She was frail, that was the only word I could fathom for her. Thin, reed-like, white hair that was wild as if windswept. Her eyes landed on me, and I immediately cringed, my hair standing up all over my body.
“Who are you?” She pointed a finger at me, and I cringed further, trying to play up like I really was just a cat. Above my head, crawling across the ceiling above her Fen moved silently. He lifted his eyebrows, and I shook my head. I didn’t know this woman. She might be a maid. Hell, for all I knew she was the Storm Queen.
That thought took hold and I let out a long low hiss. No wonder she was having difficulty getting pregnant. Her eggs should have been all dried up by her age.
Her frown slowly turned into a smile. “Ah, you must be his mate? He is in there. Dive into the water if you wish to find him.”
And then she turned and opened the door, waving for me to go in. A trick? Maybe, but I could feel Maks on the other side of the door and she didn’t know that. I scuttled through and Fen followed, staying just out of sight of the woman. She shut the door behind me.
“Forgive me.”
Fuck, was that for me? She’d whispered the two words. I stepped through the doorway in my mind, shifting back to two legs. The space was circular, with a pool of water in front of me. Little lights flickered in the water, and I stared into it. I could swim, but let’s be honest, I was a desert girl through and through. The idea of diving into a tunnel of water with no way to know how deep it was, or if there was a place to come out . . . it gave me more than a little pause.
Cold, clammy sweat broke out across my body. “Fen, what do you think?”
I could feel Maks there, below me still. Somewhere in the water. He wasn’t dead. And he wasn’t scared. How long had he been there?
“You’re sure he’s . . . in there?” Fen dropped to my shoulder. “If you’re sure, then you dive in.”
He was right about that. “You coming with me?”
“Yes, I think that’s best.” His tightened his hold around my neck, just to the point of being uncomfortable. “I feel a pull to this place too.”
I stripped out of my clothes, down to my bare skin, and then I hesitated as I laid Lilith on the floor.
Bad idea.
“So many of them are,” I muttered. The thing was I needed to be able to swim, and packing clothes and weapons was not going to help me.
I stood at the edge of the pool. The water lapped up over my toes, just warm enough to make it feel as though I would be stepping into air and not water.
Lifting a foot, I stepped out over the pool and let my body sink down, taking a deep breath as I went.
The water closed over my head without so much as a single wave. Spinning, I turned and began to swim down, toward the pull that was Maks. That was my only option now. Swim hard and pray to whatever gods would listen that I would make it.
Fear—at turns hot and cold—drove me and I could feel the air running out in my lungs. Crap, where was Maks?
As my legs and arms began to burn in earnest, as I began to think I needed to turn around, there was a glimmer of something ahead of me. Something impossible.
A beach?
I didn’t question what I was seeing, I didn’t have enough oxygen to dilly-dally. I swam with all I had, Fen using his tail as a propellor helping us along. My fingers reached for the sand as I drew close and the world turned upside down, and I was spat out onto a sandy beach. Coughing, I spat out a mouthful of water and then drew in a deep breath.
“Okay, this is weird,” Fen whispered. “How are we . . . not in water anymore?”
“Yeah, I don’t know.” I pushed to my feet and looked at the sand around us. There was a set of footprints leading up the beach, away from the water and into the trees surrounding the edge. I looked over my shoulder at the dark water that waited out there.
Shivering, I took off after the footsteps.
“You sure you should run? Your bits are bouncing,” Fen said.
“Really?” I muttered. “They aren’t even that big.”
“Just thinking it looks painful,” he grumbled and then leapt off my shoulder to fly ahead of me.
I kept on jogging. I wasn’t quite ready to call for Maks, just in case, well, in case he didn’t answer. I’d learned that sometimes the bonds between me and my family could be strange.
The land angled upward, and I reached the top in a matter of seconds only to find myself staring down at Maks crouched over something.
“Maks!”
He didn’t turn around. Not once.
Fen flew around his head. “Is this him? His face is stuck in something!”
Stuck in something? Well, at least it wasn’t someone else’s lady parts.
I reached Maks and put a hand to his back as I stepped around to face him. His head was bowed over what I first thought was a bowl, and then realized was a crystalline diamond. No, not a diamond.
“This is it, the source of all magic.”
I pulled Maks back and he came away from the diamond, gasping as if coming up for air.
“It’s what?” Fen barked. “What did you say?”
I knelt next to Maks, turning his face to me. “Maks, are you okay?”
He blinked, blue eyes uncertain for a moment, and then he scrambled away from me. “Fuck off, Dani.”
My hands were empty and my eyebrows were high. “Who the fuck is Dani?”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and though he seemed calm I could see the distinct rapid beat of his heart in his throat. “Zam?”
What had happened? He thought I was someone else? “Who is Dani?”
“She is the Storm Queen.” He stared hard at me. “You aren’t her?”
“What happened?”
He all but crawled toward me, scooping me into his arms, burying his face in the crook of my neck. “Zam, Zam, Zam.” Just my name, over and over as he clung to me. I held him tight, not really sure what else to do. But we were together and that meant we could do this. Hope is a funny thing, you know; sometimes it shows up when you don’t even know you needed it.
