“I admit, you are amazing.”
“Not amazing. Quiet.”
“Quiet.”
The lantern hissed at his back, the flame brightening behind the glass, its light streaming across the water like emerald rays of a star. Tristan winced in the sudden glare, his gaze cutting to her for explanation.
“The Divine Spirit,” she said. “It comes through the rocks here.”
“The gas?”
“We are entering holy places.”
“What does that mean?”
“You will feel it, in a minute.”
He glowered. “Feel what?”
Even before she answered, he felt it, a hot needling along his skin.
He slid his gaze to the water, catching a thread of yellow gas coiling across its surface, thickening with the wet pop and snap of bubbles. He drew a breath through his teeth, feeling it sear the inside of his lungs. It tasted like fire, his nose and mouth burning, his eyes watering with the hard sting. He coughed, holding his breath as he loosened the buckles on his jacket, trying to tuck his nose under the collar.
“It only grows stronger from here,” Jia said above him. “Just clear your mind. The pain will ease.”
“My mind?” he rasped.
“Men do not tolerate it well, but legend says they survive.”
Survive?
“You must clear your mind, your heart. The Divine Spirit takes from what is there, brings all to the surface. You understand?”
No. Of course, he didn’t. And he didn’t care. “Get us out of here.”
“It’s too late for that. The Divine Spirit is in your blood already. Your heart must be empty, your mind free. Fear will only make it worse. It takes from what is there—”
“You…didn’t warn me.”
“I told you it would be unwise. The rest I did not know. No man has breathed this air in over a thousand years.”
“I—” He stared past her in horror, watching a shape form under the surface of the water. It uncurled from the darkness, an angelic slip of white lost in the deepest black, floating toward him like gossamer cloth riding the wind. He watched it come closer, his stomach tightening to a cold knot.
The thing twisted in the current, revealing the slow spin of arms under a pale nightdress, the weightless grasp of tiny hands, a small face obscured by a swatch of glossy black curls.
He made a hollow sound, pushing up from his place in the canoe. The craft rocked violently underneath him.
“Tristan!” Jia was on her feet.
He ducked past her, staggering over nets and spears to stretch out his hand and reach through the surface, to grab on tightly and never let go.
The figure in the water sank back into the darkness.
“Not yet—” He heard the words slipping through his teeth, harsh and unrecognizable, his vision blurred with the sting of gas.
“There is nothing there, Tristan.” She was pulling at his shoulders, desperate to draw him back into the canoe. She would have said anything, because she didn’t see it. She doesn’t know.
“Tristan!”
“Let go!” he growled, throwing her weight off. She fell backward, toppling over the small bench and collapsing on the nets.
The small canoe tilted wildly in protest, pushing him forward, then back, then over. He felt himself fall, caught the spin of dark, malformed walls before he plunged through the surface of the water. It was a slap, a frigid slipstream that grabbed on and carried him down.
He welcomed the descent, splaying his fingers, embracing its violence as he tumbled, feeling the acid salt wash through his clothes and his hair. Take me to her, to them.
The last of his air streamed through his teeth, the burn in his lungs something far away, something happening to another man, an unlucky man. He, on the other hand, was going back, deep under the water, into the blackness, into the moment he’d been left behind.
Wrong. I was wrong. A bad decision, but I can change it now. I have the power to change it now.
He felt a brush of movement against his back, the slip of a slender arm around his neck. There was a feathering of the water, a change in direction. Jia was with him in the blackness, where she didn’t belong.
Tristan grabbed for her, to throw her off, to push away, but she held on, her grip around his neck unbreakable.
She kicked, her feet pounding against the back of his legs, drawing them both up to the surface through sheer force of will. He thrashed against her, trying to make it difficult, trying to show her what a mistake it was, but that slender elbow remained locked under his chin, holding him tight, even as he fought and screamed for her to let go.
He sucked in water, choking on its thick flood, his body spasming from lack of air. The pale nightdress sank away into the darkness, until its light disappeared, until it was nothing.
It was gone. She was gone. They were gone.
Jia pulled him ever upward, even he as shuddered in the throes of a coming blackout. He understood that he couldn’t fight her anymore. There was nothing left to gain.
He closed his eyes and went quiet, feeling the surface of the water break over him. His body reacted of its own accord, heaving and coughing the water out of his lungs, oblivious as she pulled him to the rock and dragged him up onto a ledge. His jacket scraped along the stone, his head swinging back, the water dripping from his hair.
Catch me, Papa!
He made a hoarse sound, overwhelmed. Jia released him and he sat forward along the rock, pressing his palms over his eyes.
“Too many stories,” she muttered.
There was a scratch of something against the stone, a sudden hiss and flare of light. She lit some kind of a match, then a candle, its flame spitting and dancing in the breeze over the water.
“Tristan.” Her fingers were cool on his, drawing his hands away from his eyes. He focused through a stinging blur, seeing her haloed by misty rainbows in the dense air, her eyes large and dark, the straight mark down her bottom lip and the scrolling tattoos over her shoulder making her appear more spirit than flesh.
