Raine said, We—I—don’t need to go to the castle. I want to look at Faucon’s yacht down on the dock, it shouldn’t take very long.
But Blossom was licking her lips. I have flown far and deserve good food.
Raine shifted uneasily, enough to have given Blossom wrong cues, if they hadn’t been ignored. Raine hadn’t asked Faucon’s permission to inspect his ship, to come here and demand food for a hungry volaran. She’d hoped to pop in, look at his yacht and pop back out, no harm done. She should have asked, even if he did avoid her.
Blossom said, You should go up to the castle to greet the people. You did not thank them for your care last month.
Because I was knocked out and taken away! But Blossom had said enough to prick an underlying guilt in Raine. The housekeeper of Faucon’s castle and a couple of maids had been the first people to treat her decently since her arrival on Lladrana. Raine would have written thank-you notes but she still didn’t know how to write.
Blossom alit on the dock near the yacht and Raine dismounted. She’d no sooner began to stretch her muscles before the flying horse took off to the castle above. Raine ground her teeth, then turned to the yacht. Beautiful lines, wood painted white, it was about two hundred feet long and one glance told her no money had been spared in her making. She walked to the stern and probed with her Power, her magic, for a rope ladder, then found and lowered a gangplank that had fancy carving on the sides. Raine just shook her head and gently settled the plank on the dock, then hurried up it.
The rocking of the ship under her feet made her catch her breath, and swallow hard. She hadn’t been on a boat in eight and a half months. She closed her eyes and a small moan of pleasure escaped her as her soles tingled and she got her sea balance. Somehow the water beneath her wasn’t like Earth oceans. Were the tides and the ocean swells that different? Lladrana had a moon that looked only a little larger than Earth’s. Maybe it was the difference of the planet Amee under the ocean, or with the ocean, or whatever. Raine sniffed and again shook her head at the fanciful notion.
Singer’s Abbey
Letting her mind wander, Jikata strummed, closed her eyes against dazzling brightness. How odd that such a conglomeration of crystals should form a hemisphere focusing Power and prophecy. Surely it couldn’t be natural.
I made it. Crafted it like you craft your melodies. A rippling laugh and Jikata angled her head to see a Lady dressed in a white toga, a Lladranan woman with long silver hair, dark eyes that showed a brilliant white starlike pupil. She held her hand against her lower abdomen. I wanted my peoples to listen to me. She smiled and it was the sweetest, most heartbreaking smile Jikata had ever seen. There are places like this in many lands, but only my Lladranans listened.
“Who are you?” Jikata breathed.
11
Iam the planet Amee thanking you for coming. But air is not your element and you know that. Try others before you settle on the one you love.
Jikata started from her daze, opened her eyes. Placed the lyre carefully in the stand. Then she went to the blue crystals and the dark wooden chair inlaid with a lighter wood in a complex pattern. On a wooden pedestal was a delicate stone bowl. In the bowl was swirling water.
“Go ahead,” the Singer said. “Look into the water. Feel the Power around us. See what the bowl shows you.”
Jikata had no sooner glanced into the bowl than Amee was back, her face troubled. I have called you and the others here for a purpose. You give me hope after ages of despair. Her star-pupil eyes flashed like a supernova, tears ran down her face, then she vanished.
With a shaky breath Jikata levered herself from the chair, moving within a dream. The air around her was thick with sound, tinkling crystalline whispers and vibrations she couldn’t hear, could only feel.
She went to the obsidian throne. The Singer had placed a fat red pillow on the seat. Jikata sank into it, looked at the top of the obsidian pillar for a few seconds before she saw the mirror. Reaching out, she found its edges and tensed, not wanting to cut herself. She raised it until she saw her own face, ghostlike, brown-black hair, brown eyes, more amber than chocolate. Behind her the opposite wall with the red streak glowed. Then it wasn’t her face but Amee’s. Her gaze reflected wariness, too. I am fighting and will fight. I ask you to do the same.
The mirror fell from Jikata’s fingers, thumping onto a soft black pad she hadn’t seen. Once again she rose and with measured steps went to the red-orange fiery wall that had drawn her from the first. As she came near, flames ignited and danced in a brass brazier.
