Shan! Her mind cried out as she pushed herself up to her knees.
Shan met the River Holt assassin in a brief economy of movement. No effort, no challenge. There was something other than anger in his face. She could have sworn it was irritation more than rage, though rage was there as well. Blade clashed against blade and light flashed on the steel. Shan twisted away from him. Even now, hurt and exhausted, to watch him fight was like watching poetry, like watching a myth given form, watching the Dance. His sword slid over the top of Torvin’s extended blade, even as his body turned aside to avoid it, and bit deep.
The world stilled, the two men frozen in a tableau of death.
“You may have hoped for it, but I have not the time to waste on such as you.” Shan pulled back, withdrawing his blade and its support. Torvin Roh fell, his eyes as lifeless as the stones on which he fell.
Jeren threw herself at Shan, wrapping her arms around his neck and falling with him, even as her lips claimed his. They crashed to the rocky ground, the air knocked out of them both.
But he was here, he was real. Shan. Her Shan.
“I thought I’d lost you,” she told him breathlessly. “I thought you were gone…”
“Not yet.” He smiled, a genuine smile, one of those rare and most beautiful of miracles. “It takes a bit more. Not much, but a bit more.”
Her heart began to beat once more, the frozen shell around it shattering against the force of their love.
Then she remembered.
“Ariah!” she gasped, and struggled out of his arms.
Together they pulled Ariah from the water as the other Shistra-Phail arrived. She was breathing, but only shallowly, and the front of her gown was scarlet around the hilt of the Sect Knife. “Lay her down, Shan. I can help.”
But as he did so, Ariah coughed, blood spilling from the corner of her mouth. “Too late, little Shistra-Phail. Too late. Be at peace. He is yours. He is free and your mate. I saw this. Saw the blade…saw my end…so many years ago in this very place.”
“Then why did you come with me? Why bring the knife that would kill you?” Jeren shouted, outraged.
Ariah smiled weakly. “Sometimes what we see must come to pass. There’s nothing you can do, Jeren. Not even you. This is my end.”
Jeren ignored her. “Hold her shoulders,” she told Shan. “I need to pull out the knife before I can…”
Ariah began to cough and her body jerked beneath their hands. “Jeren,” she hissed, and the word coalesced into a light, a tiny ball of power hovering between them. “Find my heir…”
Jeren opened her mouth to reply but before she could form words, the light shot inside her. Hands seized her shoulders, pulling her forcibly away, and Fethan took her place. He pulled Ariah’s still form into his arms, shaking her, trying to rouse the dead.
“Ariah. Pass the essence to me! Ariah! I will choose wisely. I will choose a strong leader. Ariah!”
But Ariah could not answer.
Fethan relinquished her body to one of his brethren. He rose to his feet and advanced on Jeren, a looming figure in black.
“The spark, you will give it to me,” he commanded. She swallowed hard, but said nothing. “You will give it to me so I can choose a new Ariah for my people.”
“Like you chose our Sect Mother?” Shan asked evenly. “Is that the type of wisdom you want to apply to the selection of Ariah? Someone else you can manipulate, command? Someone else who will fail at a vital moment? Leave her be, Fethan. Ariah gave the choice to Jeren.”
“She’s not even one of us.”
“But she is. Ariah named her so. Shistra-Phail. So leave her be.”
“She’s a Holter!” Fethan yelled. He would have seized her and throttled the spark from her. Jeren could see the intent in him, but the Shistra-Phail surrounded them now, vastly outnumbering the Seers, most of whom were stricken, attending Ariah’s corpse.
Fethan backed away, seething with rage. Another enemy. Jeren sighed, wondering if this was some new skill that she had managed to pick up—the ability to attract adversaries wherever she went.
“She is Shistra-Phail,” Shan insisted. “And my mate. Pay heed. I’ve been through a place as dark as the demon realm and come back. I will not have her denied now.”
“Of course she is,” Indarin said. He limped towards them from the mouth of the canyon, leaning heavily on Lara. “And as the Shaman of the Sect I claim her as more than that. I claim her as my successor, to be trained, if she will undertake to do so, and eventually take my place. A Shaman is even rarer than a Seer, Fethan, so back away. If my brother’s patience is at an end, mine reached the limit when the woman I love became a carrier for the Fellna. It’s Jeren’s choice. Ariah willed it.”
Every eye turned to her once more. Jeren’s stomach trembled with the urge to fall to her knees and vomit, but she held firm. Nothing short of Shan’s death would induce her to show weakness now.
“Choose then,” Fethan snarled, “and damn us all.”
She stared at the faces before her, but only one face glowed. The face of a young woman who supported Indarin, her cheeks silvered with tears for her fallen leader, the woman she had worshipped. There was only one face Jeren could choose, the one filled with love and grief.
“Lara,” she whispered.
Light burst from within her, her own magic propelling it forward, sending it to her friend. It swept across the space between them and enveloped Lara in an incandescent glow. As abruptly as it had been born, it faded, dissolving into her, filling her.
Lara swayed on her feet and cried for joy and sorrow. The pain in her eyes bled away to love. She looked on Jeren and smiled, Shistra-Phail in waiting no longer. She was Ariah now.
The glow that had invaded Jeren’s perception dissipated in the air like morning mist with sunrise and with it went all her remaining strength. Strong arms swept around her, and this time…this time, they were the right arms. She wilted into Shan’s embrace and lifted her face so she could look at him.
He smiled down at her. A genuine smile—relieved, exhausted, beautiful. It sparkled in his grey eyes and lifted his entire solemn face.
All the hurt and tiredness, every aching muscle and stinging cut faded and she turned in to face him. He lifted her, cradling her in his arms, bent to kiss her and it was as if all the world was gone as well.
“Tera cara’mae,” he murmured against her lips.
“My husband,” she replied and returned the kiss.
A giggle interrupted them and Jeren’s face heated, but it was only Lara, her friend. “I think Shan and his mate need some time apart from the rest of us. They have unfinished business, I believe.” She grinned openly at Indarin, who rolled his eyes to the heavens. “We’ll depart in the morning. For now, we should refresh ourselves and rest.”
Shan’s lips pressed against the curve of Jeren’s neck and he chuckled, a deep sound of pleasure that rippled through her. “Some of us,” he said and her heartbeat sped up.
The song of mourning for their dead Ariah filled the air and Shan carried Jeren away from their lamentation, the grief mixed with a curious joy. Though Ariah was gone, she was come again in the form of Lara, whose quick wit and deep emotion made her beloved by all.
Jeren rested her head on Shan’s shoulder and her tears began to fall. She couldn’t help herself. They fell on his clothes, on his skin, on the collar Ylandra had tied around his throat. Jeren reached out, her fingers trembling, and his step faltered to a stop. With a growl in the base of her throat, she tore it from him and hurled it away.