He moved through the spaceport’s passageways with determined speed, ignoring the gasps and shocked cries of those he stormed past. Kala was not surprised by their reaction. The black leathers he wore glistened with blood, his skin painted by it in streaming tendrils. He looked beyond menacing. He looked demonic.
Fighting the cold disquiet gnawing at her, she hurried to keep up. His silence unnerved her and yet, at the same time, the parting wave of the crowd before them sent a perverse sense of pride deep into her being.
He was a man to fear. Not just because of his physical size and prowess, but because of his presence. He was undeniable. His honour was unlike any she’d experienced, unbending and unassailable. His strength and belief was unlike any she’d known, invincible and intimidating. He would do anything to protect those needing protection in the name of the Sol Edict and the Sun Sword. He would give his life if needed—of that she had no doubt. It was easy to see why she loved—
She came to an abrupt halt and stared at his back. “Oh, no.” She shook her head, her heart leaping into rapid flight. “No.”
She couldn’t be in love with him.
Why not? You’ve just listed every reason why you are.
Her throat squeezed tight and she closed her eyes. That he was sexually attracted to her was undeniable. She’d seen it in his eyes, felt it in his body. Heard it in his words—I want you, Kala. So fucking much—but who was she?
An acrid chill slithered through her. Someone he needed to save when she shouldn’t need saving, that was who. Someone to be defended when she shouldn’t be defenseless. He was every woman’s fantasy—a hero, a rescuer, a man of smoldering passion and incomparable strength, and she was not worthy of him. She was damaged goods. Soiled by a life she’d never wanted. After six months of being molded by him, trained by him, forged to become the savior of the worlds of man, she was nothing he believed her to be.
She opened her eyes and continued after him, the ache in her heart, her core, growing, her body numb. What did she do now?
“Here.” Torin’s blunt growl startled her out of her bleak reverie. He stopped at the end of a dank corridor before an open doorway, every muscle in his body tense. His stare fixed on the black opening. He stood motionless, yet Kala sensed that same icy energy from the sex cubicle thrumming through him still. He appeared on edge, ready to…what? Attack?
“Who is in here?” A cold pressure curled around Kala’s heart. She had no idea what was going on, but she didn’t want to be here. Something felt wrong. Her skin prickled and she looked over her shoulder, convinced someone watched her. She could almost feel their heavy stare crawling over her like a physical touch she wanted no part of. The corridor stood empty behind her, its darkened length curling away from where she stood, devouring the weak yellow light. Turning back to Torin, she frowned. “What’s going on?”
Torin kept his stare locked on the doorway. “The Oracle is inside.” Contempt turned the statement to a low snarl. “She has information I need. She will not give it to me until she sees you.”
Kala narrowed her eyes, the pressure on her chest, the prickle on her flesh growing more intense. “Because I am the One Who Burns?”
His jaw bunched. “Because you are the One Who Burns.”
A chill rippled up her spine and she suppressed the need to fidget. “And who is she, to be so curious?”
Torin’s nostrils flared. “She is the beginning and the end of the Sol.”
The statement turned the chill tracing her spine to a scalding burn. Kala studied his profile. What did that mean? The beginning and the end of the Sol? And why did he say it with such empty contempt? She frowned, wishing more than anything she could reach out and place her palm to the side of his face. Cup his jaw. Brush the pad of her thumb over his lips and tell him it was okay. But she didn’t know if it was. And she didn’t know if he would stay her hand. So instead, she released a sigh and peered into the darkness beyond the doorway. “So what? Is she just going to pop out her head and take a look at me? Should I show her my teeth?”
Torin turned his head, his eyes burning with a disgust Kala felt in the pit of her belly. “She is dangerous,” he stated. “But I will protect you. Do not be afraid.”
The statement struck Kala like a cold punch. Protect. Afraid. Words Torin had not uttered to her since the second day of her training. She lifted her chin. “I do not need to be protected.” She glared at the dark opening before her. “And I am not afraid. Let her do her worst.”
