UNLIKE the first time, there was no confusion or lingering sense of displacement when she woke up. Mikki knew exactly where she was. She opened her eyes to the perky light of full morning shining in a golden wave through the wall of windows. Someone had drawn back the curtains, and she could see that the table she'd eaten dinner at the night before had been reset for breakfast.
Had he directed that breakfast be prepared for her? Was he out there again, watching? Mikki's stomach gave a sickening lurch as she wondered what it would be like to see him in the full light of day. Last night he had belonged to the darkness, like the boogey monster or a nightmare creature. Or . . . her imagination murmured . . . a forbidden lover.
"Get a grip on yourself." Mikki sat up, shaking her head as if the physical movement would clear the ridiculous thoughts from it, and she was struck again by the beauty of the room that was now hers. Pushing the Guardian from her mind, she intended to leap out of bed and glide gracefully to her balcony, as should any woman lucky enough to live in a room this incredible, but the leap turned into a stagger, and the glide became a stiff limp accompanied by a groan when she made her body straighten fully.
Oh baby, she was sore! She hobbled to the door. When the handmaidens had first met her, they had seemed to think she was unusually old for an Empousa. Maybe that was because it took a damn teenager to withstand the hidden torture of casting a circle and dancing around with a gaggle of women. Who knew? Even her hair hurt. She sniffed at herself. And she needed a bath. A long, hot one.
She opened the door and was met by a cool, rose-scented breeze. It pulled her attention from the waiting breakfast, her sore muscles and the mysterious Guardian, and drew her across the wide balcony so she could look out over the vast gardens.
Mikki was awestruck.
The land that stretched before her was filled with bed after bed of roses. They blazed clouds of color in the green sky of their branches. White marble paths circled labyrinthine around the beds, connecting them to trees and shrubs and an occasional water feature. She could see the creamy marble of the domed roof of Hecate's Temple and the dancing reflection of the sun off the great central fountain that stood near it.
It was so beautiful that it weakened the disbelief and cynicism she had learned from a very young age to carry as her shield. She could be happy here . . . she could belong.
"It is your charge, Empousa."
This morning Hecate's presence did not startle her. The goddess materializing beside her felt comforting - a reinforcement of the miracle that lay before her.
"This is where I belong," Mikki said without looking away from the gardens.
"Yes, it is your destiny." The goddess sounded pleased by her acknowledgment.
Mikki turned to face Hecate and flushed with surprise. Last night the goddess had appeared an indeterminate age, anywhere from thirty-something to fiftysomething. This morning Hecate wore the same night-colored robes and star-studded headdress. The gigantic dogs lounged by her feet, as they had the night before. But the goddess had shed decades. She had the fresh face and tight figure of a teenager. Her smooth cheeks were kissed with a blush of youthful peach.
Hecate frowned and raised gracefully arched brows. "You do not recognize your goddess, Empousa?"
Mikki swallowed hard. She might look like a teenager, but Hecate had certainly not lost any of her powerful aura.
"It's not that I don't recognize you; it's just that you're so young!"
"Of my triple forms I simply chose the Maiden today. But do not be fooled by the facade of youth. You should already know that the exterior of a woman does not define her interior."
"It may not define her, but it certainly affects her. I'm old enough to know that," Mikki said automatically. Then, appalled at the brusque tone she had inadvertently used, she added, "I didn't mean any disrespect."
Intelligent gray eyes looked unnaturally mature and out of place in the goddess's smooth young face. "I rarely find it disrespectful when an Empousa speaks honestly to me, Mikado. And you are correct. Too often our exterior is what we are judged by, especially in your old world, one that has largely forgotten the lessons of the goddesses." Hecate shrugged her smooth shoulders. "Even in my realm where a woman's appearance should not be the basis on which she is judged, my daughters too often forget the lessons of the three-faced goddess." Hecate's wise gray eyes sparkled. "For instance, some would say that an Empousa of your advanced years is too old to assume the role of my High Priestess. They would not say it in my presence, but they would say it. And how would you answer their impertinence, Mikado?"
Mikki ignored the stiffness in her back and her sore muscles and met the goddess's steady gaze. "I'd say that I may be older, but that also means I've lived through more experiences, so I suggest they watch their silly young selves. Age and treachery usually triumph over youth and exuberance."
Hecate laughed, and as she did so, her appearance shifted so she was, once again, the beautiful, middle-age woman Mikki had met the night before. "I will tell you a secret, my Empousa. Of the three, this is the form I prefer. Youth is often overrated."
"Especially by the young," Mikki agreed.
The two smiled at one another, and for a moment, they were not goddess and mortal. They were just two women in perfect agreement.
