“Safe,” Hallow said with a snort, whistling for Penn when Deo walked toward the deepest shadows across the riverbed. “The way you killed those Harborym? I don’t think any of us have anything to worry about from them.”
“The danger is not from the Harborym,” Deo said grimly. “It is the magic within me that is not to be trusted. Where is my father?”
“The last I saw, threatening to do heinous things to Lord Jalas unless the third moonstone was delivered to him.”
Deo stopped in the act of gathering up items from what was obviously a hastily made camp. He frowned at Hallow. “He’s threatening Jalas? Has he lost his wits?”
“Jalas? It’s hard to say. Your father was very much in possession of his, if that’s what you were implying. Jalas was being…difficult. But Lord Israel was determined to prevail.”
“How did you get here if you didn’t use the moonstones to open a portal?” Deo demanded. His scowl was intimidating, but Hallow, despite his worry about Allegria, was at ease. Deo might bluster, and he might have a sometimes less than reassuring grasp on his magic, but Hallow knew he had nothing to fear from the man who had embraced chaos and mastered it…most of the time.
Quickly he explained the happenings of the recent months, editing the middle part to leave out the fact that Idril had come with them since he knew if Deo found out Idril was wandering alone in Eris, he would charge off to rescue her and not focus on helping Hallow find Allegria.
“Several men attacked you? Shadowborn men?” Deo asked. “Was there a woman with them?”
Hallow was silent while he dug back through his impressions, fleeting as they were. “I don’t…perhaps. There may have been a woman’s voice in all the noise, but Penn can be very fast when he chooses.”
“Ah.” Deo waved away Hallow’s concern. “That would be Mayam, then.”
“And she is?”
“A serving woman from the temple where I was held prisoner. She is searching villages for my company.”
“You already have a company?” Hallow couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and for a moment, felt himself all sorts of irritated that he had risked Allegria’s life to rescue Deo when his friend clearly needed no such help.
“Not yet, no. But I will. Mayam and her brother search for Shadowborn who have knowledge of blood magic. With them, my Banes of Eris will rise from the ashes of the Battle of the Fourth Age and destroy the Harborym and Racin once and for all.” Deo eyed Hallow in a manner that made him uncomfortable. “If your arcany is useless here, you might as well be a Bane. Then at least you will be able to defend yourself.”
“I don’t think so,” Hallow said, dismissing the idea immediately.
Deo cocked an eyebrow. “Can it be that you are afraid of chaos power while Allegria embraced it?”
“No.” He tried to pick out a reason that would placate Deo without irritating him to the point that he refused to help find Allegria. He settled on the truth as being the most effective. “I am an arcanist by birth as well as by training. My mother was Starborn, just as yours was.”
“Then you should handle the chaos as I do,” Deo said, looking thoughtful. “You will be my lieutenant.”
“An honor, I’m sure,” Hallow said hurriedly before continuing, “but not possible. Not with chaos power. I’m an arcanist, Deo. I’ve given my life over to it. It’s as much a part of my blood as chaos magic is yours. And I don’t think the two would mix.”
“Allegria had no issues in that regard,” Deo pointed out.
“That’s because as a priest she was blessed in Kiriah’s eyes, so much so that she ended up channeling the goddess. I have no such protection. Bellias may gaze upon the arcanists with a benevolent eye, but we are bound to the night. Chaos is as different from the source of arcany as you are from me.”
“We are more alike than you think if we both have Starborn mothers,” Deo said drily, then obviously giving up the idea, called out a few orders to the other two men who were scrambling to collect the last of their gear.
Hallow stood thinking for a few moments when Deo moved off to gather his belongings. His first instinct was to go after Allegria, but he could not even protect himself, let alone her. And if her power was as adversely affected as his was, then they would have only her skills with the bow and swords to protect them both.
“Bellias damn me if I will allow it to come to that,” he said grimly and reconsidered Deo’s proposal.
Would the chaos power mix with the arcany that ran in his veins, or would it bring about a battle that would end in his destruction?
Deo handled it…but Deo was not an arcanist. Idly, Hallow watched one of the blood priests when the latter packed up a saddlebag, musing over the fact that the Shadowborn and Starborn were so much alike, yet the two races had progressed along very different paths. It was a shame that their blood magic was so different from that embraced by the Starborn, because he was desperate enough that he would have welcomed it if he could only find and save Allegria.
Blood magic…the words echoed in Hallow’s head as he watched one of the priests.
Deo strode by, saying, “You would do better to join me, arcanist, than worry about Allegria.”
“My wife matters more to me than anything in this world, or the next,” Hallow said, nonetheless mounting Penn when Deo got upon a tired-looking black horse.
“Finally wed her, did you? Is she with child yet?” Deo asked in what Hallow knew was his conversational tone of voice. In any other man, it would be considered a growl.
“I did, and she is not, at least not that I know, and she would tell me if she was. Deo, much as I am pleased to see that you are not imprisoned or in any danger that I can see, I am not joining your company. I must find Allegria. You say you know the woman who captured her? Why would a serving woman abduct her?”
