Heart of the Flame

by Lara Adrian

  At his nod, she turned back and reached out to settle the seal where she indicated. There was the softest sigh of sound as the odd key locked into place. Then a low and rising rumble grew from somewhere deep within the tor itself.

  "Haven, get back!"

  Kenrick lunged for her, catching her below her arms and dragging her away from the wall not a moment too soon.

  From out of the glazed tile floor--indeed, from below, above, and on all sides--shooting flames erupted inside the nave. The fire expanded like a wall in the center of the chamber, blocking their path. The wall of symbols, and the key Haven had retrieved from le Nantres, were never farther out of reach.

  Haven struggled to get out of Kenrick's hold. "Faith," she gasped. "'Tis incredible!"

  "Aye," Rand snarled. "Why, it seems that hell itself has just opened its gates before our eyes. Thanks to you."

  Haven shot him a look of confusion. "Look beyond the flames. Do you see it?"

  Kenrick followed her direction but saw nothing save the blinding conflagration that roared from the very spot they had been standing a moment ago. It sealed them off more effectively than any amount of towering granite or steel. "There is naught to see, Haven. Naught but fire."

  "Nay!" she insisted. "The cup is there--one part of the Chalice treasure--on the other side of the flames. It sits on a pedestal of gleaming marble. How can you miss the sparkle of the golden bowl and the deep red stone that glows brighter than a ruby in its core?"

  "She's lying," Rand said. "I told you she would seek to deceive us with her witchery. Now do you believe me?"

  Kenrick held his friend at bay with an upraised hand. "Let her speak."

  "The cup is there. I see it as plain as I see both of you."

  "And the flames?"

  She nodded. "The cup is on the other side of the flames."

  "Damnation," Rand cursed. "To have come this far--to be this close only to fail!"

  "We've not failed yet." Kenrick contemplated the soaring barrier of fire that crackled and twisted a few paces away. "If the treasure is visible on the other side, out of the fire's reach, then we have not lost it."

  "What do you propose to do?"

  Kenrick unhitched the toggle flap on his shoulder satchel and slid his hand inside the leather bag. His fingers curled around warm metal, into his palm pressed a coiled dragon stem on a cup of pure gold. He withdrew the priceless treasure in measured silence.

  "By the Rood, Saint. Is that what I think it is?"

  Haven took a wary step away from him, putting healthy distance between herself and the Calasaar cup.

  "'Tis one part of the Dragon Chalice--the Stone of Light," Kenrick said.

  The cup reflected the flames like sparks of pure illumination, refracting the beams into prisms of dancing light. Rand watched in transfixed awe. Haven looked to Kenrick in stark fear.

  "Don't worry," he said. "I know the danger it poses to you. I'll not let it near you."

  Rand stared in fascination. "You didn't tell me you had this. God's blood, my friend. If another cup exists like this one, 'tis no wonder de Mortaine pursues it like a demon. The piece is exquisite--easily worth a king's fortune."

  "Four of these make up the Dragon Chalice. There is no wealth great enough to buy the power of the Chalice as a whole."

  Rand's oath was quiet, reverent. "What will you do with this piece now?"

  Kenrick considered Calasaar with a judicious eye. "This cup saved my sister's life some months ago. I don't pretend to know the full power of the Dragon Chalice, but I know it is immense. Perhaps it will be strong enough."

  He glanced back at the wall of fire, not quickly enough to escape Haven's notice. Wide-eyed, her face stricken with realization, she took a half step toward him.

  "Kenrick--no. You cannot do it. You cannot mean to cross."

  He met her worried gaze with a look of determination. "The other cup is there? You see it plainly."

  For a moment she did not answer. He could see warring emotions play in her eyes, in her expression that went from concern to doubt to pale fear. "Kenrick...the risk is too great. We cannot be sure of anything--least of all that you can do what you are contemplating."

  "I have to try."

  Rand looked between the both of them, his brow furrowed. "I know you are not thinking to traverse that hellish veil of flames, my friend. You will go up like a cinder."

