by R. F. Long
Indarin wilted as Shan pulled him free. Shan thrust him into Lara’s waiting arms and sliced through the fresh wave of Fell’na. They just kept coming, more and more of them, hidden like parasites inside Ylandra’s body. The Sh’istra’Phail could take care of the numbers so far but not if they kept coming. And that was their plan, sneak into the encampment hidden inside one of the Fey’na’s own, and then keep coming. There was only one way to end it. Only one thing he could do.
He fought his way to her side, and Ylandra’s eyes opened, gazing up at him in pain and desperation.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, and let his sword fall. But it didn’t hit her. The darkness swelled around her, lashed out, throwing him back to the ground. Ylandra rose, not as a physical body might rise, but like a puppet, a thrall, drawn up by another will.
Her mouth opened and another voice emerged, ripping through her. “You’re sorry? Not yet, Shan,” said the Enchassa through Ylandra’s body. The former Sect Mother’s wide eyes screamed noiselessly, but the Enchassa laughed. “But you will be. You will be indeed. It doesn’t end here.”
Lara fought her way to his side, black blood smearing her clothes and skin. Her sword was slick with Fell’na blood.
“They’re giving ground,” she yelled. “What are you doing? Kill her. Cut off their pathway!”
The Enchassa threw back Ylandra’s head and howled with laughter. “And let him ruin this wonderful new toy? No. You want revenge, little Sh’istra’Phail? How’s this?”
The Fell’na flooded to Ylandra’s body, swarming around her in a maelstrom of nightmarish forms. Ylandra screamed, her own voice once more. “No! Please, no! Help me!”
And then she, and they, were gone.
The Sh’istra’Phail cheered as their enemies fled, letting out whoops of exaltation, celebrating a victory, but Shan couldn’t bring himself to voice triumph. Lara stood at his side, her arms limp, holding her sword like a millstone.
“Gods,” she whispered, staring in horror. “They took her…” Shan reached out to comfort her, but Lara pulled away sharply. “I…I wanted…” She stared appalled at the empty space where Ylandra had been.
“I know,” Shan told her. “But it wasn’t your doing. None of it.”
She frowned and then started, as something else occurred to her. “Indarin!”
His brother was slumped on the ground and Lara rushed to his side and held him, trying to rouse him.
The Fell’na had gone, just like that. But why? Why not try to take more?
A scream of pain rang out in the renewed stillness of the night. Not Jeren, not this time. It was Ariah.
***
Torvin’s sword slashed so close to Jeren’s neck that she felt the wind created as it passed, but it didn’t cut her skin. His arm was jerked back by an unseen force and he twisted as the air around him turned to a paralysing force. Ariah stood a foot away, her hand outstretched, her brow furrowed in concentration. The air around her fizzed and crackled with magic, more pure magic than Jeren had ever encountered. Her own power was internal, but Ariah’s acted as a weapon, holding Torvin back, despite his struggles.
“Torvin, what is the meaning of this?” Jeren asked, but he just snarled at her.
“You’re a traitor to River Holt, to Gilliad and to your own kind. You would choose these creatures over us. You would attack your own home to gain his power. I see you for what you are now, Jeren. Just as he said I would. I should have known. He has never been wrong.”
“My brother sent you? But why? I want nothing to do with River Holt. He knows that.”
“He doesn’t believe you. And so I tested you. You took the sword, Jeren. And I followed you. I heard you.” His gaze darkened, his mouth twisting into a savage maw. “I heard you say it just now.”
He moved so quickly that even Ariah couldn’t foresee it. In order to maintain her hold on him, she had to be close. But neither of them anticipated the rage his fervour lent him. Torvin ripped his way through the restraints of air, snatched the Sect Knife from Ariah’s other hand and plunged it deep into her stomach.
Ariah cried out and the spell fell as she did. Jeren could feel the backlash snap through the air, recoiling like the breaking of a stretched wire. Ariah collapsed into the pool, the water splashing around her, staining red with her blood.
