She had lost her son—twice—but a year ago, she had found him again. Alive, immortal, wonderful...
“Nicodimus,” she whispered, her heart quaking at his name, tears brimming. How could she have forgotten? He wasn’t dead. He lived!
“Nidaba? Is something wrong?”
She looked up at him quickly, confusion making her hesitate. Nicodimus was this man’s son. Eannatum’s son. And yet... did she dare tell Natum that he lived? He’d had the boy killed once before...
He couldn’t have!
But what if he did? And even if he didn’t, she couldn’t risk Nicky’s being dragged into this situation with her. Not now. Not yet. She could end up losing him yet again, to the blade of this Dark Witch, whoever the hell she might be.
If Natum knew his son was alive, he might not be willing to wait to contact him. And if he knew Arianna was a friend—Nidaba’s daughter-in-law, in fact—he might contact her as well. No. She must wait. Bide her time. Make very, very sure it was the right thing to do before she confessed any of this to Natum.
Her heart doubted he had ever done anything to deliberately harm his own child. But her mind wasn’t as certain. Not even for Natum would she place Nicodimus in harm’s way.
A hand brushed her face. “Are you all right?”
Staring into his eyes, she nodded. “Yes. Please, go on.”
“All right. Nidaba... for any Dark Witch to be this gifted at casting a glamour, she must be very old. Very powerful.”
Nidaba lifted her chin, shaking off the remnants of her overwhelming emotions. She felt stronger now that she had remembered finding her beloved son again. “So am I,” she said.
“But you’re in a weakened state.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “A good night’s sleep, another solid meal, and I’ll be back to one hundred percent. I’m nearly there now.”
“Still...”
“Eannatum, I need a dagger. They must have taken mine from me at that hospital. And I do not wish to face this bitch alone unarmed again.”
For the first time in their entire conversation, Natum smiled slightly. “Changing the subject, Nidaba?”
“No.” Sitting straighter, lifting her chin, she said, “I do want to talk to you about the past. About... all of it.” More than that, she wanted him to tell her he was totally innocent in the attack on her and her son. And she wanted to believe him when he did. “But don’t you think we need to focus first on keeping our hearts in our chests where they belong? We’ll talk, Natum. Soon. And I will listen to what you have to say to me. I promise you that. But right now, I need...”
“Some time?” he asked.
She frowned at him. “A blade,” she told him.
He heaved a sigh, shook his head. “You always have had a one-track mind.”
“A blade, dammit.”
“All right, all right. Come on, come with me.” He held out his hand, and Nidaba took it. Then Natum looked down, and she did too, at his large, strong hand enveloping her smaller one. He closed his eyes briefly, as if touching her was almost painfully sweet.
* * * *
THERE WERE SO many things he wanted to ask her. He knew she’d borne a child—but he had never been sure if that child had been his, or what had truly become of the boy. And he never knew exactly what had happened the night Nidaba and her son had allegedly perished in a terrible fire.
Not in all these years.
But the pain that came into her eyes at the merest mention of that time was too much for him to bear. So he told himself he could wait to learn all of those things. He could wait. Until she was ready to speak of them.
He put her into his car and drove into Boston, to his gallery, which he hadn’t opened since she’d returned to his life.
“What is this place?” she asked when he unlocked the door and took her inside.
“It’s my business, Nidaba. I buy and sell antiquities. And, um... my most private collection is here. Though I never display it. I keep it here because the security is far superior to that at home. Come.” He led her through the gallery, with its swords and shields from various eras displayed on the walls. Pottery and statues lined every shelf. Tapestries and cloaks were arranged on the walls. Glass cases held chalices and spears and golden coins from civilizations long dead.
In the private display area, the small alcove he’d created for his eyes alone, were cylinder seals from the land of Sumer—one of them the very seal of the once great king, Eannatum.
