Even though people immediately flooded the castle and began the reconstruction of everything, the Resurrection Cultivators didn't bother figuring out how to leave. It would probably involve transport magic anyway, and Aria needed a bit to process the magic Rodi now poured into the world as the king. Short transports—such as fetching Cara, Romalia, Aevan, and Megan—took less strain than an attempt to cross two galaxies.
It had gotten to be close to evening anyway, and all Defenders felt utterly exhausted. They had returned their Masks to their jewelry, and Raine had gone through healing everyone. Raine herself had sustained injuries as well, but Tasia used them as a learning experience to teach Ryan more about his Physical Healing. She personally took care of the few injuries on Rodi, but then watched in bemusement as he dashed off to get to work.
The Defenders shortly found themselves effectively collapsed in a heap on the floor of the throne room with no desire to move. "I want a bath," Rhya complained. "I haven't bathed in like a month now. I've reached my limit of majikal cleanliness. Let the princess be pampered with some hot soaking water, okay?!"
"My tender feet," Theo moaned. He heeled off his boots and thought he saw smoke coming from his socks. "I'm not walking anywhere again for a month! Rhya can float me and tow me like a balloon, thank you much."
A shadow fell over their faces, and all looked up to see an older woman wearing an apron. The color of her clothes and the style implied she belonged to the castle staff. "We have been busy cleaning rooms," she told them warmly. "There are rooms for all of you as well as hot baths waiting. We know our clothes are perhaps different from your own, but they are clean and comfortable. We got to work on that first for we knew you would need it!"
"You had me at clean clothes," Ryan said.
"She had me at bath!" Storm got to his feet. "We'd be glad to take you up on it. I mean, we'd sleep on the throne room floor if needed, but a bed is a luxury we've all missed!" He and the other Defenders happily followed the woman down the hall beyond the throne room toward the stairs.
Tasia started to follow as well but was stopped when another woman touched her arm. "Yes?" she asked.
"My queen," the maid said softly, "at the king's request, we have prepared one of the royal suites for you."
A smile touched Tasia's lips. "He's enjoying being in charge too much. Sure, lead the way." Hands linked behind her back, she followed the maid through the castle to the suite. The instant she stepped on the threshold, the sense of déjà vu was dizzying. She stopped in her tracks and put a hand on the door. "This room . . ."
The maid hesitated. "Yes, Your Majesty. It belonged to your ancestor. Is that alright? We can pick another."
"No, it's okay. I don't mind." She smiled. "You have a lot to do. I'm fine from here." She watched the maid hurry off and then continued alone into the room. The echoes she felt were only nostalgic in nature. There was no sense of homecoming. "You never belonged here," she murmured to herself.
She looked around the sitting room and then stepped into the bedroom. Everything felt soft and welcoming, and she was instantly at ease. Someone had taken great pains to make sure the room felt peaceful, up to and including some incense, and for that she was grateful. She was equally grateful to step into the large bathing room and find a tub full of steaming hot water. Her entire body, healed though it was, still ached everywhere.
She indulged in a long soak—it had been too damn long for her as well since she had gotten to have a bath—and she scrubbed her hair clean. The chocolate locks had grown almost two inches over the last few weeks. No surprise with what she had done to her soul; it just made her surer than ever that her power somehow strangely affected her hair. At least she liked long hair.
She felt far more normal once she finally got out of the tub. She dried off with majik and noted the night sky out the window. Forget regular clothes. She turned her attention instead to the beautiful gray silk nightgown that had been laid out. She studied it for long moments and then put it on and studied her reflection. It so perfectly suited her and flattered her body that she knew it had been made just for her. Majikally made, in fact. The mark of conjuration and the power signature both seemed clear. Far be it for her to turn down such a lovely gift from her king.
She tugged on the matching robe and slippers and then happily ate the dinner that had appeared for her on a small table while she had been bathing. It felt good to not worry for once. To have the chance to be alone and detox as she had so badly needed. To not be afraid for her friends or stumble blindly in this unknown world.
Sleep, of course, could not come easily even now. She absently scribbled on paper until the hours passed and she felt more certain everyone had gone to bed and the castle shut down for the night. She then snuck out of her room and made her way to the portrait hall where she knew she could find paintings of the family. She lit a wall sconce once inside and went to study the portraits. It only took a moment to find the one she wanted.
There was a surprisingly strong family resemblance for being so distantly related at that point, but there was also no way they could be mistaken for the same person. Liena had softer features more gently rounded, and her hair and eyes looked pale brown. There was a little blue and white dragon with horns sitting on her lap that seemed vaguely familiar to Tasia, but she shook it off and moved on to look at the next portrait.
