CHAPTER THIRTY
C’Tan continued to pound the ice wall with fire long after Kayla had gone. She lost all control when the group walked away without even a glance behind them. The anger and desperation drove her over the brink of sanity, and rationality left along with the Sapphire Flute. There had to be a way past.
There had to be!
She’d had it, had been so close to ridding herself of her master’s chains, and she’d lost it. The flute was gone. She sagged in defeat. The fire drizzled from her hands into the sand, warming it to an almost comfortable degree. The water that walled her in sizzled and evaporated with the heat, and still the ice remained.
Gone. What now? Wait another month? Two? A year? How much longer could she continue in servitude to The Destroyer? She had no answers, and all she could feel was despair, fury, and fear.
She was not sure what alerted her to his presence, whether it was the shift of sand beneath his feet, or his breath—perhaps something else. Whatever it was, C’Tan stiffened and rose, almost afraid to turn—but how could she not? His mere presence called her to him, and though internally she fought with what small will remained, he had chained her soul long before.
Compelled, she turned to meet his flaming eyes. Her heart fluttered when she saw him. In appearance, he was everything a woman could desire. That was how he had turned her to him in the end, with his dark hair and lips that could kiss moisture from a rose.
The master called.
“C’Tan.” His voice, soft as feathers, smooth as molasses, but with an undercurrent of . . . what? Nails? Iron? The buzz of a wasp or hiss of a snake? Something menacing, dark lay beneath his voice, like jagged stone below still water. “Have you failed me again? Have you lost the blue keystone once more?”
C’Tan trembled, but stayed on her feet, silent in his presence, defiantly keeping her illusion down. Let him see the ugliness he had created.
“And where is the wolfchild? Have you found her yet? We can’t afford to have her wandering around where she might cause trouble, now can we?” he continued in his falsely sweet voice.
C’Tan could not answer. Her tongue was frozen, her mouth dry, her breath nearly ice in her chest.
“No answers for me, Celena Tan?” His flawless lips quirked in a smile. She continued to stand before him in silence, defying him in the only way she could, though she trembled doing it.
“Perhaps Kardon would serve me better after all,” he threatened, and suddenly the man was there, staggering in the sand, having been pulled from whatever task he’d been doing to appear at his master’s side.
A wave of terror washed over her, and she hated herself for it. He knew just how to manipulate her. She both hated and adored him. C’Tan found her voice. “No, Master. I serve you. I have lost them, yes, but only for a time. I will find them again.”
“Be sure that you do.” He smiled then, his eyes cold and expressionless.
C’Tan turned hard eyes on Kardon, her former master, once again in the presence of the true master, a smirk floating across his face. It infuriated her. She would not let the conniving old man take her place again. She would not be chained to two men. One was horrid enough. She gathered fire to her, and S’Kotos stepped aside, smiling.
Kardon knelt, head bent before the Guardian of Fire in quiet reverence, then turned his adoring face upward. C’Tan pulled heat from the air and the sand, and created a flaming ball that grew from grape, to cantaloupe, to watermelon-size, and still she fed it with heat. Without realizing it, a growl started in her throat. Kardon looked up at that, his eyes expressionless, much like the master’s, though she detected a note of bitter glee in his voice.
“Has it come to this at last then, C’Tan?” he asked without moving from his humbled posture, only turning his head to gaze at her with disgust.
C’Tan’s heart stilled, but she dared not let him know how he affected her even after all these years. The man she called slave was truly in the image of his Guardian, S’Kotos, much more than she would ever allow herself to be. The look in his eyes, the darkness of his soul mirrored his master. Itrepulsed her, terrified her in ways nothing else could. The fireball shrank, the heat settling back into the air and sand around them.
“Not yet, Kardon. I am too tired to battle you now. Perhaps another day.” C’Tan let the emotion empty from her as water from a bucket. Then she changed the subject. “Why are you here?”
“I received a report from Laerdish. I thought you would be interested. Perhaps I was wrong.“ Kardon pushed for the confrontation they both knew was coming. He was like an incurable rash.
When C’Tan said nothing, S’Kotos spoke for her. “Oh yes, please continue,” the Guardian of Fire purred, his half-smile suddenly malicious.
Kardon cleared his throat. Even he was a little unnerved by The Destroyer, she was glad to see. It evened the bar between them.
“Laerdish has been discovered and fled, but he wished to send word that Shandae will be accepted into the mage academy and should enter within a few days.”
S’Kotos growled and turned away from the kneeling man. He sent a fireball of his own toward the ice wall, but it continued to hold.
“That is terrible news,” he said, spinning back toward C’Tan and a still-kneeling Kardon. “I should roast you for delivering such unhappy tidings to me this day. Haven’t I had enough disappointment?” he asked, his eyes beginning to smoke.
“Master, I disagree,” C’Tan said. There was another way to salvage this. “We already have agents in place within Ezeker’s academy—agents who can lead her to our side, perhaps?”
“And a fifth has been accepted into the class with Shandae,” Kardon chimed in.
S’Kotos thought about it and began to smile. “I see what you are saying, children. Yes, indeed. This can be turned to our advantage if handled properly. Are these agents of yours trustworthy, Celena Tan?”
The force of his personality made her tremble again. “Yes, master, the best that I could find. Two of them are of the Mageguard—another, an instructor. My own daughter has been in place for three years already. The fifth will be a fellow student. I have turned him back from his previous age so his young body carries adult memories and experience. He is shrewd and already carries a hatred for the girl. He will find a way if no other can.”
S’Kotos chuckled. It was not a pleasant sound. “Good. Perhaps we can take down the academy and turn the girl at the same time, but what of the flute? And the other keystones? When will you retrieve those for me, C’Tan? I grow tired of your excuses.”
“Master,” Kardon answered for her. “The girl will go to the evahn, I am sure of it. Her father is there. But,” he held up one finger, “I am quite certain they will turn her away. They dare not infuriate C’Tan or yourself at this time. Their position is too precarious, and they have taken a stance of neutrality in this war. My best guess is that they will send her to the birthplace of the flute.”
“Which means we can destroy them all in one act,” C’Tan finished for him, angry that he had taken even that much of her master’s attention. She hated the weakness in herself that craved and detested her master all at once.
S’Kotos began to laugh. His head tilted back, and his entire body shook with his mirthless roar. He stopped as suddenly as he began, and in an instant, he went from laughter to silence. He stepped forward and placed his hands on the heads of each of his servants as an act of benediction. A crowd of whispering voices invaded C’Tan’s mind, along with instructions from the Guardian. Going suddenly from warm to hot, sweat streamed down her face to puddle in her collar. She was pleased to see the master’s touch had the same effect on Kardon. The Guardian of Fire removed his hands, nodded his head briefly to both of them, and disappeared in a blaze of fire.
C’Tan met Kardon’s eyes, and for once emotion burned in them, though she could not quite name what she saw there.
“You owe me,” was all he said as he raised himself to his feet. C’Tan did not respond, unsure what he referred
to.
“Gather the troops,” she commanded. “We’re going home."
The Sapphire Flute: Book 1 of The Wolfchild Saga Page 38