Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) (18 page)

‘Nyd?’

‘Yes, Lady?’

‘Please take this salve to Lady Phryne,’ she said, taking the small pot from her pocket, ‘and please wake me one hour before sunset.’

‘Sure thing, Lady Gynevra.’

‘Thanks Nyd,’ she murmured and closed her eyes.

As the big man's footsteps receded down the passage she pulled the warm woolen rug around her face. It was redolent of the herbal scents of the drying green and she inhaled deeply to dispel the acrid fumes of sulphur that had engulfed her moments before. What had it signified? Past or future, dream or reality? And why did it make her think of Taur and their illicit mind-connection during last night's ritual?

Curling her fingers about the warm shape of the black obsidian bull beneath her gown, she held it close, oddly comforted by its vibrant energy.

Chapter 10

It was almost midnight when Gynevra and Phryne ascended the outside stone staircase to their floor of the College.

‘Mery was the most beautiful of the azanoni tonight, don't you think, Gyn'a?’

Feet heavy as her mind, Gynevra stopped her weary climb and nodded in agreement. Many couples had made their contracts before the Goddess on this first day of the fertile season, but Meryan and Hadan’s golden DragonBlood coloring and their wrought gold Trephysian headdresses from each of which flowed the traditional creamy horse tail, had marked them apart.

As had the glow of happiness that had enclosed them.

Gynevra leant on the balustrade. Phryne rested at her side and gazed up at the sky.

‘Can you see the stars in the Glass City, do you think?’ she asked with a small shiver.

The moon rode high, its soft gleam dancing on the ripples of the canal far below. It was a night for love and happiness. Yet Gynevra couldn't lift the heaviness at her heart.

‘I don't know.—Phree, we've waited so long to be grown up and now—I just wish we could go back to how we were! Mery's gone. In two days you'll be gone to the Monastery. It'll never be the same.’ She hesitated, then unable to repress the thought, cried, ‘I don't want to be grown up!’

‘Too late,’ Phryne answered sagely. ‘The Goddess has touched each of us in a different way. There’s no going back, only forward on the paths She’s ordained. Of the three of us only Mery was free to choose. I feel she chose wisely. The demands of the priests in the Temple rituals would eventually have killed her. She needs a gentle man.’

‘She deserves a gentle, loving man,’ Gynevra muttered vehemently, and resumed climbing the stairs. ‘Please Ist, Prince Hadan of Trephysia is such.’

‘Loving! Great Cronos, Gyn’a, what are you saying! Hadan of Trephysia is a Prince and a Son of the Dragon. Mery isn't naive enough to expect, or even want, love.’

Sighing heavily, Gynevra pushed aside her door curtain.

Phryne followed and dropped onto Gynevra’s low sleeping couch.

‘Your salve worked wonders. Thanks for making it. I slept all afternoon and now I’m wide awake. Can we talk for a while, Gyn'a? At the Monastery we're not allowed to talk except when absolutely necessary. I'm going to miss you and Mery so much!’

Gynevra changed into a soft linen bed-gown. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she began pulling a hog-bristle brush through her hair.

‘You can stay and talk as long as you like. I can't promise to stay awake but I'll try. I can’t bear to think we might never do this again.’

The brush paused and she shared a wobbly smile with her sister.

‘I know,’ Phryne murmured. Then suddenly, as if the subject had been simmering in her mind, she said, ‘I was surprised you didn't go with the priests when they asked us to join them for the midnight ritual in Oralin. Lauriana's always talking about the energy in the deep crypt of Temple Oralin and how once a woman's been taken there she longs to repeat the experience. I'm in no fit state and may well be carrying a Child of the Gods which I must guard well otherwise I'd have gone with them.—But you could’ve gone.’

To gain time, Gynevra turned to replace the brush on the shelf in the gerlain then slowly settled herself cross-legged on the bed. How often had they dreamed of this very moment when, no longer virgin, they'd be free to enjoy the high energy of the festivals? How could she divert Phree from this line of questioning?

‘I don't fancy them. They're old.’

‘Well! If that's your problem there were plenty others to choose from right there in the Plaza.’

‘Ta’a, there were,’ Gynevra agreed flatly. Only one man could have tempted her to an altar or any other accepted place of joining this night, and he was preparing to sail to war. That thought she couldn’t share with Phryne. She’d best guard her mind or Phree would intuit it anyway.

