Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) (58 page)

As they worked, understanding of what Ianthe's death really meant to Gynevra dawned on Taur.

‘Gyn’a, you're panicking. Stop it!’ he ordered gruffly, chaffing her cold hands between his own large, warm ones. ‘I'll not let you go—ever! This makes no difference. D'you think I'd let you go to a place where you'll starve to death if you're not killed by ravening hordes? There's nothing you can say, Gyn’a, that'll convince me your presence in that place or this will make any difference to the future.’

‘Taur, I must!’

Chapter 33

‘No! You—must—not!’ Surging to his feet, he began a kind of demonic pacing that came on him of late whenever he was greatly agitated. ‘I’ve not given my love to you in the face of society stigma to have you walk out on me! No one else has ever put pressure on you to return. The pressure all comes from within yourself. Everyone else knows the prophecy was the demented raving of an old woman near death. Why don’t
you
see that? You would not only leave me but our children also! Electra isn’t two months old! You would leave our beautiful son? Just as you left Solon?’

Gynevra flinched as if he’d slapped her then slumped in her chair with her arms held tightly across her stomach. Was there no end to the pain she must bear?

Taur kept pacing, his eyes wild, his voice loud and angry.

‘I keep telling you, Dogon tells you, Loganda tells you, it makes no difference to the Gods whether one person is in one place or another. Do you have some idea you’re more important than anyone else in Atlantis that the Gods would choose, or not, to destroy us on the whim of where
you
are? You might be a Queen, Gyn’a, but you’re no more important in the universal scheme of things than Foab! If you understand nothing else, understand this,’ he roared, coming to a halt in front of her, ‘I will
never
let you go!’

‘I think you’ve said enough, Sire,’ Loganda said, calmly stepping in front of him and blocking him from Gynevra’s view.

Dogon hadn’t spoken since dismissing the priest. Now he stepped back a little from Gynevra and raised his arms high in the air, palms facing out and drew a cone of calming energy over them all. Taur blinked and shook his head as if he’d come out of a trance and Gynevra slowly lifted her head and, staring straight through Loganda, said, ‘You’ve said more than enough, Taur. In your usual inimitable DragonBlood fashion, you’ve cut right to the heart of the matter—my heart. The likeness between you and Gotham was never more pronounced.’

It was Taur’s turn to flinch and pushing Loganda aside he dropped to his haunches before Gynevra.

‘Gyn’a! Gyn’a! Forgive me if I hurt you in the excess of my temper but you know what this is all about! I love you! I’ll never let you go and I’ll say anything to make you understand that! When you talk of leaving me you cut
my
heart to shreds—the heart
you
made me find and acknowledge!’

‘Then we’ll talk no more of it,’ she said. ‘I’d like to return to the Castle now. I don’t believe I could achieve anything in study or meditation today. I feel too greatly agitated. I need to—go and mourn my mother.’

At last the tears came and Taur took her into his arms and rocked her gently against his shoulder.

The news from Poseidonia spread quickly through Castle and city as did awareness the King never let the Queen out of his sight and had ceased the nightly de-activation of the Energy Web. Noted and talked about too, was the fact King and Queen had cancelled all evening Castle functions and retired to their private quarters early and alone each night. Rumor was rife and many speculated that their King aimed to bind his Queen to his side by impregnating her again.

And what, they asked, would happen now? Would old Electra’s prophecy be proven accurate after all? If Gynevra of Poseidonia really believed it, shouldn’t she be sent back to Qurazil where she belonged? The King had become a clod. Did he expect them all to sacrifice themselves for his love? There were Nyaldan women aplenty eager and willing to take her place. For that matter, there were men willing and capable of taking the role of King if Cadal Isidor couldn’t remain in Nyalda without her.

Aware of the growing unease and tension throughout the city and struggling day by day with a deepening sense of panic within herself, Gynevra found it more and more difficult to leave the royal apartments. Not that there was any more safety to be had within those walls but her sense of impending doom continued to heighten.

