Page 8 of Queen Takes Sunfires 2
How, though? How did I get here? Was he really dead? How?
Too many questions, and Helayna wouldn’t have any of the answers. She didn’t even know what or where Heliopolis was.
I looked up from the cup, accidentally meeting her gaze head on. She watched me, oh so carefully. As if I might go on a killing rampage at any moment. Maybe I would. I didn’t know what freedom was like, and I certainly didn’t know how badly Ra had damaged me. “Could you tell me more about our kind? There’s so much I don’t know. What was that tingling I felt outside?”
"The energy you felt was my blood circle. Every nest is made secure by the queen's blood. My mother laid the original blood circle centuries ago, and then I added mine to it once I came into my power. Nothing can cross the circle unless I allow it. That's why I took your hands, so you could come into my nest."
Her words sparked faint memories of my childhood. "I lived in a nest once, but it didn't keep them out."
"Who?"
Goosebumps raced down my arms. “Ra’s minions.”
“I’ve never heard of anything or anyone being able to break a queen’s blood circle. I need to make sure the Triune hears about this.” Seeing the question in my eyes before I could ask, she continued. “The Triune is comprised of the ruling queens who help keep the goddesses' descendants safe in a world that doesn't know about us. I’ve been out of touch for a long time, though. I don’t know who’s on the Triune, or which of the old queens are still alive. Are you safe now? Or are those... What did you call them? Sunfires? Could they try to break through here?”
“They're still after me. I ran from the hospital in Chicago because they were there, and then they followed us to a hotel on the way here. Well, I thought they had. The soldiers were there, and Aurelian said they'd..." I hesitated, unwilling to repeat exactly what he’d threatened. I didn’t dare admit out loud that I was pregnant. I wasn’t sure. The human doctor could have been mistaken, and Aurelian might have been trying to trick me. Maybe I could trust her, but I'd be a fool to blindly follow along with anything she said just because she was Eivind's sister. He'd left me. I had no idea if she would help me or not. "He said they'd devour me."
"Yikes. And who is he?"
"He's a Soldier of Light. Well, he was. They’re Ra’s elite soldiers who guarded Heliopolis. Before his death, Aurelian was the commander of Sol Invictus, one of the most famous legions of the Roman army. They were dedicated to the sun, which is how Ra got his hooks in them."
"Wait, he's dead? So what are you worried about?"
"The Soldiers of Light are great warriors resurrected by Ra in Heliopolis as walking skeletons blazing with power. I did kill Aurelian and the others with him, I think, for good, but I was only able to stop them because their sunfires were gone. I guess we'll see if they can resurrect again. He said Ra was dead, but I don’t understand how that’s possible. No one can kill a god. But if he’s right, without Ra's power to sustain them, the soldiers will be crumbling to dust regardless of what I do. It's the sunfires I'm worried about. They're solar demons, blazing with all the intensity of the sun itself."
Her face tightened, her mouth a harsh slant."Eivind saw all this? And he still left you?"
I took a sip of the tea and let the warmth soothe me. I was getting used to the earthiness, though it made my stomach rumble.“It’s not his fight to worry about.”
Helayna shot to her feet so suddenly that I set the cup down too quickly, sloshing a bit of the liquid. "Goddess, forgive me, Karmen! What was I thinking?" She raced around the table and started rummaging through small doors, pulling out packages and containers. “When was the last time you had a meal?"
“A meal?” I repeated slowly.
“Yeah, like food? Human food? Didn’t you eat in Heliopolis? Or did you only feed?”
I blinked, not sure I understood the difference. “Uh… Neither?”
She turned slowly, her hands full, one with a silver-colored implement and the other with a long oblong beige object I couldn’t place. “Neither?” Her shoulders drooped and she nodded. “I guess I didn’t eat or feed in Hvergelmir, either. At least until my Blood were able to free me from Jörmungandr.”
I shrugged. “Captors and oppressors like to keep their victims weak. All I could worry about was survival.”
She turned away, busy making this meal, whatever that was. But all I could do was remember my mother’s last words to me.
“Do anything you must do to survive.”
3
Eivind
If I’d driven like the hounds of hell were on my tail before, I tripled that speed now, driving so hard and fast the Mustang’s engine shook like it was going to fall out. I had to get far, far away before she changed her mind. Even now, more than a hundred miles away from her, I could still feel her tugging on me.
I could close my eyes and drive straight back to her.
That pull was overwhelming and absolutely terrifying. That pull said my memories of what had happened to my father didn’t matter. Being a king in a queen’s world didn’t matter. Running free through a forest without a chain around my neck wouldn’t be so bad.
Fuck that shit.
But after what I’d seen… how could I leave her?
