Return to Shanhasson

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  As though he’s afraid he’ll lose me.

  Bad enough she’d held him away at arm’s length so long; now he feared she’d let him glimpse heaven in her bed only to replace him with the desert tal.

  :In the Tenth Camp, Rhaekhar is First. Anywhere else, you are. My heart will never change.:

  Breathing hard, he released her bruised lips and pressed his forehead to hers. Despair darkened his bond and he trembled against her. He hated not being able to provide every single thing she could ever desire. :Are you sure? Whatever the Black did has strengthened his bond. He scares you, yet you relish that threat of danger. I can love you as hard as you desire, but it will always be love, not danger.:

  She gave him a firm shake through his bond. :Rhaekhar was not Gregar either, and you know how much I love him. I love you the same. You’re not Rhaekhar. You’re not Gregar. You’re my one and only First Blood for all time. When I invite anyone else to my bed, you’ll always be First, until we ride together with Rhaekhar and Gregar once more. You’re mine in a way no one else could ever be.:

  Relief flooded his bond, followed by a crashing wave of determined arrogance. It amused and touched her at the same time. Lady above, he was still so young, a fierce young stallion determined to stake his territory. :Aye, I am yours, always and forever. Now make Jorah yours too.:

  He must have signaled the other Blood to wait, although she hadn’t seen it. Poor Jorah. His bond crackled with heat hot enough to melt stone into lava.

  Dharman kissed her, gently this time, and then moved to her neck. :Look at him.:

  She raised her head enough to look down her body at the golden Blood waiting patiently on his hands and knees. Not so patiently, actually, for his shoulders strained, his neck corded, and sweat trickled down his face.

  :Why are you making him wait?:

  :I never gave any order denying him,: Dharman replied. :He waits for you.:

  As soon as her attention focused on him, Jorah slowly lowered himself toward her splayed thighs. Her heart kicked into high speed, but he merely hovered, breathing loudly.

  “Jorah?”

  “So many times I smelled your scent and I ached with every muscle in my body to bury my nose here and breathe. I wondered if I would ever touch you, ever smell your roses and know that need was for me.” Ever so lightly, he dropped soft kisses on her mound. “I want you all over me, but this time I won’t let Sal steal one drop, and I’m not stopping until you make that sound.”

  “What sound?”

  His only answer was a light flick of his tongue. For a warrior in his prime who’d been lusting after her for years, he certainly had a great deal of control. After a few moments of torturous butterfly kisses and glancing brushes of his tongue, she fisted her hands in his hair and dragged him in close.

  He made a deep, rumbling sound of pleasure and rubbed deeper. :At last.:

  He didn’t lick so much as rub his face, burying his nose as he’d threatened until she didn’t know how he could possibly breathe. She let him suffocate himself for awhile, and then she tugged his hair until his mouth settled just so.

  By the pulse of dark amusement in his bond, he’d gotten exactly what he wanted. So then, would she. She wrapped her hands tighter in his hair and tilted her hips, rolling against his mouth to create her own rhythm. He slid his palms beneath her buttocks, lifting her fuller against his mouth, using his broad shoulders to force her legs farther apart. Spread beneath his tongue, she felt the spiraling tension begin. Breathing faster, she squirmed against his hold, straining to reach the perfect spot.

  He growled against her, the vibration sending delicious shivers down her spine. Shifting his grip around to her thighs, he pinned her flat and sucked her flesh into his mouth to work it with his teeth. Her breath caught, her heart pounding, muscles winching tighter until she shuddered. Now he feasted like a starving man, dragging his tongue deep to wring every spasm and cry out of her.

  Wrapping another length of his hair around her fist, she hauled him up and made a low, desperate sound of need.

  “That sound.” He came up her body in a rush, his face tight, his breathing labored. “Forgive me, na’lanna, Shannari, I cannot wait.”

  She opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t want him to wait, but he began to slide inside and her breath caught in her throat. So thick, he took her breath away. Despite the wildfire blazing in his bond, he paused, jaws clenched, and glanced down into her face.

