Blazing Earth (8 page)

Southampton, England

Hugh smiled smugly as his ships approached the port of Southampton on England's southern coast. The only reason his ships made it across the channel from his lands in Brittany and Normandy was that the attentions of the Warriors were turned away.

They thought and acted like the humans they used to be, not the beings of power that they were now. The first four had not yet accepted or understood the extent of their powers or their range. And Hugh was glad he had not told them all of it. Or he would have yet been stranded on the sea.

As they grew closer to the shoreline, Eudes, his commander, walked to his side and waited to be acknowledged. Hugh nodded.

“My lord, everything is readied.”

“Our man?” The spy he'd left within those who fought with the Warriors had sent word of the discovery of the prophecy.

“He should be waiting when we dock,” Eudes said confidently. Not comfortably, though.

“Send him on to my cousin as soon as he gives his
report,” Hugh said, turning to face the man who was his half brother. “Is there a problem?”

“Only that we are behind them.”

“Worry not. They are wandering and we will march with purpose and arrive from a different direction,” Hugh said, closing his eyes and searching for signs of the others. Another ability they had yet to master. “And they have no idea of where we are.”

Ripples in the air told him of their position. The four others were north and west of him now. Stretching out his mind, he could only detect the presence of the other two, the ones whose powers had not yet erupted.

There was still time. Time to find them and bring them into the goddess's following. Time to teach them about the price of resistance and the reward of loyalty.

He shivered then and the skin on his back pulled against his shirt and tunic. Burned too much and too many times, it was now beyond repair and the price he'd paid for failing Chaela.

When he'd arrived on his lands, he sought out the place where he could reach her, and their merging, well, it had gone as badly as he suspected it would. No matter that he had groveled and begged her forgiveness in any and every way he knew how, she had never slowed in her punishment of him. Even now the pain of it tore through him, making it difficult to breathe.

It would never heal and the torment he would feel when he turned into fire would remind him of his weakness. She had burned him to cinders and allowed him to reform, only to repeat it over and over until he could no longer heal every part of himself. The area
on his back, from his hips up to his ribs, would forever remind him of her terrible wrath.

But . . .

He knew that the ultimate reward he would reap when he opened the gateway and released her from her prison would more than compensate him for this physical torment now. And Hugh would gladly suffer now knowing what was to come.

Glorious, complete, and utter power over mankind. Kings would no longer matter. Armies would not, either. When Chaela gained control, he would oversee the breeding of more bloodline descendants and would rule over them as they worshipped the goddess. And he would take his place at Chaela's side as her consort and they would destroy anyone who stood against them.

The first to feel his wrath would be his ingrate of a daughter—he would destroy her before the eyes of those she led astray.

Then he would take the Norse woman—Ran. He craved merging with her . . . and taking that magnificent body of hers even while she fought him. And she would fight him. But her strength would not be enough against him and Hugh would relish every moment of her struggles until he broke her mind, body, and soul. Then he would keep her as his concubine, breeding sons on her filled with their bloodlines. Strong sons. Many sons.

Hugh shivered again. This time it was his cock that reacted at both the thought of joining with Chaela in human
form and the satisfaction and pleasure that would also follow when he broke Ran. His body began to turn then, the flames igniting within and spreading out.

Until the anguish stopped him; his human flesh was unable to bear the fire's touch. He needed more time before he could face that agony again. Letting out his breath, he concentrated on the land as it grew closer.

“My lord?” Eudes asked.

In no mood to deal with his curiosity or his questions, Hugh sent him away with but a glance. He must ready himself to do what he had to in order to find the gateway and open it. Now, though, Hugh stood silently and tried to force his mind off the searing pain that threatened to slow him.

Pain was nothing but a guide to what he truly wanted. Pain would never break his resolve to see the Warriors defeated. Pain would simply be a precursor to the great pleasures that awaited him when he pleased his goddess and freed her.

Tolan stood before her door for some time listening to the sounds of the night. Lifting his head and closing his eyes, he took in more—not only the sounds but also the smells. The earth beneath his feet was coming alive and he detected the odor of the living things waking from their winter sleep.

As he turned his head, whispers caught his attention. Unable to hear them clearly, Tolan walked around Thea's croft, drawn to the area where she grew her herbs. The sounds grew louder still, but there were no words being spoken. Thinking he might be interrupting two trysting lovers, he stopped and waited.

The smell was familiar, for it was that of the soil as it was turned over in the spring, refreshing it with the touch of the sun and air after its months of rest. And it grew stronger and stronger. He walked to the stone wall that enclosed the garden and looked within.

Indeed, some of the soil had been turned over and
loosened from the winter's grip. A small section of Thea's garden was ready to be seeded for the summer's growth. If the strength of the smell of it had not surprised him, the way that the area glowed did. He walked with a care over to that corner and crouched next to it.

The warmth was unmistakable, for it was like that of the sun's kiss on the soil after a long, cloudless day, and here the heat lingered. . . . He'd felt the same warmth when he worked the fields in the bright sunshine. Even now his hands itched to touch the soil and turn it. Yet here it was something different, something . . . more. Almost as the earth felt to him after he'd touched it or called life to it.

