Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) (53 page)

With a sigh he dropped back beside her.

‘We talk of Electra's prophecy quite often, he and I. He works very hard at remaining unbiased and offering support for neither of us while I, of course, am Paggically biased as Hyades! I tell him I'll not let you go whatever he thinks! But he has said he believes it would make no matter what course you took, whether you were in Qurazil or here in Castle Heceuda.’

‘Make no matter to what?’ Gynevra asked with a touch of belligerence.

‘He wouldn't say. Just that ‘it would make no matter’.’

‘Then there's no need for us to go see him.’ Gynevra hunched down on her clagren. ‘I just need my jailer to hold me close so I can't get free for no matter what Dogon says, Taur, I can't feel easy about it. I feel as if I carry on my shoulders responsibility for every living soul in Atlantis.’

Sliding down in the bed, Taur drew her into his arms and tucked her head under his chin.

‘Ah, alara, why would the Gods put so much responsibility on one pair of shoulders? Do you not think They would see that as unfair? Don't you believe the Gods have a sense of justice?’

‘I believe in Electra's prophecy,’ Gynevra reiterated stubbornly.

One outcome of this conversation was the lifting of the energy web from sunset to sunrise, and as Gynevra had surmised, the Star Path was very popular with the Ennead priests and priestesses. Cielcif and Loganda, her two closest friends in Hecanil, talked of its energies ceaselessly and even Varia was moved to talk of the wonders she'd seen during meditation in its powerful inner chamber. Taur had described it for her but Gynevra never wearied of hearing more. Cielcif especially, understood her need to know and happily fed her the minute details her soul hungered for.

The floor, it seemed, was of glowing red quartz, with the ancient symbol for life, the cross within a circle, inlaid upon it in gold. A hematite chair sat at each point where the cross met the circle and in the center of the cross an aquamarine statue of a mermaid held Merwin's Crystal aloft. Cielcif said there was no way she could describe the sense of power and God-presence one felt when seated in one of the hematite chairs.

Gynevra wanted to experience that energy for herself, just once. She was now an Ennead priestess, after all.

Coming back from the Temple with Cielcif's descriptions still vivid in her mind and the desire strong within her, she could scarcely wait until she and Taur were alone in their rooms before it was time to dress for dinner. Nudon had taken Ugo away to his bed and Taur was sitting at a desk sifting through some breskina Maden had given him with the suggested new wording for the Breeding Flabria.

Wearing only a cobweb fine linen dressing-gown which Taur called a teasing-gown for the pretense it made of covering her delectable body, she wrapped her arms round his shoulders and pressed her cheek to his.

‘I collect my Queen desires something of me,’ he said, half his attention still on the breskina on the desk.

‘Mmm, I do,’ she murmured, smoothing her hands across the broad, muscular expanse of his chest.

‘Would it have anything to do with some part of my kingly body?’

‘No.’

‘Then leave me be, woman! I've got to study this and whether or not your request has anything to do with my body, the response you get will have.’

Gynevra chuckled.

‘I could ask you the time of day and the response I'd get would have to do with your body! It seems we have no other way of responding to one another.’

‘You're complaining?’ Taur growled.

‘No! But I do have a request to make of you and I'd like you to give it serious consideration. So could you please give me all your attention for a moment?’

Slowly Taur turned on the stool and with his back to the desk drew Gynevra between his knees. His hands cupped her buttocks and with his nose he nuzzled open the front of her gown.

‘You have all my attention. What is it you desire?’

Tugging herself free and dancing a few steps across the room, Gynevra tossed her head and said, ‘Not you.—At least not at this precise moment,’ she hurriedly added, as his face darkened.

‘Huh!’ he snorted, and resting an elbow on his knee and his face on his hand he watched her from under crooked brows.

Gynevra stopped by a bowl of polished stones on a small side table and selected one, a large piece of rutilated quartz in the shape of a dolphin, and held it to the light to admire the golden threads of rutile encased in the stone. Then rolling it in her hand, she lifted her head and fixed Taur with a straight, determined gaze.

