The Temple of Sacrifice

by Tameri Etherton

  “And the other matter?”

  It was always the same. “She is eager to sit at your side as your queen.”

  The flames sparked once, then showed Marissa enter her rooms at Celyn Eryri. She tossed her gown aside and stood naked before a mirror, admiring herself, keeping a protective hand over her abdomen.

  “She is with child. What folly is this?” The flames rose to the top of the temple, scorching the marble roof.

  “If I may, my lord, the heir to the Light Throne is no stranger to men’s beds. I thought you valued this in her. As for the child, he is my grandson and will be of no concern to you or your queen.”

  Marissa’s image danced in the flames. From the depths of the temple came Rykoto’s ghastly chuckle. “There is only one anomaly. You are fools to think otherwise. Do you try to subvert me?”

  “No, Great Lord. The whims of the crown princess are her own. This child was not planned nor wanted by his mother. He will be raised at Caer Idris as my son’s heir.”

  The flames subsided and Marissa disappeared from view. “I want the blood of her firstborn. Alive.”

  Valterys fought the urge to vomit. He couldn’t conceive of letting Rykoto pick clean his grandson before eating his heart. “Of course, my lord.”

  “Leave me. I have need of respite after my feeding.”

  Valterys wavered, but his chance to ask Rykoto about the visions was gone. Flames licked at his boots and he sped from the temple to the sound of Rykoto’s mad laughter. His demands were getting out of control, but surely the lives of his children and grandchild were worth immortality.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hayden raced ahead of Taryn, calling her name and encouraging her to move faster. Her poor mare wasn’t made for racing and she soon fell behind. Hayden reined in his gelding, noting the snuffling he made. His mount wasn’t much better than Ashanni. He could remember when his father had purchased both of them, and he had to admit the season had long since passed when they were young and strong. A touch of heartache seized him at the memory. His brother had just celebrated his twelfth summer. The gelding was a gift for him.

  That was long before he ever heard about the Eirielle or knew about Valterys. They were days filled with sunshine and innocence.

  “Come on!” Hayden urged, shoving his memories to the far reaches of his thoughts, where they dwelled with restrained misery. “We’ll be late, and I’d like to show you the rig before the race.”

  They rode toward the field where Hayden’s race would be held. It was a perfect day for it too, with cloudless blue skies and crisp Wintertide air. Taryn urged Ashanni forward and the mare lunged ahead of Hayden.

  “Hurry up, cousin! We’re going to be late,” she called after him. He kicked his horse and nearly overtook her before they came to the track. Taryn slid from the saddle. “I hope you fare better than that on the course today.”

  “You cheated!” Hayden laughed and took her by the arm to escort her to the makeshift stables where he had a surprise for her. The empress had personally selected the horses for the day’s event. All Ullan beasts of fine stock.

  As they walked among them, Taryn whistled. “Mother wasn’t kidding when she said only the finest would do. These are beautiful horses.” Taryn stroked the muzzle of a tall stallion, his cream body offset by a long, black, wavy mane and tail. “I don’t recall seeing them at the palace. Are they kept here all season?”

  “These were recently purchased from a desert tribe in the East while you were away on your secret mission.” He winked at her.

  “Don’t tease. I’ll tell you all the boring details someday, but right now I’d like to hear more about these desert people who breed such gorgeous creatures.”

  “Nope, not right now. First, I want to take you for a ride over the course.” He motioned to a stable hand and led her out to the freshly laid track. “You see here? They’ve run a sledge over the snow so the riders know where to go and there,” he pointed off into the distance, “see the flags? That’s how we know where to turn in case the path isn’t visible.”

  The stable hand approached them, leading a large grey gelding harnessed to a camion on wooden skids. Taryn walked around the contraption, shaking her head. “You’re going to race in this?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re braver than I thought.” She kicked one of the skids. “It’s a freaking chariot on skis. This is suicide.”

  “If I’m not mistaken, it was you who said I should compete in the games,” Hayden protested.

