By Vengeance Guided (The Lost Shrines Book 1) (19 page)

It hadn't been hard to keep the topics away from anything personal in the rush of making plans and gathering supplies and convincing Daen he needed to stay back to avoid an irrevocable political incident.

Now, though, she felt Caerwyn's eyes on her while he worked, felt his intention to break the silence thrumming in the air.

"We should talk about this morning…and everything. I'd like to explain."

"What's to explain? You thought I was a blood-seeking sorceress and lied to me from the moment we met. No explanation needed."

The bitter words ripped out with a cold, angry edge despite her intention to keep herself aloof.

He sighed, pushed an unsteady hand through his hair and collapsed onto a log across the fire from her.

"I've seen evil wrapped in a pretty bow before. I had to be sure. I couldn't let myself fall for that deception again."

"So you weren't sure when you stepped into the Circle with me? Or when you came to my room every night? Or when you saved my life?"

She hadn't meant to throw the last one out there but she didn't understand how he couldn't trust her. Yes, she had secrets too, but it was the secrets of an entire people. And she'd shared more with him than she'd ever intended to.

His head dropped into his hands, however, and a pulse of pain and desperate grief rolled along the narrow bond between them.

"I trusted my instincts once before. I believed in Irana. I gave her my heart and eagerly went on a fool's errand to prove myself to her. I gave her a golden opportunity to steal the Cauldron. When everything went wrong, I was minutes too late when she killed my parents."

Caerwyn finally looked up at her, agony hitting her twice, in the devastation in his eyes and the sorrow flooding her from the link.

"It wasn't you I wasn't sure of," his whispered hoarsely. "It was my own instincts I didn't trust."

She remembered what he'd told her about his parent's death and realized he blamed himself.

"What is so important about the Cauldron that she would murder, and ultimately die, for it?"

"It is one of the four treasures of my people. When they are placed correctly, they create a web of magic that stretches throughout all of the islands. If one were taken, our magic would disappear. If Hafgan got his hands on all of them…"

"The four together work like the Circle does in the valley," Lia mused. "That's what they're after. The magic. Power to draw on. They can't invade Hara Dale without starting a three-way war, so they tried to get Gui in charge by getting rid of me through marriage and my sister through poison. But my sister died before I was safely out of the way. Everything else since has been an improvised attempt to get control."

"Of course." He pressed his lips together and sighed. "I should have realized it before. They had no hope of winning a direct attack on the islands. Sending Irana to get the Cauldron through deceit and trickery had failed. So they turned their sights on finding another source of power to help them."

He stared off into the night when he spoke and Lia knew he was trying to piece together a plan older than either one of them.

"Hafgan and the Warlord have been obsessed with gaining land and power since the beginning. First, they tried to press northward, into the land of the Thousand Tribes. They might have succeeded, but the Tribes called on an ancient treaty that brought the Attributes of my people to help them."

"I remember my mother talking about the wars. She never understood why the Milesans broke their strict neutrality to help barbarians."

Wyn smiled. "Few know it, but we were once the same people. We settled on the islands at first, but some grew restless with the confinement and broke away, moved to the continent and intermarried with the humans there. When the Warlord invaded, they remembered enough of the old ways to call on the Attributes for help. It's where my parents found my brothers.

"Their parents, their entire tribe had been killed in an ambush. They were near death themselves. My parents brought them back to the Islands. My mother used her Healing Attribute and my father used the properties of the Cauldron to save them. Being reborn in the Cauldron made them Milesan, though they share the Attribute of Deathseer."

"The Harbingers of Death," she whispered. Everyone knew the story. Three boys, near death reborn among the Milesans, who foretold death wherever they went. Some believed Death itself walked in their footsteps. It was a story children and adults alike told around the fire to make themselves shiver.

Caerwyn's eyes glinted hard and fierce, hand curling into a fist.

"If I ever get my hands on the bard who started telling that particular version of the tale… Well, it would still be better than what would happen if my brothers do."

He half smiled and forced his fingers to unclench. "Their Attribute allows them to see possibilities. They can see those who should, might, die soon. Sometimes they can alter the course, sometimes they cannot. It is a heavy burden they share."

Not unlike his. Lia knew she had touched a nerve and floundered for a way to change the subject.

"The shapeshifting, that comes from the Tribes? The wives' tale that say they are half animal? That's true?"

Caer bristled at the insinuation. She should have realized that question wouldn't be any better received, but it was too late to call the words back.

"They are not
animals
. They are men. The shape they can take does not change them."

She laid a gentling hand on his wrist and shrugged. "Sorry. I know better than to believe the wild tales people tell about things they don't understand."

"Yes, I suppose you do."

He didn’t ask. But Lia knew he wanted to.

“You’re wondering what my magic is if it’s not sorcery. Or witchery.”

“Yes. Honestly, it contradicts everything I’ve been taught about magic.”

“Humans have no inborn gifts, you mean,” Lia’s lips twitched, knowing exactly what he was thinking. ““That’s true. For the most part.”

“Apparently there are exceptions?”

“The Circle is a remnant of an ancient indigenous clan who worshipped the old Goddess. There were a few clans scattered around the continent. When the people from the east invaded, those clans found a way to make themselves helpful to the would-be conquerors. Even intermarried with them. Hara Dale was secluded enough that the traditions remained relatively true to those of the ancient clans.”

“And these clans had magic?”

“The leaders were gifted by the Goddess to guide and protect her people. The gift was passed on to the successor when the clan chief died. Or deemed a new chief was necessary.”

