He almost blurted it out, but then Hatipai was speaking. “You alone can hold Chioma—you must live.”
Onika was her focus. The Order’s training made this blatantly obvious. Just as the Rossin had invested in the Imperial family, Hatipai had made her own anchor to this world—similar but different ways of surviving the perils of the real world.
“Let these people pass,” Onika growled.
“Your allies?” The shadows began to race counterclockwise around the face of the geistlord. “They practically invited us into this world, and now when they betray us, you would protect them?” The shades darted apart, and her face was revealed.
Merrick’s senses betrayed him. He dimly heard the Ehtia around him also fall to their knees, but nothing mattered apart from the glory of Hatipai. None of them were worthy of it. When her gaze fell on him, he wanted to slit his own throat lest he insult her with his own pitiful nature. He rolled onto his back, his hands grasping desperately for his knife.
To his right, he caught a glimpse of the vile woman Nynnia fumbling with her stick. She did not seem to have quite as an appropriate reaction to the glory of Hatipai.
From the ground he also saw the heretic Onika raising the weirstone. His glory was nothing compared to his mother’s. But somehow in his fitful delight, Merrick saw a parting of the shades, a gap in her armor of souls. And he reached deep for his training—throwing his mind into the puzzles and recitations he’d studied for years. In there he found a moment of respite.
“There.” His voice cracked. “Onika, there!”
He had no Bond with the Prince as he had with Sorcha, but his voice was just loud enough to hear. Onika said a bright, hot word and threw the weirstone into the shadows and the gap that the Deacon had spotted.
Hatipai screamed, a sound that went deeper than bone, and the shadows flew high. Shades, those mindless, repetitive remains of souls, broke from her like a cloud of scattering crows. Merrick saw them escape the pull of the geistlord and was glad, though everything was mad and dead to him in that moment. Then the world was swallowed by darkness.
When consciousness found him again, his head was cradled in Nynnia’s lap. Her fingers gently stroked his hair, calling him back to reality. It was a lovely ment, but eventually he found his feet.
Nothing dark remained on the blasted cliff top—only the Ehtia, their machine and Onika. “What happened?” The young Deacon turned to Nynnia, but it was the Prince who replied.
“She is gone . . . for now.” His shoulders slumped. “I have bought you enough time to escape. The path is free for you to reach Mount Sytha, my friends.” He sounded desperately alone. “She and I will continue our tussle once you are gone.”
Nynnia grabbed him in a tight embrace. “You will find other allies, Onika. She is not as all-powerful as she thinks.”
Then the Ehtia surrounded him, hugging him, whispering thanks in his ear—while Nynnia and Merrick stepped back.
The weight of sorrow pressed on the Deacon—especially as he knew how many lonely years Onika would have to endure. As the crew of the ship began to clamber back into the hatches, Merrick squeezed Nynnia’s hand and went to speak to the Prince. “Thank you for what you are doing, Your Highness. The people of Chioma might not know what you sacrificed to keep them safe, but others do.”
“I have to be a hero,” Onika muttered, “or become like her.”
“Then I hope you remember this—” Merrick paused, caught by the circular nature of this weird logic, before plunging on. “In the time of an Emperor called Kaleva, seek out a woman known as the flower of Da Nanth.”
“Da Nanth?”
Naturally he wouldn’t know of the principality—because it had not yet been created. It almost hurt his head to think about it, so he merely smiled. “Trust me, it is a place—though not yet.”
The Prince frowned, but a spark of something that felt like hope lurked in his expression. “Thank you, my friend.”
“Do not thank me”—Merrick clapped him on the shoulder—“thank Nynnia.”
The Prince smiled uncertainly and embraced the woman. “Go safe into that place, old friend—part of me wishes I could come with you.” He kissed the top of her head.
She laid her hands over his for an instant. “You have your people to take care of, Onika—and where we go, you cannot.”
