Sands of Aggar: Amazons of Aggar Book 3 (12 page)

Adrian shook her head. “Never.”

“Then what makes you think even the mages in the Great Market will know what to do?”

Adrian slammed her fist on her knee. “Because they have to! What other choice do we have?”

“We can ignore it,” Rox grunted with a shrug.

“We won’t survive being separated for long,” Jacquin remarked, her chin resting in her hand as she thought, her other hand still holding Adrian’s. “There are a few stories of bondmates being separated. They never last long.”

Rox shook her head. “They must be stories. And even if they’re not, those bondmates were in love or joined by choice. We don’t even know each other.”

Jacquin cocked her head to one side, her eyes focusing and unfocusing as if she were seeing worlds Adrian and Rox couldn’t comprehend. “You have to admit we all feel drawn to each other.”

Adrian and Rox regarded each other with wary snarls. Rox crossed her arms over her chest. “Drawn to kill each other.”

Jacquin shook her head, her ebony hair rippling like a waterfall. “You know that’s not true.”

“She hunts my charges,” Rox groused.

“Your charges are a roving band of thugs and murderers,” Adrian challenged.

Rox glared. “A job’s a job.”

“Not when it involves decimating entire villages.”

Jacquin turned to Rox in shock, her face scrunched with hurt and horror. “What is she talking about, Rox? Are these men in Oasis?”

Rox took a step back, clenching her fists. “I have my reasons.”

“There are no good reasons for helping the Circle,” Adrian snarled.

“Not everyone has the privilege of following their heart. Some of us are just trying to survive.”

“The Twins are looking for something, Rox. Something they need the Circle’s help to find. Once they have it, they’ll try to move beyond the Core. You’re helping start a war that could threaten all of Aggar. This isn’t just following your heart. This is about the entire planet. What could possibly be worth sacrificing the world?”

Rox hesitated, her mouth opening as if to say something, but she clenched her jaw, thinking better of it. She snapped and Fisk raced from Jacquin’s shoulder to Rox’s pocket. “I don’t have to stay here and be judged by you two. The Fates take your lifebonding. I’m done with it.”

She turned and reached for the wagon door. The moment her hand touched the door handle a loud, blaring siren sounded from the Oasis walls, metal bells clanging deeper in the city and a lone horn call rising from the nearby Tribe. Jacquin paled, her naturally dark skin falling a shade lighter. “Don’t open the door!”

Rox pulled her hand away from the door just as the junkyard around the wagon shifted and rocked in a sudden gust of wind. “What does that siren mean?”

“Sand storm,” Jacquin whispered. “We can’t leave. Not until they sound the all-clear.”

Adrian and Rox turned to her as one, their eyes wide and incredulous. Adrian looked Rox over, eyeing the dagger at her hip. “You mean we’re trapped here?”

“Unless you want to suffocate on a sea of sand,” Jacquin rebutted. “This is the safest place to be in Oasis right now. We’re protected by the wall and the old wagons as well as our four walls. We’ll be fine.”

“If we don’t kill each other first,” Rox hissed.

Jacquin shot her a disapproving glare. “Then we’ll just have to get along. Even opening the door could flood the wagon, depending on which direction the sand is blowing.”

Rox slowly sat back down, leaning her back against the wagon’s door, her eyes never leaving Adrian.

“Fine. But when this is over, I’m leaving.”

Adrian laid back against the pillows again, easing the ache of her healing wounds. “Fine with me. I’d rather die from an exacerbated lifebond than become tied to you.”

Jacquin held her head in her hands, the heightened emotions and intensity of Adrian’s and Rox’s clashing opinions tugging at her psychic energy, giving her a headache. “Could you both please stop fighting, then? Just for now? The room is so small.”

Rox and Adrian both turned to Jacquin, their eyes instantly softening as they shared the one productive thing they had in common: a care for Jacquin.

“We’re sorry,” Adrian whispered as Fisk raced out of Rox’s pocket and ran to Jacquin, standing on his hind legs to look into her eyes with as much concern as Rox.

“I’m fine,” Jacquin argued, waving her hands in front of her face. “It’s just that you’re both very strong. You’re very much alike: full of pain, loneliness. Perhaps if you got to know each other better you might find how alike you are.”

“We’re polar opposites,” Adrian argued. “I could never work for the Circle.”

“You don’t know what you’d do in her situation,” Jacquin rebutted.

“What situation?”

“Exactly,” Jacquin countered. “You’re both assuming. And, though I can’t tell what lies in your pasts, I do know neither of your assumptions are completely true. Like it or not, we’ve all been bonded to each other and magic may not be able to sever those ties. Perhaps you should get to know each other better.”

