Hers to Choose (18 page)

Two weeks earlier:

Eric floated in the black, star-filled night, unfeeling, bodiless.
She
was there with him.

“
My son.”

I’m dead.
Why was the
Senzienza
intruding into his death?

“
The Power of the Two must survive.”

He had failed to protect Sophi.
Sophi, my love, I’m sorry.

“Survive
and serve me, child.”

As awareness pricked at him, t
he vision before his eyes overwhelmed his senses. Again, he floated in velvet blackness. Brilliant stars spiking tongues of flame spread out around him in a vast, infinite splendor. His own body radiated a glory of blazing light. Gossamer strands of pulsing luminosity linked him to another brilliant sphere. The tethering web of threads bound them together. As he watched in wonder, the shining threads shortened, drawing him together with the other fiercely radiant orb. He felt no fear, just a vast sense of awe. As his celestial body merged with the immensely radiant star to which he was connected, surges of indescribable power coursed through his awareness. Energy built in intensity, surging and swirling in the vessel of his body. He became a radiating, scorching, violent sun. His silent scream of agony at the apex of his transformation shot an inferno of furious, roaring power spearing into the black void. Engulfed, obliterated, his rational mind fled before the searing firestorm of energy infiltrating his consciousness and he lost awareness.

* * *

The soft patter of rain on his face roused him. The warm, rich earth beneath him pulsed with power. Green vines wrapped his length, binding him, immobile, to the ground.
What? I’m not dead?

My son.

Mother Verdantia?

The Power of the Two
will serve me. Survive.

And once again he floated in black nothingness.

* * *

Heat permeated his body.
Too hot.
He gasped into full awareness. The ground beneath him vibrated with energy and heat, burning him through his leathers. He tried to sit up. Strings of withered organic matter entwining his body snapped as he rose.

The heat became un
endurable. He was burning alive! With a cry, he strained against the unseen strands until they snapped and he rolled to the side. He stared up at the green canopy of living leaves overhead. The coolness of soft earth bled the excessive heat from his body.
Goddess, thank you.

“I should be dead,” he muttered. His voice sounded hoarse to his ears. “I distinctly remember
dying.” His hands trembled as they opened his leather vest and raised his shirt. Smooth, unmarred, golden skin decorated his pectorals, sternum and abdomen.
What? Where are the wounds? For that matter, where are my old scars?
Cautiously, he sat up.

“I fell
off my horse, exactly there.” His eyes scrutinized the area immediately beside him. “Huh. Crossbow quarrels.”

He picked up a bolt and examined it. A
piece of withered vine still clung to it, coiling the length of the bolt.

An indentation in the rich black earth outlined
where his body had lain. Shattered crumbled strands of blackened vine crisscrossed the outline. Several other quarrels lay about, similar to the one he had examined, even to the coiling vine. He lay back down, shaken.

“
She
saved me.”

His disordered mind had not produced
a hallucinatory illusion. Mother Verdantia had intervened.
She
had not allowed him to die. He lay on his back on the cool earth for long moments, trying to make sense of the impossible.
Hells’ breath
.
I have not a fucking clue. Sophi. I must find Sophi.

He pushed himself upright
, got to his knees, then to his feet and straightened cautiously. The forest reeled in dizzy circles.

Okay. Slow.
Take this slow. You were dead, for fuck’s sake.

Clinging to
a tree trunk for support, Eric endured until the landscape consented to be still. He stumbled his way back along the small trail they had followed and tripped over a body of a man now enveloped by living leafy twigs—one of the Silver Grove guards. It didn’t take him long to find the other three guards…all dead, all overgrown with foliage.
How long did I lie here?

He wanted answers to a number of questions. Coming out of the forest onto the road, he set off in the direction of the village.
He’d been walking, or rather staggering, for at least an hour when he heard hoof beats. Unarmed and on foot, Eric stepped off the road and concealed himself in the thickets lining that stretch of the road. As two horsemen rode by, intent eyes scanning the road, Eric recognized Headman Stumpf and the blacksmith from the village.

“
Stumpf!” he called, rising from the undergrowth and stepping out onto the road.

“Sir!
Magister
DeStroia! Ye be a welcome sight, Sir!” The village headman clambered down from his horse. “We been lookin’ for ye and the
Magistra
since your horses wandered riderless back into Mr. Turner’s yard. What happen, Sir?”

“Ambush. Armed men took L
ady DeLorion, killed our guards and I was...injured and knocked unconscious. For some time, I would guess—how long has it been? You say my horse wandered back to the inn?”

“Yes, Sir. Get up behind me and we’ll
get you back there.”

Headman Stumpf’s broad figure provided
welcomed support as they thundered back down the road to the village. When they pulled up in the courtyard of Mr. Turner’s inn, Eric swayed unsteadily as he slid down the side of Stumpf’s horse and kept right on going until the ground hit his buttocks. He sat breathless, blinking in surprise. Both men scrambled off their horses and hastened to help him up. The blacksmith’s burly arms jerked him to his feet as if he were a child’s puppet.

“Thank you,” Eric gasped. “A little unsteady, I guess.”

“You been outta it a couple a days, Sir. It’s to be expected,” the brawny smith replied as he slowly released his grip on Eric’s collar.

Yes. I’ve been fucking dead.
“I suppose the blow to my head did more damage than I thought.” Eric smiled. “Sorry to lean so heavily on you.”

“
Magister
DeStroia!” Mistress Turner scurried out of the inn and across the courtyard. “Thank the Goddess! You’re alive!”