On the morning of the fourth day after Ianthe’s death that formless fear became a leaden certainty in her heart. She’d dreamed of Ugo as a grown man but he wore strange white robes and a jeweled head-dress like nothing she’d ever seen in Atlantis. He’d held out his hand to her, palm down as if reaching for hers. As she lay wondering at the meaning of it she realized her ring, the one Taur had given her after the day of their joining, had been glowing at her from Ugo’s little finger.

Longing to, yet knowing she didn’t dare share the dream with Taur, her fingers sought his ring on her finger, as they often did. Turning it, caressing the filigreed pattern of it, seemed to assist thinking.

The ring wasn’t on her finger and no amount of searching on her part or anyone else’s, discovered it. She knew she’d been wearing it when she went to bed. She and Difleer practically tore the apartments apart and as each hour passed with no sign of it, Taur’s face became more set, more dark and strained. Gynevra knew the thought was in his mind as it was in hers, that this was an omen of separation they could not ignore. Time and again she found herself starting to tell him of the dream, then biting back the words knowing they would only increase his despair.

For she knew it was despair that filled him, just as it filled her.

She found herself desiring to beg him to let her go and gripped with terror in case he acceded to her plea. Or worse, lost his temper and beat her as Gotham had done—and he never had. Another part of her longed to cling to him and have him tell her over and over her fears were ill-founded.

Holy Ist, she prayed repeatedly in her mind. Holy Ist help us!

Taur had gone, belatedly, to train with his warriors, something he did less and less of late. She knew he had a need to vent the inner violence she’d sensed growing in him since the news had come of Ianthe’s death. The loss of the ring had merely brought his rage closer to the surface, creating a darkness in him that was new and frightening. The more so in that it matched the darkness festering within herself with the knowledge that the longer she stayed with Taur the deeper was her debt of guilt to the people of Atlantis.

Difleer had stripped and remade the bed and Foab had scoured the floor beneath and behind it. He was now engaged in searching every gladven of the royal apartments while Difleer was sifting through every garment hanging in the royal gerlain.

‘T’aint anywhere to be found, Lady,’ she muttered grimly. ‘It’s like it’s been spirited away.’

Gynevra shivered. Difleer had simply put her own thoughts into words. What could it mean?

‘I’m beginning to think you might be right, Diffie. I swear I was wearing it when I went to bed last night.’

‘Out! I want everyone out now!’

Roaring like the bull he was named for, Taur erupted into the apartments, hair streaming behind him like a shredded flag of black silk and eyes flaring with the intensity of the Sacred Flame. For a moment all were frozen where they stood, then Foab rose from searching the floor behind an ebony clothes chest and Difleer stepped out of the gerlain and moved to stand beside their mistress.

‘Out!’ the King roared again.

Both Foab and Difleer turned to look at Gynevra. She nodded to them to obey, warmed by the knowledge they would defy the King himself if she asked it of them. As the two left, their backs clearly expressing their reluctance, Gynevra raised a haughty eyebrow to Taur.

‘Something ails you, my Lord?’ she asked coldly.

‘You. You ail me,’ he growled, the words burring up from somewhere deep in his massive chest. ‘You beg to leave me. Even when you’re silent I feel the need in you. What of our children? What of the new understanding we’ve given our people of family living? What of the love you profess to have for me? What of the love I have for you? I want no other woman! I will not live without you. You are mine and you will stay with me.’

Rage had touched his dark skin with a ruddy hue but there were stark white lines about his mouth and across his forehead. Gynevra had seen him angry many times but never with this intensity. She refused to allow it to frighten her but nevertheless it took all her courage to throw her head back and defy him.

‘The choice is no longer yours, Taur. I have to go. Your life depends on it; the lives of our children. Yes, I would leave you and our children, the three people whom I love most in the entire world but I do so to save your lives.’

In a movement so fast it was a blur, he was in front of her gripping her arms. Shaking her as if he would rearrange her mind, he growled, ‘By the God’s, Gyn’a, what does it take to make you understand? It will make no difference!’

He held her still and glared into her eyes and she felt his frustration like a laser to her soul. His fingers bruised her flesh.

‘I will never—let—you go. If we die—we die together.’ Dragging her body hard up against his and wrapping his arms about her like bands of iron, he voiced in desperation, ‘I cannot let you go.’

