Rhoane touched her cheek with the back of his hand, moving it up to caress her ear. “I remember you.”
She closed her eyes, delighting in the roughness of his fingers against her skin. “And I you.”
He kissed her, tenderly at first, unsure, and then with a passion that seared through her. Rhoane held her close and she inhaled the clean scent of the forest.
“Are you still my Taryn?”
“Forever,mi carae.” She pulled away, searching his eyes. “You have changed and yet you are the same.”
“I am whole again. I have missed you.” His lips were on hers and nothing in the world mattered but that he had returned to her. He held her face in his hands as if she were a precious, fragile thing. “I do not ever want to be apart from you,” he whispered.
“Nor I you.” She touched her lips to his, savoring the scent and smell of him, melting into the heat of him. Sound returned, of the party and other guests, music playing, people talking nearby. Sabina was laughing or crying, she couldn’t tell which, and Hayden was welcoming Rhoane back to Talaith. She wasn’t ready to share him. Not yet.
Taryn led Rhoane away from the crowd, her arm linked in his until they were hidden beneath the sargot trees. The sweet scent of orange and mango perfumed the air and she felt drunk with happiness. Prisms of light from her star crown played across his face. She could only stare at him, afraid what she saw was just a dream. “Are you truly back? You’re no longer broken?”
“Yes, my love, I am no longer broken. I will tell you all about my journey later, when it is just the two of us. I hope that will be in one of our beds?” He raised an eyebrow, making her heart skip several beats.
“I’ve wished for this moment for so long. Now that you’re here, I’m happy and sad, angry, and relieved. My faith in you has been shaken. I don’t understand why you left me.”
“I did not leave you,mi carae. It is difficult for me to explain and you have every right to be angry. When we are alone, I will explain everything, but for right now can you find a little bit of trust that what I did was for us? Always for us.”
She started to protest, to argue it more, but he stopped her. “I would like to go out there with the other guests to celebrate your birthing day. As far as I am concerned, this is the most important day of my life. The second, actually. The first would be the day you stepped into the cavern.” He gave her a crooked smile, melting her heart a fraction.
“As long as you promise to tell me everything tonight.” She held out her marked hand.
He placed his runes on hers. “I swear it.” A slight burn ran over their skin as he made the oath. If he’d been lying, he wouldn’t have been able to touch her. He entwined his fingers with hers and they went back to the party. After they had made their way through the garden, fielding questions about his trip, for which he offered varying versions, he turned her toward the ballroom.
“Your Highness, may I have this dance?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
When they passed Lliandra, Rhoane bowed to her before spinning Taryn back into the dance. The empress scowled and Marissa turned away without looking at them.
“So, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know where you’d gone,” Taryn said.
“As clever as you are beautiful.” When the music ended, he took two glasses from a nearby servant, handing one to her. “Lliandra was not aware I would be leaving.”
They drifted to the balcony overlooking the sea. Tiny lights flickered just off the coast. Lliandra had sent an armada out to patrol the coastline as an added measure of safety for her party. Too many foreign dignitaries were in residence for her to take any chances.
“I’m surprised Marissa is still here. I can only assume it’s because Mother commanded her to stay.” At the mention of her sister’s name, Rhoane tensed and a bitter taste filled her mouth. “Rhoane, we have to accept what happened at Gaarendahl and move on. Trust me, it isn’t easy, but we have no other choice.”
He breathed deep and his nostrils flared with suppressed anger. “You are right, of course.”
Taryn glanced over her shoulder at her sister and sadness washed over her. “It can’t be easy using so much Mari to hide the pregnancy. She still hasn’t told Mother.”
Rhoane stared at her as if she’d just told him she kept a vorlock for a pet. “You know? Did Marissa tell you?”
At last, Taryn understood why he left court. It wasn’t to leave her; it was to get away from Marissa’s schemes. “She told you the baby was yours, didn’t she?”
A look of confusion crossed his face and he nodded.
