Heart of the Flame (37 page)

"Stand down--" Kenrick began, reaching for his own weapon.

Haven halted him with a softly voiced command. "Kenrick, no. You needn't defend me in this, my lord. Nothing can. Your friend is right; I am responsible for his loss."

Rand stared at her as if waiting for her to wield her shifter's magic. Haven took a few steps toward him, dismissing with a shake of her head Kenrick's advice to keep her distance while Rand was still holding his weapon at the ready, his chest heaving with rage.

"I'm sorry for what happened to Elspeth and Tod. I cared for them, too."

"Lies!" he scoffed.

"I know you won't believe me, but it is true. I cared for them, and that is what brought my clan to Greycliff that night. You see, they were hunting me--with as much determination as they hunted for the Chalice secrets you were keeping for Kenrick. I was sent in to spy and to recover the seal, but I did not report back as I was instructed. De Mortaine became suspicious, and he sent a number of shifters in to find me. My ties to my clan are severed completely. I cannot ever go back to them."

Rand snorted in rejection. "Why should you be trusted? Because you can put a tear in your eye and declare to feel affection for something other than your accursed Dragon Chalice? It would take no magic to do that--only a lying tongue and a lack of mortal conscience."

"What I've told you is the truth. Would that I could bring them back to you--I would do it. I would trade my life for theirs, were it possible."

"Spare me your empty sentiment," he scoffed. "Tell me, can you feel loss, shifter? Can you feel remorse?"

Haven's gaze slid toward Kenrick for an instant before returning to meet Rand's hard stare. "Yes. I know loss. And I know remorse like a pit of darkness I may never climb out of." She nodded her head, reflective in her silence. "I know regret...as deeply as I have come to know love these past precious days."

"What about you, Saint?" Rand looked at him now. "You seem to know her better than I could say. Do you believe her?"

Kenrick's stoic expression was unreadable, but he inclined his chin in agreement. "She has brought the seal from le Nantres. No matter what else she has said--to either of us here tonight--she has delivered the boon we needed. She had no need to bring it, and she did so at great personal risk."

Rand's voice was hard with skepticism. "How can you be sure this is not a trap?"

"It is no trap," Haven interjected. "I am here to help you. My word is my honor. I stake my life on it."

"Aye, you do," Rand agreed, refusing to be swayed so easily when his heart clearly ached for all he would never again have. "Your life is at stake, lady. For if this be a shifter trick, and we find ourselves circled by de Mortaine and the rest of your hellborn ilk, you can be sure of one thing. You will be the first to die--by my hand."

"I am here in earnest," she vowed, her gaze turned to Kenrick. "I give you my oath."

He seemed to accept her word, his expression solemn, but lacking some of its previous cool edge. There was a note of forgiveness in his eyes, and, she hoped, a small measure of trust. She might never win back that particular precious gift, but this was a start.

Kenrick sheathed his sword. "Time is wasting. The Chalice treasure is what matters now. What say you, Rand?"

For a long while, Greycliff did not move. Then, slowly, his hazel eyes flaring with scarcely banked fury, he relaxed his stance before them. "We've come too far. Let's do this. But Saint--she comes with us. Whatever your feelings, I don't trust her out of my sight for a moment."

"No," Kenrick said, slanting a concerned look at Haven. "It might be dangerous for her in there. If one of the Chalice stones is in that chapel--"

"It's all right," she interrupted, knowing he sought to protect her from the deadly power of the Dragon Chalice, yet loath to come between the two friends any more than she had. "I'll go with you to the chapel. I want to be with you."

A muscle ticked in Kenrick's stern jaw as he held her gaze. A string of denials played in the dark blue of his eyes, but he voiced none of them aloud.

With a nod, he simply said, "Then let's go."

"Remember my promise, shifter," Rand warned in a toneless whisper as she made to walk past him. "Cross us, and you are dead."

* * *

The three of them entered the chapel on the tor, Kenrick keeping Haven near him despite Rand's grudging acceptance of her. He did not worry that his friend would lash out at her in cold blood, but he knew Greycliff well enough to believe that the threat he issued outside would be made good the instant he scented trouble.

Kenrick could not completely absolve Haven of her deception in the time she was at Clairmont, but he shouldered much of the blame himself, for it was he who brought her there, he who allowed her into his life. Even if he struggled to credit the depth of her feelings toward him, he did believe her when she said she cared for Rand's family. He had seen that in her as her memory had been returning at Clairmont, before she knew her true origins. She cared for Ariana, and despite her Anavrin roots, she had become a part of the fabric of Clairmont.

Kenrick could not fault Haven for the legacy of her shifter birth, but he saw no room for himself in the world she inhabited. Nor for her in his.

Her words came back to him as they lit torches and entered the empty chapel. In the afterglow of their lovemaking, she had professed to love him. She had then confessed to Rand that she knew the taste of loss and regret. That she had returned with the seal after the way Kenrick had left things with her at Clairmont--after the way he had driven her off in his own explosion of blind rage--seemed evidence enough that she was an ally and not an enemy to be kept under suspicion.

Still, his reason warned that she was yet a shifter. Perhaps controlled more by her Anavrin blood than any bond she claimed to feel for him or anything else.

He prayed he could trust her, for if she proved him wrong this time, he doubted any one of them would live to walk off this hill at the end of the night.

"This way," he said, leading them into the square space of the nave.

Their torches cast shadows in every direction, filling the small chamber with a bright orange glow. Kenrick strode to the wall that contained the arch between nave and chancel, raising his light out before him. The flame played over the intricate etchings, illuminating the tracery design that he and Rand had discovered upon their arrival.