  Arching her back, she pushed him deeper and let out another shaking, rough cry that he’d wanted to hear so badly. “Don’t stop.”

  “Say it, just once, please,” he panted.

  She knew exactly what he wanted to hear. After all these years, all he wanted to know was that she loved him. “Na’lanna.”

  Groaning, he surged deeper, shifting his hips back and forth to work himself inside her. She clawed at his back and let out a wordless yell that likely rattled the glass in the windows.

  She gripped his shoulder in her teeth, biting deeper to mark him as he’d asked. With another thrust, he came on a yell of his own. Shaking, he collapsed, deliberately off to the side to spare his weight, but his hands fluttered down her face, neck, and stomach, as though afraid to land a deeper caress. As though he doesn’t have the right.

  She made a deliberate point to take his hand and pressed his palm firmly over her heart while she cuddled into his side. Dharman wrapped his arms around her and claimed her back, as he always did. Sal crept closer, hovering at the edge of the bed, but he didn’t join them. He hadn’t been invited.

  Closing her eyes, she cast out her senses across the land she protected with her blood. Far to the west, she felt the Keldari’s advance through Far Illione. They were still at least a day away. She’d sent messengers to Allandor and the Sha’Kae al’Dan. All she could do was hope her allies arrived soon enough to avoid a siege of Shanhasson. At least the size of the Keldari army was greatly reduced, so not everything had been lost on the Great Seal.

  She certainly had enough time to eliminate her Blood’s fears that they would die without ever knowing her love.

  The black snake coiled its slithering lengths deeper in her mind. No, she couldn’t call the black bond a snake any longer. It had grown to a dragon, not quite as large as the one in her dreams, but definitely bigger, stronger, and more solidly anchored in her mind.

  She didn’t know what Given meant, exactly, but it had great significance to him.

  :It means my heart beats in time to yours, brightheart.: The dragon made a purring sound, rubbing its triangular head and long sinuous neck through her. Dharman’s breath stilled, his bond coming to full alert. :It means once I give you my kiss and my body, then I’ll be bound to you even tighter than your Reds.:

  It would almost be worth giving him blood so she could warn him off directly with her words. Dharman twitched with alarm behind her, his arms squeezing her so tightly she could barely breathe. She had to make do with shoving at the Black’s bond with her power, deliberately freezing him with the same punishing ice she’d carried in her heart so long after Rhaekhar’s death.

  :Why these threats, brightheart? You’re safer than ever from me. Don’t you understand? My heart is yours. Merely tell me to stop breathing and I will. There’s nothing I can do to protect myself any longer. If your heart ceases to beat, mine will too.:

  Instead of fear or anger from him at such a development in their war, though, she felt only smugness. She pushed harder, deliberately wielding ice to cut and wound that smiling beast curled inside her.

  :Ah, my love, indeed, I come to you as quickly as possible.:

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  SHIVERING, MYKAL CLUTCHED HIS DAMP TAAMID TO HIS CHEST. Pain wracked his body as though the moon was trying to eat him from the inside out. Or perhaps it was the White Dragon. Opal light blazed inside him, spread by that holy water she’d dumped on him. If he opened his mouth, he’d glow as though he’d swallowed the moon.

  Fever or dre
am, he wasn’t sure, but he walked on red sands. The moon hung low and full above, casting so much light it might as well have been day.

  I have a purpose.

  Weight dragged at his left hand until he staggered off balance. The dull black ring throbbed. Pain stabbed through the small digit and black spider webs spread beneath his skin. Not scales, but lines of foulest black, racing up his arm, searing with acidic hate. He clawed at the lines, trying to stop the spread. He ripped at the ring that rooted deep in his flesh, but it was too late.

  It had always been too late for him.

  The black lines crashed into his heart, burrowed into his mind like worms, and writhed beneath his skin like snakes. Foul, so foul, there was nothing he could do to stop it. The lines pulsed, sucking at his soul. Memories fluttered through his mind like tumbleweed, racing, random, until he wasn’t even sure that they were his.

  She stared at him across a table, her eyes wide with horror.

  She spat water on him and his face exploded with sizzling fire as though he’d fallen into the Venom Lake.

