Ania looked down at herself. She tentatively opened her mouth. She was not sure exactly how to control this new body of hers. To her relief, no jet of fire shot from it. She also seemed to not be able to move her front legs. Whenever she tried, she moved her wings instead.

Finally, after trying to move her pair of front legs for about ten minutes, she was able to establish some control over them. Then she worked her mouth...which seemed oddly stiffer than she was used to, as if she had a tooth-ache. She found that she could move it enough to speak, and then repeated the spell, bracing herself for the terrible pain to come.

However, it did not come. It felt as if water was running over her, smoothing away her front legs, shortening the long bones of her wings into her own small arms, and running over her tail until it had ceased to exist. She looked at herself in the glass; only she, her own small self, was standing there, looking shocked as well as elated.

"Ania!" A rapping came at the door. "Ania, open the door."

Ania recognized Morgana's voice and ran to open the door. She saw there Morgana, who had shrouded herself in a black gown and hood to mourn for Gaius. The minute she had crossed the threshold she slammed the door shut and locked it. Then she ran across to the bookshelf and pulled out The Dark World for the Noblest of Spellcasters.

"Er...Morgana?" ventured Ania. "What are you doing?"

"Looking up a spell," said Morgana tersely.

"Why in the dark book?"

"Because someone in the lower town was shot. With an arrow. I don't know why...but it seems as if the blood ward is weakening. Of course, the arrow may have come from inside the town itself and that said person who was shot doesn't remember whether he gave his blood or not...but everyone says that they didn't see anyone shooting and swore that they hadn't shot the arrow. I need to look up what CAN harm a blood ward."

Ania left Morgana to it and wandered about the castle alone. Her mother, still terribly guilty about Gaius's suicide, was still sobbing in his room. Her father was there with her. The nursemaid was with the younger children; Ygraine was crying because she had loved Uncle Gaius; so were Balinor and Tom; and tiny Anne was crying because all the others were crying. Gwen had betaken herself to the lake, in which now lay Gaius's ashes. Arthur was sitting in the throne room and snapping at all the guards.

Ania sighed. Life had been so different since Lancelot had arrived months ago, bearing news of the woman Morgause. But then again, she had heard her parents say that Gaius had died because of Nimueh, and that Ania could definitely understand. At once that last memory of her old life came rushing back to her, but Ania pushed it away. It was no use to remember that pain tearing through her body, no use to hear her father's screams inside her head, no use to look at the face of Nimueh as she herself cried out for help. It was no use to watch Nimueh's lip curl before her, no use to remember sinking into blackness-no use to remember her father crying out,

"Anharra! Anharra! Anharra!"

She shook her head.

With nowhere else to go, she went to the stables to greet her horse, Primrose. She noticed something extremely odd; the horses seemed exceedingly nervous and some were neighing in agitation. There was nobody in the stables at all, but these neighs were not the neighs of hunger. They were fearful, warning her, Keep away, Ania! Keep away!

"Why?" she asked aloud. "What is wrong?"

At once a shadow fell over the door. She turned, and beheld two women standing in the doorway. At first she had no idea who they might be, but realized quickly that she did, indeed know them.

Though she did not know it, she struck a dramatic figure there, facing the daughter of Envy, Morgause, and the daughter of Rage, Nimueh. At once an apprehension crossed the face of Morgause, but Nimueh remained staring down at the girl with the coldest, coldest eyes that Ania had ever looked into. She stared back. These eyes had changed since Ania had last seen them.

"Get out of our way," said Nimueh, whose voice was as cold as her eyes. "We need a horse."

"No," said Ania. At once, she began going over the spell in her mind. The change began almost immediately, but as it came from the inside out, the two women saw nothing.

"Get out of the way, girl, or it will be so much the worse for-"

She stopped in her tracks. An enormous dragon is something to look at; but even a fairly small six-year-old dragon was larger than the finest, greatest horse and was nothing to be scoffed at. To her delight, Ania found herself five feet above the woman's head. She cried out in the voice she had possessed fifty-seven years ago, and let all her hatred and rage at this woman rush to her tongue.

"You! You dare to come here, to my home, and think to kill those I hold dear! You watched me dying and you did not lift a finger!You broke the first law of magic-that all magical beings must aid each other in their time of need. You broke that sacred oath you took the day that your power came to you! And now, here I stand before you, what I was years and years ago. You never forgot that it never does do to excite the anger of a dragon. But you betrayed a dragon who was dying, a dragon who had no power to make you keep your oath.

"And yes, Nimueh! I am here! I have returned! And even if I were blind I should know you by the way you tread, by the way you move, by the way that your scent sends pangs of sickness to my stomach! I would know you if I had not seen you for a thousand years-and now-taste what you made me feel, all those years ago!"

And she blew out over Nimueh, her breath turning to deep green fire as she did so. Nimueh turned and ran for her life. Morgause followed suit.

She did not follow the two very quickly, merely so that she could better see the expressions on their faces. However, a strange sensation began to creep over Ania's body. She could not move...and she fell to the ground, resuming her human form. Nimueh returned to stand over her. Her lips were curled the same way that they had curled so long ago.

"Foolish child," said Nimueh in a malicious voice, "did you think I did not know who you were? Truly? You were but six years old when you fell; and you are about that age now and you learned nothing that could aid you in defeating me."

"Nimueh, you won't be able to hurt her," said Morgause. "First the father, then the daughter."

Nimueh turned and shook her head. "You don't understand, Morgause," she said, and waved her hand once over Ania, who at once became still. At once there was a crack that resounded through the entire kingdom as far as the eye could see.

Then she turned back to Morgause. "It was she, not her father, who held the power of the creator of a blood ward."