Sabina’s maids were unconscious, as well, with no noticeable wounds. Carina was groggy but able to stand. A fine trickle of blood oozed from her ear. Taryn sent her Mari to the girl, searching her for broken bones, mending surface wounds.
By the time they reached the stables, Hayden was waiting for them, horses saddled. “They aren’t far ahead of us. We can catch them if we hurry.”
Taryn took Ashanni’s reins and climbed into the saddle.
Hayden kicked his gelding and took off toward the northern gate. After a worried glance to the palace, she followed with Carina beside her.
Rhoane, please hurry.
Chapter Fifty
They rode hard for close to two bells. None of them spoke, except to give directions. Hayden led them to where he believed Herbret had taken Sabina, to the Stones of Kaldaar. Taryn kept Rhoane abreast of where they were going. He and the empress were less than a quarter bell behind, and every so often Taryn would search the landscape, hoping to see them. Whatever Herbret was planning, she feared it was stronger than her and Hayden.
They crested a ridge and saw their first glimpse of the standing stones rising tall from recently cleared vegetation. Two rings—one of polished white marble, the other deepest granite—gleamed in the rising sunlight. The way they overlapped was beautiful in its simplicity and proportions. In the space between the two circles, Taryn saw movement. She squinted against the increasing brightness, looking for anything to suggest Sabina was there.
Four horses grazed beneath nearby trees, and Taryn scanned the area. A man in a black cloak, and a woman, hovered around an altar in the center of the circle. Taryn’s blood stilled when she saw three bodies lying immobile on the marble slate. She kicked Ashanni, spurring the horse to race faster than she ever had.
Close enough now to see their faces clearly, Taryn watched in horror as they prepared for the ceremony. Celia wore a white gown that showed her pale body beneath the filmy fabric. Blue marks covered her skin, clear to her temple. Her glossy chestnut hair hung loose around her shoulders with flowers woven throughout. She looked innocent, virginal. In her hand, she held an urn and sprinkled liquid from it onto the three bodies lying unconscious on the altar.
Herbret stood beside Celia, his fat cock enlarged and ready to impale one of the sacrifices.
“Stop!” Taryn screamed. She choked back a gag, ready to shout again, but he plunged forward, pumping his hips wildly while Celia chanted and tossed the liquid over his head. He moved swiftly, defiling the first girl and moving to the next.
She pulled Ashanni up short, stopping as close to the stones as she dared. She jumped down and ran to the inner circle. A vague uneasiness swept over her, pushing against her. Hayden darted past, as did Carina, both with swords drawn. Taryn jerked her sword from its scabbard and sliced at the unseen force blocking her.
Hayden tackled the man mid-ejaculation. His sperm sprayed on the legs of the helpless girl who lay beside Sabina. Taryn cast a quick glance at the women, each dressed in their nightclothes, her gown pushed up to reveal her sex.
“Carina, cover them and check to see if they are alive,” Taryn commanded as she rounded on the still chanting Celia.
Herbret had regained his footing and circled Hayden, a sword in his hand, naked beneath his cloak. A shadow flickered at the corner of her vision, but when she looked, it vanished.
“Celia, put the urn down. It’s over,” Taryn said in a soothing voice.
Celia’s cackle was that of an old crone. “So you have come, Betrayer. It was foretold you would try to stop us, but we are far more powerful than you’ll ever be.” Her face began to crumble as she spoke, the lush ripeness of youth turning to age-spotted wrinkles in a matter of moments. Her nose extended into a crook that nearly touched the top of her lips. Her hair, still adorned with flowers, flowed to her buttocks in a dull sheet of grey.
A cloud passed over them, blotting out the sun.
The crone whimpered and flailed her hands, sending a blaze of power at Carina, who was thrown backward by the force. Another blow tossed Hayden into a stone. He shook his head as if dazed.
“It is time! It must be done now!” Celia pushed past Taryn with the strength of Baehlon, knocking her over, and grabbed Herbret by the cuff of his cloak. Hayden stared at the woman in angry shock.