A rising cackle followed her words, a putrid, overwhelming stench of rotting flesh rolling out of the black cubicle. “My worst is far more heinous than the Sol warrior would ever let you know, child,” a raspy female’s voice chuckled from within. “But it is not for you to fear.” A short, hunched woman shuffled from the darkness, stepping from its thick curtain like an apparition. Her pale violet stare fixed on Kala’s face, a toothy smile stretching flaky lips as she drew closer. “At least, not yet.”
Kala stiffened, doing everything she could not to cover her nose and mouth with her hand. She stared down at the wizened old woman, the sight of three gutted rabbit carcasses hanging from her neck almost making her gag.
“So.” Stroking the flickering glow stick she grasped in her bony hands, the hag looked Kala up and down, a brazen inspection that filled her mouth with bile. “You are the One Who Burns.” She gave Torin a quick smirk. “I see why you want to stick your dick between her legs, Sol. I bet she is tight and—”
“Another word, Oracle,” Torin growled, his stony expression never changing, “and you will lose your tongue.”
Kala’s stomach rolled. At the old woman’s words and Torin’s.
The Oracle shifted on her feet, shimmying away from him, giving Kala a wide smile as she did so. “Do you dream of him, child?” She nodded towards the motionless warrior. “Tell ol’ Marl what you long for him to do to you.”
Abruptly, as if commanded into existence by an unseen force, a vivid image of Torin flashed through Kala’s head: his naked body slicked in sweat, his hips aligned with hers, his lips on her breasts. Her sex constricted, gripping a cock that wasn’t there, longing for a fulfillment denied her. She narrowed her eyes, glaring at the old woman. “That’s none of your—”
“Oooh, such a dirty mind for one so young,” the hag cut her off, wrinkled hands slapping together, the glow blade clanking against the multitude of silver rings hanging loosely around each bony finger. “You are growing more interesting by the second.”
Kala clenched her fists, the bile in her mouth growing more bitter. She straightened her spine, drawing herself as tall as she could be. “I am the One Who Burns, Oracle. Tell me what I need to know so I can be done with you.”
The old woman’s eyebrows shot up. “The One Who Burns! The One Who Burns!” She cackled with apparent glee, pocketing the glow blade in the voluminous fold of her filthy gown. Swiping at the rabbit carcasses, she shuffled a step closer, her pale eyes a sick puce in the dim yellow light. “I will be the one who decides that, child.”
With blurring hands, she snared Kala’s wrist and yanked her downward, licking her face from chin to eye in a single stroke. “You taste like the Sol,” she declared with a grin, releasing Kala as quickly as she’d grabbed her. “Has he tasted you yet?”
“That’s enough, Marl.”
Kala jerked her stare from the old woman to Torin’s stormy face, her pulse pounding in her throat so hard she could barely draw breath. God, who was this woman?
“You want answers, Torin Kerridon,” the hag rasped, “then leave us. The child and I have things to discuss.” She flashed him a smile, the putrid odor of decaying teeth oozing from her mouth. The old woman turned back to Kala, bestowing her with a wider smile. “Womanly things,” she went on.
Torin’s jaw bunched and cold fury flared in his eyes, the first emotion Kala had seen from him since she’d regained consciousness on the floor.
“I will not leave her alone with you.”
&nbs
p; Bulging eyes shone with malicious glee. “You have no choice.”
Kala turned to Torin. She gave him a level look, a hot pressure behind her eyes. He would not leave her, not unless she told him to do so, and until he did… “Leave us, keeper of the Sun Sword’s truth. I am in no need of your presence.”
He hissed in a sharp breath, his whole body stiffening as his stare locked on hers. He didn’t move, and once again Kala felt her skin awash in a million pinpricks of hot needles. She parted her lips to order Torin away, but before she could do so he turned and strode down the corridor.
Kala’s chest squeezed and she bit back the shout on her lips. She didn’t want to be alone with this woman. She wanted Torin to leave her even less.
God, what was she doing?
“Exactly what you have to do, child,” the old woman whispered, leaning closer. “To protect the man you love from what he doesn’t need to hear.”
