Author's Notes: Some import things to know:

I've started this fanfic as a way to release stress and practice my writing when I have the time. Because of this, please do not expect updates on a regular basis. My other fics are all still on hiatus. I have NOT cancelled any of them!

This fic takes place EXTEMELY FAR into the future of the Blood in a time where ALL of the characters from the novel have become whispers in the Darkness and many of the races are extinct and new ones have risen to take their place with new cultures and traditions, This means ALL OCs and little if any mention of the novels characters. The landscapes and climates have changed as well. If you do not like that, that's too bad.

This fic does not have Witch or a Dreams Made Flesh character.

For the sake of this fic, "The High Lord's Daughter" never happened.

Last: This fic was inspired by a number of influences:

1st- My own original characters from my original series who wanted to know what it was like to be and live in the world of the Blood so I made Blood versions of them and their situations.

2nd- it has sprinkles of the Mijaki culture from Karen Miller's GodspeakerTrilogy (though not as constantly dark). There are a few little drops of D'Angeline culture from Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel Series and Naamah Trilogy.

As always, the Blood and their world is Anne Bishop's. Only the OCs are mine.

Lines in Italics are usually character's thoughts, sometimes they are flashbacks or

flash-forwards.

Lines in Bold are dialogue communicated on psychic threads.

Consequences

Prologue

From the Memoirs of Pykia Anil, 53rd Queen of the Territory of Shiva –

I have known I was meant for great things ever since I was a small child and a Dragon flew down from the sky and offered me his undying loyalty. His name was Frozon and he was more than just a dragon. Frozon became my mentor. He told me stories of the Dragons, stories about the Old Blood that had been forgotten, lost from a time when the world had been divided into three Realms. It was from Frozon that I was given my Birthright Red Jewel, so dark yet it sparkled in the sun like the hundreds of scales on his hid. It was through Frozon that I first practiced true Protocol with a Warlord Prince. He was my protector, my teacher, and my friend but above all else, Frozon was a Warlord Prince and I was his Queen….

"Where is he?" Jerel almost shrank away at the coolness of Lady Pykia's (pi-key-ah) voice. It meant she was going to do something horrible.

"Lord Aeol is being held down below, as you requested. Lady, I would feel more comfortable if you would let me and some other members of the Second Circle…"

This again…

"Prince Jerel, how long have you been in my service?"

"Well…300 years this Fourth Day, I believe, Lady."

"And yet," she stopped them both in midstride down the hallway; "You still have not learned when not to question me." Jerel opened his mouth to reply; she grabbed his jaw and closed his mouth for him. "This is a part of my job, Prince. It has been my job for over eleven-thousand years and it will stay that way until I am either dethroned or become Dust in the Wind, whichever comes first. Frankly, Jerel, I quit enjoy it." She could see the apple in his throat bob up and down when he gulped. She could smell a little fear roll off him and she could almost hear the thought echoing in his head.

She enjoys it…

Pykia left him standing there, staring after her.

Pykia found Warlord Aeol chained to the stone wall of the basement dungeon. A big man, the sharp features of the Shivnii in his face, the dark hair, pale skin, eyes so blue they were purple. He was as handsome as most Shivnii men. He wouldn't be for much longer.

"Does your wife know what you are?" They hadn't been able to find the wife, for a few days now, not after the investigation had begun. Most suspected that she was now dead, most likely at her own hands. But there was also was a chance that she could still be alive, only in hiding and a chance she'd been involved all along. If that were true, Pykia would track the witch down herself.

Aeol didn't answer her.

"Do you fucking hear me?" Still nothing. She kicked him in his side and he doubled over in pain but did not answer her. Time to try a different route, she decided and called in a knife.

"Was it worth it? The life you took? The blood that you spilt?"

Pykia hadn't needed to see the scene. Everyone in the city told them it was him, they knew it. There had not been any screams but they could smell her on him, could taste the foulness of his actions in his psychic scent. But she insisted on seeing the body. Pykia needed to know what manner of monster they were dealing with.

The girl had been dead five hours at the most, her body no more than a loosely held together pile of hair and ash. She had been tied down to the bed, her wrists, held down by leather cord. The sheets, there was so much blood. That wasn't even the worst of it. The worst was the room itself, the psychic stain he had left behind for all to see… Darkness have Mercy….

He left her there, on display for the whole world to see. Why? Why not dispose of the body that would have turned to dust before sun down? Why not mask the Scent? It didn't make sense. "Why did you do it?" The Queen of Shiva knelt down, close to Lord Aeol's face. She played with the knife, running the edge along his cheekbone. Not deep, just to nick the skin, start a little blood flowing. It was enough.

"It…was a voice."

He speaks. "Go on."

