter of Spring, the goddess to Whom virginity was sacred. It seemed very strange for a woman to call on Her Brother of Autumn. Though this is His season. The Lord of Autumn was the god of young men, harvest, the hunt, comradeship-and war. And the weapons of war?
“You turned,” said Ingrey, “and found the hammer handle under your hand.”
The hazel eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“I saw the chamber.”
“Oh.” She moistened her lips. “I struck him. He lunged at me, or…or lurched. I struck him again. He stopped. Fell, and did not rise. He wasn't dead yet-his body spasmed, when I was groping in his robe for the key, and I nearly fainted. I fell to the floor on my hands and