EDIT: Tis' beta'd!!! And I'm sorry if some of the line seperation things are funky. Damn ff.net!

OK guys, chapter ten. This chapter will (hopefully) tell you all you need to know about Nerezza! Yay! If it doesn't, let me know, I'll think of more evil things for him to be/do. cackles HEY, also, I realized I prolly should be putting a disclaimer on all my chappies, eh? Well, here it is: I don't own any of Tamora Pierce's characters, I'm only writing this for fun, no insult is intended, and I'd like to know if my personal characters get into any other stories! (That would be so cool, I'll have to use them somewhere else to satisfy myself.) Thank you, and goodnight!

P.S. I know that I am putting this up without input from my three wunnerful betas, but I am compelled to do so! I will change it in accordance with the suggestions you guys send me, so it'll all work out in the end. Just a little more effort on my part, no biggie.

And a deep voice said, "Lo! Here be more!"

Ten

"The trade dispute between our countries has been going on for some time now, has it not?" Kaddar stalled desperately for time as he tried to gather his scattered thoughts. He was sure Sashad's eyes had been the wrong color, if only for a second.

"That is correct, majesty." Sashad replied, his deep voice reverberating across the room.

"Kaddar," The emperor corrected automatically. "Erm, according to the notes my scribes have provided me with... since the Bandit Wars of 147. A considerable amount of time."

"Yes," Sashad replied. Kaddar hid his confusion at the monosyllabic answers the other man was giving. He'd heard tales about Sashad's negotiation skills and the wonders he was doing for Umbaqui. None of those talents seemed to be present.

"The wars started when one of my traders mistook a merchant from one of your caravans as a bandit and slew him..." Kaddar trailed off, shuffling through his papers, but then Sashad finished for him.

Numair had sweated silently through the first few minutes of conversation, but when Kaddar had mentioned the Bandit Wars, his years of learning started to come in handy as a useful piece of information floated to the top. It was, however, woefully incomplete.

"Slew him with a quick stroke of the sword through the neck. That merchant was important to my realm, I remember." He finished Kaddar's sentence. Noticing the slightly worried look on Kaddar's face, he added, "I am sorry, but my recollection of this event is a little misty still... perhaps if we continued our talk tomorrow?"

Numair watched Kaddar open and close his mouth a few times like a fish out of water, and wondered if anyone had ever snubbed him so openly before.

"Well, I – I suppose it wouldn't hurt – "

Before Kaddar could finish his sentence, Numair was up and out of his seat, heading for the door. He knew his behavior was unusual, and rude, but he simply didn't care. It was not his place to outline a plan between these two countries, and he didn't know anything important about either side of the argument. Besides what had been in the markedly short encyclopedia entry he had read in school, of course.

"If I may be excused? I am terribly sorry your majesty, but I have another appointment scheduled." He lied.

"Certainly," Kaddar said, but Numair was already gone.

The following evening, just before sunset, Numair was in his normal form sneaking through the streets of Carthak to the Crawling Griffin Inn. His face was covered with a few folds of cloth. Numair could take no chances with the fact that someone might recognize him and report his presence to Daine or Kaddar. He knew he wasn't supposed to be here.

Reaching the doorway, he looked around him nervously. He knew that his magic could easily be utilized, but the slums surrounding him still nagged uneasily at his mind. Ducking inside the darkened entranceway of the Crawling Griffin, he waited a second for his eyes to adjust to the dim light within. Torches flickered on all four walls of the Common Room, and he noticed a man sitting in the corner who was giving him the hand-signal that indicated he was the informant.

Numair walked nonchalantly over to the same corner as the man and settled himself at the table next to him, his back facing the shadowed figure. Letting his hand fall casually into his lap, he then snuck it behind his back. Numair felt his fingers close around a not insubstantial folded piece of parchment. He took it and slipped it into his tunic, before catching the innkeeper's attention and ordering a drink. He felt the presence of the man behind him leave and, when he had judged that enough time had passed, he left as well and returned to the palace.

Numair closed the door to his room silently, and tossed off his face covering. Digging into his tunic once more, he pulled out the folded packet of paper and spread it out on his small writing desk.

