The Shadow of Theron, page 45
Asha grinned. The narrow path ahead was still wrought with peril, but they were no longer running blind.
Another wave of sand wyrms crested before them as they followed the twists and turns of the labyrinth. Asha took the lead, swinging at anything that moved as they raced to the top of the citadel.
The sword of Theron lit the night. For two days, Lysandro traversed the desert in search of Sera. But as the grassy plains gave way to sand, her clues had likewise dried up. She’d had precious little to work with, he knew; there were no river stones for her to rearrange, no trees whose inner bark she could use as parchment and then slide surreptitiously back into place. But the light that flickered in and out of his eyes as he first crossed into the desert was her doing. Of that he harbored no doubt. For the briefest of moments, it had been a beacon shining out between dark clouds gathering in the sky. He tried to hold fast to that point, but without her secret reassurances to guide his way, his mind gave way to panic that he would come too late. But as darkness fell once more, the blade of the ancient hero pulsed to life in his hands. It seemed to drink in the starlight, and grew warm against his skin. Above the howling of the desert, he imagined he could hear it whispering to him. Not in words—it was more of a feeling, an impulse that urged him leftward. He lifted his chin in that direction, and the blade hummed in eager anticipation. Lysandro pushed Hurricane forward.
Storm clouds gathered above him as the Lost Fortress of Argoss came into view. The thought of Sera trapped inside its accursed towers, entirely at Lothan’s mercy, made him shiver.
Hurricane was not dumb to the danger either. He reared up on his legs as lightning split the sky and came hurtling down mere inches in front of him.
“I’m sorry to leave you,” Lysandro said as he dismounted, and pressed the stallion’s forehead to his own. “You kill anything that comes near you, you hear me?”
The horse snorted and turned his nose away. He didn’t need to be told.
Lysandro drew his own sword with his left hand and moved forward into the labyrinth that opened before him. He was heedless to the way the labyrinth bent and twisted around him. Its pathways widened as it shrunk away from the light-filled blade in his right hand. The sands at his feet swirled into wide mounds as sand wyrms wriggled out of the Abyss. Those daring enough to lunge at him with hungry mouths split apart in the air as he leapt past them, giving them no more consideration than a flick of the wrist as he moved with swift, determined steps.
As he reached the base of the staircase that climbed in a tight spiral to the top, he heard Sera scream.
Lysandro bounded up the narrow stone stairs, turning back only once to separate the head of the sand wyrm that had slithered up behind him and stop it from biting at his heels. A crack of lightning came crashing down beside him. It tore off a piece of the fortress and cast everything in a stark white light, leaving the horde of wyrms that chased him blinded. A second bolt engulfed another wyrm as it leapt for Lysandro. The stench of its immolated flesh made him gag as he ran past. The storm raged as it prepared for another strike, echoing in Lysandro’s chest as he raced through the open doors at the top of the stairs and found Seraphine, standing deathly still at the opposite end of the enormous room. Lothan had a carefree arm slung over her shoulder.
“Sera!”
Her dress was in tatters, her skin was battered purple on her arms and across her neck, and her face looked gaunt.
But she was alive.
He dragged his gaze away from hers to stare at Lothan. Marek’s eyes shone with gleeful malice. Lothan’s blade was a broken shard no more, its cursed metal longer than Lysandro had ever dared to imagine it, even in his darkest nightmares. Marek’s lips twisted into a wicked grin as he greeted him.
“Theron’s Impostor. We’ve been waiting for you.”
The sword of Theron pulsed hot in Lysandro’s hand.
“I didn’t think you’d come. Or even if I did, I didn’t think you’d survive the labyrinth. You really are a thorn in my side. But now that you’re here, I must ask you…where did you get that?”
At this last, Lothan’s grin turned into a vicious snarl. Lysandro spied a shiver race across his skin as Lothan’s gaze dropped to the weapon at his side. His eyes grew wide at the sight, and the fingers trembled, weakening their grip on the blood sword.
Lysandro charged forward.
“Stay back!”
Sera’s blood-curdling scream halted his momentum just as Lothan swung his blade in a wide arc and sent a spray of venomous blood in his direction. Lysandro dodged the attack, and retreated to a corner of the room.
Lothan turned to Sera as if she had just done the most inconceivable thing. He knocked her to the ground and swung again, and again Lysandro avoided the stream of blood that splattered across the room and ate into the tiles of the floor like acid. Lysandro twisted his body away from the spray with an effortless grace that pushed Marek to his breaking point.
Each successive stream was weaker than the last. As Lothan reeled and prepared to attack a fourth time, Lysandro rushed forward, sliding under Marek’s raised arm and coming up behind him to slice across his back. Lysandro retreated again out of the venom’s reach as Lothan spun to face him.
Lothan howled in frustration, but just as quickly regained his composure. His smile returned as he raised the jeweled bones of his right hand and snapped his fingers.
Lysandro had no time to gape in astonishment at the gruesome return of Marek’s hand. The floor began to vibrate under him. From every darkened corner came the sound of bones rattling. The skeletons of warriors long dead rose to their feet, took up their abandoned weapons, and advanced on Lysandro.
