Into the Wind (20 page)

“Treande.” Owyn spoke in a calm, clear voice.

Treande blinked but realized he couldn’t see. “Goddess! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Owyn gathered Treande in his arms and held him against his chest. Treande felt the reassuring beat of Owyn’s heart. Slowly, Treande’s vision began to clear. Even before he could see once again, he felt Owyn’s nakedness.

“Owyn.” Treande allowed his tears to flow unimpeded. “Goddess, I thought—”

“As you can see, I am well.”

Treande stepped back and brushed away his tears. Owyn was untouched. Unblemished. The place where he’d cut his chest was smooth, his body completely unscathed. Clean. Purified. Treande closed his eyes and spoke a prayer of thanksgiving to the goddess.

“The stone?” Treande asked.

“Gone. It is part of me now.” Owyn touched his fingers to his heart.

“May I…?”

Owyn smiled and nodded.

Treande tentatively pressed his palm against the skin of Owyn’s chest. It felt warm and familiar. Encouraged, he pressed a bit more firmly and reached to touch Owyn’s soul. It too felt familiar, but where before he had only sensed Owyn, now his mind was flooded with something new. Power, like the vibrations of the waves as they pounded the surf, only this did not retreat. It pulsed, strong and unyielding, waiting for Owyn to call upon it.

“Thank the goddess.”

“I told you there was nothing to fear, my beloved.” Owyn’s embrace was a balm to Treande. He closed his eyes and thanked his goddess once again.

T
AREN
CAME
back to himself to discover that he now wore the stone around his neck. He didn’t remember having put it there, nor did he remember that the stone had been attached to a chain.

“Taren?”

Taren took a deep breath and turned around. He struggled to clear the fog from his mind as he fingered the black stone. This vision seemed to linger longer than the others. He looked around, sure he would see Owyn there, but realized he was alone with Odhrán. No longer Treande. He repressed a shiver, shoved his fear back from where it had come.
I’m not Treande
, he told himself. What had Treande said to him?
“My spirit lives inside you, but you have your own destiny.”

Odhrán hovered a few feet away from him. The chamber, the tunnels—all of them had vanished. Instead of light from the crystals, the sun shone through the water to illuminate their surroundings. Taren was back at the entrance to the cave near where he’d left Odhrán. The water felt heavy. Cooler than inside. Fingers of warmth from the current ghosted over Taren’s skin, reassuring him, bringing him back to himself. Back to the present.

“Are you all right?”
Odhrán asked.

How long was I gone?
Taren’s mind slowly began to clear. Everything had changed so quickly that he felt unsettled.

“I left you here a few moments ago.”

Moments?
It felt to Taren as though hours had passed.

“Aye.”
Odhrán seemed untroubled by this.
“The enchantments must have ended when you retrieved the stone.”

Oh.
The realization that Treande had vanished along with the enchantments left him feeling surprisingly empty.
None of it was real, then. I imagined all of it?

“It may have been real. Who can say?”
Odhrán eyed him with curiosity.
“This saddens you. How strange.”

I…,
Taren began.
He was here. Treande. I… I spoke with him.

“A guide.”
Odhrán nodded his understanding.
“But you always knew you’d have to make your own way, didn’t you?”

Aye.
Still, he’d hoped for more.

“You had a vision when you touched the stone.”

Taren wondered how Odhrán knew this.

“I can sense your gift, Taren,”
Odhrán replied to Taren’s unvoiced question.
“Your magic is different from mine, but it is powerful enough that I can feel it.”

Yes. When I touched the stone, I had a vision of when Owyn bonded with it.

“What did you learn?”

Only how to become one with it.
Taren sighed.
I had hoped to understand more, but the vision ended.

“What will you do with it, then?”

I don’t know. Vurin believes my people need it. I’ll bring it to him.
Taren paused for a moment, then said,
Don’t you think it strange that in spite of all we know, its purpose seems to have been lost over time?

Odhrán appeared thoughtful.
“Perhaps it’s better we not know. For now, at least.”

The stone is the salvation of my people. At least that’s what the prophecy says. The goddess has a plan for it, just like she has a plan for us.

Odhrán shook his head.
“Treande often said that. He tolerated my disbelief.”

His belief wavered at times. When Owyn died….
Taren took a deep breath.
Enough of the past,
he said brightly.
It’s time for me to rejoin the
Phantom
. I don’t wish to worry my mate.

“Ian.”

Aye. Do you wish to come with me?

“Come with you?”
Odhrán’s eyes grew wide.

Why not? At least accompany me as far as the ship. Even I can sense you’re curious about your brethren.

“They are not my brethren.”
Darkness clouded Odhrán’s expression once again.

Treande would have disagreed,
Taren pointed out.

“Aye.”
Odhrán pursed his lips, but Taren thought he saw a hint of a smile.
“He did, in fact. Treande was… unusual,”
Odhrán finished.

I ask only that you trust me as you trusted him.

Odhrán tilted his head to one side as if considering something.
“I already do. It’s the others I don’t trust.”

Taren nodded.
I understand. My first encounter with my people was hardly a pleasant one. I spent weeks locked up in their prison.
He hesitated. The memory of Seria’s torture was still too painful, too raw.

“You needn’t tell me more,”
Odhrán said.
“I can sense those thoughts. They still haunt you and probably will for a long time to come. This man—Seria?—he is the leader of the island faction?”