“No,” Jeren whispered, and then it was all she could do to survive. Torvin was on her, a master swordsman, a warrior born and an assassin trained. She managed to get Felan’s sword into her hands, but it moved like a farming implement when she confronted him. He beat her down, his sword flashing moonlight, his blade so quick all she could do was counter it, protect herself, pray to survive.
And why did she want to? A small voice in the back of her mind laughed. It sounded like the Enchassa. It sounded like Gilliad. Why survive when Shan was as good as dead? Why survive when Ariah, of all people, had died for her? Why did she even want to go on living any more?
Because she was a Scion of Jern, that was why. Because if nothing else, her people needed her, now more than ever. Because…because she could not give up, even though she had lost everything for which she wanted to live.
She kicked Torvin’s legs and was rewarded by a mis-stroke that otherwise would have taken her head. Rolling to her feet, she feinted to the left and struck. Torvin jerked back, pausing in his vicious attack to raise his hand to his cheek where a thin line of blood trickled from the cut she had landed. Only shallow, no more than a scratch. But a hit. He rubbed his fingers together, as if testing the blood to see if it was really his own and he smiled at her.
“Better. But not good enough. You were not born to be a fighter, Jeren. You were born to breed noble children and embroider and grace a court with your beauty. Why couldn’t you be content with that and a husband like Vertigern? Most women would. Most women would consider that a dream.”
She lashed out again, angry now, aware that her temper was slipping from her grasp and she hardly cared anymore. Even as it happened she knew it was a mistake, knew it could cost her life. The life she had only realised she still wanted. But it felt good to give in to that anger, to accept it as her own and to use it for once.
Torvin’s blade fell in three strokes, so fast she couldn’t follow them. Felan’s sword was dashed from her hand, something slammed against the back of her head, making sparks burst before her eyes like fireworks, and she lay on the stones, staring up into his face, a face she hardly recognised anymore. He swam in and out of focus. Not her childhood friend. Her brother’s man. A killer to the core.
“I serve River Holt,” Torvin said. “And the True Blood Scion of Jern. Make your peace with the gods, Jeren.”
“Make your own peace,” said Shan, his voice low as a whisper.
It was a dream. It had to be. The Enchassa had killed him and he was waiting for her. She was so close to death, she could see the dead.
A slow smile spread over Torvin’s face and the light of a zealot entered his eyes. “Ah, I had hoped for this. Stay there, Jeren. I won’t be long.”
Shan limped towards them, wounded, exhausted, but her Shan, her own beloved Shan. Her husband. Her mate. Struggling to push herself up, Jeren missed Torvin’s attack on Shan, the same blur of weapons and limbs that had brought her down, that had murdered Ariah.
Shan ! Her mind cried out as she pushed herself up to her knees.
Shan met the River Holt assassin in a brief economy of movement. No effort, no challenge. There was something other than anger in his face. She could have sworn it was irritation more than rage, though rage was there as well. Blade clashed against blade and light flashed on the steel. Shan twisted away from him. Even now, hurt and exhausted, to watch him fight was like watching poetry, like watching a myth given form, watching the Dance. His sword slid over the top of Torvin’s extended blade, even as his body turned aside to avoid it, and bit deep.
The world stilled, the two men frozen in a tableau of death.
“You may have hoped for it, but
I have not the time to waste on such as you.” Shan pulled back, withdrawing his blade and its support. Torvin Roh fell, his eyes as lifeless as the stones on which he fell.
Jeren threw herself at Shan, wrapping her arms around his neck and falling with him, even as her lips claimed his. They crashed to the rocky ground, the air knocked out of them both.
But he was here, he was real. Shan. Her Shan.
“I thought I’d lost you,” she told him breathlessly. “I thought you were gone…”
“Not yet.” He smiled, a genuine smile, one of those rare and most beautiful of miracles. “It takes a bit more. Not much, but a bit more.”
Her heart began to beat once more, the frozen shell around it shattering against the force of their love.
Then she remembered.
“Ariah!” she gasped, and struggled out of his arms.
Together they pulled Ariah from the water as the other Sh’istra’Phail arrived. She was breathing, but only shallowly, and the front of her gown was scarlet around the hilt of the Sect Knife. “Lay her down, Shan. I can help.”
