by Lora Leigh
The Sorceresses stared at Rhydan and Torran accusingly while the warriors held no expression at all. The Keeper of the Mystic Forests held an expression of triumph though, and a malicious one at that.
Well, perhaps not all the warriors were expressionless. There were four of the Twin sets who watched him with regret, who stared at the warriors of the Veressi uncertainly before turning back to them.
“How did you find us?” Torran asked, knowing the shields the Veressi and Garron had placed upon the cavern should have shielded them.
“A Sorceress Keeper heir cannot hide from the Keeper who gave her birth, no matter the strength of her shields, or others,” Alisante stated in her pseudo-gentle tone. “As long as Astra is within Covenan, so can her mother find her.”
“Ah, a traitor to your fair daughter once again, Keeper,” Rhydan proclaimed, mocking. With a wave of his hand he clothed himself and Astra, as Torran clothed himself as well. Sliding the furs back from their bodies, they rose from the pallet and faced not just their accusers but also the warriors sent to see to their arrests.
Astra’s pain was like a stake driving into their hearts as a black-haired Sorceress drew the magick-inhibiting iron cuffs from the belt at her side and stared at Astra, tears filling her eyes.
“Camry—”Astra shook her head slowly. “Do not do this. You know not what goes on here.”
“You did this, Astra.” Camry’s voice was thick with conflict and anger. “This you did when you hid these Wizards and conspired in their escape. Were you innocent of their treason, then you would have come to the Keeper of the Lands and seen to explanations rather than hiding them as you have done.”
“They are my natural Consortors,” she whispered painfully. “I could not turn away.”
“How prettily she lies,” Alisante sighed. “How often I have fought to convince Queen Amoria of her lack of ties to the lands and her undeserving status as Keeper Heir. Perhaps this will convince her.”
“You lie!” The accusation had each Sorceress glaring back at Alisante.
These were women who had fought with Astra, who had been by her side for the past eight cycles and knew well her connection to the Mystic Forests as well as to Covenan itself.
“The Keeper of the Lands will not abide this betrayal,” Alisante suddenly hissed in retaliation. “She cannot ignore what you have done, Astra.”
“Anja will not take my place, Alisante,” Astra assured her. “The land will not have it. Already it trembles in anger at your attempt to sever its ties to me. Only my death can sever the bonds I have with it.”
Alisante’s lips twitched in the barest smile of calculating triumph.
Astra felt her jaw clenching in rage. “Ah, so this is your scheme.” Bitterness now filled her. “You believe that in delivering me to judgment for crimes not committed that you will see my death? Nay, Keeper, such will not happen. The lands I will soon command will not allow it.” As she spoke, the merging power of the Joining, a turquoise as pure and radiant as power itself began to glow about her.
The cavern trembled, the echo of the land’s anger at her treatment suddenly filling the room in the colors of the Mystic Forest’s power. The blues and the greens swirled up from the cavern floor, wrapped around her, then extended out to Rhydan and Torran as they watched the display in surprise.
Alisante jumped back in fear and shock, her pale face seeming to whiten further as the swirling colors darkened the closer they came to her.
“I will see no such thing,” the Keeper snarled, her own hands lifting as power began to pour from them. “I am still Keeper of the Mystic Forests, you little dracas whore.”
But her power, strong though it was, could not compare to that which Astra wielded. The power of the Mystic Forests, fused with the Raging Seas, descended by the greatest Keepers ever known, the Veressi, and strengthened by Wizard Consorts broke easily past the guards the Mystic Keeper threw up before it.
Warriors and Sorceresses scattered throughout the cavern.
Rhydan could feel the Sentinel Warriors suddenly combining their powers and attempting to surround him. A move normally guaranteed to negate a Wizard’s power.
But Rhydan and Torran had been strengthened by the Veressi themselves as well as their Consortress.
By the very heart of Sentmar’s magick.
