CHAPTER 46 

Aria gasped. The water didn't tremble when the man in armor stepped into it. He and the rectangular shimmer—reflection, she would have said, but there was nothing to be reflected—disappeared as suddenly as if they'd never existed. 

But Rakastava's head, larger than that of a horse, lay at her feet. The neck-stump was still oozing blood. 

She bent to touch the head. The scales were hard and as slick as the armor of the hero who'd left the grisly trophy behind when he vanished. 

Gannon's step was so soft that his hand was on her arm before Aria heard him. She leaped upright. She was too shocked to scream. 

Gannon smiled at her, his face unreadable in the dim light. "A pretty thing, isn't it?" he said, lifting the head by the mane. "A pretty thing to show the folk who didn't think Rakastava could be defeated, even by me." 

"It wasn't you who fought..." Aria whispered. Even she couldn't be certain whether she was denying his statement or begging him to confirm it. It had been dark... 

Gannon still held her arm. His grip tightened. "Not me, Aria? Not me? Princess, I fought a monster that no one else could face, much less defeat. It was a terrible fight, though I won it, and—were anyone to deny me my honor, Princess, I can't answer for what I might do to them in a fit of righteous indignation. To anyone, Princess." 

Gannon's fingers continued to squeeze, harder and harder as he spoke. Aria's face worked in pain, expecting the big man's thumb and fingers to meet through the flesh of her arm. 

He released her suddenly. "We wouldn't want that, would we, Aria?" he said as softly as a cat purring. He lifted Rakastava's head, staring at it instead of at the princess. "That wouldn't be a good thing at all." 

Aria wasn't sure whether or not Gannon was the hero who had saved her. 

But she was quite sure that he meant his velvet threat to murder her if she spoke her doubts to anyone else. 

"No," she said in a calm voice, massaging her smarting arm with her other hand. "That won't happen, Champion Gannon." 

Gannon's teeth were a gleam in the pale lighting. "Not so formal, my dearest," he said. "Now, let's go and display my triumph to the others.