Twin Passions: 3 (13 page)

But Rhydan and Torran had been strengthened by the Veressi themselves as well as their Consortress.

By the very heart of Sentmar’s magick.

Taking them would not be nearly so easy.

Connecting with their Consortress, sharing the thought with her that they could easily shadow jump and escape, was their quickest plan. They would not see her judged by a mother’s hatred, or the condemnation of the Sorceresses she had fought beside for so long.

“No.” She shook her head slowly, using her magick to do no more than hold Alisante at bay. “I can’t leave.”

A wave of her hand and Alisante slumped against the cavern wall, staring at her own hands in disbelief, unable to accept that the land, that her own magick and her deceit had failed her.

Astra could only stare at the woman she had once called mother. Betraying that poisonous woman would mean nothing to her, but she couldn’t betray Marina further. She had already committed the ultimate treason, she would not add cowardice to her crimes by leaving Covenan. It would destroy her.

“Astra, do not make us fight you,” Camry pleaded with her. “Come with us willingly. Do not destroy our hearts this way.”

Rhydan felt his chest aching with the sob that hitched from his Astra’s chest as she faced the women she had called sisters.

“You go nowhere,” Rhydan ordered her, the command in his voice heavy with dire warning. “But with us.”

Tears fell from her eyes, her lips trembling as her hands clenched at her sides, little fists of desperation and fury as she shuddered with the cries she fought to hold in.

“I will not leave Covenan,” she swore, terrifying him to the deepest levels of his being, because to stay could very well mean her life if Alisante Al’madere had her way. And she would hold sway over all but the missing queen.

“Not for long, my heart,” he swore. “Just until we have this safely resolved.”

“Not even for a moment,” she denied, her voice hitching with her tears. “No, my Consortors. I’ll never run from my queen, nor my Guardian.” She stared back at them, the tears, the pain raging through her staying his hand when he would have forced her to shadow jump with them. “I will be unharmed. Go, the shadow planes will protect you where I cannot.”

“Only the Veressi shadow jump,” one of the warriors proclaimed.

Rhydan ignored him as he turned back to his Consortress.

“What you face, so shall we,” Torran sighed before arching his brows to the Sentinel Warriors. “There will be no chains and there will be no restraints upon our magick. We will go willingly.”

Evidently, such an answer was unacceptable to several of the Sentinel Warriors. Before Rhydan and Torran could guess their intent, a powerful, combined surge of magick infused with a spell to painfully disarm not just them but also Astra hurled toward them.

They could not have guessed Astra’s powerful answer.

* * * * *

The knowledge of the Joining and the danger pierced Marina’s senses, and along with it all the knowledge that her Sorceresses were unaware the Guardian could perceive when Sorceress and Wizard Twins became one magick with Sentmar.

Her head jerked up, her gaze swinging from the charts she had been perusing to the surprised gazes of her Consortors, and that of the dragon Garron.

Black, solemn eyes in a leathery dragon’s face seemed to widen, as though he felt the danger and the warning at the same moment.

Her lips parted and Marina couldn’t stop the tears that filled her eyes, the ache that tore at her heart. The regret that the Sorceress she was so fond of had been too frightened of the repercussions to come to her.

There was other knowledge as well.

The knowledge of the darkness that sensed the Joining, and its anger over it. The Sentinel Warriors who had sensed the magick, the Sorceresses searching for it, the jealousy and vindictiveness of a mother, and the powers vying to destroy the Joining converging on one small cavern at the edge of the Emerald Valley.

Those of magick were not the only ones making their way with haste to the trio. The Griffons were racing from their lairs, their roars of anger filling the air, warning all from the area. Even the babe Tambor had taken to wing, flying above his mother whose magick shielded her undefended belly now.

“Caise, Kai’el,” she whispered her Consortors’ names in fear as they rushed to her side.

“This cannot be,” Garron growled, the black of his gaze flickering with a furious red. “That viperous bitch would not so dare to strike one I protect.”

“Do something now,” Marina cried out as her magick began to swirl around her and the lands themselves began to quake in fury at the challenge to its choice as Keeper Heir.