“I told you that Mayam is combing the nearby villages to find Shadowborn candidates. She won’t kill Allegria.” He thought for a moment. “Well, she might try if she thinks Allegria means me harm. She has a tenderness for me,” he added.
“Allegria?” Hallow felt as if his head was whirling.
“Mayam. She wishes to become my woman.” Deo rode up the side of the riverbank and turned his horse to the northwest.
“Does she know you at all?” Hallow asked before he could stop himself.
Deo’s lips twitched. “Not very well.”
“Deo, stop,” Hallow said, pulling Penn to a halt. To his surprise—because Deo was a lot like Buttercup in that he didn’t like to be given commands—Deo halted as well.
“Are there more Harborym?” Deo asked, glancing around. “If so, we will have to leave them. My magic gets obnoxiously pleased when it goads me into killing things, and I’d rather keep it under my control. Things tend to get destroyed when my control slips.”
“Where is Allegria?” Hallow asked, curbing the need to shake Deo.
“I have no idea.” Deo looked annoyed. “Is that why you are slowing me down?”
“Yes. You have to help me find her. I don’t like admitting I’m weak, but if that will drive home how important it is that you go with me to find her, I will shout it from the highest cliff. It’s the truth. If I hadn’t come across you, those Harborym would have finished me.”
Deo made a face and started forward. “Allegria has more power than you. She’ll be fine. I’m almost certain that Mayam wouldn’t kill her outright.”
It took an effort, but Hallow managed to keep from leaping onto Deo and throttling him, as he badly wanted to do. “I agree that she—my wife, my heart, my everything—is stronger than you and me both, but she is not so on Eris. She does not feel the sun here just as I do not feel the arcany of the stars. We have to help her. You have to help her. Deo, you owe her.”
It was the last sentence that did it. Deo stopped his horse and looked back at Hallow again. “How so?”
Penn walked forward until he was level with Deo’s mount. “When you went through the portal in Abet…Allegria channeled Kiriah Sunbringer herself. She burned out the chaos magic within herself…and did something to you at the same time. She changed your magic.”
Deo touched one of the bands of silver that crisscrossed his chest, his expression thoughtful. “I have long wondered if that was what happened. I thought at first it was the act of crossing through the portal, but if her lightweaving touched me as I went through…yes, that could explain everything.”
“You have to help me find her,” Hallow said, daring to hope.
Deo thought about that for a moment, then shook his head, pressing his heels to the horse’s sides. “There’s no time. We are going to Skystead. The army that Mayam is raising will join me, and with my Banes once again at my side, I will destroy Racin and his Harborym, thereby saving the Shadowborn from destruction.”
Hallow wondered if Allegria would still find him attractive if he pulled out all of his hair in frustration. He decided he’d better not risk it, and instead, did the only thing he could. He threw a weak ball of arcane magic at the back of Deo’s head, and turned back to talk to one of the priests.
Chapter 16
Israel heard the whispered rasp of metal just a second before the cold touch of steel pricked the side of his neck. He froze in the act of brushing aside a leafy frond.
“You make enough noise to wake the dead,” a voice whispered. “I’m surprised the whole of Skystead hasn’t come out to see what you are doing.”
He relaxed at the breath that brushed his cheek, pushing aside the tree branch before turning to note the mocking silver eyes that shone out from the shadows. “As I was relieving myself, I doubt if they would have found much to entertain them.”
The woman jerked her head toward the low canvas structure that sat hidden by the copse of trees. “I assume that’s yours?”
“It is.” He made Dasa, queen of the Starborn, a formal bow, and gestured toward the tent. “And I assume you wish to parlay?”
“That’s one way of putting it.” She slipped in and out of the shadows so quickly that if Israel hadn’t been watching, he’d never have known she’d passed by. He followed, pausing at the flap of the tent to call softly to Marston. “Double the guards. And send a few up into the trees to watch for movement from Skystead.”
“I’ve already done so. My lord, that…thing. It’s gone.”
“I expected Thorn would leave as soon as we were through the portal,” he answered, not in the least bit surprised by the disappearance of the former master of Kelos. In his experience, all arcanists were a few carrots short of a stew, and Thorn had done nothing to disabuse him of that opinion.
Marston looked nervously over his shoulder. “What if he flies into the city? Racin is sure to recognize him from the battle of Starfall and will assume that you have managed to bring a force here.”
“It’s doubtful Thorn would have any reason to visit Skystead unless Hallow is there, and if he is, then Racin must already be on alert. Do not disturb me unless attack is imminent.”
Marston raised his eyebrows, but said nothing when Israel entered the tent. Dasa had lit one of the lamps, and stood next to his leather trunk, holding in her hand a small enameled case opened to display two miniatures: One of a woman, and the other a child. Dasa touched a finger to the woman’s painted black hair. “So much time has been lost since you had this made. No, not lost…wasted. Spent in battle, and suffering, and in waiting. And now here we are again while time slips inexorably past us. Waiting. Suffering.”
“Fighting,” Israel said, taking the miniatures from her and studying them for a minute. How many centuries had past since he’d had the miniature of Dasa made? He’d been a young man then, young and idealistic, and head over arse in love with a woman who was his greatest enemy. And yet, despite the centuries of battling both his emotions and the Starborn army, they had come together to bring an end to the war that had bound Alba for so long. “Deo is well?”
