Diala was after minions, not masters.
Arryl, on the other hand—the one you insist on calling the Sorceress—was the very definition of sweetness. She and her sister, Diala, kept vigil over the Temple of the Tide. It was an impressive white marble edifice perched on a cliff top overlooking a dazzling waterfall that tumbled endlessly into a narrow lake, on the shore of which the emperor’s palace was built. She’d been on her way back to the temple with her entourage when she found me lying on the road, left for dead by my attackers. Her men had lifted me into her litter while she walked the rest of the way back to the temple, so I could rest.
Arryl and Diala are like night and day. The eldest by seven years, Arryl is sweet, pure even. When I first met her, I wondered if she’d taken a vow of charity, or some such thing, which seemed the only way to account for her generosity. She cared for me, nursed me back to health with herbal poultices, her silky voice and one or two miracles.
In contrast to her sister, Diala is a seductress. I’m sure you’ve heard the Crasii claim bitches give off a particular scent when they’re on heat that male Crasii can smell. I’m here to tell you those who claim it aren’t mistaken. She only had to be in the room for me to start thinking of her, even when I was still drifting in and out of consciousness.
This was in those long-distant days, remember, when I was still ignorant of the true power of the Tide—naive as a newborn fool for all that I had killed a man.
In Kordana we’d never embraced the worship of the Tide Star very enthusiastically, although we’d certainly traded with those who did. We Kordians were a pragmatic lot and worshipped little other than our own ingenuity. Even so, every nation on Amyrantha I have ever visited has worshipped the Tide in some form, at some point in their history. Some nations prayed directly to the sun itself, others have had much more formal church hierarchies and referred to the Tide as God. They’ve even worshipped us on occasion, sometimes as Tide Lords, other times naming us gods, which some among us find rather gratifying. But one way or another, the people of Amyrantha have always understood that all life comes from the Tide Star. At least they did back then. You shun the worship of the Tide as ignorant superstition now, but in those days people knew they owed the Tide Star their allegiance and they behaved accordingly.
In Magreth, however, they claimed a closer connection than most. They claimed to hold a piece of the Tide Star, which was the reason I had come here.
The Eternal Flame, a small fire that was never allowed to go out, burned on the white marble altar of the massive Temple of the Tides. The flame came from the Tide Star itself, Arryl told me, retrieved from a burning fragment of meteorite which had fallen into the frozen wastes of Jelidia more than a thousand years before, brought to this land by Engar. He had established the Empire of Magreth and then built a temple to house the holy flame, awarding it credit for his victory. The current Emperor Engarhod and his wife Syrolee, the empress, were his direct descendants, according to Magrethan folklore, and worshipped as demi-gods because of it.
I paid little attention to what Arryl was telling me, mostly because halfway through her tale, Diala had come into my room to replace the flowers with fresh ones and my attention immediately fixed on her.
I couldn’t understand my fascination with the younger priestess. Arryl was by far the prettier and kinder of the pair, and I was still pining for Gabriella. She was the reason I was here, after all. I was looking for a noble quest, not a sexual conquest. But it was Diala, not Gabriella, I dreamed about; Diala whose face haunted my increasingly erotic dreams; her sinfully voluptuous body beckoning with every slight movement, no matter how innocuous. It was Diala’s smouldering green eyes, filled with the promise of indescribable passion, that I yearned to see fixed on me with the same craving as my eyes fixed on her.
Arryl was not unaware of my attraction to Diala and considered her sister to be the one at fault. I discovered this when I stumbled across them arguing about me in one of the long corridors that encircled the main hall of the temple, several months after Arryl had rescued me from the side of the road.
“I’m sick of this, Diala,” I heard Arryl complaining to her sister, just before I rounded the corner.
“Sick of what?” Diala asked, sounding full of wounded innocence.
I stopped, wondering at her response, trying to imagine about what the sisters might be arguing.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“No, sister dear, I don’t. Among all the great powers the Tides have bestowed upon me, telepathy doesn’t seem to be among them.”
