Heart of the Flame (33 page)

"
Calasaar
," she finally whispered. "It was here all along."

Light emanated from the heart of the golden cup--one fourth of the most incredible treasure in all of Christendom. Each of the four pieces of the Dragon Chalice bore a winged serpent, coiled about the stem and clutching in its talons a priceless stone of immense power. For this cup, the stone was illumination itself--purest white, shining clear with a life-giving heat that just a few months ago had brought Kenrick's own sister back from the abyss of darkest death.

But as it healed some, it could also harm others.

Especially Haven.

Where Anavrin's shifters were charged with assisting in the return of the Dragon Chalice, for them to touch any part of it was to court a hellish death. Kenrick had heard a horrific tale of how Silas de Mortaine once punished a shifter by forcing her to hold one of the four sacred cups. She perished in a ball of flames--paying a steep price for daring to defy her evil employer.

"What now, Kenrick?" Haven asked quietly. There was fear in her eyes when she at last looked up at him. In their jewel-green depths, he saw a keen sorrow he tried hard not to acknowledge. "Will you command me touch this cup as I stand here before you?"

"You think I want you dead?"

"Don't you?"

He couldn't answer. Emotions warred within him. Clashing feelings of rage and regret, pain and passion, competed for dominance in his heart. He knew not what to feel, or what he wanted from Haven in that moment.

"Here," she said suddenly, and lunged toward the box he held. "I will make it easy for you. Easy for both of us--"

"No!"

As her hand shot out, Kenrick seized her by the wrist. A mere heartbeat away from placing her fingers against the
Calasaar
cup--a fractional instant before she would have sought her own death by its deadly magic--he stopped her. The fine bones in her wrist went taut with strain.

She struggled against his hold, surprisingly strong, and flexible as a willow switch. Pinioned, she nearly twisted free. One hand loosed, she made another grab for the cup.

With a curse, Kenrick dropped his spellbound parcel to take Haven in both hands. She startled, flinching as the wooden box and the cup it contained fell from his grasp and thudded softly to the floor, its freefall tumble cushioned by the thick rug beneath their feet. He kicked the priceless vessel out of range, hearing it roll onto the wood planks some distance away.

"Why?" she cried. "Why did you stop me?"

"Because as much as I loathe what you are--" He broke off, his voice a harsh whisper very near to her face. "God's blood, but as much as I wish to deny you ever existed, I do not crave your death. But I do want you gone."

"Kenrick--"

"Go. Go now, before I have the chance to think on what I am doing in letting you leave."

"Kenrick, please. Let me explain--"

He thrust her away from him. "Go!"

A raw sob tore from her throat. She held her arms out to him, beseeching, weeping mutely. Her hair was a halo of auburn fire, her skin luminescent--almost shimmering--infused with light from the torches in the corridor outside the tower chamber.

But there was something more than mere rushlight surrounding her, he realized. In that moment, her face stricken with anguish, her fingers reaching for him, she was enveloped in a glittering, twisting sheath of glowing power.

"Jesu," he whispered, awestruck by the change coming over her.

He said her name, but he did not think she could hear him. Her features were transforming, veiled by the brilliance of the magic that had been unleashed. Her mane of long hair spread over her, golden-red, shortening to a glossy pelt. Her eyes tilted up at the corners, stretching, pupils elongating as her face took on a wilder form. She arched her neck and gave a sharp-pitched howl as the change swept over her, faster now, becoming something feral, something fierce and untamed.

The light grew brighter, nearly blinding him.

Kenrick shielded his face with his arm, transfixed by this impossible reality. He peered through slitted eyes, searching for the woman who had been standing before him, engulfed in the shimmering wonder of her glamour.

She was gone.

Haven was there no longer, but in her place stood a beautiful, terrified looking little fox.

Just like the one that had eluded him at Greycliff the first time he had laid eyes on Haven.

"God's love. It
was
you that day at Greycliff. And when the hens attacked you and Ariana here at Clairmont, provoked by an unseen alarm...it was because of you."

The vixen gave a short, high-pitched whine, hesitating only a heartbeat before it darted out of the tower chamber.

Chapter 26

Kenrick bolted into the corridor, disbelieving yet unable to deny what he had just seen. Dashing ahead of him, the fox was naught but a streak of pale russet fur and fast-flying feet.

It made an abrupt turn for the stairwell, its speed too much for Kenrick to keep up. He heard the startled cry of a servant on the stairs, then the crash of pottery. Taking the steps several at a time, he passed the maid who was now stooping to pick up the shards of a broken water jug.

"Have a care, milord! There be a nasty beast loose in the keep!"

Kenrick lunged on without acknowledging the warning.

As he cleared the last step, he nearly crashed into Ariana, who had just come out of the great hall. Her eyes were wide, her hand held at her breast in recovering composure.

"Good lord," she gasped. "A little fox just ran through here in a wild panic! How ever do you suppose it got in here?"

Kenrick could not answer immediately. His emotions were clashing like a thunderstorm inside him, but he held them on a tight tether, meeting his sister's worried look with one of cool resolve.

"What happened with you and Haven?" she asked him, her gaze searching his. "I saw her face as she fled the hall tonight. What has happened, Kenrick?"

"She is gone," he answered tersely. "She's gone, and she will not be back."

"Kenrick--" Ariana frowned. "What did you do to her?"

He scoffed at the protective tone in his sister's voice. "She betrayed us, Ana. All of us. By her own admission to me, she was in league with Silas de Mortaine."