Kala’s heart leapt into her throat, her mouth turning dry. “And what’s that?”
The Oracle’s withered lips stretched into a wide grin. “That you are going to kill him.”
***
Zroya lifted his head from the metal floor of his quarters and looked at the object before him, the low hum of his ship’s engines sending vibrations through his legs up into his already tight balls.
He studied the long blade hovering mere inches above the floor, its impossible, unbreakable length aglow with golden fire.
He had felt the Immortal’s weapon call to him the moment he could form cognitive thought, an undeniable longing in the pit of his belly for something more, something his ineffectual child’s mind couldn’t understand. It wasn’t until his master found him, beaten and abused and starving that the longing was given a name—destiny.
The prophet spoke to him at great length of the weapon, of how the Immortals forged it from their force. How they created it to right the worlds of man, punish them for their insolence and heathen savagery. How the Youngest had created the seed and the Eldest, the perversion. He devoured each raspy word, letting each one slip into his ear and become a part of his soul. His master told him the old gods had created the weapon to be wielded by a warrior of incomparable might, a warrior who would mark the worlds of man as his own and rule them with merciless strength. A warrior who burned with all the pain of a primitive species and all the hate of a brutalized child.
Zroya gazed at the Sun Sword. He was that warrior. His master told him so every day. It was his destiny. Every day for the last twenty-seven solar years the prophet had consulted the Immortals through the blood of the female animals he wore around his waist. When the old gods spoke with ambiguity, his master would seek the answers through the blood of the female humans he ordered Zroya to slay. With every kill, his master spoke more fiercely of the One Who Burns until nothing mattered to Zroya but possessing the weapon and enslaving the female cunt who dared believe that weapon to be hers.
Zroya smiled. His utter and complete domination and control of the worlds of man would begin with the utter and complete domination and control of the False Fire.
Something tight and hot twisted in his groin and he groaned, hungering for the cunt almost as much as he hungered for the burning blade before him.
He stared at it harder, craving its weight in his hands. What made the Sun Sword burn no one knew. His master told him it was the smoldering heart of the centre of the universes that gave it light. Zroya didn’t care. With the Sun Sword in his hands he would be the centre of the universes, not some mystical burning ball of energy.
Twenty-seven years he’d prepared. Twenty-seven years of training—from one instructor to another, from one planet to the next—and once he had learned all he could from each, once his master had deemed his training in each weapon and fighting style complete, he’d slaughtered his instructor and moved to the next. Growing closer to being the perfect weapon. Closer to being ready to claim what was his to claim. Until the day had come when the prophet had told him it was time to hunt the False Fire.
Destiny.
His groin grew heavier at the intoxicating thought and he straightened from his prostrate position, his gaze still focused on the iridescent sword. Soon the False Fire would be his. Soon the Immortal’s blade would be his, and with it the worlds of man would be his.
A kaleidoscope of incandescent colour rippled through the glorious weapon before him and his master limped through the hologram, turning it into a distorted image of fractured light. The prophet came to a halt, the sword shimmering back to perfection behind him. “As revealed in the blood of the mistaken,” he spoke, his voice less scratchy than normal, “the False Fire has met with the Oracle.”
Zroya snapped to his feet, his heartbeat doubling. “And?”
His master’s white gaze slid to him. “And the false one shall be in your possession within the day’s half cycle.” His thin lips curled into an emotionless smile and he stroked one gutted rabbit corpse hanging from his belt. “Are you ready, my child?”
Zroya’s dick flooded with eager blood. His palms itched with lust. His mouth filled with saliva. “Yes, my master.” He bowed, his stare returning to the holographic Sun Sword glowing behind the old man. “I am ready.”
The Sun Sword
Chapter Five
The soft sound of Kala’s steady footfalls alerted Torin to her approach. He pulled in a slow breath and stood motionless, forcing away the irritation scouring at his nerves as he watched the dark passageway for her arrival.