“Would I be here now with you if he wasn’t?” Dasa’s voice, Israel was relieved to note, warmed as she turned away, one hand making an abrupt but still graceful gesture. “He is being held a few hours’ ride to the south at the temple of the blood brotherhood. Priests, they call themselves, but they are not any kind of priest that I’ve ever seen. What I wish to know is why are you here? And how did you manage such a feat?”
“You didn’t think I’d let the monster take you off without so much as a word of protest?” Israel asked lightly.
She wrinkled her nose. “No, I didn’t. But I wouldn’t be surprised to find that you had moved an army through the portal, which naturally would have alerted Racin to your presence, and then there would be a massive battle in which most likely I, and you definitely, would die, leaving Deo to run amok without supervision. Still, I hoped you had enough common sense to keep from making such a foolish mistake.”
“I am not so reckless,” he said mildly, amused despite himself. “My company is small enough that it should escape Racin’s notice.”
“But how is it you came to Eris? Racin has opened no portal. He does not have the Harborym needed to sacrifice to do so.”
“I used your moonstones, the ones Exodius found.”
She frowned and tsked. “I thought I had hidden them better than that.”
“You hid them quite sufficiently. It took him some time to find them. I used them to send Deo to safety when Jalas would have killed him.” He thought for a moment. “After Deo was banished, Exodius said he would hide the stones again because they were too powerful to be used, but I had no idea that he had split them up until Hallow, the current Master of Kelos, told me he had no idea where they were. Once we realized that Jalas held the last one, it took the combined magic of a former Master of Kelos joined with my grace of Alba to force Jalas into revealing his stone’s hiding place. Afterward, he was not…rational…but that is a matter for another day.”
“And so you came to Eris.” She tipped her head to the side as she considered him. “If I didn’t know better, I would say you came here to rescue me, but you are not so ignorant of my ability to handle myself.”
“I am here to end Racin,” he said simply.
She was silent for the count of seven. “Do not attack him, Israel. He has more power than either of us imagined. Your small company would not survive.”
Israel was of that mind, as well, but a question that had been nagging at him took precedence over his plans to rescue Dasa and defeat Racin. “When have you last had news of Deo?”
Dasa unbuckled the scabbard strapped around her waist, setting it on the camp stool that sat next to Israel’s pallet of furs. “About ten days ago. He was bored, and obstinate, and unreasonable.”
“So, normal, then,” Israel said, thinking hard. Israel had spent most of his life in the harness of battle, first caught in the millennia-long battle between Fireborn and Starborn, and in the last thirty or so years protecting the Fireborn from Harborym invasion, so he was no stranger to the weight of responsibility that sat on his shoulders. And yet now, he felt as if his entire body was gripped in a vise created by the vision he had of Dasa in danger…a feeling that spread to Deo. Perhaps the vision had been about Deo, instead?
She shrugged and gestured toward the pallet. “As normal as he can be, given the circumstances. Are you disrobing, or do you expect me to seduce you?”
Israel’s dark thoughts were yanked to the woman who stood before him, his body responding to her as it always did. His smile was hidden when he pulled his tunic off over his head. “Even a few centuries ago when I saw you in battle, I had fantasies of you standing before me in nothing but that pair of silver scale boots that went halfway up your thighs.”
Dasa paused in the middle of removing her own garments, carefully folding and placing them on the camp stool. She frowned
for a few seconds before her brow cleared, and she gave a low, throaty chuckle that went straight to Israel’s groin. “My dragon scale boots! I haven’t thought of those for a very long time. Really? You wanted to see me in naught but them? They were the most uncomfortable things, but my sister had them made for me, so I felt obligated to wear them.”
“They were very…arousing,” Israel said, admiring her lush form as she slipped beneath the furs. It had been far too long since he’d been able to meet with Dasa privately, and as always, he yearned for more than just a few stolen moments.
But that could not be…at least, not until they had taken care of Racin and his Harborym.
“Well, why don’t you join me, and I’ll see what I can do about arousing you even though those boots have long been melted down,” she said, patting the furs.
He hesitated, his body urging him to do as she requested, but his heart cautious. “Does it matter so little to you that you’ve come from your lover’s bed to mine?”
“My lover?” She looked genuinely confused for a moment. “Who—Racin?”
“He called you his queen. He said you had a new name—Deva.” Israel was silent for a moment, trying to read the emotion in her eyes, but she was never one to let him in to her private thoughts unless she desired for him to know. “He wouldn’t have done so if he hadn’t bedded you.”
“Oh, that.” Dasa waved his words away as if they were nothing but annoying gnats. “He used my body, yes. But we both know there is a difference between that and desiring someone. Wanting to be with them, touching them…tasting them. I very much want to be with you now, Israel. I wouldn’t have risked being found here if I didn’t.”
He thought about that, decided that since he, himself, had not been celibate during their time apart, he had no right to complain if she hadn’t been, either. It was a matter of moments before he had removed his boots, leggings, and small clothes, and his arms were full of warm, soft woman.
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