Last of the Temple Line

by Nicole Bedford

  "What has father to say of the specters?" Dalaric interrogated his mother, making use of the word Jaela had given to the creatures in her accounting before the meal. A Liindre woman would know all about the foulness that could come from twisted mana.

  Meghara frowned from her seat. Dalaric sat at the head of the table. Bannon and his wife sat on the side opposite her while the mercenary, Jaela, claimed the other end. Aegwin sat next to Meghara. Still exhausted from the Rite, Caelwin slumbered in his rooms. Loren had set out a feast to tempt his lord to eat his fill in the great hall.

  She answered, "He will be here tomorrow and requested that we wait to make a move for his return. Varian believes the disease is not a true sickness. The darkness of death-born mana is not meant for living flesh. The specters are infecting living mana with their taint. As they kill, their ability to murder more humans with their touch will gain strength."

  Dalaric watched Jaela's face. Her eyes flickered. "How certain is he of this information?"

  "Hofei had been visiting ancient and abandoned settlements in the south. In some scrolls there he had discovered a mention of the specters, though they called them ammatas. He was the one to contact your father months ago. That was why Varian had traveled to the towns of the east. He was trying to trap one of the creatures to see if his theory had any truth to it."

  Hofei? Dalaric watched his mother for any sign of discomfort. The blue dragon had once been his father's choice for second. The one his mother had refused. "Were they successful?"

  "No. All they learned was that Akkadian blood could not be infected by the spread of their blight. It can hurt them temporarily, as you already know. But that is all."

  Dalaric looked out the window that ran the length of the room they currently occupied. "She was not killed. Emersyn," he clarified for his mother. "She was touched by them. By all rights she should have been killed before I made it back to the palace with her. Neither witch nor sage has been spared in any of the villages visited by the women and their blight without expending mana to drive the darkness away though they knew not what they fought. Emersyn’s was bound. Why was she spared?"

  "I do not know," Meghara said. She sighed. "You know I detest their ramblings, but perhaps it is time to visit the seers."

  "You believe they hold knowledge of these events?"

  "I know not to trust their advice. But sometimes they have something important to reveal. We do not have many other options, do we?"

  Dalaric reluctantly agreed.

  "You will have to bring your Sydae-Va with you," Meghara ordered.

  He tasted smoke. His mother grimaced with distaste but continued, "I know it is regrettable, considering their old appetites, but if they are to be asked about the woman, she will need to be present in order for them to know of whom you speak."

  Dalaric cursed. Meghara almost pitied him the night to come. Almost.

  Aegwin chewed and swallowed a large piece of wild boar before asking, "Will you still call the other clans to the palace?"

  "Caelwin needs to be presented," Meghara answered before Dalaric could. She knew her contrary son would use any excuse to avoid those that tested his temper. Unfortunately, that included most everyone not currently in residence at the palace and some that were. "And there is a mate that needs to be revealed to grant her circumstance with the most powerful clans as well or they will assume her an embarrassment when they do find out about her."

  Dalaric's eyes narrowed on his mother. She arched a brow. She was right and she knew it.

  Jaela sneered, "Will it matter to them either way? To the exalted bloods you will call to descend upon Emersyn to judge her worth? They will never accept a human amongst them."

  Aegwin calmly claimed the last piece of sweet bread from the center of the table. "They did not want to accept Dalaric's decision to take me as his second, either, without his first taking a mate yet here I am. She will be a scandalous but useful curiosity. If for nothing other than that, they will greet her."

  Sarah glanced up from her untouched plate of food. "I don't understand," she said, glancing over the wood to meet Meghara's eyes. "How did this happen? Emersyn is a witch. And I understand what she means to your family since she was marked, too. Has this happened before?"

  "No," Dalaric tersely replied. "She is the first one not of our blood to be claimed."

  Aegwin huffed at the wide eyes of the human female, Sarah. He scented Bannon upon her and the little whelp that was currently hidden behind the sling across her chest. Of yellow hair and blue eyes, she looked much the same as every other human. He wondered what was in mana wine to induce Akkadian un-blooded to breed with them. Emersyn was an anomaly in many ways. He had met many human females in the past through his dealing with Wulfram and the clans that took them as servants. There were many in Tranton as well. None had ever caught his eye. Then again, honesty demanded he admit, neither had an Akkadian female.

