Page 16 of Queen Takes Knights
“Then at least stop with the earthquake and rumbling boulder sounds so I can hear, big guy.”
He quit making the sound, and the resulting silence was deafening. I guess he was holding his breath. “How long—”
I cut off that sentence, straining to hear. I heard a trickle, a rustle, almost like the brush of feathers, or a lock of hair lifting in the breeze. The barest flap of silk. I burrowed closer to her, wrapping my body around hers. “Come back to us, Shara.”
Shara
Knowingthat I was dead was worse than actuallybeingdead, if that made sense. Death was empty, silent, cold blackness, like the depths of the universe with all the stars blown out. I didn’t see any guiding light bringing me back. I didn’t see loved ones in the distance beckoning me to paradise. Just… darkness.
The thought of an eternity like this made me scream—even though I couldn’t hear it and didn’t have any vocal chords.
I whirled, or at least tried to look around, but there was nothing to see. Just endless, black emptiness.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way. Was it? Why had Mom given birth to me against all hope, and died to keep me safe, if I was going to die here alone? Isis had given me power. Great power, supposedly. Power over life and death.
If I didn’t want death… then I had to choose life. But how?
The power had to bewithinme. Inside. Not out.
Instead of blindly searching the invisible horizons in this nothingness, I looked inward. I felt deep inside myself, gliding past memories and thoughts. I saw Daire and Alrik running toward me as I lifted the knife to my throat. I felt a tug in my memory and paused to look. I followed through the woods to the top of a hill. Moonlight shone down on a clearing, illuminating a man with long silvered hair. He looked up at me, his eyes widening as if he could see me too. The man who’d killed my mother looked much worse for wear in the five years since she’d died. His face was sunken hollows and dark flaming eyes. He bared a vicious stained row of pointy teeth and leaped at me. In slow motion, I watched his bony, gnarled hand come closer, each finger tipped with brutal black claws. But I wasn’t afraid.
I knew I could disintegrate him into dust with a thought.
I pushed his image away and searched deeper. I saw Dad lifting me up onto his shoulders, his eyes worried as he checked the sinking sun, but he kept his voice light, his manner happy. He didn’t want to scare me. Mom rocking me against her, singing something soft and low in a language I recognized but hadn’t understood at the time. After visiting the goddess’s pyramid, I knew those Egyptian words.“You are my sunshine”, sang in her native language. Despite knowing she’d die because of me.
“Notbecauseof you,”Mom whispered in my head.“Foryou. Gladly.”
“Why?” I asked, not sure that she could hear me.
“Because I love you.”
Love. That single word sparked something inside me. A chip of heat, a tiny ember, glowing like a miniature sun. As I focused on it, the flame burned a bit brighter. So beautiful, so pure. A drop of molten sunlight. It expanded inside me, illuminating my stilled heart, blood heavy and cold in my veins. One touch of that brightness melted the blood and warmed my heart. I felt it beat, a heavy, echoing thud. So slow, but strong.
With a huge gasping breath, I jerked upright. My chest ached, my heart thumping frantically like it was trying to escape my chest.
“I’ve got you. We’re here. You’re safe.”
Daire. I felt his skin on mine, his heat wrapped around me. I couldn’t seem to make my eyes work yet, but something banded me to him. Something granite-hard and cold. That moved when I touched it. My mind recognized him, sensing his immense relief through the bond we’d formed. “Alrik? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, my queen, not now that you’re back.”
His voice rumbled like a massive thundercloud tearing through the room. It made my eyes flare open wide. I looked at the massive… thing… holding both of us and the only thing I could say was, “Oh. My.”
Daire laughed. “I think he’s a rock troll. Hot, huh?”
Alrik did look like a giant boulder-man. I laid my hand on his chest and felt stone, not skin or flesh. “Actually, he’s cold.”
I felt something in the bond with him. A tightening, as if he was withdrawing, or hiding. I reached for his thoughts and realized he was afraid.
Afraid I’d be disgusted by this new shape. Or worse, afraid of him. Trolls were nasty creatures who lived beneath bridges, or ate people they kidnapped. His stomach was a mess of churning acid, rather than joy at finally coming into his power, because he was afraid I wouldn’t want to touch him or look at him using the very gift my blood had given him.
Stupid man.
I thought that at him very hard, making sure he heard it. His eyes narrowed but he said nothing.
I rose up on my knees, bracing myself on one of his gigantic thighs the size of a Sequoya tree trunk. Even then, I had to reach up for his face, stretching to touch him. He obligingly bent down to me and I cupped his cheeks in my palms. Then I very deliberately locked my mouth to his.
His lips were hard and cold, too large to kiss me back without covering most of my jaw, but he relaxed into my hands, sinking his face deeper into my caress. I traced the shape of his stone lips with my tongue and his breath exhaled on a low rumbling purr that vibrated my bones.