“At ease,” they warned her quickly. “Your rage will only fuel the lands, Marina, and warn our enemies of our knowledge. Calm yourself. We go, love. Now.”

Their magick surrounded her, and not for the first time, Marina found herself Shadow Walking, and terrified she wouldn’t make it in time to save the Sorceress who knew not just how deep her loyalty truly did lie.

* * * * *

The Griffons were raging, their roars echoing outside the caverns as Sorceress magick and the darkness of all that was evil suddenly began to clash. Without thought, Astra sent her magick to close the cavern entrance to the beasts winging their way to the cavern, determined to protect her.

Alisante straightened from the cavern wall with a scream of rage, her eyes suddenly glowing black as blood-red magick poured from her fingertips toward the daughter she had never wanted, and had tried desperately to destroy in the womb.

With her, four Sentinel Warriors converged as well, the gray and red hues of their magick aligning with Alisante’s and streaking far too quickly toward the Consortors Astra had given her heart and her soul to.

“No!” The cry tore from Astra’s lips as she suddenly jumped between them and the fiery aura of a pure, blood-red evil magick streaking toward them.

As though time slowed as they tried to get to her, to push her back, Rhydan and Torran felt as though they were moving much too slow as they struggled to save the only link they possessed to life.

Before they could reach her a clash of magick sounded. The darkened rainbow of iridescent Veressi magick sliced between Astra and the reddened hues as the Guardians of the lands suddenly arrived in a hail of voracious power that sucked at the oxygen in the air.

At the same moment, Garron, Marina and the Sashtain Wizards were blocking the magick as well, protecting one too delicate, far too courageous Consortress as the bloody magick suddenly swung toward her.

The four Sentinel Warriors were blown back and, split from those of the darkness along with the Sorceresses, were suddenly thrown, hitting the cavern wall. Shaking their heads at the force of the blows, they were still able to send their magick, hues of gold, gray and amber, gentle blue and iridescent violets vied with fierce fiery brown to join the battle against the blood-red hues of evil and the blackened strands of a darkness straight from Shadow Hell as the four warriors who had attacked suddenly stood with a dragon nearly identical to Garron.

“Brother,” the imposter growled in a voice that vibrated with evil. “So we meet again. Once more over Sorceresses whose value I greatly question.”

“Question as you will,” Garron snarled in a voice that thundered with rage. “Still will I protect them once again. And both we know how ended the battle we last fought.” He smirked.

Steam emitted from the flared nostrils of the imposter. “Still yet, my power was greater, brother,” the dragon reminded him. “’Twas the aid of our parents and siblings who have no concept of loyalty that won the battle for you.”

Garron waved such a thought away as Astra watched the battle of words, her stomach tight with fear as she called out to the lands of her birth, to the Raging Seas that infused it and the magick that built beneath it to gather its power to greater force.

“And once again you have only piddling Sentinel Warriors to do your bidding, and reckless, greedy women without morals.” Garron chuckled. “Have you learned nothing over the ages?”

Suddenly, blood-red magick shot toward Garron as a dragon’s roar filled the cavern.

It was met with a rainbow of dark and light iridescent hues as Sorceresses, Sentinel Warriors, Astra’s Keeper powers and Wizard Consorts alike threw their strength to Garron’s and met the dark being with a power that seemed to grow, to intensify, to draw its breath from the soul of Sentmar’s magick.

Thunder rolled as Astra threw her magick suddenly to her. Consortors combining with powerful Wizard magick, it strengthened, pierced the center of the veil of magicks to add even more strength to Garron’s, the Veressi and the Sashtain Twins whose magick was infused with that of the Guardian of the Covenan lands. That magick, the greatest outside that of the One, met the evil drawn from the deepest reaches of Shadow Hell.

A scream of agony and rage pierced the cavern. In the blink of an eye, the dragon imposter disappeared and the traitorous warriors fell to the cavern floor as the Griffons were stopped outside the cavern by the spell Astra had quickly thrown at the opening to hold them from the danger of the evil inside.

Astra watched as their magick sizzled for but a second before the warriors were left to stare at the ceiling of the cavern in lifeless shock. Beside them, Alisante groaned, a whispered, “No, no, I cannot fail again. I cannot fail again,” trembled from her lips.