“Rhoane, she was pregnant at Gaarendahl. The baby can’t possibly be yours.” Marissa had tried to trap him into a life of agonizing guilt. Taryn wanted to hate Marissa, but could only pity her.
Anger coursed through Rhoane, so brutal it seared against their bonds. He gripped the balcony until his knuckles were as white as the twin moons. “She came to me after I returned from the vier and told me she carried our son. Baehlon warned me, but I still had faith there was some goodness in her. I made her swear an oath.”
“She’s chosen her path, Rhoane. You have to stop protecting her.” He nodded miserably and Taryn wrapped her arms around him. Her ShantiMari embraced them until his breathing calmed; his fingers no longer clung to the wall. His moss-green eyes, so listless and full of pain only a short time before, regarded her as if for the first time.
“You have unlocked your Dark Shanti—the trinity is near complete.” His lips quirked in the little half-smile that made her knees go weak. “It would seem we both have much to share about our adventures. I would especially like to know how it is you have a woodland faerie in your rooms and how he came to owe you a life debt.”
“You have your secrets. I have mine. All will be revealed in good time.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder, motioning to the ballroom. “Let’s go in there with our heads held high. No one determines our fate except us.”
Tessa intercepted them before they made it to the dance floor. Pale-faced and out of breath, she wheezed, “Have you seen Eliahnna?”
“Not since dinner. Why?” Tessa wasn’t prone to dramatics and an alarm went off in Taryn’s head.
“I can’t find her. She was sitting with me in the garden, and then I got up to get cake and she was gone. It isn’t like her to just leave like that so I went to her room because maybe she got tired. She wasn’t there, or in here, or anywhere. It’s as if she just vanished.”
“I’m sure she’s somewhere. Have you tried contacting her in here?” Taryn tapped her forehead.
“That’s just it—there’s nothing. No thought, no emotion, nothing. It’s like I said—she vanished.”
Taryn exchanged a glance with Rhoane. His voice was tight as he said, “Tessa, go tell your mother, calmly, to alert the guard that Eliahnna is missing. I am sure we will find her curled up with a book, but it is best to know. Taryn, you and I will gather our friends to look for her.”
“Then what do I do?” Tessa asked.
“Stay with your mother and enjoy the party. Do not tell anyone of our concern or where we have gone,” Rhoane said. “Now, go.”
They found Faelara with Baehlon and sent them looking through the lesser used rooms. The palace was vast, with more rooms than Taryn could count. Hayden and Sabina went to search the libraries while she and Rhoane returned to the garden, quietly asking guests whether they’d seen the princess. Several remembered her sitting at a table with Tessa. A few thought she left with the Lord of the Dark. When Taryn heard Valterys’s name, chills ran the length of her. “Rhoane, what if he kidnapped her?”
“We will keep asking. Perhaps they were mistaken.” When more party guests confirmed Eliahnna had left with Valterys, Taryn’s hopes sank.
“He’s taking her to Rykoto as a sacrifice,” Taryn told Rhoane.
“How can you be sure?” She told him about the scroll and he nodded. “All he needs is your sword and Rykoto will be released from his
prison.”
“I don’t think he’s trying to free Rykoto. Not yet. He needs something else and I don’t think he knows what it is.”
“Perhaps he found it and this is a way to lure you to the temple.”
“Either way, we must hurry or Eliahnna will die. You go tell Mother whatever you need so she doesn’t suspect anything. I’m going to get my sword.” She sped off, but he caught up with her.
“You cannot go there. Leave this to Baehlon and me. We can handle Valterys.”
“Not if Zakael is there. You need me, and Valterys needs my sword. That’s two reasons I get to go.”
“Taryn, think! If he has the last item and you take the sword, then he has all he needs to raise Rykoto.”
“I know what I’m doing. He won’t get the sword and Rykoto will stay imprisoned. Go find Baehlon. Bring Faelara as well. If he’s hurt Eliahnna, we’ll need her healing skills.”
