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      Dishes, candles, and splintered wood struck the distant wall and floor in a din of discordant crashes. Adrian loomed threateningly over his sister, casting ominous shadows over her cream white skin and gown.

      “Do not presume to censure me this time, Aerlyn!” he spat, his eyes like maddened emerald fire and his features mottling and twisting in anger.

      “And if I do not, who will?” She cocked a silver-black brow. “The Ampliphi put me in charge of keeping you under control, Adrian, and I will not fail them. It is one thing that I must allow you to torment the dreams of innocents without rhyme or reason, but it is you who presume too much if you think I will let you take your spoils in manic measure!” She rose up slowly, her personal energy giving him pause as it enveloped his, making him flinch angrily. “You will show me what you have pilfered, my brother. If it is an acceptable bit of fluff, you are certainly welcome to keep it with the rest of your silly baubles. I even encourage it. You know it pleases me to see you take such avid interest in things of beauty. It makes me feel you may yet prove to have a heart in that monstrously black chest of yours.” She paused for a breath. “But there is some beauty to which you know full well you do not have rights!”

      “I have taken nothing not within my rights!” Adrian’s menacing eyes bored down into her stubborn ones. “And you have no rights in judging my collection!”

      Aerlyn sighed softly at her brother’s stubborn nature. She could not, of course, allow him to have his way. The strange energy he had brought to their house did not belong there. She already suspected what the source might be. She was filled with suspicious dread at the idea that her brother might have done the inconceivable.

      That he might have brought an intelligent, living creature there.

      Such folly could mean their very destruction. She could not allow this madness to continue.

      “We shall see about that.”

      She turned, the gossamer train of her dress flaring out behind her as she drifted swiftly from the room.

      “Aerlyn!”

      Adrian was consumed with raging, defiling blackness. It spilled from his heart, feeding the vile, chaotic monster that always dwelled just within reach of him.

      He caught up to his sister in three massive strides and drew back an enormous arm. There was a brief flash of clarity that warned him he was flirting with unknown disaster, but his madness went on unimpeded. Malevolent energy gleamed briefly off the claws growing from his thickened fingertips.

      His eyes glared blackly as they fixed on a target at the back of her vulnerable neck. For that brief, tremulous moment, he could see right through her flesh to the delicate structure of her spine.

      It took but one blow to strike his hatefully beloved sister down.

      Kathryn bolted upright in bed, a terrified scream ripping from her throat. But although she was wide awake now, the terrible nightmare was still with her.

      A vicious dark beast with terrible claws rending my body in two.

      Her throbbing heart ached with its rapid flight within her breast, her neck and back cramped with tortuous pain. A quick hand flew to her throat, her fingers nervously feeling her jugular as if to seek damage.

      The touch made her recall with an almost avid fascination the eerie feeling of cool, deathly fingers fondling her pulse.

      She shuddered and tried to shake the feeling off. It was all just a series of memories from an endlessly twisting nightmare, she told herself. But she had to admit to herself that she had never had such a dream in all her life, and it was hard to fight her feelings of hysteria. “Easy,” she spoke calmingly to herself, “it’s just anxiety from a combination of bad dreams and I’m just wiped out from caring for my family.”

      She slowly focused on her surroundings.

      She realized instantly she was not familiar with the bed she was in. Completely surrounded by the intricate brocade of luxurious bed curtains, she was closed into the confines of the bed. Feeling disoriented and suddenly anxious, she moved her hand to her throat, her fingertips stumbling onto the unfamiliar heaviness she realized was lying against her collarbone. It was cold, metal. She looked down and saw a cascade of thin gold wire weaving around large, breathtaking purple stones that looked like amethysts. The jeweled necklace fell from the base of her neck all the way to the tops of her breasts.

      That was when she realized she was not in familiar clothing either. She had never owned anything as girly as this dress, which left her shoulders and cleavage almost completely exposed. It was made of a fine fabric like silk, soft and clingy. She was beginning to feel a very real sense of fearful unease as she scrambled to her knees and pulled the sheer violet fabric of her skirt up for inspection. She could practically see through the material, making it far more like lingerie than an actual dress, and that understanding sent a feeling of sinking dread into the pit of her stomach. And then there were the stones, the glittering glasslike stones that looked like diamonds that had been dusted abundantly onto the dress.

      They looked so real.

      They couldn’t be real diamonds! She had not thought there could be so many so small and so perfectly identical to one another, not to mention that they should be wasted on a nightgown!

      And whatever was this creation doing on her body?

      Who had dressed her in this gown?

      Where was she?

      She fought back the wave of nauseating fear this question drove into her throat, crawling madly over the bed to the bed curtains. She tore through the brocade, falling clumsily to the floor as she did.

      She struggled to her feet, staggering as a dizzy spell threatened her equilibrium. “Oh no, not this again,” she whispered in dismay as she clung to a curtain to steady herself. She felt strange, as if she were reviving from a drug-induced stupor.

      It was that moment that the full impact of the room struck her crazed senses.

      “Sweet Father save me,” she uttered. Her voice echoed back to her from the cathedral ceilings and the far distant walls. The size of it! She had never seen such an enormous room! She looked around wildly, her eyes burning with the sight of all the things she could not hope to comprehend. It looked like a vast hoard of treasure, as if it had been gathered together by a mighty dragon or was perhaps awaiting Aladdin to come and find it. It was a display of the finest of metals and most precious of stones, all gleaming gaudily at once. There were other things, huge paintings, peculiar tapestries, and amazing sculptures. And almost every single item was on display in some way, be it in a case or a frame, hanging up or in a box or…

      On her neck.

      With desperate, clawing hands, Kathryn grabbed the jeweled necklace and tore it from her neck. She cut herself in the process, but hardly noticed as she cast the cloyingly lovely thing as far from herself as she could manage. There was a bracelet as well, and rings, each of which followed the necklace in their fates.

      What was this place?

      How had she come to be here?

      Her heart was beating so fast with confused terror that her entire chest hurt. Panic washed over her until she could barely breathe. There were hundreds, thousands of things on display. Things whose purpose or name she couldn’t СКАЧАТЬ