“Neither does common sense,” Arryl retorted. “And you know exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t want it to happen again.”
“I haven’t done anything to him. And I haven’t done anything with him, either.”
“But you’re thinking about it constantly, and he’s affected by your lust. Tides, even the mice around here are probably breeding more prolifically, with the heat you’re giving off.”
“Now you’re exaggerating.”
“I wish I was!”
Diala laughed. “Oh, come on, Rilly. I can have a bit of fun, can’t I? And he’s very pretty, don’t you think? Now that I’ve fixed him up.”
“You shouldn’t have done that either,” Arryl scolded. “He hasn’t stopped asking questions since he woke up. Broken bones might heal, Diala, but teeth aren’t supposed to grow back and scars don’t miraculously disappear. Are you trying to give away our secret?”
“Actually, I’m still trying to figure out why we’re keeping it a secret at all, but that’s an argument for another time. What is it you wanted of me, sister?”
“I want you to leave the boy alone.”
“He’s a man, not a boy.”
“By our standards, Cayal is a boy,” Arryl corrected.
“By our standards?” Diala sneered. “He’s twenty-six, Arryl. In that hovel you and I were born in, that would make him a village elder.”
“And you the village idiot,” Arryl shot back. Then she added in a more conciliatory tone, “Please…just let him be, Diala. You know the rules.”
“Oh, and if I break them? What are you going to do? Tell on me? Now I’m really frightened.”
I heard Arryl sigh patiently. “Syrolee has good reason to insist on her rules. You agreed to them when you became a Priestess of the Tide.”
“That was before I realised she was using the Tide to create her own personal empire. Forever is a long, long time, Arryl. She can’t think she’s going to be allowed to dictate to us for that long.”
“Talk to Syrolee yourself, if you disagree with her,” Arryl suggested. “In the meantime, leave Cayal alone. Let him heal and let him leave. He’s not for you because he’s not one of us. And please, don’t call me Rilly. You know how much it irks me.”
I heard footsteps on the tiles, heading away from me after that. Guessing the conversation was over, and intrigued by what it might mean, I was about to move off when I heard Diala add in an irritated voice, obviously not meant for anyone but herself, “He’s not one of us, eh, Rilly? Well, I can remedy that minor inconvenience easily enough.”
I heard her footsteps fading into the distance a moment later, but I stood in the shadow of the great pillars for a while longer, wondering what they were talking of. I should have seen the danger signs, but I fear the greater part of me was basking in the knowledge that the priestess Diala—the desire for whom filled my every waking moment as well as my dreams—was lusting after me, almost as much as I was lusting after her.
The atmosphere in the temple changed subtly after I overheard the sisters arguing. It might have been because I was now acutely aware Diala was paying attention to me, or it might have been the undercurrent of tension that flowed back and forth between the two women. Meals became tense, the conversation laden with double meaning. If Arryl noticed something amiss, she said nothing, perhaps content her warning had been enough.
But I hadn’t been warned about anything
, I reasoned, and I couldn’t take my eyes off Diala. I took to following her around the temple—surreptitiously, I thought—even when she climbed down the rocks near the cliff to wash her long dark hair, her body outlined in exquisite, tormenting detail by the folds of her white wrap, which was all but transparent when it was wet.
I thought I might go mad, I wanted her so badly. I had never wanted any woman, not even Gabriella, the way I desired Diala, which is odd, because somehow, I still believed my mission in life was to perform some great task that would see me restored in the eyes of my sister and my beloved.
Strange how a man can find room in his heart for such diametrically opposed beliefs, but I managed it, and without ever noticing the conflict.