Moving to the end of the bed, Phryne hugged her knees and said dreamily, ‘I hope Gotham's fully recovered by next Spring Festival for I think we'd make awesome ritual together.’

Gynevra felt the hard knot in her chest twist and reshape as her sister’s thoughts turned to Gotham. The Golden Prince seemed to have made as strong an impression on her as Taur had on herself. Relieved at the shift in Phryne’s focus, yet unaccountably angry, she demanded, ‘You didn't appreciate King Cadal Isidor? You were initiated by the Champion of Warriors and wish it had been someone else?’

Hearing her voice rising, Gynevra snapped her mouth shut. Her emotions where Taur was concerned were too new, too confused—too easily aroused.

Phryne stared almost challengingly at her for a moment, then said, ‘Ta’a, I do.’

Gynevra realized Phryne had been tuned for an argument all evening. Often in the past their swift DragonBlood tempers had led to short, heated exchanges of words, usually when one or both was tired, as now. Always, time, or Mery, had calmed them and amity was restored. But Mery was gone and Phryne would be leaving in a few days. Time was a luxury they no longer had. She'd determined not to respond to Phree's heated lure when the jangle of the doorbells jolted her off the bed.

‘Lady Gyn'a, Lady Gyn'a, you still awake?’ came an urgent whisper through the curtain.

It was one of the Temple Giants. She must be needed at the Healing Temple. Silently giving thanks for the interruption, she called, ‘Ta’a, Nyd, what is it?’

The giant poked his head through the leather curtain.

‘King Cadal Isidor come to the Healing Temple to see the Prince. He say they talk some then he wait for Lady in grotto—like this morning—in one hour from now.’ Nyd's forehead was furrowed with concentration as he fought to remember the details of the message. ‘I think that's all he said. Qongé, Lady Gyn'a?’

‘Ta’a—thank you,’ she whispered, continuing to stare stupidly at the blank curtain after he'd withdrawn.

Taur wanted to see her again before he left! She could scarcely stand her legs trembled so. Scrambling back onto the bed, she clutched the clagren to her midriff in an attempt to still the tremors of excitement shivering through her body.

‘I think it's time you told me what's going on,’ Phryne said, her voice brittle.

Gynevra said nothing, just clutched the clagren tighter and stared at her sister.

‘You might as well tell me,’ Phree went on. Her voice had taken on a sharp edge Gynevra recognized with foreboding. ‘No doubt it's why you were missing this morning. Mery knew too, didn't she? If she knew, why keep it secret from me? I'd say it's pretty obvious you think it'll upset me. Well, I'm upset already! So you might as well loose the dragon!’

Sparks of fire danced in the green of Phryne's eyes and in a flash of knowing as vibrant and clear as any she'd ever had, Gynevra knew this was the last time she’d speak with Phree. It wasn't to be imagined that anger could keep them apart and she couldn't bear to think they’d part with secrets between them. Whatever the disaster was that would part them, she could only hope it was not of her own making.

‘It started at the sacred pool. I'd say we fell in love—but, as we both know, warriors don't, do they?’

Phryne snorted, then said impatiently, ‘Go on!’

Her scorn stung Gynevra into replying recklessly, ‘We mind-connected easily. He said he wished I was the Goddess.’

‘Oh gr-reat!’ Phryne exploded. ‘I've been initiated by a nostum braa who would rather have been kurning you! Well, aren’t I the lucky one?’

‘Actually, I thought you were,’ Gynevra snapped straight back, all thought of remaining calm forgotten. Thrusting the clagren aside she leapt off the bed and began pacing back and forth on the woven floor rug. ‘You got our greatest warrior to initiate you while I got a worn out old priest who needed healing! You were damned lucky by my calculations.’

‘So when did he kurn you? After he'd left me? Wasn't I enough for him?’

‘Ta’a. He found me in the grotto at dawn where I was bathing after healing the Prince. He thought Ianthe had been generous with the huoda in the nuptial nectar.’

Phryne's face was stark with fury. Leaping off the bed, she confronted her sister.

‘Why? Why did he come looking for you? He took me seven times. I would've thought even with huoda that was excessive. Why would he come looking for you?’

Her face was scarcely a gladven from Gynevra's, venom shooting from her eyes like fiery darts, flame to the dry tinder of Gynevra's fraught temper and the need to wound as deeply as she felt wounded.

