by Lora Leigh
It was a rumor Astra did not doubt, for it was well known magickal beings could not exist within those lands.
Thankfully, the bathing caverns were empty.
The heated waters bubbled gently about the large pools. The main cavern held six of the large pools. The heated water bubbled from beneath the stone caverns, filling the pools with its magick solace.
With a wave of her hand the warriors’ leathers disappeared from her body, only to reappear, neatly folded on a dry stone shelf next to her.
Naked, her body still much too sensitized from the touch of the Wizards’ magick earlier in that day, Astra had greatly looked forward to the warmth and solace of the waters. Exhaustion and a saddened realization that she could not stop whatever fate the One had decreed for her, and it seemed that fate was going to be impossible to either avoid or delay for the present, filled her.
Pacing slowly, head down, Astra took the roughly hewn stone steps that led to the magickal caress of the waters. It first lapped her ankles, then her knees. Moving to the smoother, wide ledge beneath the waters, she sank onto the submerged sink with a sigh of relief.
The waters lapped at her shoulders, bubbled around her, caressing her body, stroking against it and reminding her much too much of her Wizards’ magick touch. Leaning her head back against the rim of the pool, Astra allowed her eyes to close and beneath the concealing waters her hands drifted languidly over her swollen breasts.
She was so aroused.
So aroused that even now she cursed herself for having left the Wizards. Had she stayed, then they surely would have taken her to their bed. They would have lain against her, sheltering her between them in warmth and in passion.
That Joining could have destroyed her though.
Not a destruction that could harm the land, for everything inside her assured her that there was no darkness in her Wizards. Nay, the destruction would come from the battle and the resentment that would grow once the Brigade and the Guardian who led it learned of her deceptions.
For, though there was no darkness in her Wizards, still, they had conspired with the Veressi, be it for reasons they believed in or nay, still, they had conspired against the Covenan Throne and those who held it.
A crime punishable by death.
It would be yet another crime to destroy such magnificent Wizards. Men whose bodies radiated strength and power. The magick aside, the pure pleasure of every caress, every kiss, every moment of ecstasy guaranteed to be focused solely upon her every need, was near more than she had been able to drag herself from. The promise of a night of sensations unlike any she had ever dreamed was a vow, unspoken yet assured.
She allowed her hands to drift against the sensitive, swollen globes of her breasts, her fingers whispering over the tips of them, near dragging a moan from her as her eyes closed in near ecstatic pleasure.
The remembered heat of the Wizards’ touch seared her from her nipples to her womb in such a flare of sensation that it seemed magick itself pulsed to the pit of her stomach and beyond, to her womb.
She would wander farther with her own touch were it not for the sound of leather boots entering the caverns and the sense of another nearing.
Easing her arms to rest instead along the narrow rim just below her shoulders, Astra forced her eyes to open and quickly smothered the irritation that another would disturb these moments she needed so.
“Ah Astra, did you find the creature seeking you this morn?” Aerin Longrieve, heir to the power of the Whispering Mountains, gave a quick snap of her fingers that had her warriors’ leathers disappearing from her body.
Rather than reappearing on the clothing shelf just inside the door though, they seemed to disappear entirely. No doubt the maids would find them in the washing room the next morn. The leathers were sweat stained and smeared with grass and mud, just as the knee-high boots had been.
“Sentinels save me from training tomorrow,” Aerin groaned, giving Astra little time to answer her question.
Easing into the waters, the black-haired Sorceress found her seat before leaning her head back and closing her eyes on a sigh of bliss.
“There’s training yet again tomorrow?” Astra asked in surprise.
It was not often Marina put the Sorceresses through the grueling exercises so frequently.
“She senses something,” Aerin sighed, eyes still closed, her voice, though filled with relief, hinting at her confusion. “Shadow Hell, I believe we all sense something that we cannot yet explain.”
Astra lowered her head, her gaze focusing on the spores of power that gleamed within the bubbling waters around her.
“You did not say if you had found the creature in need as of yet?” Aerin’s head lifted, her brilliant-blue eyes filled with question as she now focused on Astra.
“Not as of yet,” Astra sighed.
It was the truth. She had found no creature in true need. The Griffon cubs were already well on their way to finding their strength before she had come upon them and the Twins who had saved them.
“You will return on the morn then?” the other Sorceress asked.
“No doubt they will summon me again,” Astra assured her.
What was she to say to such a question? Her conscience raged. She did not wish to lie to one of her sisters-in-arms, yet neither could she tell her the truth.
“No doubt,” Aerin agreed with a slight grimace. “When the creatures of Emerald Valley demand our care, there is naught we can do but tend them.” A light, fond laugh fell from the Sorceress’ lips. “Perhaps it is training as well, for when we have wee ones of our own to tend.”
“Let us hope they do not wander to the forests until they are of age to lift their voices and assure us once we are near them,” Astra agreed, fostering the belief that the creatures she searched for were being but elusive, rather than the truth as it was.
“Speaking of,” Aerin sighed, her gaze turning pensive. “Did you know the Keeper of the Mystic Forests arrived here this day?”