As is usually the case with eavesdropping, though, I was left with more questions than answers. I didn’t understand what Arryl had meant by breaking the rules or the relationship between the empress and the temple. No member of the Imperial family came to worship. Never even sent so much as an offering, for that matter. In fact, the only contact between the palace and the Temple of the Tides, that I was aware of, in all the months I’d been there recuperating, was the day Arryl returned from the palace and found me lying on the road and a visit some months later from Engarhod’s son, Rance. He’d just returned from Senestra and stopped by to deliver some spices Arryl had requested he find for her in his travels.
I didn’t understand much of anything, really, but I did think I’d worked out the “he’s not one of us” remark. It wasn’t a racial thing. With Arryl’s blonde hair and Diala’s green eyes, neither woman was a native of Magreth—that much was certain. I assumed she meant I wasn’t a follower of their religion. I didn’t understand their ways. As a priestess, Diala had a responsibility to the Tide Star, after all, and I was little more than a foreign pagan.
But time was passing and even through my lusting for Diala, I knew the day was fast approaching when Gabriella would marry my brother and be lost to me forever. I know you’ll think me strange for still believing I had any right to her affection. There I was, panting after Diala like a dog after a bitch on heat, imagining I had a future with Gabriella. I can’t explain it and I have no intention of trying to justify it. That is how it was.
I never, not even for a moment, imagined anything could go wrong with my grand plan to redeem myself and be allowed to return home. By then, you might think I’d begun to learn the stupidity of such a blind optimism, but I hadn’t. Maybe that’s why the Tide made me immortal. Perhaps it knew it would take an eternity for me to learn that bitter lesson and was determined to see I had the time in which to do it.
Diala didn’t laugh at me when I broached the subject of a noble quest with her. I’m sure, knowing her as I do now, she must have burst something internally trying to stop herself from exploding with mirth when I went to her so full of earnest hope, but to my face, she nodded and smiled and made all the right noises in all the places I expected to hear them. I explained my case most eloquently, I thought, putting forward all my well-thought-out arguments about finding a task that would prove to the Queen of Kordana that I was a worthy subject, and to my beloved Gabriella that I was worthy of her love.
Diala barely hesitated before agreeing to help me.
“The Emperor of the Five Realms would welcome such a worthy supplicant,” she informed me gravely. “And I’m sure he can aid you in your quest. But you’ll have to go through the cleansing ceremony first before you can be admitted into his presence.”
“What does that involve?”
“We’ll have to do it in the main temple,” she said, rising to her feet. There was no sign of Arryl. I wasn’t sure where she’d gone but she was nowhere to be found. Later—much later—I realised her absence was the only reason Diala agreed to my request. Had Arryl been anywhere in the vicinity of the temple, she would have stopped Diala and my life would have followed a much different—not to mention infinitely shorter—path.
The temple was empty—tall, cavernous and majestic; its walls open to the gentle Magrethan climate. Only the burning vessel on the altar was shielded from the wind. As we entered the temple, Diala took my hand and led me to the altar.
Unafraid, and with no inkling of what was about to happen, I followed her, expecting a sermon about the spirit of the Tide Star or some such thing, perhaps even a repeat of the story of Engar bringing the Eternal Flame back from Jelidia. But when we reached the altar, Diala didn’t say a word. She stopped and turned to me. Smiling, she slipped her arms around my neck, stood on her toes and kissed me with all the wanton abandon of a well-paid Lakeshian whore.
I was too stunned to question the reason for such a blessing. Without a thought, I pulled her to me, kissing her as if I might be able to devour her whole. I’d been lusting after her for so long I wanted to throw her down on the temple floor and take her, there and then. But Diala had done this before—so I discovered later—and knew precisely what she was doing. With the mere touch of her velvety and dangerously knowledgeable mouth, the press of her body against mine…that alone gave her all the power over me she needed.
In a matter of moments Diala had me right where she wanted me.
“Will you be mine, Cayal?” she breathed as her hands worked at the knot holding the wrap I wore around my waist.