“I’m here now.”
His hands traced my back, and then I realized he was tracing my scars. “This is how I knew it wasn’t you. She made herself look like you, but there were no scars.” He kissed one that lay across my shoulder. “Your scars are what saved me.”
I leaned back. “No matter what happened, you survived. That’s what’s important, Maks. I don’t care what happened.”
He cupped my face. “But I do. And nothing happened. It . . . came close. She made herself look like you and gave me something . . . it was not good. But I touched a scar, and it wasn’t there. There were no scars.”
Drawing my face close, he kissed me gently. His emotions came through the kiss loud and clear, and I returned them, knowing we didn’t have time but wanting to take the moment. Letting myself breathe him in while we had a chance. Time was ticking, I could feel it in the pressure of the stinger against my neck.
I forced myself to pull back. “Maks, we have to go.” I scooped up the diamond, the source of all magic. It was big, far too big to be packing around. “And we have to take this.”
Fen dropped from the sky. “How are you going to do that?”
“Lila?” Maks stared at the very obviously not Lila dragon. “Who are you?”
“This is Fen, Lila loves him, so be nice.”
Fen shot a look at me. “Are you . . . you think she does?”
“Pretty sure.” I didn’t look at him as I rolled the source of all magic in my hands. I mean, for being that, it didn’t give off even a vibe of power. “Did you break it?”
“I did not break it,” Maks said. “You have to stick your face into the water in the chalice and then it shows you what I think is a potential future. I think. For all I know it could be total and complete lies.” He frowned as if . . .
“What did you see?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t even want to say it out loud. The things I saw, if they a
re true . . . or they might come to pass, I don’t want—” He rubbed his hand over his face.
“So it gave you a clue to the future?”
“Possible future, though I don’t think that’s actually what it’s for. I mean, if it’s the source of all magic, I guess it can do whatever it wants.” He spoke as if it was alive. Like the source of all magic was a living, breathing creature.
And that felt . . . right.
I ran my hands over it, feeling the edges. “No, I don’t think this is it. Shouldn’t that feel like something important? Powerful? But maybe this,” I rolled the diamond thing over in my hands, the sparkling water sloshing, “is a distraction?”
Fen dropped not to my shoulder, but to Maks’s. “Like a false lead?”
I nodded. “Anyone coming here would look at this and think it’s the source of magic. Or at the very least something worth taking.”
Before I could change my mind, I plunged my face into the water of the chalice, a question on my lips. Where was the source of magic?
Like dreaming, I stared at the bottom of the chalice, eyes wide open as the water swirled.
Alive. Living.
Breathe the magic in, someone whispered. Take it into you.
I didn’t hesitate but sucked in a lungful of the water. It didn’t burn, it didn’t feel like I was drowning.
No, I was being filled up, more alive than I’d ever been. Colors danced and sparkled across my vision, and I saw what I had to do in those moments. How to make things right.
I slowly lifted my head and I knew that Maks had been onto it. Lilith had helped me put it in play.
“What is life in the desert?” I asked.
“Water,” Fen and Maks answered together.
Maks stared at me. “It’s in you. You drank it in?” Not a question, a statement.
“Breathed. Now let’s go.” I clutched at the chalice, dragging it with me.
“Leave it.” Maks tried to take it from me, and I shook my head.
“It’ll make a great distraction. Anyone who has seen it thinks the chalice is the key, not the liquid.”
He took my other hand, and we ran up the slope, through the oasis and down the sandy beach to the strange ocean. We dove in side by side, and the world flipped upside down. Together we swam for the surface, Maks just ahead of me.
But against my chest, the scorpion sting shifted, scratching at me. Shit.
We were almost out of time.
28
I yanked my clothes back on—not an easy feat over a damp body—and quickly strapped Lilith to my back.
What is this? Something has possessed you!
“Not exactly.” I wasn’t going to try and explain to her that the source of magic needed a vessel. Already I could feel the drain on my reserves. I had to get out of here and to Pazuzu as fast as I could. I needed it out of me.
“We get Lila, Reyhan, and we go,” Maks said. “We aren’t strong enough to face the Storm Queen.”
For once I didn’t argue. I just nodded. “Agreed. Fen, can you find Reyhan? Bring her to the top tower, we’ll leave from there.” Inside my head I found the thread that was little Reyhan—still sleeping—and tied them to the threads that were Fen. “Okay?”
He shook his head, white mane flipping around. “Yeah, I got her. Go.”
Maks put a hand under my elbow. “Zam, are you okay?”
I gave him a quick nod. “I am. We just have to go. We have until sunset and that is not far off.”
Lilith was muttering in a continuous stream under her breath, but I ignored her. I shouldn’t have, but I did.
There was no way I was about to tell him that I could feel the magic eating away at me. This was why it was in a diamond chalice—something strong enough to hold all that power. I tightened my grip on said chalice. This was my hail Mary, as my dad had been fond of saying. What a woman named Mary had to do with a last chance was beyond me, but he said it and I believed him.
“The top tower is above Dani’s bedroom,” Maks said.
I fought the spurt of jealousy, knowing that he’d fended her off still had me wanting to kick her in the lady parts. Because I was certainly no lady, I said fuck, and had no problem going to war for my mate.
