Drums beat, chants in archaic black speech surrounded him, but Ushatar could still hear Tara's sobs, carried on the wind from his dar. He clung to her sorrow and his own; soon, he expected, very soon, he'd no longer feel sorrow. He had to be able to love, to feel such pain.

He didn't know the names of the Orcesses who beat the drums, who surrounded him with ancient spells, as he sat before Ranash, stripped as naked as the day he was born. The rest of the clan gathered beyond the shamaness's dar, adding their own strength to the evil magic. There was no hope for failure. Ranash was certain: the power wanted to be gathered again. The ritual was only the invitation it needed. Ushatar thought briefly of Daghri, imaging the Orc drawing up his courage, telling Urauk to strike quick and true.

"It's time," Ranash said. She held out an ancient dagger of rough, pitted iron.

Ushatar clenched his trembling hands into fists. He bowed his head, took the blade, and told her, "I do this for love and loyalty."

"As do I," she said, "Now do what you must."

She, too, was naked. Where his eyes were full of pain, hers were full of hideous joy. Together, they stood. Ushatar drew one last shaking breath. Then, he put the dagger to her chest, and opened the old Orcess from tip to root.

Time and sense bent. The body that was once Ushatar's found itself painted in black blood. Gadhaal was crouched at his feet, and he didn't know why, nor did he much care. Ushatar licked his lips, the thousand different flavors of blood exploding on his tongue. "Now bathe me," he told the shamaness, and he closed his eyes in pleasure.

When he left the dar at dawn, Ushatar wondered if they'd failed. The ritual itself was already a blur of failed memory. The Orcs surrounding the dar backed away from him as he walked, but he felt no change, only a bleakly selfish relief that he was himself still, even if they'd all die horribly for that failure. Then his belly heaved and Ushatar dropped to his knees, and vomited, again and again, until he was so weak he could only kneel in the snow, alone under the rising sun, his entire body trembling so violently that he couldn't imagine standing ever again.

"Look at me," a soft voice pled. Soft hands took his face and raised it. Tara, face ravaged from tears, whispered to him, "Say something…"

"I… I'm so cold, Tara. I'm so cold."

"Oh, Ushatar!" She cried, kissing his brow. She tore her fur cloak from her shoulders and wrapped it over his. "Come home."

"I mustn't…"

"No. You're… yourself still. Your mine still. I can see you."

"For how long, Tara?"

"I'll have you for as long as I can."

"I can't risk you!" he pled, his tears like ice on his face.

"You listen to me! It didn't work. You're not changed!" she cried, wiping his frozen tears from his face. "Please, you're shivering! Whatever that old witch tried to do to you, you're sick and cold, and I'm bringing you home! I'm not afraid of you, Ushatar! You won't hurt me. I know you won't hurt me."

A hard sigh escaped him, and thought he'd melt into her arms. He'd waited an eternity for those words from her lips. But the jagged memories of the ritual shamed his sudden joy. Blinking in shock, he realized, "I killed her. Ranash. She said I had to sacrifice her, and I did. I killed her."

Furious, Tara turned her head and spat into the snow. "She did it to herself. Let her take her black magic into the next world with her. Now you come home. Daumani is waiting with Ilzin, I don't want her burnt by the sun going back to her dar. Come. Now."

He managed, somehow, to rise. He felt too weak to resist her as she brought him home, as she lay him down in soft furs and placed his sleeping baby in his arms. Ushatar thought he'd weep again at their beauty, and he was too tired and cold to feel shame for his tears. Agonized at the threatened loss of him, Tara curled up beside Ushatar, her gentle fingertips playing softly on his face until he fell asleep.

As sleep faded, Tara could hear Ilzin's happy gurgling babble. She realized she was alone in the bedroll, and she stretched out, blinking awake to greet the new night. Sitting up, she began to say, "I must have slept an eternity—"

Tara's jaw unhinged. Fingertips to her lips, she looked around the dar. Every drawing hide Ushatar possessed was stretched out, full to bursting with manically intricate drawings. Entire worlds were born in charcoal: towers, trees, siege engines, wolves, Morulur, faces… even herself, and Ilzin. If he'd worked from the moment she'd fallen asleep last night until this new evening's dawn, it wouldn't have been enough time. And now he sat with his back to her, filling another corner of space with his scrawling, Ilzin contentedly crawling back and forth beneath his bent leg, babbling and chewing on one of Ushatar's long black braids.

Her words finally reached him, and he half-turned, his face alight with wonder.

"Ushatar?" she whispered, as her heart mis-beat.

"You're so beautiful!" he marveled.

"Are you…?" Lost for words, Tara shook her head. Unable to breathe, she looked to Ilzin: the baby beamed at her, unafraid, unharmed.

"Let's go see Mama," he said, abandoning his universe and crawling across the dar. His crawling delighted Ilzin, and the baby squealed and giggled and scrambled hard on her sire's heels.

Tara felt faint as he approached her. He rose up on his knees, staring down on her. His eyes… they'd always been a swirl of amber and green, but had the colors been so brilliant before? It was as if a fire reflected in them, a fire, or the light of stars. Ilzin plowed into Tara's lap a moment later, and her hand protectively curled around Ilzin's back. Ushatar grinned, and smoothed a finger over Tara's cheekbone. "You," he said, content, a single word that contained the world for him, a word that dissolved into his growling rumble of pleasure.

"Are you… well?" she whispered.

He simply nodded, smiling still. His bright eyes drank her in. He inhaled the scent of her, tilting his head curiously. "You're carrying another little sprog," he said, amazed.

"What? No… I… Ilzin still nurses… I…"

Her words faded in the radiant light of his smile. Unassailable in his knowledge, Ushatar nodded. "I've got scent of him, ambal, there's no mistake."

"Him?" Tara repeated, tears forming in her eyes.

"Maybe him. Maybe her," he said softly. He lay his brow against hers and whispered, "I love you, all of you."

Tears fell. Tara pushed her lips against his, laughing in thoughtless relief.

"I must go," he murmured.

"Don't…"

"I've everything to do, Tara. I think I'll go make some swords now. But here," he said, and he drew his dagger, the one that named him Monster-Slayer for the troll he'd killed, and handed it to her. "For the wraiths, if they come."

Shivering, Tara took the blade. "It has the magic?"

A darkly knowing smile crossed Ushatar's face. "Very much so. And now I must go."

He sprung away, as agile as a great cat, and was gone, the void left by his absence filled by the wild pounding of Tara's heart.