She had to smile as she saw that near perfect features ran strongly in the family. Kadon Aria was extremely attractive, yet his fair-hair and blue eyes made him look like her husband's negative image. She continued down the line until she found the next one she wanted. Again, strong resemblance to Kadon and Rodi, but Francis Aria had ashy shaded hair and green eyes. He was the one like Jean who had been given a soul mate solely designed to ensure his final descendant would and could overcome historical obstacles.
"I suppose pride was always our problem," she said softly, "and blindness was always yours. But . . . I'm not Liena. I'm not Jean either. Their footsteps gave me the path that led me here, but it was my choice to walk the road. The decision I made was for me and me alone. Their feelings helped tell me what I needed to know. Nothing more. Nothing less. I corrected the mistake of my ancestor, but I did it for me because I won't settle for what she did. I've done my share. The ball is in his court now."
She blew out the sconce and then slipped out of the room. She made her way back to her suite, careful to make no sound in case someone else happened to be awake. They deserved their sleep as much as she did, and she didn't want them to worry about her. She would either get scolded or fed hot tea; depended on who did the catching.
Even before she shut the door behind her, she knew she was no longer alone in her room. She waved a hand and the candles along the walls lit obediently. Their soft light revealed Rodi as he stood in front of the closed curtains. He still wore his Ruler suit, but he had removed the long jacket and placed it on the table, leaving him in just a vest and shirt. He had also removed his boots. The crown of black poppies and labradorite that was his by rights as king sat atop his dark hair. "Good evening," she told him calmly.
He walked a few steps closer and leaned against the footboard of the bed. "Good evening. Were you looking at the portraits?"
"Yes, I was. I had something to tell them." She glanced around the room for Striker but discovered he was nowhere in sight though he had been there before she left. No surprise. He was a smart dragon. "Why are you here?" She sat down on the edge of the bed. "I honestly expected you to stay as far away from me as you could. I leave tomorrow."
"I thought about it," he admitted as he watched her. Wanted her. Loved her. "But I don't want regrets." He released the bedpost and moved around to kneel in front of her. He held her hands warmly within his. "Though we two hear the echoes of our ancestors, though we are here because they weren't, I kneel before you now because of us. Because a little girl with beautiful brown eyes took my hand on the Ephemeral Plane and showed me what real majik can be. Because a woman looked me in the eye and dared me to be more. Because a Mystic Sorceress bared her soul in her song and told me I was the only one who could comfort her." He lifted a hand and tenderly cupped her cheek. Her shimmering eyes flickered between chocolate and caramel as the candles danced their shadows over her face. "Because Destiny honored me by making me the Caretaker to such a powerful Lead Cultivator, and by making her be mine."
He took a long breath. "I can't leave tomorrow, Anastasia. We both know it. But if you swear to wait for me, I swear I will find you. I will take the time needed to Deactivate my Seed and Activate my sister as Ruler Cultivator in my place. That's why. That's why I am the last True Born. The direct lineage will break. The child we bear will be of Iris, though no doubt beloved to Aria." He reached out to brush a finger over the black poppy on her Defender Mark. "His mother is very beloved."
She took a breath of her own. "Are you sure?"
"I have never been more sure. I will be your Caretaker with honor." His lips curved. "And you will worry less about me in that role if I am not a Ruler. I should serve nicely for a Lead such as yourself." He teasingly nibbled at the tips of her fingers. "I will lose my magic as a Ruler, but all of my majik will remain my own. Aria promised me that, for she knows I need it for you." He rose to his feet and leaned over her so that she fell back onto the bed. "You said we were lovers without consummating the relationship, and we are spiritually and majikally married. I want everything, Tasia."
"You didn't marry me on purpose, Rodi," she reminded him gently. "It was arranged and accidental. I never got asked to wear this clip," she added as she touched the clip she still wore. The Arian Draconis was also around her neck where it belonged. "I know you carry the matching clip, but I have never brought it up before because that was for you to decide. Sometimes the decisions we make are far more important the destiny laid before us."
He tugged her up to a sitting position and then sat beside her. He reached out to remove the clip where it fastened over her purple ombre streak and then deliberately refastened it over her yellow streak, the one representing her Defender side. As he pulled his hand back, he turned it over to reveal another identical clip on his palm. Even this one, too, had had some of the labradorites turn to amethyst. "These," he said softly, "have been in the family for over ten thousand years, to rest in the hands of a True Born. If Kadon hadn't been a blind fool, and Liena a prideful one, they would have worn these clips, and things would have been happy for them. But if they had done those things, then you and I would not be sitting here. Even though wearing these clips will close the past, it has nothing to do with them in the end. It's only about us."