But as he did so, Ariah coughed, blood spilling from the corner of her mouth. “Too late, little Sh’istra’Phail. Too late. Be at peace. He is yours. He is free and your mate. I saw this. Saw the blade…saw my end…so many years ago in this very place.”
“Then why did you come with me? Why bring the knife that would kill you?” Jeren shouted, outraged.
Ariah smiled weakly. “Sometimes what we see must come to pass. There’s nothing you can do, Jeren. Not even you. This is my end.”
Jeren ignored her. “Hold her shoulders,” she told Shan. “I need to pull out the knife before I can…”
Ariah began to cough and her body jerked beneath their hands. “Jeren,” she hissed, and the word coalesced into a light, a tiny ball of power hovering between them. “Find my heir…”
Jeren opened her mouth to reply but before she could form words, the light shot inside her. Hands seized her shoulders, pulling her forcibly away, and Fethan took her place. He pulled Ariah’s still form into his arms, shaking her, trying to rouse the dead.
“Ariah. Pass the essence to me! Ariah! I will choose wisely. I will choose a strong leader. Ariah!”
But Ariah could not answer.
Fethan relinquished her body to one of his brethren. He rose to his feet and advanced on Jeren, a looming figure in black.
“The spark, you will give it to me,” he commanded. She swallowed hard, but said nothing. “You will give it to me so I can choose a new Ariah for my people.”
“Like you chose our Sect Mother?” Shan asked evenly. “Is that the type of wisdom you want to apply to the selection of Ariah? Someone else you can manipulate, command? Someone else who will fail at a vital moment? Leave her be, Fethan. Ariah gave the choice to Jeren.”
“She’s not even one of us.”
“But she is. Ariah named her so. Sh’istra’Phail. So leave her be.”
“She’s a Holter!” Fethan yelled. He would have seized her and throttled the spark from her. Jeren could see the intent in him, but the Sh’istra’Phail surrounded them now, vastly outnumbering the Seers, most of whom were attending Ariah’s corpse.
Fethan backed away, seething with rage. Another enemy. Jeren sighed, wondering if this was some new skill that she had managed to pick up—the ability to attract adversaries wherever she went.
“She is Sh’istra’Phail,” Shan insisted. “And my mate. Pay heed. I’ve been through a place as dark as the demon realm and come back. I will not have her denied now.”
“Of course she is,” Indarin said. He limped towards them from the mouth of the canyon, leaning heavily on Lara. “And as the Shaman of the Sect I claim her as more than that. I claim her as my successor, to be trained, if she will undertake to do so, and eventually take my place. A Shaman is even rarer than a Seer, Fethan, so back away. If my brother’s patience is at an end, mine reached the limit when the woman I love became a carrier for the Fell’na. It’s Jeren’s choice. Ariah willed it.”
Every eye turned to her once more. Jeren’s stomach trembled with the urge to fall to her knees and vomit, but she held firm. Nothing short of Shan’s death would induce her to show weakness now.
“Choose then,” Fethan snarled, “and damn us all.”
She stared at the faces before her, but only one face glowed. The face of a young woman who supported Indarin, her cheeks silvered with tears for her fallen leader, the woman she had worshipped. There was only one face Jeren could choose, the one filled with love and grief.
“Lara,” she whispered.
Light burst from within her, her own magic propelling it forward, sending it to her friend. It swept across the space between them and enveloped Lara in an incandescent glow. As abruptly as it had been born, it faded, dissolving into her, filling her.
Lara swayed on her feet and cried for joy and sorrow. The pain in her eyes bled away to love. She looked on Jeren and smiled, Sh’istra’Phail in waiting no longer. She was Ariah now.
The glow that had invaded Jeren’s perception dissipated in the air like morning mist with sunrise and with it went all her remaining strength. Strong arms swept around her, and this time…this time, they were the right arms. She wilted into Shan’s embrace and lifted her face so she could look at him.
He smiled down at her. A genuine smile—relieved, exhausted, beautiful. It sparkled in his grey eyes and lifted his entire solemn face.
