The Bonds of Blood (27 page)

Jovian was cold. He had never before
felt so alone, so desolate. He shivered and wrapped his hands
around himself, trudging on through the frosty landscape before
him. It did not seem strange to him that he was walking through a
barren, frozen field when it was, in reality, summer. Teeth
chattering, Jovian tucked his hands under his arms.

Suddenly, with a feeling of falling
through fathomless depths, Jovian was surrounded by
darkness.

There was blood and trees, blackened
grass, and five dead women, all more beautiful than any he had ever
seen, all innocent. The images flashed before his eyes, all
separate but somehow connected. Red splotches blotted out the
images. There was intense pain, both physical and emotional, and a
searing heat. For a moment his breath caught as he saw only
blackness and whirling stars above, chasing him down into
oblivion.

No sooner than it started it all
stopped.

Before him stood a dark woman, her skin
effortlessly mimicking the color of flawless onyx, and her skin
shimmered as if graced by a frail light by which she
glowed.

She was both exotically beautiful and
horribly terrifying, appearing somehow young and old at the same
time. Her black skin was marred only by the glowing white orbs that
sat in her eye sockets and the blood red lips to which she held a
silver key, as if permanently demanding silence.

Her head was bald, and her clothes
appeared to be the finest silks draped over her and flowing from
the back of her head statuesquely to the floor. Around her upper
arm was twined a vivid orange snake, which was the only thing that
seemed to move at all. Not even the flames on the black iron torch
held high by her other hand moved.

Jovian made to say something, but just
then the woman came to life. Large wings of sleek blue and purple
feathers sprouted from her back, unfurling and stretching wide.
Each tip was decorated with an emerald circle like an eye on an
ostrich tale, which looked down at him from a height some ten feet
above her head.

Behind her the darkness disappeared,
replaced by the frozen field Jovian had just traversed. Only this
time it was littered with bodies and stained with blood as if a
great battle had just taken place.

The dark lady turned, pointing behind
her with the arm that was entwined by the snake, the key used to
dictate a distance some ways off like a pointer.

Jovian followed her outstretched arm
and squinted into the distance. A pale figure
approached.

Terror filled him as he realized what
this figure must be. Jovian soon found himself face to face with
the figure, only the dark lady and her outstretched arm stood
between them.

The horse was the most dreadful thing
Jovian had ever seen. It was the color of bone with eyes black as
night and cloven hooves. But it wasn’t that the horse was so alien
that terrified Jovian; it was the energy is exuded.

There was no doubt this was the pale
horse.

Filled with a horrible sense of loss,
Jovian cried out as pain lanced through his hands. When he glanced
down, he saw his hands melting, fusing together with other hands.
He was losing himself, merging with something darker, more
powerful, and with it becoming a force that had the potential to
destroy the world.

Two other pairs of hands emerged
forming a triangle of which he was one point, and with a startling
cry Jovian woke up to strong hands shaking him … and Maeven staring
down at him.

“Are you okay?” the man asked, worry
etched in every line of his forehead. His sharp nose and severely
dark brown eyes came into focus. It took a moment for Jovian to
orient himself as to who was shaking him and where he
was.

Having never been in Rosalee’s house
before, and certainly not accustomed to sleeping on a stone floor,
Jovian panicked. He looked up at Maeven, heart racing, breath
ragged in his throat. Jovian let out a hoarse cry and tried to
scramble away, but Maeven seemed to be pinning him to the floor
with more than his arms.

“Get off me!” Jovian yelled, bucking
wildly to throw the man off him.

“You were thrashing. Nearly bucked into
the fire,” Maeven said. “I had to do something to keep you safe.”
Jovian was painfully aware that the other man was not moving, and
his face flushed in anger.

“Well, I am awake now, so get off
me.”

“As soon as you stop flailing about I
will.”

Jovian forced himself to lie still, and
with a smile Maeven slowly removed himself from his perch across
Jovian’s legs.

“What were you dreaming anyway?” Maeven
asked, laying back down a few feet from Jovian.

With his face hot from the sudden blood
rush, Jovian rolled away from Maeven and pulled the blankets
further up his body, for it was surprisingly cool for a summer’s
night.

“Nothing,” Jovian grunted.

“Funny, I would have thought you were
having a nightmare,” Maeven said. “Not that often do you see a
person flip-flopping all about. Dogs!” he said triumphantly. “Now
you expect to see dogs chasing animals in their dreams, but not
often do you hear of humans chasing animals in their
dreams.”

Jovian grunted again. He was now fully
aware that Maeven was extremely annoying. Either that or the
embodiment of Chaos, for someone that could talk this much when
they ought be sleeping had to be dalua.

“Unless, of course, you were dreaming
that you were dancing around the High Summer bonfire again; that
was an experience.”

Was he ever going to shut
up?

“Yeah, that looked, and sounded, like
what you were doing. So what was it, Jovian? Dream-rabbits running
through the thicket, or the High Summer bonfire?”