Taren sensed that Odhrán had lived through something that had left him with emotional scars. He struggled to calm the cold dread that crept through his body and threatened to pierce his heart. He breathed deeply and focused on Odhrán’s question.

Seria wasn’t their leader when I was held captive. But since we escaped, there have been rumors that he’s convinced the Ea Council to resume their fight with the mainlanders.

“More reason for me to stay away from your people, I fear.”
Odhrán’s voice in Taren’s mind was a low whisper. Devoid of emotion. Resigned.

Why? You’re far more powerful than they are.
As usual, Taren’s curiosity had him speaking before thinking.

Odhrán chuckled, but his expression once again grew dark.
“Power is a frightening thing,”
he said.
“Perhaps it’s time I show you my past, that you might understand my fear.”

How…?

“If you wish, your gift will allow you to see, Taren,”
Odhrán said as he offered Taren his hands.
“But what I offer to show you is far from pleasant, I assure you.”

I want to know.
Though Odhrán’s words disturbed him, Taren
needed
to know. He’d never run from the truth before.

Odhrán smiled his understanding as Taren took his hands and clasped them tight. As with most of his other visions, Taren’s mind seemed to float free of his body, transporting him outside of himself. The familiar sensations of the ocean and water upon his skin faded as he lost himself in the past.

Eighteen

T
HE
HARD
marble floor made Taren’s knees ache. He blinked and looked around, unsure of where he was. Or who he was.
A vision?
The familiar sensation his gift imparted danced in his consciousness. He had never succeeded in directing his gift before, in spite of Vurin’s attempts to help him. Yet when he’d reached out to touch the place in Odhrán’s mind that felt familiar, the connection had been powerful and immediate.

Taren—no, he was no longer Taren, he was Odhrán now—kneeled in front of the king of Astenya, the Eastern Lands. Before this powerful man, he felt small, smaller even than the other men in the room. Cold, too, for he was naked but for the jewels that adorned his body, the collar at his neck, and the sheer silk Luka had wrapped around him. Each nipple was pierced with a gold ring, each wrist adorned with a hammered cuff that gleamed in the light that streamed in from the courtyard beyond. His cock stood proud from his body, held erect by the cool stone ring at its base. He felt no shame in his nakedness. Luka preferred him this way. But standing before the king, he felt vulnerable. Afraid.

He glanced over his shoulder to reassure himself that Luka was still there. Luka, who cared for him when he couldn’t care for himself. Luka, who had taught him to speak the humans’ language and who had given him a place where he finally felt safe. Luka had protected him from those who had cast him out. If Luka had brought him to the palace, Luka had a good reason to do so. Odhrán struggled to repress his fear, rose, and held himself proud before the king.

Taren experienced each of Odhrán’s emotions as if they were his own.
“You have no power to affect what you observe,”
Vurin had told Taren when he had learned to use his power to see the past.
“What has been cannot be shaped—it is memory formed by its host. An echo of what was. You may speak, but only you will hear words differently than those spoken in the memory.”
This memory was Odhrán’s past.

The tinkling of bells—tiny silver bells on Odhrán’s ankles—reminded Taren of when he’d touched Brynn in the caves. He realized he’d unwittingly brushed up against Odhrán’s past when he’d tried to help Brynn. The push he’d felt in response had probably been Odhrán forcing him away, not wanting him to see his memories. He hadn’t meant to invade Odhrán’s mind. Not then. Not now. He hurried to withdraw from the memory, fearful Odhrán might think he’d willfully entered his thoughts, but something held him back. He sensed Odhrán was allowing him to remain here, that Odhrán
wanted
him to see and understand.

The king was dressed in silks, a circlet of hammered gold set with blazing red stones peering out from dark hair that fell in waves over his shoulders. He was younger than Taren imagined he might be, younger than Rider, although strands of silver flecked his beard. His fierce gaze and air of self-confidence were powerful and attractive, although had he seen the man in a crowded marketplace, Taren guessed he’d not have looked twice. Several male courtesans lazed about on silk cushions, their eyes and lips painted like women’s, their hair adorned with jewels, their bodies covered in the finest cloth. They did not appear pleased to see Odhrán.

“Is he not beautiful, Your Majesty?” said a voice from behind him. Luka. Luka, the human who had rescued him from himself before he could take his own life to end his pain. The man he loved with his entire soul. He would do anything for Luka. Anything. Do anything.
Be
anything. Anyone.

“He is lovely,” the king said as he motioned Odhrán to rise.

“Turn around so he can better appreciate your charms.” Luka offered him a reassuring smile and gestured Odhrán to turn slowly. “He is more than just lovely, Your Majesty. He can be the most beautiful boy in the world if you wish it.”

Odhrán’s heart beat hard against his ribs when he heard Luka speak of him this way. Luka had loaned him to other men, but only when there was too little food to feed them or when the landlord came to call for the rent. But to be presented to the king? This he did not understand. When he’d asked Luka where he’d found the jewels, Luka had only replied that a wealthy friend had loaned them to him and that he wished to display Odhrán as some of the slave owners did so that all could admire his charms.

“But I’m not a slave,” Odhrán had said.

“Of course not. And you are far more beautiful. But is it wrong for them to admire you and be jealous?” Luka laved his neck with kisses and stroked his back until he quieted. He trusted Luka. Luka was everything. Luka was life to him.

“He is quite beautiful,” the king said with a disinterested nod. “But there are many like him. I have no need for another.”

“He is unlike the others, Majesty.” Luka risked much, speaking thus to such a powerful man, and Odhrán’s fear grew.