“What did you see?” she asked.
He grimaced, not knowing how to answer that.
“What did you see? It is important to tell me. We still have far to go and I must be able to talk to you when it happens again.”
He stared at her, this ghost from another world, her wet hair slick and black and glittering with beads. Droplets of water jeweled her skin, tiny diamonds shining in the candlelit glow.
“What did I see?” he repeated, then smiled bitterly, the answer more than he could bear. “I saw my daughter.”
Jia looked confused. Of course, she would be. He’d gone insane.
“A daughter you lost,” she guessed, sensing it in him with her damnable sight. “You grieve for a daughter and a wife.”
“Yes.”
“How did they die?”
He didn’t want to say. And yet, what difference did it make, in this deep hole under the Earth? What reality, or accountability, existed here?
He dropped his gaze. “They had been moved to one of the Northern harbor stations, to be closer to me. It was quiet, no attacks for months, but there was a heavy storm and the station was damaged, sitting in the frozen ice without power.”
He closed his eyes. “I was aboard a returning ship, already headed there, so we reached them almost immediately. The storm was too severe to make adequate repairs, so I made the decision to transport the civilians, all two hundred and twenty, to an undamaged station further south. We got halfway there.”
He heard her quick intake of breath.
“You were attacked.”
“Yes.”
“And your ship—”
“Out of twelve hundred aboard, twenty-three survived.”
Silence. Jia didn’t reply. What could she say? He felt her horror, though, felt it reach straight through him, seeking admittance into a place he wanted no one near.
“Tristan.”
“I tried to reach the
m, apparently,” he said, not even knowing why he was saying it. “Too late, of course. After the ship came apart. I have no memory of it. I remember the cold though. I remember that.”
“You cannot bring this suffering here. The Divine Spirit will only make it worse. You will see them everywhere.”
“I already see them everywhere.”
“No. You must see what is front of you. Clear your heart, your mind, or you will kill us both. Look at me! See me, Tristan.”
He clenched his teeth and tilted his eyes toward the ceiling, unwilling to meet her gaze and see his own reflection there, a broken man, a lost man. The wind whispered over his shoulders, chilling his skin with its soft breath.
Catch me, Papa! I’m so quick. Catch me…
Jia felt him weakening. He couldn’t break free. His memories were too strong. He had lost the will to fight them long ago. In the caverns, they would drag him down into the water, into the darkness, as many times as it took to destroy what was left of him.
“You must listen to me,” she said in desperation, stroking her hands over his face, feeling his skin warm her fingertips. “You must be here, with me. You must hold on to me.”
He refused, his gaze set on nothing, his black lashes thick and shining with moisture. She felt him burning at the core, his intensity fed by the Divine Spirit, his emotions careening out of control.
“I can hear her,” he whispered.
“No.”
“She’s calling—”
“She will call you to your death, because you—”
“And my wife.”
“What?”
“My beautiful wife.” He looked at her, his eyes lit with a tragic kind of joy, as if he understood it was just an illusion, but didn’t have the strength to fight it. “I knew I’d find you.”
“I—”
He clasped onto her wrists and pulled her down. She stumbled against him, caught in a muscular hold as his arms wrapped around her. She tried to pull back but it was impossible, his grip so tight it hurt. He buried his face in her hair, rocking them both, swaying like weeping.
“Tristan.”
“Shh.” He attempted to soothe her, stroking her cheek with trembling fingers. “I knew I’d find you.”
She felt the pain in him dissipate, replaced by emotions just as blinding. Relief, gratitude, and love so rich, so powerful and pure, it seemed to lift her spirit into a sunlit sky. She floated in his arms, unable to cling to promises, fears or causes, unable to do anything but feel.
She closed her eyes and felt his lips touch hers. A nudge. A caress. An intake of breath, and his tongue was coaxing her into a deeper kiss, into a quick and silken descent. She grasped onto him, tasting the salt on his lips, the thrill of a wild chase pounding in her chest with the slide of his hands down her back, the crush of her body against the hard leather of his jacket, buckles and ties scoring bare skin.
Desire. Hunger. Possessive urges reached for her through the empathic bond, strong enough to block everything but the rough play of lips and tongue, the soft hiss and catch of breath. Jia shifted onto his lap, digging her nails into the leather shoulders of his jacket, feeding on emotions too rare and beautiful to resist. His passion warmed her, igniting fires in her belly, a flush of heat between her legs.
She wanted him there, and suddenly he was, one of his big hands stroking along the ties of her skirt, then tucking under the suede, spreading the wet and swollen folds of her woman’s flesh. His fingertips found a tight bead of sensation and rubbed over it, seeking and smoothing.
Jia made a rough sound, a guttural purr, and arched against him. His insistent kneading drew the pleasure to the surface, flooding a sweet hum of excitement through her skin, through her entire body. She wanted more, all of it, this blinding treasure offered to a dead woman.
A dead woman. A dead child.
She winced, breaking the kiss and gasping for air. “Tristan.”
He kissed her neck, his fingers suddenly light on her skin, set on persuasion rather than conquest. “We have time, all the time we want.”
