She turned her head away.

"Why did you come back to me, Zenith?"

She whipped her eyes back to him. "I came to see you so I could put some of my own demons to rest!"

"And have you?"

She shook her head.

WolfStar extended his hand. "Please, take my hand, Zenith."

She ignored him.

"Please ... I think that you and I are alone in this night, and I think that you and I both need some comfort."

"Not from you!"

"Nevertheless," he said, "I am all that shares this gloomy and pain-raddled night with you. Take my hand."

And eventually, she stretched out her own hand and took his.

Later, when she had gone, WolfStar lay on the bed, and allowed himself to laugh.

Chapter 27

Axis Resumes a Purpose

DragonStar looked at the group before him, and wondered at how he would tell them the worst of possible news. They had trusted him, and he had not been able to provide for them.

Now he had to tell them that, in all likelihood, the entire struggle had been in vain. That Sanctuary would fall. And if Sanctuary fell, then, in all likelihood, they would die.

"Well?" Axis said.

He stood belligerently before his son, hands on hips, dressed in his habitual, comfortable black clothes, booted, armed, and prepared for war.

Azhure stood beside him, calmer, but DragonStar knew her well enough to know that Azhure's exterior calm was a face she'd cultivated over the years to provide an antidote to Axis' tendency for confrontation. Internally, she would be as angry, as frightened, and as unsure as everyone else in the room.

DragonStar glanced behind his parents. Many were here: the four witches still in Sanctuary —

Faraday, with so many mental and emotional barriers in place she looked like a piece of fragile Corolean glass; Leagh looking wan and exhausted; Zared, Herme and Theod, almost as belligerently anxious as Axis; StarDrifter, looking distracted (and DragonStar wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that Zenith wasn't in her quarters and couldn't, for the moment, be found); FreeFall and EvenSong, looking as useless as DragonStar himself felt; several of the Avar Banes, and Sa'Domai, the Chief of the Ravensbund. Sa'Domai looked, by far, the most collected person in the room, and DragonStar supposed that anyone who spent much of their life

dodging collapsing icebergs and battling the storms of the Icebear Coast might possibly find interstellar Demons a mild threat by comparison.

"I have no good news," DragonStar said, unable to keep the bitter twist from his mouth. He gestured helplessly. "I hope that Urbeth will do what she can to aid the Mother and the Sacred Groves, but I cannot rely on her being able to stop the Demons. If the Demons manage to feast on the power of the Sacred Groves, then — at the moment — I cannot think what might stop them."

"You are StarSon," Axis said flatly. "You have demanded that title since infancy. It is your job to know what is to be done!"

"And you went through your entire battle with Borneheld and Gorgrael with nary a single doubt, Axis?" DragonStar said. "You walked through the entire adventure gloriously confident and without putting a single foot wrong, without losing a single bloody life to your mistakes?"

Axis looked away.

"The icepack cracks and reforms," Sa'Domai said. "No-one ever knows where the cracks will appear next, but the icepack always reforms."

DragonStar took a deep breath, both grateful for Sa-Domai's philosophical interjection, and resentful at his calmness.

"I do not doubt that Sanctuary will fall," DragonStar said. "At the least, we have to plan for it."

"And what," FreeFall said, "do you plan to do about it?"

"If myself," DragonStar said, "or Faraday, Goldman, Leagh and Gwendylyr are trapped here, then we can do no good at all. We must return to the wasteland —"

"No!" Zared said, stepping forward and brushing past Axis. "Take Leagh back into the wasteland?

Have you seen her, DragonStar? Have you seen how sick and exhausted she is? Have you —"

"We have no damn choice, Zared!" DragonStar said. "None. It will be up to myself and my five companions to battle the Demons, and we cannot do it here. I doubt that Spiredore will remain viable much longer. We must leave now."

And I must get my witches to the places where they will confront their respective Demons, DragonStar thought, and where they will prepare the "weapons" that Qeteb has so kindly allowed them to choose. We must leave now if they are to have enough time to prepare.

"And the rest of us?" Axis said as Zared turned away in disgust. "What happens to the rest of us? You and yours might be able survive the wasteland and the Demons' influence, but none of us can.

What happens if — when — Sanctuary falls? Where do we go?"

And the rest of the people and animals of Sanctuary. Where do they go now? Where, if nowhere is safe?

DragonStar spread his hands helplessly. "I do not know, Axis. I simply do not know —"

Axis stepped forward and stabbed his finger into DragonStar's chest. "If you walk out of here now and take your four damn witches as you call them, with you, then I am assuming command of Sanctuary! I will work to keep safe what remains of Tencendor! Run about the wasteland all you like, DragonStar, play whatever game you want to, but I will assume responsibility for the saving of Tencendor's life!"

There was a silence as DragonStar stared into his father's eyes. Then ...

"Thank you," he said. "That would be a great weight off my mind."

Axis stared at DragonStar, then he burst into laughter: genuine, heartfelt laughter.

"Thank you," he said, "for allowing me some purpose back into my life."

DragonStar nodded, smiling a little himself, then looked at Faraday. "When we leave," he said, "we will leave Katie behind."

"No!" Faraday said in a low, harsh voice. "You've said yourself that Sanctuary will fall. She will die if we leave her here!"

"I thank you for your vote of confidence," Axis said to one side, but Faraday ignored him.

"We take her with us! I can protect her! I will —"

"No," DragonStar said. His voice was very flat, very hard. "She must stay here."

Faraday stared at DragonStar, almost loathing him. Ever since she'd seen Qeteb speak out of his mouth, seen the Demon's malice shine from his eyes, she'd not been able to forget that voice asking her if she would ever know whose hands caressed her body, whose voice spoke to her of love, whose love reached out to her in the night ... It had been enough to undermine the hard-found trust she had in DragonStar, and in herself. Would she ever know