As Eric started to answer
, the headman cut him off. “Mistress Turner. He’s been hurt. Send down to the village for
Medica
Stipo.”

“No!” The last thing he wanted was
to try explaining his condition to the
medica
. He wouldn’t have believed what had happened to him, if he hadn’t been through the experience himself. Eric softened his voice. “Ah...no. Thank you. I don’t require the
medica
. Just a meal, something to drink and my horse. I cannot let any more time escape before going after the men who took Lady DeLorion.”

“Of course, Sir, of course.”

An hour later, he sat his horse in the inn’s courtyard, eaten alive with impatience to be gone. Out of appreciation for all the villagers had done, Eric made sure that impatience didn’t show.

“Thank you for your help, Mister
Stumpf.”

“I wish you would let us do more,
Magister
. Let us send some men with you at least.” The village headman looked at him with worry. “Doesn’t seem near enough, sending you off alone like this, after what you and the lady returned to us.”

“Sending the riders to Sylvan Mintoth with news of
Lady DeLorion’s capture is more than enough,” Eric reassured him. “I am afraid more men would simply slow me down. I predict in several days’ time the army of the
Tetriarch
will come thundering down that road. Meanwhile, I must find Lady DeLorion. Every hour that goes by…” Eric shook his head and couldn’t finish. Wheeling his horse out of the courtyard, he called over his shoulder. “I’ll leave word of my direction at Silver Grove garrison.”

His spurs sunk deep into the flanks of his horse.

* * *

The golden limestone sprawl of the royal palace rose majestically in the center of the bustling capital of Verdantia.
Her Majesty, Queen Fleur Constante, Defender of the Faith, Ruler of the Verdantian Commonwealth and beloved of Conte Aristos DeTano and Visconte Doral DeLorion, listened to a boring recounting from her ministers of public works, concerning their latest reconstruction project. A knock sounded on the heavy, carved door to the royal apartments.

“Your Majesty, I have a
…” The muffled voice of her guardsman paused. “…
strange
message for Visconte DeLorion.”

“Enter,” she called.

The tall guard stopped just inside the entrance.

“
Edmond,” Fleur acknowledged him with a smile and a nod. “Strange, how?”

His eyes
flickered at the other occupants in the room and he looked toward Fleur with a lift of one eyebrow. She sank back on the chaise and addressed her ministers of buildings and roads. “Gentlemen, if you will please excuse me.” The rustle of papers and the scraping of chairs could be heard in the small anteroom as her advisors gathered their papers. With curious glances toward the guardsman, they left her chamber.

When the door closed behind the last of them, Fleur nodded. “Strange, how
, Edmond?”

“Your Majesty, it was wrapped around a rock and thrown through the window of Captain Stephania Rickard’s quarters. One of her Blue Daggers brought it to a royal guardsman.
Your name is scrawled on the outside, but the message is written to Visconte DeLorion.”

Fleur
stretched out her hand. “Let me see it.” She eyed the broken seal, then scanned the missive.

“Get Doral.”
While soft and low in volume, her voice carried the weight of command.

“
Ma’am.” He nodded and left.

* * *

“Kitten?” Doral, her angelically blond and lethally skilled partner moved into their chambers with liquid ease.
He walks like a great cat, fluid, graceful.
An equally handsome, dark-headed male with the arrogant bearing of a warrior accompanied him. Fleur smiled at her other consort and husband, Ari, as Doral leaned over to give her a kiss.

“What’s this about a message?”

Fleur handed Doral the rolled missive.

Ari peered over Doral’s shoulder, reading it aloud.

Lady
S. DeLorion in great danger. Meet tonight. Central watchtower. Ten of the clock.

S. Contradina.

The three members of Verdantia’s ruling
Tetriarch
looked at each other with concern.

“House Contradina. Again.” Loathing filled Ari’s voice.

Fleur’s gentle tones asked, “Who is ‘S’ Contradina? I thought we had disposed of all that horrible family.”

Doral stroked her hair
and she leaned into his caress as if truly the kitten he called her. “‘S’ Contradina is Sylvester Contradina. He is Hugo’s illegitimate son. I met him briefly while Hugo was married to my mother. He is in his late twenties now, I think.”

She turned a worried gaze on her husband. “Ari, is there any chance Allegra is back?”

Ari frowned and his hazel eyes found his blond lover. “Doral, has Commander DeStroia communicated with you since he left?”

The beautiful man with the reputation as a silent killer straightened and shot Ari an enigmatic look.
“I received word eight weeks ago that he crossed into the
Oshtesh
wastelands through the Silver Grove gate.” Doral tapped his fist with the rolled message. “Eric would have sent word if he had encountered trouble. If he could.” He paused, looked down at Fleur, then raised his ice-blue gaze to Ari. “Not a day has gone by that I haven’t wondered about how he fares with my sister.”

Fleur slipped her hand into Doral’s and brought it to her mouth for a kiss. “She has not been absent from
our thoughts, either, my love.” Blue eyes found blue eyes. “Eric rode out with thirty-two of our finest. He will keep her safe.”

Ari folded his arms across his chest. “We will meet with Sylvester Contradina and hear him out. There is no point in conjecture until we understand the threat.” Ari held Doral’s eyes steadily. “I will not tolerate any menace to
Sophi, you know that.”

Doral’s face softened for a moment and Fleur saw a silent exchange of love and trust flow between the two men. Doral nodded almost imperceptibly. “I’ll meet my cousin tonight.
No sense in both of us going.”