"Then I am obligated to her. So she may keep her honor. So I may make amends and restore her. So be it."
Perhaps I imagined the twinge of pain in my chest. Perhaps it had something to do with the newfound power kindled within me. A tiny shiver of nausea wormed its way into my gut, but none of it mattered. I'd trespassed against my fellow soldier and nearly stolen her life. The debt must be repaid.
"Will you tell the others?" I asked Bannon. Only he, me, and Mara knew the truth of who had rendered her so low.
"No. There is no need to make them fear you again, or make you stand before them to be judged. You have already admitted your guilt before the captain of the horde and submitted yourself to the consequences. See out your sentence, like the good girl I know you are, and there will be no reason to make it known to anyone else."
He paused, seeming to mull things over. "I can't promise Mara won't speak of it."
"If she does, then so be it. I can't begrudge her that."
I stared at Mara for another long, silent moment. We would never be friends. Now, though, we were bound by a strange fate I didn't understand. I'd lived for thirty years, never once showing any glimmer of magical talent, even under threat and torture by Alaric Khan. Now, all of a sudden—
My hand rose to my throat, where once I would have found my leather collar and the ring I toyed with so often in times of anxiety. No, it had not been all of a sudden. It had begun the moment my collar—and my connection to Alaric—was severed forever.
My fingers brushed the thin scar just under my right jaw, where the knife had nicked me when I cut the collar free.
Cut the collar. Revealed the mark of the lemniscate knot beneath it. The one Bannon had described like a coiling snake.
Snake? Or dragon?
A mark left by Alaric before he bound me? Or something I'd carried all along?
The mark of a spirit caller?
Epilogue
I stood on the bow of the Drekakona, Schala perched on my shoulder, staring out at the torchlit port below us. The last port before we sailed on to Sanraeth. In a week's time, given good weather, we would disembark at last in Bannon's home country. Our new home country.
I reached up to scratch under the caracal's chin. She stretched out her neck to accommodate me, purring right beside my ear. I'd come to the conclusion she'd answered some primal call from my heart, just like the sea dragon, and come to protect me when I needed her. I was more than happy to have her now, my self-appointed guardian angel. She, like me, would be a stranger in Sanraeth, but we would have each other.
I glance over my free shoulder at the tock of boots on the boards. Bannon joined me, resting one hand on my hip as he, too, gazed at the warm golden lights.
"You were talking in your sleep again today."
Since the coming of the dragon, I'd found sleep much more easily, though spates of exhaustion came on me at strange hours. Rayyan had discovered me sound asleep on a hay pile by the livestock pens, and Arne and Torv—whose scouting ship had rejoined us three days ago—had found me curled up on one of the divans in the ship's study, just after breakfast yesterday morning. I'd been warier than ever about my new, untrained magic, and of allowing myself to become frantic or anxious. The heightened precaution tired me out faster. At least I didn't fear what I might see while I slept.
There'd been no more sightings of a shadowed silhouette of me, anywhere on board. Mara had woken the day before yesterday and evidently did not recall the exact circumstances which put her in a sickbed at all. From the way she grimaced and glowered at me still, I gathered she still knew something about it.
"What did I say?" I asked, leaning into him, closing my eyes and basking in his warmth.
"You called out for your mother. And you said..."
He furrowed his brow. "Dae Catori. I think I've heard you say it before."
"You have." I straightened, looking out at the lights again. "Back in the castle. I saw it in one of Alaric's books, too. Dae Catori, Dae Caedon. I don't know what it means, though. Even in my dreams, I can't... I can't quite seem to find those memories."
"We're getting closer, though." He stroked my hair. "And now we know why Alaric wanted you. You really do have power."
"In the end, he said something about taking that power. I think he knew all along, and the collar—the black magic he put on the collar—blocked it all away from me. It must be why I had those headaches. He would push, and push, testing my limits, triggering the energy, and stealing it, through our bond. He owned me, so he owned my magic, too."
I stooped to gather Schala into my arms. The caracal purred, rubbing her head up under my chin, her front paws flexing and kneading with delight.
"It's like a story," I said. "Like a myth I read from one of the books in the study. Something fanciful and impossible, that happened to someone else, far away. Not me. I'm changing, my barbarian, and it scares me."
"That is why we face it together."
He drew me closer, wrapping his arms around me. "Whatever your powers are, Sadi, it is clear to me they stem from some primal well. You have a ferocious soul within you. A she-cat indeed. Queen of the she-cats, my golden lioness."
