The Dagger of Adendigaeth (A Pattern of Shadow & Light)

by McPhail, Melissa

  Ean stared at her with red-rimmed eyes, tearless but burning. “I…never imagined he knew me so completely.”

  “I told my brother you would never be so ridiculous, so egocentric, as to imagine yourself the sole cause of the realm’s misfortune.”

  Ean frowned at her.

  “Whose game is this anyway?” she demanded brusquely then. “Yours?”

  Her abrupt tone injured his already raw sensitivities. “Well…no, but—”

  “Did you craft the rules? Did you choose the players? Is the game board of your design? Or maybe you were the one who established what parameters would be used to measure success or failure? Was any of this your creation, Ean?”

  “No,” he admitted, “but—”

  “And did you invite the damnable creatures into Alorin? Did you open a window into our realm that they might partake of the view and desire it?”

  “No!” he hissed, revolted by the very thought.

  She arched an imperious chestnut brow. “Well then. Like I told my brother, I cannot imagine any man I love being so foolish, so self-centered—so absurdly unintelligent as to suppose himself the sole cause of the realm’s misfortune and subsequent foundering.”

  Ean stared at her—all thoughts of the Malorin’athgul had vanished the moment she’d said the words.

  …the man I love…

  “Isabel,” he managed, nearly choking over her name, his gaze hot upon her face. “You…love me?”

  Her lips twitched with the shadow of a smile. “Is that what I said?”

  “I’m certain that you did,” he told her seriously.

  She gave an inconsequential shrug, sighed. “Then I suppose it must be true. Epiphany’s Prophet never lies.”

  “Isabel!” he grabbed her hand and gazed imploringly at her. The blindfold was meaningless to him—arousing admittedly—but clearly no barrier to her vision. He knew she saw him, and he imagined he saw her behind its silken folds. “Do not torment me with simple teasing, I beg you. Not about this.”

  “If I meant to torment you with teasing, my lord,” she returned in that velvet voice that nearly drove him insane with wanting her, “I assure you I would find better ways of doing so.”

  Ean stood and swept the table out from between them. He grabbed her up into his arms, bound and close, his mouth just inches from hers, their gazes locked as if the blindfold did not exist. “I have never loved anyone but you,” he confessed hoarsely, his voice gruff with desire. He ran his lips along the graceful arch of her neck, feeling her shiver and wanting her all the more.

  “Prove it,” she purred, sending a thrill of pleasure through him.

  “How?” He could barely breathe for want of her.

  “Bind yourself to me.”

  “I am already bound to you, heart and soul!”

  “Not in this life. You know the pattern,” she murmured, and her velvet voice was an exquisite torture. “If you would have me in this life, my lord, bind us now.”

  He had no thought but to comply. Guided by his need, by her command and his longing to please her, by the desire they so clearly shared, he looked, and the knowledge appeared. He called forth a pattern of the fifth layered with Form from the first strand, and the fourth—called it into being with a desperation driven by his craving to possess Isabel wholly, by the knowledge that she wanted nothing less than the same. And into the pattern he channeled this intention.

  The binding was irreversible—this he also knew. It would link him to Isabel in a way that would become devastating should either of them fall into harm. But these latter ramifications paled next to her keen demand. He wanted only to prove his love to her.

  The moment he had the pattern fully conceived, Isabel whispered, “Yes! Now we seal it…take me, my lord.”

  He didn’t need to be asked twice.

  Ean swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed. He pressed her down, his mouth sealed upon hers, his hands reaching to release her clothing. She worked in turn the laces of his pants.

  “Isabel,” he moaned as she freed him into her hands.

  “You must hold the pattern in place,” she breathed into his ear. Then she gasped as he penetrated her, himself uttering a charged exhalation, sweet ecstasy entwined with painful need. She clung to him as he drove into her, this their first union, an impassioned reunion propelled by wild desire.

