by Dana Marton
He whispered, “Tera, look at me. My heart, say something.”
I turned my face up. How did he expect me to see in all this darkness? How did he expect me to talk through the pain with a tongue that was on fire?
“Why is her mouth bleeding?” he demanded in a harsh tone.
Then another familiar voice, the old Guardian of the Cave. “In parts of the cave, there is a vein of poisonous minerals, my lord.”
“Send a runner to the healers,” Batumar ordered someone. “And have water ready in my chamber. Warm. A tub filled, and a hundred more buckets, and—”
“Nay,” the Guardian cut him off. “Water turns the dust into poison when the two mix. Her own sweat and saliva burned her, mixed with the dust. I should have found her sooner. Forgive me, Lord Batumar. But the ancient god’s power rendered my senses fair blind.”
“How will we wash off all this poisonous dust?” the warlord demanded. “If not with water?”
“Sand, my lord. Bathe her in fine, powderlike sand, then wipe every inch of her body. Then do it again. Then, perhaps, a good rinse. If I recall, that was done with Vooren’s grandfather to save him back in the day.”
Batumar was already wiping my face and hair with his sleeve. “Why is her hair white?”
“That too, happened to the old steward, my lord. His hair turned full white by the time he found his way out of the tunnels.”
Vooren had told us. I remembered it now.
I coughed then blinked hard, straining my burning eyes.
“She is coming to,” Batumar said above me, but my mind skipped back to what he had asked only moments ago. Why is her hair white?
How could he see my hair without any light?
Two realizations sliced into me at the same time. The reason I could not see the warlord was not because we were in the belly of darkness. I could not see him, because I was blind. And this was no dream.
Chapter Thirty-Five
(Tera)
“Tera? Can you hear me?” Batumar’s tone was as close to begging as I had ever heard him.
I nodded. I could hear, but nothing else about my body felt the same as before. I felt as if I had died in the ancient god’s temple and now I was painfully reborn. To be what new creature?
Batumar insisted on carrying me into my new life.
We entered a room, then the door closed behind us. The warlord held me to his chest for a long moment before he laid me down onto something soft—a bed.
“You are in our old chamber,” he said. “The Shahala healers are coming. They did join us, with Koro’s help, at the end.” He drew a ragged breath. “Can you tell me what happened?”
I tried to form words, but no sound could pass my burning throat.
The door scraped open. The healers came, and the warlord gave me over to their care. “She cannot speak, and she cannot see.”
I drifted in and out as they bathed me in sand, again and again, until, free of the deadly minerals, they could bathe me in water at long last. My cuts were healed, my missing and burned skin renewed. I drank cup after cup of potions, then honeyed warm milk.
Someone cupped his hands over my eyes, then gently ran the pads of his thumbs over my eyelids. A long pause followed. Then my throat tingled, and I knew that next to me, a Shahala healer was drawing my injury into himself. I waited for the healing to work, to be able to speak.
Instead, the healer said, “My lord, I cannot. Nothing I do helps her. Not with her voice or her sight.”
Then another healer tried, and another.
“Perhaps, once the shock passes, the Lady Tera can heal herself,” one of them suggested.
“Try again.” Batumar’s tone was darker than a hardstorm at midnight.
They followed his order.
Half a day must have passed before the warlord finally allowed them to leave. He walked out behind them. The door closed and then silence.
I drew a deep, rattling breath. I wished I could fall asleep. Instead, dark thoughts chased each other in my mind. I had been removed from the sacrifice hole. What had Boscor said on Rabeen? Kratos did not suffer a sacrifice to be taken from him.
Would he come for me?
I waited in the darkness.
Then the door opened again. Boots scraped on stone. I recognized those footsteps.
The bed dipped under me, and in another breath, I was pulled onto Batumar’s lap, his arms surrounding me and tucking me against his strong body, as a baby bird might be tucked into the nest.
“Tera.”
I laid my head against his chest.
His voice roughened when he spoke next. “My Tera. Come back to me.”
I wished I could speak to him, but I could not. I patted his chest to let him know I heard his words, and he spoke again.
“We were outside the city walls when the earth began to tremble. We saw dust rise up over the north wing of the palace. When the dust settled, half the palace was gone. I knew you were there. I raced straight for you.” His voice broke.
And the others? What happened to them? Prince Graho, and Lord Karnagh, and Tomron, the young Guardian of the Gate, and all our men?
As if able to hear my thoughts, Batumar went on. “We lost many men in the fight, but none of the leaders. Tomron was grievously injured but is already healed. He has taken half the remaining army to clear out what Kerghi soldiers still roam the rest of the island.”
I gave thanks to the spirits for that.
“Neither Khan Verik nor his war leaders came forth to organize the defense once our troops breached the city walls. Some said they all perished in the palace collapse. His men surrendered.”
Batumar paused before continuing. “We found the khan’s headless body in the ruins later. The emperor beheaded him, according to one of the captured men. We dug the emperor’s broken body from the ruins when we were searching for you. But we did not find his sorcerer. He is said to have come to Karamur with Emperor Drakhar. It is too dangerous to keep digging. More of the palace might collapse. I would give the whole city for you, but if the sorcerer is down there under the rubble, he shall stay down there and good riddance.”