Astra felt her stomach drop.
Fear began to edge through her mind, tightening her body to the point that she felt as though she were facing a coming battle rather than a mother.
“Which suite was she given?” No doubt Astra would be called to explain herself anon. The Keeper could even know, despite the fact that no Joining had occurred, that her daughter’s powers had aligned with the Wizards all of Covenan now searched for.
“Think you she stayed?” Aerin’s eyes widened in mocking disbelief. “Now, cousin, surely you know my dear aunt and your mother far better than to believe such a thing.”
It was often that Astra forgot her mother and Aerin’s mother were sisters, so much were they unalike.
Astra shook her head tiredly. “Of course, there is no fortress as fine as that of the Mystic Forests.”
Sarcasm shadowed her tone, for they both knew the condescension that filled Alisante Al’madere at the thought of the hospitality of the other Keepers, even that of the Sellane Castle. She felt no other province could match that of her own for power, strength or luxury.
The insult she paid to the queen each time she visited was tolerated only to a point before the queen would immediately send the Keeper back to her own land.
It wasn’t Shadow Walking exactly, for the planes used to travel from one province’s fortress to the others wasn’t exactly a part of the Shadow Planes, but rather a bridge of sorts between each center of power that Covenan possessed.
“Why does she seek you, Astra?” Aerin asked, a bit concerned. “It is not yet time for your year in waiting, and she has made it well known that when your time comes she will attempt to force the land to accept your sister.”
Astra’s lips twisted mockingly.
Of course she would, and as Aerin stated, her mother made no secret of the fact that it was her intent.
“The land will accept no other,” Astra stated confidently, leaning back once again, though rather than closing her eyes, she stared instead at the cryst
alline spores of magick strapped like emeralds among the stone crevices in the ceiling above.
“True, it will not,” Aerin agreed. “But ’tis a betrayal of you, Astra. One you do not have to accept so bravely.”
No, she did not, and the other Sorceress’ sympathy was near more than she could bear. After all, of all the Sorceress Brigade, Astra was the only Sorceress whose mother wished to break the bond she had with the land. An act that threatened to handicap Astra in the worst of ways, if not destroy her magic entirely.
“The Veressi of centuries before broke a Keeper’s bond with her lands and she destroyed herself. You are much stronger than that, cousin,” Aerin assured her.
Astra lifted her head and stared back at her cousin with mocking amusement. “They broke her from her lands first. Think you I would allow any to take me from Covenan to begin with? Or allow Alisante to break my bonds with my lands?” With a sharp breath she showed her contempt of such an action should her mother take it. “Nay, Aerin, I will not allow such. As much as I love my dear sister, she will never know the bond with the lands that I know while I live.”
Aerin bit at her lower lip, tugging it a second before responding. “What, though, if such an attempt were made upon your life, Astra? Any who would consider tearing asunder the bonds you have with that power would not care to strike out at you with such murderous intent.”
Astra narrowed her eyes as the other Sorceress held her gaze. “Think you Alisante would dare such a thing?” she asked. “The land itself would quake with fury, demanding atonement. There is no way to hide such a thing from the Guardian, and Marina would see her life ended for such an act, and all in her line forever barred from holding the power of the Mystic lands.”
“True.” Aerin lowered her gaze before closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the rim of the natural tub. “She would surely know it was not an act she could hide.”
Just as the suggestion was not one that Astra could forget.
It was a question that often plagued her as well.
Alisante was growing more determined with each year to see that her younger daughter, Anja, attain the power to break the bond Astra had with the lands. What they could not seem to grasp was the fact that the hold the land had on Astra was so strong that each year away from it was becoming harder to bear.
“What makes a child unlovable, Aerin?” The words slipped past Astra’s lips before she could call them back, just as the tear that slipped past her closed lashes would not be contained.
The hellish years after her father’s death, placed in the Village Common of the Mystic Fortress with naught but a nanny who, though fond of the young Keeper heir, still was not her mother, had been brutal. For the other children sensed the banishment, no matter the lies told to excuse the act.
Other parents gazed upon her and wondered what act she had committed that could have been so profane as to cause her mother to cast her away.
And all Astra had known of love had been her tall, strong papa. His laughter and his smiles, the warmth of his arms around her, the strength of his protection had been gone so suddenly—
“’Tis not the child who is unlovable, Astra dear,” Aerin whispered, moving until they now sat side by side, her small hand laying against Astra’s shoulder in sympathy. “’Tis not the child, ’tis the black heart of the mother and the jealousies of a stepfather. Surely you cannot believe such could ever be a child’s fault?”
Astra gave a quick shake of her head. “It changes naught. For it is always the child who suffers, and always the child who accepts the guilt of it.”
Moving quickly to her feet, she exited the bathing pool and the magickal waters that were no longer a relief from the aching loneliness she felt inside. She grabbed the bath sheet and wrapped it quickly around her before all but running along the castle halls to find the privacy of her rooms.
As the heavy door slammed behind her, the tears were already falling.
Wrapping her arms about her stomach, she bent over with the pain, sobs fighting for freedom though she pushed them back inside.
