Trial of Fire (42 page)

He was there, his arms slipping around her, holding her steady, keeping her head high enough for her to breathe. His eyes rested on hers as easily, locking them together as though the whole world could not split them apart. It had always felt this way when they were together, invincible, one.

‘I thought you’d gone to sleep,’ he whispered. ‘I thought I’d have this pool to myself.’

‘Then I’ll go,’ she whispered in return. There was no privacy in these caves, even with the few doors they’d made. ‘I’ll leave you to your peace and quiet.’

‘Yes, go,’ he replied, his arm still like a vice around her. And then his mouth descended on hers and she lost all ability to think. When he let her breathe again, his hands roamed along her body, setting her alight, the fine cotton of her nightdress no hindrance to him.

‘Where did these bruises come from?’ she asked, fingering the few she could see purpling his chest. Gently, she kissed each one she found. ‘Why can’t they just leave you alone?’

He gave her half a smile as he ducked to kiss along her throat. ‘Everybody wants me, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’ she moaned softly, ‘everybody does.’

‘Why is it that when I touch you now,’ he whispered again, giving his hands free rein, ‘there is no blue light? Does that mean we are no longer Bonded?’

‘I have no idea,’ she smiled against his chest, sliding her arms around him in the warm water, pressing her body up against his, knowing it would distract him even more.

‘There was only that once,’ and though she could hear the faint hesitation in his whisper, she couldn’t address it, not tonight, ‘and never again since. Perhaps that means that we
weren’t
Bonded, or that we haven’t yet, or …’ He kissed her again, deeply, so she moved her hands in a way that would make him forget everything.

He moaned into her mouth and slipped her nightdress over her shoulders, drawing it away. The press of him against her then shut out all other thought.

*

The darkness gave away no sign of the fresh morning. Robert stood on the threshold of the cave and let out a low whistle. ‘How did you find this?’

Jenn moved ahead of him, using her hand to steady the way down the rocky path. ‘It was actually the girls who found it. Damaris and Helen were exploring without their parents’ permission, as usual. Still, it’s so far away from all the other caves that it seemed like the best place to put the Key. That way,’ she paused, frowning into the darkness on her right before a lamp burst into life, ‘if these caves are found, and he does have some way to find the Key, he can virtually reach it without killing everybody on the way.’

‘Jenn,’ Robert chided as he followed her into the huge cave, ‘part of the reason they’re all here is to protect the Key from Nash.’

‘And they will – there’s no way you can even get to this cave without going through the others we inhabit – it’s just that, if there
is
a way, then—’

‘Fine,’ Robert sighed, looking up – and up. The left wall of the cave rose like a wave ready to crash on an unsuspecting shore, curving from the floor, out and up into darkness. The opposite side was equally smooth, the floor beyond the rocks was deep sand, grey and ashen in colour. The entire cave was almost as long as the great cavern at the Enclave. ‘Did you knock the door in?’

‘No, they found it that way.’

‘And you’ve checked that there’s no other way in here?’

She turned and faced him, hands on her hips, one side of her face in darkness, the other side lit by more than the lamp. He wanted to reach out, gather her up, find some corner in this mountain and hide there until Nash was consumed by his own evil.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked, frowning suddenly.

‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’ He turned away then, clambering over the last of the rocks to land on the sand floor beside her. He made immediately for the box at the other end of the cave, deliberately not giving her the chance to read more into … whatever it was she was reading. There was so much he couldn’t afford to tell her, so much she would know anyway, and even more he knew she could see, like the demon filling his belly. He knew what she was going to say, but he couldn’t afford to listen to it. Not any more. ‘Now, assuming Patric is right—’

‘And you don’t believe for one minute that he is.’

‘But assuming he knows what he’s talking about, Thraxis made this thing – the Calyx so that he could … what?’

‘It’s a library, Robert.’ Jenn stood beside him looking down at the box and the object it contained. It sat neatly shelled in a willow-woven box, supported on a bed of hay so that it couldn’t roll around. The Key was visible on top, the round surface of the orb still huge and commanding. At the bottom, seemingly moulded into the stone, were the gold arms, petals almost, of the Calyx. Fine silver decorated the edges and other small points. Patric had voiced his wish to see it, but Robert had immediately vetoed his suggestion to feel it instead.

