She pushed aside her doubts and followed Alastair.
They slipped up a narrow flight of stairs and into another wing of Haeron Icaraeus's mansion. A rich green carpet rolled down the center of the corridor, and doors lined both walls. Doors to guest rooms, Caina supposed, and her heart quickened as she thought of what she and Alastair would do in one of those rooms.
"Here we are," said Alastair.
Caina froze.
A door of peculiar silvery metal stood at the end of the corridor, and the sight of it gave her a splitting headache. A yellow-orange glow leaked through the gap between the door and the frame. Was there a furnace raging on the other side of that door?
"Here, my love," said Alastair. "Through here."
"That door?" said Caina, shivering. "Why that door? There are dozens of other rooms, Alastair. Let's use one of those."
Alastair shook his head. "It has to be this door." He smiled. "We won't have to worry about anyone spying on us in there."
"But there are so many rooms," said Caina, "and all the guests are in the ballroom. Surely we won't be disturbed."
Alastair gestured at the odd silver door. "We won't be disturbed in there."
"Alastair," said Caina, arms wrapped around herself. "I don't want to go through that door."
For an instant, annoyed exasperation flashed over Alastair's face, and then he calmed himself.
"Caina," he said, cupping her chin in his right hand. "You've been so lonely. You can't hide that from me, not here. Come with me, and you will have no more pain. Through that door. Come with me," he kissed her, "and let me show you how much I love you."
Caina trembled in his arms. She wanted to go with him, wanted it more than anything. Yet something about that door repulsed her. The mere sight of it brought of memories of power-mad sorcerers and cruel lords and desperate fights to save the lives of uncounted thousands.
And the memory of a murderous noblewoman holding a silver dagger...
"You open it," said Caina, a solution occurring to her. "Is not a true noble supposed to open doors for his lady?"
Alastair laughed. "You're about to fall into bed with me, and you trifle at doors?"
"Open it," said Caina. Something scratched at the back of her mind.
"It is only a small matter," said Alastair. "Just reach out and open the door, and I am all yours."
"Do it," said Caina, voice harder. "Open that door."
"I...I can't," said Alastair. "The door will open only at your touch, and..."
"Wait," said Caina. Something clicked in her thoughts. "You called me by my name."
A look of irritated chagrin flashed over Alastair's face.
"Of course I called you by your name," said Alastair. "Countess Marianna Nereide, that is your name."
"No, it's not," said Caina, voice quiet. "My name is Caina Amalas. But I told you that my name was Marianna, a Countess of House Nereide. That's how you knew me. And you never learned my real name, because Maglarion killed you before you could learn otherwise."
Alastair's lips peeled back in fury.
"You miserable peasant wretch!" he spat. "I offer you bliss beyond anything you could hope to find in your pathetic life of shadows and steel, and you throw it back in my face?"
"I don't know who you are," said Caina, "but you're not Alastair Corus."
Alastair reached for her, and Caina moved. She sidestepped, seized Alastair's wrist, and spun past him. Her heel slammed into his right knee, and his leg folded beneath him. Alastair fell with a grunt of pain, and Caina yanked the hidden dagger from her boot.
He would tell her who he really was, or he would regret it.
Alastair snarled, and the world dissolved into silver light.
###
"You found her," said a man's voice, deep and rough with a thick Caerish accent. "Gods of the Legion, I cannot believe it. You found her!"
Caina turned.
She was disguised as a man, wearing the leather armor and rough trousers of a common caravan guard, and she was standing outside a worn brick warehouse in the docks of Malarae, its doors ripped open. Hundreds of rag-clad children ran out of the warehouse, laughing and weeping as they sprinted to their mothers. The children still bore the marks of chains upon their wrists and the cruel welts of whips upon their backs.
Slaves.
And Caina had freed them all.
"You actually found them," said the man's voice again.
Caina tore her gaze away from the laughing children and looked at the man. He was about forty, built like a boulder, his balding hair close-cropped. He had hard gray eyes, and wore chain mail and a sheathed broadsword at his belt.
And he looked happy, happier than she had ever seen him.
"Ark," said Caina.
