The Dawn King (The Moon People, Book Five)

by Claudia King

  “That is true.”

  “And you are a terrible mentor.”

  Adel tried to hide the way her lips perked in amusement. “Prove me wrong.”

  That made Kiren settle down. They sat there for a while longer, listening to the trickle of the river and the weary conversations of the Sun People around them. The men were grateful to be home and exhausted from their long journey. Adel heard some of them, mostly the young ones, talking animatedly about the glory that would greet them at the temple village, but for the most part the atmosphere was subdued. Liliac and his more seasoned followers knew that this had been a costly pilgrimage. Many men had died, and much of their bounty had been lost. Yet one thing did seem to be keeping the shaman's spirits afloat: the knowledge that he had succeeded in bringing Adel and Kiren back to his high priest.

  At some point in the afternoon the sound of rapid footsteps and heavy breathing approached from the opposite side of the building, and Liliac disappeared for a while. Adel heard the mumble of voices on the other side of the wall behind her. She tried to listen, but she was too weary to discern more than a general undercurrent of tension in the exchange. She needed rest and the chance to shake off this fever, then she could turn her attention toward studying her captors.

  Liliac grunted as he heaved aside a wooden screen from inside the building, then he stepped out and pulled Adel up by the shoulder. She glared at him, stumbling dizzily as she tried to find her footing.

  “Come inside,” he said. The shaman looked flustered, as if something unexpected had just happened. “The high priest of the Son is here. He wishes to speak to you alone.”

  “Isn't he afraid I will take out my claws and kill him?”

  “It's not my place to question the high priest. Come. And be respectful. He could have us end your life with a single word.”

  Adel relented to the shaman's grip, blinking the weariness from her eyes and trying to pull herself together. If this high priest held an alpha's status then she would need a clear head when she met him. He might be cunning, or he might be a fool who had stumbled his way into power. The more she could discern about him the easier it would be to strike a bargain.

  Kiren rose to follow them but Liliac motioned for her to sit back down, jabbing with his spear for emphasis. With a surly look the girl sank back against the wall. Once Liliac had ushered Adel down the shallow slope through the building's entrance he dragged the screen shut behind her, leaving the den mother alone in a darkened chamber illuminated only by a single opening in the roof. Wooden columns propped up the structure like tent poles the size of trees, casting angular shadows across the floor between her and the square of light. She scanned the darkness as her eyes adjusted, defining the shapes of sacks and bundles of straw between the columns. A figure stood on the other side of the light, dark and bare-chested, his long hair swaying in braids as he stepped toward her.

  “Are you the sorceress?” The man's voice sounded familiar to her, and his tone was not what she had expected. He sounded almost hopeful. Or was he afraid?

  “I am Den Mother Adel,” she replied. “Seer of the Moon People.”

  As the high priest stepped into the shaft of light her eyes widened. He stared back at her in disbelief, lips moving in the shape of words that made no sound. The voice had been familiar. The man was familiar. Dark, handsome, and with curls of hair braided into thick strands. Those braids had once been tied up in a tail, but now they hung loose. The boy she'd once known had become a man. This was the love she had struggled to let go of. This was the villain who had sent warriors to take her from her pack.

  * * *

  Jarek barely had time to take in the sight of her. The lank hair and weary eyes tried to conceal her beauty, but it was undeniably Adel. That tall, fierce, magnificent woman. The cold phantom that had been on his shoulder all these years. Age had not dulled her one bit. Before he could think about why she was here, what must have happened to her, and what he was going to do next, he felt a smile warming his lips with a joy he had not felt since he was young. Arms outspread, he stepped forward to embrace her.

  Adel leaped at him. Her bound hands struck him in the chest, driving the air from his lungs as he toppled backwards. Then she was on top of him, legs astride his torso, hard fingers around his throat, nails digging into his skin as she choked him. He grasped wildly at his former lover, trying to snatch her hands away, but she held on with the fury of a woman possessed.

  “You,” she hissed at him, teeth bared, tears swimming in her sky-blue eyes. “You did this. You killed them. You told your shaman my name!” She squeezed harder, her fingernails piercing his neck like thorns.