  "I don't think so."

  Rand swore a vicious oath as he yanked one of his leather gauntlets from his baldric. He held it out before him, then tossed the glove toward the fire. It incinerated in an instant, dissolved to naught but smoke and ash.

  "Have you lost your mind? There must be another way past this obstacle."

  "There is no other way. And even if there was, we don't have the time to find it," Kenrick said, every instinct telling him this was the answer despite his logical mind's protestations that he invited certain death.

  He could not allow his doubt to overshadow his faith. He trusted Haven's word. He trusted his own heart that this was the sole solution.

  He looked to Haven, her beautiful face gone white as snow, her lips parted in silent denial. He memorized her in that moment, the sweet witch who had stolen his heart, then he gripped Calasaar a little tighter, and turned to take a vaulting leap into the flames.

  Chapter 31

  It was madness that possessed her in that moment Kenrick took the Calasaar cup and prepared to make his leap across the flames. Madness, perhaps...and a love so strong, Haven needed less than a heartbeat's pause to know what she had to do. She could not let him make the uncertain journey alone.

  As he took the first step, Haven grabbed his hand and held fast. Clinging to Kenrick as to life itself, she turned her face into his shoulder and followed him through the wall of soaring, twisting fire.

  Behind her closed eyelids, a piercing orange glow filled her vision like a blinding brand. Heat engulfed her, enveloping her from head to toe as they sailed through the conflagration. Flames licked at her from all sides, stealing her breath, searing her thoughts.

  Haven knew a sudden jolt of panic, uncertain which source of fire burned her more intensely--that of the chasm they were leaping, or the power of the Dragon Chalice clutched tightly in Kenrick's other hand.

  Either one could easily destroy her--should destroy her--but it was too late to let go. Kenrick's fingers were strongly wrapped about her own, giving comfort where fear and fire might have swallowed her whole.

  He did not release her, not even when their feet finally, safely, touched ground on the other side of the soaring inferno.

  While he refused to let go of her, Kenrick set down the Calasaar cup, placing the priceless treasure on the tiles at their feet. Then he whirled on Haven and seized her upper arms in strong, trembling hands. "Criste, woman! What the hell were you thinking?"

  He gave her no chance to answer, pulling her against him in a fierce embrace. He held her tightly, his heart thudding heavily against her while the wall of fire crackled and twisted behind him. He swore an oath, then grabbed her face in his palms and kissed her with a desperation she had never before felt in him.

  "I couldn't let you do it alone," she murmured against his mouth, her own hands clinging to him as though to life itself. "I couldn't bear the thought--"

  He cut her off with a snarl that sounded more relieved than angry. "Do you realize the risk you just took? Silly little fool..."

  He kissed her again, deeper this time, and Haven knew there was nothing she would not risk where this man was concerned. She loved him, and that made everything else pale to insignificance.

  "Saint!" Rand's voice carried through the flames that yet separated them from where he stood on the other side of the chapel antechamber. "Saint, do you hear me? Speak to me, friend! I cannot see you."

  "We are here," Kenrick answered, his gaze holding Haven's like a caress. "We crossed safely."

  "And the Chalice stone--is it there as she claimed?"

  "Aye,"
Kenrick called back. "It is here. Just as Haven said it would be."

  He released her at last and walked past her to where stood the pedestal she had described. Haven heard him exhale an uncertain breath as he lifted his hand to retrieve the second piece of the Dragon Chalice. His fingers flexed, then closed around the stem of wrought gold.

  His reverent oath was both awestruck and triumphant as he pivoted on his heel with the ancient treasure clutched in his fist.

  "We did it, love. We did it."

  Haven dared not get too close to the cup, for the heat of its forbidden power could sear her just to look upon it. But look she did. Her curiosity drew her toward the treasure that was both beautiful and deadly to those of her kind.

  Her eye was caught by the intricate carving that formed the small dragon base and pedestal of the cup, and to the sparkling bloodred stone clutched within the beast's sharp talons. Blood and fire twined together in the molten core of the rare treasure. Life and death, beating as one.

