The mare galloped through the air and
dissolved into the waves. Stunned, Shannari swore a whole herd of horses surged
in the mist, whinnying a welcome to one of their own.
Rolling over the shore, fog blanketed
the Sentinel, swallowing everything. She couldn’t see anything but gray, cool
and wet against her skin.
In the distance, she heard Dharman
shout, his bond surging with alarm.
:Peace,:
she whispered, touching each bond to reassure them.
:Our Blessed Lady speaks.:
Dharman’s bond only roared hotter,
vibrating with fear of all things. She hadn't felt fear from her First Blood in
a decade and more.
:Don’t leave us,
na’lanna
. I beg you, please!:
Bewildered, she turned, searching for
him, but her Blood were lost in the fog. Wood creaked, drawing her attention
back to the bay.
A ship hovered in the mist. Long and
lean of gilded gold and pearly white, the ship hovered like a giant bird just
feet away. According to legend, Our Blessed Lady had first arrived on these
shores in such a boat.
The fog thinned. She could barely make
out two shapes on the deck. They waved, beckoning to her. One was tall and
broad shouldered, while the other was shorter and slightly thicker, standing
side by side.
“My heart!”
Her own heart froze in her chest.
Rhaekhar. He had Rhaekhar's voice.
The other shape called out, “
Na'lanna.”
That wicked voice could only belong to Gregar.
She burst into tears. It had been so
long since she’d heard their beloved voices. Dreams didn’t count, not when her
heart ached with loneliness, even surrounded by the warriors who loved her.
Rhaekhar had always held the First claim
on her heart; Gregar, the Second.
“Our Blessed Lady Calls you home.”
Smiling through the tears that wet his cheeks, Father Josef kissed her hand.
“She’s well pleased, Your Majesty. She knows how your heart yearns for your
warriors. Go, now, and love them in the afterlife She provides.”
Joy leaped in her heart, but she
couldn't leave. Her children needed her. She didn't know which of her daughters
would take the High Throne, and Malek, her son of Shadow and Light, had
disappeared into Keldar. She hadn't had word from him in months.
Who will protect them from the Shadowed
plots that followed me my entire life?
“You’ve done well, Your Majesty. Your
children carry your light and love to see them through their lives. There’s
nothing else you can teach them.”
She rubbed her eyes, struggling to make
a calm, rational decision despite the urge to throw herself off the cliff and
let her mates catch her. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Father Josef bowed low and
pressed his forehead to her knuckles. “You’ve more than earned your rest and
reward in Vulkar’s Clouds. If the need arises, your children may always Call
you to the Tenth Camp. Go, Shannari dal’Dainari, and ride with the warriors who
love you.”
Smiling so widely her face hurt, she
turned back to the boat. She waved, crying and laughing. She could see Rhaekhar
clearly, his long golden-brown hair hanging about his shoulders, wild and free
like a herd stallion, his golden eyes shining in the murk. Gregar’s sable hair
hung like a mantle about his shoulders, longer than ever, as though he sought
to challenge both Mykal and Sal for the longest—and most tempting—hair.
Her mates were so close she could almost
smell them, sweet Plains hay, baking bread, and rich, smoldering caffe.
Not honeycakes and gingerbread and
sandalwood.
My
Blood.
Her heart thudded in her chest and pain
banded her lungs. “I can’t leave my Blood. They love me, Father. I won’t leave
them to suffer my death.”
Blinded by fog, crippled, dying, nothing
would ever keep them from reaching her. Unerringly, they raced toward her.
Dharman fell to his knees, buried his face against her stomach, and clutched
her tightly against him. “
Na'lanna
, please, don’t leave us.”
“Never,” she whispered, running her
hands through his hair. She tugged a handful of Sal’s hair and stroked Jorah’s
cheek. They pushed closer, all ten surrounding her, pressing tight, living
armor to shield her all her life. Their bonds roared like Vulkar’s Mountain,
holding her firm. “I’ll never leave you.”
Father Josef smiled and bowed again. “As
you wish, Your Majesty. Your love is great enough to carry them with you.”