"I know." She took the clip from him and slid it into his hair to fasten it securely. She then removed his crown and put it aside so she could slide her fingers through his hair to tease out the hidden magenta. She softly brushed her lips against his. "I want everything," she told him. "Since we are still for now each other's Caretaker, I feel it only appropriate we seduce each other." Her lips curved. "We might be the first pair in history to make it to the wedding night without being lovers first, but I can handle the teasing if you can."
He drew her closer and then slowly lowered her to the bed again. The shadows inside his soul swept out to caress her skin and make her eyes change color, and her own shadows swirled in turn. "So then," he murmured huskily, "this would be two beings of power mating. I wonder what I might get from my sorceress lover. Do you suppose I have room for more to learn?"
"Oh there's far more potential inside you than you know. You hover at the cusp of wizard already." She started unfastening his vest. "And you can't give me anything I don't already have, but I am sure I can always find room for improvement. You know me. I love pushing myself and my limits."
"You have no limits." He shrugged out of the vest and tossed it aside. "You know, I could magic away this thing."
"Mm." She worked on his shirt, and sighed contently at the beautiful skin and hard muscle she uncovered as she went. "I could majik us naked entirely, but, well, this is so much more fun. And you made me such a lovely nightgown, you know? I thought you surely wanted to peel it off me personally."
"That may have been on my mind. A bit." He dropped the shirt over the side of the bed and then slowly worked the hem of the gown upward. "Perhaps more than a bit."
"Slightly more than a bit. Mated telepaths don't have secrets."
His hand curved hotly around her hip, and surprise and delight filled his eyes at realizing she wore nothing under the gown. "What I am I thinking right now?"
She smiled, and the curve of her lips looked deliberately sultry. "Things possibly physically impossible, but I'm interested in trying." Her laugh came out on a burst of air as he grabbed her up for a wild kiss made sparks fly wildly between their bodies. She caught his face in her hands and kissed him just as greedily, and her majik frothed to her mouth and into his. His majik welled in turn into her until they could not separate the two.
Something shifted suddenly. Time seemed to slow down around them. The sparks floated rather than fly. Shadowy magic tenderly swirled through the air. "To build memories," he whispered. "I can make the night last as long as we need."
Desire did not ease, could never do that, but it gentled. The urgency dimmed. Memories. To hold as long as needed. He released her from the kiss and rose to his feet to continue undressing. She rose as well to help, and her fingers lingered over every inch of skin. She found scars as she went—the last year had been hard on him with no one to protect and care for him—so she healed them as she went. "You never told me," she whispered. She traced his Mark and watched his body quiver with emotion and hunger alike. "An entire year you were alone. Why didn't you ever tell me? Something so important . . ."
"You were my secret. My most precious friend." He combed his fingers through her unbound hair and tugged on a handful of the chocolate locks. "I wanted nothing to mar that time with us. Each time I saw you, I could be stronger. Storm said I saved your sanity. You saved mine, my sorceress."
"I will forever save you." She caught his hand and brought it to cover her Defender Flower Mark. The gesture could have two meanings, and here both applied. From a Defender to a Ruler, it was a gesture of respect and promise to protect. From a Defender to a Caretaker, it was an intimate gesture asking for love and support.
He could feel the hot blast of her magic pouring into his soul in an erotic wave, and his hand tightened on her arm. He tugged her up for a kiss that lingered until she melted against him. "I will be too weak for a while to walk the Plane after Deactivation." He kissed her again. "If the bond of our flesh is enough, then perhaps you will still be able to sleep without me."
"I don't think I ever will be able to sleep without you. And . . . I don't mind so much. Isn't that what a Caretaker does? Protect their Defender's heart and soul." She lifted her arms to help as he stripped the nightgown up her body. A little laugh caught in her chest as she watched him stare at her. "You look . . . intimidated."
"Well, how else should a person look when there's a naked sorceress at hand?" he managed. He had realistically expected perfection, and yet he had not been prepared for the sheer force of such a thing. Powerful muscle that made him feel safe, and wonderfully soft curves he ached to hold and caress. "I think it entirely unfair that Beth has decided to design you a two-piece bathing suit. Mortals will be blinded at ten paces."
"Lucky for me my husband is neither mortal nor capable of being blind anymore." She held on as he lifted her in his arms and then placed her tenderly, so very tenderly, in the middle of the bed. He joined her there, and his weight felt as perfect as ever. She never wanted the night to end.
Hands and lips lingered, learned, and memorized. Sparks that flew where Light and Dark inside their Gray connected seemed to billow powerful emotion into the air. No secrets remained between them as their bodies finally merged as deeply as their souls, and though desire demanded appeasing, it paled to the demand of their souls. In that final moment of ecstasy, they could feel some new cementing. Threads stitching their majik together.