The Prince turned and sketched a little bow in Merrick’s direction, the beaded mask swaying. Onika’s voice was smooth, strong and just as it would be when next they encountered each other in throne room in the Hive City. “I find myself looking forward to meeting you again, Merrick Chambers.”
As the Prince of Chioma left, the Deacon recalled his first meeting with the Prince. Looking back on it, he presumed Onika had recognized him. That damn mask always concealed so much—it was hardly a surprise that the ruler had developed a reputation as a mystery.
“Why can he not go with you?” Merrick found himself whispering to Nynnia.
She sighed and tapped him lightly on the arm, as if a teacher correcting a pupil who should have known better. “Think of it: a half human/half geist in that place. He would be torn apart by the geistlords shackled as he is with a mortal frame. They feed on the energy of their own kind there.”
The Deacon shivered as he recalled the landscape of that dread place.
“Still, Onika made quite the impression on you, didn’t he?” Nynnia’s eyebrow crooked, and a slight smile lurked and her delectable lips.
“He certainly is . . . different.” Merrick wrapped his arm around her waist. “Though my Emperor is a fine person, still some part of me is always surprised that anyone in power can be good—let alone the son of a ‘goddess.’ ”
She nodded thoughtfully and then led him back into the tunneling machine. “I confess, we did not believe Onika when he first offered us his help. Many doubted that he would turn against his mother—but he proved himself.” She took his hand and pulled him along a long corridor.
“Where are we going?” His stomach clenched as the machine began once again to descend—this time with no terrifying rolling.
“As Onika said”—Nynnia squeezed his fingers—“Mount Sytha. All of our people are gathering there to perform the ceremony.”
The Nynnia on the Otherside had said there was a reason for her to send him here, and then she would bring him back to his own time. Merrick didn’t want to go back—even if this world was falling apart. This was where Nynnia was still alive.
He knew that Sorcha was back in his own time, his mother too—and both Merrick knew were in deadly peril. The Deacon found himself torn between duty and happiness.
“And then what?” he asked, terribly afraid of the answer.
Nynnia stood poised with one hand on a door handle, her brow furrowed. “We have to atone for our crimes: swear off the use of weirstones and runes. Give up our bodies.”
“You’re leaving this world,” Merrick whispered. “Traveling to the Otherside.”
A muscle in her jaw twitched as she gave a sharp nod. “If we stay, Hatipai and the other geists will tear this world apart hunting us. We will go to the one place she dares not follow. Having anchored herself into this world with a focus, she can no longer go back to the Otherside—nor would she want to—the human meat here is so much sweeter. So, with our knowledge, we can build a place there—and maybe one day come home when it is safe.”
Merrick pressed his lips together and closed his eyes—remembering the tales of that Dark Time. The suffering the people of this time were about to endure would be terrible. Yet from that maelstrom would arise the Order, the Rossin dynasty, and eventually the Empire. It would take hundreds of years, but they would conqueror the geistlords, even Hatipai, and learn to contain the lesser geists.
Nothing he could do would change that. Nor should it.
Nynnia pushed open the door, and he saw that it led into a small bedchamber with a reasonably sized bed bolted to the wall. A luxurious cerulean quilted blanket brightened what wou
ld otherwise have been rather bleak accommodations. He drew in his breath and shot the woman at his side a confused look. “Nynnia, I—”
She stopped his words most effectively by pulling his mouth down to hers. The kiss was long, desperate and sweet. When she finally let him go, her brown eyes were wide and her smile crooked. “When we leave this world, Merrick Chambers, we Ehtia will abandon our bodies—become part of the Otherside. I intend to give mine a proper send-off.”
The Deacon’s blood raced. Merrick wanted to grab what time there was that remained, but his gentlemanly sensibilities wouldn’t let him take total advantage. “You hardly know me.”
The pad of her thumb brushed his mouth. “But I know you love me, and sime in the future, however that may happen, I will love you. When we next meet, I would have one of us remember these moments.”
The Deacon’s mind did another flip. It was all too complicated and painful.
