Chains of a Dark Goddess (16 page)

“And you will have
me
, Breskaro,” Deltenya said eagerly. “Is that not reward enough?”

“I could not have done this without Deltenya,” Harmulkot said. “Will you not acknowledge her love? She worked many hours in secret and sacrificed something dear to her to bring you back.”

Breskaro stepped past Harmulkot. “What did you sacrifice, Deltenya?”

“Must you know, my love? It really doesn’t matter.” She held out her hand. “Come to me.”

Breskaro cast a glamour to keep himself shadowed and moved within a few steps of her. His eyes roamed across her, drinking in her deep brown eyes, full red lips, soft cheeks.

“It pains me to see you again, Deltenya. It always pains me.”

She drew back, stricken. “Is that any way to greet me, after all I did for you?”

“It’s just that … You’re so much like her.”

“My
sister
?” she spat. “You have it wrong, Breskaro. It was she who was like me.
I had you first
. When you were with her, it was
me
you dreamed of. You can’t deny it.”

“Deltenya—”

“Remember the last time we met? When we embraced in the garden? I promised I would do anything to be with you.”

“You were married to Magnos. He was one of my closest friends then. That kiss … I was weak.”

“I
kept
my promise to do anything.”

She grabbed his hand and tugged him closer. She didn’t seem to notice anything wrong about him, not his shriveled skin under her hand, not the green fire behind his eyes, not even the whiff of decay that still hung about him.

“It should have been me from the very beginning,” she said sullenly. “You should have married me. I always loved you.
More
than Adelenia ever did. If you had told them about that night, when I came to your bedchamber. When I slipped into your bed.” She purred with pleasure. “You took my virginity before you ever touched Adelenia. If you had told my father, he would have—”

“I’d had too much wine. I was a foolish young man. What we did was wrong.” He had thought so then, anyway. “I spent years begging for forgiveness.”

“I should have spoken up, but I was so afraid of what my father would do to me. And I thought you would fight for me.”

“The marriage was arranged. There was nothing I could do that wouldn’t disgrace both of us and shame Adelenia. I
loved
Adelenia.”

“Once my poor sister died giving birth, I thought then you would marry me.”

He touched her cheek. “It was too painful to see you. You were so much like her.”

But where Adelenia was a light that brightened everything around her, he had always felt that Deltenya was an intense flame that threatened to consume everything around her. He could desire her but he could never love her as he had Adelenia.

“I raised Orisala for you. And I waited. For four years!”

“I thought I would marry you when I returned,” he murmured. 

“You
thought
you would?! You and your stupid quests. Four years of scouring Pawan Kor to bring back Seshalla’s Spear of Endless Dawn. While the Matriarch forced me to marry that wretch Magnos. I tried to put them off. But he was so infatuated with me. Then the Matriarch told me they had received word that you had perished. I only married him to ensure Orisala’s future!”

“They told you I was dead?” Breskaro had never heard this before.

“They lied to me. The Matriarch wanted the last of the Sinnia united with the Togisi. And Magnos burned for me. Then they paired you off with Metra as soon as you returned, and I was already pregnant.”

“Albiria ... I thought you and Orisala were the only direct descendants left. How did she—” Breskaro drew his hand away from her. His eyes narrowed. “You sacrificed her, didn’t you?”

“It was her death that allowed Nalsyrra to find you in the Shadowland. It was her death that restored your corpse.”

“You sacrificed Albiria? For me?
She was your daughter
!”

“I told you I would do
anything
.”

Breskaro turned to Harmulkot. “You allowed this? Albiria was your descendant, too.”

“Sorcery of such power is not cheap, Breskaro. Yes, it cost me a descendant. But it had to be done.”

“Don’t hate me for what I did,” Deltenya said. “I did it for you and Orisala, for Harmulkot and all of Mûlkra. Don’t you think it was worth it?”

Breskaro thought of Orisala, trapped in her broken body. His eyes closed. “I understand.” He released a deep sigh. “We are not the bright youths nor pure souls we once were, neither of us.”

“I thought you would be happy to see me,” Deltenya said sullenly.

“I didn’t expect you. And the last time I saw you … in the garden that night. I had never needed so much willpower before. I swore afterward that I would never fall prey to you again. I did my penance and—”

“Oh, you did your penance all right,” Deltenya said with a hollow laugh. “You paid for it with your life. Magnos
betrayed
you. It was all by design. He and Fortrenzi planned it together.”

Breskaro’s eyes blazed so fiercely that they cast an emerald glow in the darkness and Deltenya stepped back from him. He knew Magnos and Fortrenzi had abandoned him. He thought they had done so merely to save themselves. But to set him up on purpose?

“Are you lying to me?”

“It is the truth,” Harmulkot said. “Magnos confessed it to Deltenya not long after you returned from death.”

“
Why
?!” he roared. His hand instinctively fell upon the hilt of his sword. “Why would they betray me? They were my friends!”

“Fortrenzi was a weak old fool,” Deltenya said. “He would do anything for comfort. But Magnos was the one who wanted to kill you. He let you die a hero, but it was murder all the same.”

“We had grown distant from one another, but to hate me that much…”

“He saw us together in the garden that night,” Deltenya said. “I didn’t know he had come home. He saw us and didn’t say a word. He went into the crusade plotting your death. I told you he burns for me, just as you and I burn for one another.” 

She took Breskaro’s hand again and peered into his eyes. “But you can have vengeance on him now. For what he did to you. For what he has done to me all these years. The abuse, the rape. That’s why I mastered the dark arts. I tried poison several times, but failed. I think the Matriarch’s blessing must protect him from poison.”

“You never suspected he had murdered me?”