“And were these ‘chiefs’ called Handmaidens?”

Lia ducked her head, but leaned closer and whispered with a hint of mischief, “Sometimes.”

For a long moment, they looked into one another and peaceful ease briefly surrounded them again. Caer started to lean in, without thinking. He shifted toward her and her tongue darted out to wet her lips in anticipation.

Then the sounds of his brothers returning had them shifting apart. The distance between them became more than just the three feet of physical space separating them.

Once the three men settled around the fire, Caer explained what he and Lia had conjectured about Hafgan's attempts to gain power through taking control of the Circle.

"The Tribes talk of sacred sites where Shamans go to receive the gift of walking-between-the-worlds." Phelan nodded thoughtfully. "It could very well be even those wars were an attempt to take over the shrines of power."

"I knew he'd do anything to possess the treasures. I should have realized he'd look for power wherever he could find it," Caer said, frustration rumbling in his throat. "I should have realized it was more far reaching than just greed. If Hafgan finds a way to control more of those sites, they'd have enough power to take over the continent."

He brushed a frustrated hand through his hair and exhaled an angry breath.

"Once we get Tanis back safely, I have to get proof. I've never been this close. I have to find something to bring back before the Solstice Council meeting at the end of the week."

Ache and regret throbbed in Lia's chest. To hear him talk about leaving so soon hurt. Especially since the Solstice fell only a couple of days before the full moon. When their bond would have to be made permanent or broken permanently.

Only when he was talking of leaving did Lia realize how much she wanted to keep the moon-bond. Despite the problems and the turmoil, she wanted to keep Wyn.

Instead, she would lose Lord Caerwyn.

-10-

Squat, flat, and square, the three stories of dull gray stone perched on a rocky outcropping. It had no windows, just narrow slits for archers and a recessed door guarded by three men in a mix of leather and metal armor. The terrain was level and clear for a couple hundred feet all around the building.

Sneaking in or surprising the guards with an ambush was out of the question.

"Fuck. Look at those wards," Wyn muttered.

Lia shifted, searching deep for the calm centeredness that eluded her except when she rode the currents of the Goddess's blessing. After a few seconds, she slid into that other sense. And almost retched at the sight that greeted her.

A thousand times worse than what had tangled Gui's trunk. Thick, spiked vines of energy writhed out from the foundation and wrapped around the building in seeking tendrils the color of dried blood. The magic pulsed and shifted and slithered over and under itself like a living mass of something Lia never, ever wanted to touch.

"Can you untangle that?" Lia asked, pretty sure she already knew the answer.

"Not alone. Can you insulate the Hounds, as well?"

"No. It's only our bond that lets me share that much of my magic with you."

"Right. I figured." He frowned at the stone in front of him like he could intimidate it into submission. "We'll find another way in there."

He turned toward his brothers and began to discuss and discard plans to get them past the guards and wards.

Lia ignored them and kept staring at the small fortress. Something familiar pulsed deep beneath its foundation. Pale lines of white-gold sprouted through the darkness, extending up into the building and stretching for something. Reaching for…

Tanis.

Lia's heart thumped hard. A pool of Goddess magic lay under the slick, sickening energy of the wards. It struggled through the morass, trying to connect with the future Handmaiden within the walls.

"Tanis is inside."

"You're sure? The Hounds followed the scent trail here but Gui might have faked that to throw us off."

"I'm sure. This monstrosity used to be a small Circle. Someone's managed to subjugate it with blood sorcery."

"Hafgan," Wyn snarled.

"Probably, I can't imagine he'd allow a rival, or even an apprentice, to create a stronghold like this in his territory. The core of the Circle remains untouched, though, and it's trying to connect with Tanis."

"The way the magic in the valley flows through you?"

Lia cut a sharp look at Wyn, then sighed. Few secrets remained between them, despite both their best efforts. No point in denying it now.

"Yes."

"Can you do something with it?"

"Yes, but Hafgan, or whoever enslaved it, will know the second I start to interfere."

"We'll cover you."

Wyn was sharp and fierce and Lia had no doubt he'd lay down his life to protect her.

Her focus narrowed in on the valiantly struggling flickers of power buried deep beneath the evil. She opened up and reached for the magic. It responded like a flower seeking sunlight. The massive coil of darkness reacted instantly and the sinuous writhing erupted into a thrashing mass of chaos. The backlash of energy whipped around her and the white-gold wisps shrank back under the onslaught.

Shouts sounded from the fortress, followed by pounding feet rushing closer. The air shifted when Wyn and his brothers moved to protect her from the threat. She kept her attention on the energy, blocking out the ring of sword on sword, the grunts and roars and cries of pain while the men fought in earnest.

Deep inside her, Lia pulled at all the reserve she carried. She narrowed her focus to a pin-tip and threaded her energy over, around and through the shuddering darkness.

When the two golden threads of power connected, the reaction was instantaneous and explosive. The gold light swirled, swelled and shoved at the darker tendrils trying to contain it. Slow and steady, the energy pushed outward, forcing the darkness away. The sorcery moved farther and farther from the center, fading from blood red to burnt orange to faded, sickly yellow.

Then a flash of bright gold swallowed the last of the translucent yellow tendrils. A wail of pain and rage echoed from deep within the fortress. The white-gold shrank back into a pale pulse deep in the earth and Lia released it. The thin cords left her reluctantly and immediately stretched upward once again, reassuring her Tanis was still alive inside.