  "Vorimasaar," she heard herself whisper.

  Kenrick nodded. "Stone of Faith," he said, smiling as he offered the translation of the Anavrin word. His gaze grew reflective as he admired the golden cup in his hand. "It was in the darkest hour of their darkest day that Braedon and Ariana found its mate, Calasaar, all those months ago in France."

  Haven lifted a brow at the irony. "The Stone of Light, recovered amid bleakest darkness."

  "And now Vorimasaar is ours, won through trial by fire," Kenrick remarked. "Perhaps the flames that stood between us and the location of this cup were merely illusion--the final test for the one who sought the Stone of Faith."

  "Perhaps," Haven agreed.

  Perhaps it was that same faith that protected her from the killing power of the Dragon Chalice when she and Kenrick leaped those flames together. Even though he had been holding Calasaar away from her in his other hand, it had been beyond dangerous for her to put herself so near it--to connect herself to the forbidden artifact by touching Kenrick while the cup was in his grasp.

  If the Anavrin lore were true, it should have killed her.

  Instead she was standing there at Kenrick's side, whole and hale, save the ache of knowing that their time together was quickly coming to an end.

  She was Shadow now, no longer the Seeker entrusted on a mission to help recover the Dragon Chalice. She had broken the laws of her blood, and there was a steep price to be paid. By her honor--by her dying breath, if need be--Kenrick and the other people she had come to love would share none of that cost.

  Haven knew not where she would go, but one thing was certain.

  She could not remain with Kenrick once he left Glastonbury Tor.

  * * *

  Haven had grown very quiet. She kept a safe distance from the Chalice stones, an understandable wariness when they both knew well the danger the treasure posed to anyone with shifter blood running in their veins.

  Kenrick knew no such fear, and it was difficult to contain his pride when he was holding so great a prize in his hands. In his one hand, Vorimasaar burned with the dark fire of rubies. In his other, he held the white-hot strength of Calasaar and its icy jewel.

  Kenrick could feel their pull as he held them apart. They hummed with an intensity that was increasing every moment, drawing inward like a vise, tightening. The space between them vibrated with waves of visible power.

  "What is happening?"

  "I'm not sure. They want to join. I can't...keep them...apart."

  "Be careful," Haven called to him, worry lacing her voice. "Kenrick, please--"

  "Stay back!"

  No sooner had the warning left his lips did the two Chalice pieces collide together in his fists. Light exploded before his eyes, shooting out in all directions. The force of it hit him like a blow to the stomach, knocking him backward, almost off his feet.

  Behind him some distance, Haven cried out in shock. "Kenrick!"

  "By the Cross," he breathed, astonished at the dazzling show of light that played out before him. He stumbled a couple of paces, his gaze transfixed on the two cups that were now melded as one and spinning like a child's toy on the floor of the chapel antechamber.

  Calasaar and Vorimasaar, two parts of a greater whole.

  Kenrick would have bent to retrieve the treasure, but Haven's hand on his shoulder made him pause.

  "Kenrick," she said, her own gaze fixed straight ahead of her, rooted on something other than the mated half of the Dragon Chalice.

  He followed her look and what meager breath remained in his lungs leaked out of him on a low-voiced oath.

  For the fusion of the two cups into one of greater power was not the only miracle taking place at that moment.

  At the far wall of the chapel antechamber, where only stone had been before, a window of clear glass had formed. Nay, not a window, Kenrick realized suddenly. It was an open door--a portal overlooking a place that should exist only in dreams.

  "Oh, faith," Haven gasped, disbelief blooming in her eyes.

  "Criste," Kenrick swore. "Is it possible? Can this be what it appears?"

  "Yes," she replied softly. "Kenrick...you have found one of the two portals to the kingdom of Anavrin."

  Chapter 32

  "God's love," Kenrick murmured, entranced by the vision of paradise that lay resplendent on the other side of the portal.