“Stop growling, Zam,” Maks said softly; “guards up ahead.”
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood to still the sounds rippling out of my mouth. I couldn’t help it. Maks was mine, and I’d worked too damn hard to get him to lose him to some hussy with more magic than me.
Up and up, we went, using the various staircases, always following the pull toward Lila. Where was she? Hiding in a crevice somewhere, most likely. Or snooping to find some new brand of liquor she could thieve.
“No guards,” I pointed out as we climbed the fourth set of stairs. “No people at all.”
Maks slowed. “Did anyone see you and Fen when you slipped in?”
“An old woman.”
He groaned. “White crazy hair?”
That he knew exactly who I was talking about did not bode well. “Why?”
“That’s Dani’s grandmother. If she knew you were here . . .”
A shuffle in the hall to our left turned us both. There she was, the old lady in question. “Then I might tell my granddaughter that you are here for your mate? Perhaps. Perhaps. Or maybe I know that the best way to deal with Asag is not through the death of my last family member. Perhaps I wish it to be someone else, and I would do all I can to make sure that she,” the old woman pointed a bent stick at me, “is the one to take my Dani’s place.”
“You’ll help us escape?” Maks said. “For real this time, Arin?”
“I needed your mate to come for you,” the old woman—Arin, apparently—said. “I needed her to take the chalice and complete the next step. My Dani is not the one for Asag. She never understood . . . well, anything. I am here on her sufferance if you have not noticed. She’d kill me if I got in her way too, Jinn.”
I wasn’t about to tell her that was exactly what I was going to do—give little Dani a piece of her own medicine. But maybe Arin wouldn’t care.
Arin made a shooing motion. “I have made sure that the guards are in the mess hall. Dani sleeps. Go.”
We turned and ran. This was our chance. Near the top of the castle, Fen caught up to us, Reyhan in his talons. She let out a big yawn and reached for me with her paws. Maks scooped her into his arms, and we kept on moving. The upside of all this? Lila was close, I could feel her.
“We get Lila and we go,” I said quietly, then motioned to Fen with one hand. “Can you carry all of us?”
“Not for a long distance, but to the shore I can do it. What about the rhuk?”
“We’ll go fast and hard; stay closer to the water and hope that they take their time,” Fen said. “It’s all we can do.”
Not much of a plan, but like Fen said, there wasn’t much else we could do.
At the top of the last stairs was a single door and Maks slowed, his mouth moving but the words barely above a whisper. “Storm Queen.”
And Lila was in there. Of all the places for her to hide, why did it have to be in there?
I took a shaky breath and put a hand on the door, pushing it open, praying there were no creaking hinges.
Maks touched my arm, stepped around me and took the lead, holding Reyhan under one arm. I followed him through. Fen stayed up on the ceiling, just watching.
The room was dark and smelled like a heavy cloying perfume despite the breeze blowing in off the rooftop, through the far open door.
I moved to the left, feeling Lila there.
But someone stepped out in front of us, blocking our path.
The Storm Queen strode out of the shadows, barely dressed. Her outfit was transparent, and where it wasn’t transparent, it just wasn’t even there. “So, lover, you decided to bring your pet to me? Lovely, I knew I could count on you.”
I didn’t know who she was referring to, me or Reyhan.
No, she wasn’t looking
at me, but at the cub.
Maybe thinking she was . . . a small black house cat.
Her hand lifted, electricity dancing around her fingers. Nope, that couldn’t happen.
“Over here, you bawling, blasphemous incharitable bitch!” I held up the chalice. “You want it?”
She turned to me, eyes widening and then snapping into a laser beam focus. “That is mine.”
“Is it?” I turned it over in my hands, shrugged and threw it to her.
She screeched and dove for it as I dove for her. What I didn’t expect was the claws on the back of my head, yanking my hair and pulling me off course.
I spun, saw Lila’s scales and understood immediately. She’d been taken like the rhuk were taken.
“Stealing my friends?” I snarled. “Fen, take Lila out, and watch her mouth.”
“On it!”
I rolled to my hands and knees, eye to eye with the Storm Queen. “You and I need to have a chat.”
29
Maks
That was not what he’d have thought Zam would say to Dani. A chat? Then again, Zam had a funny way of putting things. Yeah, a chat was not what his mate meant at all. She launched herself at the Storm Queen and they rolled across the floor. Dani let out a screech and a bolt of electricity ripped out of her, just missing Zam.
Outside the sun was dipping low.
What had Zam said? Sunset was key. He dropped Reyhan. “Stay out of the way, kid.”
She let out a startled yowl but hit the ground on all fours. Maks leapt into the fray as Zam knelt over Dani and was delivering blow after blow to the Storm Queen’s face. Dani’s magic flowed around them, but didn’t seem to be hitting Zam. He didn’t know why and didn’t care. He just knew that at least for now they had the upper hand.
Dani was howling, Zam was letting off a streaming flow of curses, Fen yelped and fell to the ground, then Lila was there, clawing at Zam again.
Kingdom of Storms (The Desert Cursed Series Book 8) Page 17
