Twin Passions: 3

by Lora Leigh

  “Our Guardians are no practitioners of dark magick, dragon.” Torran forced himself to sit up at this insult. “Neither the gods nor the magick of the land itself would allow such a travesty.”

  Garron rolled his eyes at the protest. “Your Wizards are manipulating dracas without honor—”

  If he’d intended to say more, he hadn’t the chance. Without fanfare, with no flames, no steam, no hisses or crackles of scales, the Veressi arrived.

  One moment the cavern was free of the heavy magick the Veressi carried with them, and the next moment, it filled the stone-enclosed area with stifling force.

  “Garron, do you not tire of baiting us?” Was it Ruine or Raize? Only the gods could tell the two apart for certain.

  “Never, Ruine,” Garron drawled with mockery as thick as the frightful magick the two possessed as he evidently had no problem identifying them. “Where is my Queen Amoria and her heir?”

  “Safe.”

  Steam issued from nostrils that suddenly flared larger and eyes glittered like orbs of fire as the dragon rose by several feet. A fierce and blazing magick filled the creature, suddenly heavier, more stifling than at any time the Veressi had displayed their rage.

  “Should we leave?” Ruine questioned.

  There was no mockery. No threat. It was a simple question based on the threat the dragon displayed.

  “Think you can escape me?” Garron hissed between clenched, sharpened teeth. “Even the gods cannot hide from me.”

  “Yet you have not found your queen nor your heir,” Raize pointed out as he leaned against the wall. “Neither answer to your call, nor can you sense their magick.”

  Garron’s chuckle wasn’t a sound of amusement. “And only the gods can shelter a presence so well. Tell me, Wizards, what did the dark one Dar’el promise you in exchange for your treason against the Select?”

  The tension that filled the Veressi was nothing less than a display of the highest offense for the insult Garron had paid them.

  “Or what did the Select warn us would pass should we not do as they bid?” Ruine asked as both Torran and Rhydan came to instant alert and Garron seemed to still with a sudden shocking alertness.

  Magick clashed with magick in a silent battle as Garron suddenly focused on the two. Threads of Veressi magick, all the colors of Sentmar in darkened hues began to flare and circle the two as Garron simply stared at the pair.

  Thinner and thinner their magick became until it blinked out entirely and Torran realized Garron had penetrated their strongest shields as easily as he had penetrated his and Rhydan’s weakened ones.

  “Such manipulations and games,” Garron murmured moments later as his size returned to that of merely dangerously threatening rather than murderously huge. “Such secrets and deceptions when you had only to come to me with a warning and the information you held.” He shook his massive head as though wearied of whatever game was being played.

  “And think you we could be any more certain whom we faced than the Guardian of this land could be certain as she faced the darkest of the sons of our Select?” Ruine questioned the dragon softly. “Even we, the greatest Guardians of Sentmar, can be deceived by one such as he, Garron.”

  There was only one they could mean, and Torran felt his trepidation rising.

  If the rise in Secular violence and dark magick was the cause of the dark one indeed, rather than simply his machinations, then all of Sentmar was more at risk than they had once believed.

  The son of the gods, Dar’el, born golden haired and with the purest gaze, held an evil that the land had never known before him. It was written that the clash of dark magick against that of the pure Sentmarian power had nearly destroyed the land, as well as the moons above, before the Select had managed to imprison their most beloved child within the realms of Shadow Hell. And only then, The One had been forced to awaken. The creator of the Select and all of Sentmar had shed his golden magick, filled the Select with his power, and watched as the dark one was sent to the deepest pits of the lands.

  “Return Amoria and her heir.” Garron didn’t demand, nor did he ask. He made a statement of what would occur.

  Ruine grimaced at such a thought. “The danger—”

  “You will return them and it will be done quickly.” The tone wasn’t threatening. The red eyes and bared, sharpened teeth were.