The warlord lapsed into silence.
When I nudged his chest with my head to let him know I wanted to hear more, he drew a heavy breath.
“The Guardian of the Gate could not close Dahru’s Gate,” he said. “So he attempted to destroy the Gate. At this, he succeeded. He destroyed the Gate before any of our people were sent through.” Silence stretched, a hard and painful pause. “He did not survive. He gave his life to save us, as his father had.”
The news of the young Guardian’s death slammed into my chest like a battle axe and stayed buried there. Grief washed over me while Batumar held me and comforted me with his murmured words of love, his lips pressing soft kisses onto my forehead.
“My heart,” he said, his tone gruff. “Please heal yourself.”
He did not understand that I had lost my healing powers. After the first siege of Karamur, when I had been injured, I had resisted healing. I had been heartsick from the violence of the battle and that I had aided in the deaths of men. I had taken my injuries as my atonement. Now Batumar thought I felt the same way again.
He was not entirely wrong. I had seen too much evil since this war had begun. I wanted to see no more. Yet I would have returned from my injuries to my people if I could have. But I could not. I could not even leave my bed. The Shahala healers healed my injuries, yet my strength did not return.
As we lay together, Batumar shifted us to wrap his great body around mine. He had a leg thrown across mine, an arm around my middle, my head tucked under his chin, as if he thought I might fly away in the night like a bird.
I finally slept.
Night after night, Batumar held me like that and rarely left me during the day. Each time he did leave and return, he told me everything he heard and saw while he was gone.
“The Forgotten City of the Guardians survived, protected by strong wards. The Kerghi n
ever found their way in,” he told me, and I sighed and patted his chest to let him know how happy the news made me.
After a moment, he went on, his tone growing heavier. “We still have no news of my mother. She never returned from her pilgrimage from the sacred springs of the godesses. I sent men to search for her, but they’ve come back empty-handed.”
Tears welled in my eyes. Had the Kerghi captured Leena, then? We would find her, I silently swore. I knew Batumar would not rest until we had her back.
“My daughters survived the Kerghi invasion behind the stone walls of their remote fortresses,” he added, and told me how glad he was that they had moved away from Karamur. He invited them for a visit as soon as our castle was repaired.
On the seventh day after my rescue, he told me that the surviving warlords sought to bestow an honor on me. As they had no high title for a woman, some suggested that instead of returning the name of the fortress city to Karamur from Khangar, the city would be named after me in the future.
I shook my head.
“I knew what you would say about that and told them so,” Batumar said.
We were in bed once again, his arms around me. He tightened his embrace and kissed my closed eyes, one after the other. “I wish you could see the city. The stonemasons are working double time. The army we brought is helping them. Many of the men are learning masonry as their new trade. Others are training as roofers and replacing the roofs on the houses. A hundred went to the port to learn to be shipwrights. The Kadar fleet will be rebuilt.”
A heavy sigh rattled up his chest. “I wish you could see, and I wish that our people could see you, my lady. I am stopped a hundred times a day and asked how you fare. Vooren frets like an old woman. I suppose the old steward saw his grandfather afflicted thus, so he knows what it is like, more than anyone else.”
Vooren survived. That eased my mind a little. I smiled.
We slept.
I dreamt of my mother. She was nothing but light—a spirit. She embraced me. I missed her so much still.
I woke to moisture on my face. Had I been weeping in my dream? I reached up and found my eyes dry. I searched for Batumar’s face, then brushed my fingertips lightly across his cheek.
The warlord was crying in his sleep.
I pressed my lips against his. Truly, against his stubbled jaw first, some searching necessary before I found his mouth. I kissed him until he kissed me back, slowly, tentatively, as if waking from a dream and unsure whether he was yet asleep or awake.
In another breath, his large hands bracketed my face, and he kissed me deeper. I braced against the onslaught of emotion by bracing my palms against his warm chest. At that slightest sign of resistance, he drew back. “You will heal. You will rise from this bed.”
He rested his lips against my forehead until someone knocked on the door and called him away.
* * *
“Some expect you to rise and become empress,” the warlord told me when he returned that evening. “To lead an army to the mainland. You vanquished the emperor. Many think you should take his throne.”
I shook my head. The countries of the mainland would have to work out how to govern themselves.
“Our people want you to be their queen,” he said in a soft, cautious tone. “Some of the Kadar and Shahala are talking about forming one country. And the soldiers we recruited on the mainland have no wish to return. They have nothing to return to. They want to be part of what we will build here. They want to keep following you.”
“The Kadar warlords will never agree to a Shahala queen.”
I gasped. My voice was rusty, but what I thought I was saying in my head came out of my mouth. My heart clamored, and my spirit soared.
Batumar embraced me in a fierce hug. “You can speak.”
Yet he denied me the opportunity to do so again by brushing his lips against mine. When I kissed him, he kissed me back. He kissed me senseless. He went about it for a good long time before he spoke again. “See? You are ready to be queen.”
“The warlords will not take orders from a woman.”