He lowered his head to take her mouth with his.

Gynevra knew he sought to use his powerful attraction for her to bind her to him. He knew the touch of his lips and hands on her body was all it took to close down her mind, to distract her from all but him and her need to be with him.

But she’d fight with all the strength she had for their right to life. He would not enthrall her yet again with the magic of his touch. Violently she struggled against him and the more she struggled the more iron-bound became his embrace.

‘Don’t fight me, Gyn’a, don’t fight me!’

She could hear the desperation in his voice, feel it radiating from him with a ferocity that created hook waves in the ether all about them but she dared not weaken. Not now when she knew for certain this was a time of karma—karma paid or karma made.

‘You have to listen to me, Taur!’

For answer he clasped her head in a punishing grip and closed her mouth with his. Still she tried to speak against him and he ground his teeth against her lips until she tasted blood. Rage, frustrated and raw, vibrated through her from every point of contact and she knew if she continued to fight he would punish her mercilessly and not realize he was doing it. Her warrior had lost control.

Worse, the warrioress within herself who’d finally been touched by the fervor for battle, no longer knew how to stop fighting, nor recognized the need to do so. Freeing her fists she beat at his back. She twisted her head from side to side and when he thrust a knee between her thighs she stomped hard on his toes. It had become a battle in earnest; the outcome easily foredoomed for his strength was many times greater than hers. When he threw her back across the fine Boiche-carved table, flung up her gown and his kirt then thrust between her thighs she continued to fight even though the treacherous flame of desire smoldered explosively in her belly.

With a growl of deepest satisfaction he joined their bodies and Gynevra found herself wondering what it was she’d been so intent on making him understand. What was there to understand but this, the incredible passion that burned between them whenever they touched? As the sensual flames rose to consume them both the world moved and it was a moment before either realized the floor was literally heaving beneath their feet.

As abruptly as they had joined, their bodies were wrenched apart. Taur lurched upright, snatching Gynevra to his chest as the table slid from under and crashed across the room to splinter against the inner rock wall. Every other piece of furniture in the room followed it and he danced drunkenly about trying to keep upright and keep them both out of the way of lurching credenzas and crashing gerlains.

Instead of fading away as it had done many times over the last weeks, the tremor gained steadily in energy until the whole Earth roared and screamed as if in the clutches of a monstrous internal agony, then with one huge convulsion rumbled into stillness.

The passion that had flared between them only moments before was replaced by fear as they waited tremulously for the floor to still beneath their feet. Then with hearts clamoring against their chests they frantically righted their clothes and clambered over the mangled debris of the furniture towards the Great Room of the royal apartments, their mutual need to reach their children as all-consuming as their passion had been but moments before.

‘Ugo! Electra!’ Gynevra sobbed.

In the Great Room they found the furniture in a similar state of chaos and the crystal window with its central inlaid rose of pink, red and purple gemstones shattered upon the floor. A white-faced Difleer was trying to soothe a hysterical Nudon who clutched Ugo to her breast as if some ravening monster had tried to snatch him away. The nursemaid, Ana, cowered against the inner wall with Electra cradled in her arms while Foab was bent over Pog, trying to extract a fragment of crystal from the little man’s cheek.

Taur strode across to Nudon, took his crying son in one arm and wrapped the other around the terrified woman.

‘Calm yourself, Movuon,’ he said gruffly. ‘We are all safe. Gyna—’

He looked around to where Gynevra was taking the screaming baby into her arms, and their eyes met. She could not hide her tears from him.

Gyn’a—I’m sorry—but we need you—

Sucking in a shuddering breath, she nodded and tried to smile her understanding at him through her tears.

At least we’re all alive! Praise be to Ist!

In the King’s Presence Chamber crystal windows had shattered, cracks had appeared in walls and floors, but because it was hewn from natural rock, Heceuda Castle clung tenaciously to its craggy roost. But its people and furniture had been tossed about like leaves in a windstorm. There were many casualties, many people running in fear and panic not knowing what to do or where to go that they might be safe.