{The Lion is called Nerezza. He is from an ancient order of not quite Gods that originated around the time of the Beginnings of the Worlds. His true form is that of a black cloud that is vaguely man-shaped. It is believed that he has been in lion form so long, he can no longer remember how to return to this shape. His powers are limited in the lion form, but in his natural form, he is capable of destroying our world as we know it in one fell swoop. As a lion, he must be content with working his way around the world via one country at a time.

Nerezza is called the 'Eater of Worlds'. This is so because the magic that he commands resembles a 'mouth' that swallows his conquests. Once a country is 'swallowed', it ceases to exist – anywhere. No one has any memory of it, no records can be found of it, and not even the Gods can recall the name of the country, or, indeed, if there was even one there at all. He begins his attack by stalking and eventually killing the leader of the country, so Carthak is in grave danger. Emperor Kaddar has been assaulted already, although he did survive.

Nerezza also consumes whole worlds in this manner, but only once all major civilizations have been subdued. His depleted magic is then strong enough to eat the entire world, and thus that world ceases to exist.

Nerezza has fathered a cub with the Carthaki trickster goddess, Sconosciuto. He tricked her into his bed and, once she gave birth to the child, she left him with it and shunned the both of them. The cub disappeared, and has just recently reappeared in the clutches of a wizard somewhere in the country of Gaulerie. We are uncertain as to which wizard; our resources are being checked.

Nerezza was said to be impossible to tame, so we are surprised at your suspicions that he has appeared in Carthak and is in someone's service. There should be no possibility of that happening as, even in his weakened lion state, he is one of the most powerful beings on earth.

If he is being controlled, then there is no telling what he will do. Nerezza has been inactive for almost a thousand years, and the fact that he has suddenly appeared now, in Carthak, would seem to indicate that his 'master' wants Carthak totally annihilated for some reason. If there isn't a master, Nerezza may just have gotten bored with resting.

If you can find the cub, we think your chances of survival will greatly increase. Maybe the child has some leverage over Nerezza. Leverage that you can use to save yourselves.

Good luck.}

Numair sat staring at the paper for a long time.

Daine was supposed to eat dinner with Kaddar, and after spending more time than usual on a suitably dressed-down outfit, she made her way to his private dining chamber. Kaddar stood when she entered and came over to her, grasping her shoulders and lightly kissing her on both cheeks, as was the custom. Daine blushed and pulled away quickly, hoping he didn't notice her reddened cheeks.

"Thank you for inviting me; I was starting to get lonely." She said, looking fixedly at the set table.

"My pleasure," Kaddar said, and placed a hand lightly on the small of her back to guide her to the table. She stiffened at his touch, but allowed herself to be walked to a seat. He pulled out a chair for her, and then went around the table and sat across from her.

"How's your neck?" Daine asked, breaking the silence.

"My – ? Oh! That... I must confess that I'd forgotten about it." He chuckled and rubbed the small linen bandage that covered the cut the Lion's teeth had made.

"How can you? The Lion was very memorable." Daine's eyes went far away as she recalled what his voice had sounded like. Now that she thought about it, it had hurt her ears a great deal. His voice had almost been like that of an Immortal, but it'd been different somehow.

"It was indeed," Kaddar chuckled, reaching for a piece of bread and tearing it apart with his fingers. Daine's attention was abruptly on his strong brown hands.

The joints of his hands were pleasantly wrinkled, the nails well kept, but there were calluses on his palms from the handling of weapons. The second finger on his left hand was crooked, obviously from a long since healed break, but she wondered what had damaged it in the first place. A small scratch ran across the pad of his thumb on his right hand.

"... like it so far?" Daine came back to reality with the realization that Kaddar was talking to her. "Pardon?" She said, feeling her cheeks warm yet again. It seemed she was always blushing around Kaddar.

"I asked you how your stay was going. Do you like it so far?" Kaddar's eyes were unreadable. He'd put down the piece of bread, but she could see a slight tension in his bare shoulders.

"Oh, I love it. I know I'm supposed to be trying to talk to the Lion, but I think I can afford a few more days to visit with you, don't you agree?"

"Of course. I want you to visit me for a very long time, Daine."

Daine felt awkwardness descend on her, and she fidgeted in her seat. What was happening to her? She knew that she was usually level-headed in all situations, but Kaddar threw her off balance.

Daine became conscious that Kaddar was starting to eat his serving of fresh fruit as though nothing had happened, and decided to follow his lead.

