‘They have a saying in Magoria,’ she told him. ‘“Actions speak louder than words�.’ And keeping her attention on his eyes, she began to unlace his shirt. Talis let her loosen it, his dark eyes on hers as she pulled the soft fabric free from his breeches. Then he took it from her hands and pulled it over his head, ripping it in his eagerness.
‘It was torn already,’ he said, apologetically, then stood silent under her inspection.
Khatrene touched his chest where he’d scratched and bruised it racing down the cliff side that morning. She traced the faint line on his shoulder left by the Raider, and then followed the touch with a kiss. His hands came up to touch her hair, her shoulders, and she kept her lips there, tasting his skin, feeling the muscles beneath, listening to his heartbeat.
‘I love the way you smell,’ she said softly, and closed her eyes to breathe his scent. She felt his hands on her body then, fingertips tracing her scant curves, lingering where pleasure could be found, sliding up to cup her breasts.
Khatrene pressed her forehead against his chest and tried to slow down but her blood was pounding. She clutched his shoulders. He’d only just touched her and she was trembling already.
‘Look into my eyes, beloved,’ he whispered. ‘Or I am lost.’
Khatrene dragged her head up and they stared at each other. Then he kissed her and her head swam; the taste of him, the strong feel of his tongue against hers, his hands touching her, stroking. She pressed herself against him but it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. Now. ‘I don’t think I can do this,’ she panted.
Talis’s hands — one on her breast and the other pressing her hips against him — stilled. ‘Not…?’ He looked down at her with a dazed lack of comprehension. Her aura, which was now the brightest yellow, reflected off his dark, dark eyes.
‘Foreplay,’ she breathed. ‘I don’t think I can manage it. Just make love to me, okay?’
Talis kissed her again hard and she didn’t remember the rest of his clothes coming off but somehow she was lying on them and he was lying over her and she was winding her legs around him, pulling him closer, pulling him in, kissing him and threading her fingers into his hair, cupping his head to hold him there so she could keep on kissing him.
And then there was a gasp. Her gasp. And he was inside her.
They stilled, and stared at each other.
So right.
‘I love you,’ she said, watching his eyes as he began to move in her, wanting to close her own eyes against the exquisite sensations but wanting to see, needing to know. ‘Love me,’ she whispered.
Talis said nothing. But she could see it in his eyes. Wonder. Bliss. Love.
Above all, love.
He was gentle to start, but neither of them could hold back. Talis had been waiting too long for this moment, and though Khatrene was new to the idea of being his lover, she felt some of his desperation. The tug of destiny. The desire to make up for lost time.
That, and the fact that when he touched her she completely lost her mind. His large, callused palm brushing her breast caused such tremors inside her she had trouble isolating the sensations. Maybe with her eyes closed she’d have had a chance, but with her gaze locked on to his there was no separating the individual pleasures that blurred and ran together like rain on a tin roof.
The pace of their lovemaking increased and the downpour of sensation became a deluge. A thunderclap was building, but in the instant before it came she saw her aura pull back from the surrounding rocks to gather thickly over Talis and herself in a fluorescent white glow. Instantaneously, she felt something inside of her, a tingling, like the Guardian power she’d felt from Talis, only fuller. Expanding. She closed her eyes and visions filled her mind of a younger Talis. Of herself. Her mother. Her brother. Ennae. Flick. Flick. Flick. And then the explosion of physical pleasure was upon her, like lightning under water, spreading its charge in every direction, and instead of singular images she saw totality, the whole of Ennae. Inside and out. Land, sea, plants, people. All.
For a split second everything on Ennae, past and present, was inside her mind, the Volcastle, the Everlasting Ocean, the Forest of Desire, Noorinya, Mihale, Djahr, Talis, in fact the whole Guardian line, all open inside her mind. Pieces in a pattern she couldn’t begin to understand. And yet all linked by the focal point through which she saw them — her tiny unformed child.