Adrian and Rox glanced from Jacquin to each other, their muscles instantly tensing. Adrian shook her head. “This storm is Fates’ Jest.”

Jacquin spread her hands wide, trying to create some form of peace between the hot-headed women. “Or perhaps the Mother knew it was the only way to make you two talk.”

“There is nothing of the Mother in this forced bonding,” Rox growled, crossing her ankles and leaning back, her hands behind her head.

Jacquin frowned. “That doesn’t make it any less our reality.”

Rox’s voice was defiant and stubborn. “Fine.”

Jacquin nodded, smiling encouragingly. “Good. Now let’s try to learn something about each other.” The wind shook the wagon again, beating and pounding against the more exposed wood like a mob knocking at the wagon. Jacquin looked up at the ceiling as if studying the sky and the wind shook again. “We’re going to be here for a long time.”

Rox leaned back against the wagon door, one arm crossed over her chest, the other flipping her knife up at the ceiling, watching it catch lightly in the wood, then catching it as it fell. The candles were burning low, the wagon and junkyard trembling as the vicious sandstorm ripped and clawed at Oasis. Rox consoled herself with the thought that a sandstorm so violent would drive away the rest of the changlings outside Oasis walls and the force field would be retracted when the storm lifted.

“You’re going to shatter the roof,” Adrian groused from the other end of the wagon, the corner heavy with shadows as the light continued to fade. Only Adrian’s eyes and silver hair flashed through the darkness, catching the candlelight like stars.

Rox regarded the mage with narrowed eyes, her mind spinning with strategy and suspicion. Adrian was the greatest threat to her mission, bonded or not, and it was clear the mage was at her weakest. She was hardly intimidating without her shadowy illusion and her injuries making it next to impossible for her to stand up straight. She was gaunt, lean from infection and heat exposure, her skin a sickly pale.

Rox continued to flip her dagger, the glass temporarily passing between Rox’s eyes and Adrian, bathing the mage in a dark green filter. If Rox was any kind of protector, she’d kill Adrian now, remove the threat before she could heal and regain her strength. Still, she knew it would be impossible with Jacquin near and, despite her instincts, Rox questioned if she’d be able to go through with it. Enemy or not, there was something infuriating and complex about Adrian, something Rox found fascinating. It would be a shame to kill her now.

“I’m not throwing that hard,” Rox rebutted.

“Please stop fighting.” Jacquin’s voice was tired, heavy with annoyance and frustration at having to constantly intervene in Rox’s and Adrian’s arguments. They had all slept for a few hours, but as dawn broke the storm was still going strong, leaving the three hungry women to sit in uncomfortable silence for hours at a time.

A gentle grin tugged at the corners of Rox’s mouth. “You sound like a mother.”

Jacquin scowled, a spark of amusement in her eyes. “I feel like a mother.”

Rox sat cross-legged beside Jacquin, resting her knife on her knee. “I’m sorry to be a bother.”

Jacquin shifted and Fisk stretched tiredly across her lap like a lazy cat. Rox pursed her lips at the fickle beast, running her fingers over his soft neck. “You’re not a bother. Neither of you. But if we’re going to be here, if we’re going to face the reality of our bonding, we need to get to know each other better.”

“I’m still dedicated to taking down the Circle,” Adrian interrupted. “That’s more important than bonding. And she’s the enemy. I don’t need her knowing any more about me.”

Rox felt her temperature rise, the tone of Adrian’s voice quick to bring out her fiercest anger. “I didn’t start this,” Rox countered.

Jacquin growled in frustration. “Then don’t get to know each other. Talk to me.”

Both women froze, looking to Jacquin. It was clear they both cared about the dancer. Rox looked Adrian over cautiously, wondering what kind of past she and Jacquin shared.

Adrian crawled forward into the light, leaning back against the wagon wall, resting her arms on her raised knees, carefully avoiding her injuries. Her head cocked to the side, her lips pressed together as she thought. “You do seem to be the link that binds the three of us together, Jacquin.”

Jacquin shrugged. “And yet you two have a history I know nothing about.”

Rox fingered the hilt of her dagger. “It’s a history you’re better left out of.”

Jacquin’s eyes narrowed at Rox’s attempt to brush her aside. “It seems fate has decided otherwise.”

“I work to fight the tyrannical Twins of the Core in the north and Rox helps the Twins’ main thugs.”

Rox’s face twisted with disgust. “I don’t help them. I protect them. It’s a job. I hate the Circle as much as you do.”

“Then why do you work for them?”

Rox lifted her chin in with pride and defiance. Adrian wouldn’t pull her truths from her so easily.