He swung Theron’s gleaming sword in a wide arc, removing the heads of the first five to lunge at him in one stroke. The next wave rounded on him; he cut through the shoulder of the one to his right down to the hip of another, while stabbing at a third with the sword in his left hand. But his own metal got caught in the ribs. The skeleton slid along the blade and came close enough to claw at Lysandro’s face. He twisted his grip on the sword and sent it flying upward, scattering bones in all directions as he dismantled the ribcage. Lysandro barreled forward into the oncoming crush. Using his own momentum, he kicked off from the opposite column and sailed through the air. He came crashing down on their skulls and stomped them into the ground.
He wove through the mass of enemies in a deadly dance that sent them tumbling back. He spun and cracked the jaw of another, split open the clavicle of another. And another. And another…
Lothan shivered with rage as Lysandro tore through his skeleton army, splitting them to pieces and crunching them to dust under his boots. The distraction managed to keep the blade of his nightmares far from himself up until now, but once his soldiers met Theron’s sword, they did not rise again. As the swarm of ensorcelled skeletons thinned, Lysandro turned his attention back to Lothan.
Marek plucked Sera up from the floor; a long, thin needle stuck out halfway from the lock of her mother’s cell. Sera tried to lunge for it, but Lothan pulled her up by her hair, ignoring her screams as he kicked her knees out from behind her and positioned the Blood Sword a hair’s breadth from her throat.
Lysandro froze, and Lothan cackled in victory. With the girl dead, Lysandro would be too broken to fight. But as he fisted his bony hand in Sera’s hair and began to press downward, the lightning outside split the sky again, this time, striking fear straight into the heart of him.
Something else was coming.
“Don Lysandro!”
Lysandro couldn’t tear his eyes from Seraphine; the lump that formed in her throat as she swallowed brought her skin that much closer to the river of blood. However fast he was, however powerful the sword in his hand, he could not undo what Lothan’s vicious eyes promised. Lothan was seconds away from stealing her from him forever.
But someone else was calling to him, someone who was approaching rapidly from behind.
“Don Lysandro, quick—it’s the only way!”
It was the Aruni Examiner. She fled to his side and tried to push something into his hands. It fell to the floor in front of him. Lothan’s laughter split the air as he spied the object that lay abandoned at Lysandro’s feet.
Only then did Lysandro look down to see the Hand of Arun.
Lothan taunted him as he dropped his swords and lunged for the bow. The string became tangled in his trembling fingers as Lysandro’s mind scrambled to piece together how it was meant to work.
“Are you a god now, Lysandro? Theron returned? Have you ever felt true power throbbing through your veins?”
Sera had less than seconds to live. Lysandro shook his fingers loose, grasped the end of the string with one hand, and curved the bow with the other until the two met.
The sound of the string pulled taut tolled like a distant bell between his ears. It resonated deep within his soul, and everything became clear. His mind emptied. Time stood still. With the innate sense of a child as it takes its first breath, Lysandro retrieved the golden arrow from the ground, nocked it, and released.
The porcelain stars that danced and skittered in the cosmos at Lothan’s feet stood still, frozen in fear as Lysandro took hold of the Hand of Arun and aimed it at Lothan’s heart. Its crystalline arrowhead shimmered with a blinding light. But it was the bolt of lightning that flashed in Lysandro’s eyes that turned the blood in his veins to ice. Mortal terror took hold of his throat. He was dead before he could scream.
“Lysandro?”
Lysandro blinked, and came back to himself.
“Sera?”
Their eyes met from across the room.
“Sera!”
He dropped the Hand and rushed to her, sweeping her into a tight embrace. He parted from her just enough to brush her hair out of her eyes and take in her sweet face.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded, leaning her cheek into his caress. “I left messages for you. Did you—”
“I did.”
He smiled, and cradled her chin in his hands as their lips met. Her gentle fingertips brushed against the back of his neck, and he lost himself in their sweet reunion. With each brush of her lips, the world righted itself. It was the sort of kiss most only dream about but seldom find, the kind that binds hearts together until long after they’ve ceased to beat.
Then Sera remembered her mother.
She moved quickly to free her with Lysandro’s help. Marietta stood and stared at him.
“Don Lysandro. Why are you dressed like the Shadow of Theron?”
Lysandro blinked. “Because I am the Shadow of Theron.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“I told you, Mama,” Sera said. “I told you he would come for me.”
Marietta pressed her lips together in an approving smile as Lysandro’s arm tightened around Sera’s waist.
“Yes. I see.”
They stepped with caution away from the fallen body of Lothan Marek, his face frozen in horror. In his right hand, he still gripped the Blood Sword. Lysandro lifted his blade high in the air, ready to smash it to pieces.
“Don’t.”
Lysandro whipped around and saw the Examiners, their heads bowed low.
“It may rebuild itself again in time. I must find a way to lift the curse,” Eugenie said.
In the bigger woman’s outstretched hands was the golden bow blessed by Arun.
Sera’s eyes traveled from the weapon to Lysandro’s clear eyes, the color of the morning sky. She tucked herself further into his embrace.