“Do it now. Give the vessel your seed.” She resumed her chanting and sprinkling of the liquid, ignoring Taryn and Hayden. Herbret moved in front of Sabina, his cock a grotesque appendage that reached for Sabina, as if alive.
The crone screamed her chant, and Herbret gripped Sabina’s legs, pulling her toward him as he thrust forward.
Taryn regained her footing and lunged for the crone at the same time Hayden threw himself at Herbret, grabbing his neck and hurling him away from the altar. They tumbled and Hayden sprang up, his sword at Herbret’s neck.
Taryn threw a right hook at the crone, catching her square on the temple. She wailed an insult and crumpled to the ground, her chanting ceased.
“Carina, watch her,” Taryn commanded before seeing to Sabina. She pulled the girl into her arms, sending ShantiMari through her, searching for signs of trauma, healing what she could. Sabina remained unbroken. Herbret hadn’t violated her. She choked back a sob of relief and held her friend tighter.
The other girls didn’t fare as well. The rape left them bleeding and bruised, and each had a gash near their temples. Taryn carefully covered them as much as she could. Her ShantiMari traveled the length of their bodies, healing what Herbret had defiled.
The sound of hoofbeats brought their attention to the rise, and Taryn glimpsed Rhoane riding toward them with about thirty others.
“Carina, check the surrounding area. Use your senses. The phantom cannot be seen, but you can feel him.”
Carina moved to the outer circles, her ShantiMari flowing out from her, probing the shadows. The sun had disappeared completely, and Taryn looked up to see a bright ring around a dark circle. An eclipse.
Sabina moaned and Taryn searched her eyes. They were clouded and a bit dazed, but Sabina’s courage fought through the haze.
“She is still pure. There is time yet to complete the Getting. The others are filled,” the crone rasped, as she cowered against the ground. “There is still time! It must be done. Must fulfill the prophecy. Our lord beckons!”
“Shut up.” Hayden pulled the crone to a sitting position, and, with one swing of his sword, took her head clean off.
“Hayden!” Taryn stared at him, incensed. “That’s not the way it’s done. We needed her.”
Hayden shrugged Taryn off. “She wouldn’t have told us anything. But this one,” Hayden turned back toward Herbret, who stared up at him, eyes huge with fear, “will squeal the loudest.” Before Taryn could stop him, Hayden plunged his sword into Herbret.
The cry that came from him sounded eerily like the death throes of a pig. Herbret clutched his chest and fell backward, his face ashen, his cock lifeless. His breath came in gasps, and Taryn sent just enough of her power to keep him alive but not a thread more. They needed answers from him, but he needed to suffer, as well.
The crone’s words tumbled through her thoughts. Sabina held the power to produce Black heirs. It was in her blood.
Taryn held her blade out to Sabina. “Place your hand on my sword, Sabina.”
Her friend looked at her, terror streaking her face. “I can’t. None can touch your sword without the promise of death.”
The riders were getting closer. She needed to hurry before they tried to stop her. “Touch the damn sword!”
Sabina gripped the blade, cutting her flesh on the sharp edge. She cried out but kept her hold, her eyes focused on Taryn, a silent plea in them.
Hayden pulled at Taryn, but she snapped at him to stand back. “Sabina’s blood must be purified.” She concentrated all of her thoughts on Sabina. Blocking out the cries she heard from the riders, Hayden’s objections, Herbret’s whimpers. Sabina. Purity. Cleanse. Innocence. Her love for
her friend poured into her sword, into Sabina.
A shriek came from the mouth of the decapitated crone, followed by a dark plume of smoke that rose into the air, coalescing into the phantom. Sabina cried out again, her grip faltering. Blood oozed from the cut on her palm and out of her nostrils, dripping onto the ground.
“You’re killing her, Taryn. Stop!” Hayden tried to wrestle the blade from Taryn’s grip.
The girls who lay unconscious next to Sabina thrashed violently against the marble, their skulls cracking on the hard surface again and again. Hayden stared at them, then at Taryn, and finally at Sabina. Taryn forced more of her power into the sword, her hands shaking as she fought to keep control.