“Gods, I have missed your voice.” He kissed me again before saying, “The remaining Kadar warlords will take orders from their own High Lord. This morning, they elected me to the post once again. But they will not object if I am your general at the same time.”
“The Shahala will never agree to a Kadar king.”
“I have no wish to be king. I do like leading the army. I am a warlord. But they can call me the queen’s consort, or anything they please.”
I liked the idea of one unified country. But… “If anyone should rule, it should be the Guardians. They hold ancient knowledge.”
“The Guardians wish to be your advising body.”
All that was too much for my mind to comprehend. “All I wished for was to establish a Hall of Healing in the city.”
“And you can do that too. You can call it the Queen’s Hall. I imagine it will be popular.”
I could hear the smile in Batumar’s voice. His words painted a picture I could see in my mind. Hope unfurled softly and quietly in the middle of my chest like a baby bird unfurling its fuzzy wings for the first time in the nest. Then I remembered I could no longer heal. I swallowed the sadness of the thought.
“When I saw the north wing collapse…” Batumar said in a ragged voice, close enough to me for his hair to brush my cheek as he shook his head. “How? And if you ever try to sacrifice yourself again, I swear on my ancestors, I… What happened after you came through the cave?”
“You must send someone to fetch Hartz and Atter from Barren Cove,” I said first. I hoped Fadden and Lison were with them, having found their way out of the tunnels. I hoped the ancient god had not killed them.
Once Batumar shouted for a guard and issued the order to have the men collected, I gave him a full account of my journey through the mountain, then what came after—all about the khan, the emperor, and the sorcerer. He kept holding me closer and closer as I went on with the tale.
When I finished, Batumar touched his forehead against mine. “You are a hero to our people. You are the hero of my heart.” He drew a deep breath. “Look at me, please.”
He touched my chin and tilted my head up to his, brushed his lips over mine. “Open your eyes, my heart. I know the healing is there, inside you. Heal your sight.”
I could not.
“If you heal your sight,” he bargained, “I will allow the Shahala healers to heal me from Ishaf’s scars.”
“I will not be bribed.”
Then he whispered, “I shall let you see my scars.”
A smile tugged the corners of my lips. He kissed them, one after the other. He shifted next to me. “I am taking off my shirt.”
I let my hands slip to his chest and drank in the warmth of his bare skin. My fingertips glided over the thick ridges of his old injuries. He went completely still. He ceased even to breathe.
“Did you know,” he said after several heartbeats, “that your people gather every day outside the palace, hoping to catch a glimpse of you, so they can thank you? They need to see you. And you need to see them. They have lost so much. The sight of you would give them strength. Come back to us fully.”
I opened my eyes and stared into unrelenting darkness. Batumar was right. So much work remained. The war was over. We had to rebuild. And I would help in any way I could. I could certainly not lie about in bed like a spoiled concubine while others worked outside.
Silently I prayed to the spirits, especially my mother’s, and I felt her light inside me, spreading through me. I let her healing spirit flow through my body. The darkness in front of my eyes turned into fog, then the fog lifted, and little by little I could see Batumar.
His obsidian eyes swallowed me. When I smiled at him, holding his gaze, he breathed a ragged sigh of relief. As I shifted to see more of him, I caught sight of my own hair lying over his shoulder. The once-black locks were moonlight white. He had told me that when he found me. I had for
gotten. I could not help but stare.
“Now you really do look like a sorceress,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “Welcome back, healer, sorceress, queen. You can be anything you want, as long as you stay with me for the rest of our lives.”
He claimed my lips. As he kissed me, he pulled me closer, his strong arms surrounding me. He kissed his way down the line of my jaw, then buried his face into my neck and kissed all the most sensitive spots until the entire surface of my skin tingled. The spirits help me, I had missed this. I felt my strength returning.
He caressed my arm, my side, my hip, then his hand reached the bottom of my shift, and he tugged up the thin material, gently, slowly. I twisted to help him pull it over my head.
His dark gaze focused on my body in the flickering light of the bedside candles. His breathing roughened. I knew I looked like I had been through a war. I had. We both had. I finally let my gaze drop to his chest and then the rest of his body. He had worn nothing but his shirt when he had come to bed, so he was now completely naked.
Tears sprang to my eyes and spilled down my cheeks.
“Tera.” He cupped my face, searching my gaze. “All is fine well. Nothing hurts.”
Oh, but those scars. Whip marks, claw marks, along with thin cuts that had come from a blade formed a crosshatch pattern over his skin. Gouges—he had been stabbed too—punctuated the chronicle of pain written on his body. Every hurt one man can inflict on another had been inflicted on him.
“I lost you,” I whispered against the ragged white ridges as I began kissing them.
“We have lost each other more than once, but I promise you, we will always find each other.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Call for the Shahala healers. You said you would let them heal you.”
“Later.” He growled and flipped me onto my back, trapped my hands above my head, and pinned me to the bed with his lower body, holding most of his weight off me.
His hips settled between my thighs. His hardness pressed against my swollen and aching center. He dipped his head and kissed my lips first, devoured them like a starving man before moving to my breasts.
