Last of the Temple Line Page 8

  Satisfied Loren would see to the details, Dalaric sought the book his father had written many years ago on the subject of the witches chosen for the Rite. He settled into the chair before the fire in the library he favored for a long read. Caelwin had a fondness for Tranton and the many friends he had made there amongst the Annunaki and Akkadian younglings who flourished there with their parents of mixed heritage. His son would return before dark as was his custom.

  Varian had enjoyed Tranton, too, when he was younger, Dalaric recalled. He stared into the fire; the book forgotten in his lap. A memory of his brother surfaced.

  "When will Father return?"

  "I do not know," Dalaric answered brusquely. "His business in the east has not come to a satisfactory end. He must travel to the far borders so that he may question the few witches there that Dorian knew of but refuses to seek himself."

  Varian looked down. His feet were bare. The training tunic of red fabric and black pants were not meant to hold the chill of winter away. The stone of the training arena floor was frigid. The young Akkadian sighed. "Why do we have to come out here, Dalaric? I am cold."

  Dalaric frowned. "Assume your stance, Varian. No more complaining. You know why I am here. Mother called me home from searching the continent because you have faltered in the lessons and your Ki has grown wild. I should be out there, finding what we need. The one who will help you. I wasted enough time with the business of selecting who will give eggs to hatch my young."

  The young Akkadian scowled. He stomped his feet to warm them and rubbed his arms. "I don't see why you chose Kylara to be your first. She isn't even pretty."

  "I chose her for the breeding behind her blood, not for the emptiness of aesthetic appeal, Whelp. I agree she is useless for much else, but she will give me a strong egg."

  "I still say you should have picked Beatrice for first. She said I can call her 'Bea.' And she knows how to have fun. She took me snow sliding."

  "Stance," Dalaric reminded his brother.

  Varian dropped to the ground with crossed legs. He huffed but closed his eyes. Dalaric folded his much larger frame into the same position a foot away.

  "Slow your breathing," Dalaric commanded. "You cannot enter into meditation with your heart beating faster than a hummingbird's wings."

  Varian's scowl returned. He opened one eye. "This never helps. Why can't we just do what Bea says the blue dragons of the east do? She is a green and she is listening to them. You are mating her sister, after all. They have to be worth listening to a little."

  "Once a child is born of Kylara's egg, Bea will be the one to give to me my second and Liandra the third. And I will not mate any of them. It is a contract. Nothing more."

  Both Varian's eyes popped open. "How?"

  Dalaric rotated his shoulder to alleviate the small ache that yet remained. A challenger had come to the territory. With his father having long abandoned the lands to his care, Dalaric had been required to attend to the glory-seeking idiot.

  The challenger had gotten in a lucky swipe with his tail. The needle-like tip had pierced his shoulder. It was nearly healed, but the Ki pains which resulted from his essence speeding along the process were rather tiresome and caused an almost unbearable itch that irked him as much as the reminder of the red bastard's promise to return for a second challenge when he healed from the burns Dalaric had bestowed upon him.

  White, blue, and green clans were the only breeds strong enough to hold lands long enough to form true territories. Violent reds fought too much amongst themselves and the plodding brown dragons were more given to hibernation than fighting to succeed at anything other than growing moss. There were other breeds of dragons, but they were weak, lacked focus, or were too few in number to matter.

  Varian still looked at him. Dalaric sighed. "Did not Father explain the means of reproduction?"

  "I don't mean that!" The boy grimaced. Their mother had been the one to explain to him the ways of Akkadian breeding. It had been a most uncomfortable discussion. How could an egg squeeze out of such a small place? And the means of giving life to it still disgusted him. "I meant; how can you have a whelp with the three of them? Won't it hurt their feelings?"

  "They offered the solution to me, if you must know," Dalaric answered. If Varian were not his brother, he would have been offended at the line of questioning. The whelp was young, yet, and needed to learn the ways of the world. "I have no interest in a more permanent relationship with any of them. They are prone to bouts of selfishness and would rather wallow in their own conceit than train their Ki. They will share the responsibility of providing to our clan the younglings necessary to continue our line. The precious gems we have in our storehouse will see them happy to work together."

