Chapter 20 Defense From The Unlikely

• [XENA]
• Lady Mara lifts her chin and launches into her performance. “I went to sleep,” she says, voice trembling with well-practiced fragility. “And I had the most terrifying dream. A dream of you—” she points a shaking finger at me “—attacking me. Scratching at me like a feral thing. And when I woke…”
• She tilts her face to the hall’s light. Nestled among the dark mottled marks, angry red welts streak down her neck—ugly, raw, and unmistakably real.