  “Adel—” he tried to gasp, but her grip was too tight. He clutched at her wrists again and pulled, trying to pry her away before she suffocated him. Still she gripped with the strength of a demon. Unbidden, his mind flashed back to the way she had ridden him in his tent, the way she held on with this same furious strength, pinned him down, overwhelmed him with her passions. This was a very different embrace. It was hateful. Bitter. Those sky-blue eyes were frosty and hard, a chilling contrast to the warm tears they dripped upon his face.

  Summoning all of his strength, Jarek pushed against her wrists and hauled himself up beneath her, drawing in a ragged gasp of breath as the pressure on his neck eased. She tried to grab him again, but the thick cords around her wrists restricted her movement. Still the woman pushed back, fighting him every inch of the way as he struggled to sit upright.

  “Adel!” he croaked, trying to keep his voice low. If Liliac burst in and saw them he might kill her. “Stop! I didn't do this!”

  “Liar!” she spat back. “You're the high priest! Were you tired—tired of pretending to be like them?! You never came to me! You never came, now you—!” She was sobbing, scratching at his face, but her struggles began to weaken. “You wouldn't come, so you sent them instead! They killed my people!”

  “I never sent them to take you, Adel,” he pleaded, shifting his grip from her wrists to her hands, ignoring her scratches. Their faces hovered inches part. “I never wanted this.”

  “Then how..?”

  “I told Liliac your name. A girl came here with tales of a sorceress—a great leader of the Moon People. I had to know if it was you. I sent him to find you. To talk. To be sure. That is all, I swear it.”

  She clenched her teeth, shaking her head at him through her tears. It was a moment Jarek would never forget. As they knelt there, struggling weakly against one another in the shaft of sunlight, he felt bathed in a magic unlike anything else he had ever experienced. Moments ago he had been running hard across the plains, expecting news from Liliac, wondering how Thakayn might be trying to outsmart him. Now he was clutching his lost love, a woman he had never expected to see again, and she was burning with anger, scalding him, rejecting him, yet in her eyes he could see all the same pains and regrets that had wounded him the day they parted. He remembered it so clearly: her walking away into the mist, joining Alpha Khelt to bring peace to two warring clans. She'd been like a spirit disappearing from his life forever, but now she was here, warm and real in his arms.

  He reached out to touch her cheek. She pushed him away.

  “Don't,” she said. “Your spirit followed me for so long. I let you go. I had to.”

  Jarek smiled at her, lost in the magic, oblivious to everything outside their shaft of sunlight—everything that he knew would bring an end to this sweet, ferocious daydream he had been swept up in. In the beauty of the moment he remembered something he had once said to her.

  “Pretty like a bird who soars through the sky. Spirit like a bird who watches over us all. You are the moon mother herself.”

  The shade of a lost memory softened Adel's face, and in that instant she was young again. A beautiful girl, laughing in the moonlight as they skipped stones across a pool together. Those nights had always held this feeling of magic.

  As quickly as it had come, it was gone. She pulled away from him, fear a
nd anger clouding her expression as she slid back across the dusty earthen floor. A shadow cast by one of the beams fell across her face.

  Jarek looked down, rubbing his fingers together. The warmth of her skin still lingered on them.

  “Why am I here?” Adel said. And with those words, the magic was dispelled. They were a high priest of the Dawn King and a den mother of the Moon People, enemies together in an old storage house. The men outside were waiting for his instructions. What was he to tell them? What was he to do?

  “I... do not know.” He shook his head, at a loss for words.

  “Who told the shaman to bring me here, if not you?”

  Jarek frowned. The truth slowly threaded itself together in his mind, coagulating into one great, sickly realisation. He did not even need to turn around when he heard footsteps entering through the back entrance behind him.

  Thakayn stood in the doorway, a companionable hand on Liliac's shoulder. The shaman gestured to the two figures kneeling on the floor.

  “As you commanded us, High Priest. The sorceress Jarek spoke of, and another one outside.”