Khatrene snapped her eyes open and stared up at Talis who trembled in the aftermath of their joining. His eyes were filled with wonder, yet she could think of no way to explain the revelation of what she’d just seen, and how it had affected her. The prophecy was real. The life inside of her was a child of her own flesh and yet so different, so powerful she could think of no description he would understand.
Talis said, ‘The child within you sent forth its light —’
LATER.
The voice was right. Before he could say any more she leant up and kissed him. There was plenty of time to tell him that she had her memories back and try to explain what had happened inside her. But not now. This time was for them. For love.
Destiny could wait on their pleasure for a change.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
‘She lies with the Guardian,’ the Shadow Woman whispered, invisible at Djahr’s side. ‘You are no longer her husband.’
Djahr turned slowly away from the altar to face the candlelit cave wall behind, hiding his expression of fury from the soldiers of his guard who had come to hear him speak. ‘Why do you tell me this now?’ he whispered.
‘Because even as we speak, she cleaves to another.’
Djahr closed his eyes, remembering the glances between Khatrene and her Champion. Impotent fury at the Shadow Woman clenched his jaw and he strove to overcome it. At every turning she had proved obtuse and unhelpful. No detail of where his wife could be found had passed her lips and neither did she offer any advice about Lae’s wayward behaviour. He feared that his daughter could indeed discern auras and had found his stained. Her silences and wary glances had put a barrier between them that angered, even as it saddened him.
Nothing the Shadow Woman did in his bed pleased him and now, when she chose at last to tell him something, it was that his wife had betrayed him with the Champion.
‘I will see them both dead,’ he whispered.
‘The child?’
Djahr opened his eyes. ‘I will cut it from her body myself.’
‘My Lord?’ Mooraz stepped up to Djahr’s side.
‘Leave a handful of guards in the castle and take every other man out onto the Plains,’ Djahr said. ‘I want my wife and the Guardian found. We will leave in the morning.’
‘Are you accompanying us, My Lord?’ Mooraz asked.
Djahr nodded. ‘I want to be there when they are captured. I want you to kill Talis,’ he said softly, ‘but first I want to see him suffer.’
Mooraz said nothing a moment, his mind undoubtedly on the planning of the search, then he bowed. ‘It will be done, My Lord.’
‘And any who have aided my enemies must also be killed.’
Mooraz straightened slowly. ‘The Plainsmen, My Lord,’ he said.
‘Yes, and painfully,’ Djahr instructed. ‘Save the children for me.’
Mooraz lowered his head again and withdrew, his face averted as he turned to order his men from the Caves. Djahr felt satisfaction grow within him. Mooraz would do his bidding. Though he displayed no obvious pleasure in his work, his captain never faltered in his obedience. Djahr had been right to test him early in the bloody initiation the Shadow Woman had proposed.
While Mooraz issued commands, Djahr strode away, his footsteps echoing through his c
astle towards the Hightower room where his wife’s scent could still be discerned. He had planned subtle tortures for her, and some not so subtle. Yet she had fled before any could be implemented. The waste infuriated him, and no wile of the Shadow Woman’s could ease his frustration. Not even when she turned herself into the image of Khatrene.
‘I will not rest until she is dead,’ Djahr said stepping into the room, knowing he was not alone. As he had anticipated, the Shadow Woman appeared before him. Air thickened and congealed, yet her face and form was not that of his nightly lover, but another. The woman who haunted his dreams.
‘Shall I be your love?’ she asked.
Djahr trembled at the likeness. ‘Why do you show me this now?’ he said. ‘You have not lessened my anger by appeasing my lust so now you tempt me with love?’
Before soft feelings could invade his mind Djahr stepped up to the Shadow Woman and tore down the front of her gown. She swayed but did not move, even when he traced a finger across the scar on her chest. The scar he had given her when she had first rejected his love. Though it had been half a lifetime ago Djahr remembered his anger had been as sharp as the blade that had slit her skin. Yet his jealous rage over her choice of a husband had raised no answering passion in Danille. She’d simply pitied him and that had been a mistake. As his bitterness had grown, so had his desire for revenge until ultimately only Danille’s death would satisfy him. So he had poisoned her and sent her where no Guardian could save her, into exile in Magoria exactly as the Shadow Woman had suggested.