She had attempted to destroy Astra even as she rested within the womb. How many other times before this had she attempted to murder the daughter who would have loved her?

The battle was over though. Finally, whatever dark force she had followed had been conquered, and all that was left would be to see to the former Keeper’s punishment.

The land would never accept her again now. Should Alisante even attempt to step into the Mystic Forests after this, then the land itself would swallow her whole. The dark being who had tormented them since the arrival of the Wizard Twins had shown his presence and made himself known. There would be no peace now until somehow he was once again locked in the deepest pits where he could cause no harm. But Astra could sense there was much more at play here than simply a dark god’s rage. There was more power backing this battle than history had claimed Dar’el could have.

Magick slowly receded, bringing the time of Astra’s reckoning to hand as she faced the Ruling Wizards and the Guardian of the Covenan lands.

Turning to Marina, Astra went to one knee, head bowed.

“I submit to thee, Guardian,” she whispered. “Punish me as you will.”

She made no excuses. She begged for no mercy.

Instead, she faced what punishment would come for loving her Wizards and trusting in them above the proclamations of their guilt.

They were her heart, and she would make no excuses for it.

She was the Keeper of the Mystic Forests though, and she knew well the land had accepted her as such. No longer was she an heir. No longer would she be forced to wait to take the throne that was rightfully hers.

Her Guardian could not kill her.

She could not kill the Consorts Astra had taken to her heart.

But she could destroy the bonds of years of friendship and loyalty if she attempted in any way to punish the Wizards Astra loved.

There was no crime committed, and Astra would be damned before she would see her Wizards punished for that which they did not do.

Chapter Thirteen

No sooner had the words left her lips than Astra found herself not in the cavern where she had knelt before the Guardian of the Lands of Covenan, but rather instead inside a cavern beneath Sellane Castle.

The Crystal Palace, as it was called, dripped with crystals from the walls and ceiling. They were suspended as though they were multihued stars from the thinnest of webbed, crystallized spores of energy. They held sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, gems and precious stones. There were crystals of the finest ambers, amethysts and brilliant organza beads the color of a nearly opalescent orange, the softest, palest blue, violets and every color imagined.

Here, the power of any being, of any spell was multiplied. But there was also no access in or out of the cavern, and only a very, very select few knew it to be more than legend.

Even Astra had believed it to be legend before now.

Even here, Garron did not feel safe with whatever reason he had shadow jumped himself, Rhydan, Torran, herself, Marina and her Consorts the Sashtain Twins, and the Guardians of the Land of Cauldaran. Because within this magickal room of multihued starlight, he enclosed them within a shield of magick that twisted and swirled with all the colors of the rainbow. The colors of Garron’s magick.

The shield was an impenetrable wall of magick that no others could see, hear or sense in any way. It was as though it simply did not exist to the eyes, ears, senses or magick of any being outside it. And only the greatest of magickal beings could do such a thing.

“Garron, what is the meaning of this magick?” Marina demanded as Astra watched the Veressi begin to weave their own magick through the wall of colors, their darkened hues nearly as powerful as those of the dragon’s.

“Secrets will destroy not just this new Joining but will endanger any that come after it,” Garron warned the Veressi as he ignored Marina’s question. “I will not betray what you have given me, but I urge you, give what you can to ensure no harm befalls those I have taken beneath my protection.”

His starlit black eyes watched the Wizards, their eyes as deep, as black as his own, their gazes just as intense as the dragon’s as it seemed some message, some information passed between the three.

As the silent battle raged, Astra noticed the Guardian as she began probing at the shield with her magick. A frown marred her brow as she ran her hands over it, caressed it with the shades of her magick, infused with those of her Wizards.

As she did so, her lips tightened, her nostrils flaring, a sure indication of her rising anger.

“Dragon, you do not know what you ask,” one of the Veressi breathed out roughly, the long fall of his silken hair brushing against his shoulders as he shook his head as though in weariness. “Our secrets are ones we were warned to hold—”

“So many secrets,” Marina said then, moving from the shield to face the Veressi. “Within this shield Garron has created, there is more information than even you know. You made your mistake, Veressi, when you added to its strength.”