  Raize stared back at him, stepping forward and drawing the dragon’s attention. “The Princess has the power, among others, to shadow walk,” he stated then. “She can escape the place where she is held, and collect her mother as well, if she so wishes it. Despite your insistence, dragon, Sentinel Sorceresses do well exist, and your Princess Serena is just such a Sentinel. Just as we are Guardians of Sentmar rather than mere Keepers or Guardians of Cauldaran alone.” Raize’s tone was laced with arrogance and command now. “Once our Joining with the Princess Serena occurs, our power will increase then to the level of Sentinels as well.”

  The differences between Guardians and Keepers of the Lands balanced, strengthened and helped direct the lesser Keepers of the individual lands. During times of peace the differences in Sentinel Sorceresses and Keepers of the Power were slight. Yet that difference, in times of war, rumored to be the only time such Sorceresses came into their full power, was great.

  Garron chuckled. “How humble you are,” he mocked them. “Does it not smite your pride, Wizards, to know you must have a Sorceress accept you willingly into a Joining to achieve such power?”

  Ruine’s lips quirked at the irony before he replied, “I believe, Garron, the thought of being truly wanted, needed for that other than our power, we would find greatly refreshing.”

  Torran felt shock sear him, as well as the sheer surprise that filled Rhydan. No Sorceress had ever been able to shadow walk without help, nor had ever, at any time in recorded history, been called Guardian. If one Sorceress had such power, then it would be a power that would rival even the Guardians of the Lands of Sentmar, the Veressi Twins. The Veressi could only shadow walk with each other’s help, even when they walked alone, they drew on their Twin’s power to do so.

  “I would know if she held such magick,” Garron snapped, his black gaze narrowing at the suspected deceit.

  “Even if she hid it from herself?” Ruine asked before pushing his fingers through the long blue-black of his hair as his expression tightened with savage intensity. “Our only wish is to make up for the acts our ancestors nearly destroyed the planet with. It is only our desire, Wizard, to ensure our greatest treasure, a gift even our gods could not bestow upon us, lives to fulfill the destiny the magick of Sentmar itself has offered her. A destiny she must find on her own.”

  This could not be. It was the gods who bestowed the powers. They or the One, the greatest Sorcerer of Sentmar. A creature of such legend that even Garron did not believe in his existence.

  Torran glanced at his brother, shock manifesting itself, burning between them as they turned back to the Keepers of the Lands of Sentmar. They were the greatest power on the planet, unless Princess Serena was indeed a shadow walker Guardian.

  “I would know, even if she hid such from herself,” Garron growled.

  Ruine shook his head slowly. “When she was but coming into the power she now wields so effortlessly, we met her in the shadow realms, dragon. There, with Wizards who lived for adventure at her back, she battled the beasts that roamed there with a careless grin and a gleam of adventure in her eyes. Until one day, she no longer arrived within those shadowed lands. Her sword no longer tasted blood and her laughter no longer echoed through the shadowed vales.”

  “And she no longer led the Sorceresses she had ridden with,” Garron murmured as, once again, his power surrounded the Veressi, seeing whatever it was they remembered. “You covered her back—”

  A Veressi Twin nodded. “Always, we have watched out for our warrioress, the one we knew was born to be our Consortress. Even before we stepped into Covenan, we have fought to see her at our side once again, her sw
ord lifted in battle, her magick burning around her. We will not see this until she once again accepts the magick that is hers alone to wield.”

  Garron breathed out heavily, steam emitting from his nostrils as a growl rumbled in his large chest. “A stubborn one that one is,” he said softly. “If she does not want to accept what is inside her, for whatever reason, then she will not. If she entered the shadow realm only in her dreams, and found something there that threatened who she believes herself to be, then she will not accept her destiny easily.”

  The Veressi glanced away from the dragon just enough that even Torran realized…nay, knew, there was much they were holding back.

  “Did you Join with your Consortress before the time of the aligning?” Fury began to build in the dragon once again.

  “Do we appear to be fools to you?” one snapped back, offended. “Nay, we did not Join with our Consortress.”

