Stark fought and fought, but there was nothing he could do, and as Darkness pulled her from him, he saw Neferet, the puppet master commanding the black, sticky strings. She stood just out of his sword reach and laughed as she tightened the threads around Zoey until his love, his queen, was strangled, killed, and then absorbed by her enemy.

In the dream Stark stood there, sobbing and lost without his Zoey. In his mind he heard a voice strong and clear: This will happen unless Zoey Redbird publicly breaks from Neferet. She must stand up to the Tsi Sgili and stop these pretenses of a truce between them.

Stark, still shocked and broken from the dream loss of his queen, only heard the words and not the voice. He didn't think of where the message came from-only the warning itself.

He took a deep breath and woke with Zoey safe, warm, and willing in his arms, and she smiled up at him saying, "Hey, you're awake and the sun hasn't set yet." A terrible, portentous chil shivered through his body. It had been more than a dream-he knew it. Which meant the warning was more than just words-it was prophecy. Stark filled his arms with Zoey, pressing her hard against his body.

"Tell me you're okay. Tell me you feel fine."

"I will if you stop smothering me," she choked out.

He loosened his grip with one of his arms, with the other he ran up and down her back as he looked over her shoulder, being sure there were no tendrils there-no sticky memories from his dream.

"Stark, hey stop." She grabbed his hand and stared into his eyes. "What the heck is wrong?"

"Massively bad dream. Like of apocalyptic proportions. And then I woke up and you were saying the exact same words you said to me in the dream right before Darkness got you."

"First, eew, Darkness getting me is disgusting. How'd it happen?"

"You don't want to know," he said.

"Yes, I most certainly do. It could be a prophetic dream, and if it is I need to know what to avoid."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too. Actually, I was trying not to think that, but you're right." He leaned back and ran his hand through his hair, trying to shake off sleep and foreboding. "It might be prophetic and you could need to know; Darkness got you like Shelob got Frodo, only worse," he said.

Stark watched Zoey's face drain of color. "As a girl who is deathly afraid of spiders, I don't know how that dream could be much worse."

"Make the spider Neferet and its web Darkness."

"Okay, well, you're right. That is worse." She gave him what he knew was a brave smile. "But you saved me, right?" He didn't say anything. He couldn't.

"hello, big strong Guardian! You. Saved. Me. Right?"

"No," he admitted. "I tried, but the Darkness Neferet controlled was too much for me."

"Well, hell," Zoey said. "I hate when that happens." Then she shook her head and added firmly, "Hey, it didn't really happen. For now at least it's just a dream."

"Too damn many things that seem like they could only happen in dreams have turned out to be real," he said grimly. "And there was something else. Someone was telling me that what I dreamed would really happen unless you start standing up to Neferet." Zoey frowned. "Hey, I do stand up to Neferet! All the darn time. And what do you mean 'someone' was telling you that? Was it Nyx? Did the Goddess speak to you?"

Stark thought back, trying to recall the dream voice, but even though the horror of it was fresh, the specifics were already fading back into his subconscious. "I can't really remember, but I don't think it was Nyx's voice, or at least not a voice of hers I recognized."

"I think you'd know for sure if it'd been the Goddess. Plus, like I said, I do stand up to Neferet, so I don't know what your dream voice was talking about."

"Actually, right now you are kinda in a truce with her," Stark said slowly.

"I supposed that depends on your definition of truce. If it means I-can't-kick-Neferet-out-of-the-House-of-Night-'cause-the-High-Council-forgave-her, then yeah, we're in a truce."

"Hey." He touched her cheek. "I didn't mean to piss you off. That dream scared me, that's all." She snuggled into his arms and he felt the tension in her body begin to relax. "You didn't really piss me off. You just surprised me. I mean, I thought you and I were on the same page about Neferet."

"We are." He held her tight. "We know Neferet's evil and crazy, and we know all of us on Nyx's side have to watch out for what-thehell-ever she's gonna do next."