Herd Mistress (In Deception's Shadow Book 2) (24 page)

Within the chamber, fresh cool air washed against his
overheated body. Shadowdancer dragged in a deep breath, thankful he still possessed
the need. After all, a soul sundered from its body wouldn’t need to breathe. A
hand touched his withers, the caress light, but to his sensitized skin, it felt
like the warm sting of magic across his skin. He shivered, then took her hand
in his, entwining their fingers.

“Did we just live through that?” Sorsha asked,
sounding genuinely doubtful.

“Yes, I think so.” With a chuckle, he gave her fingers
a squeeze. “But I’ll let you know when I’m certain of that fact.”

“Well, if this is the afterlife, it’s smaller than I
envisioned—less grand. I think I’m disappointed.”

Sorsha’s humor sparked warmth within his soul. “It’s
not completely without merit.” He stroked a finger down her cheek. The Wards
still glowed with a pale bluish light and cast Sorsha’s features in the soft
hues of twilight.

She turned her face into his caress, briefly closing
her eyes. Moments later she blinked them open again and cleared her throat, all
business. “Now what?”

He looked around the room. Now what, indeed. There was
nothing. The space within the great Ward Stone circle was empty. Not even dust
marred the smooth stone floor. He trotted the inside perimeter of the energy
dome. They were guarding something of great importance—someone didn’t just
expend this much power on a lark. He narrowed his eyes, studying the strangely
smooth floor with new suspicion. “There.” He pointed it out and Sorsha followed
his finger. “Notice how flat the stone floor is? It’s unnatural.”

“If the slant of the floor is the only strange thing
you’ve seen today, then I think you need to pay closer attention.”

“That’s it.” On a hunch, he slowly cut across the room
on a diagonal, and was thankful for his cautious stride when he stumbled and
his front hooves disappeared up to his fetlock joint.

“Merciful gods.” Sorsha’s panic was palpable over the
distance.

He raised his hand and gestured her to come to him.
“It’s an illusion.”

“Whoever built this place was a seriously distrustful
soul?”

“There is a sloping ramp below my feet. Ignore what
your eyes tell you and trust your instincts. It’s safe enough—the slope isn’t
steep. Come on. We’re running out of time. The Acolytes will surely be scaling
the cliff by now.”

With a curse, Sorsha hurried to follow him.
Shadowdancer turned his attention back to the terrain below his hooves. The
slope angled downward in a large easy curve. Each circular revolution he made
carried him farther into the roots of the temple. He increased his pace. By the
tap of Sorsha’s hooves on stone, she’d hurried to match her pace to his. When
he descended through the illusionary floor, torches burst to life along both
sides of the ceremonial passage. Just ahead, the tunnel opened into a vast
cavern.

“What is this place?”

“A tomb.”

Sorsha’s gaze was locked on the first of several
towering statues guarding the way. This one was of a female Phoenix, her wings
arched above her, a bared sword pointed to the dark ceiling high above.

“The statues guard the soul on its way to the
afterlife. This tunnel represents the soul’s journey to the new life, the long
and winding way into the underworld. Once the journey is complete the soul is
ready to be reborn.”

“And at the end of our journey?”

“We’ll find the Falcon Staff. And what could need
rebirth worse than a shattered talisman?”

“I suppose. But let’s get this over with. There’s
something here I find almost—but not quite—as disturbing as the Acolytes
chasing us.”

“As you wish.”

They continued in silence for the better part of a
candlemark. Shadowdancer maintained a stride’s lead the whole time. Sorsha
didn’t challenge him for leadership, content to bring up the rear. Sorsha
wasn’t kidding. There was something about the place, a deep sense of disquiet.
Shadowdancer was so focused on locating the source of his unease that they
arrived at their destination before he realized it.

The air here was stale, far less buoyant than it had
been within the Ward Stone circle, its mustiness a heavy coating upon his
tongue. The meandering path through the giant statues ended at an unadorned
pool nestled under a grotto formed by the tapering junction of two walls.
Torches, situated in a crescent shape, circled the front of the pool,
reflecting light far back into the grotto.

