There was a sharp tap on the door.
"Come!" I ordered quickly. The door opened and Liane, followed by Hendricks, hurried into the room.
"That will do," I nodded to the guard who had accompanied them. "You may go."
"You wonder why we're here, I suppose?" demanded Liane. "I'll tell you, quickly, for every instant is precious."
This was a very different Liane. She was no longer clad in diaphanous black; she was wearing a tunic similar to the one she had worn on board the Ertak, save that this one was torn and soiled. Her lips, as she talked, twitched with an insane anger; her amazing eyes were like those of a cornered beast of the wilderness.
"My council of wise old men turned against me when I told them my plans to marry the man of my choice. They said he was an outsider, an enemy, a foreigner. They would have none of him. They demanded that I give him to the Flame, and marry one of my own kind. They had not, of course, understood what I had said to you there in the great chapel of the Flame.
"I defied them. We escaped through a passage which is not known to any save myself, and the existence of which my father taught me years ago. We are here, but they will guess where we have gone. My old men are exciting my people against me—and for that shall all, down to the last one, know the embrace of the Flame!" She gritted her teeth on the words, her nostrils distended with rage.
"I—I am safe. I can command them; I can make them know my power, and I shall. The Flame will have much to feed upon in the days which are to come, I promise you. But my beloved would not be safe; at this moment I cannot protect him. So I have brought him back. I—I know he ... but I will not be weak. I am Liane!"
She faced Hendricks, who had stood there like a graven image, watching her. Her arms went about his neck; her lips sought his.