The Lotus Ascension (19 page)

****

After fucking
Sillara for two hours, Konas went to repair the balloon. Sillara lay on her
side, naked, sweating, and happy, watching him as he worked. He had, of course,
being so fair to cover his skin from the sun, so he was dressed again. Sillara
wished that Konas wore Sunjaa fashions like Soren. She would not then need to
use her imagination to see that body to which she now had sole rights. She
closed her eyes, thinking about Konas in a Sunjaa skirt, thinking about being
able to see his cock. She began to rub her fingers against her still-damp
pussy, and by the time Konas came to sit beside her, she had climaxed twice
already.

“
Already wanting more?” Konas's eyes glittered. “Fit wife for an
orgy-master then!”

Sillara felt a
burning in her cheeks and wondered if Konas would want her to attend an orgy.
She was not sure if she wanted to or not, but then she smiled. Doubtless if
there were an orgy, Soren would be there. He would make sure that nothing went
wrong, that she neither did anything improper nor missed any appropriate
pleasure.

“
What was wrong with the balloon?” asked Sillara. “Is it secure for
tomorrow morning?”

“
It is.” Konas did not look her in the face, and Sillara knew he was
keeping something back.

“
What is it?” she asked. “You look as you did on my Sunjaa
coming-of-age day, the day you knew His Grace had
not
written, and you
did not want to tell me so.”

Konas caught her
face in his hands and kissed her lips with bruising passion. “My Sillara, my
Fair Star, the goddess of my heart—all I have done, I have done for love of
you.”

A chill fell on
Sillara, and she looked up in Konas's eyes, searching their green depths. “What
have you done?”

“
I forced the crash.” Konas crushed her against him, and she could
hear his heart thundering beneath her cheek. “I sabotaged the balloon so that
we would crash.”

“
You risked our lives—why?”

“
No, there was no real danger.” Konas seemed eager to explain. “I
controlled the descent. I was not as good at the direction as I had hoped, but
we should be able to return to the oasis by nightfall tomorrow. But the crash
itself I controlled.”

“
You cut the rope.” It was not a question. Sillara was not exactly
angry. She was more confused. “Why?”

“
I knew that if I had asked you to marry me in any other
circumstance, you would not have answered according to your own desire.” Konas
kissed the top of her head, right between her horns. “You are your mother's
daughter, and you would have remained true to my brother—though he has never
seen you and does not love you as I do!”

“
So you forced this crash in order to sully my reputation in His
Grace's eyes. He would not have wanted me any longer, and I could have accepted
or refused you?” Sillara saw the flaw in the plan. “And if I had refused you?
What then? You would have sullied me to no purpose.”

“
You cannot be sullied.” Konas kissed her again. “But I would have
made it right with my brother. I would have convinced him of your virtue.”

Sillara smiled.
She had never wanted to marry Tivanel anyway. “I do not mind, Konas. I am glad
to be able to remain in Arinport, and you are a better lord to me than your
brother could ever be.”

“
But you haven't met him.” Konas seemed more anxious than Sillara
could account for.

“
But he does not love me,” she said. “You do. You know me, and he
does not.”

“
I do love you, Sillara, more than anything else in the world.”

“
Then show me your love.” Sillara smiled, pushing away from Konas and
lying back on the blanket.
“For I am already forgetting it.”

Konas laughed,
his anxiety disappearing, and he pounced on her. They did not rise from that
spot until dawn.

****

“
We must hurry,” said Sillara as Konas helped her into the balloon.
The sun was just above the horizon, and she shivered. “Soren will be worried
for me.”

“
I've no doubt that Merieke will keep him occupied and cheerful until
we get back.” Konas was busily tugging on the ropes, revealing the black silk
to the desert sun. “Or maybe Nathen will.”

Sillara bit her
lip. She did not doubt that Nathen and Merieke would both be anxious to please
Soren. Who would not be? And she knew now what that pleasure was that Soren
derived from coupling. She would never wish him to be denied any pleasure. But
for some reason she could not explain to herself, the idea of Merieke being the
one to give Soren that pleasure stung her, stung her in a way that Nathen
giving Soren that pleasure did not.

“
Sillara?”
Konas smiled at her, and the sight of his innocent joy brought an
answering smile to Sillara's face. “Don't worry about Soren. We'll be back soon
enough, and they will probably be so worn out from their orgy that they won't
have the energy to worry.”

Sillara kept
her smile fixed in place, but her heart wilted. The others might be exhausted,
but Soren would not be. He would be worried for her. She resolved to make it up
to him as soon as she saw him, and she knew, too, that he would be relieved
that she was not to leave Arinport. She knew he had shared that dread, and she
looked forward to telling him that their threatened separation would never take
place.

This thought
was so comforting that Sillara was still smiling when Konas set the balloon
toward the east. It took some time to find the right wind current, but they
were flying over the sands toward the east and the oasis where Soren and the
others awaited within an hour of the sun's rising.

“
What will we say to your father?” asked Konas suddenly. “How can I
explain our marriage?”

Sillara laughed
out loud. “You never thought so far? We will simply tell him the truth.” She
shrugged.

Konas put his
arms around her, pulling her close. “And that might get me executed for treason
by my own brother.”

Sillara kissed
Konas's mouth, feeling her arousal growing at the depth of Konas's love for
her. “I doubt my father will mind. For some reason I think he still dislikes
King Tivanel.”

“
They were rivals for your mother,” said Konas.