  “Yes, in an event that wouldn’t end in your death. How fast can you go in this?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you let me show you?” He held his hand out to her and beckoned her to get in the chariot.

  “You’re kidding, right?” She backed away.

  “Don’t tell me there is something that frightens the all-powerful Eirielle? I never thought I’d see the day,” Hayden teased.

  “I’m not afraid of riding in it. I just like my body parts better when they’re attached to the rest of me.”

  “Suit yourself, but I’m going to take a twirl around the track to get a feel for the ground. Nothing fast, mind you.” Hayden climbed into the camion and flicked the reins.

  The grey started off at a gentle trot and he smiled to Taryn and waved as he rode off. The wind in his face exhilarated him. The gelding begged to step up the pace, but he held back. After one circuit of the track, he returned to where Taryn stood watching him intently. “You see? Nothing so nefarious as bodily injury here.”

  Taryn bit her lip. Indecision and excitement roiled in the depths of her blue eyes. “Well, it did look a little fun. Why not?” She stepped in beside him and he snapped the reins.

  The grey took off at a trot but soon sped up to a full gallop. Taryn held the side of the chariot with a vise-like grip. Hayden laughed and flicked the reins once more. The grey leapt ahead even faster. Taryn screamed at Hayden to slow down, but his laughter drowned out her cries.

  They rounded a turn and Taryn braced herself against Hayden, offsetting his balance. He shifted his weight to counter her.

  “You’re going to kill us, you bloody idiot! You’re going too fast. We’ll fall.”

  The aforementioned fall never came. Instead, they took the turn with Hayden leaning his body out of the camion and swinging them farther into the curve. Again and again, he did this until on the final turn Taryn leaned with him. They were beginning to rise up when one of the skids hit a rock, throwing Taryn against the side of the chariot. She grunted out a curse and held her midsection.

  Hayden pulled in the grey. “Are you hurt? Blood and ashes, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m fine, you dolt. Let’s do that again!” Taryn took the reins and snapped them. Immediately the gelding lunged forward and they raced around the track with Taryn keeping a firm hold on the reins. Her face shone with excitement and when they pulled into the stable, she didn’t stop grinning. “That was awesome.”

  Hayden took the reins from her and handed them to the stable boy. “You should enter in the race today.” A flush warmed his cheeks. He hadn’t expected Taryn to enjoy it so much but was glad she did.

  Taryn shook her head. “Mother would never allow it. If she knew I was here with you now…” She shuddered. “Let’s not think about what she’d say.”

  He held her hand as they walked along the row of Ullan beasts. Her power encircled his wrist, and he looked at her in surprise. “Are you doing that?” Her ShantiMari warmed his skin, with a reassuring protectiveness.

  A sly grin quirked up her lips. “Doing what?”

  “You’re infuriating, you know that?”

  “So I’ve been told. I do like these horses.” She smoothly changed the subject, her power still wrapped around their hands. “Not that I don’t appreciate Ashanni, but she’s getting old and I worry about all the hard riding we do.” Taryn looked over her shoulder at the old mare as if worried she’d heard. “She’s a good horse, though.”

  �
��You should ask Lliandra if you can have one of these. She’ll be taking them all back to Talaith at the end of our stay here.”

  Taryn’s face lit up. “Do you think she’d let me?”

  “If she doesn’t, you can go to Ulla and get one of your own.”

  “I could, couldn’t I?” she said in a mysterious voice.

  “Oh, no. What monster have I created now?” Hayden laughed. “If you do decide to visit the desert, you must take me with you.”

  “It’s a deal.” She hugged him fiercely and her body trembled against him. Whether from the race or the thought of owning one of the Ullan horses, he wasn’t sure. For the merest of moments, her ShantiMari embraced them fully and he experienced the enormity of her powers.

  Eyes wide, he shuddered. To have that much power contained within one body was terrifying to comprehend. “I wish I could help,” he murmured against her ear.

  “You do, my sweet cousin. In more ways than you’ll ever know.” She pulled back and nudged his ribs. “So, Rhoane tells me you found a spy in Talaith. Now who’s keeping secrets?”

