Duality (35 page)

She whimpered at his words, at the puff of warm breath teasing her sensitized skin. Only Loren had ever aroused her so. Passion. Pain. Only Loren ever would. She dragged in a deep breath. She wanted to believe, but the future was so far away…

“The future is always a moment away. Grasp the present,
this
moment, with both hands.
That
is how we get through this—together, one fleeting moment at a time.”

Dara dragged her eyes open and looked at him. If she didn’t know any better, she’d swear she saw love in his eyes. How she wished it was. But it couldn’t be. There could be no future there…

“Forget the future. Live in this moment.”

His conviction made her straighten. If anything was worth fighting for…“I will try.”

A single cough alerted them to the fact they were no longer alone. “We’re all waiting for you two,” Pahn stated.

Dara flushed. She had not seen the mage return for them.

“
Dracken rue
!” Loren hit the wall aside Dara’s head with a fist. “Never more than a moment. I swear I shall go mad.”

“Hmph.” Pahn looked like it would take more than a disgruntled elven prince to shake her calm. “You have time enough for that later.
After
. Let’s go.” She turned and walked away.

Did they? Dara wondered. Nothing was certain.

Loren stepped away, breathing hard. “I shall be along in a minute.”

Focus. There was work to be done. Dara took several deep, shaky breaths, heart pounding. Her over-sensitized skin twitched at the irritating rasp of her too-tight gown. Her breasts ached for his touch, and she quivered at the hot look of yearning on his face, a yearning she knew must be reflected in her own eyes. She attempted to smooth her hair and dress, willing her nipples to relax. Focus. Work. Duty. She took another deep, shaky breath and followed the dwarf to Lorelei’s workroom. When she entered the room, she blushed and tried to ignore all the knowing eyes.

Pahn began the discussion. “We’ve seen the creatures made from men. Left as they are, they’ll be invincible. Humans can’t kill a rock troll, let alone a ba-pef.”

Ba-pef who’d once been men Dara had known and cared for. “Can they be restored to themselves?”

“Nay, they have been mutilated and twisted beyond redemption,” Lorelei stated. “We can but put them out of their misery. They shalt be whole on the other side.”

“We can return the abyss shards to the girl,” Pahn said. “Without the shards, you’ll still be fighting giants, but mortal ones.”

“The girl, however, is intact,” Gwendolyn stated.

Dara’s temper flared, swift and hot. “Tegan. Her name’s Tegan. She’s fourteen. Her mother was the midwife, Lacey. She’s one of the victims here. What she does now, it’s not her fault.”

Loren entered the room just then. He captured her gaze with his, and her heart twisted at the flickers of longing she still saw there.

Lorelei turned to Loren and Dara. “Tegan shalt be thy responsibility. Dara, thou art familiar with Tegan, thou must be the one to reach her. Loren can stand for the Lady’s Light and can banish the darkness. Once it returns to Jalad, Tegan must be turned over to another for protection.”

“Cianan,” Dara suggested. Next to Loren, she trusted the dark-haired ranger with her life.

Anika nodded. “Agreed.”

“Granna,” Loren began. Pain lanced his voice.

She gripped his forearm. “I know. We must go, I as water and mother, Dara as fire and maiden.” She shot Dara a pointed look. “We art aware of the risks.”

Maiden. Now here was a twist. She recalled all the times Loren had pulled back. Her gaze flew to Loren’s; he nodded ever so slightly, a rueful light in his eyes. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A new form of torture. What was it Loren had said?
Dracken rue.
That was it.

Dracken rue
, indeed.

“With the earth getting ready for winter-sleep, there shalt not be as much power for me to draw on,” Gwendolyn warned. “I shalt do what I can.”

“That be all we canst ask of any,” Lorelei assured her. “Asides, we are all experienced adepts.”

“Except me,” Dara said.

“Thou knows Jalad. Through the Torque memories and the book of spells, thou art one of the most knowledgeable of all.” Lorelei smiled. “Pari said thou took thy seeing stone with it. Thou shouldst read the book.”