“
Hardly.”
Sillara nestled against Konas's chest. “How could there be rivalry
when her heart has rested in my father's bosom since their first meeting? No,
His Grace fruitlessly sought to divide the indivisible, and he broke his heart
on the bulwark of their love.”

Konas shivered
in her arms, and Sillara felt his heart begin to pound beneath her cheek, just
as it had last night. “I hope for better for us,” said Konas.

Sillara slid
her hand up beneath Konas's tunic and tweaked his nipple. “But truly, if you
explain that His Grace would not have wanted me anyway, I am sure that my
father will accept what we have done.” She shook her head. “He will have to,
for we are wedded. No one can sunder us now.”

“
Yes.” Konas's triumphant kiss put a stop to further speech, and
Sillara gave herself over to pleasure.

But their
pleasure did not last long, for a sudden gust of wind shook the balloon. Konas
released her and darted to the ropes.

“
Another crash?” asked Sillara teasingly.

“
I pray Abrexa no.” Konas strained at the rope. “Sillara, look east.”

Sillara obeyed,
and she understood Konas's fear. To the east, only a little ways off, a
monstrous sandstorm was blowing—and heading straight for them.

“
What should I do?” she asked.

“
Keep down, your head below the level of the basket.” Konas's words
were strained by the effort he was making to pull on the ropes. “If I give you
a rope, hold it.”

Sillara ducked
down, putting on her cloak and pulling up her hood. The stinging sands could
blind, and she needed to protect her eyes. “Is there a way to avoid the storm?”

Konas looked at
her with horror-filled eyes. “No. I will try to ride it out.”

That was the
last time he spoke for the next hour. The sands whipped them, and the storm
tossed them. Sillara could see nothing, hear nothing above the howling wind,
and were it not for the two ropes she held, she might have forgotten altogether
that she was in a balloon. It felt like she was lost in a harsh wilderness full
of keening souls.

But whenever
she closed her eyes, she could see the rose-bower of her childhood dreams, and
this time it was as full of a dark purple flower as it was of roses.

Then the howling
changed, took on a different quality, and Sillara knew they were plummeting,
falling out of the sky. She held tightly to the two ropes Konas had given her,
but she did not open her eyes. The sand was too thick, and to open her eyes
would be to lose them. She could hear Konas screaming. Still, the odor of roses
and those purple flowers was in her nostrils, and then everything went black.

“
Sillara!”
Konas's voice seemed very close, but there was something wrong with
it.

Sillara opened
her eyes. Everything was dark, but the air was quiet and still. The storm was
over, and the sun hung low in the west, its rays unable to pierce the last
shreds of dust-cloud.

“
What happened, Konas?” asked Sillara, but the sheer misery on his
face moved her to pity. She pulled him down to her breast and stroked his
filthy hair.

“
We
crashed,
a real crash this time.”
Konas's voice was ragged, and Sillara realized his throat must be raw from the
sand-filled winds. “And the balloon is destroyed.”

Sillara
understood at once.
“The water?”

“
I was able to salvage it, but there is not very much of it. I was
expecting to be back at the oasis by this afternoon.” Konas kept his face
buried in her breast, muffling his voice.

Soren is days
and days of walking to the east.
Sillara knew
perfectly well that they would die of thirst well before they could have walked
back to where Soren and the others waited at the oasis.
“West
then.”

“
What?” Konas looked up, and his green eyes were red and inflamed.

“
I will lead you. You must keep your eyes closed to allow them to
heal.” Sillara continued to stroke his hair. “We will go west, for there we
have some hope of finding one of those oases Nathen spoke of.” Sillara knew, of
course, that the next oasis Nathen had spoken of was far behind them. She did
not know if there were any oases ahead.

“
Sillara, I have killed us.” Konas's despair was palpable.

“
Not yet, my lord.”
Sillara kissed his brow. “Do not think that.”

“
West.”
Konas repeated Sillara's earlier word. “Perhaps we are not so far.”
He struggled to his feet, and Sillara rose, too.

“
They will be looking for us, too,” said Sillara. “So we are not
without all hope.”

Konas held her
close and kissed the top of her head. “They will think us dead, my love.”

Sillara did not
bother to dispute him. Soren would know she was alive, but he would know, too,
that she was actually wracked with panic and fear, which was more than she
could let Konas know.

“
Let us go west as long as we can walk,” she said.
And hope that
we find water—or Soren finds me—before Nistaran takes us to his halls.

Chapter Twelve

Soren dug the heels of
his palms into his itching eyes as the rising sun warmed his back. Day had
come, and he had not slept. The sky lightened quickly, but still the west was
cloaked in gloom, much like Soren’s heart. Sillara had not returned, and it was
anyone’s guess where she was or what had happened to her. The orgy had
continued long into the night, but as Soren’s head cleared, he had realized
Sillara was long overdue. He had extricated himself from Nathen’s and Merieke’s
arms and made his way out into the freezing desert night, and there he had
stood, watching the west, hoping for some sign of them returning on foot.

Soren watched his shadow
lengthen before him, and with each moment, his anxiety mounted like the burning
sun in the sky. He wiped his brow with his forearm. Merieke’s perfume still
clung to him. Soren shifted his gaze from the horizon to the sky. Now that it
was daylight, they might be returning by balloon. Many times he fancied seeing
a small black speck in the limitless blue, but every time it was his
imagination, his hope making him see what he wanted to see. Where were they?
Where had Konas taken Sillara?