Amelia stared at the remains of Xelloss's body which lay below, impaled on the stakes.
Sighing, she almost negligently formed a fireball in her hand and flung it against the wall behind her.
Where it splattered harmlessly against Xelloss's staff.
The Mazoku was lounging in an ornate divan, the staff in the crook of his arm and the secretive smile on his face. Amelia didn't bother looking out the window, there would be nothing to see but the stakes.
"Well, it seems the chickadee is no longer a chickadee, but a hawk."
"I'm not a chickadee, I'm not a hawk. I'm Amelia."
"It didn't bother you the last time we crossed paths." Xelloss protested.
"That was somebody else." Ameila said flatly.
"I think I liked her better." Xelloss said petulantly. Amelia shrugged.
"Its your fault. I'm here because of you."
"Uh, Highness? Your leg?" Amelia looked at the preceptor and then down at her leg.
"Oh." She reached inside the waistband of her pants and pulled out a bundle of rags, from which blood dripped. "Oh stop that." She said to the bundle irritably. Obediently, the blood stopped flowing and she tossed it aside.
Lina's eyes narrowed. That kind of magic was used only in one part of the world and never outside its borders. Looking around the room, she saw that Zelgadis's eyes and those of the preceptor's were also narrowed, but for different reasons.
"Now then." Ameila said, turning to the preceptor. "We'll have to retake Sailoon. I apologize for this, but I'll need to stay here for a while. I want to invoke the treaties on this one, Lord Preceptor. Religious freedom is all well and good, but coups are something else entirely."
"Actually," Xelloss put in, "I suggest getting in a good night's sleep since we're all going to Zefila."
"What?" Ameila said, facing the Mazoku. "Why would we do that?"
"Because of the blue banded Zefilan hawk that's sitting on the windowsill with the message for Lina tied to its leg."
Everyone turned to look and Lina's heart sank. She recognized the bird and the expression in its eyes said that it did too.
"They found me." She muttered under her breath and then held out her arm. "Come." On silent wings, the hawk glided across the room to her arm.
With fumbling fingers, she removed the message and opened it.
The others watched her pale and she swayed, only to be caught by Gourry.
"Lina?" Ameila asked worriedly. Lina didn't answer. Zelgadis plucked the paper from her numb fingers.
"I can't read it." He said a moment later. "I've never seen the language before."
"Allow me." Xelloss said, now dressed as a court herald as he took the message from Zelgadis and began to read aloud.
"Crown Princess Linannaoui Inverserson - Is that your real name? No wonder you changed it - Though you have been in exile, the duties laid upon you by incident of your birth must be answered. Therefore, you are requested and required to proceed with all haste to your home - My, formal, aren't we?"
"Spare us the commentary Xelloss." Zelgadis growled.
"Oh very well. But you do have a way of taking all the fun out of life Zel." Xelloss returned his attention to the parchment. "To proceed with all haste to your home to attend the funeral of your beloved parents..."
"Oh Lina." Amelia said softly, and wrapped the other woman in a hug.
It was much later that Lina sat in her room brushing out her hair. Zefila. She hadn't thought about it much. She had submerged herself so much in the personality of Lina Inverse that the person she had been when she was exiled had almost been forgotten. Like a dream.
But the note had brought it all back like the water roaring through a canyon. Home. Standing, she crossed the room to the mirror and looked at herself.
"Restore." She said, and the image in the mirror changed. She was taller now, with large black eyes and grayish-peach skin. Her mouth was smaller and her hair alabaster white. Long pointed ears rose up through the strands of her hair and she knew without looking that her teeth were now a row of needle-sharp bits of ivory. "Change." She said and the image she had worn for the past twenty years reappeared.
How much did she tell them? Some of it, all of it? She had lied about her past to them several times. Lina sighed again. At the same time, she knew that Linannaoui Inverserson was dead in many ways. Lina Inverse had been created to protect her, but as time went on, she had replaced her.
How much of the Second Crown Princess of Zefila was left?
At that moment, the door opened and Gourry came in.
"Lina." He said. "They said this was my room. I'm sorry."
"No Gourry." Lina said, setting her brush aside. "I don't mind. We can share the bed." And I need someone here for the bad dreams that are sure to come. She added silently. Gourry nodded and began unbuckling his sword belt.
Sometime later, they lay on the bed, his arm absently around her waist.
"Gourry?"
"Hm?"
"I have a confession to make." With that, she told him everything, her entire secret.
"It changes nothing Lina." He said.
And that was all that needed to be said. They had been together long enough to know that and soon the only sound in the room was the soft sound of their breathing.
Amelia yawned and set her sword where she could reach it. Pregnancy made her magic a little unreliable, or so the healer had told her once, and Amelia had learned a long time ago to always have a card up her sleeve. She winced as the baby within her gave a hard kick.
"Just like your auntie Lina." She crooned, rubbing her belly. The baby responded with another well placed kick. Smiling, Amelia began singing.
The song was a very old lullaby that dated back eons and as though she could see him, she knew the sound of her voice, the comfort and the love she poured into it, quieted that which she carried beneath her heart.
"You never sang to me." Xelloss said from where he was sitting at the small table on the other side of the room.
"I never had time." Ameila replied, catching the sword with her foot and pulling it closer. "Haylofts behind Inns are more suited to storing fodder for horses then declarations of undying love."
"Ah, but Amelia my hawk." He said, advancing. "You misunderstand me so much." Then he stopped as her sword whistled out of its sheath.
"I should have known when you agreed too quickly when I asked for time to consider my feelings." She said, ice in her voice, as she leveled the point at his throat. "No poetry, no pleadings. It was so unlike you. But I didn't notice." She turned to look out the window at the stars.
"I did what had to be done." He said, and she felt him behind her. "I'm not proud of it Amelia. But I do care for you even if you don't for me." He turned her around to face him. "I'm getting sick of this charade we've built to protect ourselves Amelia. Its starting to be the only way I remember our relationship."
"That's why I broke things off." Amelia admitted, catching her lip between her teeth.
Xelloss was an enigma. Part of her wanted to kill him for all the tampering he'd done. Part of her saw the man he was before he became Mazoku, she had seen him as their eyes met at the climax of their encounters in the hay or under the leafy canopies of the trees, and part of her was drawn to the Mazoku which both fascinated and terrified her.
It was like a hunger that she needed to feed. She needed him and that, more then the Mazoku in him, scared her.