The Temple of Sacrifice

by Tameri Etherton

  When Rhoane arrived at the palace gatehouse, he put a finger to his lips. “My return is a surprise for the princess. Please do not tell the empress or any of the others, lest they ruin it.”

  The guard grinned at him. “’Tis a happy night for Her Highness. She’ll be most glad to share it with you.”

  Music drifted from the garden, indicating the party had started. He raced to his rooms, startling Alasdair with his entry. As he prepared for the grand ball, his valet brought him up to date on everything that happened since his departure, including the clandestine meetings Taryn and the others had.

  At the mention of the woodland faerie, Alasdair’s lips tightened to a hard line. The lad avoided Alasdair, for reasons he couldn’t understand. Rhoane could guess at the reasoning but withheld his opinion until he could discuss the matter with Taryn. That she’d brought a faerie to Talaith was alarming in and of itself.

  Rhoane settled his nerves with a shot of dreem. He fidgeted with the tops of his Eleri boots, folding them over the tight leather pants he wore, then pressing them against his thigh only to fold them once more. When he’d worried his boots enough, he fumbled with the collar of his silk court tunic, plucking at an invisible thread. The clothing felt strange to him, soft and too fine. He’d worn spun wool and rough cotton garments to authenticate his disguise, but the truth be told, he was happy to be rid of them.

  “She will not care what you wear, my lord,” Alasdair’s lyrical voice said from behind him. “For she will not be looking at your clothing, but into your heart.”

  “It has been many moonturns since we have seen each other. I fear she has forgotten my face. Tell me true, how does she fare?”

  Alasdair was tall for a woodland faerie, matching Taryn’s height. He straightened his shoulders with a toss of his long black hair. “She takes up the sword each day and trains like a true Eleri warrior. Yet her heart is missing a crucial element. I am afraid she fades, my lord.”

  “No,” Rhoane insisted. “She is not one to fade. I will not allow it.”

  Taryn wasn’t in her rooms as he’d hoped. Their reunion was meant to be private, but he’d been delayed and the stop at Nena’s further prolonged his return. Ellie’s behavior intrigued him and when she refused to let him into the apartment, his suspicions were aroused that Taryn had found a new lover to replace him.

  This thought, above all, tormented him the most. He knew it was based on fear with no validity, but Ellie’s actions caused him no small amount of alarm.

  “Let him in, you fool,” Lorilee ordered from the sitting room.

  Ellie opened the door, her eyes downcast.

  “Surely there is no reason I am not welcome here?”

  She gasped and shook her head. “No, my lord. It’s just—” Her gaze traveled to the couch, where Saeko sat with a boy huddled in her arms.

  From what Rhoane could see, his entire body trembled. “Who is this?” he asked as he knelt in front of the lad. “I am Rhoane. Are you a friend of Taryn’s?”

  The lad unfolded himself from the maid’s protective arms and bowed with one leg extended, his left arm out to the side. He was Taryn’s woodland faerie, not a boy at all.

  “What is your name?”

  “His name’s Gian, but he doesn’t speak, Your Highness.” Lorilee’s fingers flew in rapid movements and Gian nodded, pointing to Rhoane. “He says he is pleased to meet the beloved of his savior.”

  Rhoane stretched his thoughts and touched the lad’s mind as was tradition. What he glimpsed in that moment of connection was enough to assure Gian no harm would come to him.

  He hastily put up wards and warnings around Taryn’s rooms, the whole time telling Gian he was safe. The fact Zakael and Valterys were so near caused the faerie massive anxiety. Kaida snuggled beside Gian, laying her head in his lap, a comforting protection Rhoane couldn’t give.

  Gian’s presence unsettled Rhoane. Not because he was a handsome young man staying with his betrothed, but he wondered again what sort of hell Taryn must’ve been through in his absence. The sheer horror Gian shared in his thoughts sickened and disgusted Rhoane. If Lliandra had known what this young man had suffered at the hands of her past lovers, surely she’d not let them in the palace doors. But, of course she would. Politics always came first for the empress.

  His heart thrummed against his chest as he made his way down the stairs to the garden. It had been too long since he’d seen his betrothed. Their last parting was melancholy, to say the least. He approached the open doors that led to the lower garden, catching sight of Taryn. A swell of urgency caught him off guard. He leaned against a wall until his breathing calmed and his ears no longer pounded with the sound of his rushing blood.

  All thought of what he’d say faded when he saw her face. Even lovelier than he remembered, she stood facing him, but was looking at someone to her left. Sabina and Hayden hovered close on either side of her, the Summerlands princess a dark contrast to the delicate beauty of his love. Candlelight danced along her silvery hair, catching in the crown that rested on her head. The diamonds shone like sunbursts in a field of stars. Tiny rays of light reflected off the gems woven into her white gown. She looked every inch the goddess she would one day become.

  He opened himself to her and the emotions cascaded around him. Her outward controlled composure hid an undercurrent of anxiety. She laughed at what the gentleman next to her said, but was not truly listening. Her mind was distracted by thoughts of her missing betrothed. She mistook his absence as abandonment.

  Guilt cut through him as surely as if it were an assassin’s blade. He thought he was helping by leaving Talaith and yet his departure had broken her spirit nearly as thoroughly as his had been.

  She turned and for one terrible moment, he saw her heartbreak etched clearly in her features. Her eyes, once so beautiful and blue and vibrant, were dull in her pale face. Even her Glamour was muted beneath her skin. Her gaze fixed on him with a questioning look crossing her features, as if she thought she saw a figment of her own making.

  Then her smile, shy and unsure, beckoned him forth.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Taryn couldn’t believe what she saw. Rhoane stood in the doorway, leaning casually against a wall, watching her with a puzzled look. Sound evaporated and nothing existed except Rhoane.

  He took a few steps toward her, then faltered. His brow pinched, a pained expression crossing his face, questioning. She moved and with that slight step, his body rocked forward. Then he was there, standing before her.

  Words and thought deserted her. Even her body seemed to be on the brink of shutting down. Nothing worked the way it should. Her legs wobbled as if made of jelly. Her hands stayed limp at her sides. She’d thought of this moment since she left the vier. Now that it had arrived, she found herself quite unprepared.

  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 t
hey 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 answers, 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’ 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 Forty-Four

  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.