Page 78 of The Sun God's Prize
“Sheelan,” I touch her arm, and she turns to me again.“You must stay.”As much as it pains me, I, more than most, know that.I was forced to abandon my country, to leave it in the hands of the traitor Vivenne.Shame forces me to speak as much as knowing does.
Aurous speaks for the first time, stepping up beside me, her amber eyes full of love.“Your people need you.”
“They do not,” Sheelan says, chin high, shoulders back.“But you do, don’t you?”The dragon’s hesitation ends in a sigh, a slight nod.“The Sun God watches over them, as he always has.”Sheelan arches an eyebrow at Hepha, whose gaze widens before she looks up and around, the guards hushed whispers worried.“His council will continue to command the daily lives of our people, without him, as is our way.”She tsks softly, disdainful.“Do you think because his human vessel is gone that my father, your God, has left you?Fools,” she sweeps an arm through the air in front of her, disapproval weighty, tightening her small face.“Take this one,” she points at Theille, “to the underworld, as ordered.Imprison him there until I return.Inform the council that I must go north, to repair the damage he has done to our peace with our neighbors.”They murmur their acquiescence, even if they’re still worried.“And burn offerings of honor and forgiveness to Isthisahaloun, where he watches you from the very sky.”
“Most Divine,” Hepha says with reverence, bowing to Sheelan.“It shall be as you command.”
Theille is faster than the ordinary guards, leaping at his sister, sword gone but a dagger in his hand, his favorite weapon.Even Hepha is caught flat-footed, though she’s in position to use herself as a shield, and I know she will.But Theille screams incoherently, overtaken by madness, his shoulder striking the assassin and deflecting her in his headlong attack.
“I’ll kill you myself!”That much makes it out of him, but nothing else.
Her guards might be as slow as they are inattentive, the black-armored woman caught up in the conversation and her faith to do what she was trained to do, but I am not.The metal staff rings as I strike over Sheelan’s shoulder, once in the chest, spinning around as I step past her, feet sliding across the dock’s slick wood, to impact the back of his head with the whirling weapon.
Theille falls to his knees, the dagger tumbling from his fingers, eyes rolling back into his head.
“Remi!”Sheelan spins on me, but I’m grimly reassuring.
“Just unconscious,” I growl at her.“You’re welcome.”
The rest moves quickly, and within a short time, we’re boarding a fast ship, the captain skittish, clearly informed of the identity of his guests, though his crew remains in blissful ignorance.I’m not surprised when Hepha joins us, refusing to listen to Sheelan, who tries to make her stay behind.
“I go with my Goddess,” she says simply.
“My fate surrounds me with the most obstinate and frustrating women,” Sheelan snaps, though she relents.“Very well.”
The Sun God’s daughter—Goddess of the Sun, I remind myself—has a rigidity to her back and shoulders, her demeanor stern, when she orders the captain to cast off, clear that she’s made up her mind and won’t be swayed.Both Aurous and I try to speak to her, but are shut down immediately.
“I can’t stay now,” she tells us.“Don’t ask it of me.”
I want to comfort her, but she refuses every advance, leaving me to stand off and wait for her to come to me, Aurous at my side, quiet and pensive.The dragon made no effort to assist us when Theille attacked, though I wonder if she would have allowed harm to come to us.As much as I’m here to protect her and Sheelan, I’m not so sure that Aurous was ever at risk.
It’s better this way, whatever the case.There’s renewed strength in my kinspark, and I’m reminded of her plea to let her descend on her own into the cave where we found Aurous.She’s facing much more than a slippery downward grade this time, however.Still, if it encourages her to stand on her own, I must step aside.
As hard as that is.
Sheelan now has a faithful shadow, if she ever lost it, Hepha keeping her Goddess in view.It was she who ensured our escape, I now suspect, who distracted and held the Sun God’s guards at bay so we could flee.Though she refuses to talk to me when I try to speak to her, Hepha remains on guard as her ruler retreats to the rear of the ship to be as alone as she can be.
Sheelan doesn’t leave the aft railing for a long time after we set sail, watching her home disappear behind us, long after it’s out of sight.When she finally does, she’s weeping, that strength she found failing her.Aurous and I are waiting with our arms open to her.
“Tell me I won’t regret this,” she whispers.
“I wish I could,” I say, while the dragon nods.
“When this is through,” Aurous says, “and we have cleansed the world of my auntie’s tainted power, you will come home again, Sheelan.”Her amber eyes glow in the light of the morning sun as she smiles into the breeze on the river, turning north.
“You’re wrong,” Sheelan says, wiping her face.“I’m never going back.”She meets my eyes.“Think you can find a place for a slightly used so-called Sun Goddess, your highness?”
I kiss her, soft at first, then with passion.“The boys will know what to do with you,” I say.
She giggles at last.“Can’t wait,” she says with a breathlessness that has me laughing.
And together we drape our arms around Aurous, the uncommon and inconceivable now our normal, as we all turn our faces north.
Home.
Whatever comes next, I’m two souls stronger for it.
***