“Lysandro,” she whispered, and tightened her grip on his arm. “What did you do?”
He didn’t know how to answer her. The clarity and purpose that had washed over him in that moment felt like a dream. Now he was awake.
“The Goddess chose you,” Asha said. As she passed Lysandro the Hand, he felt a surge of power. The weapon was heavier in his hands than it had been a moment before. It seemed a terrible burden. He gave it back to the Examiner, who took it as a look of confusion and disappointment spread across her face.
“This doesn’t belong to me,” Lysandro said.
“But—”
Eugenie stepped forward and whispered in Lysandro’s ear.
“You will know the day, and the hour. When you can avoid it no longer, come find me in the castle beyond the sea.”
The Child of Theron turned to take one last look at Eugenie as he and the others left the fortress. He met her gaze in a silent exchange. They would meet again. The time had already been set.
Asha spoke low in Eugenie’s ear so only she could hear. “Does he know what’s coming?”
“He will. In time.”
“Then shouldn’t we—”
“It is not our duty to interfere. We will prepare, and guard the Hand. For now, let him have this moment.” She looked on with tenderness as Lysandro embraced the woman who held his heart. “Let him love his wife.”
32
“Do you freely give this woman your deepest love and fullest devotion, from this day and into the hereafter?”
“I do,” Lysandro answered.
The measure of silk binding his hand to Sera’s tightened while all of Lighura looked on. But the only one who mattered stood right in front of him. Beneath the bindings, Lysandro stroked Sera’s slender fingers in a tiny back-and-forth motion with his thumb that turned her cheeks crimson. His eyes flashed at the sight.
The Faelian priestess turned to Sera.
“Do you promise to love your husband, wholly and without restraint, to be his joy and his comfort for as long as the sun may rise?”
Sera beamed at him with a smile that shined brighter than any sun.
“I promise.”
The Faelian tightened the silk for the third and final time, the knot that bound them together completed.
“Before Faelia, Arun, and Morgasse, Don Lysandro and Doña Seraphine are wed. Nothing in the world can tear them asunder.”
The village erupted in cheers as Lysandro tugged unexpectedly on their bound hands, pulling his bride off her feet and catching her mouth in a kiss.
“You’re a rogue,” Sera chided.
His mouth quirked upward. “I know. I love you,” he whispered against her cheek, steadying her in his arms as gravity threatened to pull them down. He kissed her again, with great passion, and didn’t care one whit who saw.
The celebration lasted all day and all night, with enough food and wine to feed the hordes that had descended upon the temple at Beloquín to help Lysandro and Sera rejoice in their love for one another. As the feast raged on and stuffed mouths grew quiet, Lysandro gazed lovingly at his bride. She was resplendent in a gown of sparkling white, like a wishing star come to life. He stood and cleared his throat.
“I want to thank you all for coming here, after the many trials that Lighura has had to bear.” He looked out over the villagers, and saw their loss reflected in their eyes, along with the hope that, finally, the storm had passed.
“I have something to share with you today…”
“Other than this marvelous feast?” someone called out, to the cheers of others.
Lysandro smiled. “I want to tell you that I’m—”
Sera stood and whispered quickly in his hear.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Don’t give your secret to them. Let them believe that the Shadow will return when they need him—let them dream of him. But from now on, your nights belong to me.”
He smiled at his bride and caressed her face with his knuckles. “I want all of Lighura to know…that I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
“We all knew that!” Rafael bellowed to a great echo of laughter. “I’ll let you have this one, Don Lysandro.” He winked at his friend. “The best man won.”
“Damn right he did!” Elias shouted, tapping the bottom of his cup down on the table. In the seat beside him, Aleksander did the same.
Lysandro’s cheeks warmed to be honored by his father in the old way, one soldier, one warrior to another. They exchanged a knowing glance. Elias’s eyes shined with pride.
“May I have a dance, at least, Doña?”
Rafael approached the couple as they moved to join the revelers.
“I suppose.”
“You are not dancing with the bride before me,” Fabien interjected, stepping in front of Rafael and extending his hand to Sera.
“I guess that leaves us,” Pirró said, putting his arm around Rafael. Rafael looked to Lysandro for help. None was forthcoming.
Aleksander’s oldest daughter looked on wistfully. In a blink, her vision was filled with Gareth. He cut a dashing figure in his best attire, his good looks only enhanced by his scar. His smile made her heart knock against her chest.
To her left, her father’s heart stopped altogether.
“Signorina Carmen.”
“Signor.”
“Would you care to dance?”
She took the hand he offered her faster than Aleksander could stop her. Gareth spared him a quick smile over his shoulder.
“That smug bastard.”
Elias just laughed. “Relax, will you? It’s a wedding. She should be dancing. Here. Have some wine.”
“She’s not old enough.”
“She was old enough when you thought Lysandro might marry her.”
“They look handsome together,” Caterina said. “Look how she’s smiling.”
Aleksander growled.
Lysandro took Sera by the hand and led her to the center of the festivities. “Dance with me?”
She clasped the back of his neck and pulled him into a kiss. His heart was still galloping when she released him.
“Always.”