A streak of fire lit forth from the blade, turning it the color of blood. The demon’s screams echoed over the land. Like Sabina, blood coursed from Taryn’s nostrils, and for a moment, they were connected. She saw the girl’s history, her power, suppressed beneath the taint of Black ShantiMari. Her lineage had always been one connected with the gods. Sabinth Aarendhi. Seventeenth Vessel.
Through his rape of Julieta, Kaldaar had sired a daughter. Hidden among the people of the Summerlands, she carried in her the future of the Black Arts. Sabina was the seventeenth of her kind.
Taryn’s sword burst forth in song. Words flowed around them, through them, to the far reaches of the stones, to the sky, and deep beneath the ground. It sang of rebirth.
Light from the song filled the phantom. It expanded to blot out the sky, and then collapsed in on itself before exploding into a trillion fragments of dark dust.
A wind whipped up, scattering the ashes in every direction.
Taryn looked up to see Lliandra standing several paces from them, her hands outstretched, her Mari a blaze of blue fire springing from her fingertips, swirling through the stones like a cyclone.
The light from Taryn’s sword paled and winked out. The song quieted. Sabina released her grip on the blade and collapsed. Hayden bent to catch her, cradling her against his chest.
Taryn, sticky with blood and sweat, staggered against the altar. The lifeless bodies of the two women stared blankly. A black ooze dripped down the side of the marble.
She turned away from the sight and met Rhoane’s steely gaze.
“You should have waited for us.”
“If we had, we would’ve been too late. As it is, we couldn’t save them.” She jerked her chin at the women.
Carina returned with a small bundle in her arms. “I found him behind the far stone.” She gently placed Ebus on the ground.
Several cuts ran the length of his arms, as if someone had tried to bleed him, but he was breathing. Taryn knelt beside the thief and placed her hand on his heart. Rhoane knelt opposite, his hand covering hers.
“Don’t let him die, Rhoane. There has been too much death already today.”
A bright shaft of light shone down on them as the moon moved away from the sun. The eclipse was complete. The threat of darkness gone. For the moment.
At the sound of a single rider, they both glanced up to see Marissa reining her horse to a stop. “Celia!” She ran past Taryn and Rhoane to kneel beside her friend. “What have you done?” She sobbed, rocking the headless corpse against her bosom.
“She rode in with you?” Taryn asked Rhoane. He wasn’t watching the crown princess, but looking past the stones.
His gaze shifted to settle on her. “No. She was not in the palace when we received your call.” A thin thread of his ShantiMari flowed into Ebus, and Taryn returned her focus to healing the little thief.
“Rhoane,” Taryn ventured, “do you still think Marissa knew nothing of this?”
His jaw tightened and a slight tic pulled at the corner of his eye. “Far from it. I think she planned today’s events.”
Taryn stared at him, dumbfounded. “What changed your mind?”
He indicated Marissa’s mare. “Her coat is dry. The other horses are lathered from the run, but not Marissa’s.”
Taryn glanced at Lliandra, who was saying a prayer over the dead girls, and then to Herbret, who lay shuddering on the grass. A dry horse wouldn’t be enough to convince the empress her daughter was involved, of that Taryn was certain. Lliandra swept down to comfort the crown princess and the look on her face chilled Taryn. Lliandra already knew. And Taryn suspected nothing would come of that knowledge.
She glanced back to Rhoane and he, too, watched the empress.
She won’t believe us, will she? Taryn asked in his mind.
I am afraid not.
There was something in the soft whisper of his thought that tore through Taryn’s heart. As if, with those four words, he lost all hope that Marissa wasn’t deceiving him.
Chapter Fifty-One
Marissa’s sobs disturbed the late afternoon tranquility. Golden leaves fell from the trees, catching in the draft from the blaze that swept around Celia’s body. A traitor’s burial. Herbret lay beside her, his face devoid of color, his garments those of a pauper. The flames had yet to reach him.
Marissa reached for Taryn’s hand, squeezing it slightly. “I don’t blame you. You did what was necessary.”
Despite Herbret’s full confession and Carina’s account of what had happened at the stones, Marissa believed Taryn’s sword had ended Celia’s life. Taryn was too tired to deny the allegations any longer and simply nodded her acceptance.
