Hers to Claim (29 page)

Stunned,
Adonia stood beside Hel, Ramsey and Steffania on the castle steps and watched a phalanx of sweat-stained battle mounts, nostrils distended, manes flying, thunder through Nyth Uchel castle’s eastern portal and swirl to a chaotic halt in the courtyard. Adonia assumed Hel and the others were as taken aback as she, for none of them had spoken a word.

The ringing commands of High Lord DeTano sorted the seeming chaos into order. That the Second Tetriarch had traveled fast and hard was not good—but more ominous—the ruling trio had brought their children. Foreboding crashed down on Adonia as she noted with alarm the small figures riding pillion with members of the Queen’s Guard. Then she heard a well-loved voice lifting above the hubbub.

“Adonia! Here! Adonia!” Astride a slender desert mount, a spot of white amid the heavier, blacks and bays, sat her dearest friend, Sophi DeStroia, and helping her from her lathered gelding was her husband, Eric.

Adonia raised the hand not clasped in Hel’s in a
return wave. Neither they, nor the royal children, should be in Nyth Uchel for any but the most dire reason. Icy fear shivered down her spine, and she slid into Hel for support. “I don’t like what this arrival portends.”

“No. It cannot be good.”
Hel wrapped a reassuring arm around her waist and pulled her close. Adonia felt his half-turn as he looked over his shoulder at some of the castle retainers who’d joined them on the steps. “Prepare my mother’s and brothers’ apartments and air the nursery. Make sure the queen and her company have all they need. Alert the stables.”

Hel’s gaze returned to those filling the courtyard.
“Why do you suppose
he
rides with them?” Hel’s puzzled tones pulled Adonia’s eyes from Sophi and Eric, and she followed the direction of his nod. Behind the royal trio advancing at a brisk walk, hobbled a shrunken, travel-stained A’rken.