  “What then did you do, my fine Guardians of Cauldaran?” Garron grunted.

  “We are the Guardians of the Power of Sentmar.” One stepped forward arrogantly. “Not merely of Cauldaran.”

  “Have you not yet learned better, Veressi?” Garron harrumphed. “Surely you have already suspected what I know to be the truth? When the Wizards of Cauldaran tore the Guardian of Covenan from her lands and broke her bonds with the power that filled her, you severed your rule over the entirety of Sentmar. Your ancestors, Veressi, lost that power to your line as long as the two lands are separated by the Winter Mountains and the Feral Glaciers. That cannot be undone.”

  It was a truth all Wizards had finally accepted. Their ancestors had done all they could to break the will of the proud, strong Sorceresses who were given into their care. They had abused the strength and beauty of them, denied the hearts of them, and betrayed the bonds that tied Consorts to their natural Consortresses.

  “There are many lessons Wizards have learned over a millennium without the hearts that should have been ours. But the loss of the powers given us as Guardians of Sentmar is not one of the lessons we have learned,” a Twin all but sneered.

  “And some Wizards have far too much pride,” Garron sighed. “Whatever you believe to be true is not necessarily what will be. In any event, we must now find a way to convince this stubborn princess that dreams and reality can indeed merge.” His gaze narrowed on the powerful warriors. “Take me to my queen. Do so now,” he snapped when they seemed wont to argue. “This is not a matter I will reconsider. You will take me to my queen, or you will learn the power of a dragon’s fury in truth.”

  The Veressi glanced at each other before turning back to the dragon slowly. One, Raize if Torran wasn’t mistaken, stepped forward. “First, dragon, there is a debt we owe to the Wizards before us for the sacrifice they made to the Griffons of this valley. They gave the power that was theirs to save the creatures our Consortress, as well, is so fond of. We would replace it, if you would give us but a moment.”

  The dragon nodded as Torran turned to the Wizard Twins yet again in surprise.

  Raize moved to them, his hand lifting, the power of his magick suddenly rising from his palm without a sound and curling from it, moving slowly, easing to Torran and Rhydan and washing over them like the touch of an infant, pure and clean.

  The weakened center of their magick suddenly flamed to life, the weakness that had once filled them was no more. The months of dangerous weakness they had faced was suddenly a fear they no longer need have.

  They were stronger than ever. Filled with a power they hadn’t known, nor expected, as their bodies soaked in the pure effervescence of the land itself.

  “A gift, not from our Select, but from the land, the magick that whispered your name as Wizards who would defend it in this battle against the one who would pervert the magick gifted to the children of Sentmar.”

  Not from the Select, but from the One who created the Select. The One who filled the land with magick as a gift to the children who would have perished without it.

  “And what are we to use this gift for?” Torran knew that such gifts were never given without reason.

  “Your Consortress, Delmari.” It was Garron who spoke. “To protect your Consortress.”

  “One of the most powerful of all of Sentmar’s creatures,” Raize said solemnly. “The Twelve of the Sorceress Brigade are heirs to the Keeper powers and aligned with the Guardian of Covenan. You must take her as your Consortress, yet you cannot reveal the plans we have discussed. Should she discover them, she must discover them on her own.”

  Garron’s mocking chuckle was once again filled with contempt as his black eyes glittered with disgust. “You believe you can play with these Sorceresses so easily?”

  The Veressi glanced back at him, impatience evident now in their expressions. “We know only what we were warned by the Select to expect. It was their wish that the heirs to the Keepers of the Power of each province of his land and the Guardian of the Powers of the Lands of Covenan must find their trust in the Wizards within their hearts, rather than within any proof of innocence. That trust must exist within them for this battle to be won.”

  “And what battle do you say we face?” Garron growled, the sound one that would frighten even the denizens of Shadow Hell. “The Select have always controlled their wayward son at those times that he’s attempted to escape the bonds of Shadow Hell. They will now as well.”

