Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) (23 page)

The wind stung her eyes, whipped the cloak from her shoulders, and twisted her hair into a banner behind her. Clutching the cloak tightly at her throat and snatching the emerald headband to safety, she shut her eyes against the poisonous dust and prayed to the Goddess for protection. When next she dared a glance toward the island a golden faerie temple, crystal-lit beneath its layered pyramid of glass, shimmered on the waters before them.

With steady strokes the Prince guided the craft into the current so they were carried straight into the cunningly contrived net that held them against the stream so he could turn and pull the boat into the tunnel facing the river-mouth. Several more strokes brought them up onto the sandy beach. With the first awkwardness from his injury Gynevra had noticed all day, Gotham clambered onto the sand and held the boat while she alighted beside him. Taking her cloak, he stowed it in the boat with his own and pulled the craft onto the beach, securing the mooring line to a rock.

Gynevra turned to survey their tiny domain. No more than a large rock, the Isle had been crowned with a miniature temple built of crystalline limestone. Crystal lights gave the building the appearance of having been dipped in shimmering gold. Fear was masked by the moment of wonder.

‘It's beautiful,’ she breathed, more to herself than to the grim-faced man who'd come to her side. It felt magical to stand at last on this historical dot of land where, so legend had it, Madoc, himself the child of Merwin, a Mer-woman, had found Ebbawen of the SeaDragons. In this place love had been born in Madoc's stony heart and from that love a distinctive race of golden haired, light eyed Children of the Dragon.

Did he feel the magic? Gynevra turned to stare at Gotham. Generations later they'd come, descendants of those first two who'd found love on this spot, an offering from the harvest of the seed planted on this isle so long ago. The sense of grim, iron-clad fury was gone from him. His eyes glowed with a deep unearthly fire, and he gazed back at her with an expression which, if not exactly wonder, was at least, appreciation.

Hope swelled in her heart.

‘Beautiful and magical both,’ he growled, gazing down into the glowing countenance of the woman whose life now joined his. Then he added slowly, huskily, ‘Shall we explore?’

Without waiting for her answer, he dipped his head and took her mouth with his, tasted her wonder, drank of her enchantment. Their bodies melded spontaneously and the silk of her gown and hair entangled their limbs.

He lifted his head. ‘From the moment I first saw you in that gown I've thought of little else but this. You don't know how close you came to social disaster on that confounded desk in the Halls of Justice, Princess.’

Relief was headier than the wine she'd been recklessly imbibing. It was easy to block out the skeptical voice that whispered caution somewhere in the depth of her mind.

‘Cloaba! That breara Paco is lucky he still breathes. I'm so hot for you I'm in danger of expending the moment in one wild rush here on the sand. I'm astounded and delighted at what you make me feel, Princess.’

The blue eyes were almost black with desire and his body taut and hard against her own. Words ground between his teeth.

‘I'd intended we greet the Spirits of our Ancestors first.’

May the Goddess give her strength! Did it take so little then to make her forget her first duty, make her forget his inattention of the day? The first assignment a priestess must perform at the critical moments of her life, regardless of what those moments were, was an invocation to the Goddess for her blessing. What more critical moment could there be than the occasion of her first joining with her sacred partner?

Slipping suddenly from his grasp she fled up the steps carved into the rock and entered the building. The arched entry-way was the only opening and the interior was softly lit by crystal lamps set into niches around the walls.

The twelve-sided structure was about thirty gladvenon in diameter. A wide linen-draped couch heaped with brightly colored ilobaron occupied the center, a side-table laden with food and drink under silver covers stood to the right, and a large copper tub steamed gently to the left. But Gynevra's gaze slid beyond all these to the life-sized statue of a naked woman with a fish tail instead of legs mounted on a plinth before the wall opposite the door. She couldn't resist crossing the room and running her hands down the translucent aquamarine of Ebbawen's shoulders to the lifelike scales of her tail. The soul connection was instant and powerful.

‘She greets us and welcomes us. She knows who we are and why we've come. She offers us her blessing.’

Gotham joined her before the statue. Breathing heavily, and obviously under a precarious restraint, he took her left hand in his right and placed his other on Ebbawen's shoulder.