Ramsey and Steffania stepped up to flank them
, and Ram’s acerbic voice drawled, “Perfect. The Tetriarch brought the lunatic. My joy is complete.”

~~~

Adonia ran her gaze around a room in Nyth Uchel’s castle she’d never known existed. Hel had called it “the receiving room.” Covers had been hastily snatched away from the plush upholstered furniture in this spacious, elaborately decorated chamber to make them available for the four of them—Hel, Ramsey, Steffania and her—plus their royal visitors and the mystic, A’rken. As quickly as the cloth covers were removed, the chairs and sofas were occupied, and shortly very curious eyes exchanged glances with travel-weary ones that held far too much bleakness for Adonia’s comfort.

Even more disconcerting was the
ominous silence that fell when Hel dismissed the servants with orders to bring food and drink and sat back and observed those sitting opposite him. Adonia thought it the strangest of meetings. Not a word had been exchanged—as if not doing so would forestall whatever calamity had brought the Second Tetriarch to Nyth Uchel.

Abruptly,
High Lord DeTano rose, crossed his arms and began to pace behind the sofa where Queen Constante and Visconte DeLorion sat. “DeHelios, the corruption you described to us months ago did not stay confined to your mountain. Day by day, some unknown malignancy devours our planet in swaths hundreds of miles wide. Dreams of horrendous portent have tortured Doral, Eric, Sophi and me. Reports of sigil tower after sigil tower falling to this black plague accompany the refugees pouring into Sylvan Mintoth, bearing tales of misshapen creatures savaging their towns and villages.

“
Not even our dead rest, as graveyards vomit up abominations of flesh and pustulence that overwhelm those living nearby.” Verdantia’s High Lord stopped his pacing, and his gaze locked onto Hel. “We have come to join our strength to yours, because it seems Adonia is the key to defeating this grim enemy, and we have little time to waste.” DeTano’s eyes sought out A’rken. “At least this is what
he
would have us believe.”

The mystic’s eyes
darted feverishly around the room, unseeing. Repeatedly, his lips muttered, “Wrong. No time. Wrong, wrong. No time. Now, now.” Adonia thought it probable A’rken’s mind was elsewhere than in this room.

“You
removed your children and the queen from the safety of Sylvan Mintoth on the word of that madman?” Ramsey stated with caustic incredulity.

DeTano’s posture stiffened and he all but snarled
, “Not the
mystic’s
word only.
She
directed us here. To what purpose, it remains to be seen. We could not leave the children when their safety in Sylvan Mintoth without us was so uncertain.”

“
I am unhappily acquainted with events similar to what you describe,” said Hel, his gaze seeking some far horizon.

“And ye
t, Torre Bianca blazes like a day star and the air is fresh with life. A far remove from the Nyth Uchel you described to us in Sylvan Mintoth,” Doral stated quietly. “What accomplished such renewal?”

Adonia felt the weight of Hel’s regard and lifted her face to
his loving appraisal. A solemn smile flirted with his lips. “I attribute it to Adonia. It was she who worked the Great Rite with me—that which has seen Nyth Uchel returned to a portion of her past glory. Adonia has an unusual connection with our Great Mother.”

The
potent scrutiny of every eye in the room landed on her, and Adonia dropped her head to hide behind a curtain of hair. It was difficult to hold onto the identity she’d acquired in Nyth Uchel when so many from her past knew her only as a mundane Oshtesh woman skilled with herbs.

“Chin up,
Beauty. You are as worthy as any of us,” Hel whispered and then stood to address Fleur where she sat wrapped in her visconte’s arms. “Your Majesty, you were ignorant of the great prize you sent to Nyth Uchel or I’m certain you would never have let her leave your side.”

Adonia straightened in alarm. “Hel, no!” she whispered vehemently. “Don’t—”

Hel opened his arm to Adonia in a sweeping gesture of acknowledgement. “May I present
Lady
Adonia DeCorvus, a descendant of our first queen, Isolde DeCorvus, through her paternal line and
your
distant cousin, High Lord DeTano, through her maternal line. My Nia is a healer of immense talent, a
magistra
of raw, unschooled power and every bit your equal in birth.”

“
Of elite aristocratic lineage…and you’ve performed the Great Rite…of all people,” Eric mused with a soft shake of his head. “How surprised you must have been, Adonia.” He smiled at her with a wry lift of an eyebrow—not unkindly, for Eric had never been unkind to her—but she still closed her eyes in mortification. She deserved Eric’s gentle teasing. In her ignorance, she’d been simply awful to the man because he was highborn.

“Your Nia?” Doral’s quiet voice
fell into the small lull.

Adonia felt her hands seized
, and Hel pulled her into his arms. His eyes met hers and softened when she half-smiled in return, her heart rejoicing in his public declaration of possession. “Yes, my Nia. She has agreed to be my wife, and I will value her as the treasure she is.”

“Assuming we live another seven-day,” muttered Ram.

“She dies. She dies!” screamed A’rken, suddenly standing in their midst. “No time. No time! Now. All Her sons and daughters. The corvus must call them now! It must be now!” His delirious rants continued, escalating in hysteria until only shrill shrieks and spittle spewed from his mouth as he scratched and clawed at his head, pulling clumps of hair from his scalp in frantic distress.  

Sophi flew to him and captured his flailing hands
, all the while murmuring soothing words. His frantic screeching abated, and he collapsed to the floor, rocking and moaning.

“And this is the learned counsel that prompts you to act?” Ramsey directed his
derisive question to Ari. “Do you have a more reasoned support for your precipitous arrival?”

Adonia thought Ramsey courted death. Certainly Ari’s reaction
indicated the High Lord enforced the most severe self-control—his body so rigid it appeared stone. She didn’t think he drew breath. It made his quiet murmur resonate in the room. “Dreams, DeKieran. Waking dreams afflict us—dreams of a horror that devour one’s soul. She dies. Our Great Mother dies and, with her, all life on this planet.”

Adonia gasped
as memories of her recent nightmare invaded her mind and her eyes sought Hel.

Hel’s arms tightened around her. “
All of you, come with me. There is something you must see.”