Ark grinned. "Tanya!"
His wife Tanya and infant son Nicolai had been taken prisoner by slave traders five years past, and the slavers’ ship had vanished. Ark had joined the Ghosts to find them, and had spent every waking moment since looking for them.
And now Tanya ran to him.
She looked a great deal like Caina, with long black hair and blue eyes, though she was taller and not quite so lean. She threw herself into Ark's arms, weeping.
"Thank you," whispered Tanya, staring at Caina over Ark's shoulder. "Oh, gods, thank you. I never thought I would be free again. But you found us."
"I did?" said Caina, trying to remember. The memories flashed through her mind. Ark had left Rasadda with her, following the trail of the slave traders to the tenements of Malarae. Caina had infiltrated the slavers, located the captives, and arranged for the city's militia to attack. The slavers had been defeated, and hundreds of captives freed, including Tanya and Nicolai.
Hadn't they?
"Thank you," said Ark, gripping Caina's shoulder, his other arm around his wife. "I had given up hope. But you were able to find them."
"Yes," said Caina, voice distant. Another set of memories warred with the first. She remembered leaving Ark in Rasadda as the new circlemaster of the city's Ghosts. He hadn't accompanied her to Malarae. And then she had gone to the Vineyard in the Disali hills without Ark.
"Are you all right?" said Ark.
"I...am tired, that is all," said Caina, managing a ragged smile. "It has been an exhausting few months. But worth the effort, if we have found your family." She blinked in confusion. "Wait. Nicolai. Where is Nicolai? Where is your baby?"
Tanya smiled. "He hasn't been a baby for some time now. He's almost six. Would you like to meet him?"
"Yes," said Caina. She had seen the pain in Ark's eyes has he spoke of his lost son. "I do."
"This way," said Tanya, taking Ark's hand.
Tanya led them through the empty warehouse, past the stalls where the captives had been chained.
"The slavers realized that I was married to a Ghost,” said Tanya, “so they put Nicolai in a special cell, away from the others. Here it is."
Caina froze.
A silver door stood in the warehouse's brick wall. Just looking at the strange silvery metal gave Caina a headache, and a hellish yellow-orange glow leaked through the cracks around the door. Like the door opened in a raging furnace that would sear the flesh from her bones.
And she had seen that damned door before. She was sure of it.
"What is that?" said Caina.
"The door to Nicolai's cell," said Tanya. "Open it, and meet my son."
"He's your son," said Caina. "Yours and Ark's. Why did you leave him in there?"
"We need you to open the door for us," said Ark.
"It doesn't look locked," said Caina.
"It's not," said Tanya. "But, please, open it for us. Reunite us with our son, after so long."
Caina gave a short, sharp nod. She could never have children of her own, not after what Maglarion had done to her. But she could reunite those grieving mothers with their captured children. She could make sure no slaver took a child ever again.
She could return Nicolai to his mother and father.
Caina stepped forward, reached for the door, and stopped.
"I've seen this before," she murmured.
Ark frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, for the gods' sake!" said Tanya. "Must you be so truculent? Just open the damned door already!"
"It's not locked," said Caina, turning to face Tanya. "Why don't you open it? He's your son. Go and open the door."
"You have to be the one to open it!" said Tanya, her voice rising. "It's the most important thing in the world. Open that door right now or my son will die!"
"I have seen this door before, I’m sure of it" muttered Caina. She had seen that door in her father's library and the ballroom where she had danced with Alastair.
But her father's library had burned, and Maglarion had blasted the ballroom to rubble.
"Help me," pleaded Tanya. "Help me save my..."
Then Caina remembered a dagger made from the same silvery metal as the door.
"Shut up," said Caina.
Tanya flinched, and rage flashed across Ark's face.
"How dare you?" said Tanya. "My son is in there, and you'll leave him to die!"
"No, he's not," said Caina, "because none of this is real."
"What are you talking about?" said Ark.
"This is a dream," said Caina. "Made by the dagger Tormalus dug up below Reorn's hall. And," she looked over Ark and Tanya, "I think one of you is actually Helena. Probably Tanya."