‘Greetings Queen Ebbawen, whose blood flows in both our veins. Thank you for your blessing on the union we contracted this day.—Now if you'll excuse us, I have a woman to bed.’

Gynevra gasped with indignation and leapt to the opposite side of the couch.

‘Will you first share the cleansing ritual with me?’ she asked grittily.

The Prince swore.

‘Is that the price I'm expected to pay for joining with a priestess?’

‘I'd be obliged if you'd accommodate me in this,’ she responded frostily.

Gotham scowled, then said ungraciously, ‘I will forbear if I must.’

Gynevra walked across and tested the water in the tub then began removing her emerald adornments.

‘I'm reliably informed forbearance brings greater ecstasy,’ she muttered defiantly over her shoulder as she carefully placed the precious gems in an empty wall niche.

The Prince ripped off his kirt and strode round the couch wearing only his light leather dress boots.

‘At some later date I might be suitably grateful that you're ‘
reliably informed
’ of many things. Right now one thing interests me.’

‘The cleansing ritual. Of course.’

‘Princess, make it short,’ he barked, kicking off first one boot then the other.

His eyes smoldered darkly, his desire starkly obvious. The Golden Stallion of Trephysia. The familiar epithet definitely referred to more than the heraldic symbol for the royal house of the province! Excitement volcanoed within her belly and Gynevra found, to her chagrin, she was no less impatient to have the ritual completed.

‘Certainly, my Lord.’

Slowly she raised her arms and released the jeweled clip fastening her gown at the neck, letting it whisper to a silken pool about her feet.

His only response was the movement of a muscle in the granite jaw as if he ground his teeth. Their eyes locked and a tremor of excitement shook her visibly from head to toe.

‘Can you remember the words, Princess?’

The husky tones of his voice caused the tremor to reverse. The rippling awareness scorched her toes, quivered every nerve shaft upward through her body, set her lips trembling, and widened her eyes.

‘What?’ she whispered.

‘The invocation.’

‘Oh.’ Her breath seared her lips as it sighed out of her mouth. ‘Um—no.’

Reaching for her, he swung her into his arms, and stepped into the steaming tub. Bending his knees he took them to their chins in the water then rose again to let it pour off in splashing puddles all about the tub.

‘Great Goddess Ist, Great God Asar, we are cleansed before you. So mote it be!’

Gynevra wanted to giggle. It was the shortest cleansing invocation she'd ever heard.

Stepping out onto the floor, he snatched up a folded drying cloth and thrust it into her startled hands.

‘Dry yourself, Princess.’

He dragged another cloth across his chest and shoulders.

‘I'm not sure I remember how to do that either,’ she whispered, trying to manipulate the piece of linen with fingers that yearned only to touch warm, living flesh.

Gotham growled somewhere deep in his chest, raced the cloth over his body in a cursory salute at drying it, dragged both cloths summarily over Gynevra front and back, then cast them aside. Swinging her into his arms once again he fell among the silken ilobaron. Rolling onto his back, he clasped her against his chest.

‘Madoc and Ebbawen might have appreciated this had the Gods thought to provide it for them. They had to make do with the sandy floor. Holy Cronos, I can wait no longer.’ He sought her mouth hungrily, his hands roaming freely with enough urgency and dedication to finally satisfy Gynevra. ‘You radiate the golden promise of fire and passion I've only ever encountered in women of the Dragon Blood. Do you keep that promise, Gynevra of Poseidonia? Does your emerald fire burn as brightly in your blood as it does in your strange golden Dragon eyes?’

He rolled again and pinned her to the cushions with the challenge, and the weight of his body. Eyes locked, elemental fire to elemental fire. Bodies cleaved, breast to breast, navel to navel, mouth to mouth.

Manhood to womanhood.

With a cry of exultation Gynevra arched back. Gotham reared into her, rigid with the ecstatic power of the moment.

‘Now truly,’ he cried as he withdrew and thrust even more deeply into her womb, ‘is the royal House of Trephysia joined with,’ and he withdrew and thrust again, ‘the royal House of Poseidonia!’

Joined, fused, vulcanized. Whatever the words were Gynevra couldn't have uttered any one of them as her body channeled every atom of energy to attaining the heights with Gotham she'd discovered with Taur.