“Yessss.
Much power in reading.”

“We banish the shards back to Jalad,” Gwendolyn mused. “What doth we do about stripping the demon from Jalad himself and banishing it back to the abyss?”

“It is a twist on removing iron poisoning from a dragon,” Pahn began. “You take opposing forces, make the iron move away from one and toward the other.”

“The demon is pure darkness,” Everett stated. “It shalt move away from the Light.”

“And go where?” Dara asked.

“We canst open a crack in this world, to send the demon beyond us for all time,” Aletha answered. “Mount Aege, the Fyre Mountain, gave me the idea. That mountain is still active, with rivers of fire miles deep below the earth. That makes a perfect place for a gateway back to the abyss.”

“Earth, fire and metal,” Pahn said. “I also brought warded arrowheads made of
nirrti
.”

Gwendolyn gasped. “Star-stone?”

“What’s that?” Dara asked.

“Rocks fallen from the heavens to earth,” Gwendolyn replied.

“Once unwarded, naught flesh survives their touch,” Pahn confirmed.

“Consecrated to the Goddess and in the hands of the rangers, they just might do for the ba-pef.” Everett turned to Dara. “If the rangers drop the ba-pef and we send the shards back to Tegan, it shalt be up to thy fire to send the fallen back to Her Light.”

Dara paled and swayed. “You wish me to slay my own people? I can’t do that. Not again…”

Loren clasped her arm. His eyes burned with a Light not wholly his own. Lady’s champion. “Warrior’s way. Light to Light. There
is
no saving them on this earth. But they
can
be saved in the next.”

They both had their roles to play in the coming conflict.

Pahn spoke up. “Communication will be a problem.”

“My sylphs canst help with passing messages around the field betwixt groups,” Anika answered.

“Champion,” Aletha said. “Everett and I require thy presence at the temple. We must work on the actual banishment rituals. Dara, thou must study that book. The rest of thee, brush up on traps, spells—anything to hinder the enemy.”

With their orders made clear, the group dispersed. Loren gave Dara a rueful glance as the Lady’s servants led him away.

Dara watched him go. Off to plan a war. A war where he could get hurt—or killed—because of a vow he’d made to her. Her heart caught in her throat.
Please, Lady, keep him safe
, she prayed.

Upstairs awaited the book of spells. She shuddered. A spell book written in blood. What would she find there?

Chapter Fourteen

They heard naught from Cianan for two days. All the crown told Loren was that he was alive and well, somewhere in the mountains beyond the barriers.

Dara gave up interrogating Loren on the rare moments he was able to escape from the temple and locked herself away with the book. Like the treasures in the cave on the Isle of Mysts, she knew what spell was whose without even using the voices. The oldest ones in the book were at the beginning, written by Mystria herself. They were the most powerful, and, Dara sensed, the most dangerous. Mystria had the least scruples of any of them when it came to the ethical uses of her power. What suited her purpose was acceptable. Regardless of the cost to others.

Dara looked through the seeing stone at the ancient, crabbed text until her eyes crossed. The spell that kept drawing her back was a soul-transmigration spell, the means of taking a soul from one vessel and putting it in another. That was how the blood torque came into being, Dara realized. She wondered if it could be altered into a demon-transmigration spell, and set off to ask Aletha.

The high priestess frowned. “It just might, youngling. Leave the specifics with me, and I shalt consult the Lady.”

Dara left the entire book.

Pahn found her on the way back to the palace. “Lorelei contacted Cianan. They’re waiting for you in the palace.”

The two women ran the entire way to the hall. Pari, Loren, the three mages and Lord Elio awaited them. Dara sidled up to Loren, leaning into him as he slid an arm around her waist. Solid. Warm. Comforting. “Is everything all right?”

“Cianan and Kikeona are fine,” Lorelei reassured her. “But the only clans to march are Wolf, Badger and Bear. The others promised weapons, food and a refuge should the battle go ill, but they shalt not march.”