“But this,” Marissa continued, “goes too far. Mother at least could’ve afforded Celia a plot in the crypt.”
Eliahnna’s astonished stare didn’t affect their older sister. “She’s a traitor, Marissa. Whether you want to admit that or not. She got what she deserved.”
Marissa’s grip tightened on Taryn’s hand, but she held her tongue.
“I’m sorry, Marissa. Truly I am.” Taryn spoke the truth. Losing Celia was difficult for Marissa, but she had sacrificed her favorite as surely as Celia had brought her fate upon herself. “I wish there was more I could’ve done.” Again, the truth. Like, uncover the plot before it went as far as it did.
A crack from the fire sent a shiver down her spine. The flames reached several yards above the bodies, leaving nothing but ash on the marble slab.
The subdued group made their way to the palace, but Marissa held Taryn back. Rhoane cast her a concerned look, but she motioned him to continue with the others.
“Taryn, I’m worried about you.”
That was a first.
“What happened at the stones, the danger you put yourself in for Sabina, you could’ve been killed. First the vorlock, then the assassin, and now this. You aren’t prepared to deal with these attacks like you should be.”
Taryn suspected Marissa cared about her own safety most, but she was right. “What do you propose?”
“I think you should go to your brother. Train with him as you do Faelara and Rhoane. Unlock your Dark Shanti.”
“You want me to go to Zakael? Quite possibly the only person on this world besides my father who could do me the most harm?” Taryn baited her.
“He’s your best hope for completing the trinity. I saw you in the stones. Your power almost overwhelmed you.”
Taryn had hoped no one had seen the weakening of her knees, the way she’d braced against the altar for strength. Pulling that much power had taken its toll. If Sabina had held on for a few minutes more, Taryn might’ve lost consciousness.
“But it didn’t.”
“There is a price for using ShantiMari, Taryn. Even for you.” Marissa patted her hand, giving another squeeze before steering her toward the palace. Behind them, the fire snapped and cracked with the last shuddering of the high priest’s ShantiMari. “Write to him, Taryn. Write to Zakael and beg him, if you must, but please, for all our sakes, complete the trinity.”
They had almost reached the palace doors when Taryn remembered Marissa had arrived late to the stones. There was no way she saw Taryn’s actions unless she was actually inside the circle, near the altar. A slither of Marissa’s Mari crept up her arm an
d Taryn pinched it with a thread of her own, strangling it.
Marissa looked at Taryn in surprise, and then, to Taryn’s amazement, she winked.
MUCH later, after the feast and empty toasts to honor her and Hayden’s bravery, she found solace high atop the battlements, her back to the palace, her face turned resolutely toward the west. The lights of Talaith blinked in the distance, but she saw beyond them to a dark castle looming over the sea.
Kaida scampered away, and Taryn glanced over her shoulder to see Rhoane emerging from the heavy door that led to the barracks. He stood beside her and took her hand.
“Ebus has woken from his long sleep.”
She nodded into the moonless night.
“He is asking for you. I wish you had told me about Celia, about your concerns.”
“If I had, what would be different?”
His sigh sounded like the creak of trees in the forest. Heavy, burdened by things she couldn’t see. “I cannot say. Perhaps Celia would be alive.”
She studied his profile silhouetted against the flickering torchlight. “I need to go there. You and I both know it.”
“No. I will not—cannot—allow it.”
“They are the only ones who can show me how to tap my Dark Shanti. Hayden can’t. Myrddin won’t. I need all three strands of my power. I’m weak without the trinity.”
“Not weak. Just not as strong as you could be.”
“Semantics.”
“Zakael, then.”
She gripped his fingers tighter. “You’ll come with me? But not until we return from Carga’s purification.”
They could delay as much as they wanted, but sooner rather than later, she had to seek her brother or her father out. It was the only way. Still, she wouldn’t leave until her friends were fully recovered.
Sabina’s ShantiMari had come in all at once, overwhelming her. Faelara was working with the princess to control the power and understand what had happened to cause Herbret to sacrifice her as he did. The amount of cruelty it took to do what he and Celia had done shocked the gentle woman. But Taryn understood.
The Stones of Resurrection Page 46