‘He came because the connection between us was so strong neither of us could gainsay it. He was close to taking me when I had to anoint him. Then when he took you that first time we went out of body together. Neither of us remembered where we'd been—but we both remembered the ecstasy of it!’

Phryne jerked back as if Gynevra had slapped her. Face completely devoid of color and voice rising loud enough to be heard throughout the Halls of Residence, she screamed, ‘You—went out of body with him while—while he was kurning
me
on the altar? You stole my Goddess essence the very first time? You telon! You lie!’

All sense of guilt or self-preservation swept away on the stormy tide of DragonBlood fury, Gynevra shouted back, ‘I have no need to lie. This is how Mery found out.’ Whipping the tiny obsidian bull from between her breasts, she thrust it towards Phryne. ‘He sent me this. His servant couldn't find me so he left it with Mery with instructions to give it to me.’

Too late, she realized what her temper and pride had led her to reveal to her sister, the gulf she’d set between them, the pain she’d inflicted. As if transformed into the very stone of the walls, she stood rigid with her hand extended, the majestic wee bull a rampant challenge between them.

Phryne lost all power of speech as she stared at the exquisite jeweled creature in Gynevra's hand, then her eyes dropped to the plain polished teardrop lying proudly against her own breast. There was a second of stillness, of utter nothingness, then quicker than thought her hand smacked hard across Gynevra's mouth, cutting her lip across her teeth.

‘I'll never speak to you again!’ she hissed and before Gynevra could recover from the shock, rushed from the room.

‘What's going on?’

High Priestess Nerida, dean of the Hall of Residents, hurried into the room in the wake of Phryne's flight.

Gynevra stood where Phryne had left her, hands clamped over her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks.

Nerida pulled her hands away exposing blood on her fingers.

‘Phryne did this?’

Gynevra closed her eyes tightly and nodded. Her mouth burned like fire but the pain in her heart was much worse. She understood all too clearly now why this was the last time she'd ever speak to Phree—and it
was
entirely her own doing.

Holding her arms tightly across her midriff, she said, ‘She had a right. She's very upset. Someone should go to her.’

‘I will—after I've seen to you. You're a mess. Rinse your mouth so I can see the damage.’

Gynevra rinsed her mouth at the bowl on the nightstand and Nerida inspected her lip.

‘You've cut all along the inside. Luckily it hasn't broken right through anywhere. Come with me to the night room. We'll make an herbal tisane and I'll do some healing on it.’

‘I'm supposed to meet King Cadal Isidor at the grotto—in—now!’ she wailed, and sat back on the bed with her face in her arms.

Nerida gazed for a moment at the younger woman's bowed head, then said gently, ‘I see. Do you still wish to go? Or do you wish me to send someone with a message?’

A part of her longed to rush to oblivion in the arms of her dawn lover but a stronger part of her resisted all thought of exposing her shame to one who was truly yet a stranger.

‘Nyd,’ she whispered. ‘Send Nyd to say he couldn't find me. Then no excuses will be necessary.’

The tisane and Nerida's healing worked wonders on her mouth. Aside from minor swelling there was little to show for the injury. A pity, she thought as she turned restlessly from side to side in her bed, that her heart couldn't respond similarly to a few herbs and sacred words.

Now neither Mery nor Phree were part of her life and though surrounded by people, she felt as alone as if in the middle of a desert. Such a happening had never figured in all their dreams and hopes for the future. Not one of them had foreseen this and Gynevra was at a loss to know how she could have prevented it from happening.

Had the Goddess seen their dependence on one another and decreed that in attaining womanhood they would also attain self-sufficiency? Did the lesson need to be so hard? Rising from her bed in the hour before dawn, she threw on her day gown and cloak. Intent upon communing with the Goddess, she hurried from the Hall of Residents. There was a shrine in the grotto but her feet wouldn't take her that way. Taur would be long gone and the sense of what she'd missed with him burned too deeply. She turned instead to follow the dimly lighted path to the pink and green healing gardens for the heart, where the Goddess in the shrine was carved from rose quartz and the seat at her feet, sparkling green aventurine.

With her arms wrapped about the feet of Ist, Gynevra wept bitter tears for the manner of her passage into womanhood. There'd been ecstasy. She couldn't deny that, gave thanks for it, but it had come at great cost and she'd carry the wound in her deepest soul always.