Before the first grape reached her mouth, she realized that his leg was touching her own under the table. The small size of their eating surface suddenly seemed to become highly exaggerated until they were sitting only inches apart, and the heat of his skin next to her leg was almost unbearable. She started to move away, but then he looked up at her and smiled disarmingly. She smiled back, and when his leg pressed closer, she managed not to yelp.

{This is ridiculous! I am the Wildmage! How can some male's leg turn me into a quivering mass of nerves?!}
The rest of their meal passed in a blur, as she was painfully aware of Kaddar's closeness the whole time. When they had finally finished, Kaddar insisted on walking her to her rooms, and she reluctantly accepted. Even though she really wanted to go to the aviary.

{I mean, who refuses the Emperor? Not me, even if I am the Wildmage. If he wants to walk me to my rooms, I'll let him. It's not because I'm starting to like – STOP IT! I do not have... feelings for him. It would hardly be proper to mess up on my first real test of powers just because I like some man.}

"Here we are," Kaddar announced needlessly. Daine knew where they were, but she thought it was adorable he felt compelled to declare it himself. This simply would not do.

"Kaddar, I – "

"I know, it's stupid of me to tell you that. I apologize." He turned to smile down at her and, unexpectedly, he was standing very close. She looked up at him, her muscles seeming unworkable, as his smile faded to a look of slight concentration and his head tilted down a little.

{Oh Gods, is he going to kiss me? He's going to kiss me. He's going to kiss me!}

"What's that on your nose?"

Daine took a minute to pull herself back from the crevasse she'd been about to fall into.

"What?"

"You've got something on your nose."

"Oh," she said.

{Am I... disappointed?}

Kaddar wiped her nose, but then his hand traveled to her cheek and stayed there for a second longer than was necessary.

"I'll see you tomorrow Daine, we've much to talk about."

Then, he left her at the door to her chambers.
Review answers! I know this is y'alls favorite part, come on! It's 'cause I'm so incredibly fabulous!

ellabelle1- Update in your own time, man. I know I kinda harassed you last chappie (teehee) but it really is hard to be in a writing mood all the time. I had major writer's block on chappie 10, because I wanted to tell all this stuff about the Lion and I didn't know how and I wanted it to live up to all of you guy's expectations and this is a run on sentence... AGHBAH! Anyway, I got it done. DO UPLOAD YOUR PIERCE FIC! I love her so much, does it have Neal in it? He's my other fav character. Well, Numair handled the situation horribly, and left Kaddar thinking "WTF, mate?" (Like Australia! Have you seen that? Hilarious.) Also, I told you who the mommy is! THE TWIST!! THE TWIST!! Hoo hoo!

Mango Sam- Ah! You reviewed twice, or it showed your review twice, or something happened... but that's ok! Twice the fun, right? I can't remember if you said you liked Connie either, so screw that. And I like the cub- masta too! He's so evil, evil people are fun as hecky-naw to write. The Lion's just a big softy. I'll e-mail you this, but now I am overrun with Betas! AYI! Well, I guess you can have too much of a good thing! Oh well, and you are pushy sometimes! :)

!k!- Yay! I am recruiting my masses as we speak.... MUWAHAHAHAH! Ok, so, I'm gonna e-mail you in a second.

Kore Yan- sings Update, updateupdate, updateupdate, updateupdateupdateupdate, UPDAAAAAAAAATE! I hope you liked my rendition of the update song as much as you like my update! I also hope the situation I came up with was satisfyingly embarrassing. This is a romance, after all, no matter how exciting the action is!

GeminiAngl06- SICKO AND PROUD!!! Damn straight he is a cub torturer. If people can like evil Joren and think he is hot, then I can have evil Prosper and think his name is hot, SO THERE! Zek knows Connie because EVERYONE knows Connie. Everyone in Carthak, that is; I thought I said that in chappie 9? Or 8? One of those. Oh well. I will send you chappie 10 too! I have three beta people now! HOT DAMN I'm fabulously fabuloustastic! (I LOVE THAT WORD TOO!)

GeminiDvl34- Wow, Erin is angel, you are devil! I see how this works! I really, really do! Anyway, I usually don't share when I write like this 'cause I am horribly shy and since no one can see me on the internet I figure I'm all good, you know? Erin did volunteer, and you did too, but I need your e-mail. I'll get it from you at school.