Dara’s ire rose with the torque’s. “That’sss but two hundred,” she hissed. “Moira isss one of their own.” Hearing the sibilance in her own voice, she struggled to tamp down the draconian rage with human reason. Loren moved behind her to stroke her shoulders, her arms. She focused on the soothing motion, let his touch relax her.
“Calm down. Save it for the battle. Then I promise you can scream ’til you’re hoarse. Now cease.”

They settled down.

“Nay, she is not,” Pahn said. “Not to their minds. Clans are like the dwarf tribes, very separate and insular. I’m surprised they offered outfitting.”

Loren wrapped his arms around Dara and nodded. “Cianan agrees it is the best offer we are bound to get. Moira accepted the terms. All the clan leaders swore blood-oath, so it is binding.” He turned Dara around to face him. “See if you can contact Hengist and Xavier.”

Dara knelt by the fireplace. “Little friend?”

First’s eyes appeared in the flames.

“I need to speak with Xavier and Hengist again. Do you remember the way?”

“Aye
.” First took off fire-hopping. Soon the interior of a tent appeared, from an enclosed oil lamp. “
Hengist’s tent
,” it told her.

Hengist was busy writing on some papers at his makeshift field-desk.

“My Liege,” Dara called.

He jumped, and his pen scrawled a line of ink right off the paper. “Give an old man heart palpations, child. You are well? What news from the dawn?”

“We’ve confirmed two hundred spears from the north, no more. We’re just finishing up the details of the translocation spells and we’ll be ready.”

“I had some visitors this morning. Conn, Artur and a dozen others straggled in from the swamps. Jakop’s Crossroads’ women and children are continuing south to Sezeny. He’s promised to shield refugees until this is finished.”

Dara was elated they still lived. “That’s just what the other clans said. They offered weapons, food and shelter for survivors.”

“Cheerful thought,” he grumped. “Well, we just need a day’s notice. We’re three days march from Safehold Keep.”

“Moira’s four. We’re…” She looked to Loren, but it was Gwendolyn who answered.

“One. We can gate to the edge of the Great Marsh.”

Dara blinked. “You’ll need a head start on us, Sire.”

“Just tell me when to leave,” Hengist said.

“I promise. Try to sleep. Good-bye.” When Hengist disappeared, Dara turned to First. “Thank you, little friend. Go now.” The salamander also disappeared. Dara pulled in a little fire energy, then rose and turned to the others. “I guess we wait on Aletha.”

Loren lingered as the others showed themselves out. Dara shuddered with dread, and when he held his arms open to her she was only too glad for his comfort. “It’s really happening,” she whispered. “We’re almost there.”

His arms tightened around her. “Aye. It was a good idea—that twist on the spell. We shall see your people freed once more.”

“I’m scared,” she confessed. “Everyone seems so sure we can do this, but—” His lips captured hers in a kiss that silenced her words, and she lost herself in the taste and heat that was uniquely Loren. She shivered as the wet velvet of his tongue stroked hers, and his arms pulled her against him. Hot. Hard. She whimpered, arching into his strength.

He broke off the kiss, nipping lightly at her shoulder. “You can do this,
vertenya
. Guardian. You are a daughter of queens, dragon. Fire mage. You are not alone in this, Dara. We can do this, if we all work together, as it should be.” He fingered the torque around her neck. “Feel their strength. Do not fear it. Channel it. Use it.”

“You did not see them…the ba-pef.” She shuddered. The voices hissed.

Loren brushed the hair back from her face. “Without fear, there cannot be courage. No more despair.” He tucked her head under her chin. “I apologize for my absence. You were never far from my thoughts.”

And he’d never left hers. She clung to him, never wanting to let him go. How had it happened? When had he become as important to her as breathing? Was this love then? Could it be, if she had to ask? Surely there was more certainty to that emotion?

Too many questions. Not enough answers. Dara closed her eyes and breathed in his scent, his warmth, letting the steady beat of his heart soothe her.