They had lusted themselves now for many thousands of years, and that lust consisted of only one thing.
Revenge.
Now it was at hand.
Silently, purposefully, they descended through the pre-dawn gloom, great black leathery shapes, the hands at the tips of their wings opening and closing in silent anticipation.
StarLaughter had allowed her hatred and disappointment and unending mortification to consume her. It was the only comfort she had. For days she'd trailed after the massive convoy of animals and peoples and trees, drifting just beyond arrowshot, hoping for a single glimpse of the woman that WolfStar had abandoned her for.
The whorel
If only she were disposed of! WolfStar would surely come back to her then ...
No. No! That was wrong! She should not think that!
WolfStar would never come back to her. StarLaughter could finally see that. He'd made a fool of her in front of his trifling companions, all for the woman that he now thought to love, and for that StarLaughter would not forgive him.
StarGrace, and all the other Hawkchilds, had been right. WolfStar was unredeemable. He would never love her, and he would never help her regain her son.
He must die.
And, in dying, suffer as much as he'd made them to suffer.
And so StarLaughter drifted along the margins of the convoy and she waited and watched and planned.
And finally, after days of watching, she understood.
It had not been difficult, truth to tell. WolfStar was kept under watch by the guardsmen who wore the ivory tunics with the peculiar knot of gold in the central panel.
And so was a woman — a woman kept well guarded and well away from WolfStar, as if she might be a danger to him ... or he to her.
StarLaughter's mouth had parted in red-lipped joy. She understood.
And she knew what she had to do.
WolfStar's night dreams were troubled with discomfort. He found himself drifting disoriented through cold stars. He did not know their patterns or their movements — he was lost in a distant and unknowable part of the universe.
It frightened him beyond measure.
Strange voices touched him, but they were afar and uncaring, and after a while they left him alone.
He drifted, alone and lonely beyond measure.
Until a voice, far stronger than the others that had touched him, reached out and sent sharp knives into his soul.
I have her.
WolfStar twisted about in the cold void, trying to find the speaker of the voice, and trying to beat down the black wings of despair that threatened to envelop him.
Ihave her.
"Who are you?" WolfStar screamed into the universe, but he did not require an answer, nor even desire one, because he knew very well to whom that voice and that hatred belonged.
StarLaughter.
I have her.
WolfStar groaned, and twisted himself out of the dream.
Ihave her.
The words still echoed about WolfStar's mind as he struggled into wakefulness. He lurched up on one elbow, and looked about, his eyes widening at the scene.
The Lake Guardsmen assigned to watch over him were lying twisted and ugly, their faces contorted as if something heavy and dark had taken hold of their minds and twisted them until they could bear no more.
They were dead.
Beyond the circle of WolfStar's immediate campfire, the rest of the convoy's sleepers lay twisting and murmuring, as if something troubled their dreams as well.
Ihave her.
"You bitch!" WolfStar snarled, and sprang to his feet. "This time you will die!"
Only soft, mocking, echoing laughter answered him, and WolfStar lifted into the sky, so furious he'd locked his hands into white-knuckled fists at his sides.
That bitch-wife of his would cause the collapse of all his plans. He would not lose Zenith now! Not after all the work he'd put into getting her!
And he most certainly would not let StarLaughter have the satisfaction of thinking she'd succeeded in annoying him. She would die, here and now, and this time he'd do a better job of it than the last time he'd tried.