  He sat with her enemies, plotting and courting them against her. He even tried to poison her, just a test, he’d told himself, sure that she would never succumb so easily.

  Somma forgive me, he wept. She’ll always hate me.

  As he stumbled across the dunes, his body wasted, feeding those black veins until he was a skeleton of bone, bits of leathered skin, and most ridiculous of all, his hair long enough to tumble past his knees. In all his lifetimes, he’d never had such hair, but it felt right and good. Here in the blasted sands of Keldar, such hair meant he’d never lost a battle. He’d never been dishonored.

  How long had it been since he could say such a thing?

  He held his left hand up against his chest, struggling to carry the burden of the ring. His finger was nothing but slender dried-out bone, desiccated by blazing desert heat, but the ring still clung to him.

  Endless sands became marbled tiles. Shining Walls stretched up as far as he could see, humming with her power and the light of the moon. She sat on the High Throne, a golden crown of flowers on her head. He crawled toward her, dragging that hand, the cursed ring, struggling to make his brittle bones move.

  Sands and wells, she was so lovely, gleaming of moonbeams and opals, her black hair about her shoulders like his taamid. Most beautiful of all, though, was the light shining in her eyes.

  For me.

  Behind her throne, a graceful white trunk stretched above, shielding her head with spreading leaves dotted with black and red.

  He fell on his face before her, unable to bear the look of horror and hatred that would replace the love shining in her eyes once she realized his true identity.

  The ring slipped off his hand and rolled across the tile, bumping and racing toward its goal. It leaped at her like a rabid jackal and latched onto her neck. His ring became a collar to choke and bend her to Shadow’s will. She clawed at the thing, wailing, begging him to help her, but he did nothing.

  He had accomplished his purpose.

  Why, then, did he drown in misery?

  She didn’t waste away to a skeleton beneath its power; instead, her belly grew. Darkness grew in her, sucking the life from her until she was gaunt, her light dimmed, her hair dry and brittle, her eyes haunted chasms of agony. The tree withered, dropping its leaves, roots arching like bleached bones.

  He pushed to his feet and found himself dressed in fine Green Land clothing. His boots crunched on the dead leaves of the tree until he stood before her, whole and healthy while his child sucked the life out of her. It would be a son, he knew.

  A son of both Shadow and Light.

  I have a purpose.

  * * *

  MOANING, MYKAL THRASHED FREE OF the taamid tangled about his legs and staggered out of the tent. Night. The fire had burned low and no one was in sight. Shivering, he stumbled toward the shadowed ruin on the rim. Below, the Green Lands waited like a priceless emerald. Only the encroaching sands and the withering plants on the border told the tale of the desert spilling over the plateau, destroying all it touched.

  As he would destroy her.

  He rested his head against crumbling stone. His cheeks were wet with tears, his stomach boiling with holy water that ate away like acid. Of course her power would hurt him. He was Shadowed. He was death and destruction, the most favored servant of all.

  I have a purpose.

  The mark in his groin throbbed. Her silver rainbows glowed in his flesh, light against the dark of his skin. Such a small bite against the bulk of his body, but it shone brightly, a reminder of her passion and spirit. If she could bite him all over, would she be able to blot out his stains with her pearly light? If she spilled water into him again, could she wash him clean?

  Could he ever be clean enough to earn her love?

  He stared up at the slip of the moon. Soon it would be hidden completely, swallowed by the darkness of night. Yet the moon still shone somewhere, sleeping her sweet slumber. Her symbol would grow in the sky again. Do I have enough of her love in my body to grow into something beyond Shadow?

  He twisted the ring on his finger. Sands shifted inside him, a quagmire that could suck him down to endless torment. He’d lived many lifetimes and committed uncountable foul deeds in the name of Shadow, and the hateful ring reminded him of his purpose. The ring was his savior—his key to the next life and the next, always avoiding damnation—but also his destruction.

  If he slipped this ring off his finger, he might wither into the walking skeleton of his dream. His true body had long ago turned to dust. If he tried to cast off the Shadow he’d carried for so long, he might be devoured by the Black Dragon inside him. He might never be able to transform back into a man.