Taryn left him staring after her as she raced to her rooms, calling out instructions to her maids while she hastily grabbed her sword. The moonstone Brandt gave her winked in the light. She placed it inside the bodice of her gown and told Gian she would be gone for a while, to stay in her rooms with Kaida. Darius offered to lend his sword, but she commanded him to stay with her maids. As a soldier in her guard, he had to obey. Without wasting time to change clothes, she ran down the stairs to where the others waited.
Sabina and Hayden offered to go as well, but Rhoane told them to remain at the palace and make excuses to the guests for their disappearance. Under no circumstance were they to let Lliandra or Marissa know what was happening. They hurried to the farthest terrace, away from the party where only a few torches were lit.
“How the hell do you expect us to get there in one night?” Baehlon asked.
Taryn shot a questioning look at Rhoane. Since their flight at the cavern, she’d wondered why he never shared he could shape shift, but it wasn’t the time to ask. “Baehlon, you go with Rhoane. Faelara, you’re with me. Don’t ask any questions—just get on.” She took a few steps backward and transformed into the silver dragon.
Faelara stared in wide-eyed wonder. “Oh, Taryn, you’re lovely.” She curtseyed near to the ground before climbing onto Taryn’s back, tucking her feet under the wings.
When Rhoane transformed, Baehlon swore under his breath but climbed on without another word. No one spoke as they flew toward the Temple of Ardyn. Taryn’s dragon mind ran through several advantages she had in keeping her form once they arrived, but she needed to confront Valterys as a woman or the balance of Aelinae would be shifted irrevocably. Not necessarily in a good way.
Chapter 44
TINY dots of light flickered from the temple, which meant she’d been right. Valterys sought to fulfill his plan of sacrificing blood of the Light to the Dark god. She only hoped she was also right that her being there wouldn’t be the key to releasing Rykoto.
Her talons had barely touched the ground when Faelara leapt off, urging them to hurry. With reluctance, Taryn shifted into her womanly form and yanked her sword from its scabbard while dashing up the stairs. The outer temple door creaked open as they entered and the group paused, waiting for discovery, but silence met them. They continued to the inner door and Faelara used her ShantiMari to slide it open soundlessly. One by one they crept into the cold temple and fanned along the outer wall.
Circular in shape, Taryn could see the entire area from where she hid behind a column. Eliahnna lay on a marble altar in the center of the room. Once white, it was now stained a sickening rust from past sacrifices.
It was an eerie repetition of nine months earlier when she’d found Sabina in a similar fashion, except this time she wasn’t dealing with half-witted underlings. The miscreants were her father and brother. She gripped the hilt of her sword until her knuckles turned white. What was with her family? Power hungry motherfuckers always ruining a good party.
Zakael patrolled the outer area, his ShantiMari swirling in a tempest around him. She could sense his lust for her. It wasn’t the sexual lust she’d come to expect, but a lust for her blood. Suddenly, she wished she’d taken the extra minutes to change into proper fighting gear.
With as little sound as possible, she tore her gown at the knees and stepped out of the fabric. A cold wind whipped up her bare legs and she cursed her father, brother, and the mad god who drove her here.
Rhoane motioned for her to approach from the other side of Valterys while Baehlon kept an eye on the front. Taryn covered herself and Faelara in shadows, then snuck around the back of the temple. When they were all in place, Rhoane signaled for Taryn to address her father.
Valterys stood with his hands above the unconscious Eliahnna, a knife held between them. Blood smeared his face and clothes, and Taryn prayed fervently that it wasn’t her sister’s. He muttered indistinguishable words in an archaic language that teased her memory.
The floor began to shift. Raised edges in the tiles formed a labyrinth of sorts that led to a hole about the size of a gold coin. Flames danced up from the tiles and Rykoto appeared. His fire eyes and blood-smeared lips were a terrifying sight—a face Taryn knew all too well.
She stepped out from behind the column, holding her sword aloft. “Aren’t you missing something, Father?”
Valterys paused in his chanting and the raised tiles slithered in a chaotic mess. Rykoto hissed when the flames lowered, his forked tongue slashing out of the fire. “Actually, you’re just in time,” Valterys said. The flames rose higher with his continued chanting.
