by Renee Wildes
Aletha nodded. “We have Her blessing. Do we have yours?”
The doors burst open. Lorelei rushed into the room, flushed and breathless. Gwendolyn and Dara were right behind her, Pahn a stride farther back.
“We bring word,” his granna gasped.
***
Dara stared at the white faces of the ministry as Lorelei’s report sank into their minds. Loren moved to her side and took her hand. She felt comforted by his show of support. His action was noticed by all, including Raun. The minister’s mouth tightened, but he said naught.
Cianan nodded his head at Dara and smiled. He had not done the same to Alani, and she recognized his show of support. It warmed her, deep within, melting the little cold spot of self-doubt that persisted.
He believed in the idea of her and Loren. Why couldn’t she do the same?
Pari turned to his wife. “Canst thou get a message to the clans?”
Lorelei nodded, but looked puzzled.
“Tell them to expect a messenger from beyond the barrier.” He turned to Cianan. “Thou must ride. Warn them to wait for us.”
“Hani`ena can show Kikeona the way to Wolf Clan. Look for Moira or Trystan. Hani`ena can show Kikeona what they look like,” Loren said.
Cianan nodded to his best friend. “I shall not fail you.”
Dara turned toward Cianan. “Be careful.”
His face softened. “Do not fear for me, vertenya. This is what we rangers do, and I am no cadet.” He left.
“I shalt be in my workroom.” Lorelei turned to Anika and Aletha. “Ladies, join us when thou art done here.” She also left the room.
“Canst we defeat them?” Raun asked.
“We canst banish the demon,” Gwendolyn said. “That is what powers these creatures.”
Aletha nodded. “The Lady shalt not fail us. Join us, champion.” She closed her eyes and focused for a moment, then opened them again. “Everett shalt join us, as well.”
Loren turned to the ministry. “Have we the resources to go to war?”
Raun nodded. “Thou shalt have them.”
“We can muster a thousand warriors, twice that if we dip into the reserves and the academy,” Lord Elio reported.
“Not the academy,” Danaii protested. “They are green troops and we must guard our future.”
“Agreed.” Pari turned to Lord Elio. “The main army only. The reserves should guard our own borders. What do we have?”
“Two hundred horse rangers and eight hundred infantry.”
Loren spoke up. “Moira and Trystan promised two hundred spears betwixt their three clans. More may come, depending on Cianan’s powers of persuasion.”
“Riverhead’s forces are decimated,” Dara stated. “They’re the ones Jalad’s turning. Whoever rode out with Hengist or hides with those from Jakop’s Crossing are all we can expect. I’ve no idea the exact number. I know if Hengist convinces Sezeny to help, Arcadia in its entirety can muster a couple thousand, as well.”
“For what they still think is a border-skirmish betwixt Westmarche and Riverhead?” Pari shook his head. “I wouldst not count on more than a company or two, infantry led by knights or a squad of heavy cavalry.”
“Xavier rode to warn them of Jalad’s true power,” Dara reminded Loren. “If he got through, Sezeny could send more troops.”
“I wish we knew for certain if he got through.” Loren turned to Dara. “Can you seek blood-still-living for a particular person?”
She shook her head. “I never have afore.”
“Afore usss. Thou holdsss hisss aura in thy memory. Thou canssst ssseek him out.”
Pahn spoke up. “Fire can be a portal. Like a relay.”
Dara frowned. “I can do that?”
“Aye,” the voices stated.
Loren reached out and laid his hand against her cheek. His gaze held hers. “You can do anything, Dara. Your kin were called guardians for a reason. These are your people. What would you not try for them?”
Dara turned to the hearth. “Little friend, I seek someone. South, beyond the demon’s reach. Will you help me?”
First appeared. “Whom do I seek?”
Dara sent it the image of Xavier’s scarred face overlaid on the man’s aura sense-casting would recognize.
“A blind human seer? How ironic,” the salamander commented. It vanished, and a dizzying series of images flashed through the flames in the hearth. The salamander leaped from one to the next without the need to pause for breath. Finally it announced, “This is the human high king’s kitchen roasting pit. Cast thy net from here.”