  He knew without question that as soon as this life ended, he’d descend into the blackest, foulest pits of hell. Torment would be his forevermore if he failed in his purpose.

  As the moon served to constantly remind him of his purpose, so, too, would she recognize the ring. Despite his dark coloring and desert body, she would know him as her greatest enemy and cast him out of the Shining Walls of her heart. If he carried this ring to her, she would wither and die, chained by him for Shadow, which was what he’d fully expected to accomplish.

  That had been before his dreams of a White Dragon. Before her mark had seared his flesh, her pleasure had scoured his heart, and her holy waters had scalded his belly. If he had any hope at all of casting off this Shadow and feeling her love shine down on him, he had to rid himself of the ring.

  When he tugged on it, he knew a moment of panic. It stuck to his finger, resisting his pull. In the dream, it had buried itself in his flesh, sucking him dry day by day. He stepped out of the shadow of a ruined tower and held his hand up to the slip of the moon in the midnight sky the color of her eyes, praying enough of the silvery power remained to help free him.

  Gritting his teeth, he tore the ring from his flesh. Something ripped inside him, tearing away pieces of his soul, but he forced the black band to slide off his finger. Breathing hard, he stared at the noisome hunk of twisted metal. It lay so innocently on his palm, unpretentious iron. Without the ring, could he force the dragon back into the cage of his body?

  I don’t know.

  Fear tasted like bitter ash on his tongue; however, he’d pay any cost to see the light of her Lady’s moon shining in her eyes when she looked upon him.

  Grim with a new purpose, he wandered the ruins, searching for a place to discard the ring. He didn’t want this thing anywhere near her, not if it would chain her for Shadow. Beneath the remnants of a watch tower, he found a cistern. Long ago burned dry by Agni’s torment, it was filled with sand, not water, but it had been sheltered enough by the crumbled walls that it hadn’t been completely clogged by the desert.

  He tossed a pebble into the dark hole and counted several seconds before the soft thud. He wasn’t likely to find any deeper spot this close to the Green Lands. Scanning for anyone nearby,
he finally tossed the ring into the empty well.

  Let sands bury it for all eternity, he prayed. Let her be safe.

  Let her be safe from me.

  I’m Mykal tal’Mamba and I have a purpose.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  “ARE YOU SURE THIS IS WISE?” King Valche smoothed his fine royal jacket and adjusted his ceremonial sword. “The Sha’Kae al’Dan haven’t arrived yet.”

  Shoulders back and chin tilted up at an arrogant notch, Shannari stared each of her Council members in the eye. Some nodded back, eyes bright with excitement; others flinched; and a few couldn’t meet her gaze at all. Each man stood at the head of his soldiers sworn to her service as High Queen of all the Green Lands.

  The blue and silver of the Allandorian Guard stood shoulder to shoulder behind her with the silver and rose Shanhasson Lions. King Challon of the North Forest commanded a smaller force than most of the others, but they were all woodsmen and fantastic archers. Maston, Illione, Far Illione, Gritteire, and Planzio soldiers all lined the causeway leading from the Palace to the Shining Walls. Taza had sent no soldiers, but their ships guarded every major port.

  “I’m not going to sit here helplessly and let them lay siege to Shanhasson,” Shannari said. “As far as I can tell, there’s only three hundred Keldari. Our combined forces are more than enough to handle them, and I refuse to cower behind the Shining Walls. I don’t need force to win this battle, Father, but I do need to show unity against our enemy. I won’t open the Gates until the Sha’Kae al’Dan arrive. For now, I’m merely beginning the negotiations.”

  She mounted Wind and waited while the Blood encircled her on their glossy red na’kindren. Dharman and Sal rode on either side of her, with her father close on her right. The rest of the Blood protected her flanks and back. Dharman’s bond vibrated with concern that she had no forward guard, but she’d made her arguments earlier. She had to present a strong, unafraid image to the Keldari. She couldn’t show up at the Gates buried behind rows of warriors as though she were afraid to show her face.