‘I want to see the inside of the Star Path. I want you to take me there.’

‘No.’ His gaze never flickered, his body never moved. ‘Ask me anything else and I'll gladly consider it. But take you in the Star Path? Never.’

With that flat refusal he swung straight back to the breskina on the desk.

For a second or two, Gynevra stared at his back, her desire escalating alarmingly in the face of his stark denial.

‘Don't you trust me?’ she snapped.

A breath of stillness hung between them, then Taur swung back to face her.

‘Perhaps I do, perhaps I don't. Either way I'm not going to risk it. The energy in the pyramid is too volatile and you're too receptive to such energy.’

In a flash the legendary Dragon fire, which Gynevra usually had under tight rein, uncoiled from her belly and lashed with the speed of lightning.

‘You great selfish pig!’ she cried. ‘You just want to keep all the energy to yourself!’

With the suddenness of wildfire leaping from brush to brush, the flame of rage leapt from her eyes to his.

‘Yes, I am and that's how it'll stay! If I find you anywhere near that place I'll beat you black and blue and then rape you until you'll wish the priests had had you instead!’

Rage coalesced into white-hot fury in Gynevra's belly.

‘You can go kurn a post or a rock for all I care but you're not coming near me again,’ she hissed, and spinning on her heel left him, a tower of classic Draconian rage shooting spears of fury between her shoulder blades.

The wall of ice between King and Queen at dinner that night was almost visible. The Castle tattle-vine quickly spread the news the King slept in the guard-room and whenever he came near the Queen she hissed at him like a cornered feral cat. The whole Castle, likely the whole city, knew fury reigned in the royal love nest.

On the third night, weary of the knowing glances, smirks, frowns, and wariness of his courtiers, Taur returned to their rooms after entertaining silk merchants from a country northwest of Nyalda. He'd ordered generously of any exquisite bolt of cloth the Queen had appeared to appreciate.

She knew he'd meant for her to know and recognize the gesture as an olive branch but refused to be placated. Whenever she thought of the cruel threats he'd flung at her, fury burgeoned within her anew.

‘Crawl back into whatever delilah's bed welcomed you these past two nights. If you don't I'll go find someone to welcome me!’ she snarled with such venom he left without speaking.

Such was the quality of her mistress's fury even Difleer didn't try to breach the depth of it.

Waking alone in her bed in the early hours of the third morning in a row and knowing that wherever Taur slept, he'd be rising to go to the Temple for Dawn Ritual, Gynevra was dismayed to find tears rolling down her cheeks. Once or twice over the last two days she'd been aware of a sliver of fear in the darkness of her anger, fear that she might not be able to find her way back to the sanctuary of the love she shared with Taur. Fear that it was lost forever.

As she acknowledged those fears, the terror burst up from her heart and deeper, in great tearing sobs which she buried in the clagren. She'd learnt Difleer had little patience with lover's tiffs. Life was too short to argue, Diffie said. That thought only brought more tears. What if something happened to Taur before she could apologize for her own harsh words and beg his forgiveness? Why had she sent him away last night when she knew he'd come hoping to make amends? What woman had been giving him the comfort she herself had denied him?

By the time she was able to calm herself her face was a blotchy red mess and she crept along the hallway to the bathing cavern hoping to forestall Difleer and bathe her face back to normal. As usual Difleer was there before her laying out cloths, soaps and oils.

‘If I 'ad any sense I'd keep my thoughts to myself,’ Difleer commented tartly, observing Gynevra's reddened eyes and cheeks. ‘But that's one thing I never learnt to do. So—I collect my Lady 'as finally worn out 'er fury! It must've been some sin 'imself committed for you to be in such a snit.’

‘Don't make me think about it, Diffie, or I'll be as furious as ever. Oh! I never want to feel like that again. It hurts—worse than—worse than anything I can think of. Just help me bathe, Diffie, and say nothing.—Please.’