Glancing about, Tolan realized it was the corner of the garden that was shaded by the large oak tree that grew there just outside the wall. Standing, he wondered how this had happened.

The only person who worked this garden was Thea. She allowed no one else to tend to her herbs—they were too important in the concoctions and teas and unguents she made to treat the sick and injured to let someone else oversee their care.

Only Thea. Only Thea touched this garden.

Thea.

For a moment, the truth he'd never seen before shocked himself so much that he could not consider all the possibilities or consequences of it. Could it be that she was like him? That she had the blood of the ancients within her? If so, she'd never given any clue to it. Brushing the soil off his hands, he began to walk to her door, thinking on the woman herself.

She'd learned his healing skills from her mother, much the same as everyone did. But Tolan knew that Thea had long ago surpassed anything she'd learned from old Welsa. Her talent went beyond knowing the recipes for making the things she used. Her talents went beyond what he knew of most healers. And those talents had been noticed and coveted even by Lord Geoffrey.

It had been the nobleman's idea that she wed Jasper, a Norman in his service. That kept her here, working for him, when she might possibly have moved to live with distant relatives and taken her skills with her. And now Tolan wondered if Jasper's death might have been more than accidental.

Thinking on it in this way, Tolan suspected that Jasper's beatings had gotten too violent and that threatened Geoffrey's use of her skills. That fall from a horse that broke Jasper's neck could have been caused by many, many things. But it would mean that Lord Geoffrey knew much more about the bloodlines and the ancients . . . and about Tolan.

'Twas too much of a coincidence for these things not to be connected. If Tolan had grown up with the stories being passed to him, then it seemed logical that others had as well. And it made sense that some others, even while connected by the blood of the ancients, might never had learned of them.

Like Thea?

The thought sent him staggering, along the path that led to her door. He waited there, listening once more, before he lifted the latch and entered quietly,
not bothering to knock. Her soft snoring made him smile and he decided not to wake her . . . yet. Tolan leaned against the now-closed door and thought on his new suspicions, gathering his thoughts and trying to come up with a way to ask her about them.

If she was of the bloodlines, she would have been warned against revealing it to others, as he had. It would have been part of her training. If she herself had no knowledge of it, then . . .

Tolan glanced over to find her sitting before the fire, her head tipped to one side, in the high-back chair. Her work chair, she called it, and sure enough, her sewing basket sat on the floor at her side. She was dreaming now, whispering words and a name. He crouched next to her and waited, not wanting to frighten her.

“Linne!” she called out then. “Linne. No!”

As he watched in silence, she held out her hands as though touching the young woman who'd just given birth a sennight ago. Tolan knew that Linne had also nearly died when she began bleeding again a few days ago. Whatever treatment Thea had rendered had saved the new mother.

How she'd saved her became clear to him in the next moments as the hands she held out began to glow, giving off both light and heat. Tolan staggered back as it surrounded her completely. She sat in the center of an aura of gold, unaffected by the power that she exuded. Though hot, this power did not burn. Enthralled by this, he watched and waited for her to wake.

A few moments later, her eyes fluttered and opened slowly, the glowing still strong and bright around her.
She met his gaze, and that frown formed on her brow once again.

“Tolan? What . . .” She looked at her outstretched hands and then back at him. “I . . .”

“How does it feel, Thea?” he asked, nodding at her hands. She stared at them, her eyes wide and her gaze confused.

“They are warm,” she answered as she let them fall onto her lap.

“Is that how you heal people?” he asked.

Certain that his question would stir up many, many more between them, he asked anyway. Tolan understood how their common purpose could run much deeper than either of them had ever imagined. He had kept his secret for his whole life, even through his marriage to Corliss. To speak of it to someone else who might be the same as he was extraordinary and unexpected.

Watching her filled with this unexplained power made him also realize that he trusted her in a way he did not trust others. Another word pushed into his thoughts and his heart, but it was too soon and too uncertain to name it such.

“I know not, Tolan,” she said, sitting up straight and watching as the brightness in her hands faded. “I was dreaming.”

“About Linne.”

“Aye. About Linne. How did you know?” she asked, standing now to face him.

“You called out her name. Several times. And you reached out as though you were touching her.”

Though her hands had changed, the golden color yet outlined her. Tolan reached out to touch her cheek. The aura shimmered and did not change. She shone like the midday sun before him while everything else faded into colors and shades of shadows.

“Did you lay your hands on her, Thea? When she was bleeding?”

She nodded as though afraid to utter the words.

“And you have done this with others?” Another nod. “For how long?”

She let out a breath, unsure of how to answer him. Though fearful of exposing this to others, for she could be labeled a witch or devil worshipper, Thea did not fear Tolan knowing it. He was a fair man and mayhap he could help her find some explanation for the ability she could not define.

“I have always been a healer, from the first days my ma showed me the way of herbs and medicaments. But this”—she held up her hands between them—“this is new.”