She sat and was enveloped in warmth. Amee stepped from the fire, wearing a red gown, hand again at her side. She nodded to Jikata. Jikata, you are here, at last. The sweet, terrible smile. You must know that should you wish, you can become the thousandth Singer. All you have seen here could be yours. The comforts and the Power and the joys of living a life full of music, of listening to your gift of prophecy and thereby helping others. Composing. That can be yours.
One corner of her beautiful lips twisted. Along with the temptation of Power, the burden of foreseen knowledge, the duties and responsibilities of the Singer.
“I’m just becoming accustomed to here,” Jikata said.
Amee’s smile saddened, her star-spark pupils shone behind tears. I brought you to help me, to fight with me and for me. But you are not alone in this endeavor. Finally she removed her hand from her side. A black, hideous swollen sluglike leech gnawed on the woman, and the red of her dress was nothing compared to the red of her blood. Help save me.
Jikata stared in horror at the evil thing, then skin on its head rolled back and she saw shiny, depthless, black eyes that sucked the light from the room as it sucked the energy from Amee. It smiled. First her, then you. It cackled in her mind.
Everything went dark.
Creusse Crest
Faucon’s yacht was two-masted with red and orange sails furled and tied down. A gorgeous Tall Ship. Soon Raine would make her own ship. Joy blossomed in her. Who knew after all those bitter wars with her family that she’d wanted to build a Tall Ship…? There must be more of her family in her than she expected.
The future of ships on Lladrana was what she, Raine Lindley, would make it. That sent a shiver down her spine. It would be more like a galleon than a schooner or pleasure yacht. Good thing she’d designed hundreds of hulls and sails, and now if she remembered her doodlings in middle school, a Tall Ship or two….
Her ship would be as beautiful as this yacht, grander than anything her family had made. As for yachts…she could build something for Faucon, or other rich Lladranans, faster, sleeker than this pretty lady.
But her Tall Ship was one thing only—a troop transport. She set her mouth. No reason it couldn’t be lovely, and they’d want fast.
She just didn’t know how fast the thing would go without real power or Power—magic. She walked along the upper deck, all tidy. No doubt Faucon had a top-notch crew. No indication here of any other propellant source than the sails ready for the kiss of the wind. There was a polished stick where a wheel would be on Earth and she was sure it connected to a rudder, but nothing more.
She went down a level, found the crew’s quarters, hammocks hanging, and grimaced. That was the most efficient way for people to sleep on a ship. She wondered about the fighters. She thought of their tired and grim faces and realized that they wouldn’t care much as long as they had a chance to destroy the Dark and its Nest and the monsters it kept sending to Lladrana.
Raine only hoped that her last task was building the ship, not fighting the Dark itself.
The galley, sitting area and cabins were all gleaming wood. The crew quarters had been in the stern of the ship, and Raine’s eye had told her that there was no “engine” compartment between that room and the ocean.
Now she stood in Faucon’s large and luxurious cabin and studied the wall behind the big bed. There was something beyond that wall, snugged in the forecastle, the front of the bow.
“Your r
eason for being here is?” Faucon asked.
Singer’s Abbey
Jikata awoke on a fainting couch and jolted upward, but as her mind spun she realized she wasn’t in Ghost Hill Theater but in Lladrana.
“The first true vision can be intense,” the Singer said. “Especially if you touch the Song, or if you see your future.”
Without saying a word, Jikata took a few deep breaths, looked around. “How did I get here?”
The Singer smiled. “I used Power.”
Which could have meant she dragged Jikata through the caverns or teleported her or something altogether different. Jikata decided she didn’t need to know. “We’re in your suite above the crystal room?”
“Ayes. Only Singers are allowed in that room. It is where the Singer experiences the Song. Others—Chevaliers testing to become Marshalls, those who wish a Song Quest—are given drugs to open their minds to our innate Power and we link with them here. Now go to your own rooms and rest and eat, perhaps meditate.” The autocrat was back in full force. “I have had a blank journal placed on the desk in your suite. You should record today’s vision.” The Singer grimaced. “In English since you have not begun to learn written Lladranan.”