  “Liliac,” Thakayn said, patting the man's hand with a grin of rapturous delight. “You've done more than I could have ever hoped for.”

  —15—

  Broken Hearts

  “Even Ilen Ra never managed to bring me one of your kind, let alone a great leader,” the handsome golden-haired man said, striding forward with an air of lazy glee. He stopped just short of her reach, coming to a halt at Jarek's side.

  “Liliac told you what I said to him before he left, didn't he?” Jarek said.

  The space between the other man's eyebrows narrowed in a mocking frown. “He is a servant of the Sister. It was only right for him to seek my blessing before setting out on his pilgrimage. And a fortunate blessing it has proven indeed.” He gave Jarek a questioning look. “What are you doing down there on the floor?”

  “Resting. It was quite a run to get here ahead of you.” Jarek rose to his feet, speaking with practised ease. He had always been a good tale-teller. It did not surprise Adel to see how naturally he lied, though it stirred conflicting emotions within her. She was still reeling from the revelation, deeply shaken by how it had stripped away her composure. Feelings she had not confronted in years were awake and writhing within her, working their way into her cracks as if to break her apart piece by piece. She was speechless, and the fever was pounding within her skull like the throb of a snake's poison.

  The beautiful man gave her a concerned look, and the smile finally vanished from his face.

  “These Moon People will be taken into my care,” he said. “I have guardsmen to escort them. You need not trouble yourself over this any more than you already have.”

  “Will you take them back to the temple?” Jarek asked.

  The man pursed his lips. “It would be blasphemy to keep demons in our house.”

  “That is for the Dawn King to decide.” Jarek stepped between him and Adel, his tone turning accusatory. “I hope you didn't tell Liliac to wait here because you meant to take his captives elsewhere, did you? Without the Dawn King's knowledge?”

  “Naturally, I did not,” the golden-haired man said through clenched teeth.

  “Good. Because you know he must be the first to hear of this. No high priest can make a decision on what to do with this woman by himself.”

  “Jarek, you are weary. This is not something that should concern a priest of the Son. Go outside and continue your rest.”

  “It is absolutely my concern. It was by my word that Liliac went to seek out this woman. We should take her to the temple immediately.”

  The other man shook his head. “That cannot happen!”

  “Forgive me, High Priest,” Liliac interjected, “but the Dawn King must know.”

  Sensing that the tide was turning against the golden-haired priest, Adel picked herself up and stepped forward alongside Jarek, ignoring the way her heartbeat quickened when she drew close to him. The golden-haired man took a step back, as if expecting her to lunge.

  “I demand that you take me before your Dawn King,” she said. “I am a sorceress of the Moon People. Your spirits may hold power over these lands, but my moon still shines on them after dark.” Her glare seemed to unsettle the priest for a moment. As a man of the spirits, he would know of curses and ill-omens. The implicit threat was clear. His handsome features coloured with anger, but his voice retained its composure as he turned to address Liliac.

  “Show me this other one. Then we may decide what to do with them.”

  “I'd not wait long,” Jarek said. “We can't be the only ones to have seen the canoes coming.”

  “None of your pilgrims are to speak of these women,” the high priest added. “You returned with canoes full of metal and nothing else. Do you understand?”

  Liliac looked far from pleased. “Many of my men died to bring them here. You'd ask them to lie? Forget the tale of the great battle they fought? I promised them—”

  “And what did I promise you, Liliac?”

  The shaman paused. Adel saw the flicker of greed tempting him.

  “What did he promise you?” Jarek asked.

  “Priesthood,” Liliac said. “A place within the temple. And when Thakayn's time is done, I will be High Priest of the Sister in his place.”

  “And all these things you shall have,” Thakayn said. “But your men must say nothing. Promise them riches if you must. Houses, clothing, concubines. Say they will lead villages of their own in time, but only if they do as the Sister wills.”

  Adel and Jarek's presence was complicating things for him, she could tell. At least now she knew something about this high priest. He wanted her and Kiren desperately, to the point of making lavish promises just to keep their presence a secret. The secret was something he feared. That was a weapon she could use against him.