‘Just as well you weren't a virgin, Princess. That could hardly be called the delicate approach,’ Gotham rasped into her hair when he was able to draw breath again. ‘I can only plead the passion of the emerald ray is everything I was told it would be—and beg your indulgence while I prove I do know how to—appreciate—a beautiful woman.’

He nuzzled at the delicate skin beneath her ear, then on down the curve of her neck to an urgently thrusting golden breast. The only response Gynevra was able to offer was an inarticulate moan but it seemed to be all he needed. Perhaps this time the fireball of ecstatic fulfilment would keep even the merest shadow of the King of Nyalda from her mind.

Chapter 13

‘She's carrying his baby?’

The cry of protest leapt from Gynevra's mouth with the force of an archer's bolt. Her hand flew to her lips, and she stared at her sister.

It was a tonn since her Sacred Joining and this was the first day Gotham had left their apartments. He'd said he needed to get back in training to ensure no other DragonBlood arabo won the right to play Rafid if she were a chosen Adonai.

Taur had won their last fight. The thought had been in her mind before she'd realized what it signified. She'd only hoped Gotham believed the thought of them performing together on the altar had generated the sudden heat in her cheeks. Her continued happiness with the Prince of Trephysia depended on the King of Nyalda staying out of her mind.

It had been a happy ten days. Gotham had made up for any lack of attention on their Joining Day. Nevertheless she'd been looking forward to spending this time with Meryan. Inevitably their talk had turned to Phryne. When Gynevra shared the whole of what had transpired between her and Phree, Mery wept and gave substance to the knowledge that had lurked untenable in her subconscious mind for many days now.

They were sitting on large soft ilobaron in the enclosed courtyard of Gynevra's apartments. Hearing pain and denial in her sister's voice, Meryan's hands fluttered over her cup of mint tisane then back to her lap to twist anxiously.

‘Gyn'a, it's a Child of the Gods, Ist and Asar. You must remember who we are and why we do what we do as Priestesses of the Temple. It's not Taur's babe she carries. It’s Asar's. And in that same sense, she's not Phryne, she's Ist.’

‘I know that! I don't want to feel this way. It's so demeaning. I know what Taur and I did was wrong yet—when I think of her bearing his child, I—want to—’

‘What of Gotham?’ Meryan interrupted. ‘You could already be seeded by him. You could be carrying a future King of Trephysia. You must put Cadal Isidor out of your mind.’

Gynevra gnawed on her lip and rested a hand wistfully on her abdomen. ‘Gotham is certain I must be pregnant by now. He says his seed always takes instantly.—But, Mery, I think I'd know—I mean, I just don't
feel
I am.’

Meryan smiled and patted her own slender form.

‘I know what you mean. I knew the moment I was seeded.’

Gynevra squealed and leapt across the ilobaron to hug her sister.

‘Oh Mery, here I've been bleating on about my stupid feelings and you have this exciting news. I'm so happy for you.’ Leaning back she studied her sister closely. ‘You are happy about it, aren't you?—Oh what a stupid question. I should've known when you arrived. You're positively glowing!’

Meryan laughed. ‘We're both very happy about it.’

‘And you're happy with Hadan?’

A delicate color touched Mery's cheeks and her eyes misted.

‘I just hope you and Phree can be as happy as I am. I'm so fortunate in Hadan. We complement each other in so many ways—and Gyn'a, he's a wonderful lover. You know, everything naughty Lauriana used to tell us about DragonBlood lovers—is true. You must have found that out by now.’

Gynevra dropped her head back to stare at the ornate ceiling and released a deep sigh. She should be feeling well blessed. Her prince was a virile lover, her young and passionate body well mated, and she was a Queen and Mother of Kings in the making. Could there be more to happiness than that? Should there be?

‘Ta’a,’ she murmured dreamily. ‘I guess I have.’ But she’d not tell Meryan the DragonBlood lover who filled her mind had ebony hair and eyes to match her signature stone.