Jikata thought she was doing well to learn spoken Lladranan so quickly.
There was a pecking on the door.
Another moue from the Singer. “Your bird companion awaits. Go listen to its silly chatter.”
Jikata was glad to escape.
Creusse Crest
Raine should have known someone would tattle on her. Blossom had told some person or some volaran and here was the man himself. “I needed to see a Lladranan ship,” Raine answered. “Figure out the Power source.” She would not let his Power or his wealth or his sheer attractiveness intimidate her.
“Why didn’t you ask Marian?” He didn’t move, lounged with a shoulder propped on the doorjamb.
She threw up her hands. “I have, time and again! But she only shoves a book at me and I can’t read Lladranan. Then she goes off to craft a Songspell that will destroy the Dark and am I supposed to follow her and interrupt that?” Her voice rose with irritation, but she didn’t modulate it. The man didn’t like her anyway, no need to put polite manners on. Though she did wish he didn’t cause her insides to quiver with incipient lust. He’d always been sexually appealing to her, and had never shown that he even liked her with the flicker of an eyelash. Had refused to let her on this yacht.
She stood her ground, rolled with the slight swell of the ocean beneath her feet, jutted her chin. “Or should I have gone down to the nearest fishing village to look at a boat, hoping I’d find someone I could trust who wouldn’t kill me?”
His expression, which had softened at the mention of Marian, went hard again. “I assure you, your attacker has been punished. He was banished from Lladrana. I made sure that he shipped out on a merchanter from one of the City States. He’s half an ocean away by now.”
Raine inclined her head. “Thank you. Now I know this has interrupted your day—” she’d seen enough Chevaliers to understand the fresh stains of monster gore on his leathers “—so if you will point me to the power source, I’ll be glad to get out of your way and let you go about your business.” He probably did have business, he was a merchant prince.
Then he smiled and had her heart flopping in her chest with the contrast of white teeth against his golden skin and the sensual curve of his blush-colored full lips. Uh-oh. Thinking about him too romantically.
He’d turned on his heel and that saved her from looking like a fool since her mouth had dropped open and she was sure her eyes had glazed. It hadn’t been one of the sarcastic smiles he usually aimed her way, this one had had real humor in it.
“Here,” he said.
At his voice she pulled her feet from the deck and hurried after him outside the door and to her right. He’d drawn back a curtain and opened a narrow door that led to an equally narrow passageway. “Light,” he said and the tiny corridor lit, still paneled in pretty wood. He took three steps and was out of sight, behind his cabin’s wall. When she joined him, he gestured. “The Power source.” He tucked his thumbs in his belt, grinning fully now, liking her slack-jawed shock as she stared at four huge slickly smooth stones, each nearly five feet in circumference and arranged in a diamond pattern.
She squeaked a sound, didn’t even know what she’d intended to say so couldn’t cover it up with rational words.
“Brighter,” Faucon said and the light in the room intensified.
He tapped the top of the stone nearest them and Raine saw a beautifully faceted emerald inset into the sphere.
“Directional stone, west,” Faucon said, touched a forefinger to the shiny great stone beneath—surely it couldn’t be hematite? “Power stone.”
Raine shook her head, trying to make sense of this. “I don’t understand.”
He indicated the jewel in the sphere nestled in the prow, a shining golden topaz. “Directional stone, north.” He pointed to the one to their far right, a sapphire, “Directional stone, east.” The last was a richly red ruby.
“Huh,” she said, brilliantly.
He laughed and some of the lines in his face eased. He would have fought hard in the battle. And he didn’t have to. He could have stayed here in the south of Lladrana where no monsters had ever reached and tended to his estates and wealth and business. But he’d answered the call to arms a few years ago and fielded two teams on the battlefield.
Hell, she really was falling for him and he’d done nothing to encourage her.
She marched back into the sitting room. Her gaze fell on her model that she’d left floating in the Castle Temple.
He was still chuckling as he closed the door and pulled the red drape over it with the sound of brass rings running over a curtain rod.