Her Consorts now flanked her, arms crossed over their chests, their expressions disapproving and filled with ire as they now faced their former Guardians.

“How so, Guardian?” one asked gently. “This magick is free of any hint of individual strength or power. It is as water. Clear. Clean.”

“And like water, that which comes from the oceans or the seas has a salty tang. From the mountain streams an icy bite, from the forest lakes a cool, refreshing sensation against the tongue. This magick,” she gestured to the shield, “this magick is the same that I sensed when I entered my sister’s room to find her as well as my mother having been taken. Tell me, dracas slime, where have you taken my queen mother and her heir?”

That was the familiarity she had sensed each time she had been in the presence of the Veressi.

Turning to them, she realized, just as the Sashtains had, her own Wizards now stood protectively at her side. What fearsome deeds had the Veressi done that her Wizards and Marina’s would now guard them so closely?

The Veressi stared back at them, their expressions cleared, as though they were but carvings of some material to appear as living, breathing beings. In their eyes, there was no sign of warmth, nay, nor perhaps of life either.

The one who stood closest glanced behind him to the brother who leaned negligently against the wall.

Ruine, she was betting. Before as she had faced him, she had noticed his tendency to laze against the wall as though the effort of joining others was more than he could force himself to do.

“Sorceress, be careful what you accuse us of.”

“I do not accuse, I asked a simple, straightforward question, Wizards. Where are my mother and my sister? For I know you have them, just as I now know each unique nuance of your magick. You could never hide it from me now, Wizards.”

Anger surged through the confined space as the Guardian of Covenan, fueled by her fury and the strength of her Wizard Consorts, faced the Veressi.

“Guardian, be at ease.” It was Garron who spoke, who attempted to still the suddenly lashing bands of furious, emerald magick beginning to whip about the Veressi. “The time now is for what can be given, not what can be demanded.”

Marina turned on him, her face flushed, the red-gold of her hair seeming to fly about her as she faced the powerful beast.

“You have been our protector, Garron, yet you stand here before me and defend those who have stolen from us my mother and sister? Have your loyalties suddenly turned from those you have protected for a millennium to Wizards who all but drained us of life so many centuries ago?”

Powerful teeth snapped together in anger then as Garron suddenly stood to his full, impressive height.

“You throw out accusations as a child would,” he smirked. “I had hoped the Joining with your Wizards would have matured you past such infantile behaviors. Was I wrong?”

Astra watched as Marina’s shoulders stiffened and magick threatened to pour from her.

“Guardian, they are safe.” Astra stepped forward quickly.

Pride was swirling with magick and creating a combination that could well destroy what had the potential to bring peace instead.

None had told her that she could not speak of what she had learned with her Joining with her own Consorts. Astra had been told to keep no secrets.

“And you know this how?” Marina turned on her furiously, her green eyes blazing with fear for her mother and sister.

Astra looked from Rhydan to Torran, saw the resignation in their expressions that matched the Veressis’ and continued on.

None was urging her to hold her peace and the betrayal she had dealt her Guardian demanded some form of atonement. Some form of proof that it was not treason; rather it was love of men she knew had acted honorably.

“Through my Joining with the Delmari,” she answered softly. “The danger of the dark one in Garron’s form is growing and a select of Wizards have been chosen not just to aid in strengthening the rings of magick about the moons and within the magick lands, but also to protect those who are the most powerful.” She looked to the Ruling Wizards. “Powerful Wizards willing to love the women who see them as monsters rather than men. The Kings of Cauldaran who took a princess Sorceress to Consort though she fought them at every turn.”

She turned then to her Delmari. “And powerful Wizards who gave up what has been their birthright since Wizards first tasted magick, to come to this land and draw out those aiding the darkness. They did this, knowing it may mean perhaps losing their lands as well as the Consortress they have watched over since she was but a child. Rhydan and Torran did this because your Wizards refused to search for the Guardian to take as Consortress rather than the one their hearts cleaved to, unknowing she was one and the same.

“So my Consorts gave the illusion that they did this instead, Guardian. They gave the illusion of wishing to claim you, though they knew it could mean losing me. Because someone had to make the sacrifice to draw that darkness into the light.”