That first quarter passed all too quickly. Mostly Gotham was training, determined to regain the agility that would allow him to fight, or out about the business of the city or army. Gynevra filled her time planning a Palace Healing Temple with Queen Althaea, helping Meryan in the House of Children or attending the endless receptions in the Queen's Court where, to her consternation, she made little headway in her efforts to make friends among the ladies of Trephysia.

Not an evening went by without some official function or celebration in the Reception Hall, which they must attend. Such affairs were showcases for the artistic talent of the province and sometimes further afield, but mostly it was a place for the Paggi to see and be seen.

As the quarter progressed and she failed to quicken with child, the brilliant, confident facade of the Golden Stallion began to splinter. He complained of the time spent padding the egos of the Paggi ‘Who's Who’ of the City, which kept them from working on the problem of her barrenness. When her menses began just before she was due to enter the Temple an ugly fear entered Gynevra's mind and would not be banished. Had Gotham lost his potency as a result of his terrible wounding by Taur?

She couldn't speak of it to anyone, least of all to Gotham himself. Such an event was too horrific to substantiate with words. His pride in his ranking as a top DragonBlood sire was undisguised. She couldn't begin to imagine the effect sterility would have on his disposition, didn't dare contemplate the future should her fears be realized. Infertile, his chances of becoming King of Trephysia were nil.

His surly but determined efforts to prevent her leaving for the Temple when that day came upon them, filled her with deep foreboding. Eyes smoky dark with anger and mouth twisted and sneering, he'd used every ruse to undermine her resolve to honor her vow, even to using the word `love'. Something was seriously amiss with a Paggi male who allowed that word to form on his lips, however insincere she knew it to be.

However deeply she longed to be as other women, to honor her contract to her sacred partner and only to him, nothing could make her dishonor her vow to the Goddess. Wallowing in her pain was pointless and listening to Gotham wallowing in his only prolonged the agony. Somehow she must endure separation for the next quarter, and so must he.

But such was the busyness of her days in Temple Ceabryn, when her head touched the clagren she slept, instantly and deeply. She'd made friends more easily than she had in the Palace. Gotham's half-sister, Anya, who never mentioned her brother without a grimace of tension, had become almost as close as Mery; Lord Dogon, her personal mentor, whose understanding of her needs included physical training and stick fighting, which kept her fit but exhausted to the point of having no energy to spare for frustrated longings.

Difleer, her housekeeper, who reminded her so much of ‘naughty Lauriana’ at Qrazil that an instant bond was struck between them. Old enough to be her mother yet still beautiful in a blousy, brassy way, Difleer had lost no time informing her new young mistress of her delight in offering her own brand of ‘
healing
’ to the handsome piacani who would undoubtedly flock to the Princess's morning healing clinics.

‘Where will you—um—offer this
healing
?’ Gynevra had asked, her eyes dancing with amusement, and her mind boggling with the thought of Difleer cavorting with some court piaca across the beautiful hand embroidered clagrenon of the vast bed the Temple had provided for its royal scholar.

A serenely wanton smile lit Difleer's eyes as she directed her mistress's attention to the king's high gerlain that provided storage for the Princess's clothes.

‘Many folks live in places no bigger'n that, Lady. Reckon I could make it real comfortable—and it'd sure be private!’

Feeling a giggle rising in her throat, Gynevra hastily suppressed it into a grinning attempt to enforce her dignity.

‘It certainly will—but please don't forget where your first responsibility lies.’

‘I'll give ye no reason to complain, Lady,’ Difleer had promised—and she hadn't.

On an afternoon towards the end of the first month as she walked with Dogon in the Blue Gardens talking of her progress in the use of Electra's powerful crystal healing rods, Difleer apologetically intruded.

‘Lady Gynevra, the Lady Darlen requests your presence in the Healing Temple. The Lord Kah has taken a fit while visiting with her and she says he appears to be suffering from crystal apoplexy and is having trouble breathing.’

Gynevra looked quickly to Dogon, and with a frown of reluctance he nodded her release. As they hurried back through the gardens, she questioned Difleer about Lord Kah.

Rolling her eyes, Difleer laughed.

