"Why do you care?" Sohne's elegant eyebrow arched. "I'm making a difficult decision easy for you, taking care of one of your problems." She flicked an invisible piece of lint off her dress. "You're welcome."
"I don't understand. Of all the things you could ask for, why this?"
"There is a special place in my heart for those who threaten Charra-Rae. There is an art to my vengeance; it's my calling card, let's say. Jaclyn will lose everything, and it will be a direct result of being handed over to her enemy by the very daughter she rejected. Nothing hurts more than regret, and she'll feel plenty of that, believe me. In fact, she is feeling it even now, before she yet knows the true punchline."
"How long have you been planning this?"
"Since the day you unwittingly stumbled into my forest."
Jordan sank into a chair that sat against the wall between two of the balconies. Her knees were shaking. She found it hard to label the feelings bubbling up inside her, there were so many of them: humiliation at being tricked into making a decision that went against her will, revulsion at the intentions Sohne had for Jaclyn.
The gnashwits had inspired horror and pity in her when she'd been in Charra-Rae. It was a fate she'd thought no one could possibly deserve.
Jordan's eyes lifted to the redheaded Elf. She couldn't look at Sohne without thinking of Eohne. A white-hot anger laced through her. "I've never met anyone more manipulative and controlling than you. I think you might even be worse than Jaclyn."
Sohne's eyes widened before she wrested her surprise under control. "I really thought you'd be happy about this, Jordan."
"It's worse than a death sentence."
A glimmer of concern passed over Sohne's face and was gone, her stoic expression fixed back into place. "Are we going to have a problem?"
"Yes." Jordan got to her feet. "This isn't going to happen your way."
Sohne's perfect pale brow wrinkled. "You're willing to die for that woman?"
Jordan's lips pressed together. "No. I'm willing to let you take her. But you have to give me something in return."
Sohne laughed with genuine surprise. "You have no cards to play, no leverage at all. What are you talking about?"
"Eohne."
The smile disappeared. Understanding dawned slowly, like moonlight crossing a moor. "You fool."
Jordan bit back a cry of pain when the markings on her hand began to burn. Some invisible hand was trailing a white-hot poker along the glyphs written on her palm. The burning sensation began to travel slowly up her arm, following the trail of marks and migrating to her wrist. A light drew Jordan's eyes down, and she saw with horror that the glyphs were smoldering like there was fire beneath the surface of her skin. The heat and pain of it made sweat spring out on her forehead.
"The Unbreakable Promise cannot be broken, Jordan." Sohne's face was impassive. "You have only moments before it reaches your heart."
A low moan leaked from Jordan's throat. She began to pant against the pain. "Let Eohne go, and you can take Jaclyn." Jordan knew Sohne didn't want her to die. She was the Heir Apparent and soon-to-be Strix Queen. Killing her would make war between Charra-Rae and Rodania. If she had to hand Jaclyn over to Sohne, she was determined to get something out of it. Jordan cried out in spite of herself. The burning sensation deepened, scorching Jordan to the bone of her forearm. The red light igniting her flesh began to brighten, and a sizzling sound reached her ears. Tendrils of smoke drifted toward the ceiling. Jordan clenched her teeth against a scream.
"Stop this now," Sohne snapped. "I cannot halt the Promise from doing its work. The magic is beyond even me."
"Don't stop it," Jordan said through clenched teeth. The white-hot agony had reached her elbow and was blazing its way up towards her armpit. It felt like her arm was filled with red-hot lava. Sweat dripped down the side of her face. A deep moan vibrated in the back of Jordan's throat of its own accord. She panted the words, "Just release Eohne. It's all you have to do." Jordan's body began to quake, and she thought that her knees might give way.
Sohne's expression had gone from uncertain to profoundly disturbed.
Jordan lifted a shaking right hand and pointed with her trembling finger at where the fire was crawling toward her heart. The glyphs were blazing with red light, smoke trailing as the magic moved.
Sohne's crossed arms dropped and her face lost all its color.