Dara did. “Does Xavier still live? Is this aura out there?” Naught east. Naught west. Naught farther south. But back northward, a faint warm gold flickered. “There. Little friend, he’s there.”
More flashing images as First backtracked through a different series of fires. “Campfire. Troops on the move,” it reported. “Northward.”
Xavier’s signature aura flared right next to the fire as he sought to warm his hands.
“Xavier. Hear me.” Dara called.
The seer froze. “Lady healer?”
“Aye. Loren found Moira. She’s safe.”
“Thank the Lady.” Xavier wept. “Let me get King Hengist. You should speak with him.”
“Can you hold the link?” Dara asked First.
“I can. Can you?”
She didn’t know. “Xavier, hurry.” The seer disappeared, returning with a half-dressed, rumpled man. “You’ve looked better, My Liege.”
“Dara?” To his credit, Hengist did not question the sudden communication. “I’m so relieved you’re all right. I was worried.” He sounded like he really meant it. “Child, how did you escape?”
“I’m with Loren in the east. I don’t have long.” Already the first twinge of pain hit the back of her head. “Jalad changes people into an army of giants, possessed by shards of the demon. You can’t attack yet. We’re figuring out a way to banish the demon so our armies can fight on even ground.”
“Sezeny sent a single infantry company with me.” Hengist’s voice sounded bitter. “A hundred pike and axe, with a dozen heavy cavalry, knights, swords. If Moira and Trystan bring theirs to bear, that’s still but two hundred spears, and it’s a long march from the break. What of my survivors?”
“Gone. They’re what he’s changed. All you have are those with you, and mayhaps a handful channeled through Jakop’s Crossroads into the swamps.”
Hengist swayed.
“Lord and Lady,” Xavier whispered.
“Loren’s bringing an army of his own,” she told the king. “Two hundred horse—rangers and war mares—and eight hundred infantry. You’ll have your swords and archers, Sire. The best.” Pain built in earnest.
“Cut the link,” the voices warned.
“North. South. East.” Hengist nodded. “Only place he’ll have to run is westward, back home. Not that he’ll stay there.”
“I have to go. Stay safe, Sire. I’ll see you soon.”
“Come back to me, little friend.”
First was back on her hand within minutes. “Pull on the fire. Recharge.”
Dara repeated the healing chant and the headache vanished. Loren wrapped his arms around her waist, heedless of their audience, and she leaned against him. What would she do without his support? His belief in her? In them? “I wish I knew how to do that during, not just after.”
“Someday.” First sounded amused. “Crawl first. Fly later.” With that, it was gone.
“Go to Lorelei,” Pari told his grandson. “We shalt work out the military logistics from here.”
Loren moved to Dara’s side and took her arm as they filed out of the ministry chambers. “Are you all right?”
“We seem to be having quite a day for firsts, Highness.”
“Stop.” He frowned and jerked her to a halt. “Do not do that.”
“Do what?”
He waited until Aletha and the mages preceded them far enough to be out of earsh
ot. “You know what. Stop throwing the barrier of titles up betwixt us.”
But they were divided—they always had been, right from the start. Dara backed up against the wall. “I wasn’t—”
He tapped the heir’s crown. “Do not lie to me. We have seen each other wounded and naked. We have bled on each other. Cried on each other. It is far too late to turn back now.” He leaned closer, their bodies barely touching.
She shivered as he trailed his fingers down the side of her neck. The warmth of his body called to hers, tugged at her heart. How she wanted to believe that.
His eyes flared with chips of emerald flame. “You shall never lose me. When I said forever, I meant it. You can walk away from me when all this is over, friend, but I shall never leave you. That was my vow, and I hold true to it. Jalad does not matter. That cursed torque and this bloody crown do not matter. It comes down to you and me.”
Forever. “It’s not that simple.” She blinked away tears. Why couldn’t he see that?
“It is that simple. You are the one making it complicated.” Done talking, Loren ended the argument the one way he had left to make his point. His hand cradled the back of her head as he captured her lips with his.