"No!" Ariana shook her head as if to physically deny the possibility. "No, that's impossible. How could that be true--"

"How?" Kenrick cut her off with a bark of humorless laughter. "I saw it with my own eyes not a few moments ago, when the woman before me changed into a cunning little beast."

"What are you saying?"

"The fox you saw just now as it fled the keep was no mere animal. Haven," he said, the name falling uneasily from his tongue. "She is a shifter, Ana."

"Sweet Mary," Ariana gasped. "Kenrick, I'm so sorry. I never saw it in her--never would I have guessed..."

"No one was more deceived by her treachery than I."

"It seems too cold, hard to believe she could do such a thing. I don't want to believe it, as I know you must feel as well..."

Ariana reached for him in comfort, but Kenrick shrugged her away. He did not want sympathy at that moment. God knew, he despised pity.

"Where is Rand?" he demanded sternly.

"He waits in the hall with Braedon. Everyone is wondering where you went. They will want to know..."

"No," Kenrick snapped. "This is my mistake to rectify. I will do it on my own terms."

With a curt summons to one of the keep's sentries posted nearby, Kenrick called for two horses to be readied for several days' journey.

"Will you go after her, then?"

"Go after her?" He cursed low under his breath. "Nay, Ana. To me, she no longer exists. I mean to go after the one thing that does matter--the Dragon Chalice. Rand and I will set out for Glastonbury within the hour."

* * *

Her breaking heart seemed wont to burst from her breast as she ran. The meadow grasses were damp and cool against her belly, slapping hard in her face as she cleaved through them, not daring to rest until the lights of Clairmont castle were mere pinpricks on the distant hill.

Only then did she pause.

Only then did she allow her glamour to fade and recede.

She came up from her crouched position and stood amid a blanket of moonlit heather, fully changed, a woman once more. Panting from exertion and a bone-deep regret that weighed on her heart like iron bonds, Haven appeared no different than she had the moment before her betrayal was discovered, garbed in her simple kirtle and leather slippers.

But in her heart she knew she could never be the same as she had been before.

Too much had occurred.

She had allowed a breach she could not reclaim.

Haven pivoted, looking one last time on all that she was leaving behind. Clairmont stood in silhouette, dark gray stone and golden glow spilling from its windows and from the torches lining the perimeter walls.

Kenrick was on the other side of those walls, full of hatred for her. Ariana and Braedon would be as well, once they were told of her deception. There was no hope in thinking she could make a home there, among the Outsiders. She was too different from them, too tainted by the stain of her past and the magic that yet flowed through her shifter veins.

Tears filled her gaze, blurring the lights. She looked away from the short happiness she had known in Kenrick's home--in Kenrick's bed--and focused on what lay ahead of her now.

Bleak as it was, her future rested on the decisions she made from this point on.

She was compromised, but she would not be so easily defeated.

Draec le Nantres had given her a shred of hope in his proposition that day outside Clairmont. He had given her what was, perhaps, her only choice.

With a heavy heart and a fiery resolve, Haven set off on the path that would take her to the market town, where le Nantres had said he would be waiting for word from her.

Chapter 27

The weather had been kind the nearly two days it had taken Kenrick and Rand to make the ride from Clairmont to the pastoral meadowlands of Somerset, home of Glastonbury Tor. Now that they had arrived, stopping to rest their mounts just within sight of the queer hill with its little church perched atop it like a crown, the afternoon skies threatened with rain.

"Storm's coming," Kenrick said as he eyed the bunching clouds with weary scorn. The trek up the steep tor would be arduous without the added trouble of slick mud and wet clothing. "Looks as though we'll be staying the night in town. No sense pushing the horses or ourselves now that we're here."

"I'd rather we pressed on, Saint."

Rand fixed him with a determined look. Around his neck he wore Elspeth's pendant, repaired and returned to him by Kenrick upon Rand's arrival at Clairmont. Absently, the warrior's callused fingers toyed with the delicate filigreed heart that rested at the base of his throat. Rand stroked it like a touchstone, and his gaze was dark with purpose.

"The sooner we finish here, the sooner we can begin searching for the next piece of the treasure...and the sooner I can have my vengeance on Silas de Mortaine."

Kenrick had known his friend was bitter with rage for the deaths of Elspeth and his son, but the days on the road with him had shown a darker side of Rand. His heart was cold, black with grief and deadly determination. He was a man consumed by hatred, all of it centered on de Mortaine and those who would aid him in his search for the Dragon Chalice.

Rand spoke of little else but his plans for revenge. He was single-minded in his purpose, even more so than Kenrick himself had been on his own years-long quest for the Chalice treasure. Rand had eagerly absorbed all that Kenrick told him of his findings and his theories on the locations of the remaining pieces. He had sworn to ride beside Kenrick every step of the way--wherever it led them--if it meant he would one day have the pleasure of slaying Silas de Mortaine.

"We've come this far," Rand pointed out, his hazel eyes flinty in the overcast light. "I'll get no sleep in town when I know the treasure could lie just at the top of that hill."

Kenrick glanced to the tall mound of earth in the distance. Even from here, he could see the maze of rings that circled the base of the tor, seven levels of an earthen labyrinth carved by men long centuries dead.

It was said that an ancient king and his army slumbered within the great mound, awaiting their revival. It was also said that Joseph of Arimathea had carried the Cup of Christ to this very spot in ages past, and buried it somewhere on the tor. If Kenrick's suspicions were correct, it was not the Holy Grail that waited on Glastonbury Tor, but another sacred cup--one that would be a match for the bejeweled, golden goblet he carried in one of his saddlebags.