She raised her gaze, hope bubbling in her on a
joyful shout. “Truly? We can all go?”
“Who am I to stand in the way of such
love?”
A thud behind her announced the dropping
of the gangplank. She took Dharman’s hand and tugged him to his feet. “Are you
ready to ride,
na’lanna
Blood?”
Eyes bright, Dharman replied, “To the
ends of the earth.”
She stepped onto the delicately carved
gangplank, and a black hole tore open Our Blessed Lady’s Green and Beautiful
Lands behind her. Whirling around, she dropped her left hand to the ivory
rahke
.
Sand stung her face and tore at her
clothes. Mykal’s eyes flashed silver as they hadn’t since the day she’d ripped
the dragon out of him. His mouth fell open, horror twisting his face.
A massive claw wrapped around him and
dragged him down into a smoking, gaping pit.
:Brightheart!:
Lunging, she fisted her hand in his
swirling ink-black hair as dark as the Shadows swallowing him. Dharman and Sal
each held her, trying to pull her Keldari back from the brink. She dug in her
feet, slipping and sliding in the sand.
:I
must repay my
devalki
,:
Mykal whispered, his bond raging with shame and grief as raw as
the wind trying to tear her from him.
:I’ve
always belonged to Shadow.:
She wrapped another length of his hair
about her right wrist.
:No. You belong to
me. I love you!:
Shadow boiled below, howling and
shrieking with glee.
TOO LONG, I ALLOWED
YOU TO HOLD MY MOST FAITHFUL SERVANT. TOO LONG, I ALLOWED HIM TO BELIEVE HIS
SOUL WAS SAVED.
WITH
YOUR DEATH, HE IS MINE ONCE MORE.
THE
GREATEST LURE OF ALL HAS BEEN YOUR LOVE, AND NOW THAT LOVE DRAGS YOU TO ME. AT
LAST, THIS SHINING BLOOD SHALL BE MINE.
Black snakes whipped out of the hole,
writhing and twisting, seeking her flesh. Wings buffeted her and the Blood.
Vermin filled the air, biting and hissing, clogging her nose, crawling into her
ears. The stench of death boiled up out the gaping hole, wider to devour all
she held dear.
Nine red bonds blazed in her mind,
straining to hold her, but her boots slipped closer to the edge. In the
deepest, darkest pit of hell, voices rose, wails and shrieks for mercy. For
pity. For love.
Blessed
Lady above, I can’t let him end like this!
:Brightest
heart of the midnight sky, my heart has always been Given to you.:
Mykal’s voice fell on their bond like sweet, gentle rain on a desert land that
had not known moisture in a thousand years.
:Release
me, and save yourself from my doom.:
Gritting her teeth, she unsheathed the
ivory
rahke
.
:Never.:
Light blazed, a beacon against the
Endless Night. Her marks cast rainbows into the sky: Rhaekhar’s high on her
shoulder and one on her backside, Gregar’s on her other shoulder, Sal’s and
Dharman’s on her breasts, and Mykal’s, on her inner thigh to match the one
she’d given him in the Dream. She drew the blade across each mark, adding her
blood to the weapon of her love.
:I
gave you my body. I gave you my blood.:
She plunged the
rahke
directly into Mykal’s mark, and
blood fountained from the major vein in her thigh. Howling with fury, Shadow
roiled about her, a maelstrom of hatred so thick she couldn’t breathe.
Poisonous sulfur blasted across her skin, sizzling, eating the flesh from her
bones.
But she refused to be silenced.
:I
gave you my Kiss, the wellspring of power from She Who Hung the Moon. I gave
you my heart and my love, to you and my Blood, to my Khul and my laughing,
Shadowed Blood. My love did not end with their death, and it surely does not
end with mine! I’m Given to you, Mykal
tal
’Mamba, my dragon evermore!:
Her heart swelled in her chest, too
tight, her ribcage too small to let it beat. In her mind, the full moon
gleamed, a single shining scale that grew bigger until it filled the sky,
burning away every trace of the Endless Night. Drawing on her bonds, she flung
herself up, soaring into Our Blessed Lady’s embrace.