  Cold filled the space where her power had been and he longed for the warmth of her ShantiMari.

  “I meant to tell you, but you’re never alone.” Two figures approached and Hayden bit back the words he was about to say. “And now I suppose it will have to wait further. Who is that man with Baehlon?”

  Taryn glanced past the stables and squinted into the sunlight. “His brother, Denzil.”

  “Brother?” Hayden searched his memory for any mention of the man, drawing a blank. Baehlon’s family was not one he’d researched thoroughly—a fact he would soon rectify. He prided himself on knowing every House in Aelinae. “They don’t look to be getting along.”

  “He’s a mercenary and that pisses off Baehlon.”

  “I think I saw him once before.” Hayden thought back to the day he met Amanda at the docks. “He was following me. Amanda, the spy you just mentioned, warned me that he was working for your mother.”

  Taryn squinted again, her face moving forward several inches as if that small distance would bring clarity. “If he’s one of the mercenaries she hired to patrol the docks, what’s he doing here?”

  “Competing in the games?”

  “Besides that. Mother wouldn’t let him leave Talaith unless she had a good reason.”

  Hidden by the shadows of the stables, they observed the two men for several minutes. Baehlon’s hands gesticulated wildly while Denzil remained calm.

  “You should get to know him better,” Hayden suggested to Taryn.

  She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  “I’m serious. He’s Baehlon’s brother. Baehlon is sworn to your House. He has to at least acknowledge you as the daughter of his empress.”

  “He’s Danuri and Geigan. His loyalty should be to my father, not mother.”

  “All the better. You can worm out of him why he’s working for the enemy, so to speak. But wait.” Hayden realized a flaw in his thinking. “If Baehlon is also Danuri and Geigan, why is he honor bound to you?”

  She ruffled his hair. “For being so smart, you can be such an imbecile.”

  “What?” He had no idea what she meant.

  Trumpets signaled the call of riders to the race. “That’s you.” Taryn touched his cheek with her fingertips, trailing them along his jaw. “Be safe out there. If anything happens, I can’t use my power.”

  “Don’t you dare. I’ll win this race of my own accord, thank you very much.”

  Taryn surveyed him with an impish smile. “All for a kiss from the empress.” Dreamy laughter trailed after her as she drifted away to join the others in the royal box.

  Sabina leaned close to speak with her and Taryn pointed to where Hayden stood. She waved and he raised his hand in greeting. A slight shake to his fingers gave away his nerves. Fortunately, the women were too far away to notice.

  The riders lined up to take the reins of their horse. Hayden drew a ragged breath, relieved to see he was given a sturdy black stallion. Shortly before the race, the stable master drew the horses at random and assigned them to each rider. Hayden had hoped to receive either this stallion or the one Taryn had admired. Luck was on his side this morning. He prayed it would last.

  They took their places at the starting line and Hayden breathed in calm as Taryn had taught him to do. The other riders fidgeted and stomped the floor of their camions, but Hayden ignored them.

  When the trumpets blared, he snapped the reins and flew away from the others. He and the stallion were as one as they raced around the track. On the first pass, he took a turn a little too sharp, his shoulder mere inches from the ground, but the stallion adjusted his speed to keep Hayden from tipping into the snow. With a quick body alignment, he righted the chariot and sped off.

  The crowd roared their approval, although Hayden guessed a few of the onlookers had hoped he would crash. Each time one of the racers fell or smashed into another racer, the crowd erupted in cheers and jeers. The horses pounded past the stands, the noise of the crowd drowning out all other sound. Hayden kept calm, focused on each turn of the course. The racers needed to complete three circuits of the track and by the time they sped past for the final lap, only six remained of the fourteen who started.

  Hayden held his own against a wily little man with arms of steel. His horse was a mammoth beast with hooves the size of a man’s head. They thundered past and just as Hayden was catching up, a skid caught on a rock and he was thrown backward, pulling up on the reins.

