In point of fact, the Beysa wished to speak to the goddess Bey. She wanted to know why, after these seasons in Sanctuary, her sleep was haunted by memories of the final, bloody days of her brief, unsanctified reign over the Beysin Empire. But it had been more than a year since the Mother's voice had resounded within her head. Mother Bey, like everything else magical or divine in Sanctuary, had been reduced to shadow strength.

The town which had been god-ridden was now virtually god-less. Mother Bey was the merest whisper of empathy in Her avatar's mind. A calming whisper nonetheless, and it seemed to say that the goddess was content with exile and did not plan to return home soon.

That's not enough, the Beysa thought loudly enough, she hoped, for the goddess to hear. / can't stay here and remember the past, too.

The flicker of empathy shifted, resonating love and the smiling face of Prince Kadakithis. Shupansea grit her teeth and shook the feeling away. Mother Bey had strengthened every cynic's hand when She tumbled into a divine infatuation with the wargod, Stormbringer. Half the people in Sanctuary-if not the known world-had shared hot frustration in their dreams as the would-be lovers contended with a mismatch of immortal anatomy.

Such divine emissions had ceased when the magical nouma of Sanctuary was burned away, but Shupansea knew the pair chased each other still and she was more than slightly embarrassed by her progenitor's lusty behavior.

Though Shupansea purged the goddess from her thoughts and feeling, the prince was not so easily removed. Surely it was no coincidence that the nightmares had started right after they'd announced their intended. but still unscheduled, marriage. Right after she'd decided to abide by Rankan standards of acceptable behavior and moved her personal entourage out of Kadakithis's suite.

Love had never been part of Shupansea's emotional vocabulary. Indeed, no Beysa had ever dared to love-not when her blood was venom and all her male offspring were condemned to death in her womb. At home they sacrificed the royal consort, and the Beysa insured her line with casual, guilt-free affairs.