“There were rumors of treachery but never directed at Magnos. But you were his friend since childhood and he hid it perfectly. I knew he was jealous of you. He only confessed it in anger after Albiria’s death, blaming me for not watching over her well enough.” She snorted and giggled. “That was before he learned your body was missing.”

“They know the tomb is empty?”

“Kedimius discovered it. He was always going there, pining after Orisala. It was bound to happen. But don’t worry. At this point they only know dark magic was worked there. They don’t know to what purpose. Magnos returned to the city to help sort it out.”

Breskaro clenched his fists and his eyes burned. “Magnos will pay for betraying me,” he seethed. “Fortrenzi, too.”

Deltenya smiled wickedly and stroked her fingers along the death mask. “Will you not remove this mask and kiss me now?”

His hand moved toward the mask, then stopped. He moved her hand away.

“What’s wrong? There’s no one in our way now. Adelenia is gone. Magnos is of no concern. Metra is out of the way.”

Metra was out of the way? And Deltenya would go to any length for him. She had tried poisoning Magnos.

“You killed her.”

“Breskaro, I—”

He grabbed her arm and jerked her toward him so that her face was right next to his. “You killed her, didn’t you? I thought the poison was meant for me.”

Bitterly, Deltenya replied: “I was doing you a favor. You didn’t love her.”

“Metra was good to me. She accepted Orisala as her own. She knew I didn’t love her as I had Adelenia, but she was still devoted to me.”

“She’s gone. Put her from your mind. I was just trying to—”

Breskaro struck fast. In an instant, his hand was locked around Deltenya’s throat.

“I
swore
I would avenge her.”

Gasping for breath, Deltenya replied, “You’ll keep … that promise? You’ll kill me … over a woman you never … loved?”

“I
promised
…”

His grip weakened.

“You can’t.”

Deltenya tore free.

“You can’t because you love me.”

Deltenya slipped free of the thin dress that clung so tightly to her.

“I know you still desire me, Breskaro. Death hasn’t stolen the fire from your loins. We’re together now. That’s all that matters. And I can help you. You’ll need me to save Mûlkra. I know some spells, and I carry the qavra of Harmulkot.”

Harmulkot’s voice — rich, cloying,
suggestive
— whispered to him, “She can help us, Breskaro.
Go to her
.”

Deltenya ran her hands from her neck down her body and pleaded with him.

“I have never forgotten the night we spent together,” he told her. “But I can’t love you the way you wish me to.”

“You will learn to. You only saw me the way Adelenia wanted you to see me. You don’t have to love me tonight, just lay with me. You have been in death so long, don’t you wish to feel the pleasure of a woman again?”

“I’m a withered creature now, a thing of death.”

“No,” she said. “We restored your body.”

“Brace yourself.” 

He dropped the glamour that he had used to soften his appearance. He untied the mask and took it off, revealing the taught, pallid skin marked by death.

Chapter 24

“My love,” Deltenya said in a voice of intoxicated wonder. “You’re as handsome as you ever were.”

The softly compelling voice of Harmulkot entered Breskaro’s mind before he could correct Deltenya.

“
I am using my bond with her to cloud her perception. I am giving her what she wants most, what she worked so hard for. You are her Orisala. Let loose your desire. Take her. You have the virility to do so.
”

Deltenya clawed her fingernails against his neck. “Take me.
Please
.”

I can’t.

But he
did
burn for her. He always had. Countless prayers and penances to Seshalla had failed to remove the fire of Deltenya from his mind. The wild urges had never left him. That night with her had never faded. And the memory and desire were strong now.

She pressed against him and he kissed her.

He stripped off his gloves and ran his hands along her smooth skin. He grasped her breasts and buttocks. He ran his fingernails down her back and from that alone she orgasmed. She stripped him of his cloak and armor, of his clothes. She didn’t notice the pallid flesh and flaking skin, the wounds and scars, nor the scent of decay and embalming fluid that wouldn’t leave him. 

They coiled together on the floor of Seshalla’s chapel, with the ghost of Harmulkot hovering over them, and when he entered her, purple flames erupted around them. They writhed in the flames of this passion, noticing but not caring about this magic of their uniting. 

Breskaro took her again, and again. Relentlessly from every angle Deltenya could devise. Hours passed without either of them tiring ... without release. The sky began to brighten.

“I love you,” she screamed, coming again.

“And I you,” he said, the words tumbling out unbidden.

Tears streamed from her eyes.

He came suddenly. Thunder shook the chapel. Windows exploded, the stained glass bursting out into the gardens. Deltenya writhed in the purpled flames. She orgasmed once more and then, with a smile on her face, she passed.

A single exhale and she was dead.

The flames remained, burning hot as they soaked into his skin. Into his mind. What arts she had learned, he now knew. What strength she’d had was now his. What youth she had possessed he gained. All her life-force streamed into him. 

Deltenya lay beneath him, fulfilled in the one pleasure she most craved.

An empty shell. Beautiful and serene in death.

Breskaro staggered up and then fell to his knees. He reached out toward her. “Deltenya!” 

He screamed as the purple fire burned into him. Injuries that had plagued him healed. Flesh and skin sealed over the open wound at the center of which lay his qavra-heart. Full flesh returned to his emaciated face. The smell of decay vanished. 

The flames soaked entirely into him and his eyes flared to bright emeralds. He stood and faced Harmulkot.

“
This was your doing
!” he roared. “Your sorcery! Your treachery!”

Breskaro swatted at Harmulkot but his hand passed through her.

“I did what I had to do.” Harmulkot’s voice was filled with pain and ghostly tears rolled down her cheeks. 

“She
trusted
you! She was
your
descendant, your servant.” Breskaro collapsed onto the floor. “And I ... I did love her.”