  The onlookers screamed taunts at Hayden as he recovered and snapped the reins, but it was too late. He came in second, a mere length behind the other man. He guided his stallion to the stables and hopped out of the camion. After a pat on the stallion’s neck and a murmured apology for losing the race, he dusted off his cape and started for the stands.

  Sabina stormed past the crowd and skidded to a stop a pace from him. “Don’t you ever frighten me like that again, Lord Valen.” Her hands flailed about, a look of aggrieved consternation marring her pretty features.

  Before he could answer, she smothered his face with kisses, nearly suffocating him. The polite clearing of a throat drew Sabina’s attention away and a flush bloomed across her cheeks.

  “Well done, son.” Worry danced in Duke Anje’s eyes.

  His father had tried to talk him out of racing, but Hayden was determined.

  “It was a good race,” Taryn said, giving him a shaky hug.

  “No one was killed,” his father said dryly.

  “Not this season, at least,” Sabina retorted.

  Taryn shuddered. “People have died racing?”

  “Several in fact, but this is a popular event and the participants know the risk.”

  Sabina’s lips tightened with disapproval. What he wouldn’t give to loosen those lips right then. Right there, in front of everyone. But there was protocol to uphold. Damn it all.

  “Oh come now, the empress adores the race. She used to partake of the camion, didn’t you know?” Hayden’s gaze remained on Sabina’s pout.

  “She used to race? And yet they’re not naked and greased up? Amazing.”

  “It would make it rather hard to hold your balance, don’t you think?” Sabina asked.

  Hayden chuckled. “Taryn was making a jest, dearest.”

  “I never know when she’s serious.”

  Hayden wrapped an arm around Sabina and pulled her against him, delighting in the warmth of her body. “That’s the treasure of my cousin—none of us do.”

  His father motioned to the horses. “Do you like her latest additions to the royal stable?”

  “They’re gorgeous. Hayden and I were looking them over before the race.”

  “Do you have a favorite?” Anje asked and Hayden grinned at his father’s subtle manipulation of the subject.

  The stable boy led the handsome black and tan to a stall with Taryn’s gaze following his every step. “That one caught my eye. He’s gentle,
but with a fierce heart.”

  “He did not win.”

  Taryn snorted and with a dismissive wave of her hand said, “Due to his rider’s skill, not his. The man driving the chariot was an idiot and if he’d only trusted his horse, he could have won.”

  His father nodded with a knowing smile. “You’ve learned much since that morning so long ago when I gave you Ashanni.” Pride underscored his words. “I should like you to have the horse.”

  Taryn cocked her head and half-smiled. “I thought these were Mother’s horses.”

  “Not entirely. She purchased them on condition of their prowess. Since your horse barely finished, she will overlook him and therefore open the door for me to purchase him,” his father explained.

  Hayden suppressed an immense feeling of awe for the man.

  “You don’t have to buy me a horse. I owe you so much already.” Taryn’s cheeks blossomed pink. It was a delight to see his too often of late stern cousin blush.

  “My darling, when will you stop saying this? You owe me nothing. Allow me my entertainments and let me spoil you a little.”

  Sabina snickered and they all laughed. Everyone knew how much the duke lavished on his nieces, Taryn especially.

  “All right, you can buy me a horse.” She sighed and looked back to the stables. “He is a very fine horse and Ashanni wasn’t built for the type of riding I’ve been putting her through. Do you think she’ll be upset that I’m replacing her?” Taryn asked, concern edging her voice.

  His father’s expression was a mixture of delight and consternation. “You really do care about the horse’s feelings, don’t you? You are a remarkable girl.”

  Taryn shrugged. “We’ve been through a lot together and I don’t want her thinking I’m abandoning her.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll take Ashanni to Paderau with me, where she’ll be with all her other horse friends and when you come to visit, you can ride her out in the countryside.”

  Hayden observed the interplay between his father and cousin, noting the way Taryn studied the duke from the corner of her eye. Finally she said, “I can’t tell if you’re mocking me or not.”