"Is she a'ight?"

"I don' think so."

"You can tell by her eyes. They're dumb."

"I canna believe this is the famous lady knight assassin spy…"

"I expected something feistier."

"Aye, and she weren't much fun to ride. No fight. Not even virginal."

The woman in question remained silent. She was not aware of anything going on around here. Locked in her thoughts, she saw only the events as it happened in order. From the time she was kidnapped by the handsome redhead man named Frenn, until the time she and J-J – he parted company. She saw, at this moment, a beautiful boy barely older than her make love to her pure flesh with loving passion…she relived the sweet pleasure of it, felt in some distant part of her brain his gentle hands on her skin, so soothing, so kind, his whispered words of worship, instead of her handlers' rough jerks and curses and kicks. She had been in love at thirteen…and then her love was snatched brutally and violently away with a dagger in his back.

Arden.

Even as the men tore at her clothes and took from her what should only been received tenderly in marriage and wholesome love she folded more into herself, not feeling the pain as their dirty ragged yellow fingernails scratched at her breasts. She saw only crystalline eyes filled with tears of pleasure as they gazed so adoringly upon her face and curls of molten gold, and felt only his leathered muscles beneath her calloused hands. She looked back on that time now and wished fervently, insanely, that he had put into her a child, conceived of holy love. But alas…he did not.

As darkness threatened the dim corners of her mind, and as she slipped fully inside herself, she remembered…

…remembered not a boy with golden curls and warm cerulean eyes…

…but a boy with white-blond hair and angry, guilty, tortured pale blue eyes…

…and some sane part of her realized that she loved Arden only because he reminded her so much of boy who made her what she was.

- - -

"Kris!"

Annoyed, Kris turned around and said irritably, "What do you want, Ray?"

Ray was behind the door, so Joren could not see him, but he could clearly hear his shrill voice.

"There are some storms up ahead. We need to turn around."

Kris frowned. "But the day's clear," he voiced.

"I know," Ray said.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive. There are hundreds of waterspouts lined for about a mile or two. If we don't turn around now we'll head straight for them."

Kris swore. "Mithros! What are you waiting for, boy?! Sound the alarm!"

"Y-Yes sir!"

Joren gasped and sat up, soaked with sweat, his eyes stinging with the very bitterly sharp saltiness of it. Ray had been on the Mageskull with Captain Lucas and Kris and Morgan and all the other Black Bandits those years ago. His heart knew he was familiar…it was that wryly sarcastic high-pitched voice of his that hinted so furtively at his memory.

So in some way, Ray was caught up in this. He remembered keenly now the young boy same as his age with fiery eyes and loose curls. It was the same Ray…who had not aged a bit. Like Jehani, the contemptuous brat with the secretive eyes and the halo of copper prettiness. Like Gwen, with her eyes of limpid swirls and long, lean legs.

Like Morgan, because Morgan did not age as swift as the others.

His eyes widened. Now that he thought of it, like many of those part of the crew of the Mageskull. Few of them matured naturally.

How was this possible?

He aged his proper rate. Didn't he? Didn't he look like a man worthy of his station of captain? Didn't he looked older? He did! He did, he did!

…He didn't…

A pain shot through his groin up to his abdomen. Joren slipped down against the wall slowly, shuddering spasmodically. Since – since the incident with K-K – her all those years ago he grew, but not rapidly. Something magical kept him from ever aging properly. He remembered all those times now he looked into the mirror and saw a somewhat childlike face.

And he remembered those times he complained to Morgan or Kris about it, and was bestowed the pitying looks those gave ones with no clue.

It was a curse, almost, of never-ending torture. Jehani and Gwen –

– Gwen had a sister was it Jehani it was it was –

were doomed for or almost forever with eternal wake. Somehow he was infected with it. The truth confused him. At the same time he came to the conclusion that he and others were in some way living unstoppably, he realized that somehow Gwen and Jehani were sisters…that somehow they were related…

From within the shadows, those eyes…Jehani's eyes…watched him curiously, like a kitten might watch a moth flutter aimlessly to and fro. He had, right then, in that moment of mass perplexity, a flashing glimpse of what K – she experienced everyday of her life. He saw and felt and heard and smelled insanity.

And he felt the bond strengthen to magnificent proportions. His eyes were blinded by something and he felt his body lift up with the power of his convulsion. He saw with a pang of agony a lean brown-haired woman being used mercilessly by seven or eight brawny bronzed men and not fighting back. He saw her eyes pop open and her body spasm into seizure, same as his did, and saw her murky eyes clarify into intelligence, and saw her teeth bare into a snarl before latching on to a wrist and piercing a throbbing artery.

And he saw snitches her thoughts.

And he realized they did not just share a bond anymore –

They shared one mind, and a soul, and a heart…and a passion for revenge…

- - -

Gah…this confused the hell outta me too. I swear, I'll explain things much more clearer than like this in later chapters, but this kinda needs to go with the plot, so…