  "Bea wants to mate you," Varian said.

  Dalaric grimaced in distaste. "While her blood is adequate to bear an egg for the clan, she is obsessed with gorging herself on sweets and refuses to train her potential."

  "Fun isn't always bad," Varian said. "She isn't as fun as Bea, but Kylara says you are boring. When they left for the east, she told me she only came here because you promised her a dowry that will allow her to mate anyone she wants."

  "The contracts have been drawn up. The three sisters have been paid for their services. In another few centuries, once I am ensured to be at the peak of my Ki potential, I will give my seed to Kylara's egg. Once it hatches, I will claim my whelp and give my seed to Beatrice's egg and then Liandra's." Dalaric looked over his brother's head. "For all that your favorite, Beatrice, may have wanted to mate me, Father said she and Liandra have already begun negotiations with sons of a clan to the south. Kylara has decided upon the male she wants but needs the dowry to buy his clan's approval. Do not think they will be poor of the contract."

  "Will you ever mate?" Varian asked. "I think I would like it. One day. Someone fun and beautiful," he added. "I can have a mate I actually like and give my seed to her egg instead of a daughter of a first clan. I am just your brother. Not the heir or anything important."

  "We are all important," Dalaric stated. "Including impudent whelps. Mating is a bond that can never be broken. You will be unable to have another after you join your scents. Do not speak of it lightly."

  Varian smiled up at his brother. He grew serious after a moment. "I still think you should have mated Bea. She is pretty. And she said she would teach me how to be safe like they do in the east. That she would choose a lowly blue without a holding if you don't want her because they are safe. I can stop meditating all the time and just drink mana wine."

  "It appears I was mistaken to invite the sisters to our palace for the process of the interview. I will speak to her directly about filling your head with lies." Dalaric leaned forward. He tapped his brother on the forehead. "Close your eyes, Varian. We are not lazy blue dragons who live drunk rather than train or greens who have forgotten their Ki was to protect the lands, not foul them in the search of gems. We are the descendants of Dalaran, who was the son of Delvar, who was begat of Dagesh. Our grandsire taught me to meditate as he was shown. It is a necessary part of becoming a leader and warrior without parallel. As our grandsire educated me, even our proud ancestor Dagesh had meditated before battle. Our fallen king had taught all to clear the mind to control the chaos of our natures even before the curse struck our blood. To Ascend is not an unearned gift. It never was. You would have been required to enter the temple with a calm mind or not enter at all."

  "What if I don't want to be a warrior?" Varian asked. "Bea said fighting makes the blood go wild. That all the training you and Mother and Father have me doing is what will make the madness come upon me." He swallowed, his young throat working to remove the lump that fear caused. “Dagesh and Delvar and grandfather all fell in battle. Meditation did not save them, nor did their blood or strength.”

  Claws bit into flesh. Dalaric looked down. His hands bled. He took a deep breath. His brother was too young to understand the insult. It would do no good to lose his temper. The female
would pay, and pay dearly, for so corrupting Varian's young mind.

  "You are a son of this line, yet you allow Beatrice to turn you from our ways?" Dalaric stood. "You are not a dragon. Not yet. You do not understand what you would be sacrificing to their ways. It is possible that the blue younglings do not yet lose their way to madness. But Father, who has been to their lands, has told us both of the abomination that their blood has become. They may not lose their minds to madness, but their bloodline will die within a handful of centuries, their lands with it. What they choose is a slow suicide."

  Varian drew his knees up. "I think I would rather live for a few centuries and be happy than live as a dragon for only a fraction of the time and end up mad."

  "You do not know what you are saying."

  "Don't tell me that!" Varian jumped up. He paced in front of his older brother. "If Father doesn't find a witch?" Varian asked. "What then? I train. I meditate. And I will be dead before you have your second whelp. Why are you doing this to me? Who decided for me that I have no choice? Once Kylara has your heir will you make them sit out here in the cold like me?"

  "Varian-" Dalaric began, but his brother cut him off.

