Legacy of Kings (68 page)

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he somehow managed to twist his head around just enough to see the joint Favias had described. He could see where the hide was thin where the creature’s leg was joined to its body, and he imagined he could hear the pulse of blood coursing beneath its skin, so close to the surface. Fixing his vision upon that one point, he tried to shut out all the rest. Fear was temporary. Bodily pain was meaningless. Soon he would be in the presence of the Creator, and nothing else mattered.

There was a strange kind of peace in such total surrender. The pain in his body seemed to become a distant thing; it did not hurt any less, but it was as if the pain now belonged to someone else. He could feel knife-edged bone shards stabbing into his internal organs as he unsheathed his sword, gripping the handle tightly so that the wind would not tear it from his grasp. The world all about him had faded to blackness, and only a single central point of light remained, focused upon the vulnerable joint overhead. Somewhere a stranger screamed in pain as he raised his sword as high as he could, struggling to reach the vulnerable spot. Somewhere a man was coughing up blood, in spasms so agonizing no human soul could bear it.

Guide me, my Creator, for the sake of mankind, whom You love.

Drawing in as deep a breath as he could, he thrust upward with all his strength. The ikati jerked its leg back in surprise; the sudden motion caused Salvator to black out for a moment.. When he came to and found his hand empty, he thought for one terrible moment that he had dropped the sword. Despair rushed over him with numbing force. Then he saw it embedded in the creature’s leg, the grip hanging down toward him. Despite the depth of the wound, only a trickle of blood was leaking out. He had missed the vital artery.

Unable to draw in a full breath any longer, he hung limp in the creature’s grip, praying for one last moment of strength to do what he had to do. Then, gritting his teeth against the pain, he lurched up and grabbed the leather-bound grip of the sword. The cobalt blade sliced through the Souleater’s flesh, and more blood flowed out of its leg, but it was still not enough. The ikati howled in pain and tried to shake him loose, but he manage to twist the sword hard to the left before he lost his grip—and a river of hot blood answered his efforts, as the wall of the artery was finally breached.

And then the ikati queen released him.

And he fell.

Wind rushed by his head, but he could not take any of it in; the crushed steel cuirass held him too tightly in its embrace to allow for breathing. But that was all right. His time on earth was over now. There was no longer need to breathe.

Thank you, my Creator, for accepting my sacrifice in the place of my mother’s. May my death serve as penance for any and all sins this company has performed in its mission.

Clearly the Creator was pleased by his prayer, for in His infinite mercy he allowed the High King’s consciousness to slip away from him gently, just before the ground rushed up to meet him.

The queen was watching.

Colivar could see her in the distance, so far away that at times she seemed little more than a dot on the horizon. At first he thought she was just a vulture in search of carrion, and he paid little attention to her. But something caused him to look more closely, and he realized then that her silhouette was not that of a bird, and she hovered in the air in a way that no vulture could manage. A thrill ran up his spine then as he suddenly realized what she was . . . and who she must be.

None of the other ikati seemed to be aware of her. Was that by her choice? How adept had Kamala become at manipulating the queen’s special gift? Colivar remembered past mating flights that he had viewed through the eyes of his own ikati—remembered them beating their shared wings in wild fury when a queen suddenly disappeared, all rational thought driven out of their joint consciousness by a tide of pure animal frustration. Little wonder the males turned on one another! Such energy must have an outlet or it would consume its source.

If she was allowing him to see her, and only him, was that not an invitation? The mere thought of it sent blood rushing to his wings with such force that it was hard to focus on anything else; the jeweled panels twitched in anticipation, hungering to consume the distance between them. When he began to fly in her direction, several of the males tried to get in his way, but he dodged them rather than confronting them, not wanting to take his eyes off that distant winged figure for a moment. Afraid she would vanish like smoke if he did. A few other Souleaters followed his gaze westward, curious to see what it was that he was flying toward with such determination, but apparently they saw nothing of interest there. Only empty sky, a blazing sun, and sand so hot that the air above it rippled like a sorcerous portal.

She was there only for him.

The sensation of flight was so intense that it was hard for him to focus on anything else now. He was acutely aware of each muscle in his body, and the pulse of contraction and release that accompanied each wingstroke sent ripples of pleasure through his flesh. The air surrounding him seemed to shimmer with colors, and the sunlight on his back sent waves of pleasure coursing down his hide like a physical caress. Nothing his ikati had shared with him had ever been like this! Were such sensations normal for this species, and the bond between ikati and human was simply not strong enough to convey them? Or was this something that only a hybrid creature like himself might experience? If so, was Kamala feeling the same things right now? Was the very air alive with energy for her as well, so that every movement, no matter how small, heated her blood beyond bearing?

He was coming close enough to her now that he could see her clearly. Sunlight rippled along her scales as she hovered in midair, her long, serpentine tail coiling and uncoiling suggestively. Just a bit farther and he would be able to twine his tail about hers, feeling that sleek surface sliding against his own rough hide, using it to bring their bodies into perfect alignment. The promise of it was maddening. He could feel his wings falling into a new pattern as he approached her, echoing her own, and he knew that at the moment of pleasure they would share the same rhythm, stacked wings beating in perfect unison. It was an ecstasy beyond human comprehension.

But just as he was nearly within reach of her, she wheeled about in the air and began to fly away from him.