Astra faced her Guardian, watched Marina’s pain as it filled her eyes, and saw the tears that fell to her cheeks.

“I need to know Mother and Serena are safe,” Marina whispered.

“Even if it means their deaths?” It was a Veressi who spoke. “Trust me when I say, Guardian, should your revered and most beautiful sister wish her freedom, then her freedom she would have. Should she see past her fears to the journeys she has taken over the past years, believing her travels to be only dreams, then she could return here to her home and return her mother to the throne. Until then, she is but a babe in the face of what could be coming on the horizon. Without the ability to tap into the power she holds, she is as weak as the Griffon babe when he was but stone, crushed beneath the cruelty of a Sorceress’ hatred.”

Marina stumbled back, all but falling into her Wizards’ arms as she stared back at first Astra, then the Veressi.

“I would know if Serena held such power,” she protested, seemingly shocked.

“And the dreams she shared with you when you were near broken from that attack as a fledgling Sorceress?” one asked gently. “The dreams of shadowed realms and adventures as warrioress?” He wiped his hand over his face as the other grimaced. “Sweet merciful Sentinels. Neither of you knew the danger you faced nor the danger you forced us to face when we joined you to protect the precious power the two of you possessed.”

“And I am to know you are not playing some cruel, vicious trick such as your ancestors would have done?” Shock and disbelief filled her voice now. “I believed Guardians could not lie to another, but I doubt this sincerely now. How could you know of such things?”

Because they had taken those travels.

Astra remembered well the tales she and Serena told her and the others of the Sorceress Brigade when they were much younger. The adventures Serena wove as Marina slept to hold back the nightmares that would have come instead.

“Shall we introduce ourselves?” Raize asked mockingly. “I bid you adventure, Sorceress. I, Maxum, and my brother, Andrell, welcome you to the Vale of Sorcery. Which battle do you prefer?”

Hard lips quirked into simultaneous smiles of mockery.

“Tell me, Guardian,” the other asked then. “Which did you prefer? That we leave her in her bed, her magick undefended as she drifted in the spell created by the god Dar’el? Or that we take her where his magick could not touch her, a place where she and her mother are protected even from the gods until she can protect herself?”

Astra, as the Guardian, could not hide her shock.

She was almost unaware of her movement to place herself closer to her Wizards, though she was not unaware of their arms, each crossing over her back, holding her securely lest that darkness steal her away.

Dar’el. The darkest of the darkness. The one Shadow Hell was created for. His punishment for bringing the cruelty of his parents, the Sentinel gods, upon his innocent brother’s head and creating for Dal’el a life of misery.

The darkness that was evil had implanted its seed within the Sorceress goddess Musera at the time of her conception of Wizard Twins. Coming to her in a dream, he tied the life of his child to those of her Twins and laughed at her pain, mocked the purity and innocence of her love for her Twin gods and sought to destroy the bond created by their magick.

At the birth of the babes, each separate in looks, they had looked inside the babes and spoken to them, which that they be. And the child of darkness whispered to them. It was the child of darker skin, of darker eyes. One who could not hide his evil, they were told.

Only hours old and that child had known the darkness of deceit.

“He seeks to destroy the Sorceresses once again,” Marina whispered, horrified.

The Veressi inclined their heads in agreement. “And Serena was gifted with the magick to return him to the pits for another millennium. But only if she survives, only if she willingly accepts her magick and her Consortors. Only, Keeper of Covenan, if she is strong enough to accept who she is and the fate given her.”

Astra watched her Guardian’s lips part, watched the fear that filled her eyes.

“Then we are doomed,” she stated, her voice now hoarse and filled with horror. “We are doomed, Veressi, because there is nothing on this planet, even the darkness of that great evil, that my sister fears more than her own power.”

“But, Guardian, there is nothing on this planet or beyond that she loves more than she loves her mother, her sisters and the Sorceresses who saved her at a time when that power would have destroyed her.” Gentleness cloaked the two for but a moment before it was hidden once again. “And there is nothing she would not brave, even that power, as fearsome as it is, to save them.”

And that, Astra knew, could well be all that would save them.