"You've gone mad," said Tanya, "utterly..."
Caina yanked a throwing knife from her belt and flung it at Tanya.
Ark bellowed in fury, but Tanya disappeared in a silvery blur. She reappeared a dozen yards away as the knife bounced off the brick wall.
"Ark!" shouted Tanya. "Stop her! She's trying to kill me!"
Ark surged forward and seized Caina by the throat, slamming her against the wall. Caina felt herself choke, felt pain explode through her chest and the back of her head.
"Put her through the door!" said Tanya. "I command it!"
Ark heaved Caina towards the door. She struggled, but his hands held her in an iron grip. Caina tried to wrench her arms free from his grasp, tried to kick him, but it was like fighting a mountain...
But it wasn't real.
This was only a dream.
She remembered how Tanya - or the woman wearing Tanya's form - had moved across the room in a heartbeat. No one could move like that, not even with the aid of sorcery. But in a dream, who could say what was possible?
And if Helena could control the dream...why could Caina not do so as well?
She concentrated, ignoring the pain, ignoring the ache in her bones. The pain wasn't real. Ark wasn't real. None of this was real.
She pulled herself away from him...and his fingers parted like water.
Caina stepped back, her breathing slow and steady. Ark bellowed in rage and came at her again, and Caina reached up with one hand. She caught his fist and held it there. His hand was twice the size of hers, his arm a solid column of muscle, yet she held it in place as easily as the hand of a small child.
Then Caina punched him in the chest with her free hand.
Ark rocketed upward, exploding through the ceiling, and soared into the air. She caught a brief glimpse of him, a distant speck in the blue sky, and then he vanished.
Caina turned back to Tanya.
"You may as well drop the disguise," she said. "I know who you are."
Tanya rippled, like a reflection caught in the water, and she vanished.
In her place stood Helena, face twisted with livid fury.
"How did you do that?" hissed Helena. "Neither Tormalus nor Maelana could see past the illusions I spun. They walked through the door without hesitation."
"If you were trying to lure me through that door," said Caina, "you did a poor job of choosing your illusions. I regret Alastair's death, but I never loved him, nor did he love me. I will never bear living children. Ark will never find his wife. And I watched my father die. I want those I have lost back, yes. I want to have children. I want Ark to find his wife and son. But I know those things will never happen. You might as well have promised to make me queen of the moon or the empress of the ocean."
"An error," snarled Helena, "that I will now rectify!"
She lifted her hand, and a sword appeared in her grasp, sharp and gleaming. She hurtled at Caina with the superhuman speed granted by this unreal place.
But Caina was ready. She yanked a dagger from her belt, dodged the sword's flickering blade, and buried the dagger in Helena's chest.
Helena screamed, and the world exploded in white light.
###
Caina opened her eyes.
She lay flat upon her back, and saw nothing but blank whiteness in all directions. For dreadful moment she thought she had gone blind, and she lifted her hands in front of her face. But she saw her fingers, saw the muscles in her forearms clenching.
She frowned, looked down at herself, and realized that she was naked.
Caina sat up in alarm. In all directions, she saw nothing but blank whiteness. She felt the floor beneath the bare skin of her legs, but if felt like...nothing at all.
Now more curious than alarmed, she got her legs beneath her and stood.
A pale man in a crimson robe with elaborate golden trim appeared before her.
Caina took a step back, hands coming up to defend or attack. But the man only gazed at her with black, lifeless eyes, and did not move. His expression held not a hint of emotion. Not even a trace of interest, and Caina suspected that few men could have a naked woman appear in front of them without displaying some sort of reaction.
"Those robes," she said. "Those robes were worn by the Saddai Ashbringers of old."
"Yes," said the man, his voice deep and rumbling.
"Are you an Ashbringer?" said Caina.
"No," said the man.
He said nothing else.
"Who are you, then?" said Caina.
"I am a portion of the memories," said the robed man, "of the Ashbringer known to you as the Master of Dreams. When he created this dagger," he gestured at the whiteness around him, "he left an imprint of his thoughts upon the spells binding it. I am that imprint."