Taking them would not be nearly so easy.
Connecting with their Consortress, sharing the thought with her that they could easily shadow jump and escape, was their quickest plan. They would not see her judged by a mother’s hatred, or the condemnation of the Sorceresses she had fought beside for so long.
“No.” She shook her head slowly, using her magick to do no more than hold Alisante at bay. “I can’t leave.”
A wave of her hand and Alisante slumped against the cavern wall, staring at her own hands in disbelief, unable to accept that the land, that her own magick and her deceit had failed her.
Astra could only stare at the woman she had once called mother. Betraying that poisonous woman would mean nothing to her, but she couldn’t betray Marina further. She had already committed the ultimate treason, she would not add cowardice to her crimes by leaving Covenan. It would destroy her.
“Astra, do not make us fight you,” Camry pleaded with her. “Come with us willingly. Do not destroy our hearts this way.”
Rhydan felt his chest aching with the sob that hitched from his Astra’s chest as she faced the women she had called sisters.
“You go nowhere,” Rhydan ordered her, the command in his voice heavy with dire warning. “But with us.”
Tears fell from her eyes, her lips trembling as her hands clenched at her sides, little fists of desperation and fury as she shuddered with the cries she fought to hold in.
“I will not leave Covenan,” she swore, terrifying him to the deepest levels of his being, because to stay could very well mean her life if Alisante Al’madere had her way. And she would hold sway over all but the missing queen.
“Not for long, my heart,” he swore. “Just until we have this safely resolved.”
“Not even for a moment,” she denied, her voice hitching with her tears. “No, my Consortors. I’ll never run from my queen, nor my Guardian.” She stared back at them, the tears, the pain raging through her staying his hand when he would have forced her to shadow jump with them. “I will be unharmed. Go, the shadow planes will protect you where I cannot.”
“Only the Veressi shadow jump,” one of the warriors proclaimed.
Rhydan ignored him as he turned back to his Consortress.
“What you face, so shall we,” Torran sighed before arching his brows to the Sentinel Warriors. “There will be no chains and there will be no restraints upon our magick. We will go willingly.”
Evidently, such an answer was unacceptable to several of the Sentinel Warriors. Before Rhydan and Torran could guess their intent, a powerful, combined surge of magick infused with a spell to painfully disarm not just them but also Astra hurled toward them.
They could not have guessed Astra’s powerful answer.
* * * * *
The knowledge of the Joining and the danger pierced Marina’s senses, and along with it all the knowledge that her Sorceresses were unaware the Guardian could perceive when Sorceress and Wizard Twins became one magick with Sentmar.
Her head jerked up, her gaze swinging from the charts she had been perusing to the surprised gazes of her Consortors, and that of the dragon Garron.
Black, solemn eyes in a leathery dragon’s face seemed to widen, as though he felt the danger and the warning at the same moment.
Her lips parted and Marina couldn’t stop the tears that filled her eyes, the ache that tore at her heart. The regret that the Sorceress she was so fond of had been too frightened of the repercussions to come to her.
There was other knowledge as well.
The knowledge of the darkness that sensed the Joining, and its anger over it. The Sentinel Warriors who had sensed the magick, the Sorc
eresses searching for it, the jealousy and vindictiveness of a mother, and the powers vying to destroy the Joining converging on one small cavern at the edge of the Emerald Valley.
Those of magick were not the only ones making their way with haste to the trio. The Griffons were racing from their lairs, their roars of anger filling the air, warning all from the area. Even the babe Tambor had taken to wing, flying above his mother whose magick shielded her undefended belly now.
“Caise, Kai’el,” she whispered her Consortors’ names in fear as they rushed to her side.
“This cannot be,” Garron growled, the black of his gaze flickering with a furious red. “That viperous bitch would not so dare to strike one I protect.”
“Do something now,” Marina cried out as her magick began to swirl around her and the lands themselves began to quake in fury at the challenge to its choice as Keeper Heir.