“Perhaps this was the wrong way to start,” Jacquin interrupted, resting her hand on Rox’s knee. “Rox, your knife is beautiful. Where did you get it?”

Adrian snorted. “Pick it off a changling?”

“It’s a family heirloom,” Rox growled. “From my grandmother. It’s been in my family for centuries.”

Jacquin reached out and Rox handed her the knife. The seer examined it, weighing it in her hands and running her fingers over the blade. “It’s very like the changlings’ weapons.”

“It’s an old changling knife. My grandmother says it belonged to her thrice great-grandmother. My family once hailed from the north, not far from the Core, where the old Clan settlement was before the Purge. My ancestor claimed to have been visited by the ancient ghost of a changling, who left this knife.”

Jacquin leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. “Fascinating.”

Rox chuckled, remembering her mother scoffing at her grandmother‘s dramatic retelling of the supernatural encounter. “Not really. She was pretty insane. She caused so much trouble her children moved the family south until they settled along the coast. But the knife stayed in the family and became an interesting bedtime story. It’s a good knife.”

“That’s why you smell of pine and the desert,” Jacquin mused. Rox lifted a single eyebrow in response and Jacquin laughed. “I’m a seer, Rox. Scent is very important in my visions.”

“You’ve had visions of me?”

Jacquin nodded hesitantly, her eyes flicking between Rox and Adrian. “I’ve had visions of both of you.”

Adrian sat up straighter, her loose-fitting shirt swaying around her sickly frame. “Is that how you knew me before we met? You recognized me. I saw it in your eyes while your sister was healing me.”

Jacquin chewed her bottom lip indecisively, then met Adrian’s eyes with determination. “I’ve been having visions of you since I was a child.”

The revelation hung heavy and cold in the air, Adrian’s eyes wide with shock. “What kind of visions? What do you know about me?”

“I never even saw your face, just your frame. You were always cloaked, glowing silver. You protected me. Pulled me out of my darkest visions and nightmares. I thought I’d created you as a defense mechanism until we met during the raid.”

Rox looked between the two women in surprise as they both processed Jacquin’s revelation. Rox’s eyes lingered on Jacquin and she felt her heart sink. It was clear fate had bound the two women together. Her bonding to Adrian had obviously been a mistake: bonding didn’t happen between three people and Rox was the last woman Adrian would want as a bondmate. Still, the connection Rox had shared with Jacquin had felt real. Important after so long trapped among the Circle.

Rox’s voice was cautious, almost nervous as she whispered, “Did you ever have a vision of me?”

Jacquin met her eyes, her expression sad. “No. But I did see Fisk a few times.”

Rox glared down at her pet. “I hope you’ll be very happy together.”

Jacquin grabbed Rox’s hand tightly in her own, her eyes insistent, her voice sure. “I haven’t had visions about a lot of people that are important to me. I decide who I let into my life, Rox. And our connection is real.”

Rox felt a flash of the passion she and Jacquin had shared and she couldn’t deny that it had been real, at least on her side. Jacquin shook her head, her eyes amused as if she could read Rox’s thoughts, and kissed her hand.

“What exactly are you to each other?” Rox and Jacquin turned to Adrian, eyeing them warily. “Rox and I are connected through the Circle. Jacquin and I met during the raid. How do you two know each other?”

Rox felt her skin darken, suddenly unsure of herself. “We just met yesterday.”

“We’re lovers,” Jacquin announced, her voice steady, her eyes daring Adrian to comment.

Adrian’s eyes widened in surprise. “You bedded a Circle merc?”

Rox shifted to stand, suddenly done with Adrian’s brash tongue, but Jacquin’s grip on her arm was like a vice. “Apparently so. I said we were lovers, not that we knew each other well. But I know Rox has a pure heart. I’ve seen it.”

Rox snorted. “You don’t have to lie to defend me.”

“I’m not lying. You have good intentions, no matter what you’ve done. I would have sensed otherwise.”

Rox didn’t know how to respond or even if she liked knowing that Jacquin had seen into her intentions and possibly even her mind. “My mind is a dangerous place, Jacquin. Stay out of it. For your own sake.”

Jacquin sighed sadly. “I never tried to enter it.”

Adrian shifted again. “This is insane.”

Rox’s lips pulled back from her teeth as she hissed at Adrian. “I won’t take your precious bondmate, warmage. You think I don’t understand you’re fated for each other?”

Jacquin reared back in shock at the outburst. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t think I recognize an epic pairing when I see it? A pairing that will be written about in history books and sung about by bards across Aggar? You’re powerful mages, rebellious and visionary. Adrian fights what may be the worst threat to the Ramains since the Purge. Jacquin, you’re beautiful and magical. You’ve been having visions of her for your entire life. You lifebonded immediately. I’m just a magicless merc on the wrong side of history. If there was a mistake it was me, not the bonding.”