A tiny stream, its headwaters hidden from view by one
of the grotto’s many outcroppings of stone, leaked out over another ledge and
dropped a short distance to the pool below. The soft whispering sounds he’d
heard earlier were louder now, seeming to emanate from the gently rippling
waters.

Exhaling a nervous horse-like snort, he trotted up to
the pool. And skidded to a halt when he pinpointed what had his senses on high
alert. On closer examination, what he’d first mistook as water, sparkled too
much and some of the substance flowing over the small waterfall shifted to
vapor before hitting the ‘water’ in the pool below.

Closer now, the soft whispering, like a distant chant
carried on the night breeze, crawled across his range of hearing. Incoherent
words, murmurs, senseless tones—they sank below his skin, into his blood,
muscle, and bones until his Larnkin quivered in answer. Ears straining, he
cursed what the Oracle Tower had made him. If he’d been completely Santhyrian,
he might have made out the words.

Sorsha stepped up from behind him, her body brushing
against his. He felt her shiver. She cleared her throat in a nervous gesture.
“Do you hear that?”

“Yes.” He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Though I
can’t make out the words. And that’s pure magic, not water in that pool.” As
his eyes adjusted to the bright light swirling in the shallows, he spotted a
bulky shape under the layers of swirling magic. Power shifted, and the vapors
parted. A golden wing emerged for a few moments before the mists enfolded it
again.

“We’ve found her.” A note of awe sounded in his voice
even after every incredulous occurrence he’d witnessed in the last moon cycle.
His hands shook. Being told by the Oracle that he and Sorsha were Members of
the Twelve was one thing; actually laying eyes on one of the legendary
Talismans was an entirely different experience. Equal parts fear and a heady
sense of responsibility made him light headed.

Sorsha folded her legs under her and bowed down over
the pool like she was praying. Belatedly, he realized it was a wise idea and
was just sinking down next to her when she gave a little shrug.

“Magic hasn’t killed me yet,” she whispered half under
her breath and reached toward the pool.

“Wait,” he shouted even as he made a grab at her arm.
His fingers locked around her elbow. Triumph was short lived when he saw her
fingers had already vanished into the mists.

“It’s alright. This is why we’re here, why we were
born. You feel it too, don’t you?”

Her question came as a surprise. So much had happened;
he hadn’t had time to think. But yes, when he closed his eyes and just stopped
thinking and felt with his soul—this felt right. Here was his fate. Here with
Sorsha. No matter how it all ended, this was his fate. Sorsha was his life, the
keeper of his heart. He would follow her into the next life if that was
required.

With a small nod, they both turned back to watch the
shimmering pool. He reached out and waved his fingers through the magic
cascading over the ledge. It landed on his hand, a cool presence against his
skin for mere heartbeats before it misted away. It didn’t hurt, and he sensed
no danger.

Again, his eyes slid toward Sorsha’s at the same moment
hers looked up into his.

Now? Her lips shaped the word. He nodded. Together
they leaned forward. Sorsha came in contact with something first, the muscles
of her arm flexing as if she lifted a substantial weight. He reached deeper,
until his cheek was almost touching the surface. His fingers encountered something
smooth and cylindrical.

Sorsha heaved her prize out of the pool. The figure of
a Falcon, its wings spread in flight, came free of the mist. She rested it on
the lip of the pool then shifted her grip and cradled it against her chest. The
soft broken words were clearer now. Clear enough that he could make out a very
ancient language—dead for ten thousand years.

Shadowdancer shivered.
May the gods protect us. For
the poor Falcon Staff cannot.

He turned his attention to his piece of staff. A short
stub of dark polished wood balanced in his hand. Gold filigree decorated most
of its length. He carefully passed it to Sorsha, then reached back into the
pool again.