Tasia lay curled into Rodi's arms in the peace after, and she felt sleepiness down to her bones in a way she had not felt in her life. His hand tenderly moved over her Defender Mark with unconscious love, softly lulling her further toward rest. There could be nothing more intimate than to touch a Flower Mark. To touch a Defender's Mark in particular was to show respect for their role. Her own hand rested over the Flower Mark on his chest. Even after Deactivation, the outline would remain for he would always have his Seed. The whimsical image of their Seeds growing together as one plant made her lips curve.
"Sleep," he murmured huskily. "I can wake you later to love you again."
"Promise?" She snuggled closer and breathed in the soft fragrance of the black poppy clinging to his skin, and she at last slipped asleep with no further trouble. And though he kept his promise, waking her more than once through the night he lengthened for them, she always fell back asleep without trouble. He slept as well, safe in knowing her arms would be holding him when he woke again. They had already waited ten thousand years to be together; they could make the memories last for just a little while longer.
(Protea Castle, Protea)
The first clue that anyone had as to the change in events came when all Elder Cultivators—all of them—felt the unexpected presence of new power. That feeling they should have had twenty years before as the new generation Activated and resonated loud enough to be found. Instead, they felt it mid-morning more than a month after the Resurrection Cultivators had been kidnapped.
Claret noticed it first as a ripple across the Hall of Records, and she straightened up so swiftly from pulling books out of the library of the castle that she knocked into her husband and made the books he held go flying. "Claret?" Sabin asked warily.
She dashed for the door and into the hall only to collide with Arista coming the other direction. They landed in a heap on the floor. Shanae came running up with Delilah and Kacey and said in exasperation, "Get off my rug!" The rest of the Commanders, Allister, and her own husband had come up, all wearing expressions as if they feared for the women's mental health, and Shanae told them urgently, "We felt the kids! They're back on Protea! And Sayena should—" She broke off as Sayena appeared from a hasty transport and accidentally landed on Claret and Arista. "Yup. Right on time."
The rest of the Light Defenders arrived with Evan and his set of Commanders, though luckily in the foyer downstairs and not in the already crowded hall. Ever unruffled, Chance walked in the grand entry doors and said, "I was just informed we have guests who arrived on one of the palace-resident-only Pads in the gardens." He hastily jumped back and held the doors as a near stampede broke out, and then he sighed and followed them. He really should have been used to it after so long, but they still surprised him.
Almost as soon as they entered the gardens, they heard the sound of voices cheerfully talking over and around each other in the way only true friends could. They came around the corner of a large hedge, and all walked in near perfect synchronization. All wore their Ruler outfits, and the sight of Theo, Ryan, and Storm in their Ruler suits of Aster, Orchid, and Gladiolus seemed to be a promise of the future.
It appeared at first as if that had been the only change, that Activation, and then Beth made a vague gesture at Emily while talking and a pot appeared over her friend's head. Without looking away from her conversation with LeAnn, Tasia reached out and grabbed the pot. She handed it to Ryan who blinked and tucked it under one of his arms before continuing his conversation with Raine.
Shanae could see the changes internally and externally. The majik inside all of them, not just Tasia, permeated the air around them. Tasia herself seemed to burn. The Elders all exchanged looks, but they felt no concern or surprise. In a way . . . it felt a relief, somehow, to finally understand what had made Reagan, LeAnn, and Racine so very different.
The younger team stopped before the elder and said nothing. Shanae stepped forward, and so did Tasia, and their eyes met. Sympathetic pain rippled through Shanae as she saw inside Tasia's eyes what she so often saw in her own. The eyes could be the window to the soul, and she could see the scars across Tasia's soul inside her caramel eyes.
Tasia reached out a hand, and their fingers clasped as sparks flew. Softly, with a little echo of almost déjà vu, she said, "You're not alone in this, Shanae."
Shanae had heard those words twice before, each from another High Priestess at another critical junction in her life. This time . . . she truly believed it. Comfort effused her. She was no longer alone. Someone, truly, finally, understood her down to her core—literally. She would have asked no one to take on the burden that had been given to her priestess, but she also would have chosen no one else. "Thank you."
Tasia smiled. "You're welcome."
She smiled in return and then turned to include the others in her smile. "Welcome home, everyone. It's been quiet around here without you. I hope you'll change that."
"Give Emily a chance and it will never be quiet," Diego spoke up dryly.
Emily stuck her tongue out at him. "Someone wanted a kid like his wife, so he had better shut up and accept that he got what he deserved."
Shanae started laughing. "Oh, gods, Arista, she really is too much like you!"
Arista scowled and bonked Shanae lightly on top of the head, and it made the Resurrection Cultivators start laughing. It really was a Protea-Hyacinth thing after all!
©Stacy J. Garrett. Do not reprint or redistribute without permission.
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