She rounded the corner, her expression set in an unreadable mask. Anger squeezed Torin’s throat tight and he bit back a sharp curse. The Oracle had said something to upset her.
Two steps away from him, Kala stopped, the shadows of the corridor playing over her face. “The old woman wants to speak with you.”
Her voice was short, clipped. Torin ground his teeth. He studied Kala, wanting nothing more than to take her hand and pull her to his body, smoothing her hair as he pressed his lips to the top of his head, her temples. Kissing away her pain. Wanting to show her how sorry he was for what she’d experienced since boarding Ati’aina, everything she’d suffered since he’d entered her life. Instead, he gave her a curt nod. “Return to Helios Blade. This will not take long.”
The skin around Kala’s eyes pinched as she fought to control whatever emotion his order evoked in her. Self-contempt rolled through him, turning the saliva in his mouth to sour bile, but he ignored it. The Oracle had seen the One Who Burns. He, Torin, had met his end of the agreement. Now the old crone must meet hers.
Fixing his stare on the dark passageway leading to the Oracle’s cubicle, he moved past Kala. A hot prickle across his shoulders told him she was studying him, watching him walk away from her, as if her gaze had ignited the sun tattooed on his back into real flames. Syunna, how he wanted to turn around. To see what emotion burned in her eyes.
He curled his fists and continued along the empty corridor. It was of no consequence. What he longed for could never be. She was not his to have and all he brought to her was pain and heartache. It would be best if Kala hated him.
“She is a pretty young thing, Sol.” The raspy voice scraped over his senses and he drew his focus onto the old woman standing at her cubicle door. “I can see why you desire her.”
Torin clenched his jaw. “Tell me the location of the sword, woman, so I can be done with you.”
The Oracle raised her eyebrows, her pale eyes gleaming in the muted light. “The ‘sword’? The ‘sword’? Is that bitter contempt I hear in your voice, Torin Kerridon? Where is the reverence? The respect?”
He leveled his stare on her face. “The location, before I lose what little control I still have.”
A flicker of something dark crossed the old woman’s eyes and she shuffled back a few steps, the hand gripping the glow blade rising to her chest.
Torin suppressed a bleak smile. Finally, she was scared of him. Good.
The old woman’s eyelids fluttered, once, twice and she
looked up at him, a clouded veil fogging her gaze. “The sword that will save the hearts of man smolders in the heart of the two moons with one soul,” she intoned. “The sword that will pierce the heart of the last warrior will be found in the one soul. The sword that will—”
Torin snatched the Oracle’s wrist in his fist and jerked her towards him, cold rage threatening to undo him. “Cut the shit, Marl.”
The old woman trembled, eyes wide and clear once more. “The Sun Sword is on the second inner moon of P’Helios,” she blurted in a hurried whisper. “In the forgotten Sol Temple. Look for the sun and the heart and the weapon will be beneath. Only the One Who Burns or the False Fire may release it from its prison.”
A sharp sense of completion rolled through Torin, bringing with it numb emptiness. He released his grip on the Oracle’s wrist and stepped back. “If you lie…”
The old woman shook her head, face growing frantic. “I do not lie, Sol. I do not lie. The Sun Sword is where I have spoke. It is the very place I severed the life cord that bound you to your mother. Her blood and the blood of your birth still stains the sacred altar.”
Torin narrowed his eyes. “My blood?”
“Your blood, Torin Kerridon. I knew of you a century before I knew of the One Who Burns. I awaited your birth just as much as the stars did.” The Oracle cowered lower, her shoulders hunching as if the weight of his stare was too much to bear. “Now be gone,” she whimpered, clutching the glow blade tighter to her breast. “You taint the air with the death that surrounds you.”
Her words sliced into Torin, made him cold, hot. Questions bubbled up through the shock consuming him, but he denied them. They were of no importance. He was just one fallen warrior charged with a task almost complete.
He turned from the sniveling old woman and began walking. He had the location of the sword. He had the one destined to wield it. As soon as he brought the two together his role in this whole fucked-up prophecy was over.
The Sun Sword Page 8