After a short, compatible silence, the goddess said, "I imagine this" - she gestured with one hand to take in the gardens and the palace - "all seems quite unusual to you."
Encouraged by the goddess's approachability, Mikki smiled crookedly. "It is strange and unusual, as well as more than a little overwhelming, but I do feel drawn to everything here." She hurried on, not wanting Hecate to know included in that "everything" was her cloven-hoofed late-night visitor. "When I cast the circle and performed the initiation ritual I felt more beautiful and powerful and right than I've ever felt in my life."
Hecate nodded. "The Empousa blood runs thick in your veins, Mikado. You could not have felt true belonging in the mundane world. Part of you longed to take your proper place in my realm. I suspect even your mother and her mothers before her knew the unease of not quite fitting in."
Mikki thought about her mother, remembering how she had always seemed to prefer to be alone - or to spend time working in her garden with her roses - than to socialize. How she hadn't ever seemed to miss her father's presence and when Mikki asked about him she only said that he had been an indulgence of her youth, but that she would always be grateful to him for giving her the most important gift in her life - her daughter.
Her grandmother, too, had not been a woman who had many friends outside her daughter and her granddaughter. She rarely spoke of the man who was her grandfather, except to smile surreptitiously and say that they had had two different viewpoints on marriage - he had enjoyed it; she hadn't. Men had not been important in either her mother's or her grandmother's life. Not that either of them hadn't been wonderful, loving women. They had been, and Mikki missed them both desperately. Her grandmother had died of an unexpected heart attack five years ago, and breast cancer had stolen her mother four years after that. Mikki thought of both women as beautiful and ageless, like they'd stepped out of one of the fairy tales her mother used to read to Mikki when she was a young girl. They had been otherworldly . . .
"They are at peace now, Mikado. Even from the mundane world across the far edges of my crossroads, their souls were able to find the paradise of the Elysian Fields, and, finally, true belonging. You need not weep for them."
Mikki reached up, surprised to feel the tears wetting her cheeks. She looked at Hecate. "They belong here, too. That's why they didn't really fit in back there."
"Part of them belonged here, but the magick in their blood was not as strong as the magick within you. If it had been, they would have awakened the Guardian and returned."
Mikki wiped her cheeks dry. "The Guardian . . . I met him last night."
The goddess cocked her head, studying her priestess. "And what was your reaction to him?"
"He scared me," she said quickly. And then more slowly she added, "And he made me sad."
"Sad?" Hecate's brows lifted into her dark hair.
Mikki moved her shoulders restlessly. "I don't know . . . there's something about him that feels so alone."
"There is no other creature like him in existence, so by his very nature he is alone. Ages ago, when I took dominion over this realm, I knew I needed a guardian to stand watch over it. This is the realm from whence all the dreams and magick originate; it must be protected. So I called upon the great beasts of olde - the immortal offspring of the Titans. Though I am Goddess of the Beasts, I do not hold dominion over them. Even I could not force one of their kind into my service. The creature you met last night bound himself willingly to me. He took up this eternal burden when it was not his own. I have gifted him with some powers that are unique to this realm, but the Guardian has an ancient magick of his own - he ties the threads of reality to that of this realm."
"Has he always been as he is now?"
Hecate's sharp gaze seemed to look within her. "The Guardian has never been a man, nor will he ever be. Do not ever make the mistake of believing otherwise."
With effort, Mikki didn't flinch at the goddess's anger, but she quickly changed the direction of her questioning.
"He's called the Guardian, and you said he is needed to protect the realm. From what does it need protection?"
"Dream Stealers and those who desire to possess the fashioning of magick for themselves. Dreams and magick belong to all of mankind, even those who live in the mundane world. No one has the right to steal such things for himself."
Mikki didn't really understand what the goddess was talking about, but she was damn tired of sounding like a blundering idiot. As she had implied to Hecate, she was old enough to figure things out for herself. So she'd keep her eyes open and learn. And she wouldn't ask too many personal questions about the Guardian - clearly that made the goddess angry, and a pissed-off goddess couldn't possibly be a good thing.
But there was one question she needed to ask, whether it made her look moronic or not.
"Where do the roses fit in to all this?"
Hecate smiled as she gazed out at the expanse of dream-colored flowers.
"Roses are beauty, and beauty is at the heart of all dreams and magick; it is its foundation, its support. Without beauty, the mind cannot reach beyond the corporeal to grasp the ethereal."
Mikki's brow furrowed as she frowned. But hadn't the goddess just talked about the exterior not defining the interior? Now she was saying that beauty was everything.
Hecate laughed softly. "There is more than one kind of beauty, Empousa."
Mikki said the first thing that came into her mind. "Well, you wouldn't know it by the tastes of the majority of the men in my old world."