~~~

Hel led Ari, Doral and Eric around the base of Torre Bianca, deciphering the recently revealed words for them as they methodically examined the writing carved into the footstones. Fleur, Sophi, Steffania and Ramsey grouped around Adonia, and she explained the inscription to Sophi and Fleur.

“The words
on the Tower are simple, and if we understand them correctly, straightforward in what I must do.” Adonia went on to recount the events of the last few weeks. She felt their attention centered upon her intently and tried to ignore the part of her that would have deferred to anyone else. “In the crypt beneath this tower, I have spoken with the First Tetriarch. Queen Isolde told me that through the blood of my ancestors I can summon the kings and queens of ages past by name to aid us in this fight for our Great Mother.”

The group clustered around her opened to include Hel, Ari, Doral and Eric.
Hel immediately pressed her to his side and held her to him. “Both A’rken and High Lord DeTano confirm your desire for haste. The final battle is on us, Beauty. We must act immediately. We will perform the Great Rite in the morning.”

The
hum of the quiet background conversations fell away, and Adonia’s attention narrowed to only his beloved face, his possessing strength. Every particle of her being rebelled at the thought of the possibility of losing him. Her inner self cried in anguish,
“No! I cannot do this! I cannot risk you. I cannot risk our growing child. I have just found you!”
It seemed self-centered of her to dread the loss of this man above all things when life to the smallest blade of grass could be lost to the encroaching horror.

Adonia knew from the expression
writ across Hel’s features that he saw her desperate fear and she watched as pain replaced the glow of love in his eyes. She couldn’t stand the thought she added to his cares. For him, she could pretend to be brave and relieve his heart of a small burden. She closed her eyes and, when she opened them again, she let all the warmth of her true love and false confidence fill them. “As you told me some days ago, ‘I am the beloved of DeHelios.’ No power, natural or unnatural, can stand against us.”

It helped mitigate the terrible ache in her heart to see his expression soften and some of
his worry fade.

~~~

The group returned to congealed food and lukewarm beverages on the sideboard in the receiving room. After watching how quickly it was dispatched, Adonia didn’t think anyone cared. All they could speak about was the inscription on Torre Bianca and its implications.

Ari’s gaze swept the room. “
We agree that we must fight this…” his eyes swung to hold Adonia’s, “…what did you say Isolde called it—the Great Deceiver—on the aetheric plane.”

“Yes.” Adonia nodded.
“But, High Lord, we cannot defeat this darkness. Its power is too immense. We can only weaken it, drive it away; we can only make our Great Mother, our planet, so unpalatable that consuming us is too costly.”

“How do we do that,
Adonia? Only you have any experience with this corruption.” Doral’s quiet voice pulled her eyes to his beautiful face. Another soul she bled for, a kind and gentle heart camouflaged by the severe trappings of an assassin. Would she ever have an opportunity to thank him for the gift of a mynx coat, but even more, for the unexpected validation of her worth at a moment when she’d been the most vulnerable?

She swallowed audibly. “
Visconte, find that which you love most dearly and cling to it with all the tenacity and might you can summon, for the Great Deceiver will rape your soul with despair and desolation until it seems hope has fled the world and there is nothing for you but surrender to endless death. You will dwell in your greatest pain, your deepest loss. You will forget the pain ever ended. You must remember it is a lie.” Adonia raised her eyes and looked at each person, holding their gaze for a moment before moving on as each face dawned with realization of the personalized horror they faced. “Find that which is good and true, and surrender your soul to it. It is the only way to survive being eaten by the dark. The abhorrence cannot swallow joy or love or truth.” Adonia took a shuddering breath. “And then you endure. You cleave to the ephemeral reminiscence that once life held beauty and light—until the darkness consumes you or withdraws.”

“Oh, Adonia, is that what you experienced each time you healed someone
here?” Sophi’s tender voice throbbed with anguish. “How could you bear it?”

Warmth flooded Adonia’s heart
, and she lifted her face to gaze at Hel. “I am the beloved of DeHelios. He is my lodestar. He is my truth.” Hel’s gray eyes studied her intently and the ghost of a smile hovered on his mouth.