He picked up the model and one of his long elegant fingers stroked it. “Come up to the castle and have dinner.” His smile hadn’t faded as he’d made the offer and she thought that was a good sign he was beginning to tolerate her. “We’ll talk about ships.” He studied the model, turning it in his hands to observe the detail. “I’ve never seen anything like these designs of yours, but I do understand how they would make a ship go faster, or, in this case—” he held up the small wooden ship “—carry a number of us to the Dark’s Nest.”
He’d included himself in the invasion force. Raine’s stomach knotted. “Have they chosen the Chevaliers who will go?”
Raising his brows he said, “Do you really think that the Exotiques will make me test like the others? I field two teams and will help finance this expedition. There will be a couple of us that will go without testing. Luthan, for another.”
Raine crossed her arms, would have liked to hitch her hip on a table to add to her attitude, but he was between her and it. She met his eyes with a cool stare of her own. “Ayes, I think the Exotiques will expect you to test like the rest of the Marshalls and Chevaliers who intend to destroy the Dark.” She didn’t really know, but it sounded good.
Faucon shook his head and laughed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” He shrugged. “Very well, I’ll test. I’ll ‘make the cut’—that’s the Exotique phrase, ayes?”
“Ayes.”
Bells chimed. Faucon said, “That’s the dinner signal, come along, Raine.” He turned and went up the stairs. “You can spend the night. I think that Blossom has already settled in my stable to have a good chat with my volarans.”
Raine followed, her pulse beating hard. She’d wanted to grill someone on ships and building. Some part of her had also wanted to get closer to Faucon, learn to know him better, but that part was more like a sailor drawn to the siren’s call.
She was sure she was already in over her head.
Faucon seated Raine at the small table for two that his housekeeper had set up in the outside dining nook on the main terrace of the castle. The surf at the bottom of the cliff was a low, rumbling accompaniment to their dinner, a sound he hadn’t k
nown he’d missed until Raine had tilted her head to listen to it and sighed in enjoyment.
He was making more than one mistake, getting close to this woman. Of all the Exotiques who had been Summoned to Lladrana, including his lost Elizabeth, she stirred him the most. Her skin was pale and translucent, her hair a dark, rich color of brown that proclaimed her no native Lladranan, though not quite as startling as Marian’s red or Calli’s blond. Raine’s eyes were the green of the deepest ocean.
And she suited him better. Underneath all her outer defenses, he sensed she’d been more tender than the others when she’d come, younger in spirit, not quite as tough.
She’d developed whatever toughness she had here on Lladrana. That angered and shamed him. One of those who found Exotiques instinctively repulsive had abused her, nearly killed her.
As for him, he was, as always, instinctively attracted to her as an Exotique. But he’d learned his lesson. For once in his life Faucon Creusse would not get what he wanted—an Exotique for a wife—as he’d hoped for since the moment he’d met Alexa. His reaction was only physical. He’d get over it. He wasn’t sniffing around the other Exotiques now, was he?
Because their Songs had changed when they’d pairbonded, their music didn’t seem as potent and beautiful to him. Raine’s Song was delicious, the tastiest he’d heard.
But that was what he’d thought of Elizabeth and he’d been wrong about her loving him enough to stay in Lladrana. Now he felt like an object of pity among the Marshalls and the Chevaliers, noble Creusse who couldn’t convince his Exotique to stay. He fought all the harder in every battle.
At least Raine wasn’t aware of his physical reaction around her—dreeth leather helped conceal that—and he kept his manner brusque. He’d changed into another set of fighting leathers instead of trousers when he’d washed up.
He caught a fragile expression on Raine’s face as she looked at the fine china and the scented candles that his housekeeper had lit now that evening was deepening into the blue-purple of night. No one had treated Raine to an elegant meal, had they? He cursed inwardly for doing exactly as he’d done with Alexa and Elizabeth—but no, his housekeeper had arranged this, and he wished she hadn’t. Still, the softening of Raine’s face made him want to rub away that rough shell Lladrana had layered on her and see the true pearl beneath, the woman she’d been before.
Echoes in the Dark Page 11