  At her command, he held the pattern ready, though this in itself was a thrilling torment, for the pattern kept trying to explode out of him, so charged it was with power. He felt her adding her own layers to the pattern, again of the fourth, the first, even—unexpectedly—the third. And when he could hold the pattern no longer, when he’d driven into her almost beyond his own endurance, sealing symbolically what he captured within the tides of elae… When they were both gasping for breath, Isabel cried out and thrust herself against him, trembling deep inside, and Ean shuddered with his own release, forcing the pattern into being along with his seed, the entire coupling carried now upon the tides of elae, inextricably united within the binding itself.

  Ean collapsed atop Isabel, breathless and spent. Never had he known such a feeling. The binding lay heavy upon them now. Ean could sense it, almost as if tensing against a supportive membrane. The binding linked them, forging an awareness of her as acute as his knowledge of himself—in some ways more so. At last he understood why he’d felt that distance between them—this was the connection he’d been missing.

  Isabel found his mouth once more. Her lips were satin, her tongue as sweet as any wine. He reached for her again as desire ignited once more. When it came to Isabel, his need was insatiable.

  Laughing, she pulled away and sat up on the bed. A sweep of her arm gathered her luscious hair, and she tormented him with that hidden gaze. “Undress me, my lord, for I cannot do it myself.”

  Ean dutifully sat up and examined the buttons along the back of her dress. “I believe I see the problem. They must be undone, each with a kiss.”

  Her lips curled in a smile. “Is that so?”

  His answer was the first of many kisses, long and deep. As his hands made their way down the buttons, she slipped her arms free and then the rest of her, each limb appearing long, lovely and perfect in his estimation. Ean pressed her backwards onto the bed. He trailed his fingers down each arm, feeling her shiver with pleasure and promise, and suddenly he could wait no longer. He grabbed her and rolled so she rose atop him, the perfect hourglass of her body as tantalizing as the feel of himself trapped beneath her.

  Her long hair draped around her shoulders, and the blindfold…he found it even more arousing to see her straddling him and know there was still some part of her that remained beyond his reach. It made him want to possess her all the more.

  “Isabel,” he moaned happily. Her smile concealed every secret he sought, her love the map to his own soul. He lifted himself to capture her mouth with his, and suddenly they were caught once more in the force of their need, as if passion alone might expunge the countless years that had stretched between them.

  That time their release was longer in coming, a powerful deliverance for each of them. Isabel lay atop Ean when they were finished, their skin forming a seal between their bodies even as the magical bond connected their souls.

  “I love you, Isabel,” Ean whispered with desperate conviction. He’d never known any truth so fervent as this one.

  “I know,” she murmured, and though Ean’s eyes were closed, he could still see her smile.

  Thirty-Five

  “The well of his conviction is inexhaustible.”

  - The Adept truthreader Cristien Tagliaferro,

  on Björn van Gelderan

  Raine and Carian finally came in view of the grand alabaster city of Niyadbakir on the eve of the Solstice. For the longest time, Raine stood upon the wide cobbled road that led to the city just staring at the view, his throat strangely tight and his chest tense with emotion.

  Niyadbakir.

  It had been naught but host
ile basalt when last he saw it, the city’s hundreds of towers and spires scraping a red sky. Even knowing T’khendar had changed, Raine still somehow expected to see the same darkly menacing creation in Niyadbakir, a fitting representation of Malachai’s twisted end.

  Instead, he found a city of…surpassing beauty.

  Crowning the mountainside and flowing down into an emerald valley, the white city of bridges and towers seemed to capture the sunlight within it. Waterfalls fell like shafts of sunlight from Niyadbakir’s surrounding mountains, while east of the city fertile farmland spread, a chequerboard dotted with farmsteads and manor homes.

  “I cannot believe it,” Raine muttered.

  “Ah, the Alabaster City,” Balearic noted appreciatively, coming up beside Raine while the rest of the Iluminari wagons ambled by.

  “How?” Raine managed, though he knew too well.

  Balearic shoved hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Some stories proclaim the First Lord changed the city to alabaster during the weeks of Adendigaeth two centuries ago,” he said, “while others claim it happened in a single night.” The gypsy shook his head and grinned at the truthreader, his blue eyes bright against the kohl that lined them. “Changing the makeup of a whole city…it must’ve been the longest day of his life.”