"It was a voice, in my head…in the Darkness. It said I must…" He stopped; Pykia angled the blade of the knife against the hollow of his throat with enough pressure to release a drop of scarlet blood. Did she really need to know? He could lead her nowhere, it was only his Scent at the scene, no one else, no sign of other men in on the sick game.

I'll just save myself the time and take a shortcut. It didn't matter what he said, it wouldn't change what would happen to him."Lord Aeol," she stood up and Aeol was lifted up onto his feet by her Craft. His arms were held out by an invisible force. Pykia's right hand clutched in a claw, the snake tooth protruded from under the nail of her index finger, a sharp wicked talon. In the blink of an eye she scratched him once across the chest, a diagonal wound began to bleed and then to boil in his blood and Aeol began to scream in agony the likes of which he had never known.

With each beat of his heart it burned like the heat of the sun in his veins. He could feel the sharp edge of knife cut the waist band of his pants. He felt them fall to the ground, he was naked, seething in pain, this mad woman held him at her mercy, it could not get worse.

But it did. She grabbed him in one hand, the knife in the other and it began. He prayed to the Darkness for the blackout to come but it never did. The poison, it was keeping him awake torturing for what felt like hours. When she was done she disposed of the remains. He would never need them again. She used Craft to cauterize the area.

That was when she forced past his barriers and into his mind. He could not fight back. She was too strong. She saw every part of him, she saw him slaughter the little bitch. Only eleven years old, and he'd wanted her so bad it made him break out in a sweat. But he'd resisted for so long, only watching from afar, never anyway thing more. Then the voice came. Oh yes, there had indeed been a voice from the very Darkness and it played his desires. He fought but it was too much, it had to be done, it must be done!

Madness!

The thought echoed through both their minds. The Queen had seen enough. It was time to finish what she'd started. A wave of Black power chased Aeol into the divide and he could not fight it. He felt himself break, losing the power of his Purple Dusk and then down to Rose which shattered and left him with basic Craft. He thought it would end there but then he felt his power ebbing even more.

That's what my poison does, Aeol, said the Queen's voice in his head. It sounded like it was coming from far away but she was only a foot away from him. My poison breaks those who are already broken. Right now, it's burning the blood in your veins, stripping it of what makes you one of us, what makes you Blood. Her voice, a whisper then, trailed off and he finally blackedout.

Pykia left the dungeons, wiping her hands clean of blood with a hand-cloth. She needed a shower and a drink of lamb's blood before she dealt with anything else for the day. She found Prince Jerel pacing back and forth where she'd left him, He stopped, frozen but didn't say a word. Good.

"Have the thing in the dungeons taken care of, will you, Prince Jerel?" Jerel nodded, he was still mute. She could get use to this. She left him to do his job and headed in the direction of her personal quarters.

Zed? She sent the thought out on an Ebon gray line.

Yes, my Queen? Warlord Prince Zed's voice was a playful tease.

In a good mood, hun?

Good as ever. What's up?

Need a drink. Escort me to the Black Ewe in an hour?

Ah-ha, you must have finished with that little problem from the East End of the City, hm? It's a done deal. I'll meet you in your quarters. The line broke.

Time for that shower. She couldn't get her clothes off fast enough.

On Prince Jerel's orders the guard's had taken the broken and shaved prisoner who had once been Lord Aeol out into the far north of Shiva into the desert lands where no one lived, Blood or Landen. They'd traveled by Wind in carriage to get there and the whole time the prisoner had been compliant to say the very least. A statue would have described him more accurately. They had clothed him in simple rags. His eyes, they were like looking into the eyes of the dead, no life, not even a shadow of the will to live.

They could not pick up a Scent of any kind from him. Whatever he was he was no longer Blood. He stood nowhere in the Darkness. It made the guards uncomfortable. When they were close enough to desert border they exited the carriage and stood him up onto his feet. One of the guards produced a vile and without much resistance, poured the contents down Aeol's throat. It was like thunder in his ears and it burned as hot as the poison had in his body. They were feeding him the Queen's Black blood. It was enough for him to live on for over a week.

When it was done, they cast a spell of compulsion that set him walking towards the boarder. Aeol was on his own now. He could survive and come upon the ambassadorial seat of Leda Ki in Shiva that was just outside of the desert. The people of Leda Ki believed that if one could survive the wilds of the desert then one deserved sanctuary and redemption. Aeol could also wonder off and get eaten by a sand crocodile or stung by a sea of scorpions. Whichever, it did not matter.

So Aeol walked for days, perfectly unaware that there was in fact a man who followed him all the while, a man who was watching him, waiting for the right time to approach him, because it was almost time but not quite yet. So Aeol kept walking across the desert and a man in black followed.