“Procella fears being caught by Hunfrith,” Pyra said. “He wants her, in all the ways a man can want a woman. She knows he is stronger than her. She can remember that moment your father first bested her in mock combat – that moment of humiliation and fear that she could not hold her own. She will experience that tenfold with Hunfrith. Your father loved her, but Hunfrith will use her body with no sign of the tenderness that Chonrad felt towards her. Hunfrith will abuse her, rape her, then give her to his men to use in any way they wish. Do you want that for your mother?”
Tears streamed down Horada’s cheeks. Her chains clanged as she moved her hands to dash them away. “No. Please…”
“Then join with me.”
She closed her eyes. Forgive me, Mother… “I cannot.”
Pyra roared, making her eyes snap open again. He cleared the scene. This time, the new picture puzzled her. It looked like a view of somewhere in the mountains, with more magma bubbling redder than blood. She blinked, trying to focus on the figure in the centre. He lay stretched out on a rock, arms and feet spread and tied, and he was naked. Fire elementals crawled over him, and his skin blistered, renewed and blistered again, accompanied by his cries of pain.
It was her father.
Horada’s jaw dropped. Horror filled her. “Father?” She turned furious eyes to the King. “Now I know you lie. He is dead. I saw his body and buried it afterwards.”
“But this is not his body,” said the King. “This is his soul.”
Horada stared. Since the beginning of time, scholars had debated the presence of a soul and whether it lived on when the body gave up its life. Current thought was that, like with trees, when the physical body died its energy returned to the ground and brought life to the new shoots in a circle that never ended. The existence of a person’s mind, of their very being, outside of the body was not thought to exist.
And yet here was her father, his face clearly distinguishable, captured by the Incendi and kept to be tortured for all eternity.
Bile rose inside her and she vomited onto the ground.
The King lowered himself in the magma so he could look into her face. “Join with me,” he whispered, “and I will end your father’s suffering. I will return his spirit to the Arbor so he can rest in peace.”
A fire elemental climbed onto Chonrad and stretched out along him, lying like a lover atop her partner’s form. He screamed as the fire ate into him, arching his back in a spasm of pain.
“Stop,” Horada whispered, curling up, her forehead almost resting on the ground. “Please, make it stop.”
“Join with me…” His insidious voice crept over her like a warm blanket, promising an end to the suffering, an end to the pain.
She pushed herself up to her hands and knees. She would do it. She didn’t care about the Arbor and Anguis, about the end of the world. She just wanted the pain to cease.
Ahead of her, the picture of her father evaporated, the steam dissipating as she crawled forward and Pyra sensed his victory.
And then she stopped. In the remnants of the mist, a final faint picture remained.
The hourglass filled, turned, filled again.
Timekeeper…
She caught her breath. The hourglass vanished. The King continued to stare at her – he hadn’t seen the image. It hadn’t been sent by him.
Cinereo?
He was still with her. And he was trying to tell her to keep her faith.
It didn’t matter what Pyra had shown her. Whether the images were true or not – there was nothing she could do about it now. Her brothers, her mother, her father’s poor soul, if there was such a thing, which she doubted – she was not responsible for their freedom or whether they lived or died. She had to trust that the Arbor would protect them too, that its love would keep them safe and bring them through this time of trial.
All that mattered was keeping the Arbor alive. She remembered her father telling her that. If the people loved the tree and worked with it to maintain Anguis, the tree would protect them and love them back, and the cycle would be complete.
She sat on her heels and tipped back her head. Too exhausted to stand, too tired to speak, she just looked up at the Incendi king and let him read the truth in her eyes.
II
Catena placed her palms on the stone wall and closed her eyes.
She didn’t think she would ever get used to the sensation of communicating with the rock. Why had she never noticed it before? She had lived in a castle and usually rested one hand on the wall as she ascended or descended the spiral staircase to the battlements. Wouldn’t she have noticed if she had this peculiar talent?
Demitto had suggested it was because the castle had been built from cut stones, whereas these caves were carved into the mountainside and thus still connected with the earth. That made some sort of sense. And anyway, she wondered if she had been ignoring her instincts all along. One reason she had worked so hard to become Chief of the Guard was because she loved the castle. As a child, she had spent hours walking around the battlements, talking to the guards. They had indulged her because it could be a lonely job, and she had listened to their grumbles as they patrolled in all weathers. But she had loved being way up high above everyone else, being able to look down upon the town, watching people go about their business as if she were a bird flying high in the clouds. And she had loved the feel of the stone beneath her fingertips, imagining all the people who must have touched it before her, and what stories it could have told, if it had been able to talk. Had she been communicating with it then, in some small way?
Her mind was wandering, and she brought it back to the present, trying to concentrate on Tahir’s location. The rock warmed beneath her hand, but still her brain struggled to focus.
Part of the problem was having the emissary standing so close to her. Her skin prickled at his nearness, the memory of his brief kiss still fresh in her mind. Why had he kissed her? She hadn’t picked up on any feelings of desire from him before. He usually radiated irritation and frustration rather than attraction.