  “What promise can you offer to me, High Priest?” she asked. As dizzy as she still felt from seeing Jarek, she had to seize this thread of opportunity while she had the chance. Clinging on to it made her feel more like her old self, giving her a grounding focus with which to chase away all the emotions that stormed within her.

  Thakayn regarded the den mother with a curious expression. Like many of the Sun People there was a hint of unease in him when he looked at her, but it was only a minor accent to something much more powerful. Why was he so desperate to claim possession of her?

  “Your life, woman,” he said. “Do as I say and you shall keep it. Any man in this land would gladly take a knife to your throat if he knew what you were.”

  Adel sneered at him. “You are a fool to think a woman of the spirits values her life above all else. I believe you when you say you could have me killed, and you should believe me when I say I shall tell everyone what I am if you cross me.”

  “They'd think you a mad woman.”

  “Not if a high priest backed her words,” Jarek said.

  Thakayn glared at him. His frustration at the unexpected meddling was palpable. “Are you mad as well, Jarek?”

  “This woman is a leader of her people. We should treat her as a guest of honour.”

  “And the girl, too,” Adel added. “You are not to keep us bound and hobbled any more. We will go with you. We shall drink the herbs that keep our wolves silent. We will be the willing guests your shaman tried to make of us.” She gave Liliac a look of displeasure. “I might have come with you without a fight. All you had to do was sit and talk. My people would have welcomed you.”

  The shaman shifted uncomfortably. He had the hint of a conscience, then, despite his greed. A pity it had been absent when he made the choice to throw so many lives away.

  “I agree to this,” Jarek said, putting a hand on Adel's shoulder. She flinched at his touch, feeling like something had just stung her.

  Thakayn hesitated for a moment, then raised his hands with a sudden smile. It was a false smile. The kind that was more unsettling than a frown.

  �
�Splendid!” he said. “Then to the temple we go. Let your men return to their villages, and remember what I said, Liliac. I have ears in many places. If I hear rumours of Moon People among us, then I shall know from whence they came.”

  “Are we not to accompany you to the temple?” the shaman asked. “What about our metal?”

  Thakayn looked irritated, as if he had forgotten all about that, yet he maintained his smiling facade. “Take it to the ford, then. I shall send servants to keep it safe for you.”

  As the high priest and his shaman continued to debate Jarek led Adel away from the conversation and out through the building's back entrance. She was feeling lightheaded again, and as she crossed the threshold she stumbled, throwing out her hands to steady herself against the doorway. Jarek gripped her around the waist, helping her back upright. She wished he had not. Remembering his touch sent her dizzy thoughts reeling anew, and she almost fell over again as she staggered outside.

  “Fetch water for this woman,” Jarek said. Several men wearing scales of bone armour stood nearby, each one holding a metal-tipped spear and wearing a long sheath at his belt. They all displayed bright yellow tokens of some kind, whether it was a streak of pigment across the front of their armour or a tasselled cloth hanging from their belt. These were more than simple warriors, though Adel did not know what other word might better describe them.

  Jarek helped her around to the shaded side of the building as one of the men fetched a waterskin, then eased her back down alongside Kiren. The girl's eyes went wide when she saw Jarek.

  “I know,” he said when he noticed her reaction. “The spirits make few men as beautiful as I.”

  “She doesn't understand you,” Adel said. “She only speaks the Moon People's tongue.” She waited to see whether Jarek would repeat himself in words Kiren could understand. He did not.

  So, you hide everything from them, she thought, wondering just how long Jarek had lived among these Sun People, and what lengths he had gone to to conceal his true nature from them. Half of her wanted to ask him so many questions, and it was maddening that she could not. The other half wished he would go away and never come back. She was not ready for this. Not now. He had made things immeasurably complicated, and she hated him for it. She hated him because it was easier than the alternative. Even if he had not commanded Liliac to bring her here, he had still told the shaman to seek her out. If not for him, the other priest, Thakayn, might not have pushed the plan one step further.