  "What Dalaric means to say," Aegwin elaborated for the benefit of those Emersyn called sister, "is that according to our memory and the records, the temple witch line were either coldly accepting of their fate until they expired from the Rite or were disinclined to accept it entirely. Neither are attractive features in a mate." He shrugged. "Neither were we drawn to them. Emersyn possessed a rather intriguing draw from the moment I met her. Something I could not name."

  Bannon’s scowl aged him a decade. "What makes her different from any other woman?"

  Jaela grimaced. Then she sighed. Anger would serve no purpose. Her foot still twinged when she stepped hard and she had needed the ice the servant had given her to control the swelling in her wrist. Despite her training she had been powerless against the female. Emersyn needed protection. Though it galled her to admit it, these Akkadians had already proven better adept at it than herself.

  She watched the long-haired Akkadian male, Aegwin, while he continued to calmly stuff himself as if he were not seated at a table with humans. There was an unknown enemy hunting her sister. Who was she to continue to rail against the ones Emersyn was now permanently tied to? She took a deep breath then shared, "She was able to dismiss the darkness of my dagger."

  Meghara regarded the human from hooded eyes. "The darkness?" she coolly inquired.

  Jaela leveled an equally frigid look on the female. Just because she was going to cooperate did not mean she would be cowed. "When I broke with Liindre and was sent from the walls, it was a death sentence. Emersyn saved me by forcing the shadows from my veins. I have not needed her touch since. Something within her mana prevented Wraith from ever threatening my blood again."

  Curious, Aegwin thought. He knew of Liindre, but given they dealt in death and he was more concerned with life, he had never given them more than a brief moment of consideration. He asked, "How are they made? The daggers of Liindre."

  Jaela shrugged. "Other than the knowledge that they are made of Akkadian bones, we are not told. Neither are we taught how the oils are crafted that hold the darkness away from our skin. As a child I was instructed to select one that called to me and claimed it with a name."

  Meghara lifted the glass of red wine to her lips and took a small sip. Loren had remembered her tastes. The burn of alcohol was faint. She detested the sort her son favored. All fire and no sweetness to temper it. "The Ki remaining within the bones is warped with dark mana. The unholy combination of Ki and mana opens a doorway to the endless halls crafted from the shadows that rest between light and dark. We had not known such to exist until the fall of your false goddess to Akkadian justice. Varian believes she was the one responsible for creating the pathways that you mercenaries seemingly disappear into."

  "And is Emersyn now the unholy product of Ki and mana?" Bannon challenged Dalaric. "Is that why the things you described are coming after her? Because you could not keep your Ki to yourself?"

  Eyes flickered to darkness, Dalaric ground out, "You will keep a respectful tongue in your head, Whelp, or I will remove it for you." Bannon looked to argue, but Dalari
c's fist slamming into the table, upending glasses, silenced the male. "I have been as patient with you as I have in me to give. The past is the past. I cannot return Varian to life, nor can I go back in time and force your mother to accept her place in the clan which would have seen this petty bickering null and void."

  Meghara stared at Bannon. She saw in him Varian's last pain-filled glance before he ran off. She declared, "There is pain and sadness in the female but no darkness. No evil. To equate the sacrifices which brought her to this point to the defilement of a Liindre dagger and the hated presence of the false one? You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

  Bannon dropped his eyes, jaw clenching. Sarah touched his arm. He looked up and she gave him a small frown.

  Sarah sighed. She had never been spiritual and neither had Jaela. The insinuation that the Mother, who all were taught to worship, was not benevolent she was willing to table for later conversation. She turned to Jaela, "Has your dagger changed since Emersyn healed you? You said you haven't needed her to help you again."

  "She did not change Wraith. She changed me. I felt it. I felt the change deep within me." Jaela placed a hand over her heart. "I cannot explain it. I just know."

