He looked down and discovered he wore but simple under-drawers, rather than his nightsilk undergarments. As he raised his eyes, a woman with shimmering black hair, violet eyes, and flawless white skin, clad in less even than Alucius wore, stepped through the archway opposite him, swaying toward the herder, smiling, beckoning, suggesting that all manner of delights were within his reach. Yet Alucius hesitated, stepping back, feeling a deep chill from somewhere. The woman beckoned once more, and Alucius edged farther backward. A bolt of purple flame appeared at her fingertips, then flared from her fingers. He threw up a sabre that had appeared in his hand. Flame sprayed past him, the heat so intense it was like an iron mill. He could smell hair burning, his hair— Alucius jerked upright from the wide bed in the ancient stone-walled officers’ quarters in the barracks of the Lancers of Dereka, barracks whose walls, at least, dated back to before the Cataclysm. In the darkness that was more like twilight to him, he glanced around, but he could neither see nor sense anyone within the room, perfectly silent except for his own ragged breathing.
