Heart of the Dove

by Tina St. John

  "Take two of the guards and see what's going on. If Greycliff is here, it will be next to impossible to find him in all this...humanity."

  "We'll find him," les Nantres assured him.

  He chose two of the shifters and the three set off on foot through the churning crowds.

  Silas de Mortaine watched them disappear, wondering how long Draec les Nantres intended to wait before he moved to betray him for the Chalice.

  * * *

  Rand buried the shifter's body deep in the forest, and in the hours since, his patrol of the woods had yielded no trace of further danger. That, however, was only a matter of time.

  He wondered how the shifter had tracked him to the cottage. Their senses when it came to the Dragon Chalice were fine-tuned; Kenrick had told him how they could scent the treasure from a great distance, their Anavrin blood tied to it by some brand of magic mortal men would likely never comprehend. And as he pondered that fact, he thought back on what Serena had said, that the shifter told her he knew part of the treasure was near.

  Could it be?

  He had combed the shoreline and outlying areas of the forest every day without fail and found nothing. Since he had arrived, he had walked each step of every hour with an eye to his surroundings, hoping, but it had been futile. God's blood, but he had all but sacked Serena's home in search of the cup and come up empty-handed. She and her mother insisted they knew nothing of it, and he was finally beginning to accept that he had lost the crucial half of the treasure to the violent storm and the sea.

  But now...

  Now, after what occurred today, he was besieged with a sudden feeling of doubt. Suspicion settled cold in his gut.

  Had they deceived him? Had he been a fool to trust Serena and her mother at their word?

  He did not credit that Serena would betray him--not after what they had shared together, not even before. She was guileless and innocent, the purest heart he would ever know. Calandra was a different matter entirely. She was crafty and secretive, and she had made no effort to conceal her disdain for him.

  The woman harbored an instant loathing of all men, and he had fared no better under her sharp, condemning eyes. The more he thought on it, the more he questioned her actions--from the very day he arrived. And the more certain he became that Serena's mother had been something less than forthcoming.

  * * *

  Serena strewed a handful of tiny blossoms across the threshold to the woodland chapel, then paused there, tilting her head to assess her work. She was pleased. The ruined little space of tumbling stone and ancient timber was transformed to something fantastical, like something from out of a fairy story.

  Candles of precious beeswax, taken from her personal belongings at the cottage, burned from various places in the chapel's nave and at the altar. The small flames danced gracefully, warming the chamber with an inviting glow and the scent of sweet honey. Across the floor, scattered from the open doorway to the heart of the little church, was a thin carpet of delicate flowers--tiny white and gold petals like the ones that cushioned them when Rand had made love to her on the return from Egremont. A bowl of red berries sat near the altar, which was made cozy with a nest consisting of a blanket, her cloak, and a small down bolster.

  It was perfect, Serena decided.

  She tried not to think about the fact that Rand was leaving. Instead she buoyed herself with the anticipation of spending the night in his arms, and the desperate hope that this evening would not be good-bye, but a temporary farewell.

  Smoothing her palms over the airy silk of her gown, Serena padded to the altar and seated herself on the blankets to await her beloved's arrival.

  * * *

  The cottage was still, but for the soft flicker of a candle within. Fuming, Rand stalked to the door and opened it into the quiet space. Calandra was seated in the near darkness, looking very small and pensive in her chair beside the cold hearth. She turned to regard him as he entered, his breath rasping from his run and from the anger that swirled like a serpent in his gut.

  "You lied," he said, a simple charge that said all.

  Calandra blinked slowly. She made no attempt to deny the accusation, or to pretend even momentary confusion. When she spoke, her voice was clear and steady with resolve. "I had no choice. My child comes first, above all else."

  Rand stalked in, slamming the door behind him. "Woman, you have no idea what you dally in here. This is beyond you. It is a deadly game you'll dearly wish you hadn't begun."

  She laughed at that, a sober exhalation of her breath that seemed more regret than amusement. "I know what I have done," she replied. "I have long tried to make it right."

  Rand scowled at her cryptic statement, having no patience for further diversions. Each wasted moment invited Silas de Mortaine to narrow in on his victory. And in the meantime, his shifter sentries were closing in on this very corner of the woods.

  "What did you do with it, Calandra?" Rand's boots thudded harshly as he crossed the small space and approached her. When she appeared unfazed, uncooperative, he braced his hands on her slender shoulders and forced her to look him full in the face. "The cup I carried with me in my bag when I washed ashore on that beach down there. What have you done with it?"

  "Did you know that the legend of the Dragon Chalice first began in this wild northern shire?" Calandra's blue gaze held his with an intensity he'd not seen in her before. "A penniless knight claimed he'd stolen it from a mythical kingdom, aided by a foolish princess who unwittingly put the treasure in his hands. It was said that magic rent the jeweled Chalice in quarters, leaving four smaller cups, each holding one precious, powerful stone in its bowl and a gilded dragon wrapped about its stem. The cup I found on you when you washed up on our beach matched the tales precisely."

  "You stole it from me. You need to give it back, Calandra."