Ah gods, why had she returned here? Why had she not stopped along the way? There were many homes in the Village Common where she could have spent the night in solitude, gratefully accepted by their owners for the protection and prestige that one of the Sorceress Brigade would have given their home.
She stayed within the rooms she had been given in the castle rarely in the past year. The sympathy of the other Sorceresses and that of the queen before her disappearance had always been more than she could bear.
For each year, the lands of all the provinces trembled more. Each year the Mystic Forests shifted and vibrated with anger at each act Alisante executed in her efforts to break the bonds her eldest daughter had with the land. And should that bond ever be broken, then one would die. Either Alisante for her treachery, or Astra in grief once the bonds that were all but physical were severed inside her soul.
“Why?” the whisper was torn from her, dragged from the depths of her woman’s soul. “What foul creature am I, Sentinels?” she begged. “What transgression did I make to deserve such a cruel, vengeful punishment?”
Eyes closed as she slid along the door until she sat on the floor, she folded her arms against her knees, her head buried against them. She did not see the wavering form of the Wizards who watched her, their expressions torn, their hearts heavy as they fought a battle they were certain to lose.
The battle to ensure she chose their Joining, rather than merely accepting it.
What their Sorceress did not know was that never again could a Wizard Twin force an alignment. Never again would magick merely be compatible with magick, as Wizard Twins had forced in the past.
Nay, Ruine and Raize’s father, the former Guardian of the Lands, had ensured that.
Awakened one night by the One, he had told his sons he had cast the spell himself, though the land had accepted it as easily as a Sorceress accepts her natural Consorts’ touch.
The spell was taken by the land, held, and as long as Wizard Twins sought out their natural Consortresses, so would those Sorceresses always have a choice. Never again would their magick alone be captured and held, their lonely hearts left barren and unbound. Never again would she be without a choice in who her magick accepts.
From that moment, the magick of the lands and the power of the One combined to ensure the Wizards a chance to once again Join with the women meant for them. But only on one condition.
The Sorceresses must come to their Wizards and accept them freely, or the magick of their Joining would be such that the power she would infuse her Wizards with would be trapped inside her forever. She must reach out to them, accept them, accept their touch and their hearts, or the core of magick trapped within her soul would not open to them.
Yet, to feel her pain, to feel the clash of anger, bitterness and a child’s grief as it twisted inside her, was like a serrated blade raking across their bare hearts.
This, their Consortress, was but a woman who ached for all they would give her, and for all they could not gift to her.
They could not force a mother’s love, nor return to her the father who had been taken from her. They could not reach into the past and undo all the pain, all the dark, bleak nights filled with her tears.
They could do naught but ensure her future had a far different design.
To do such, they had no choice but to refuse to watch her pain, for in watching, it tore their hearts asunder.
Yet leaving her was not possible.
As they stood to her side, torn between desire and magickal rites, the hazy form of Garron began to waver.
With eyes as black as the pits, his immense dragon form dwarfing the small woman, his expression one of bleak pain, he waved them on their way.
“’Tis a battle I have helped her fight many a lost and lonely night, my young Wizards,” he spoke, mind to mind, his sorrow great for this Sorceress he was so fond of. “See ye well within your cavern until
she returns to you. I will see to her inner wounds until such a time.”
They nodded, grief stricken at leaving her, but lingering long enough to watch as he solidified by her side, the great clawed hand reached out to her shaking shoulder.
She did not have to look to see who reached out to her. Slender arms reached up, gripped iridescent scales and as that hand, a single, clawed hand, covered the delicate, trembling back, she sobbed as a child against a revered father’s chest.
A father taken from her long ago.
The father she needed now, much more than she needed Wizards aching to comfort her.
* * * * *
Torran sat with his brother before the fire, a meal of rabbit, brought by the Griffon male, Mustafa, roughened greens they gathered themselves outside the caverns and a flask of wine the Veressi had left with them, their dinner fare.
They could have had much better, but such would have required the use of magick in this land, and would have been trackable by Wizards and Sorceresses awaiting the use of just such magick. Using it for such selfish means as that of feeding the body would serve to reveal their magick much too easily.
The food was barely touched though. It was not the emptiness of their bellies that concerned them, rather the emptiness that resided in their hearts.
And in their arms.
“Such morose figures of Wizards.”
Garron’s voice had their heads jerking from their plates to the mighty dragon who now stood across the room in all his scaly bounty. He was by far the largest of such forms they’d seen taken by Wizards whose Twins had met an early demise.
Dragons were but small creatures who rested upon the priest’s shoulders. Never had one the size of Garron been seen.
“Does she still weep?” It was Rhydan who voiced the question.
Garron harrumphed. “If she still wept, would I be here, Wizards?”
Rhydan set his plate aside as Torran followed suit.
“Beware, Delmari Wizards.” He sighed as though weary. “The Sorceress you would take has a battle she must face, and that battle shall come soon. The mother she would have loved attempts, even as we speak, to rip asunder the bonds she has with the land that chose her and conspires to bequeath it to one far too weak to control the tempestuous powers beneath it.”