  “Unless it is not his escape that they fear the most,” one of the Veressi sighed. “Dar’el had definitely found a way to escape his prison, we know this by his attempt to convince others that he was indeed you. That fear is overshadowed by the darkness that has joined him, Garron. A darkness far stronger than he, and one we can neither identify, nor can the Select locate.”

  A darkness that even the Select could not locate? The thought of such dark power was one that had Torran fearing the future of Sentmar itself rather than just the magick that inhabited it.

  “Thank your ancestors for this predicament you now find yourselves mired within,” Garron snorted to the Veressi. “Had they not believed they could force what should be given, that they could ignore their Consortresses’ demands and still retain their loyalty, then you would not find yourself here, facing a battle you may well lose.”

  “And what makes you believe we could lose the battle?” one of the Guardians questioned him harshly. “What do you know, dragon, that evidently you have not shared with your Select?”

  “My Select,” Garron snarled. “Nay, they are no Select of mine. But neither are they revealing all they know to you, my friends. For they know well this darkness you face, and they know well the danger it represents, not just to Sentmar but to magick and the very existence of the Select themselves.”

  “What say you, dragon?” A Veressi Twin tensed further, his expression turning savage. “There is none who could defeat the Select themselves.”

  But the confidence the Twins normally displayed had weakened marginally. They wanted to believe what they were saying, but obviously, they did have their doubts, just as Torran and Rhydan had theirs.

  “Unfortunately, there is,” Garron sighed. “And now, Veressi, you face far more danger than you could have imagined. This darkness would destroy each and every Sorceress this planet calls its own. Destroy them and the magick of Sentmar with the greatest of pleasure.”

  “Why would any wish to destroy those such as the Sorceresses?” a Guardian Twin shook his head as though in confusion. “Why not destroy Wizards or humans instead?”

  “Because it is the innocence and purity of love, the Joinings of Wizard power and Sorceress strength that kept this darkness at bay,” Garron explained heavily. “Your ancestors knew this. They knew what they risked when the Sorceresses left Cauldaran and in time they began to believe that their own power, the strength that flowed from them alone, would be enough to hold it at bay.” His chuckle was one of bitter contempt. “Such pride Wizard males have, and the Veressi more so than others. How does it feel, Raize and Ruine Veressi, to know your line, t
hose who came before you, may have been the hand that dealt to the Wizards their own destruction? Now, take me to my queen.”

  The Veressi didn’t speak, they instead disappeared.

  Just that quickly, with no fanfare, and not so much as a sound.

  They left as they had come, taking with them the power that lay like a heavy cloud in the air, but leaving behind them the certainty that they would learn the truth of Garron’s words.

  And once learning it, they would then act. They were the most powerful Wizards to have ever walked the Cauldaran lands. Wizards many feared walked the line between Wizard honor and dark magick.

  Garron turned to Torran and Rhydan then, his gaze narrowing upon them, his great wings rustling against his back. “Protect this one the land has given you, Delmari,” he growled. “For surely, should you lose her to dark magick, then you will face more than your own heartbreak and loss. You will lose your beliefs and all you inherited. Guard her well, or we may all pay far sooner than you could imagine.”

  Then, just as the Veressi had done, he simply disappeared. To see his queen, or to track down the powerful Wizards to ensure he was taken to her, they weren’t certain.

  What they were certain of was the fact that Astra Al’madere, heir to the Keeper of the Power of the Mystic Forests, was their future, their beloved and their natural Consortress. Of that they were certain, and for that they would fight the Select or the darkest demons of the pits of Shadow Hell.

  For that Sorceress they would battle the Veressi themselves, or any darkness known or unknown that they could possibly face.

  A Sorceress already stealing their hearts.

  Chapter Six

  What could she do now?

  As Astra bent over Tripelli’s neck and raced for Sellane castle, the huge fortress of the Covenani Sorceresses that sat atop Covenan Mountain, she fought to make sense of the situation she now found herself within and the rising premonition that the coming changes to her life were those that would be unavoidable.