His touch had completely taken her by surprise, and she didn’t like being surprised in such a way. Not one bit. She could not understand him. One moment he was so irreverent and carefree, making light of the Arbor and their predicament, and the next he became all mysterious and gave the impression there was far more to him than met the eye. How was she to react to that? She didn’t know where she stood with him, and she certainly had no interest in him as a mate.
She opened her eyes and glanced aside at him. He stood with one hand on his hip, head bowed as he waited for her to tell them which way to go. It had become so hot in the caves, he had finally removed the linen undertunic, and now his bronzed skin gleamed in the light of the flame dancing on his open palm, his sculpted muscles an exemplary display of masculinity. She knew if she touched them, they would be as hard as the rock beneath her fingers…
He looked up, meeting her gaze, and Catena’s eyes widened. Arbor’s roots. She looked back at the rock, her cheeks flaming. She was not going to let the man get to her like this! He had probably kissed her on purpose to make a point, although she could not think what the point was at that moment. Maybe to keep her interested so she didn’t run off and leave him. His claustrophobia had been obvious, and she had comforted him more than once when his breathing became irregular. Well, no more! He could hyperventilate himself to oblivion as far as she cared from now on.
She formed an image of Tahir in her mind, forced herself to concentrate and immediately felt the ripple of connection brush across her nerve endings like a feather across her skin.
“This way,” she said, and headed off to the right.
Demitto said nothing, but he was only a foot behind her, with Atavus a foot behind him, and when she stopped suddenly, he bumped hard into her. She swatted at him and scowled, although he wouldn’t be able to see it in the semi-darkness.
“Sorry.” He rested a hand on her hip so he could lean close to murmur in her
ear. “Can you feel him?”
“Yes.” She twitched her hips but his hand remained there, warm even through her breeches. “Demitto…”
“How far?”
She pushed her irritation aside. She had to focus on the Prince now – he was all that mattered. “Not far. Maybe one or two passages. And he is locked in.”
Demitto nodded, took her hand, pulled her and the dog into an adjacent empty room and pushed the door almost closed. “We will wait here until the guards go past,” he said. Reluctance flickering across his face, he closed his palm, extinguishing the flame.
They were plunged into darkness, and Catena felt his arm snake around her, his hand gripping hers as they both fought to retain their sense of balance. Atavus pressed against their legs, also clearly unsettled. It felt as if she had jumped into a vat of thick honey, and someone had placed a blanket over her head, extinguishing the light. The warm, humid air smothered her, and she wasn’t surprised to hear Demitto’s breathing speed up. In spite of her promise to herself to let him suffer, she tightened her hand and rubbed his arm, instinctively wanting to comfort.
Clearly they were in the area where the Incendi kept prisoners, perhaps before the elementals took over their bodies. Cries and screams echoed occasionally along the corridors, and further along someone gave great, heart-rending sobs that brought tears to her eyes.
“We cannot leave these people here,” she whispered, leaning her cheek against his shoulder, suddenly glad of his presence. “It is too awful to speak of.”
“I know.” His hand rested on her back. “But our first priority is rescuing Tahir. Maybe later we can come back for the others. But if we do not take him to Heartwood, then everything is lost.”
She lifted her head to look up at him. A light sprang into being further along the corridor – from what she couldn’t be sure – but she could just make out the glitter of his eyes. “I do not understand why it has to be him. I know the Arbor needs a sacrifice. But can you not just let us disappear and find someone else?”
His hand came up to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing her damp skin. “I wish I could, but I have sworn I will bring him there at all costs, and I must keep my promise. The very world depends on it.”
“Why?”
He moved to look out of the grille in the door, then came back to stand close to her. Closer than was necessary, she thought with some irritation. But when he linked their fingers and she pressed her thumb against his wrist, she could feel his pulse racing, and so she didn’t complain.
He leaned on the rock above her head, his cheek so close to hers that she could feel the roughness of his bristles. “I do not fully understand it all, Catena. But I will try to explain. Certain events in time are fixed, like towns in Anguis. You can take any road you like from one town to another, but all roads lead from town to town. Does that make any sense?”
She frowned. “Not really.”
“From what I can understand, some moments in our history have already been written. The Arbor can see its past, its present and its future, and those moments of the Apex are unmoveable. Everything we do and say is leading to those events.”
“I do not like the feeling that I have no say in what happens in my life.”
“I think it is up to us how we travel from town to town. We can walk, or take a slow horse and cart, or ride a fast horse to get there in a day. But the towns – the events – are fixed.”
It was difficult to concentrate with his mouth only inches from hers, but she forced herself to think. “So what is the problem? If events are fixed, then obviously we will escape and Tahir will complete his destiny.”
His lips brushed her cheek so lightly she couldn’t be sure if he had done it on purpose or not. “The problem is that somehow the Incendi have found a way to travel along the timelines, and they are doing their best to sabotage the Apex. Is it possible? We are not sure, but we cannot jeopardise our future by being arrogant enough to assume everything will just work itself out. The Nox Aves have given me the task of escorting Tahir and you to Heartwood, and I have to do everything in my power to try to make that happen.”