  “I don’t know,” Raine murmured miserably, thinking of the creation of T’khendar itself and all that had followed. “I think he’s probably had longer ones.”

  They finally said farewell to their Iluminari hosts just inside the majestic gates of the sprawling city. The gypsies had been generous beyond measure, and Raine wished he had more to offer them than his gratitude. He said as much to Balearic as they shook hands in parting, and in return the pirate-turned-gypsy held fast to his hand, calling Raine’s gaze to his own.

  “Not for me, your Excellency…not for any of us,” he said in a low voice, casting a glance toward the pirate who was busy adjusting Gwynnleth’s unconscious form in the litter they’d procured to carry her. “But for Alorin, my lord, for those whose lives hang in the balance. For them,” he said, holding Raine’s gaze, “won’t you please try to see his side? I think something important is happening—you live long enough in T’khendar and the sense of it just permeates you—and I think he might be the only one who knows what to do about it.”

  Raine held his gaze. “I would that we don’t make the same mistakes twice, Balearic,” he agreed, realizing the phrase might refer to any number of situations, but it was the best he could offer.

  Balearic’s bright blue eyes seemed to understand, and he nodded. “Farewell, your excellence. The Lady’s blessing upon you all.”

  Raine watched him go in silence. Balearic was taking his wagon to a predestined location to set up for the fire-candle display later that night. In some ways, Raine was sad to see him go, for he felt that he hadn’t done the gypsy justice in exchange for his hospitality…or for his words of wisdom. Yet while Balearic took his leave, the gypsy’s reminder of ‘the Lady’ stayed with Raine.

  Isabel. He suspected she was somewhere in this city, and the thought of seeing her both uplifted and terrified him—mostly the latter.

  For three centuries, ever since Raine and the other Vestals found themselves on a lonely beach wondering where the island of Tiern’aval had gone, Raine had assumed Isabel must be dead. He and Alshiba both suspected Björn had killed all of the Mages in order to get to her alone, for there was no hiding one’s intentions from Epiphany’s Prophet. Björn would’ve had to have killed her, they reasoned, to work the evil that they blamed him for.

  But now…to have learned instead that Isabel was firmly behind her brother’s actions…that she was in fact working at his side—and everyone in T’khendar spoke of them as one, ‘the First Lord and the Lady’—was a fact Raine could not ignore, no matter how the knowledge tore at him.

  Unless she has somehow been subverted, too…

  But it seemed utterly impossible. There was no one in the Thousand Realms like Isabel van Gelderan. In all of his life, this was the one and only truth Raine had ever taken on faith.

  “You gonna stand there mooning all night or help me with this?” Carian complained.

  Raine stirred from his deep introspection to see the pirate had his hands on the front end of Gwynnleth’s litter and was waiting for Raine to take the other. The Vestal moved to do so. “Sorry.”

  Carian shook his head with a rueful grin. “Oh man, I certainly wouldn’t want to be your conscience these days.”

  Raine cast him a dark look. “Thank you, Carian.”

  “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

  They joined the masses moving down the Rue Montague, one of the major thoroughfares through the city. “Where are we going anyway?” Raine asked, looking around. He realized he’d been fairly useless as a traveling companion since they arrived. If not for the pirate, he’d probably still be sitting on a mountain of sand back in the Wyndlass, blistered and miserable and praying for death.

  “Balearic says there’s a hotel on the Rue Caravaggio that might still have rooms.” Carian looked at him pointedly. “You do realize this is the last day of Adendigaeth, don’t you?”

  Raine nodded. The Longest Night. The day when, according to the Sobra I’ternin, the angiel opened the Extian Doors to allow the waiting souls to pass through Annwn and learn the secrets of death and life so they could Return. The significance was not lost on Raine…nor the timing of it.

  Raine had noted this fact some time ago.