Dara had a split-second to marvel at the amount of anger and desperation poured into a kiss afore sheer emotion swept away all reason. Passion rose, swift and hot. A desire that transcended want. She needed this, needed him. His strength. She shook in his arms as his mouth devoured hers. His tongue conquered hers, robbing her of breath until she clung to him, kissing him back with all that was left of her breaking heart. If she was dead tomorrow, she wanted this moment with him. She pulled his head closer as she arched against him, parting her lips so he could deepen the kiss and sweep her away.
Loren took full advantage of the invitation, with an expertise that had her shaking. He trailed open-mouthed kisses down her throat, sinking his teeth lightly into the curve of her shoulder. She shuddered, panting, her body aflame. His tongue traced a line of wet heat back up to her ear. “It is just this simple. Do not give up on me. You are a fighter, guardian. Vertenya. Fight for us.”
She whimpered at his words, at the puff of warm breath teasing her sensitized skin. Only Loren had ever aroused her so. Passion. Pain. Only Loren ever would. She dragged in a deep breath. She wanted to believe, but the future was so far away…
“The future is always a moment away. Grasp the present, this moment, with both hands. That is how we get through this—together, one fleeting moment at a time.”
Dara dragged her eyes open and looked at him. If she didn’t know any better, she’d swear she saw love in his eyes. How she wished it was. But it couldn’t be. There could be no future there…
“Forget the future. Live in this moment.”
His conviction made her straighten. If anything was worth fighting for…“I will try.”
A single cough alerted them to the fact they were no longer alone. “We’re all waiting for you two,” Pahn stated.
Dara flushed. She had not seen the mage return for them.
“Dracken rue!” Loren hit the wall aside Dara’s head with a fist. “Never more than a moment. I swear I shall go mad.”
“Hmph.” Pahn looked like it would take more than a disgruntled elven prince to shake her calm. “You have time enough for that later. After. Let’s go.” She turned and walked away.
Did they? Dara wondered. Nothing was certain.
Loren stepped away, breathing hard. “I shall be along in a minute.”
Focus. There was work to be done. Dara took several deep, shaky breaths, heart pounding. Her over-sensitized skin twitched at the irritating rasp of her too-tight gown. Her breasts ached for his touch, and she quivered at the hot look of yearning on his face, a yearning she knew must be reflected in her own eyes. She attempted to smooth her hair and dress, willing her nipples to relax. Focus. Work. Duty. She took another deep, shaky breath and followed the dwarf to Lorelei’s workroom. When she entered the room, she blushed and tried to ignore all the knowing eyes.
Pahn began the discussion. “We’ve seen the creatures made from men. Left as they are, they’ll be invincible. Humans can’t kill a rock troll, let alone a ba-pef.”
Ba-pef who’d once been men Dara had known and cared for. “Can they be restored to themselves?”
“Nay, they have been mutilated and twisted beyond redemption,” Lorelei stated. “We can but put them out of their misery. They shalt be whole on the other side.”
“We can return the abyss shards to the girl,” Pahn said. “Without the shards, you’ll still be fighting giants, but mortal ones.”
“The girl, however, is intact,” Gwendolyn stated.
Dara’s temper flared, swift and hot. “Tegan. Her name’s Tegan. She’s fourteen. Her mother was the midwife, Lacey. She’s one of the victims here. What she does now, it’s not her fault.”
Loren entered the room just then. He captured her gaze with his, and her heart twisted at the flickers of longing she still saw there.
Lorelei turned to Loren and Dara. “Tegan shalt be thy responsibility. Dara, thou art familiar with Tegan, thou must be the one to reach her. Loren can stand for the Lady’s Light and can banish the darkness. Once it returns to Jalad, Tegan must be turned over to another for protection.”
“Cianan,” Dara suggested. Next to Loren, she trusted the dark-haired ranger with her life.
Anika nodded. “Agreed.”
“Granna,” Loren began. Pain lanced his voice.
She gripped his forearm. “I know. We must go, I as water and mother, Dara as fire and maiden.” She shot Dara a pointed look. “We art aware of the risks.”