He should have found contentment then, knowing she would die in pain, as had his love. But the anger within him would not die, and the deviousness the Shadow Woman encouraged flourished. Evil piled upon evil and still he was not appeased. Then Khatrene had come, teasing him with her likeness to her mother, as did the Shadow Woman now.
‘You are not Danille,’ he said, yet how tempting to lose himself in those pale arms and kiss that slender throat. Thereafter to slit it.
‘Father?’ Lae’s voice came from behind him.
The Shadow Woman vanished in an instant, her form hidden from Lae by Djahr’s voluminous robes. ‘Daughter?’ He turned to face his child, smoothing all evidence of his temper from his face. ‘You have found me.’
Lae swallowed, gazed at him strangely. ‘I came to speak to you, Father,’ she said, then gestured at the window behind him. ‘Yet you speak to the empty air. Is there someone outside the window who listens to you?’
‘Why do you come upon me now? Do you need something?’
Lae shook her head, a fear in her eyes Djahr had not seen before. The distance between them had grown wide and though he felt grieved by this, there was also relief. He had expended much energy in protecting Lae from the truth. Perhaps that would no longer be required.
‘I came to speak about the matter of Kert Sh’hale,’ she said.
Djahr did not take her hands as once he would, but simply nodded for her to continue.
‘He sends to me again. Gifts and petitions to gain my hand.’ Her fingers, clutched before her, tightening on each other. ‘I want you to return them, Father, with your adamant reply that he will not have my hand.’
‘The Guardian who has betrayed your vow will die a painful death. You must marry another, and soon.’ Djahr watched horror cloud his daughter’s face at this abrupt pronouncement, and felt unexpected pleasure at the sight.
‘I will not marry,’ she said, her voice soft from shock, rather than fear.
Djahr shook his head and the feeling of feeding on Lae’s pain grew in him. He should have been distraught, yet he felt … excited. ‘I will see you in the arms of Sh’hale,’ he told her. ‘He has lands and —’
‘I do not love him.’
Djahr took a step forward and grasped Lae by the back of the neck. He tilted her head up. ‘Your betrothed chose another,’ he said softly. ‘He scorned you.’ Djahr felt his anger build, and though it was not aimed at Lae his fingers tightened on her neck. ‘For this he will die and the honour of our House will be avenged.’
Lae blinked back tears of pain. ‘I will not marry Kert,’ she whispered.
Djahr loosened his hold, and as she trembled beneath him he caressed the flesh he had just bruised. ‘Do you think it will be an arduous task?’ He smiled. ‘I am told the son of Sh’hale has many skills in the bed chamber.’ His probing fingers slid from Lae’s neck to her face, moving over her forehead and down to her cheek. ‘Soon you will bear the mark of Be’uccdha as I do,’ he said.
Her gaze drifted unerringly to his own markings, the swirling tattoo which the nobility of Be’uccdha had worn since the time of the Ancients. Her voice trembled, ‘I will be your daughter, and one day I will be The Dark,’ she said, ‘but I will not be Sh’hale’s wife,’ and catching him unaware, she darted out of his grasp and fled the chamber, the translucent scarf he had loosened at her throat falling to the ground where she’d stood.
Djahr bent to retrieve it and raised it to his nose to breathe in her scent. Then he strolled to the door, locked it, and turned to find the Shadow Woman waiting for him on the bed where he had hoped to torture his wife.
And still would.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
‘Is it morning already?’ Khatrene sat up.
Talis watched her rub her beautiful eyes and push her snow hair from her face. He closed the tent flap he’d entered through and came to crouch beside her. ‘It is closer to mid-morn,’ he said, handing her a bowl of porridge. ‘Your child sleeps long.’ He smiled at her.