His eyes stung a bit each time he visited this area, and more so this time, for Nidaba pulled him to a stop. “By the Gods, Natum,” she whispered. Her fingers dragged across the face of the glass case, where slabs of cuneiform tablets stood on display stands, where headdresses and jewelry from days long forgotten decorated lifeless mannequin heads.
“It’s... just memories. That’s all,” he whispered.
“But... but Eannatum, the lilis drum. It’s one that was played in your own palace! And the headdress...”
He watched her eyes widen. “Is the one you wore when you danced for me. And the lapis lazuli necklace as well. Yours, Nidaba. I preserved them as perfectly as I could. And if you... when you leave here, you may take them with you.”
Were those tears brimming in her eyes?
“You kept them—all this time...”
“They were all I had left of you. They and... and this.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the small bit of stone, worn with age, into which she’d carved his name, and hers, and the symbol for eternity.
Nidaba looked at it. Then at him. “This is the piece I made for you, to celebrate your initiation.”
He nodded. “You gave it to me when we did the rite by the river, and filled the Euphrates with fish. My first act of magick, Nidaba. A time—and a friend—I could never forget.”
Blinking, she averted her eyes. “I can’t believe you’ve kept it all this time.”
“Come.” He replaced the stone in his pocket, closed his hand around hers, and led her to his office in the back, unlocking the door, and flicking on a light. Then he turned yet another key. This lock was hidden within the woodwork of a wall-sized bookcase. Only it wasn’t really a bookcase at all. It was a sliding door that concealed another glass case, this one with his collection of daggers mounted inside. Dozens of them. It covered one entire wall of his office.
“Where did you get them all?” Nidaba breathed.
“Immortals. Light Witches who were murdered. Dark Witches I had to kill. I suppose “immortal” isn’t exactly the word we ought to use to describe ourselves, is it? Not when every dagger in this case represents one who has died.”
“Not died,” she muttered. “Only moved on. Even mortals are immortal, Natum.” She walked along in front of the case, examining the blades. Double-edged, single-edged, serrated and curved. Long and short. Handles of wood, bone, iron. All decorated with jewels. Sapphires, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, every stone imaginable in every possible combination and arrangement.
“Take whichever one pleases you. Hell, take several if you want them.”
“I couldn’t–”
“You know perfectly well you could. And you will.” He watched her face as she tried very hard to conceal her delight. “You don’t fool me, you know,” he said. “You’ve always loved beautiful things. Jewels. Baubles. Enjoy this. Let me enjoy giving you pleasure, just this once.”
She met his eyes, and hers were smoky and dark. “Giving me pleasure would take far more than a glittery gift, Eannatum.”
His blood heated at the double meaning of her remark, the teasing warmth in her eyes. She was a heartless tease, just as she had always been. “We’ll get to that,” he promised her, leaning close. And when she didn’t push him away, he brushed his mouth lightly over hers, lips apart, his breath fanning her.
Her breath stuttered, stopped, and her eyes fell closed. So he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her to him, and closed his mouth more completely over hers. He felt her lips part in invitation, and
he slid his tongue between them in reply. He tasted her. Gods, he hadn’t tasted her in so long!
Fire blazed between them, as it always had. The physical response when they touched, when they kissed had always been explosive, and that hadn’t changed. His blood rushed and his heart pounded. Her hips arched against him, rubbing his erection to a state of painful need. His hands closed on her buttocks, tugging her harder to him, and he thrust his tongue deeper, drinking from her mouth the way he wanted to drink from every part of her.
Finally, he lifted his head, and stared down into her sparkling eyes.
And she blinked, then closed them, and turned away. “What in the names of the Gods am I doing?”
“Nidaba?”
“How could I?” She faced him again, tears brimming in her eyes. “I will not love you, Eannatum. I swear I will not love you again.”
Gods, that she could still hate him this much simply because he had married another. “What I did, I did for my country, Nidaba. For Lagash. For all of Sumer.”
Her face went stony and cold. “Then you admit it?”