  "No!" Tears formed in the younger Akkadian's eyes. "You tell me I don't understand, but the truth is that you are the one who doesn't! My great and powerful brother! The last dragon blooded in the temple," the boy recited. "The pride of our continent. What would you understand of the madness that waits for me? You managed this madness simply fine, I bet," he continued. "But I am not you! I want to live! Not end up dead because our ways mean more to you and everyone else but me!"

  Dalaric grabbed Varian's arm. Ki swirled throughout the whelp's system. Chaos. "I have been as patient with your tantrum as it is in me to give. Enough of your whining! Your Ki rises to the fore!"

  "Then let it! Isn't it all that matters? The power? Why?!" Varian's shoulders slumped as he began to cry in earnest between words. "Why did she choose this for me? I wish I had never been hatched!"

  Dalaric wrapped his arms around his younger brother. He hugged him close. "Quiet your tongue," he said. "You matter. I am not here for honor, Varian. I am here because you are my brother and I do not want to lose you. Not for the clan. For my own selfish attachment to you. You were hatched to give hope to our clan, not to ask you to suffer. Father will find a witch. You will partake of the mana wine you need to control your fits. If it takes time, I am here. We will meditate together to keep your Ki under control.

  Varian's tear-streaked face looked up at him. "I can feel it. My Ki is a worm beneath my skin eating me from the inside out. I don't know what to do," he confessed. "Everything you ask of me makes it all worse."

  Dalaric closed his eyes to the pain in his brother's heart. "I will not give up on you, Varian. I will protect you," he vowed.

  Dalaric opened his eyes. He could still smell the salt of his brother's anguish. He closed his eyes again and willed the ghost of his brother to leave him in peace.

  Varian had abandoned the palace and Dalaric’s expectations after reaching two hundred years and no witches had been found. He had stumbled upon Alendria outside Gilvern and settled there with her. Not even Meghara’s promises to accept the human would sway Varian to return. Alendria feared Meghara and refused to adopt Akkadian ways, and Varian would not leave her, especially when it was discovered that she was pregnant with his child.

  Caelwin had hatched days before Bannon had been born. The birth of Varian’s son had triggered Varian’s Ki storm to overtake him, so great had his emotions been at the time. Fearing the worst, Dalaric and Meghara had been as ghosts in the woods outside Gilvern though both had hoped to be proven wrong in their fears. Meghara had refused to allow Dalaric to end Varian’s life and, in a moment of fear, Alendria had run into her fire and died as well.

  So much tragic loss had left its mark on Dalaric. He had paid the contract price to Kylara’s sisters but had released them from the need to provide an egg. There was not a day that went by that he did not feel regret. Every time he watched Caelwin twist and turn in his sleep Dalaric’s guilt grew. He would not hatch another youngling without a witch to protect their mind from madness.

  Mana Storm

  “To weave mana to serve others is the true gift of a witch.”

  -Emersyn’s Grimoire-

  "Kill him!"

  A crowd of leather-clad women surrounded a lone female who kneeled before a man. He was naked and stretched out on the ground in front of her, legs bound at the ankles. His wrists were strapped to each end of a long pole. The bulge of his shoulders betrayed bones that were unseated from their sockets. Blood flowed from many terrible wounds to stain the grass red beneath him.

  "No mercy!"

  This is not real, Emersyn told herself as the women continued to scream and demand punishment for the man. She stood amongst them, unseen and unheard. A silent participant. Always helpless but to watch.

  The woman looked up. Emersyn's heart recoiled. Jaela. Her beautiful golden eyes were red and swollen. She raised Wraith, both hands wrapped around the dagger. She hesitated.

  A group of women separated from the others. The tallest of them approached the pair to tower over Jaela. "He killed your mother. He killed your grandmother. You know the laws. Any male who raises his hands against a woman of Liindre forfeits his life!"

  Emersyn had to strain to hear over the others to hear Jaela reply, "They were starving him. Beating him."

  The leader of the women raised her hands. Instantly, the only sound to be heard was the strained breathing of the man on the ground. "Will you do your duty to your mother, Matron Eri, and your grandmother, Matron Firni?" She scowled down at the male. "Or will you deny your dagger the blood of their murderer? Will you take his place and feed to Wraith your blood instead?"