Twice more he scooped pieces of the shattered staff
out of a pool of its own hemorrhaging magic. While he worked, Sorsha laid out
the Staff, piecing it back together. Whole, the Staff would have been near as
tall as he’d been as a human. From what he could tell, all the pieces were
here, but he still had no idea how they were going to destroy it.

Sorsha’s plan had sounded logical before he’d laid
eyes on the Staff. Now, with its pitiful broken pleas, he couldn’t bring
himself to harm the staff, even if he had known how.

“Perhaps we can still get her to the Oracle?” Doubt
clouded Sorsha’s expression.

“The Acolytes will be flooding into the temple above
us, or they may have reached the Ward Stone circle by now. Either way, they
will be blocking our only means of escape.”

“What if I summoned an archway to the Wild Path and we
went through it with the Staff? I know the Oracle expressly ordered us not to
use the Path, for Wardlens haunt that grey world, but can the chance of being
caught by those beasts be any worse than the certainty of having an Acolyte
feed on us if we stay here?”

Sorsha had a point.

“No. Too dangerous. Unstable
.”

He and Sorsha both jumped at the startling invasion of
another’s mind.

“Wardlen belong to Trensler’s Master now. He feeds
there.”

With growing hope, he realized it was the Staff
speaking to them. Perhaps, even shattered, she could still offer them aid.

“Hunters come.”

“The Acolytes? We know they’re coming, but where can
we go?”

“Go now.”

The shimmering non-water swirled up and over the banks
of the pool, turning entirely to mist. Growing and spreading, it flowed out
over the floor, swirling around their hooves and up their legs before it
continued its determined march toward one dark section of wall. There it
crawled up the stone and bled into whatever fissures, cracks, and fault lines
it could find. With a crack like thunder, a bright flash blinded Shadowdancer.
He blinked spots from his eyes and turned to study what the magic had done. A section
of wall was gone. Vaporized. As he watched more of the mist flowed into that
spot.

Shadowdancer glanced away before he could be blinded a
second time.

“
Follow.”

The word crawled into his brain, into his very soul,
undeniable and wholly inflexible in its simple command. His Larnkin stirred
awake, forced him into motion. Sorsha was moving as well, and by her shocked
expression, she was no more in command of her movements than he was.

He shrugged off his pack, opened the flap, and upended
all their supplies. Sorsha hurried to his side and shoved pieces of the staff
into the pack. “If I was doing this on my own, I’m sure I’d think this was a
good idea.”

“I had no idea one of the Talismans, especially
damaged as this one is, would be capable of commanding us so inescapably.”

“I’m not sure what I find more frightening. Being
possessed, or being eaten by Trensler’s minions.”

“The Acolytes,” Shadowdancer replied in a shaky
chuckle.

“Yes, but this still counts as one of the least
enjoyable times of my life.”

“Too slow.”

More power erupted out of the pool, shimmering in the
air above their heads. The pieces of the staff rattled together in the pack.
Sorsha shouted in alarm as the golden falcon in her arms spread its wings. By
the abject terror on her face, she would have dropped it if she’d been able.
Before he could wonder what the Staff was doing, his Larnkin shifted within
him, rising to the surface of his skin. Pale eddies of magic danced along his
skin, floating away from him to join the power burning above his head. Another
glance at Sorsha confirmed she was experiencing the same strange phenomenon.
For one soul chilling moment he thought the power was going to devour them as
surely as the Acolytes would.

Above his head the power shimmered, gathering like a thunderhead
on a sweltering summer evening. His breath came in pants. Instinctively, he
wanted to shift closer to Sorsha, protect her in whatever small way he could,
but his hooves might as well have been rooted into the stone for all the motion
the Staff allowed him. Sorsha’s Larnkin was expending power as swiftly as his.

The burning magic above their heads spiraled in upon
itself, becoming denser with each beat of his heart. The tighter it contracted,
the brighter it shimmered until it resembled a fiery miniature sun. A pulse
began in the magic and he blinked back tears.