“What is there to admit? I did it. You know I did it. And it was a sin against my own heart, Nidaba, and against you—one I have paid for ever since.” Frustrated, Nathan sighed and paced away. “Choose a dagger,” he told her. “You need to be armed.”
“If you gift me with one of these blades, Eannatum, I’ll likely use it to cut out your heart.”
Spinning to face her again, he said, “All of this venom! All of this hatred, simply because I wed another woman to avoid a war that would have destroyed us all?”
She frowned fiercely. “No! For the love of the Gods, Eannatum, marrying Puabi has nothing to do with my anger at you! Are you so blind you do not realize that?”
“Well, what, then? What, tell me, am I guilty of doing to so wrong you that you would continue to hate me after four millennia?”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Eannatum, your soldiers hunted me down. Under your orders, they hounded me for years, until they finally caught up to me.”
“I sent them after you because I couldn’t bear to live without you, Nidaba! I wanted them to bring you back to me.”
She shook her head very slowly. “And I was gullible enough and deeply enough in love to believe that, Natum. Until they finally caught up to me. Attacked me. They tried to murder me, Eanntuam. And they did murder my son.”
She lifted her head, met his eyes. “Our son.”
Chapter 13
HE STOOD THERE staring at her, struck motionless by what she had said. “Our son?”
Swallowing hard, she nodded.
“And for this, you held me responsible?”
She turned away from him.
He caught her shoulders and turned her back. “Tell me. Tell me you honestly believe I could have ordered such a thing.”
She couldn’t even seem to look him in the eye. “I don’t know what I believed. You chose Puabi over me. Your kingdom over me. Even when the threat had ended, you remained with her. I thought I knew the power of your love for me, Natum. I thought it was more powerful than anything in the world. And I knew that if you would give me up for the sake of your kingdom, there could not be many other things you wouldn’t do for its sake as well.”
Stunned, he released her, cut to the bone.
“An illegitimate son with a claim to the throne would have been a far greater threat to the well-being of Sumer than an affair with a temple priestess ever could have been,” she said, driving the blade of her words straight through his heart.
He couldn’t speak to her. He was so angry he was trembling with it.
She looked into his eyes, and when she did, she went pale.
He opened his mouth, then closed it, almost too furious to think. “I don’t even know what to say to you.”
Her face changed, regret swimming in her eyes, but he held up a hand, saying nothing. Instead, he reached into the glass case, drew out a gold-handled Sumerian dagger and its leather sheath. He handed it to her, closed and locked the case, and strode back through the building, out the front to his car, vaguely aware that she followed. He drove her back to the house, all without uttering a word.
He didn’t dare speak. He’d have cursed her, he’d have lashed out and cut her to the quick the way she had cut him. Only when they returned to the house and he’d battled his fury into some semblance of submission did he dare to speak at all. He stopped her on the way inside. “Wait. We need to finish this.”
But then the front door was flung open, and George stood there, waving his hands. “Nathan! Nathan, come, please! Sheila’s crying in her sleep and I can’t make her wake up!”
“Dammit, George, not now.” Nathan gripped Nidaba’s shoulders, but she shook her head, and her face remained stony.
“Go. See to Sheila.” She strode into the house ahead of him.
He followed on her heels, having to push past George to do so. “The hell I will! Damn you, Nidaba. I’m angry as hell at you right now. You’ve got no right to accuse me of something that vile. All I ever did was love you, and I think you know that. Whatever you think happened—no, by the Gods no. You can’t believe any of that. You can’t. You don’t.”
A crash came from upstairs, causing them both to look up sharply. Nathan sighed. Sheila was no doubt thrashing in the grip of some nightmare. She’d stopped having them six months after coming to live with him and George, but apparently they’d come back full force. No wonder, considering recent events in this house.
“Go,” Nidaba said, her voice deep, her tone firm. “This discussion has waited a long time. It can wait a bit longer.”