"But it's too much! I feel it in me, as you say, like a wild beast. The monster I've always suspected inside of me. It rattles its cage and shakes the locks—"
"Perhaps you were never meant to keep it in, love."
He tilted my face to his, to give me a warm, reassuring kiss.
"You've always known there was a force within you. Something volatile and untamed. Isn't that why you crave pain and subjugation? Isn't that what you spoke of when you told me you needed someone to hold you down and possess you, to exercise the control and give you no choice but to obey?"
He brushed a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. "Isn't that why you trust me to rule your heart, and possess your body, as violently as you can withstand?"
I brought a hand to my lips. "I... is that why?"
"It seems as likely a reason as any. And I would have it no other way. In your heart you are a strong woman, a wild woman, and one unafraid of her passions."
"Thank you," I whispered with a smile. "No one has ever... understood it so well."
Not even me, perhaps.
"What will we do once we reach Sanraeth?" I asked.
"Well..." He stroked his beard. "It's more important than ever that we find your people, and delve into this magic you have unlocked, whatever it is. Perhaps they'll know more about why Alaric's father and the Order of Akolet wished to have you killed, and why Alaric himself would resist such a thing. First, I think we should go north, and seek a Sanraethi soothsayer for more. The northern clans still retain some observance of the old ways."
Something nagged at me. My lips twitched into frown, and I toyed with my braid as I tried to remember. Something about these Sanraethi old ways... something one of the refugees said, something I'd forgotten...
"Oh!" I dropped Schala unceremoniously to the boards, and she landed with expert graceful ease, flicking her bob tail. "The skull!"
Bannon cocked an eyebrow. "The... skull?"
I took him by the hand and pulled him along after me, making way for the stern deck and the ladderway to our middle deck.
"It was a snake's skull. I saw it in one of my visions, the day I got lost in the corridors, and found the cargo hold with the apples. I saw the skull on a ritual altar. I thought it was... an offering to Akolet. I was afraid it meant my kin were worshippers of the seven-headed snake, like the Order and Alaric were. I see now, though, what it really was."
"What's that?" he asked as we reached the ladderway and descended.
"It is an offering, but not to Akolet." I paused long enough to turn and meet his gaze. "An offering to something greater than Akolet. Something like the sea dragon!"
"And you saw this in a vision? So..."
"Come on, Sir." I smiled. "I will need your help."
We reached the door a scant moment later, and once inside I w
ent immediately to the bag in which I'd hidden the serpent's skull. Digging it out again, I inspected it. Yes... just the right size. How had I not seen the intention before?
"My braid," I told him. "Calla said Sanraethi warriors once wove trinkets and trophies into their braids to commemorate their battles, and that I should find and kill a snake as soon as we reached Sanraeth, to commemorate my battle with the golem. It was right after that I found this in here. I thought it was evil, carrying the memory of a serpent cult."
I paused, studying the skull. "I... didn't want to discover my people were worshippers of that monster. I didn't want to face that possibility."
"But now you think it's something else?"
"It's my token."
I slipped the small reptilian skull into his hands. "Will you attach it to my braid, and accept me officially into the horde?"
He beamed at me. "Of course, kitten."
He slipped the end of my braid through the serpent's hinged jaw, sliding it up until it found a place to naturally rest. We would have Calla manage it later, to be sure it didn't slip from my hair. It made me Bannon's in more than just one way, though. Now I belonged to him, officially, in the bedroom and on the battlefield.
I didn't know who my true people were, but Bannon accepted me as one of his own. Now I was part desert girl, and part Sanraethi foundling.
One more week. Then we could begin the search for my people in earnest.
Then I could find my mother—and the fading blue light she called me toward—at last.
The End
***
Return home.
Reunite with the past in Book Three:
Beauty's Power
About the Author
When she isn't visiting the worlds of immortals, demons, dragons and goblins, Brantwijn fills her time with artistic endeavors: sketching, painting, and working on graphic design. She can't handle coffee unless there's enough cream and sugar to make it a milkshake, but try and sweeten her tea and she will never forgive you. She moonlights as a futon for six lazy cats, loves tabletop roleplaying games, and can spend hours penciling naughty, sexy illustrations in her secret notebooks.
Brantwijn is the author of The Chronicles of the Four Courts, Shifter's Dawn, and The Dark Roads series, as well as many short stories and novellas. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or visit her website at www.brantwijn.com.
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Beauty's Secret (Beast and Beauty Book 2) Page 26