“We will love each other,” Merrick replied and let himself be led into her bedroom. He said nothing of them losing each other again. That pain could wait.
Once the door was shut, nothing outside mattered. The Deacon did not care to think that this would be the one and only time for them—he pushed that realization as far back as he could. He would have her find nothing bitter in his mind.
Instead, Merrick took his time undressing Nynnia, even as she raced to strip him of his cloak, shirt and breeches.
“So young,” she breathed, looking up at him. The comment was soft and almost sadly said.
Nynnia would in fact have taken a step back, but Merrick paused unbuttoning her blouse and captured her hand, pressing it firmly against his bare chest. “You will be young again someday—the very one we meet.”
She frowned, shook her head, laughed and then leaned forward to kiss him. Perhaps there wasn’t as much meaning for her as there was for him, yet it was still precious. Merrick delighted in her unashamed trust, when he released the last of her rather intricately tied trousers and she stepped back to allow him to look at her.
“You are beautiful, Nynnia,” he said through a voice grown abruptly rough with desire. It was no lie; she was. However in the future she regained her youth, for right now, she had a lithe, muscular body, only slightly touched by age. He thought it ripe like a fruit brought to sugar and fullness.
Merrick ran his hand down her right arm and felt the ridges of five wide scars that streaked from shoulder to elbow. As he slid his palm around her, he was able to make out that they in fact took in half her back.
Nynnia looked at him so very earnestly. “Very few escape the geistlords without some sort of mark. I hope they don’t put you off—”
When he bent and ran the sweep of his tongue against the ridges, she stopped mid-sentence and let out a low groan. Then Merrick pulled her with him as he flopped back on the bed. The sensation of the full length of their bodies pressed against each other with no unnatural hindrance was bliss.
Please let this go on forever. Merrick’s head was spinning. The Nynnia he had met in his own time had loved him, but they had never been able to find a time to consummate those feelings. He had wanted to badly, and yet he’d been so wrapped up in being a Deacon, he’d missed the chance.
“Are you—” Nynnia’s gaze narrowed, even as her breath began to come in shallow pants that were echoed by his own. “Are you a virgin?”
Sometimes telepathy was a double-edged sword—but Merrick had only become used to it between Sorcha and himself. Whatever gifts the Ehtia had meant that very few of his surface thoughts were sacrosanct.
Nynnia blushed. “I am sorry—you are broadcasting so loudly.”
A chuckle rolled through his body. “Well, it is at the top of my concerns right now. I don’t have much experience, but I am not quite a virgin. I just don’t want to disappoint you.”
Her teeth nibbled along the line of his neck, rising toward his ear, and suddenly those concerns melted away. Nynnia puled back and licked her lips. “A handsome young man, travels back through time to find me, and beds me on my last day in this realm? How could you disappoint me?” Her voice was low, husky and laced with raw desire.
Warmth was stealing through Merrick, warmth that needed to be fulfilled, yet he couldn’t help it. One tiny thought ran like a dark streak through this moment of utter bliss. “I want more. I want the woman I love forever.”
She could have replied something trite. She could have leapt off him, offended. Instead, Nynnia only smiled sadly and kissed him.
Yes, Merrick realized, he might only have this moment with her, but only a few hours of his time before this, she had been dead. It would be churlish to diminish the delight of finding her alive and in his embrace. He would not sully this gift.
Deacon Chambers put aside all those nagging fears and doubts and plunged into the moment. Soon enough she would be gone. Soon enough they would all be gone.
The Rossin’s roar faded even as Sorcha screamed after him—a sound that echoed the pain inside her—a confused mix of loss and anger. The geistlord was still as he had been when first she had encountered him, and even worse, she remembered how it had felt to be him.
As she ran to the window and watched the elegant, massive creature bound off the edge of the terrace, she nearly forgot to snuff out the rune burning on her Gauntlet.
The great lion was beautiful, terrifying, destructive, and it had just carried Raed away. Yet, for an instant she stood there, quite forgetting the mess that the geistlord had just made.