“Not a hell of a lot longer, it can’t. And it won’t.” He had to go. But dammit, he didn’t want to. “Come along, then,” he said to Nidaba. I’m not leaving you down here alone with this maniac on the loose.”
“I won’t argue with you.” She preceded him and George and the lumbering, ever attentive dog through the house and up the stairs. But she stopped at the master suite’s door and said, “I need to get some rest if I’m to be fully recovered any time soon. If there is anything I can do for Sheila, don’t hesitate to come for me. Otherwise, though, I... would prefer not to be disturbed tonight.”
She didn’t wait for his argument, though she had to know it was coming. Instead she just went inside and closed the door on the dog that tried to follow.
Nathan gritted his teeth and stalked along the hall to Sheila’s room.
* * * *
NIDABA CLOSED THE bedroom door behind her, leaned back against it, and covered her face with her hands. She knew, deep down in her heart, what the truth was. She had always known. But Gods, the pain had been so much easier to bear when she’d had someone to hate. Someone to blame.
He’d scorned her, chosen another woman and his royal duty over her. She had no one to blame for that but herself—she knew that. She was the one who’d convinced Natum what his duty was. But she couldn’t accept that, and so she had punished him by pretending to believe him capable of the most vile crime imaginable. She may even have fooled herself into thinking she truly did believe that of him. But she knew now that she never had. She never had.
Natum had seemed truly shocked by her revelation, that her child, her Nicodimus, had been his own son. Perhaps he hadn’t even known that much for certain. And yet his soldiers had hunted her endlessly, tirelessly, for years on end. And when they had finally found her...
She didn’t want to go back to believing Eannatum’s love had been real. Not when it had hurt her so to trust him with her heart, only to have it broken time and time again!
She heaved a sigh, swiped angrily at her eyes. She was too tired to contemplate it right now. Her body, still weakened, needed sleep to heal. Nidaba couldn’t have fought it had she tried.
No more than she could fight the dream... the memory, so vivid and fresh.
She waited in the sacred bedchamber—a special room on the uppermost level of the palace. Small it
was, but lined with silk pillows and spreads in rich jewel tones. Deep green and scarlet and midnight blue. Censers burned with sacred herbs, and a hundred candle flames danced, lighting the room with a soft illumination that was alive and ever-changing. As she picked her way between the pillows and spreads, it seemed she walked among a dozen living shadows that danced around her in celebration. She breathed the incense smoke, and tasted the other fragrances. Fruit and flowers. The table on the far of end of the room had no room for anything more. The most prized fruits in all of Sumer filled golden bowls to overflowing. Wine jugs and jeweled chalices stood at the ready. And blossoms littered every bit of space in between.
At the very center of the table stood a small stone image of the Goddess Inanna. She who would come to inhabit Nidaba’s body this night. It was good, Nidaba thought. She would likely not even remember what transpired. She would likely not even feel it, or be aware of his touch... his kiss...
Something clenched tight in her belly.
She had no one to ask. The previous king’s lukur was an elder-woman now, an honored crone, living in a palace all her own in the mountains to the north. There had been no time to travel there, to consult with her. And no other woman alive had experienced this rite.
Kneeling before the image of the Goddess, Nidaba breathed deeply, slowly, filling her lungs with the sacred smoke and emptying her mind. Softly, she began to chant. “Inanna me en, Inanna me en, Inanna me en. Uta-am i iki”
Over and over she spoke the words until they became a litany in her mind, running together, and making no sense. She lifted her arms to her sides and upward, tipped her head back, and closed her eyes. She waited for the Goddess to fill her.
“Nidaba,” Eannatum said softly.
Her eyes opened. Slowly she lowered her arms and turned her head to see him standing there. The door was closed tightly behind him. His dark eyes gleamed in the candlelight. He came closer, and she wanted to tell him to stop. To warn him that she was not yet ready, that she was still Nidaba—not miraculously transformed into the Queen of Heaven. And yet to do that would be to admit that she had failed.
Eternal Love: The Immortal Witch Series Page 85