She wet her lips, drawn by the sensation and the need. He would take her sweetly or roughly, as she chose. He would give her a daughter. He would give her the world, everything and anything, if she simply permitted this one illusion. The prophecy would be fulfilled. The will of the Divine Spirit and the Oracle would be realized.
“Lauren,” he murmured.
I--Jia closed her eyes. Great Goddess, forgive me. “She is dead, Tristan. I cannot…be her.”
He stilled, as if she had whispered the unforgivable.
Perhaps she had. She felt him resist, warring against himself, against what he wanted to believe. He knew the truth, but he didn’t care. Or, more accurately, he didn’t want to care, didn’t want to accept. He withdrew his hands, furious.
“Tristan—”
“Why did you stop me?” He glared at her, the darkness in him flowing thick, tainted with the influence of the Divine Spirit. “Isn’t this what you wanted, what you knew would happen?”
“No.”
“Did I hurt you? Did I offend you, Jia?”
“The Divine Spirit is too thick in your blood.”
“So forcing me at knifepoint is just fine, but taking advantage, allowing me one moment to remember—”
“This is not a memory. I am not a memory.”
“I don’t care.”
“You do, you would, if you were outside this place, not blinded by the Divine Spirit and its visions. Your body is not accustomed to its influence. You have no tolerance, no training—”
“You didn’t want to stop.”
She grimaced, not knowing how to reply to that. “You have to go back to your ship. I’ll swim with you. We have to leave. Now.”
“You didn’t want to stop. So why did you?”
“It’s not important.”
“It is to me. Why did you stop, when we both could have gotten what we wanted, when you could have completed your damn purpose and I—”
“Because you are more than this,” she blurted out, confused. “Not what I was told, not an animal who takes everything and believes in nothing, who loves nothing. I felt it. I felt it and—” She paused, breathless. “I didn’t want to be her. I wanted to be me.”
He held her gaze, an unwelcome realization dawning. “Jia—”
“We must go. There is another path back, a channel with gentler currents. Quickly. The Oracle will know that I have failed.”
She knows already. She has always known. Jia felt it too late, watching the shadows shift and change across the rock.
The Oracle had prepared for this.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw them coming, slender canoes gliding through the passage toward them, their glass lanterns casting murky streams of green and blue light over the water.
They were all hunters of her rank, childhood friends and competitors, women she had been tested against many times over the years. She saw them clearly now, their faces appearing from the dark, their eyes and cheeks lined and shaded with kohl, presenting the skeletal faces of ritual.
The boats drifted toward the rock ledge, some hunters steering with paddles while the others balanced on the prow, arrows drawn tightly in their bows. Jia felt the weight of their weapons bearing down on her, arrowheads glinting with condemnation.
“Do not fight them,” she whispered.
“What?”
“The Oracle has sent for us.”
“Sent…” Tristan’s gaze slanted toward the approaching canoes, a sheen of sweat glossing his forehead. His expression changed as the boats drifted closer, confusion turning to alarm, his eyes darting from drawn arrows to painted faces. He pushed to his feet and staggered back, his hand reaching for the pistol along his thigh.
“No!” Jia followed, placing herself squarely in front of him.
“Rathos vanerium clothustra chiledra!” One of the hunters hissed at her back, a warning in the sacred language, a command to submit.
Jia pushed forward, slamming into him with her shoulder. The weapon in his hand exploded, cracking a heavy ball into the stone above them. She forced him off his feet, falling with him as he crashed along the stone. The pistol clattered away in the darkness.
He pushed her out of the way and struggled to rise, sick from tainted air and visions he couldn’t control. Jia moved quickly, rolling with his weight to gain advantage. Slipping under his shoulders, she grabbed onto one arm and pulled it behind his back. He swore under his breath.
She drew a leather cord from under the sheath of her dagger and looped it around his wrist. He heaved himself up, trying to shrug her off once again, but the other hunters were around him now, forcing him down as she tied his hands together.
He roared in frustration, his large body twisting underneath them.
“Calm yourself. We go to the Oracle,” she told him.
“Not like this. Not this way.”
“There is no other way,” she said desperately. I tried to let you go, get you back to your ship, but it was too late. “I cannot let you hurt them. Do as the Oracle commands and I promise I will protect you.”
He clenched his teeth, breathless and glaring as the hunters dragged him up from the rock. He stood taller than any of them, dizzy and unbalanced on his feet. A smudged line of blood stained his lower lip. “Protect me? You disobeyed her, Jia. You’re just another prisoner now. Or can’t you see that?”
She did not reply. She did not have to.
He issued a bitter laugh under his breath, his gaze still locked on her as they forced him into one of the waiting canoes. “But then again, you always were.”
The Temple
Tristan drifted through smoke, focused on the patterns of blue and green light moving over the stone ceiling above him. Battleships formed themselves from chunks of gray crystal, their enormous steel hulls rising from murky crevices, listing sharply against a moonlit sky. There was screaming, hysterical screaming, chilling him to nothing, his teeth chattering with the bitter cold.
The Admiral Page 5