“Tides! What a stupid question, woman,” I muttered, wishing I was as adept at undoing knots as Diala. If only I’d known what she was really asking, I might have been less concerned about her wrap and more concerned about my future, but she was clever, Diala was. She knew how easy it is to distract a young man with promises of love.
“You have to want this, Cayal. Otherwise, I’ll be in trouble for breaking the rules.”
Rules? I vaguely recalled something about rules, but was too engaged in what her hands were doing to care about it. “Of course I want this.”
After a couple of futile attempts between kisses to undo Diala’s wrap, I abandoned the knot and instead pushed aside the thin white fabric, my hands groping for any part of her body I could reach. She let me fondle her breast, moaned with pleasure when I bent down to suck on it, but the moment my hand strayed to the moist cleft between her legs, she pushed me away.
“You’re not ready yet,” she announced, her eyes bright, her face flushed with what I assumed was desire. It was, I suppose, but not for my body.
Diala wanted my soul.
At some point, she had managed to divest me of my wrap. I stood naked before her. Glancing down at the obvious evidence of my need, I took a step closer. “Trust me, Diala, I’m ready.”
“First, you have to be cleansed.”
She turned from me and stepped up to the altar, plunging her hand into the flaming bowl without warning. Before I could cry out in horror, she turned back to me, her hand alight.
I jumped away from her, afraid, but curiously, the sight of Diala’s hand on fire did nothing to dampen my desire.
Diala noticed that, too. She smiled even wider. “I want you to burn for me, Cayal.”
“Literally?” I enquired, staring at the flame with a great deal of concern.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she assured me, stepping so close I could feel the heat of the flame. “This is the Eternal Flame.”
“Why doesn’t it burn you?”
“Because I’m immortal.” She moved even closer, the flame beckoning. “Do you want redemption, Cayal? Really want it? Do you want your sister to bow down before you? Your beloved Gabriella to worship you? Do you want to be like me? Forever young? Forever beautiful?”
“I don’t understand.”
“How old do you think I am?”
Eyes still fixed on her burning hand, I shrugged, wondering about the wisdom of answering such a question. “Nineteen, maybe.”
“I am six hundred and fourteen years old,” she announced. The flame still burned in her hand. I was entranced by it.
And I was entranced by the notion of immortality.
It seems such a wonderful idea when you don�
��t stop to think about it for too long.
“I was eighteen when I stepped into the eternal flame,” Diala coaxed. “Arryl was twenty-five. We did it together.”
“Why doesn’t the flame burn you?” I asked again, mesmerised by the sight of the fire licking at her unsinged flesh, seduced as much by the flames and the promise of immortality as I was by her physical presence.
“The Eternal Flame likes me.” She stepped closer. “It likes you, too.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because I like you.”
Diala moved close enough for me to feel the heat from her right hand. With her left, she reached out to touch me, running her fingers lightly down my chest. I closed my eyes in anticipation of where her hand would stop, but she hesitated, stepping even closer. “I briefly can save you, Cayal,” she insisted in a breathy voice that spoke of endless bliss. “Everything you ever wanted could be yours…”
My gaze locked on the flames, the anticipation more anguish than pleasure. It never really occurred to me that she was offering me an eternity of torment. At that moment, I couldn’t see past the next few minutes. At best I had some vague notion that I might return home a hero someday. Infinity didn’t even factor into it.
“I need to hear you say it, Cayal,” she whispered softly, her breath on my neck teasing me with the wordless promise of even more delights to come. “I want to serve the flame.”
“I want to serve the flame,” I repeated mechanically, paying no attention to what I was saying. I was far too distracted by what Diala’s free hand was doing to worry about it. I let the pleasure wash over me, staring at the green flames, as seduced by them as I was by Diala.
That was enough, it seemed, for Diala. It was certainly enough for the Eternal Flame.
No sooner had the words left my mouth than Diala was kissing me again. This time, when she slid both arms around me, my hair ignited. Within seconds, we were both engulfed in flames.
The Immortal Prince Page 25