The heat seeped away, but her skin shimmered brightly enough to cast a light across the chamber. Thea waited to see his reaction, to this ability that she could not explain. Instead, she realized that Tolan was different. Or was it her own vision now that this power inhabited her? She looked away from him and noticed that the rest of the room seemed pale when compared to him.

Was it the glow of her skin that made it seem that way? She thought about the feeling leaving her hands and it dimmed slowly until it was gone. But it was
replaced by something completely different . . . and not from her.

She could not breathe in that moment as she stared at him standing a few paces away from her. His physical appearance was no different; his shape was as tall and muscular as always. No, the thing that had changed was that he now stood outlined surrounded by a green light.

No, that wasn't it. His body gleamed as though encased in green. Green like the grass that covered the lands. Green like the plants that would begin to shoot from the soil. Green like the color of the leaves on the mighty oak trees that grew all over the area.

He must have noticed her surprise, for he stepped closer and reached out to touch her. The hand and arm shimmered, casting off flashes of green as he moved. As her skin had given off the golden light like the sun.

“Tolan.” She touched his hand, not knowing what to expect. “You are . . . shining.”

Now he was the one looking surprised. He shrugged and shook his head. “I do not see it.” Holding out his hand, he shook his head again. “Nay.”

His expression changed then, and she had the feeling that he knew her next words and would not like them.

“So, is yours related to your abilities with growing things?”

Although he paled, the green shimmer remained around him. “Aye.”

One word, but it explained so much about his
continued success in times when famine or drought or pestilence struck other lands or farms or fields. Had he inherited this power from his father? There were stories about how many generations of his family had served Lord Geoffrey and his ancestors, so there must be a connection there.

For that moment, she no longer felt alone and frightened. She let out the breath she did not realize she'd been holding inside her and asked the first question that came to her mind. “How long have you known?”

The crackling sound of brush underfoot pierced the silence before he could answer and he raised a finger to his mouth.

“Put out the fire, Thea. 'Tis time to sleep,” he said in a loud voice. He nodded at her and she did just that. “I will return anon,” he then whispered. “I will see if I can chase him off.”

Tolan walked over and opened the door quickly, peering into the darkness outside. Then he strode over to the side of her cottage and relieved himself. 'Twas then that she heard the scurrying footsteps down the path away from her home, using the sounds of Tolan's actions to cover the noise of his retreat.

Tolan had known someone was there. She banked the fire for night and when she turned, she found him in the doorway staring at her.

“Who was it?” she whispered once he'd closed the door.

“A guard from the castle. My steps have been shadowed since I spoke to Lord Geoffrey days ago.”

“Why? What does he suspect? This?” she asked,
motioning to the aura she could still see outlining his shape.

“Come with me,” he said softly, holding out his hand to her.

She took it without hesitation and followed him out. Slowing only to grab the small lantern by the door, they walked quickly around her cottage. He did not stop until they stood beside the low wall that surrounded her garden.

“This is when I first suspected you were more than you seemed, Thea.” He pointed to the only part of the small plot that she'd been able to work so far.

She'd spent hours here today, thinking and turning the soil, and thinking and then just drifting off lost in her thoughts. Now, looking into that corner, she noticed how the soil glimmered the same way her hands had. Opening the gate and walking over there, she stared at it.

“I think that you have been putting whatever power you have within you into the herbs you grow and the medicaments you make and use. You left your mark there on the soil.”

“What?” she asked, shaking her head. “Do you not hear how ludicrous that sounds? Power? Are you saying I have some kind of magic within me and use it? That is against God's laws and the Church, Tolan.” Thinking it was one thing, but hearing it said aloud brought the possible danger much closer.

“Do you pray while you work? Do you offer thanks when something works to cure or aid someone who seeks your help?”

“Certainly,” she said. “Do you not pray during your work? While you till the soil and prepare the fields?”

“Aye.”

A strange expression crossed his face then, one of surprise mixed with guilt and satisfaction. From that look in his eyes, she wanted nothing more in that moment than to watch him as he tended to his fields.

“I think it is those prayers that are imbuing your herbs and your other concoctions with healing power.” He paused and then met her gaze, his now serious. “And that is why my fields are fertile and my lands and the ones I care for do not suffer as others do.”

“Show me.”

She had not planned on calling his abilities into action, but he nodded and came to the corner where she yet knelt. He tugged up his sleeves and would have thrust his hands into the soil when she stopped. There was a bandage on his forearm.

“Your arm.” He stopped and looked at her. Sliding her sleeve up, she revealed a matching bandage, one she still wore to cover the mark there. “I have one as well.” They peeled them off at the same time, unwinding the linen to reveal the skin underneath it.

Where hers was shaped like the sun, his had the appearance of a tree. And like hers, his moved as though alive, its branches waving as though blown by a gentle breeze.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, sliding his thumb across the skin marked by it.

“At times, but not now. Yours?”

“The same. It appeared a few weeks ago and grew to this size. It seems to react to you, though. Look.”

Both of the marks grew brighter as they held their arms closer. As did the green color surrounding him.