"Give Eohne her freedom." Jordan's heart hammered, and her entire arm was buried in a bed of hot coals. "Give her the right to visit Charra-Rae, come and go as she pleases."
Jordan let out her first real wail of pain and crumbled to the floor ,where she rolled onto her back, her wings spreading out and spasming with the agony of the Promise. Sweat soaked her hair and her brow and trickled over her scalp. She opened her eyes and tried to focus on Sohne. The Elf looked blurry.
"Free Eohne, or it’s war with Rodania." She bared her teeth in a grimace of pain, her back arching as she screamed out again. "Decide! Now!"
Sohne bellowed and went to her knees on the floor beside Jordan. "You treacherous Arpak! Eohne will be free! Say the words! SAY THEM!" The Elf was screaming in terror, watching the red light as it burned its way toward Jordan's heart.
"You can…" Jordan panted and squirmed across the floor, as the fire penetrated her left armpit and lit up her arteries and veins like nitroglycerine. "…take Jaclyn!"
She said the final words on a moaning exhale, as the fire was mere centimeters from her sprinting heart.
The effect was immediate.
The moment the words passed Jordan's lips, the pain stopped. Jordan's body slumped flat against the cool hardwood floor. Her chest heaved, and her heart was riding hard behind her ribs. She lifted her trembling left arm and looked at it.
Where there had once been Elven glyphs, there were now scars. They had the texture of melted skin, hairless and shiny, marks that only fire could leave behind. White and puckered, they looked years old, rather than seconds. The landscape of her arm had been forever changed.
Jordan looked at Sohne, who was still on her knees beside her. Her face was a mask of shock and violence. She too was panting. Jordan had never seen the Elf look so discomposed and confounded. Sohne had not been able to foresee this outcome; she was not in control, and she hated it.
Arpak eyes met Elven ones, flint striking against stone.
Sohne let out a long, predatory hiss of frustration and got to her feet. Jordan got up more slowly, flexing and shaking her left arm to make sure it was fully functional. She got her feet under her and folded her wings back neatly into place, her eyes on the infuriated Elf.
Jordan gave Sohne a smug smile. "Good call."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The sounds of laughter and conversation filled the dining room. A floor below Jordan and Sol's bedroom in the palace were the private living quarters of the reigning monarch. Jordan had arranged for a dinner and invited all her beloved people to see her new home and eat there with her and Sol.
Sol, Eohne, Allan, Arth, Toth, Tashi, Mareya, Linlett, Shad, Eade and Ashley sat around the table, reliving the past week's events. Their meal had come and gone, and the dessert of pink plums with a buttery custard was nearly finished.
Jordan watched Toth and Tashi as the girl sat on Toth's knee and tried pink plums for the first time. Jordan had never seen Toth so attentive to anyone the way he was with the little orphan he'd found at Golpa. Even Arth had made a comment that her glacier of a brother was beginning to drip a little as Tashi melted him. Toth would only smile a little sheepishly at the comments and return his attention to the girl.
"Look at them," Sol leaned over and whispered to Jordan. "He looks so…"
"Happy?" Jordan supplied. "Yeah, or at least like he knows he'll be happy again soon."
Sol nodded and kissed Jordan's cheek. "And you? Are you happy?"
Jordan turned and put a hand on Sol's face. "Who knew that fateful day when you crash-landed in my tree that it would lead to all of this? I'm overw
helmed."
"Any regrets?"
"I just wish King Konig could have stayed alive long enough for me—–" Jordan nodded toward Ashley where her twin was deep in conversation with Arth, "us, to get to know him."
"Of course. At least everything he did as king was recorded; it's in the public record. You can access it anytime you want."
Jordan nodded. "And I will." She took a sip of wine. "My first order of business will be filling the empty seats of the Council." Her eyes drifted back to Toth. "Speaking of which, I'll be right back." She kissed Sol on the lips and got up, dragging her chair over to where Toth sat.
"Do you like it?" Jordan asked Tashi, who had pink plum juice running down her chin.
Tashi nodded and licked her lips. She picked up her bowl and tilted it into her mouth, slurping up the remaining plum sauce and custard.