He was startled for a moment, then quickly followed. She was fast, very fast, but his altered body was equally capable of speed, and the stream of turbulence that roiled in her wake only stoked the fire in his blood to greater heights. Yet every time he was just about to take hold of her, she managed to dart away again, leaving him trembling with frustration. Once he was so close that he could have nipped her tail with his teeth—but then she surged forward suddenly into the wind, putting so much distance between them that he was afraid he might lose her.

Miles of sand gave way to stone beneath them, a rocky black plain crisscrossed by sand-bottomed faults. She turned in her flight to head directly over it, then dropped down so low that her talons nearly brushed the ground as she flew. Uncertain of her intent, he followed. She began to fly along one particular fault—and then dropped down into it suddenly, and out of sight.

Startled, he overshot the spot and had to circle about to come back to it. The fault looked much too narrow for a Souleater to fly into; Colivar’s own wings would be crushed by the rock walls on either side the moment he tried. So how had she entered it? And why? Hovering over the center of the fault, he could see no Souleater inside.

Only a woman.

She had reclaimed her human form and stood there looking up at him. For a moment he could not absorb what had happened; then the terrible truth of it hit home.

The Souleater queen was gone!

Maddened by frustration, he bellowed his rage to the heavens. His wings beat at the rock on either side of the narrow pass with audible force; one of his smallest wing struts snapped, but he didn’t even feel the pain. Gone! She was gone! The hunger for her was an unquenchable fire in his belly, but the creature he lusted for no longer shared his form. There were no wings to beat against his own, no tail to coil against his belly.

“Colivar!”

The sound she made was strange. It took him a moment to realize what it was. Human language. A name.

His.

Hovering above the rock, his wounded wing throbbing, he looked down at her again.

Her body was naked, he saw, and covered with a thin sheen of sweat. Her high, full breasts were flushed with the heat of human arousal, and the perfume that arose from her skin awakened a faint memory within him, of a kind of desire that had nothing to do with either frenzy or bloodshed. Trapped between the hunger of two species, he suddenly found himself frozen, unable to respond in any meaningful way. In some distant part of his mind he knew that his body was wrong for this moment and that he had to change it, but he no longer remembered how.

She began to walk along the sandy floor of the fault, moving slowly toward him. His wings thrummed helplessly against the rock, but they were unable to bring him any closer to her. “Be human again, Colivar.” The scent of her filled his nostrils, awakening fragments of human memory. Morati lovers. Languid pleasures. The taste of a woman’s sweat-slicked skin, warmed by the tropical sun.

“Come back to me,” she whispered. Holding out her arms in invitation.

He bound his power without knowing it, molded it without conscious thought. The change that followed was uncontrolled, and pain shot through his limbs as they returned to their former shape in fits and starts, like a bird breaking out of its shell. Suddenly his wings were gone, and he dropped down onto the sand before her, the breath driven from his lungs by the impact. Two legs. Two arms. No more. That was right, wasn’t it?

He looked up. Close, she was so close, and so real. So human. He reached out to touch her, and she did not back away. Her flesh was like silk beneath his fingertips, agonizingly soft. He stood, and his hands slid up her body, following the curve of her thighs, her hips, moving upward to cup the fullness of her breasts. He wondered at how alien her body felt, even as it aroused him. Skin so smooth. So fragile. Where were the scales? Where were the wings? So much was missing!

She moved closer to him, pressing the full length of her body against his own, bringing her lips up to his. Images of pleasure rushed through his head, human and ikati intermingled, and he struggled to find his way back to her world. Then her hands found the focus of his desire and she stroked him, leading the way. They moved down to the sand together, her legs parting for him, and then there was only heat: wonderful, glorious, human heat, and a rhythm that had nothing to do with flying. When she cried out in pleasure, it was a purely human sound, and when his own passion crested, the heat of it was so intense that in a single instant it consumed all moments but this one, banishing every instinct and sensation that was not in perfect harmony with his current self.

And the memory of wings was gone from his mind.

And the memory of ice was gone from his soul.

And when it was over, he lay in the sand by her side, and he wept.

Chapter 36

T

HE SEA of black ink was viscous and bottomless. Salvator swam through it slowly, each stroke a monumental effort, knowing there was a surface somewhere but not knowing how to reach it. Voices murmured in darkness, black ripples of sound without identities attached.

Is he waking up?

I think so.

Call Gwynofar!

And then the surface of the black ocean parted at last. A sea of white assailed his eyes in its place, blinding him. White walls. White linen curtains. White bed. The brilliance of it burned his eyes, forcing him to squeeze his eyelids shut, but even that could not keep all of it out. He was drowning in light.

“Salvator?”

He followed the familiar voice like a lifeline, struggling to resurface. Finally, he managed to open his eyes again, squinting against the blazing light. He could make out the shapes of three figures by his bedside now: a small blonde woman who sat beside him, a middle-aged man with weathered features, and a tall man with a white beard whose long robes were as black as the inky sea Salvator had just escaped from.

He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but no sounds would come out. His body had forgotten how to speak. Finally, with conscious effort, he managed to rasp out, “Is she dead?” The only question that mattered.

The three of them looked at each other. “He means the Souleater queen,” Ramirus said. “Yes, she’s dead. You killed her.”

Salvator closed his eyes for a moment. He felt as if he were floating in a sea of physical and mental exhaustion. But no pain. “Am I dead?” he whispered.

He heard Ramirus chuckle softly. “Does your faith allow for you and I to be sharing the same afterlife?”

Despite himself, Salvator smiled. The expression made his face ache. “How long?”