by P. C. Cast
I thought it would be like diving off a cliff, but I was wrong. It was gentler, softer. More like riding an elevator down from the top of a skyscraper. I felt myself settle, and I knew I was back.
I didn’t open my eyes right away. First I wanted to concentrate—to savor each returning sensation. I felt that I was lying on something hard and cool. I drew in a deep breath and was surprised to smell the cedar tree that used to be on the corner down from my mom’s house in Broken Arrow. I only heard the soft murmuring of whispered voices at first, but after just a few breaths that changed with Aphrodite’s shout of “Oh, for shit’s sake, open your eyes! I know you’re in there!”
I did open my eyes then. “Jeesh, are you from a trailer? Do you have to be so loud?”
“Trailer? Look, you’re not supposed to be cussing, and that’s definitely a nasty word to me,” Aphrodite said. Then she smiled and laughed and pulled me into a super hard hug that I was sure she’d deny ever doing later. “You’re really back? And you’re not, like, brain-damaged or anything?”
“I am!” I laughed. “And I’m no more brain-damaged than I was when I left.”
Over her shoulder Darius appeared. His eyes were suspiciously shiny as he fisted a hand over his heart and bowed to me. “Welcome back, High Priestess.”
“Thanks, Darius.” I grinned at him and held out my hand so he could help me stand. I had weird jelly legs, so I kept hold of him as the room rolled and pitched around me.
“She needs food and drink,” said a super in-charge-like voice.
“Right away, Majesty,” came the immediate response.
I finally blinked the dizziness clear, so that I could see. “Wow, a throne! Seriously?”
The beautiful woman sitting on the carved marble throne smiled at me. “Welcome back, young queen,” she said.
“Young queen,” I repeated, half-laughing. But as my eyes traveled around the room, my laughter dissolved, and the throne, the cool room, and questions of queendom utterly evaporated.
Stark was there. He was lying on a huge stone. There was a vampyre Warrior standing at his head, and the guy was holding a razor-sharp dagger above Stark’s chest, which was already bloody and covered with knife slashes.
“No! Stop it!” I cried. I pulled away from Darius and started to lunge toward the vamp.
More quickly than she should have been able to move, the queen was suddenly standing between the Warrior and me. She put a hand on my shoulder and spoke one question softly to me. “What did Stark tell you?”
I shook myself mentally, trying to think beyond the bloody sight of my Warrior, my Guardian.
My Guardian . . .
I looked at the queen. “That’s how Stark got to the Otherworld. That Warrior. He’s really helping him.”
“My Guardian,” the queen corrected me. “Yes, he is helping Stark. But now his quest is complete. It is your responsibility as his queen to bring him back.”
I opened my mouth to ask her how, but closed it before I spoke. I didn’t have to ask her. I knew. And it was my responsibility to help my Guardian return.
She must have seen it in my eyes, because the queen bowed her head, ever so slightly, and then stepped aside.
I walked over to the man she’d called her Guardian. Sweat slicked his muscular chest. He was completely focused on Stark. It seemed he didn’t see or hear anyone else in the room. As he lifted the knife, obviously getting ready to make another cut, the torchlight glinted off a golden bracelet that was fashioned to twist around his wrist. I understood then where the golden thread that had led Stark to me had come from, and I felt a rush of warmth for the queen’s Guardian. I touched his wrist gently, beside the piece of gold, and said, “Guardian, you can stop now. It’s time for him to come back.”
His hand stopped instantly. A tremor went through the Guardian’s body. When he looked at me, I saw that the pupils of his blue eyes were fully dilated.
“You can stop now,” I repeated gently. “And thank you for helping Stark get to me.”
He blinked, and his eyes cleared. His voice was gravelly, and I almost smiled when I recognized the Scottish accent Stark had mimicked for me. “Aye, wumman . . . as yie wish.” He staggered back. I knew that the queen had taken him in her arms, and I could hear her murmuring things to him. I knew other Warriors were in the room, too, and I could feel Aphrodite and Darius watching me—but I ignored them all.
To me, Stark was the only person in the room. The only thing that mattered.
I went to him where he was lying on the stone in his pooling blood. This time the scent of it came to me, and it did affect me. Sweet and heady, it made my mouth water. But it had to stop. Now was not the time for my head to be messed up by Stark’s blood and the desire that lingered in me for it.
I lifted my hand. “Water, come to me.” When the soft dampness of the element surrounded me, I waved my hand over Stark’s bloody body. “Wash this from him.” The element did as I asked, raining gently on him. I watched it clean the blood from his chest, pour over the stone, follow the intricate knotwork all down the sides of the huge boulder and fill the two grooves that cut into the floor on either side of it. Horns, I realized. They remind me of super big horns.
Weirdly enough, when the blood was all washed away, the grooves weren’t white like the rest of the floor. Instead, they shimmered a beautiful, mystical black, reminding me of the night sky.
But I didn’t take time to wonder at the magic I felt there. I went to Stark. His body was clean now. The wounds weren’t bleeding anymore, but they were raw and red. And then I realized what I was seeing and I drew in a deep breath. On each side of Stark’s chest the slash work formed arrows, complete with feathers and pointed, triangular tips. They made a perfect balance to the burned broken arrow over his heart.
I put my hand out then and rested it on top of that scar, the one from the time he’d saved my life—the first time he’d saved my life. I was surprised to find that I still clutched the golden thread. Gently, I lifted Stark’s wrist and wrapped the thread of gold around there. The silky length hardened, twisted, and closed, looking much like the old Guardian’s, except on Stark’s bracelet I could see caved images of three arrows—one of them broken.
“Thank you, Goddess,” I whispered. “Thank you for everything.”
Then I placed my hand over Stark’s heart and leaned down. Just before I pressed my lips to his, I said, “Come back to your queen, Guardian. It’s all over now.” Then I kissed him.
As his eyelids fluttered and opened, I heard Nyx’s musical laughter fill my mind, and her voice saying:
No, daughter, it’s not all over. It’s just beginning . . .
FB2 document info
Document ID: aedcebb4-4b69-4208-92c5-5ba90dfaeb5f
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 29 April 2010
Created using: FB Editor v2.2 software
Document authors :
Bakoro
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
-ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share