Difleer smiled her old cocky grin and Gynevra knew she was relieved things were coming back to normal. There was a way to go yet but at least she was of a mind to work towards it. Studying in circle with the other Enneads in Hecanil that morning was a struggle. Keeping her mind absolutely clear of earthly concerns was difficult when all she wanted to think about was how she was going to stage her reunion with Taur. She thought of begging off the healing clinic that morning too but knew that was totally irresponsible when the Temple was packed every morning with people coming for healing for the mental stress attacking many along with the strange weather.

When she stepped back into the common room after her first client had left, Nilidra who was manning the desk that morning, said a message had come for her from Lord Dogon.

‘It was brought by a young priest and he said Lord Dogon had need of your expert advice on a certain matter and wondered if you could attend him as soon as possible? It seemed urgent, Lady. Perhaps you should go now?’

Gynevra nodded. A dose of Dogon's loving straightforward speaking wouldn't go amiss and maybe he'd have a suggestion for how she might go about putting right what was so dreadfully wrong between her and Taur. But looking round the common room filled, as it was every morning, with people waiting to see healers, she said, ‘I'll see another couple of clients before I go, Nilidra. It can't be that urgent.’

It was almost midday when she hurried into the gardens between the Temples and climbed up towards the side gate into Zedanil. In a movement that took her back two years to the terrifying morning she was abducted after morning latreia at Qurazil, she was enveloped in a voluminous linen cloth the moment she closed the gate at her back. The screams that rose instantly from her throat were cut off in short order by something tied tightly round her head and through her mouth. Other bonds were wrapped round her body and she was summarily lifted and carried at pace.

Terror filled her. It had never occurred to her the priests in Nyalda would dare abduct the Queen for their altar-fests. Thus nor had it occurred to her to take any precautions against such a happening. By the time her captors had wrapped her in yet another length of heavy dark cloth and slung her over a horse like a sack of grain from the harvest, she'd remembered Taur's terrible taunt of three nights before and knew he'd given her to the priests—with his blessing.

Holy Ist, I need your protection and I need it now! she cried over and over in her mind. Somewhere on the dark, rough ride it occurred to her to wonder why they weren't taking her into the secret depths of the Temple and because her mind couldn't conjure any answer her panic went into acceleration. By the time she was lifted from the horse, and laid on the ground she was almost catatonic with fright.

Her straining ears detected the sound of the horse galloping off. Where was she? What now?

The breeze was sharp and definitely filtered through fir branches. The rustling and the earthy aroma of the forest was distinct. There were wolves in the forest. Had they left her here to be devoured by wild animals? A whimpering cry of terror rose in her throat and then she realized her hands and feet were free and that she was not helpless.

The relief was inordinate and she struggled and tore at the cloths enveloping her until she’d fought free of the heavy outer cover. Suddenly the linen cloth was ripped from her body. Breathing was something she’d forgotten how to do. Then the blindfold was pulled from her head.

Above her, green eyes glowing with demonic fire and chin jutting with a perfidious satisfaction, was Taur. Between one breath and the next terror became relief so intense it was almost no relief at all. She still could scarcely draw breath.

With the eventual return of oxygen to her starving lungs and heart came a full-blown surge of fury.

‘How dare you? How dare you! You doraba qaba! You breara braba! Braa! Cedaban! Ciaro!’

‘Shut up, woman,’ he growled, pulling her to her feet and hard against his body. ‘I need to kurn you and I know you need me to kurn you. And since we are likely to fight and be noisy about it I decided to arrange us some privacy.’

The fear that had paralyzed her moments before now became an ungovernable fury. How dared he terrify her like that? Wrenching back in his arms she swung her arm and slapped his arrogant face with all the strength she had.

Expecting fury and retaliation she stepped back further, preparing to run. But other than to raise a hand to his face he didn’t move. His eyes however, smoldered and glowered with the smoky green of nephrite and Gynevra found she couldn’t move. Slowly his arm dropped to his side and he stood, still and watchful.