‘Where’s the other orb?’

‘In that corner, there. I wanted to keep them as far apart from each other as possible – since we don’t know what would happen if they were put together.’

‘Good thinking.’

‘Thank you.’

‘So you haven’t touched this since I left?’

‘Not touched, no. I have been down here, trying to get some sense out of the Key.’

‘You’re still joined to it?’

‘Very much so.’

‘How so?’ Robert couldn’t help asking, studying her profile as she kept her gaze on the Key.

‘Robert, so far you’re not a threat to it, so it doesn’t mind us being together. But mar— what you want is completely different. It would mean,’ she paused, pulling in a breath before turning to face him, ‘that my—’

‘That your loyalty would be entirely to me.’ Even as he said the words, his heart sank. He turned to face the Key/Calyx and deliberately changed the subject. ‘So how do you suggest we try activating the Calyx so that we don’t alert Nash as to where we are?’

‘Well, after talking to Patric and Joshi, I get the impression that we were right in the beginning. Both you and I are supposed to be touching it at the same time and that if we do, the writing becomes readable to both of us, and nobody else.’

‘Suggesting that if Thraxis indeed made this, he did so to give us information – you and me in particular.’

‘That’s what I was thinking, yes.’

‘And what happens if we fail?’

She looked up. ‘In what way?’

‘If the orb fails to mask the Key – what do we do if Nash comes after us again?’

Jenn didn’t move for a moment, then she reached out and took his hand, holding it between her own. ‘Then we stand and fight him. We’re as ready as we can be.’

‘Even not knowing the real Prophecy?’

She squeezed his hand. ‘Robert, I know you don’t want to hear this, but my life is nothing compared to what Nash is, what he has done, what he will do. You know this. Just because you love me, that doesn’t change it. That’s why we’re locked into the Prophecy, why despite all the shifting landscapes over the last decades, we’re still standing here, waiting for that last battle. Nothing will change it.’ She brushed his cheek with her fingers, her voice softening. ‘Not even you.’

His throat grew tight, and though he wanted to drown in the deep sea of her eyes, he pulled back and looked away. ‘No. I’ll find another way. I will. And if Patric thinks there’s one here, then let’s try to find it.’

She paused only a moment before turning back to the box. She reached out towards the Calyx. ‘I think we need to make sure we don’t touch the Key at all. I think it’s highly likely that the reason everything fell apart last time was because the Key and Calyx were joining and you were trying to separate them.’

‘You’re probably right. Now, just to be on the safe side, we’ll touch the Calyx only briefly once, first, just to test it. Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

Ignoring all the voices inside him, Robert put an arm around her waist and pulled her close, taking her right hand in his. Then, with their hands joined, he lowered them until they could just touch the Calyx.

Instantly the surface of the gold changed – then stopped the moment they withdrew. At an encouraging glance from Jenn, Robert put their hands down again and the surface shifted more, like oil moving over water. Colour swirled together, gliding up over the Calyx and onto the surface of the Key. It was like looking into a gilded mirror that never showed the same face twice.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Jenn whispered. ‘Nothing terrible is happening, is it?’

‘No, not so far.’ Robert didn’t dare extend his Senses beyond the entrance to the cave. He’d left Finnlay, Arlie, Martha and Fiona out there, ready if there should be any mishap, out of the way in case of a backlash. They knew too little about this to be frivolous with safety a second time.

‘So, what do we do now?’

‘What do you usually do when you talk to the Key?’

‘I think a question towards it.’

‘And it answers?’

‘If it feels like it.’

‘And thinking a question, is that like mindspeaking?’

‘Not really.’

‘Then ask a question.’

‘Which one?’

Robert laughed a little, knowing they were both avoiding the moment. ‘Ask it what it is.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because you’re joined to the Key.’