She fell with a thump, quickly followed
by hard bodies that tumbled on top of her. Ears ringing, she couldn’t breathe,
but this pain she welcomed. One by one, she counted the bonds in her mind: nine
red bonds of Blood; and a black bond coiled like a sinuous dragon in the corner
of her mind.
Tears spilled, a joyous laugh bubbling
out of her.
I saved him, Mykal, my
Keldari savage.
Voice hushed and fragile, he bowed his
forehead to hers. “You caught me.”
“I will always catch you.” Breathless,
she laughed, squished beneath him and likely Sal and Dharman too. “Or at least
let you fall upon me.”
Someone laughed, a low masculine chuckle
of arrogance that had always either made her bristle with ire or blush with
embarrassed desire.
Rhaekhar!
“Have you any other warriors to bring, my
heart?”
Two additional bonds glowed in her mind
that she hadn’t felt fully in too many years to count. One glowed with all the
golden warmth of the sun, while the other wound through her like midnight
velvet, cold with the Shadow of Death.
My
warriors. All of them.
One by one, her Blood climbed to their
feet, untangling their limbs from hers. Sal had somehow managed to land between
her thighs. He lapped at the blood trickling from Mykal’s mark and purred.
Dharman, of course, was last to rise. He would always be the first to reach her,
and the last to let her go.
:I
shall never let you go,
na’lanna Qwen
, not even to the darkest pit of hell.:
With a wicked knowing wink, Gregar
offered her a hand up. “It’s a very good thing that your Lady provided us with
such a large ship.”
Her cheeks were on fire, but her heart
sang with too much joy and love to mind their jokes. She seized his hand, and
he drew her up, straight into his arms. Sable hair, hay of the Plains, and
strong, rich caffe with just a hint of syrupy sweetness, just the way she liked
it.
:Gregar, my Shadowed Blood, I love
you.:
Black velvet slithered inside her, so
cold. His mouth settled on his mark in her shoulder.
:I still carry your mark,
na’lanna
. I never thought of cutting it open again so that you would kiss it.:
:All
you ever needed to do—:
Before she could finish that thought, he
turned around, bent over, and flipped up his
memsha
. Of course he wore nothing beneath.
Hooting with laughter, Sal had to show
the mark in his ass too.
“Only Gregar could turn such a glad
homecoming into an arse competition.” Laughing, Rhaekhar shook his head. “Do
you yield to me?”
She jerked her gaze up to his. He’d said
the same thing to her on a battlefield years ago after defeating her army. This
time, he didn’t look at her; he stared at one of the warriors behind her.
“Aye,” Dharman replied. “You have always
been First in her heart.”
For the first time in his life, he said
it without rancor, because her First Blood knew very well how much she loved
him. How much she loved them all.
Rhaekhar stood with his legs planted
wide, his hand wrapped around his
rahke
on his hip, with the morning sun blazing about his head, but that light dimmed
compared to the molten heat in his golden eyes.
Choking back a sob, she raced across the
bobbing deck and launched herself into his arms.
He held her tight, tucking her face
against his neck. He smelled the same, sweet Plains hay, flowers, baking bread,
and warrior.
My
beloved barbarian Khul. As he swore so long ago, his love is unshakeable.
So overwhelmed with love, she could only
cry and laugh as all her warriors crowded close and wrapped her in their arms,
but it was Rhaekhar's heart that beat beneath her cheek. “It’s been a long,
long road.”
The boat rocked gently like a galloping
horse on the waves of mist, carrying them into the Clouds. Below, Our Blessed
Lady’s Green and Beautiful Lands fell away.
“Aye.” He gripped her chin and tilted
her face up to his, his big hand so gentle and sure. “I love you more this day
than the day I died.”
“Your death was the darkest day of my
life.” She fisted her hands in his hair and drew his head down to her. “I ran
from your love, and then I ran from the sorrow of your death. I ran from my
Blood who loved me, afraid I might suffer that pain again.”