The Queen's Consorts (32 page)

The council wanted her dead, and they were willing to wipe out every single soldier loyal to her in order to do it. Taryen couldn’t believe the lengths they were going to, to stop Sari from taking her place as queen.

His heart hurt for all the soldiers he knew were loyal to the cause, fighting against the sea of men doing the bidding for the sisters they served. A Rayian male had to be a fourth son or later in the birth line to be considered for the queen’s guard. They’d been outnumbered even before Laysa started buying the loyalty of the military. Too many Rayians had too much to lose by going back to the old ways. The greed of the sister council was rabidly contagious and had spread like a virus throughout the Sacred City.

Taryen and Calder tugged the hoods of their robes lower over their eyes and stepped to a secluded corner. They watched the battle raging across the grounds near the main guard tower as they quickly checked their armor, swords, and bolter weapons. Their goal was to get to Sari, not die in the sister council’s last stand.

They’d been so one-track-minded, working together silently and diligently, that Taryen was surprised when Calder grabbed his hand, forcing his attention toward something other than the unified goal of getting to Sari.

Calder looked at him with light eyes that glowed in determination. “You know your life is more important than mine.”

“No.” Taryen frowned at his lifemate. “I do
not
know that.”

“You can heal her after this war. I can’t.” Calder said it with absolute conviction. “If we lost you, Sari and I would wither and die together. I wouldn’t be able to get past my pain enough to bring her the sun, and she wouldn’t be able to find it on her own. If we had a daughter to inherit the planet, it’d be different, but we don’t. Even in mourning, you could make sure Sari lived long enough to carry on the monarchy. You could even give her the sun. I know you could. Our people need you to live, and Sari knows
that as well as I do
.”

Taryen swallowed hard but refused to accept such a horrible concept that he was in some way more valuable than the man he spent every day of his life with. Calder had been his best friend from the very beginning, long before they became real lifemates to each other. Taryen wasn’t fully convinced he’d be able to recover from such a loss any more than Calder could.

“You don’t know what that loss would do to me. You’re wrong if you think I could recover. True hearts can be defeated too; it’s just not as easy.”

“It wasn’t a question, Taryen,” Calder said firmly. “In Laysa’s playroom, I felt it with every ounce of my being. Sari demanded I save you no matter what. That’s been my objective the entire way here.”

He shook his head. “I don’t sense that.”

“That’s because it wasn’t directed at you. Now I’m asking you to kindly help me get you to the dungeons. You fight only on the defense. Keep your head down and your face hidden. Let me do what my queen told me to do. This isn’t my will, Tary; it’s hers. I’m just asking you to make it easier on me because I cannot deny her even if I wanted to…which I don’t.”

Taryen lowered his gaze, knowing if he didn’t play
along,
he could put Calder in even more jeopardy. If Calder was obligated by his queen’s command to save Taryen, he’d shield him with his body before his mind would even recognize he did it.

“Fine,” he whispered, knowing he had no choice. “But promise me you’ll fight wise. Use your head rather than your pride. Leave your anger here, and fight to survive. Revenge has no business being in this battle with you.”

Calder was silent for a moment before he leaned forward and captured Taryen’s lips with his. They shared one quick, hard kiss before Calder pulled away and craned his neck. Taryen took the offering and sucked hard on the patch of skin where Calder’s heartbeat was thumping erratically. They didn’t have much time—even now the throb to run to Sari was blocking out all other thought—but he still got hard from the crazy rush of absorbing everything amazing about Calder.
His passion.
His loyalty.
His strength and unbending pride.
In return, Taryen gave Calder the cool head and easy confidence that had always been his personal gift from the gods.

When they pulled apart, Taryen knew without a doubt they were both improved from the exchange. They had always been better together than apart. The gods designed them that way.

Calder took a long, deep breath and then unsheathed his sword from the holder on his back. “Let’s end this war.”

* * * *

Taryen had done many difficult things in his life, but standing aside and letting Calder fight his battles for him was easily the most difficult thing his lifemate had ever asked of him.

