"It is done, I suspect."

"Undoubtedly." Wine, darker than blood, caught the flickering light of the old-fashioned fireplace in Alexander Waverly's study, flames reflected as a fluid dance of light as Valentine swirled the aged aromatic liquid in the bowl of his goblet. He smiled. "So like *our* bonding, Alexander."

The Eldest Knight of UNCLE nodded, old and pleasant memories dancing in the back of his mind like the flames that danced on the crackling and spitting logs of the hearth. "True... But the weight of the continuation of the Covenant did not rest on *our* shoulders as it does on *theirs* if we are to believe..." Waverly sighed heavily and set his own crystal chalice down on the mahogany coffee table before him. "Valentine..." The ancient vampire met his bondmate's piercing gaze. "Is it not time that they be told about the unwritten prophecy of the Lilim? 'The First Chosen Son of the Night-'"

"'must destroy the First Chosen Son of the Morning'...for the Mother of Lilim to appear..." It was an old bone of contention between himself and Alexander -how much to tell...when to tell...*if* to tell. Valentine shook his head, his expression grave. "Trust me, Alexander -in *this* as you have in other things. It will *not* happen. We chose your knight and my heir for
each other with too much care."

"Ahh...do you not mean that they chose each other?"

Valentine met his bondmate's eyes again, struggling and then failing to suppress the grin that parted his lips. Only his Alexander could pierce his grimmest moods as easily as he did and make him smile that special smile reserved for him alone. "Had circumstances not demanded that they meet, they would have found each other somehow and I suppose we are both too advanced in years to cast ourselves in the role of Eros." Valentine's expression became wistful. "Still...they have enough of a burden with which to deal, if the battle between Lilim and Kindred comes as we believe it will, without having to fret over a foolish legend. Some things are better hidden and unsaid."

Alexander did not answer and the ancient vampire could read the disagreement in his expression...but he still believed that there *were* things better left unsaid. The experience of millennia had taught him as much. Would it have done any good to have told his clan that the one mate that he had actually wed, had indeed been a snow daemon? What good would have been served
for his beloved Illya to now be told that the tales he had been told of his parents were untrue -that the sweet memories of a white-haired mother were but the visitations of a spirit come to comfort her grandchild?

Of the children that his beloved wife had given him, there had been one son. Instead of accepting a mate of his father's suggesting, his headstrong boy had chosen a mate from a nomadic clan of the hills. *Her.* Yes, he remembered
*her*...the way she had entranced his son, how her uncultured manner and wild ways had eventually charmed even he...and her chestnut brown hair -somehow, he remembered that most of all. She had given his son a male heir -Illya...and then she-had-murdered- *his* son, escaping in the night with their infant child.

It had taken a hunting cadre of the best of the Kindred to track her down, to find where she had hidden herself and the infant Illya...but they had found only the child, not she...*She* had saved herself by leaving the child behind. He, guided by the loving spirit of his wife, had chosen to raise the child of his son as his own...all the while with a lie on his lips to hide the truth from both clan and heir...

...a truth he had learned too late to save his own child.

Illya's birth mother was a Lilim.

"It is done. The Mother's instruction has allowed me to create for you a small path of ingress to the Knights of UNCLE's keep...to the very place of their Joining."

"But *she* will be there, brother -the daemon spirit that destroyed the changeling entity that you last sent!"

"Is this doubt I hear?" The being known as the Great One raised a flared eyebrow, studying the only creature in all of creation that would *dare* challenge him thus. "Is *that* why you continually remind my minions of their duty, my sister?" He drew ice-cold fingers through long, rippling tresses of chestnut brown. "Do you not trust your brother with your child?"

"I trust your minions to be fools and half-wits, my brother." Angry eyes flared fiery red. "They *hear* their orders, but they *see* my son's Kindred heritage and ignore the obvious -that Lilim blood also flows through his veins. The blood of the First Ones like us!" There was a muttered curse. I had to endure the passionless touch of a child of the Kindred to be able to
bear a child. I will not lose him to the fools you culled from the likes of THRUSH!"

"My dear sister...my sweet, sweet, Serena, your child will be yours again. You, yourself, will bring him to us...and we will drain him...and his hunger will grow so great that he will no longer be able to rest  until he has tasted human blood."

"That of the Knight?"

"Yes..."

"And he will drain him to death?"

"Yes..."

"And he will eschew his weak Kindred blood and be Lilim as are we?"

"For *all* time, dear sister -and the Covenant will be broken."

"And our Mother will be free at last."

"Yes."