The hairs rose on Catena’s neck at the feel of his warm breath on her skin. She raised a hand to rest on his chest, her breathing also growing faster at the feel of his damp skin.
Then his words registered and she frowned. “Wait… ‘Tahir and you’?”
He went still. “What?”
“You said ‘Tahir and you’. You mean just the Prince, surely? Why does it matter whether I get to Heartwood or not?”
He hesitated, and that brief moment of pause told her it had not been a mistake.
“Me?” she whispered. “Why me? What do I have to do with the Apex?”
His hand brushed her back. “I am sorry, but I cannot tell you.”
She drew back sharply. “What do you mean? You are so arrogant! You think you are so important keeping all this knowledge to yourself.”
“Catena, hush.”
“Do not hush me!”
“I cannot tell you, because if I do, they could torture you to get the information.”
She thumped his chest with her fist. “Do not be so infuriating! If I am to play a part in the Apex, I deserve to know.”
He caught her wrists. “We will all play a part in the Arbor’s future. You and I and Tahir.”
Fury welled up inside her, born out of frustration and fear that the Incendi might be trying to hunt her down as well as the Prince. “Am I to be sacrificed too? Is that it? If my life is to come to an end, I should be told!”
“Seriously, you must keep your voice down.”
Panic flooded her. “Am I to die with the Prince? Is that my destiny?”
“Catena…” Demitto pulled her to him and before she could vent any more frustration, he tightened his arms around her and kissed her.
Shocked, angry and scared, she struggled, trying to slap him, to push him away, but he was far too strong for her.
Tears poured down her cheeks, and as she ceased to fight him, so his arms relaxed, turning into a caress more than a restraint, his hand moving up to cup the back of her head as he deepened the kiss. Her hands splayed on his chest, moved up to his shoulders, crept around his neck.
When he finally lifted his head, she remained in the circle of his arms, all rebellion vanquished.
“Why?” she whispered.
He stroked her cheek. “I cannot tell you, Catena.”
“No. I mean why did you kiss me?”
He gave a little chuckle. “To keep you quiet.”
She looked up into the glitter of his eyes. “Is that the only reason?”
He kissed her nose. “No.”
“I…” Her voice trailed off at the sound of voices in the corridor. She pulled back, heart beginning to pound again.
Silently, they drew their swords and took up a place on either side of the door, Demitto with one hand holding Atavus’s collar. He touched a finger to his lips, and Catena nodded.
Demitto took a breath and yelled, “Guard!”
The feet outside stopped, and the two guards came into the cell. “What…?”
Before they could utter another word, Catena and Demitto swung as one, and Atavus leapt forward. The dog’s jaws closed around the guard’s arm, stopping him from swinging his blade. Demitto thrust his sword up under his armpit, almost to the hilt in his ribcage. Catena’s blade neatly lopped off the head of the second, and it rolled onto the floor as he fell to his knees, then slowly forward onto his stomach.
They looked down at the fallen bodies.
“Nice,” Demitto said.
She blew out a breath, blood racing around her body. Suddenly she felt a whole lot better.
He grinned at her. “Ready?”
She nodded. They were going to dress themselves in the guards’ attire, and then try to get into Tahir’s cell. It was a risky plan, but the only way they could think of to get close to him. And at that moment, watching Demitto’s eyes glitter in t
he low light and remembering his lips on hers, she felt as if together they could conquer the world.
“All right, let’s do it.”
III
The inside of the pyramid was cool and quiet. Sarra and the other four Veris made their way through the maze of passages quickly, aware that Comminor was not far behind them. Still, as they passed, they couldn’t stop themselves admiring the beauty of the rooms.
“Who did all this?” Nele paused briefly to admire an ornate pillar carved with the shape of flames, and Sarra stopped to run her fingers over the paintwork. She could see where once it had been brightly coloured, and flecks of gold leaf still glinted in the light from the acorn in the pouch around Betune’s neck. This had been a magnificent place, she thought, looking up at the high painted ceiling. It would have been full of life and energy. Now it seemed sad, cold and distant, gradually fading into myth, disappearing like the rainbows Amabil had described from her dreams.
“It was the Incendi,” said Geve.
Sarra looked across at him, startled. He had hardly said anything for the last few hours, although he hadn’t ventured far from her side, and had been there several times to help her out with a steadying hand as she stumbled on loose rock. “Who?” she asked, puzzled.
The room had several large polished blocks of stone placed around a central square floor. A deep channel ran around the outside, filled with the same folded grey rock she had seen earlier. Geve sat on one of the blocks and put his head in his hands. Sarra hesitated, wanting to press on, the memory of Comminor standing at the top of the stairs in the distance haunting her. But her legs ached, and she sank onto the nearest block gratefully. A few seconds couldn’t hurt.
The others sat beside them, all tired and weary. Amabil rested a hand on Geve’s back. “What is it?”
ARC: Sunstone Page 31