"I have something to ask you," Jordan said to Toth. "You don't have to answer now, but I hope you'll take some time to think about it."
Toth eyed Jordan with a crooked smile. "I think I know what you're about to ask."
"You do?"
"You want to offer me a place on the Council."
Jordan nodded, brightening. "You'd make a wonderful Councilman! You're the first person I thought of, and the best choice for Rodania."
"No, I'm not, Jordan."
Jordan's smile melted away. "You're not?"
"I appreciate the offer, really I do. I'm flattered. But I'm not a politician. My goal was always to get Nychts a place at the table, not to be at the table myself. I'm a mercenary, always have been. And—–" Toth paused.
"What?"
"And I already find myself in a far more important role." Toth gazed at Tashi as she licked her spoon clean. "That of a father."
Jordan suddenly found it hard to speak around the lump in her throat.
"Thank you for asking me, it means the world," Toth went on. "But I have plans to leave Rodania shortly."
"Leave?" Jordan felt as though he'd knocked the wind out of her. After fighting so hard and losing so much for his country, he’s planning to leave? Jordan swallowed down her disappointment. Rodania without Toth just didn't seem right to her. "I wasn't expecting that. Where would you go?"
Tashi set her spoon in her empty bowl and squirmed down from Toth's lap. She wandered in the direction of a large crystal sculpture of Rodania, the two upper tiers floating as if by magic, and the middle one slowly rotating, mimicking real life.
"I found Tashi in Golpa. I don't know where she's from or which people she belongs to. We know she's an Ashling, and that her father was killed. But she must have more people than him. She hasn't shown me anything about her family or where she's from yet, but I'm hoping she will. I feel duty bound to find them. For her sake. Don't you think I owe her at least that much?"
Jordan was full of conflicted emotions, but she could set aside her own heartache at the idea of Toth leaving to see that, for him, there was no other option.
Jordan nodded. "We all owe her. That little Ashling saved our lives."
Toth nodded, smiling as he watched Tashi run a hand through the air underneath the crystal rendering of Upper Rodania. "She certainly saved mine."
***
On her way around the table back to Sol, Jordan passed by Allan and Linlett, who had their heads bent together and looked to be chatting about something serious.
"What are you two gentlemen plotting?" Jordan asked, putting a hand on each of their shoulders.
Allan looked up, brightening. "Linlett has been helping me think through what to do with our holdings back on Earth." He patted her hand. "We've been awfully distracted with what's been going on here, of course. But I will have to go back and deal with all that, and the sooner the better."
Jordan nodded. "I know. You’re right. We shouldn't leave it any longer."
"I was thinking…" Allan's forehead furrowed. "What would you think of passing the deed to our plantation over to Cal and his wife? They've looked after that place since you were a baby; I figure no one deserves it more than they do. They could live in it or sell it—–either way, they'd be set for life."
A look of pleasure crossed Jordan's face. "I love that idea!"
"Good." Allan cleared his throat. "I was also thinking that we need to make a statement, letting our acquaintances and the authorities know that we're okay."
Jordan noticed his deliberate use of the word 'acquaintances'. This struck her momentarily. She might have used the word 'friends' in this case, but looking back at the relationships she'd had on Earth, and comparing them to the relationships she had here in Oriceran—–with the people in the dining room, and others she'd come to know and love while training or fighting alongside them——her previous relationships paled.
Being affluent, in the public eye, and with her father in politics, Jordan had met people easily. There were no shortage of people who wanted to be her friend. The challenge lay in finding those she could trust. Showing vulnerability in the circles they had been in wasn't an option. Jordan was painfully aware that anything she said, even by accident, could be used to put her father into a negative light.
On Oriceran, she'd been vulnerable from the start. She'd learned what it really felt like to need someone, to need them and trust them.
There was no one she'd missed so much from home that made her feel the need to go back. What her father was suggesting seemed like the right thing to do.
"What would you want to say? How would you want to do it?" Linlett asked, his face ruminant.
