“It isn’t often that our fellow humans come here,” she said, every word as rich and smooth as sun-warmed honey. “I often wonder why that is so.”
Daniel gripped the railing, breathed deeply and unclenched his fingers. “Memories of a darker past?” he said.
She ran her fine-fingered hand along the railing and gazed at him until he had no choice but to look at her fully. Her eyes were not only striking; they were wise and perceptive and sharp with intelligence.
“Were you one of the original inhabitants?” she asked. “I do not recognize you as a former serf of Tartaros.”
“No,” he said. “I came here for refuge, after I escaped from another Citadel.”
“How long have you been here?”
Daniel leaned against the railing. “In Tanis? A few months,” he said.
“Not long enough to forget what your life was like before,” she said, sympathy in her voice. “This still must be very strange for you—a Citadel without masters and serfs.”
He smiled with one side of his mouth. “Can you read minds?”
“No. But I have had many years of experience in understanding people.”
Many years. Daniel looked at her out of the corner of his eye. How many? he wondered. A hundred? A thousand? Certainly far more than the twenty-odd years her body and face suggested.
“May I know your name?” she asked, moving closer to him.
It didn’t matter what he called himself, he thought. It was highly unlikely that anyone here would know him from Erebus, Delos or Avalon.
“Daniel,” he said.
“I am Isis,” she said.
He held his breath for a moment and then let it out slowly. How appropriate that her name should be that of a goddess, as Ares’s was that of a god.
If Ares had been here, she would certainly know.
“You have just come in from a shift in the fields,” Isis said, breaking the silence. “You must be tired, and hungry.”
He went on his guard. Her concern seemed a little too intimate. And she was standing too damned close, close enough that he could smell her fresh, citrusy scent and hear the beat of her heart.
“Where do you work, Isis?” he asked.
“In the administrative offices,” she said. “It is an easy job compared to the fields.”
“We all do what we’re best suited for,” he said.
“That is how it is supposed to be, is it not?” she asked, her lovely lips sliding into a faint frown. “The more difficult the work, the higher the reward.”
“You don’t agree?” he asked.
“‘Difficult’ is a subjective concept. Should one person be given more credit for being able to do what another person cannot?”
“There is no perfect system,” he said.
She cocked her head. “And I think you were no ordinary serf, Daniel,” she said, sliding her hand closer to his.
The comment was too personal, and definitely unwelcome. “I had a decent education in my Enclave before I was sent to the Citadel,” he said coolly.
“Or perhaps you were never a serf at all?”
He stared at her, suppressing his anger. This was the interrogation he’d expected if he’d been caught entering the city, but it wasn’t proceeding at all in the way he’d imagined.
But I was caught, he thought. This was no chance meeting.
“Oh, yes,” he said, very softly. “I was a serf, for many years.”
“In what Citadel?”
He was prepared for the question. “Vikos,” he said, naming a Nightsider Citadel in the area once known as northern Arizona.
“And you escaped?” she asked.
“Bloodlords don’t release their serfs.”
“Except here,” she said.
He pretended not to hear her. “Where did you come from, Isis?” he asked.
“I was never in bondage,” she said, looking down at her slender hands on the railing.
“Then why are you in an isolated Citadel instead of in a human Enclave?”
“Perhaps because I believe in what this city represents. There are many like me, or this place could not exist.” She met Daniel’s eyes. “Of all the refuges you might have sought when you escaped, you chose Tanis rather than a human compound or even another Enclave. Yet surely you have good reason to hate Opiri?”
“I don’t hate them,” he said. “My own fa—”
He broke off, appalled at what he had been about to say. It was she, this woman, who threw him so off balance with her allure and questions and keen observations. It was as if she’d known him before.
She came from outside, he thought. From some other Citadel, where she must have been a Bloodlady of distinction, an owner of many human serfs.
“The majority of humans here are former serfs, aren’t they?” he asked. “Do they hate all Opiri?”
“No. I must seem rather foolish.” She smiled again. “In which ward do you live?”
This wasn’t a question he’d expected. He knew too little about Tanis to answer.
“I need to get home,” he said suddenly. “It’s been pleasant talking to you, Isis. Maybe we’ll meet again.”
“I am certain of it,” she said. Behind her, men in olive-drab uniforms—both of them Darketans, children of Opir mothers and human fathers, human in appearance save for their sapphire eyes and sharp teeth—advanced on Daniel with shock sticks in hand.
“What’s going on?” he asked, backing away in seeming confusion.
“Please go with these men,” she said, her voice still as musical, her face every bit as flawlessly beautiful as before. He felt the push of her “influence,” that particular gift limited to the most ancient and powerful Bloodmasters and Bloodmistresses.
But he was fortunate enough to be virtually immune to the lady’s subtle power. “Why?” he asked, his gaze fixed on the guards.
“I know you are not a citizen of Tanis, Daniel,” she said. “We do not allow strangers to enter our city without first being questioned and screened.”
“You turn away refugees?” Daniel asked.
“Only those incompatible with our way of life,” she said.
“Do you enjoy spying on your own kind?” he asked, still playing along with her masquerade.
She blinked several times. “You were recognized as an outsider when you entered the gates,” she said. “My purpose was only to determine if you were a threat to us.”
“A threat?” he said, holding his arms out to his sides. “How?”
“Please, Daniel, go peacefully. You will not be harmed.”
“And if I refuse?” Daniel asked.
Moving almost more quickly than Daniel could detect, the two guards lunged at him. One of them caught his left arm. He swung around, defending himself without thought, and punched the guard in the face with his fist. The second guard grabbed his right arm and twisted it behind him.
Everything within him, all the instinctive desire to be free, urged him to keep fighting. Panic nearly overwhelmed him, but he pushed it down. He bore