All the hurt and tiredness, every aching muscle and stinging cut faded and she turned in to face him. He lifted her, cradling her in his arms, bent to kiss her and it was as if all the world was gone as well.
“Tera cara’mae,” he murmured against her lips.
“My husband,” she replied and returned the kiss.
A giggle interrupted them and Jeren’s face heated, but it was only Lara, her friend. “I think Shan and his mate need some time apart from the rest of us. They have unfinished business, I believe.” She grinned openly at Indarin, who rolled his eyes to the heavens. “We’ll depart in the morning. For now, we should refresh ourselves and rest.”
Shan’s lips pressed against the curve of Jeren’s neck and he chuckled, a deep sound of pleasure that rippled through her. “Some of us,” he said and her heartbeat sped up.
The song of mourning for their dead Ariah filled the air and Shan carried Jeren away from their lamentation, the grief mixed with a curious joy. Though Ariah was gone, she was come again in the form of Lara, whose quick wit and deep emotion made her beloved by all.
Jeren rested her head on Shan’s shoulder and her tears began to fall. She couldn’t help herself. They fell on his clothes, on his skin, on the collar Ylandra had tied around his throat. Jeren reached out, her fingers trembling, and his step faltered to a stop. With a growl in the base of her throat, she tore it from him and hurled it away.
Shan gasped, a breath of both release and reprieve. Jeren’s body convulsed in a sob and he held her closer, calming her with his voice and touch.
When he brought her into one of the Sh’istra’Phail’s tents, laying her down on blankets and stretching out alongside her, he wiped them away with the pad of his finger and smiled again.
“Stay here,” he told her. “Don’t move. Not for anything. Promise me.”
Bewildered, she pushed herself up on her elbows. “I promise.”
And then he was gone, fleet as a wolf in the moonlight. Jeren waited, listening to her breathing, to the distant singing, to the night sounds beyond. In only minutes he was back, carrying a wide bowl full of water and a pile of soft cloths.
Without words, he took her in his arms again and peeled back the layers of clothes that covered her. Her own hands took up the task on his behalf, unlacing his tunic and gradually exposing the marble-pale skin beneath. So beautiful to her, her husband, her love. She kissed where she could and protested when he pulled away from her.
Warm water scented with herbs smoothed across her skin. Shan trailed the cloth
across her clavicle so the water ran down between her breasts. He washed away the dirt and pain, the fear and humiliation. He tended her cuts and grazes, the bruises that purpled her, and then she did the same in return, tending and exploring. At last, naked together, their world was bounded by the reach of their arms.
Shan kissed her again. It started so gently, a brushing of lips, which deepened until all Jeren could feel was that kiss, the way it infected her whole body with desire. He trailed his mouth down the line of her throat, and one hand slid around her waist while the other caressed her breasts until the nipples tightened into peaks. His wicked mouth caught them as well and when Jeren gasped out his name, she felt as well as heard the groan of need deep in his throat.
His long fingers slipped between her thighs, seeking out the honeyed warmth that filled her and tormenting her most intimate places.
“Please,” she whispered and the world around her trembled with her need for him.
“My guiding light,” he murmured, as he rose above her, gazing down in wonder at her face. “My Jeren. Always.”
The image came to her again, of all the horrors she had seen in the pool. It must have shown on her face, for his stilled in concern and he watched her, waiting.
“Please,” she repeated, more solemnly now. “Shan, please, my love.”
Perhaps this was all there could be for them, she thought, though it broke her heart to admit that, especially here and now. But that grief and worry was for another time. Here and now, he was hers and that was all that mattered. The whole world, she thought, running her hands up the taut muscles of his arms to his shoulders, wrapping her legs around his hips to pull him to her.
“I might hurt you,” he warned, and for some reason she wanted to laugh. She was thinking about her vision, about the pain she saw in that future, the agony of separation from this wondrous man. And he was thinking of her.
“You could never hurt me, Shan.”
He relented and smiled as he bent to kiss her once more. His body pressed against hers. He filled her, moving slowly within her, and to her joy, proved her right for once. They moved together, caught in the moment of another dance, one as old as time itself.