  Jaela's tortured gaze fell on the man. He looked up at her, the tortured gaze a mirror to hers. Her hands trembled. With strength at odds with his emaciated form, he jack-knifed upward. The razor-sharp blade of her dagger slid easily between emaciated ribs. The ivory bit deep into his chest, stopping his heart. Mouthing her name, he smiled as he fell back to the earth. Wraith easily pulled free to dangle from her limp hand.

  "Father!" Jaela's anguished scream echoed throughout the clearing.

  Emersyn shot up in the blankets. Her heart thudded while her breath caught on a sob. Emersyn massaged her brow with the tips of her fingers. Was it the abuse of mana which had brought the visions on this time? She stood and folded the blankets. In the quiet of the cottage she tried to calm her mind.

  Should she tell Jaela what she had seen? she wondered. She rarely dreamed of the lives of others. Which left her shying from why she had such horrid visions of the past as if she had lived them. Seeing Jaela’s grief and the way her father had died explained so much about the close-mouthed attitude her sister had toward Liindre. Why Jaela had refused to speak about the walled city except for once, and that had been under extraordinary circumstances.

  Sounds of Paelia rising for the day delayed further thought on the subject. She carefully placed the blankets beneath the window and gathered her clothes from the trunk. She pulled the tunic over her head just as Paelia finished belting her robe.

  It was the comfort of the silent routine they had participated in since she had come to the cottage over three years ago that helped pull the rest of Emersyn's heart from the bleak vision.

  "Good morning," Emersyn greeted Paelia once the woman came forward to the hearth.

  "Good morning to you, Emersyn. Has the night served to soothe your knotted mana?"

  Absently, Emersyn put a hand on her neck and rubbed the soft skin. She sighed. "I feel a little better today. How much do you know about the mark?"

  "One of the grimoires my coven holds belonged to the descendant of a long-dead witch’s sister who had attempted it. The grimoire passed down the tale of how the witch had killed herself after the first Rite to escape a second attempt."

  Emersyn felt sick. Grimoires were
sacred. Her eyes jumped to the pathetically small one on the large shelf next to her. Hers had not had anything added to it in years.

  Only by the will of the witch, dead or alive, could another read of them. Powerful individually, each member of Paelia's coven met every new and full moon in a place sacred to them to perform their rites and share knowledge. For obvious reasons, she had never been invited.

  "It was that painful?" she whispered. Only truth could be written in blood within the grimoire. If it read so, it was so.

  Paelia shrugged as she stirred the pot of soup that had been left from the night before. "Pain is in the eye of the beholder. I cannot say why she chose to end her life. I only recount why I know about the mark."

  The young witch sighed. Lord Dalaric had not hidden the pain from her. His exact word to describe it had been 'excruciating.' "I am worried about what it will mean for me."

  Chuckling, Paelia ladled some soup into a bowl and handed it to her. "Do not think too hard on it, Emersyn. This is not a battle you must fight without reward."

  Emersyn accepted the bowl then carefully slid into the chair at the long table. "What do you mean?"

  Paelia took a seat across from Emersyn and chewed a portion of carrot thoughtfully. Swallowing, her eyes twinkled merrily. "You are not required to serve the Akkadians. They cannot force your hand."

  Emersyn picked at her food then sighed. "He will be coming back to talk some more." She looked off into nothingness. "I don't know if I am strong enough for what was planned for me. I am acting like a weak coward at the mention of pain."

  Paelia chuckled. "You are still so young, Emersyn. Do not forget your humanity. The Mother gives us strength. If you prove weak, then it is by the Mother's design. It is not your fault that Akkadian essence is too different, their power too unsettled. Some things are not meant to be."

  But it was Her doing, Emersyn wanted to say. She felt rocks settle in her stomach. She would be labeled a heretic if she ever allowed those words to spill free. She bowed her head, hiding her feelings behind a fall of hair. "I know," she whispered finally. Regardless of the truth, there would be no point in attempting to share what she had learned with the older woman.