"The design of the seal matches it perfectly," Haven said. "Two circles, intersecting over a cross."

"But where does the seal fit?" Rand asked. "There must be nearly a hundred like symbols. Which will show us to the Chalice stone?"

"We'll try them all," Kenrick said.

He handed his torch to Rand and approached the slab of carved stone. It looked to be a simple enough thing, until he placed the seal against one of the symbols and realized it was a close fit, but not quite. He tried another and met with like frustration. It almost seemed as though the designs shrank the barest fraction the instant he laid the seal against them, preventing him from finding the key symbol.

"We will be at this all night," Rand remarked when he had tried a dozen or more without success.

Kenrick was inclined to agree. He stepped back and raked a hand through his hair. "They all look to be a perfect fit, but none are."

"Let me try." Haven held out her hand. "Please. I want to try."

Kenrick placed the seal in her upturned palm and watched as she cautiously approached the dizzying network of designs.

"What are we looking for, Saint?"

Kenrick shook his head. "I'm not sure. Perhaps a hidden room, an alcove that might hold the Chalice stone...I cannot be sure, but I know it is here."

Haven studied the symbols in silence, her head pivoting from one end of the design to the other. She was thoughtful, deliberate, as if she trained her Anavrin senses to guide her to the correct place to set the seal. At last she had decided.

"I think I see the one place it will fit," she said, glancing back at Kenrick over her shoulder.

At his nod, she turned back and reached out to settle the seal where she indicated. There was the softest sigh of sound as the odd key locked into place. Then a low and rising rumble grew from somewhere deep within the tor itself.

"Haven, get back!"

Kenrick lunged for her, catching her below her arms and dragging her away from the wall not a moment too soon.

From out of the glazed tile floor--indeed, from below, above, and on all sides--shooting flames erupted inside the nave. The fire expanded like a wall in the center of the chamber, blocking their path. The wall of symbols, and the key Haven had retrieved from le Nantres, were never farther out of reach.

Haven struggled to get out of Kenrick's hold. "Faith," she gasped. "'Tis incredible!"

"Aye," Rand snarled. "Why, it seems that hell itself has just opened its gates before our eyes. Thanks to you."

Haven shot him a look of confusion. "Look beyond the flames. Do you see it?"

Kenrick followed her direction but saw nothing save the blinding conflagration that roared from the very spot they had been standing a moment ago. It sealed them off more effectively than any amount of towering granite or steel. "There is naught to see, Haven. Naught but fire."

"Nay!" she insisted. "The cup is there--one part of the Chalice treasure--on the other side of the flames. It sits on a pedestal of gleaming marble. How can you miss the sparkle of the golden bowl and the deep red stone that glows brighter than a ruby in its core?"

"She's lying," Rand said. "I told you she would seek to deceive us with her witchery. Now do you believe me?"

Kenrick held his friend at bay with an upraised hand. "Let her speak."

"The cup is there. I see it as plain as I see both of you."

"And the flames?"

She nodded. "The cup is on the other side of the flames."

"Damnation," Rand cursed. "To have come this far--to be this close only to fail!"

"We've not failed yet." Kenrick contemplated the soaring barrier of fire that crackled and twisted a few paces away. "If the treasure is visible on the other side, out of the fire's reach, then we have not lost it."

"What do you propose to do?"

Kenrick unhitched the toggle flap on his shoulder satchel and slid his hand inside the leather bag. His fingers curled around warm metal, into his palm pressed a coiled dragon stem on a cup of pure gold. He withdrew the priceless treasure in measured silence.

"By the Rood, Saint. Is that what I think it is?"

Haven took a wary step away from him, putting healthy distance between herself and the
Calasaar
cup.

"'Tis one part of the Dragon Chalice--the Stone of Light," Kenrick said.

The cup reflected the flames like sparks of pure illumination, refracting the beams into prisms of dancing light. Rand watched in transfixed awe. Haven looked to Kenrick in stark fear.

"Don't worry," he said. "I know the danger it poses to you. I'll not let it near you."

Rand stared in fascination. "You didn't tell me you had this. God's blood, my friend. If another cup exists like this one, 'tis no wonder de Mortaine pursues it like a demon. The piece is exquisite--easily worth a king's fortune."

"Four of these make up the Dragon Chalice. There is no wealth great enough to buy the power of the Chalice as a whole."

Rand's oath was quiet, reverent. "What will you do with this piece now?"

Kenrick considered
Calasaar
with a judicious eye. "This cup saved my sister's life some months ago. I don't pretend to know the full power of the Dragon Chalice, but I know it is immense. Perhaps it will be strong enough."

He glanced back at the wall of fire, not quickly enough to escape Haven's notice. Wide-eyed, her face stricken with realization, she took a half step toward him.

"Kenrick--no. You cannot do it. You cannot mean to cross."

He met her worried gaze with a look of determination. "The other cup is there? You see it plainly."

For a moment she did not answer. He could see warring emotions play in her eyes, in her expression that went from concern to doubt to pale fear. "Kenrick...the risk is too great. We cannot be sure of anything--least of all that you can do what you are contemplating."

"I have to try."

Rand looked between the both of them, his brow furrowed. "I know you are not thinking to traverse that hellish veil of flames, my friend. You will go up like a cinder."

"I don't think so."

Rand swore a vicious oath as he yanked one of his leather gauntlets from his baldric. He held it out before him, then tossed the glove toward the fire. It incinerated in an instant, dissolved to naught but smoke and ash.

"Have you lost your mind? There must be another way past this obstacle."

"There is no other way. And even if there was, we don't have the time to find it," Kenrick said, every instinct telling him this was the answer despite his logical mind's protestations that he invited certain death.