“At ease,” they warned her quickly. “Your rage will only fuel the lands, Marina, and warn our enemies of our knowledge. Calm yourself. We go, love. Now.”
Their magick surrounded her, and not for the first time, Marina found herself Shadow Walking, and terrified she wouldn’t make it in time to save the Sorceress who knew not just how deep her loyalty truly did lie.
* * * * *
The Griffons were raging, their roars echoing outside the caverns as Sorceress magick and the darkness of all that was evil suddenly began to clash. Without thought, Astra sent her magick to close the cavern entrance to the beasts winging their way to the cavern, determined to protect her.
Alisante straightened from the cavern wall with a scream of rage, her eyes suddenly glowing black as blood-red magick poured from her fingertips toward the daughter she had never wanted, and had tried desperately to destroy in the womb.
With her, four Sentinel Warriors converged as well, the gray and red hues of their magick aligning with Alisante’s and streaking far too quickly toward the Consortors Astra had given her heart and her soul to.
“No!” The cry tore from Astra’s lips as she suddenly jumped between them and the fiery aura of a pure, blood-red evil magick streaking toward them.
As though time slowed as they tried to get to her, to push her back, Rhydan and Torran felt as though they were moving much too slow as they struggled to save the only link they possessed to life.
Before they could reach her a clash of magick sounded. The darkened rainbow of iridescent Veressi magick sliced between Astra and the reddened hues as the Guardians of the lands suddenly arrived in a hail of voracious power that sucked at the oxygen in the air.
At the same moment, Garron, Marina and the Sashtain Wizards were blocking the magick as well, protecting one too delicate, far too courageous Consortress as the bloody magick suddenly swung toward her.
The four Sentinel Warriors were blown back and, split from those of the darkness along with the Sorceresses, were suddenly thrown, hitting the cavern wall. Shaking their heads at the force of the blows, they were still able to send their magick, hues of gold, gray and amber, gentle blue and iridescent violets vied with fierce fiery brown to join the battle against the blood-red hues of evil and the blackened strands of a darkness straight from Shadow Hell as the four warriors who had attacked suddenly stood with a dragon nearly identical to Garron.
“Brother,” the imposter growled in a voice that vibrated with evil. “So we meet again. Once more over Sorceresses whose value I greatly question.”
“Question as you will,” Garron snarled in a voice that thundered with rage. “Still will I protect them once again. And both we know how ended the battle we last fought.” He smirked.
Steam emitted from the flared nostrils of the imposter. “Still yet, my power was greater, brother,” the dragon reminded him. “’Twas the aid of our parents and siblings who have no concept of loyalty that won the battle for you.”
Garron waved such a thought away as Astra watched the battle of words, her stomach tight with fear as she called out to the lands of her birth, to the Raging Seas that infused it and the magick that built beneath it to gather its power to greater force.
“And once again you have only piddling Sentinel Warriors to do your bidding, and reckless, greedy women without morals.” Garron chuckled. “Have you learned nothing over the ages?”
Suddenly, blood-red magick shot toward Garron as a dragon’s roar filled the cavern.
It was met with a rainbow of dark and light iridescent hues as Sorceresses, Sentinel Warriors, Astra’s Keeper powers and Wizard Consorts alike threw their strength to Garron’s and met the dark being with a power that seemed to grow, to intensify, to draw its breath from the soul of Sentmar’s magick.
Thunder rolled as Astra threw her magick suddenly to her. Consortors combining with powerful Wizard magick, it strengthened, pierced the center of the veil of magicks to add even more strength to Garron’s, the Veressi and the Sashtain Twins whose magick was infused with that of the Guardian of the Covenan lands. That magick, the greatest outside that of the One, met the evil drawn from the deepest reaches of Shadow Hell.