Adrian and Jacquin stared back at Rox in shocked silence, even Adrian’s eyes momentarily growing soft at Rox’s outburst.

“You don’t see how powerful you are, do you?” Rox was surprised that it was Adrian who spoke, her voice soft and aggressive, almost angry. “Irresponsible.”

“Powerful?”

Adrian struggled to sit up, to lean closer to Rox, her jaw clenched in frustration. “I knew the moment I first saw you. Which wasn’t in the brushlands. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. Your will is the strongest I’ve ever seen. You praise me for my abilities? Do you forget that you’ve bested me every time we’ve fought?” Rox couldn’t respond, her tongue frozen beneath the possessive, furious glare in Adrian’s eyes. “You are a force like nothing I’ve ever seen. If our positions were reversed, the Circle wouldn’t be standing anymore. So don’t wallow in your own sense of worthlessness. It’s wasteful.”

The tension between Rox and Adrian was palpable, an electric bond that held Rox paralyzed, warming her cheeks and quickening her breath. She could feel her heard pound hard against her ribs.

“Rox… why do you fight for the Circle?” Jacquin broached the question again, her voice soft and cautious. Rox’s hand instinctively went to her heart as it constricted in pain at the memory of her daughter. A memory she couldn’t trust to these women. Not yet.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Adrian moved closer. “Are you a prisoner?”

Rox felt tears in her eyes and she snarled, holding them back with pure force of will and false rage. “I’m no Core prisoner. Why do
you
fight them?”

“Because the Twins stole my family.” Adrian’s voice was icy in its precision. “And my home. And I’ll do anything to keep them from getting a single thing they want.”

Rox felt sick at the thought that she and Adrian had a shared past. She couldn’t tell if it was because she had something in common with her enemy or because Adrian was fighting where Rox was aiding the Twins in an attempt to get what she wanted.

“I don’t have the luxury of rebellion.”

Adrian’s eyes became more possessive and protective than ever. “Are you magically controlled? I can break their spell.”

“I’m acting of my own free will,” Rox rebutted. “And I stand by my decisions.”

“You’re so lonely.” Jacquin’s voice rose, reaching through Adrian and Rox’s bond like a gentle breeze.

“Stay out of my mind, Jacquin,” Rox warned, but her voice was losing its strength. She couldn’t tell these women why she helped the Circle, but a deep, welling shame in her stomach wanted nothing more than to explain herself to these powerful women. To show them she didn’t support the Twins. She had no choice. Perhaps she did want Jacquin in her mind.

The three women sat in silence, so close now their knees almost touched. A heavy, warm stillness settled around them, an undeniable connection weaving them together. The anger was gone, replaced with a deep, unsettling sense that something was about to change.

Outside, the storm rose, howling louder and faster than ever, the sounds like the shriek of a wild beast. Adrian hugged her arms close to her waist, her hands clenching and unclenching. Her face was stiff with suppressed pain.

Jacquin turned to her, placing a hand on her thigh. “Adrian?”

Adrian shrugged, “The lifestones. They grow more… insistent the closer I get to you.”

Jacquin removed her hand cautiously. “I’m sorry.”

Adrian caught Jacquin’s hand, holding it tightly. “No. Please. I think your presence – both your presences – is keeping me alive.”

“I wish we had a warmer fire. We could cauterize any new wounds,” Rox added.

Adrian shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I was able to release enough healing magic after we made contact to seal the injuries. It will just take a long time to heal.”

“When the storm dies we’ll take you to a healer. The tribal healers are folk healers, but there’s a trained mage in town. A Doctor,” Jacquin offered.

Adrian shook her head, adamant. “Doctors are expensive. I’ll be fine.”

Jacquin grinned, her full lips parting slightly, her eyes heavy-lidded in her mischief. “I have the money. And the doctor is a long-time admirer of my dancing. He’ll help us.”

“Then I definitely don’t want you to entreat him for me,” Adrian groused. “You don’t need to owe any favors to men.”

Jacquin flinched slightly, her brow furrowing. “I’m not ashamed of using attraction for help. He’s been a courteous sponsor for a long time.”

“I don’t trust those kinds of motives,” Adrian pressed.

Jacquin’s voice was sharp and fierce, her gentle demeanor disappearing in a hot blaze of certainty. “I’m a dancer, Adrian. I’m not a child. My livelihood depends on a delicate balance of lust and respect, a balance I control, and I like it that way. I’m not one of your slave women in the north. Don’t try to save me before you know me.”