‘Oh. All right.’ She closed her eyes and he could instantly hear her voice, as though she were speaking from inside his head. To him, this sounded like mindspeaking – but then, when he did it, he thought of her to make the connection, and the Key wasn’t a person. Perhaps that was what was different.

What are you?

There was no answer, but the swirling surface on the Key changed colours, growing darker, developing more depth.

What are you?

Robert kept his eyes open, his instincts trained on the Key in particular. Jenn was joined to it, a part of it in every sense of the word except the
physical. It needed her to survive, and probably did so even now that it was joined to the Calyx. But that didn’t mean he trusted it. Why should he? It had brought him nothing but grief his whole life, and now even prevented him from marrying the woman he loved, for whatever time they had left together.

Can you answer any questions?

And yet, there had been married Jaibirs before now. Fiona’s father, Marcus, had been married to Ayn without difficulty. Jaibirs, male and female throughout the history of the Enclave, had enjoyed long married lives without it once interfering with the joining to the Key. So why was it a problem now? Was it because the Key hated him as much as he hated it? Was it just being vindictive? Or was it because of the Prophecy? Although the damned Prophecy
had
said he must not leave her alone, and that would suggest to him that marrying her was a damned fine way of making sure she was never alone – but that didn’t seem to affect the way the Key looked at it. No, it wanted Jenn’s sole loyalty no matter what.

Why – what difference would it make? If they were all supposed to be on the same side, then why would it matter if she shifted the bulk of her loyalty to her own husband? The black pit of hatred in his belly rose up, choking him, forcing him to gasp air to get it back down again, before it could drown him as it had almost done with Micah.

No, not yet. Not yet, but soon, so soon.

He held his breath, using the stillness to fill him, to control him, to let him see the truth.

Jenn wasn’t moving. Nor was she speaking. He turned to find she wasn’t even breathing – and in that moment, she sagged against him, her eyes rolling into her head.

Jenny!

The noise drummed through him, scraping skin from his fingers, burning him in the fiery darkness. He could see his mother, her pale face, her dark hair streaming down her back, eyes puffy with bruises, blood on her hands, her face, holding herself, while above her the black waves of smoke rolled heavenwards.

He called out to her, but she couldn’t reach him. He ran towards her, but he was small and didn’t have the strength. He was afraid for her, but couldn’t say that, didn’t dare even show himself.

She was dying and he was frozen with fear. He could see her fading in front of him, until no more than her bright blue eyes rimmed red with sadness remained. There was so much sadness he couldn’t look any more.

The stone was hard against his face, but he turned away, shaking.

*

Andrew woke with another headache, this one worse than yesterday’s. And instead of getting up this time, he just rolled over, wrapped his arms over his head and wished it would go away. But he wasn’t allowed any peace; instead, he had to listen to Joey, Guy, Edain and Braden getting out of bed, talking to each other, laughing and joking and getting on with the day like it was any other.

He really wanted to yell at them to be quiet, but the thought of the questions such behaviour would raise almost made his headache throb harder, so he kept his silence, stuck his fingers in his ears and waited until they were dressed and gone.

It was his own fault. He shouldn’t have sat in the shadows last night, listening to Finnlay, Fiona, the Bishop and Patric talking. And Lady Margaret had been there too, listening, occasionally murmuring agreement, but saying little, and he’d had the distinct impression she’d known he was there - but she’d kept her silence, and he’d kept listening, learning all sorts of things he didn’t want to know about.

They’d been talking about the Troubles, more than thirty years ago, how Robert and Finnlay’s father, Earl Trevor, had worked to bring peace to the warring Houses, and how only Selar’s invasion had really brought an end to the bloodshed – by killing most of those involved. And then they’d gone on to talk about Selar’s invasion, and the stories of courage they’d witnessed,
or heard about, touching only briefly on the death of Lady Margaret’s husband. Even then, he’d heard the still-raw sorrow in her voice as she remembered him.

There’d been more, bringing to life real experiences, things he’d only ever read about from books. He shouldn’t have been listening, but the Bishop had told him to learn what he could, to use what others had learned before him to explore his own skills.