  Dalaric frowned. He pushed back from the table to walk the length to tower over the woman. "Hold still," he ordered when she flinched from his touch, and placed a hand on top of the one that rested on the table. Deep within her a faint echo of power flickered meaningfully. Familiarly. He drew back, fist clenched. He glanced at Bannon's wife. More perceptive than he would have assumed, she held a shaking hand out to him. He moved along the table to grip it in his own. Emersyn's mana greeted him from deep within the human woman.

  "What is it?" Meghara asked when Dalaric reclaimed his seat. He flung back the contents of the glass Loren had quietly refilled in the process of cleaning the mess his temper had made.

  "Dalaric?" Meghara called when he remained silent, staring into the air with narrowed eyes.

  "Her mana lives within them."

  "That's not possible," Meghara refuted. "Mana is as unique to a human as Ki is to an Akkadian. Only mating results in an exchange of essences for Akkadians but never happens in humans."

  "What does that mean?" Bannon broke the stalemate between mother and son. He grabbed Sarah's hand in his own. "How much is in her? In them? Will it hurt her?"

  "I do not feel pained," Jaela revealed. She looked at Sarah. "Do you?"

  Sarah shook her head in the negative. "Why did she do this? When?"

  Aegwin laughed. Long and hard. When every eye was on him, he chuffed. "It appears Emersyn is turning out to be more and more interesting, Dalaric. The little sweetling is as possessive in her own way as you are."

  "Explain yourself," Dalaric demanded.

  "She bound them." Aegwin shrugged. "As Lyrissa and many others have taken younglings to them who are not of their blood. It is a simple yet strong bond. She simply did so with mana."

  "She did what!?" Bannon shouted.

  "Stop!" Sarah told him. "Emersyn would have never done something like that on purpose without first asking us!"

  Meghara pursed her lips. She would have to speak to her soon-to-be daughter about this. She could not be allowed to claim just anyone in future.

  Aegwin offered, "It is not as if the two women were not already known as her sisters. Does it change anything to know she has claimed them by action as well as words?" He added for the benefit of the seething Annunaki, "What was given can be taken away. If the one claimed wishes it."

  "No," Sarah denied when Bannon looked to her. "Do not even ask it of me. I do not know how or when it happened, but she is my sister. I will not refute Emersyn."

  "You are my wife," he growled out. Knowing another had such an intimate claim on her set his temper on edge.

  "She is my sister," Sarah shot back.

  "Well, well," Meghara drawled, delighted eyes leveled on Bannon. "It appears your wife has a little Akkadian in her as well." Low caste, but still Akkadian. She smiled, all fang.

  Sarah flushed and looked down at her plate. Bannon gripped the edge of the table and struggled to keep the unforgivable words that threatened to escape behind thinned lips.

  "What will this mean for us?" Jaela asked the Akkadian lord. "With respect to your claiming her as your mate."

  Strong fingers held the crystal glass up to the light before taking a small sip of his favored spirit. His thumb stroked the fragile stem while the burn of alcohol joined the churning of smoke in his gut. Claws glinted in the light of the sun streaming through the glass. "Aegwin is correct," he finally declared. "It changes nothing. You were her sisters before this and you remain as such. If anything, based on what I saw in Gilvern and the reports of deaths that resulted from their visits, it was only her mana within you that protected you from falling to the sickness you were surrounded by during the confrontation."

  "Mana is mana," Aegwin stated with a thoughtful air. "Whether witch or sage or lower caste humans who only possess the bit of it that is their soul, it has always been still, just mana. Yes?"

  Jaela and Sarah shared a confused look. Sarah tilted her head to the side in confusion. "I suppose so."

  Aegwin continued, "Can one witch weave mana in the same way that another does? Can they create the same barriers? Can they heal the same diseases? And the sages, they can all train to wield the gems, the spells and weapons that are crafted of the weaved mana?"

  Understanding dawned. Jaela confirmed, "They can. Though some are stronger than others. The witch of Gilvern, Paelia, is more advanced and holds more knowledge of how to weave mana than many. But given the same strength, another witch could master her same weavings."