Maiden. Now here was a twist. She recalled all the times Loren had pulled back. Her gaze flew to Loren’s; he nodded ever so slightly, a rueful light in his eyes. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A new form of torture. What was it Loren had said? Dracken rue. That was it.
Dracken rue, indeed.
“With the earth getting ready for winter-sleep, there shalt not be as much power for me to draw on,” Gwendolyn warned. “I shalt do what I can.”
“That be all we canst ask of any,” Lorelei assured her. “Asides, we are all experienced adepts.”
“Except me,” Dara said.
“Thou knows Jalad. Through the Torque memories and the book of spells, thou art one of the most knowledgeable of all.” Lorelei smiled. “Pari said thou took thy seeing stone with it. Thou shouldst read the book.”
“Yessss. Much power in reading.”
“We banish the shards back to Jalad,” Gwendolyn mused. “What doth we do about stripping the demon from Jalad himself and banishing it back to the abyss?”
“It is a twist on removing iron poisoning from a dragon,” Pahn began. “You take opposing forces, make the iron move away from one and toward the other.”
“The demon is pure darkness,” Everett stated. “It shalt move away from the Light.”
“And go where?” Dara asked.
“We canst open a crack in this world, to send the demon beyond us for all time,” Aletha answered. “Mount Aege, the Fyre Mountain, gave me the idea. That mountain is still active, with rivers of fire miles deep below the earth. That makes a perfect place for a gateway back to the abyss.”
“Earth, fire and metal,” Pahn said. “I also brought warded arrowheads made of nirrti.”
Gwendolyn gasped. “Star-stone?”
“What’s that?” Dara asked.
“Rocks fallen from the heavens to earth,” Gwendolyn replied.
“Once unwarded, naught flesh survives their touch,” Pahn confirmed.
“Consecrated to the Goddess and in the hands of the rangers, they just might do for the ba-pef.” Everett turned to Dara. “If the rangers drop the ba-pef and we send the shards back to Tegan, it shalt be up to thy fire to send the fallen back to Her Light.”
Dara paled and swayed. “You wish me to slay my own people? I can’t do that. Not again…”
Loren clasped her arm. His eyes burned with a Light not wholly his own. Lady’s champion. “Warrior’s way. Light to Light. There is no saving them on this earth. But they can be saved in the next.”
They both had their roles to play in the coming conflict.
Pahn spoke up. “Communication will be a problem.”
“My sylphs canst help with passing messages around the field betwixt groups,” Anika answered.
“Champion,” Aletha said. “Everett and I require thy presence at the temple. We must work on the actual banishment rituals. Dara, thou must study that book. The rest of thee, brush up on traps, spells—anything to hinder the enemy.”
With their orders made clear, the group dispersed. Loren gave Dara a rueful glance as the Lady’s servants led him away.
Dara watched him go. Off to plan a war. A war where he could get hurt—or killed—because of a vow he’d made to her. Her heart caught in her throat. Please, Lady, keep him safe, she prayed.
Upstairs awaited the book of spells. She shuddered. A spell book written in blood. What would she find there?
Chapter Fourteen
They heard naught from Cianan for two days. All the crown told Loren was that he was alive and well, somewhere in the mountains beyond the barriers.
Dara gave up interrogating Loren on the rare moments he was able to escape from the temple and locked herself away with the book. Like the treasures in the cave on the Isle of Mysts, she knew what spell was whose without even using the voices. The oldest ones in the book were at the beginning, written by Mystria herself. They were the most powerful, and, Dara sensed, the most dangerous. Mystria had the least scruples of any of them when it came to the ethical uses of her power. What suited her purpose was acceptable. Regardless of the cost to others.
Dara looked through the seeing stone at the ancient, crabbed text until her eyes crossed. The spell that kept drawing her back was a soul-transmigration spell, the means of taking a soul from one vessel and putting it in another. That was how the blood torque came into being, Dara realized. She wondered if it could be altered into a demon-transmigration spell, and set off to ask Aletha.