‘Once he was high and mighty Minister of Crystals and he still likes to call himself that but the ladies at the House of Delilahs say he has to hold his kondemon to relieve himself! The Lady Darlen takes pity on him though and calls him ‘
Minister
’. I suppose he still knows what he once did about crystal technology and they say his knowledge was formidable. But—’

Difleer rolled her eyes around again and Gynevra was still laughing when she was directed into a side room of the Healing Temple where both Darlen and Anya hovered over an elderly man reclining on the couch.

‘Ah, there you are my dear. Thank goodness Dogon didn't detain you. He's notorious for not allowing interruption during his teachings. I must remember to reward Difleer for her temerity in approaching you. Gynevra, this is the Lord Kah, Minister of Crystals, and he appears to be suffering an apoplexy, which is common among folk who work much with high crystal energies. I'm thinking you'll have the very latest understanding of this condition?’

‘Yes, Lady. For apoplexy patients one must channel deep magnetic earthing energy. You may leave him with me.’

Gynevra waited just inside the door until Darlen and Anya left, her skin tingling with awareness. Kah, Minister of Crystals was important to her in some way. His hair and beard were white and fine like cobweb, the pale, crystalline eyes oddly young-looking in contrast and from their depths shone an unearthly light of deep knowing.

No one had secrets from the Minister of Crystals. And by the time she'd drawn the next breath Gynevra knew also the Lord Kah was a fake. A naughty twinkle lurked in his eyes and there was an exaggeration to the twitch of his hands and the rasp of his breath only an experienced healer would notice.

‘You should give all deep mimes a miss, Lord Kah. You're a dreadful actor,’ she said.

‘Deep mimes really bore me, Lady. How do you do?’

‘How, indeed, Lord Kah. Do you have need of my healing skills or did you have some other reason for interrupting my session with Lord Dogon?’

He chuckled.

‘I stood on the toes of the rustic young whiz-kid from Temple Zedalin? Tut-tut!’

‘What do you mean, young?’ Gynevra queried. ‘His hair is almost, well nearly, as white as yours.’

‘As well our lofty Lord Dogon didn't hear you say that. It happens to all who work with the high crystal energies in the power houses. Have you not noticed how fit he is? He is scarce as old as your beautiful Prince, my Lady.’

Kah cocked a white eyebrow in evident enjoyment as he watched astonishment and consternation chase across Gynevra's face

‘Thank you for informing me. I hope I haven't embarrassed him by saying something foolish. Now, what was it you really wanted of me?’

‘Your skills with the crystal power rods of the ancients,’ he answered promptly staring directly at her as if he could see right into her soul. But rather than the sense of violation such an action from a stranger would normally have engendered, Gynevra felt oddly animated, as if he'd gifted her some deep mercurial energy of sound, like music in her head.

‘I have very little skill with the rods as yet, Lord Kah,’ she said. ‘There's no one alive who's able to use them and I am having to learn by trial and error with Lord Dogon’s guidance. There's very little margin for error with the rods and I'm afraid my progress is, of necessity, cautious. Do you have a life-threatening disease that you seek help for?’

Again that shimmering look.

‘It's as much the vibration you carry that enables you to use them, as any actual skills that I'm interested in, my dear.’

A frisson of cold air brushed the back of her neck.

‘To do what?’ she asked.

‘To help me program the biggest crystal ever built.’

Gynevra walked slowly across the room and sat on the straight-backed chair at the desk. Briefly she remembered perching on the corner of the watch desk in Qrazil while Priestess Delida talked of the exploits of Usuf, King Ahron’s brother. Rumored to be so intelligent he verged on the unbalanced, he was also rumored to be involved in just such a project.

Looking directly back at the man on the couch she said, ‘I'm a healer. That's what I do. That's
all
I do.’

After a moment of deep consideration, he said, ‘Then please give me deep healing for crystal apoplexy for I do indeed suffer from it.’

For the next half hour the old man lay silent beneath Gynevra's hands and when the healing was completed he slowly sat up on the healing couch and asked, ‘What would it take to get you to work with me at Meranil?’

‘Nothing, Lord Kah. Absolutely nothing.’

Kah held her gaze for a long moment before stepping to the floor and crossing to the door with a sprightly step that spoke of a miraculous healing, or little need of it in the first place.

‘I'm sorry about that Princess. I won't promise not to try to change your mind however.’