The combat was so fierce there was only so much Taryen could do to obey Calder’s wishes. There was too much bloodshed. Dressed in soldiers’ robes, with their faces hidden, made them a target because the brothers were looking for them. It was obvious Calder and Taryen were going to eventually make their way to their queen, and not many soldiers were fighting with their hoods on. The brothers came at them hard and fast before they were even certain who they were.

It had Calder fighting like a man possessed, lashing out at any who drew near them even if it was sometimes hard to tell who their enemies were. Though as the battle progressed, Taryen learned fast that the soldiers who had abandoned their posts as queen’s guards had stripped off their red robes and fought in only pants and armor breastplates, but the traitors were fewer and farther between than they had anticipated.

Despite their issues in the tunnels, Taryen knew now most of the soldiers had stayed loyal to the queen. They fought against the higher-born brothers with a fervor that was awe inspiring. Even if their numbers were far less, they were highly trained for combat. The soldiers weren’t nearly as pampered as the first sons, who were raised to earn favor in court rather than bleed in the trenches, but even in the sea of heavily trained soldiers, Calder’s skill with a sword and Taryen’s defense with a bolter gained them attention quickly.

“
Your
Majesties!”

Calder jumped over a fallen soldier and jammed the butt of his sword into the forehead of a brother who had fired a bolter at Taryen, before he swung around and sliced at another opponent, his sword connecting with the traitor’s neck in a way that covered both of them with blood.

Then Calder turned with wild eyes and glared at the soldiers who had called out to them. “Where is your brain?” he demanded in a furious voice of one designed to command. “Why not hold a flag over our heads?”

“We’re sorry!” The soldier was breathless. His dark hair was matted to his head from all the rain as the storm still raged. “Please let us help. Darin told us to close in around you and protect you if you were found.”

Darin was fighting.

The sisters’ council hadn’t gotten him.

Taryen’s heart got a little bit lighter even as he fired his bolter in rapid succession, hitting two of the brothers coming at them. Then he pulled his rain-drenched hood lower and followed after Calder when he agreed to allow the soldiers to form a wall of defense around them. The storm was making fighting much more difficult. Their boots kept slipping in the mud. The blue streaks of bolter shots were hard to see in the torrent, and they were coming from so many different directions. It was violent chaos, with brothers fighting against brothers.

Though the soldiers were doing their best to protect them with their bodies and swords, gaps kept appearing. Calder was still hacking away at their opponents with an inhuman strength that was terrifying. Many brothers turned the other way when they caught sight of his furious light eyes beneath the hood of his robes. By then it was too late for them. Sari had issued a command, and anyone who got near him felt the wrath of his sword, even if they attempted to change their mind at the last minute.

“Young ones!
Hear me!” A voice echoed over the crowd, so loud and powerful it was impossible to miss and all the more noticeable for being in the queen’s language. “Fight to the south!”

Calder pivoted without question and nudged the soldier fighting beside him. “We’re fighting to the south side of the guard station.”

“That’s where the worst fighting is!”

“Then move aside.” Calder pushed past him. “We’ll go alone.”

Taryen stepped over the body of a fallen brother as he followed closely behind. Then, catching something out of the corner of his eye, he held his sword in front of Calder’s midsection on instinct, deflecting a bolter discharge Calder missed. Calder was fighting such a bloody war he seemed to be forgetting all the bolter shots mixing with the crash of lightning, and he didn’t stop to notice the misstep. At this point, Taryen had to wonder if Calder would even notice a bolter shot. One could almost feel the queen’s command pulsing off him. Killing anyone who stood in his way, like a one-track-minded wrath of the gods, he obeyed her completely and felt none of the strains of battle.

Taryen understood it in a way few others could. He hadn’t noticed his back since he’d become possessed with the need for escape in Laysa’s playroom, though a part of his mind knew the injuries he’d sustained were serious and would catch up with him eventually. For now, Sari’s command carried his body and made him virtually immune to pain.

“We’re not abandoning you!” The soldier was panting as he ran up to them. He slipped in the mud but looked up desperately. “We just wanted you to know you were walking into danger.”