‘I indulge him,’ she said, and grinned back.
Talis sat to watch her eat, the wonder still new inside of him that she was his alone to touch, to love, to share his heart.
She swallowed a mouthful of the gruel. ‘And you indulge me, bringing me a huge breakfast in bed. I’m going to get seriously fat.’ Yet despite her protest she finished the bowl and looked far from replete.
‘We have a long march today,’ he told her, ‘You will need the strength.’
‘Well, that’s all right then.’ She covered her yawn with a slow hand and then lay back on her blankets. ‘Are we leaving soon? Or can my baby get some more sleep?’
Talis grinned. He reclined at her side and laid a hand on her belly. ‘If I carried you, you could sleep in my arms,’ he said, remembering the aching joy such duties had caused him in the past.
Khatrene opened the front of her dress and his hand moved from the rough weave to rest on the pale mound of her growing belly. She reached up to toy with a warrior plait.
Since his beloved had regained her memories she had developed a fascination for them, and had told Talis she remembered plaiting her own as a child. How she had laughed at the memory of her mother’s horror — the Crown Princess of Ennae resplendent with warrior plaits.
Talis had noted a profound change come over Khatrene after their first joining and he found himself still unaccustomed to her breaking into laughter as memories which were new to her surfaced in her mind. To view your past as though it belonged to another must be strange indeed, yet Khatrene appeared to own her history in a way Talis could not understand. The whole of Ennae’s past was hers, and from that perspective she had told Talis that the Great Guardian was not the ruler of the Four Worlds, but simply a manifestation of the virtue that lay within them. While goodness was the predominant human emotion the Great Guardian would continue to overshadow his opposite, the Serpent of Haddash who thrived on men’s evil.
This was The Balance, not equality, but a tilt towards good which had been carefully preserved by The Darks
of the past who had killed the most evil among them on the occasion of each ‘solar eclipse’ — a concept whose explanation Talis still struggled with. Djahr of Be’uccdha was apparently the first of his line to fail in his duty as The Dark, and whether by his sin or simply coincidental timing, the coming of the Maelstrom was imminent.
Talis looked forward to the child of The Light joining the Four Worlds and a return to the time of Unity which would follow. Good and evil would once again be balanced within every man and there would be peace. Bounty would cover the land and there would be no sadness, no grief and no pain.
Yet despite this blissful future, Talis feared the Maelstrom which would bring this change. To achieve Unity, the storm of creation must rage across the Four Worlds, destroying The Balance the Great Guardian had created to protect the people. The Serpent of Death would be released from Haddash and only the child of The Light would stand in its path. Many would die. A great many. Yet some would live and those would inhabit the one world. Talis hoped that he and Khatrene would be among those who would survive.
Yet, rather than dwell on the future, Talis simply took pleasure in the fact that her beliefs now aligned so well with his own. This new accord between them sat sweetly in his heart.
‘How far are we marching today?’ she asked.
Talis leant down and gave her a long, slow kiss, his hand rising from her belly to caress her breasts which grew fuller by the day. She hesitated only a moment before turning in his arms to kiss him back, her own soft hands stroking, squeezing, pleasuring.
Talis felt the roar of need fill his mind and he pulled back from her to rid himself of his shirt and breeches.
His beloved watched him with eyes of desire. ‘Don’t think you can distract me, mister,’ she said, but her voice was soft with the same need that drove him. ‘I still want to know how far we’re marching.’ Yet when he was naked the question seemed to have fled her mind. She rose like a pale wave to breach the shore of his body, sending splashes of pleasure in all directions as she settled on him, her hair spilling across his chest as she leant forward to kiss him. ‘You think you can come in here,’ she said, smiling close to his lips as she moved on him, ‘bring me a bowl of porridge, show off your manly chest …’ She looked upon his battle-scarred form with eyes that saw only perfection and Talis felt his passion grow.
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