"I think a handwritten letter, including fingerprints from both Jordan and me to help prove its authenticity, might be enough. We will explain that we are safe, that there is no one to blame, but that we've decided to go traveling for the long-term. Then we’ll put all of our wealth into a twenty-year trust. We can decide what to do with it as it’s needed. Give it to charity, or bring it over in the form of gold and put it to work for Rodanians."
"You think they would believe the letter to be real?" Jordan chewed her lip doubtfully. "What if they think we've been kidnapped and the kidnapper forced us to write the letter? They might link it to Cal, since he'd be the one benefiting from the gift of the house."
"I would send a letter to my lawyer and move the house into a trust. Cal would continue on as the groundskeeper according to my wishes. That bit we can make public," Allan added as a side thought. "Once the whole matter has blown over, the lawyer would release the deed to Cal and Mary in private. No one would need to know they’re the new legal owners."
"Might work," said Jordan finally. "Let's try and look at all the things that could go wrong for Cal, though, before we do anything. I would want to be really sure that nothing we did could get him into hot water, especially after all he's done for us."
Allan nodded. "You're right, of course. We'll do that." He patted her hand.
"I wouldn't worry," said Linlett. "I'm happy to contribute magic, both for traveling back and forth as often as required to get the job done, and also to help ease the situation on Earth. Because the gates between Oriceran and Earth are waxing open right now, magic endures for longer there than it has for more than twenty-five thousand years. If there was ever a good time to do this, it's now."
"Thank you, Linlett," Jordan and Allan spoke in tandem.
"My pleasure," the Light Elf said, his tone lyrical.
"Do you have plans to return to your home soon, Linlett? Now that the border situation has been resolved?"
Linlett's eyes flicked to Eohne, and he looked hesitant. "I'm still… trying to figure that out. I should say 'we', if I'm truthful. Eohne and I have been discussing a more… permanent partnership. We've so enjoyed working together."
"Well, I also have something for you to consider," Jordan said, speaking on inspiration. "I'm looking for a non-Strix representative for the new Council; someone who can give insight on behalf of our wingless residents. I think life here could be vastly improved for them. I'm also looking for a Light Elf to sit on Co
uncil, I feel like it would be excellent to have a liaison with our most powerful allies here in Rodania. If you'd take a place at the table, it would be killing two birds with one stone." And all the better if it means Eohne spends more time in Rodania, Jordan added to herself.
Linlett laughed, and the sound sent a pleasant vibration through Jordan. "I have a feeling I know what you're doing." He grinned at Jordan and winked at Eohne as she looked over at them from where she sat chatting with Sol. Her cheeks flushed pink and she cocked her head with curiosity. "I promise I’ll think about it," said Linlett, "Your Majesty."
***
Jordan spied Mareya ducking out onto the balcony, a wine glass in her hand. With all the bodies in the room, stomachs full and drinks being nursed, the room had grown stuffy. Jordan grabbed her own glass and followed her nanny-of-times-past outside.
"I was hoping I'd have a chance to catch you alone," Jordan went to stand by Mareya at the railing.
Mareya set her glass on the marble banister and opened her arms to Jordan, who stepped into them for a hug. The women squeezed one another, and the familiar smell of her nanny made Jordan's eyes tingle at the corners and her nose threaten to run.
"You'll always be ‘Maria’ to me," sniffed Jordan, stepping back and smiling at her nanny. She wiped at her eyes.
Mareya's teeth caught the moonlight, gleaming as she smiled. "I don't have a problem with that. It helped me, that name."
"It did?" Jordan turned and set her back against the railing.
Mareya leaned her elbows on the marble and gazed down at the glittering lights of Rodania, far below them. "It was difficult, you know. Leaving for such a long time. No wings, no identity there on Earth. Not knowing anyone. Not really understanding the culture or way of life when I first arrived. Not seeing my husband except a few weeks out of the year."
Jordan nodded. "I can only imagine. And you managed to have a son somewhere along the way."
Transcendent: The Revelations of Oriceran (The Kacy Chronicles Book 4) Page 23