  Trees verdant with leaves, and flowers of every color spread across a landscape rich with dark brown earth, rolling grasses, and crystal lakes. Far in the distance, the many peaked towers of a massive castle fortress rose pristine white, glittering in the sunlight as though mortared with stars plucked from the heavens themselves. Endless blue skies stretched above it all, as if to say that God himself had blessed this place above all others.

  It was as though he gazed upon Eden reborn, and it nearly robbed him of his breath to know that such a place existed.

  "What manner of punishment was it to be made to leave such a place as this?" he wondered aloud, then turned to find Haven with her back to the portal. "Will you not look at your birthplace, my lady?"

  "Nay."

  Hearing the note of pain in her voice, he went to her. He walked around to stand before her, stroking her slender shoulders in a light embrace. "Why won't you look, Haven? What keeps you from facing the splendor of your homeland?"

  "I just...cannot."

  "What is it you fear? That you will not be able to look away once you steal your first glance?"

  She said nothing, but she could not hide the distress from her eyes. He knew her too well now. He understood her heart--God's truth, at times he felt as if their hearts shared the same beat, the same joy and pain.

  "Haven, turn and look at what awaits you."

  With obvious reluctance, she glanced to the open archway behind them, to the pure white light pouring out like a beacon of welcome. As if she could not resist the power of that tranquil glow, Haven slowly lifted her hand, reaching toward it. The light reached back, twining about her arm like a delicate vine of shimmering iridescence.

  Kenrick himself felt the pull of Anavrin's allure, the promise of a sanctuary so pure and everlasting, it could only be met in a place of mists and myth. Only an extraordinary woman like the one standing before him could have been borne of such magic, such miraculous wonder.

  Anavrin was where she belonged.

  He could see that now, more than ever. Her freedom--her very life--waited on the other side of that archway. He would not selfishly wish her to remain with him, outside the peace and safety of her true home.

  "Kenrick!" Rand's shout carried over the flames that still divided the chapel. "Bring the treasure, my friend. Time is wasting. I'll ready the horses, then we must be away at once."

  "He is right," Kenrick said, scarcely resisting the urge to touch the delicate shell of her ear as she stood in the twisting light near Anavrin's threshold. "We cannot delay what must be done."

  She did not look at him. Her voice was very small, faraway somehow. "You will purs
ue the last of the Chalice stones with Rand?"

  "Yes. Serasaar cannot be far from my reach, especially now that I have its two mates to help guide me to it."

  "First you will have to leave the Tor."

  "Aye. And I won't do that until I know you are safe where you belong. We cannot be sure how long this portal will remain open. You must go, my lady. Now."

  His command was stern, more stern than he would have thought himself capable of in that moment. But despite the firmness of his tone, Haven's hand began to fall back down to her side. She turned to face him, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. The light of Anavrin's portal danced like flames in her watery gaze, imbuing her with an incandescent, otherworldly beauty that stole his breath.

  A slow blink snuffed the lingering glow, as though she meant to deny it a place within her.

  "I cannot," she said, a simple denial that broke her voice. "Anavrin is no longer my home. Even if I could return to my old life there, I would not. I will not leave you. Not when I can feel danger closing in on this place like a vise."

  "I am not asking you, Haven. I am telling you. Damnation--there is no choice!"

  She seemed immune to reason at that moment, defiance edging her voice and the stubborn tilt of her chin. "The others of my clan are moving in on this place. I can feel them this very moment, getting closer--"

  "Then I will deal with them as they come. This is my fight, lady. Leave me to it. I need to know that you are out of harm's way."

  From the other side of the chapel, Rand's heavy steps echoed, followed by a ripe curse. "Riders on the approach, Saint. I count four of them, armed to the teeth from the look of it. Bring the damned cup and let's go while we still can!"

  "It is too late," Haven said quietly. "They know we're here. We cannot run, for they will surely find us."

  She was putting herself in the equation, a fact that did not sit well at all. "There is no we, Haven. There can't be. Not anymore. You are marked--you said it yourself. You will be killed if you remain here on the Outside."