  Franco had been operating on some kind of timeline when Raine had faced off against him and Ean that night in Rethynnea. Was it outrageous to think that Björn’s plan for their journey through T’khendar might’ve been part of that timeline?

  Not if Isabel had anything to do with it.

  Factoring Isabel into the equation changed a lot of things.

  No, it changed everything.

  With the sun falling low in the west and Carian at his side, Raine once again made his way through a city in celebration. He had to admit there was something humbling about seeing so many people united in observation of the sacred rite. The Empress and her Sacred City of Faroqhar still rigorously observed the old ways, but the Agasi Empire was such a blending of cultures and beliefs, you would never see the entire city of Faroqhar celebrating the solstice in the same fashion. But Niyadbakir was every bit as vast as the Sacred City, and Raine was hard-pressed to find anyone not involved in or preparing for the evening’s fete.

  As Raine and Carian were crossing a large piazza, where a series of fountains spewed jets of water back and forth, a shadow befell them. They both looked up at the same time.

  “Belloth suck me sideways!” Carian hissed as he observed the drachwyr flying overhead. “There’s six of the bloody things!”

  Indeed, Raine also counted that many forms flying low over the city, each dragon taking a second or more to completely pass, so massive were their forms—and yet so infinitely majestic and graceful. The angle of the sun perfectly caught the fire of their hides, and the dragons shimmered with gold and bronze, dark crimson and even hints of violet. They were perhaps the most beautiful yet fearsome creatures Raine had ever seen.

  For a tense moment he recalled his battle with Rhakar on the plains of Gimlalai. That had been at sunset as well, but in his human form, Şrivas’rhakárakek was not nearly so elegant, and his fighting style was practically feral. Raine had been wielding a Merdanti weapon, shielding himself with the fifth, and sending elae into the blade and still the man had bested him in short order.

  Şrivas’rhakárakek, The Shadow of the Light. There was a story to that name—there was a story to all of their names—but Raine didn’t know it.

  As he watched the last of the drachwyr pass overhead, Raine wondered which of them was Rhakar, and then he decided he’d rather not know.

  “Didn’t you fight one of them once?” Carian murmured, craning his neck to watch the dragons until they had vanished from view.

 
; “Yes,” Raine muttered.

  “Yeah?” Carian turned to him brightly. “How’d that go for you?”

  Raine gave him a peevish look. “I ended up here.”

  “Oh, right.” Carian gave him an impudent grin, shrugged his eyebrows as he hefted Gwynnleth’s litter, and they set off together once more. “You know, poppet, I fought the zanthyr once,” he admitted, shooting Raine a rakish look over his shoulder.

  “Yeah? How did that work out for you?”

  “Got a bruise on my arse that lasted a fortnight and a vow of silence that still gives me indigestion.”

  Raine felt a smile touch his lips. He gave the pirate a grateful look. Epiphany knew he could use with a little levity—and especially once he saw the man approaching across the plaza.

  Masses of people stood between them and the oncoming man—each busy about their own affairs, whether that be watching a near troupe of performers, buying solstice candles or trinkets from the hundreds of vendors dotting the square, eating or drinking, or just talking or lounging with friends in anticipation of the fete—yet everyone stepped aside as he neared. Even those who didn’t see him, who had their backs to him, somehow moved out of his way, and those who did see him pressed hands together, fingertips to lips, and bowed deeply.

  “Belloth lick my salty balls!” Carian declared in amazement. “Is that—?” He turned to Raine and asked in a low voice full of mischievous delight, “Is that your nemesis coming right now?”

  Raine gave him a long-suffering look.

  In point of fact, it was not Rhakar that came across the plaza, though Epiphany knew Ramuhárikhamáth was almost worse. At least Rhakar made it easy to dislike him. The Lord of the Heavens was entirely too…amiable.

  As Ramu neared, Raine noticed the dragon-hilted greatsword strapped diagonally across the drachwyr’s back and grimaced. He would happily have never seen such a sword again.

  “Raine D’Lacourte,” Ramu greeted as he neared. He held out his hand, and Raine solemnly clasped wrists with him.