Taryn tiptoed carefully around the tiles, avoiding the flames as she made her way to the altar. “Put the knife down.”
He raised the blade higher, chanting in a louder voice, “Two sacrifices for our god.”
Taryn edged close enough to touch Eliahnna’s neck. She could feel a faint pulse, but not much more.
“Your sister lives.” Valterys’s laughter echoed off the marble floor around the columns.
The sound of steel clashing against steel rang out and Valterys jerked his head to the side, listening.
“You didn’t think I would come alone, did you?” Taryn asked. She slipped around the altar to face Valterys. “And you honestly can’t believe I’m going to let you hurt Eliahnna.”
She swung her sword high, catching him in the shoulder. Valterys staggered back, gripping the wound. “I’m not armed!” He held the dagger out toward her. “You can’t consider this a weapon.”
With his attention distracted, the flames vanished with a lingering cry from Rykoto. Taryn lunged at Valterys, aiming for his legs, then his torso. He spun around, jumping into the air away from her. His movements were too quick to follow.
When she turned to find him, a fireball flew toward her. She sliced through it and dodged several more before she was able to pinpoint her father. She ran to where she saw a faint outline of his ShantiMari and sliced through his power, revealing him as he hid behind a column.
Faelara, see to Eliahnna. Get her out of here.
In his hands, Valterys held a heavy sword. When Ynyd Eirathnacht met it in the air, an electrifying jolt sizzled down her arm. “Now who’s not playing fair? Using a Black weapon against me? For shame, Father.”
He met her blows, striking at her again and again with his long sword. He would cut at her before leaping away, flying up to the ceiling or across the floor. She studied his movements, trying to anticipate his next move, but he surprised her each time.
Behind her, Baehlon and Rhoane fought Zakael, their ShantiMari spinning around the room as they fought with swords and power. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Faelara take Eliahnna out of the temple. With her sister safe, Taryn fixed her attention on Valterys.
He crouched on a balcony near the top of the temple with shadows pulled over him. Taryn cloaked herself in darkness and focused on a spot just to his right. In an instant, she was beside him. “Nice view. It looks so much prettier from up here, don’t you think?” As she’d hoped, he dropped his cover.
/> “Someone’s been teaching you to use Dark Shanti, I see.” He looked to where her voice had come. “Was it Anje? My cousin always was getting in my way. Such a shame his boy lived.” He sliced randomly with his sword.
“Missed me,” she said from right behind him.
He spun around, cutting the air with wild strokes. His eyes were flecks of steel set deep in his hardened face. “You can’t win, Taryn. You should have stayed with me at Caer Idris.”
“Why? So you could feed me to your lunatic god?” She danced away from him and met his attack with her sword. “No, thank you.”
“I wasn’t going to let him have all of you. Just a taste of your blood, nothing more.” Valterys cocked his head as if listening for her footfalls, but her slippers made no sound on the balcony’s marble floor.
A section of the temple exploded, rocking them backward. Rhoane roared a curse and his ShantiMari shot upward, through the torn ceiling. Zakael’s laughter taunted the Eleri and then abruptly stopped.
Concern flicked across her father’s face and jealousy warred with her anger. It was juvenile, really, to covet her father’s love. Like Lliandra, Valterys saw her as a means to an end, not a daughter. A weapon for the mother, a sacrifice for the father. Her little-girl fairytale was that someday they might love her for who she was and not what she could do for them. Facing Valterys now, she burned any remnants of the storybook family she craved. It was never going to happen.
She threw off her cloak of shadows and assailed him with a vengeance. He met every thrust and parry with a strike of his own. Valterys raved, his ire cracking the balcony. Taryn lost her footing and fell hard on the temple floor while he floated in the air high above, laughing at his daughter.
Shoulder throbbing, ears ringing, she leapt back up into the air toward him. His look of surprise flitted across his face only a moment—he had gravely underestimated her. Like everyone else.
The Temple of Ardyn (Song of the Swords Book 2) Page 38