  "Yes," she said, agreeing easily. "It is time I let it go. You saved Serena's life today. For that, I am truly grateful. I will give it to you, but I do not surrender the cup without condition."

  Rand inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Name it. I must have that cup, Calandra."

  "Of course, you must." Her thin smile was rather sad, as if she knew he would say as much, yet hoped for something other. "I will take you to it, but once you have it, I need your vow that you will leave."

  "That was already my plan. I mean to head out on the morrow."

  Calandra shook her head. "Tonight, without delay."

  He thought instantly of Serena, doubtless waiting for him at the little chapel even now. He would hurt her if he did not go to her as she wanted. He would break her heart if he left her without a word.

  "Tonight," Calandra said, firmly now, a starkness in her sharp blue gaze. "Understand I do this for her, not you. I have tried to keep her safe from harm all her life. I couldn't bear it if this evil were to touch her now."

  "I feel likewise, madam. I would protect Serena with my life."

  "So you say. If that be the case, then you will have no trouble doing as I request. You'll leave her, and not come back. Not ever."

  Rand grappled with the impossible choice she forced on him, knowing that if he cared for Serena--if he loved her even a little--he had to take the Chalice and its black-hearted pursuers as far away from her as he could. And if Calandra's terms were cruel, only Serena's death at the hands of Silas de Mortaine would be worse.

  "Very well," he said at last, forcing the words past his tongue. "Take me to it."

  Chapter 24

  She must have dozed. Serena woke with a start, confused to realize the night had passed while she was waiting for Rand in the forest chapel. He had not come. Her heart forced the thought away, but her mind accepted the fact with harsh clarity.

  Rand had not been here at all.

  The small beeswax candles she had lit to welcome him were long burned out and cold. The scattering of flowers she had dripped in a path from the chapel threshold to the nave were now wilted and lifeless. And she, the biggest jest of all,
sat atop the chapel altar in the silk gown she was forbidden to wear, waiting, still hoping that Rand would come through the open door at any moment.

  But it was morning; well past first light, the time when Rand intended to depart.

  And he had not come.

  The thought put a pain in her heart. She unfolded her legs, letting them swing down over the edge of the stone. There was a chill in the morning air, an overcast pall thinning the light from the open roof of the nave. Serena pulled her mantle around her shoulders and slid off the altar.

  Why had he stayed away? Why would he reject her like this?

  Could he have left her as well?

  She prayed he had not. Perhaps he had not gone at all, and something had kept him from their rendezvous. Now pain merged with worry.

  What if something was wrong? What if he had met with danger in his last search of the woods--if Silas de Mortaine and his minions had somehow found their way into the forest?

  Serena fastened the ribbon ties of her cloak, then quickly padded across the floor of the chapel. As she neared the door, her bare foot struck something hard. It stopped her with a gasp, drawing her attention down. There, half obscured by dislodged bricks and dust, was the record of her family's line. The thick, leather-bound tome had been moved from its place at the altar, as if to be concealed.

  She bent and picked it up.

  The compulsion to pause there and read it was strong, almost an unspoken command.

  She did not want to open the book now, she realized, feeling a certain dread begin to coil in her stomach. And yet she carried the ledger into better light, sinking down onto her knees in the drooping blossoms that littered the nave's earthen floor.

  She had to look inside.

  She had to know.

  Serena's hands were trembling as she flipped open the book of records. She turned the first few pages of parchment, scanning the entries with her heart in her throat. None matched the one she sought. Too recent, all of these, and yet it was unfathomable that the name she needed to see could be any older. She passed each generation, her pulse frantic now that she was reaching the end of the tome. Only three pages remained, the oldest of them all.

  Impossible...

  Still scanning, still hoping with all her might that she was wrong, Serena turned the last of the brittle parchment ledgers and read the final entry.

  Nothing.

  She sat back and the breath she had been holding left her in a rush.

  It wasn't there after all.

  But then something odd caught her eye as she began to close the book. A page was missing from the back, the last page. It had been torn out at the binding--recently, for there were yet small fibers of parchment trapped against the cracked leather of the back cover.

  "I should have burned the whole thing years ago."

  Serena threw a glance over her shoulder and found her mother standing in the doorway of the chapel.

  "What have you done?" Serena closed the book and rose to face her mother. "Tell me. Mother, what have you done?"

  "I never should have let you play in here as a child, but I thought, what was the harm? For certes, it was wrong to teach you to read those names. I never dreamed it would come to this."

  "Mother, please," Serena said, never more terrified in her life. "There is a page missing from this book. You tore it out. Why? What did it contain?"

  "I had to keep a record, you see. The years kept spinning away. I didn't want to forget anyone, not even him." Calandra's blue gaze was dully distant. "I lost so many people I loved. One by one, time and this Outsiders' world took them all. But it left me."

  "Whose name is missing from this book?" Serena demanded. "I need to hear you say it."

  "I was a foolish girl. I had so much to be grateful for--the love of my family, the peace of my home. I wanted for naught, yet I could not stop wondering what lay beyond the boundaries of my little realm." She sighed, her voice wistful. "I had never seen a mortal man before. Certainly I never knew one in so much pain, or in such dire need of aid. It was forbidden to interact with them in any way. The veil that separated our worlds was fragile, and to breach it for any reason was to invite an irreversible danger. But I was young, and he was handsome and golden, and when I called to him through the falls, he could hear me."