  "What if," Aegwin conjectured, "Emersyn is not just a witch with more mana than another as we assumed temple witches to be. They are already known as unique for their ability to withstand Ki, which would kill another witch. Take that a step further. Suppose, like Akkadians, her mana is different. I, a green dragon, can listen to the soil as it speaks to me of its needs and heal others. Dalaric’s breed is the only one that can call great flames from within his very being and fights with the strength and ferocity of a dozen other warrior breeds of like age. Then there are innate abilities male and female Akkadians hold unique to their sex. Is her essence, then, uniquely able to realize a different potential from other mana users?"

  As if summoned by the green dragon's words, Emersyn appeared in the entranceway to the grand room. She was led by Loren as he guided her to a seat next to Meghara and closest to Dalaric, as was her right. Hair hung loose to her waist that sparked with hidden fire as the sunlight glinted off it. The borrowed robe lovingly hugged a lithe frame. Silver thread weaved through the dark fabric echoed the visible lines of Dalaric's claiming.

  Meghara glanced over the edge of her wineglass at her son and caught the way his fingers tensed when his mate's scent teased his senses. Movement drew her eye down the table to Aegwin as he stiffened in his chair. The easy-going smile that male always seemed to wear melted away to be replaced with rapacious intensity while he gazed upon the little female.

  Emersyn smiled shyly at Dalaric, all silvery scars and bright eyes. The glass shattered in Dalaric's hand. Meghara's lips curved into a small smile. She had not appreciated how much amusement a daughter could bring to the clan.

  "I apologize for taking so long," Emersyn gently offered before taking a seat. Loren cleaned the table of the glass and spilled wine. She smiled at the male when he placed a delicate china plate in front of her. "Thank you," she told him.

  Unable to stop staring into her eyes, Loren asked in hushed tones, "Meats? Bread? Fruit?"

  Emersyn blushed at his wide eyes. "I will take a portion of fruit, if that is alright." She knew the scars were startling. There was no mirror in the room, so she did not know what her face looked like yet. She had asked Loren upon meeting the male as he waited for her to exit the room for one, but he had said she would have to ask Dalaric's mother. She possessed the only one in the p
alace.

  Judging on the rest of her body, Emersyn guessed her face looked quite a fright. She set her shoulders even more firmly. She refused to allow something so shallow to affect her. She was still herself. Still Emersyn. Loren placed the prepared plate in front of her and she took a small bite of a fruit before smiling her thanks at him.

  Aegwin stood to walk around Meghara to take a knee beside the human woman. As he drew closer his head swam with the delicious scent that seemed to encase him in warmth. He had slept beside her the first night, hand on her arm, the ensure his Ki would maintain her peaceful slumber free of pain. He had missed her warmth the previous night.

  The familiar tickle of power he knew to be Dalaric's Ki greeted his approach. He had not seen her since she had risen. Head bowed, he crossed his arm over his chest, and waited for her to acknowledge him.

  "Give him your hand," Meghara instructed Emersyn. "Whatever Aegwin knew you as before is no longer. This will begin your new association to the vowed male to Dalaric. He is the only other male who may touch your flesh." Unless another was added to the Sydae, Meghara added silently. But that was a conversation for another. She would allow Dalaric to unweave his own tangled web.

  Emersyn looked to Dalaric. His eye caught hers and he nodded. She slowly reached a hand to the male in front of her. Aegwin's clawed hands covered hers, and he looked up to meet her eyes.

  His indrawn breath filled the room. "Forgive me," Aegwin breathed out after a moment of hesitation. He stood, her hand still captured within his and smiled at Dalaric. "Such beauty has stolen my wit." Using his free hand, he traced a thin scar that ran from the tip of her nose to disappear into the thick tresses that trailed behind her ear. He had never felt anything so soft as her skin. Dalaric's essence rose to the surface of her skin and caressed the pad of his finger in welcome. Aegwin shook his head to clear it.

  Those eyes. His heart had almost stopped within his chest! He had never seen such vibrancy. Browns and greens swirled together in harmonic chaos. "I think it safe to assume," he told the room, still awed by the aura of other that clung to the female, "that acceptance will come easier that you fear."