A scream of agony and rage pierced the cavern. In the blink of an eye, the dragon imposter disappeared and the traitorous warriors fell to the cavern floor as the Griffons were stopped outside the cavern by the spell Astra had quickly thrown at the opening to hold them from the danger of the evil inside.
Astra watched as their magick sizzled for but a second before the warriors were left to stare at the ceiling of the cavern in lifeless shock. Beside them, Alisante groaned, a whispered, “No, no, I cannot fail again. I cannot fail again,” trembled from her lips.
She had attempted to destroy Astra even as she rested within the womb. How many other times before this had she attempted to murder the daughter who would have loved her?
The battle was over though. Finally, whatever dark force she had followed had been conquered, and all that was left would be to see to the former Keeper’s punishment.
The land would never accept her again now. Should Alisante even attempt to step into the Mystic Forests after this, then the land itself would swallow her whole. The dark being who had tormented them since the arrival of the Wizard Twins had shown his presence and made himself known. There would be no peace now until somehow he was once again locked in the deepest pits where he could cause no harm. But Astra could sense there was much more at play here than simply a dark god’s rage. There was more power backing this battle than history had claimed Dar’el could have.
Magick slowly receded, bringing the time of Astra’s reckoning to hand as she faced the Ruling Wizards and the Guardian of the Covenan lands.
Turning to Marina, Astra went to one knee, head bowed.
“I submit to thee, Guardian,” she whispered. “Punish me as you will.”
She made no excuses. She begged for no mercy.
Instead, she faced what punishment would come for loving her Wizards and trusting in them above the proclamations of their guilt.
They were her heart, and she would make no excuses for it.
She was the Keeper of the Mystic Forests though, and she knew well the land had accepted her as such. No longer was she an heir. No longer would she be forced to wait to take the throne that was rightfully hers.
Her Guardian could not kill her.
She could not kill the Consorts Astra had taken to her heart.
But she could destroy the bonds of years of friendship and loyalty if she attempted in any way to punish the Wizards Astra loved.
There was no crime committed, and Astra would be damned before she would see her Wizards punished for that which they did not do.
Chapter Thirteen
No sooner had the words left her lips than Astra found herself not in the cavern where she had knelt before the Guardian of the Lands of Covenan, but rather instead inside a cavern beneath Sellane Castle.
The Crystal Palace, as it was called, dripped with crystals from the walls and ceiling. They were suspended as though they were multihued stars from the thi
nnest of webbed, crystallized spores of energy. They held sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, gems and precious stones. There were crystals of the finest ambers, amethysts and brilliant organza beads the color of a nearly opalescent orange, the softest, palest blue, violets and every color imagined.
Here, the power of any being, of any spell was multiplied. But there was also no access in or out of the cavern, and only a very, very select few knew it to be more than legend.
Even Astra had believed it to be legend before now.
Even here, Garron did not feel safe with whatever reason he had shadow jumped himself, Rhydan, Torran, herself, Marina and her Consorts the Sashtain Twins, and the Guardians of the Land of Cauldaran. Because within this magickal room of multihued starlight, he enclosed them within a shield of magick that twisted and swirled with all the colors of the rainbow. The colors of Garron’s magick.
The shield was an impenetrable wall of magick that no others could see, hear or sense in any way. It was as though it simply did not exist to the eyes, ears, senses or magick of any being outside it. And only the greatest of magickal beings could do such a thing.
“Garron, what is the meaning of this magick?” Marina demanded as Astra watched the Veressi begin to weave their own magick through the wall of colors, their darkened hues nearly as powerful as those of the dragon’s.
“Secrets will destroy not just this new Joining but will endanger any that come after it,” Garron warned the Veressi as he ignored Marina’s question. “I will not betray what you have given me, but I urge you, give what you can to ensure no harm befalls those I have taken beneath my protection.”
His starlit black eyes watched the Wizards, their eyes as deep, as black as his own, their gazes just as intense as the dragon’s as it seemed some message, some information passed between the three.