Another soldier added, “You lead; we’ll follow.”

Calder didn’t stop to acknowledge their pleas. He just continued to fight his way toward
Darin
. He lashed out, knocking the feet from under a sister brave enough to be in the fighting. He didn’t kill her. The laws of their people were a little too deeply ingrained as he stepped past her and finally recognized the soldiers trailing after them like lost puppies. “We’re going to the south. Follow or not. It’s up to you.”

Not only did they find
Darin
, wearing his black robes of mourning laced with red for his fallen queen, but they also found Macro and Haven. The two leaders now wore simple red robes rather than their finely decorated commander robes, but considering they’d been naked the last time Taryen had seen them, it was an improvement. The center of battle formed around them as they shouted commands in those booming voices the queen’s guards always developed in their youth after endless hours of drills.

Darin, surprisingly, was letting them do their jobs and simply offering his battle skills, which weren’t any less magnificent than they had been when he’d been defending a queen. The reason Calder was able to cut a wide path on his way to
Darin
was because of the older consort and the skills he’d passed down to them.

When Taryen and Calder reached them,
Darin
downed a brother by knocking his feet out from under him and then driving his sword into his heart. He did it easily, because the brothers weren’t fighting with armor like the soldiers were. For all their strength in numbers, they certainly had disadvantages.

Darin ran up and embraced them right there in the middle of the battlefield, hugging both of them in the rain as a low, broken sob broke out of him. “You tell us what you need, and we’ll do it,” he said in the queen’s language after one breathless moment where they clung to
Darin
as tightly as he did to them.

“We need to get to the dungeons,” Calder said quickly. “Taryen needs to get to our queen. She commanded it. I need to save him at all costs.”

Taryen’s cheeks heated. Though embarrassment was foreign to him, his stomach was churning with it as he spoke loudly over the clash of battle around them. “That was his idea, not mine.”

“It was Sari’s idea,” Calder corrected him.

“Sari?”

“Darisa,” Taryen clarified with a smile.

Darin took a shuddering breath. “You’ll tell her I love her. You’ll make sure she knows if I fall.”

“You won’t die this day.” Taryen squeezed his hand. “Not after all this time.”

“We have to go.” Calder wasn’t to be distracted. The soldiers had all worked together, surrounding the three of them to give them this brief reprieve, but it was only drawing more attention. “They have Sari in a chamber in the dungeons. I keep seeing the image in my head.”

“I do too,” Taryen added. “It’s completely sealed, but it’s bright within.”

“I know of what chamber you speak.” Darin scowled. “Taryen, when you open that door—”

He nodded. “I know.”

“Few in this area will survive unless you manage to calm her considerably.”

“Then I will need Calder with me,” Taryen barked at the two of them. “Because I assure you, if I go to her with the news that he fell in battle,
nothing
will calm her
agony—nor
mine.”

He turned to glare at his lifemate. Calder met his gaze evenly, but there was a light of understanding in his handsome features, flushed and sweating from battle. In that moment, Taryen knew Calder understood he was more important than he gave himself credit for.

“Help us get to the dungeons,” Calder pleaded with
Darin
. “Please.”

The old consort
smiled,
making it obvious he craved this battle. No one had lost as much as
Darin
to the greed of the Rayians. “For the queen,” he agreed and then turned to call out to Macro and Haven. “We need backup!”

They waited in the pocket of safety the soldiers had created until the two commanders made their way over. When they did show up, blinking past the rain, their hoods tossed back and their hair sticking to their faces, something occurred to Taryen, and he blurted it out before they could make a plan.

“Kayla’s alive.”

Haven paled, his eyes grew cold as they narrowed at Taryen, but it was Macro who shook his head in denial. “Taryen, I know she was your friend, but—”

“You have so little faith in the one you choose to serve?” Taryen yelled because the haste of battle made him harsh. “She’s strong, and I’m telling you she’s alive. I can feel the energy of others. It’s part of my gift. Kayla has a very distinctive life force. Trust me, she lives.”