“It would be sleep if you would shut
your damn mouth,” Jovian spat back, aiming a pointed glance over
his shoulder at Maeven. Apparently Maeven didn’t feel the daggers
in Jovian’s glare.

“Fair enough, sunshine. By all means
get your beauty rest. I will leave you to your bunnies.” With a
sniff Maeven rolled back over, but Jovian could not get back to
sleep for the life of him. Every time he was about to drift off the
image of the dark lady and the pale horse flooded his thoughts.
Finally he considered sleep a lost cause and sat up instead,
staring into the fire.

The shuffle of blankets drew Jovian’s
gaze toward Maeven, who was now facing him again. Though shadows
concealed his eyes, Jovian was pretty sure the dark haired man was
not sleeping, for he had the uneasy feeling of being
watched.

Jovian was not sure what time he had
fallen back asleep. All he knew was that he had not dreamt, or at
least he didn’t think he had. He tried with all his might, as the
glowing coals of the fire swam into view to suppress the memory of
his nighttime vision, but with little success. He found himself
curled up, stare fixed on the fire. Someone had covered him back
up, and as he sat up he realized that Maeven was gone.

Looking around, he saw Rosalee and
Grace sitting at the table conversing quietly over their steaming
cups of coffee. Jovian wondered how he had not woken up when
Rosalee had set the water to boil over the fire.

“You look like you could use some of
this,” Grace commented, pouring him a mug of coffee.

Tiredly he curled up in a chair at the
table, wrapping the blanket around him as he cradled the mug of hot
coffee in his hands.

“Dear Goddess it is cold for being High
Summer,” he commented, and Grace nodded. “Where is Maeven?” He
wondered why he cared even as he asked this question.

“He is attending to the crop blessing;
it is now a duty of his to lead in rituals,” Rosalee answered,
gazing at a nondescript part of the wall that she seemed to find
rather interesting. Jovian fell silent nursing his mug of coffee.
“Speaking of crops, how did the Planting Time ritual go at the
plantation?” Rosalee asked.

“It didn’t,” Grace informed her. “Dauin
likes to plant things a little earlier than the rest of the Holy
Realm; it gives him an advantage he says. Normally Candalyn will
bless the plants and hold the official rituals on Planting Time
day, but the actual planting takes place earlier. This year,
however, the plantation was plagued by those winds and the ritual
was never even observed.”

After they had all eaten a hearty
breakfast cooked by Rosalee and Grace, Jovian made his way to the
back of the house where he took advantage of the well one last time
before dressing.

He passed Angelica and Joya on their
way back to do the same, and he set about saddling the horses as
they washed up.

“Are we ready?” Grace asked, emerging
from the house with a disheartened Rosalee tagging along behind
her. It seemed as though Rosalee had enjoyed their stay quite a
bit.

Jovian saw Rosalee’s lips moving, but
her soft-spoken words never made it to his ears. Grace, however,
had heard her and turned with a sympathetic expression on her face.
She hugged her tall red-haired friend. When she pulled away, Grace
placed both hands on Rosalee’s shoulders and stared into her
perpetually glazed eyes.

“You know that I cannot stay.” Grace
said. “You can always come with us.” Rosalee shook her head
indicating that she could not.

Jovian turned away. The morning seemed
impossibly still, with not even the mere whisper of a breeze. Dark
clouds loomed overhead, and he squinted skyward, wondering if this
meant that rain was coming.

The air was haunted, still, hushed like
night despite the gray morning.

The town seemed deserted,
though he figured this was largely due to the people out in the
fields for the blessings. Jovian wondered why Rosalee had not
joined them, and he turned back to look at her personal
gardens.
Maybe only those who have crops
bless the fields.
This must be it, for when
Jovian looked to the far corner of Rosalee’s property he saw a
small wooden altar dressed with orange candles, a grain dolly, and
the traditional High Summer offerings of blessing: milk and
honey.

He noticed far off down the alley,
where they had gathered for the ritual the night before, men
dressed in their blue silk robes walking through the fields with
their large censors swinging from chains. Red smoke of the holy red
copal drifted lazily in the still air. He wondered which one was
Maeven.

It seemed impossible for anything to
happen suddenly on such a listless morning, but that was how it
happened. In the stillness of the air, there was nothing to muffle
the scream that rent the atmosphere, quickly jolting everyone in
Rosalee’s garden to attention. Jovian looked up so fast that he
pulled a muscle in his neck, and he felt the liquid fire of it
spreading through his shoulders.

The scream came again, echoing in the
air. Jovian stood, not knowing what to do when he saw the robed men
turn and start running to the right—toward the scream and out of
Jovian’s line of vision.

It seemed impossible for two old women
to move as fast as Rosalee and Grace did, but before he knew it
both of them had dashed off the front porch in a mad sprint heading
down the alley. Jovian came to himself then and
followed.