  Serena swallowed hard, for this tale was familiar, save that now she was hearing it related in disturbingly intimate terms--with a reality that chilled her to her marrow.

  "He was gravely injured, bleeding terribly. He was dying. Nothing could have saved him in his world, but in mine there was hope."

  "The Dragon Chalice?" Serena asked, unable to summon more than a whisper. "Mother, it was you, in the tale? The Anavrin princess who fed the Outsider from the sacred cup?"

  "I couldn't let him die. I loved him instantly. He said he loved me, too. He would have said anything for me to help him. And he did."

  "You gave him immortality," Serena said. "You gave him life, and he stole the Dragon Chalice from your kingdom."

  "I could not call it back. The mistake was too great. I realized that the instant we crossed the falls and I saw that he had the Chalice under his arm. It was too late then."

  "No," Serena murmured, rejecting all she had heard for it was too incredible to believe. "How can this be? That tale is ancient--hundreds of years old."

  "Yes, it is. By mortal years, at least as old as that."

  "You couldn't have been there--you are my mother!"

  Calandra slowly shook her head. "Your mother died not long after you were born, of mortal disease. Mortal steel claimed your brother's life when Outsiders learned of his Knowing. Your sister, gifted likewise, pledged her heart to a man who grew to despise her for it, and mortal heartache made her take her own life. But you, Serena...you would be different, I vowed. I would keep you safe, sheltered away from any who could hurt you. I have raised you, Serena, as I have been left to raise all of my children's children. Many generations of them. But you are the last. You are so precious to me; you are all that remains of our line in this Outsiders' world."

  Serena glanced down at her bare hands, for the first time in her life despising them, and their unwanted gift of Knowing. "I am cursed," she murmured, realizing it now. The words caught in her throat, raw and hurtful. "I am an abomination."

  "No." Calandra stared at her fiercely. "You are extraordinary--by this world's standards, and by those of Anavrin. The Knowing is rare, even where I've come from, Serena. Only a few of my line are gifted with such clarity and truth. In Anavrin you would be honored like few others."

  Serena could not muster a bit of care for how she would be seen anywhere but in this world, her world, where her heart belonged wholly to Rand. In this world, she was losing all that mattered: her past falling away as lies, her present a tangle of confusion and pain, her future never more uncertain. And still there were questions that begged answers, no matter how terrible they might be.

  "What about the man," Serena asked, numb with the shock of all Calandra was revealing. "What became of the man you spared, and who took the Dragon Chalice from Anavrin that day? To believe the legend, the drink you gave him granted him immortality. He still lives, as you do?"

  For a long moment, Calandra said nothing. "He lives. And after all these years--all these mortal centuries that have passed since the day my carelessness cursed Anavrin and myself--he still seeks to claim the Dragon Chalice for his own."

  "Oh, sweet mercy." Although she could not deny her recent suspicions, Serena's heart dropped to her feet. "Silas de Mortaine. That's why the name is familiar to me. You wrote it in this book. The first entry you recorded--the start of our family line--began with his name! I am his kin?"

  "You are nothing like him, Serena. None of my children have shared any part of his evil, despite the taint of his blood. Do not condemn yourself for what he is."

  "And Rand?" Serena could scarcely command her voice for the reeling of her emotions. "You are the reason he did not come to me las
t night as he promised. What did you tell him? Did you drive him away by telling him who we are--who I am bound to by blood?"

  Calandra shook her head. "He doesn't know this, child. All he needed to know was that he could have part of the Chalice. That's all he wanted, the piece he lost when he washed up on our shore."

  "The Chalice--but how? Did he recover it after all? Where did he find..."

  Serena's voice trailed off as her thoughts began to settle on the truth. Suddenly it was all making sense to her--Calandra's instant fear and hatred of Rand, and her orders that Serena leave him to die on the beach rather than give him aid; Rand's insistence that the jeweled cup he carried with him through the storm had been with him the day he washed up.

  "You found him first, before I did. You saw him washed up on shore that morning, and you found the cup in his satchel. You took it and left him to die. You knew what it was. You've had it all this time!"

  "We knew nothing about him, child. All I knew was that he carried part of the Chalice, and that alone made him dangerous to us. It is best that he is gone. He was danger, every moment he remained here."

  "You don't know anything about him," Serena cried, never feeling so lost as she did just then. She rose, and began to cross the gloomy nave to the doorway. "I love him. Rand is a good man--the one honest thing in my life, I am realizing."

  Calandra's hand was firm on her wrist, halting Serena when she would have quit the chapel in her state of distress.

  "Can you be so sure?" Her ageless voice took on a flinty edge. "I offered him the treasure he lost on one condition: that he never see you again. I gave him that choice, and he is gone. Men will always choose the Chalice over anything else, child. That is its cruelest power. I regret that I did not take steps to show you that before now."

  Serena lifted the cool fingers from about her arm, and in an instant of Knowing, she understood that all her mother--all this woman who had pretended to be her mother--had told her just now was true.