By the Bones, she thought to herself, I am not pining after the Rossin. Her hands clenched on the broken window, the glass crunching under her Gauntlet.
A burbling cry behind her made the Deacon spin on her heel. Lady Lisah was sobbing, spluttering, her eyes wide as blood trickled from her mouth—scarlet red against her pale skin. Unable to speak, her hand was spread and stretched toward Sorcha. Only minutes before they had been adversaries—now they were just people.
The Deacon dropped to her knees, stripped off her Gauntlets, and clenched the dying woman’s hand tightly in her own fist; that which had been so beautiful, flawless and cosseted was torn and gaping. Too much was now outside that should be inside.
Sorcha didn’t know how powerful the healers were here in Chioma—so perhaps there was still hope. Blood bubbled and ran through her fingers as Sorcha pressed down on the wound, trying to stop it from gushing. It was warm and sticky, but the worst of it was the desperate look in Lisah’s eyes—as if the Deacon could save her.
Sorcha whispered to her—foolish, impossible things that were becoming more so. It had been a long time since she’d comforted the dying. That first year when the Emperor landed at Arkaym she had experienced it quite enough. And now, looking down at this beautiful woman whom she had so easily judged as vapid, Sorcha thought of those young Initiates they had lost. Certainly she had hoped to never be in this position again.
Desperately she pushed down harder. “Listen, Lisah. Help will be here soon—don’t give up.” The younger woman’s mouth worked as her face grew paler. She was trying to say something, but there was no air in her lungs—only blood.
Then she spasmed, gouts of her life pumping over Sorcha’s hand. Lisah’s gaze went from full of life lazed and empty in a split second—so quick that Sorcha could not have said when it was she had gone. Her beautiful bright blue eyes were now surround by scarlet drops she coughed up.
Unable to save the poor woman, Sorcha opened her Center and waited. She might have failed to protect the innocent women of the harem, but she watched as their shades gathered and made sure no geist took them on this side. Their souls swirled, confused by the abrupt severance from their bodies—and that was why most shades stayed in the human world. Sorcha would not let these women suffer that fate.
Slipping her Gauntlets over her blood-drenched hands, she pressed them down against the cooling flesh of Lisah. The rune-clad leather would not hold the blood, and without Merrick, the added presence of it would help make the co
nnection easier.
“I’m sorry,” Sorcha whispered as she opened Tryrei, the peephole to the Otherside. What they would find there she could not say, but it was the way souls had to pass for any chance of peace. The tiny gold light pierced reality, and the souls drifted toward it.
Maybe there were gods waiting for them as some said—she wished she could believe that. Maybe it was a place of trial before they could be reborn. It wasn’t her place to say, but at least the slain women would not be condemned to walk the earth repeating the moments of their death.
Sorcha watched them go and then closed her fist around the rune. These were not the first people she had been unable to save—and would likely not be the last, either.
With a soft sigh the Deacon leaned over and closed Lisah’s eyes, smearing blood on her face but at least giving her an illusion of peace.
It was at that moment that the eunuch guards shoved open the door. For a minute Sorcha stared at them as they took in the room. Books scattered around the room, shelves pushed over, three women’s bodies dismembered, and there she was sitting in the middle of it all—covered in blood and gore.
Deacons were considered necessary—yet it was not unheard of for them to go suddenly and spectacularly mad. The hospital at the Mother Abbey had a whole ward devoted to the care and restriction of such poor creatures. In all the Empire there was no more dangerous madman than a Deacon.
Then Sorcha realized how it looked to these new arrivals. She had asked to see these women; she had demanded they be alone. The Chiomese guards might have respect for the Deacons of their own realm, but she was a stranger—a stranger wearing her gauntlets and bathed in the blood of the Prince’s women.
The rifles in the guards’ hands spun and were quickly raised to their shoulders. The tallest eunuch, the one who had brought in the women to see her, bared his teeth at her, his brow darkening like a thundercloud. These women were his charges, so she knew he was not going to stop and ask questions.
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