"Why should you sound so cynical? Your form and face are pleasing, Mikado."
"That's just it. I'm pretty. I have good hair, nice boobs, and decent legs. And that's all men see. They don't bother to look deeper." Her conscience reminded her that she hadn't often given any man the opportunity to look deeper . . . to discover her secrets . . . the truth of which only made her scowl harder.
"I think there is much you can teach this realm, Mikado. And it has much it can teach you in return. It will be an adventure for you, as well as your destiny."
Mikki sighed softly. She'd only been here for a day, and already she was sick of mysteries.
"I'm here for the roses," she said, unconsciously mimicking the Guardian's words.
"You are. They are the foundation on which dreams and magick are built, as well as the boundary between worlds."
"The boundary between worlds? Do you mean that literally?"
"I do, Empousa. Roses fill this realm, and the strength of their beauty gives life to dreams and magick. Their strength also forms the border of my realm." Hecate pointed out across the gardens and made a sweeping motion that encircled them. "The edges of the gardens are bound by a great wall of roses. Past that wall is a vast forest, a kind of netherworld, which is the crossroads between reality and magick. On one side of the forest rests the ancient world where gods and goddesses are still honored; on the other your old world can be found, that of the mundane. The rose wall is what defines the boundaries between those worlds and ours. See to the health of the roses, and, in turn, all else in my realm will prosper. If the roses sicken, so, too, will this realm. You should know that this realm has long been without its Empousa. The roses need your care, and you do have other duties, too. You are High Priestess of Magick, and as such the people of this realm will come to you for advice, spells, and rituals. Be wise, Mikado, for you stand as my Incarnation. When you speak, it is my power that answers."
Mikki felt the blood drain from her face. "Hecate, I don't know anything about spells and magick and rituals!"
The goddess's serene expression remained unchanged. "Your mind doesn't know, but your spirit does. Look within, as you did last night, and you will find what you seek. No matter how things appear on the surface, follow your instincts. They will not fail you. And use your experience, Mikado. I believe I will enjoy having an aged Empousa."
"So just trust my gut?"
"Crude, but correct," Hecate said. "Your handmaidens are here to aid you, but remember - you alone are my High Priestess. They personify the Elements over which I lend you dominion. Befriend them if you will; use their powers as you need them. Just as the handmaidens are at your disposal, so, too, is the Guardian. He is a magickal creature whose powers have been pledged to protect the Realm of the Rose. If there is a problem in the realm, do not hesitate to call upon him."
Mikki felt a little jolt of excitement at the mention of the Guardian. Guiltily, she said, "But if I think the realm is in danger, shouldn't I just call you?"
"My duties are vast! I do not have time to answer your summons as if I were a mere handmaid!"
Mikki took an involuntary step back, surprised by Hecate's sudden burst of anger. "That's not what I mean. I - "
Hecate cut her off with a brisk wave of her hand. "I forget that you are inexperienced in the ways of an Empousa. I do reign as supreme goddess over the Realm of the Rose, but you and the Guardian have been given the task of caring for and protecting it. I would like to spend much of my time here, but my duties do not allow me that luxury." Hecate studied Mikki carefully. "You must not fear the Guardian. I have told you that he will not harm you."
"I know." Mikki bit her lip. Avoiding Hecate's eyes, she stared out at the gardens. "It's just that he's like nothing I've ever imagined before."
"Is he?" Hecate's voice was soft. "Didn't you tell me that you spent much of your time tending the roses in the gardens in which he slept, frozen in the form of a statue?"
Mikki nodded her head. "Yes."
"Well then, how could he be like nothing you've ever before imagined?" Hecate said matter-of-factly.
"I suppose when you put it like that . . ." Mikki's words trailed off doubtfully as she turned back to the goddess.
"There is no other way to put it," she said briskly. "He stood silent watch over your roses then. He does the same now, only not so silently. If it is easier for you, simply forget that he is a beast - think of him only as a Guardian." Not giving Mikki time to answer, Hecate continued, "Excellent. I must leave you now. Break your fast and then call the handmaidens to you so you can be dressed and begin the day's duties. The roses have gone too long without the touch of an Empousa. They are in need of your care. Remember, follow your instincts, Mikado. Allow your spirit and the knowledge held in your blood to guide you, and you will do well . . ."
The goddess raised one elegant hand, and she and the dogs disappeared in a shower of star-colored sparks.
Shaking her head, Mikki walked to the table that was laden with fruit and bread and cheese. "It might be easier if I really was kooky," she muttered. Pouring herself fragrant, rose-spiced tea from a steeping pot, she wished desperately for a couple aspirins and some BenGay.
