Balance Of The Worlds (18 page)

When she next opened her eyes she was in a bed in the midst of what had to be the great healer’s city. It was rumored to be guarded by an ancient Laquazzeana.

She suspected it was Dekimos, from what Kennera had told her of her found brother. Though he preferred to spend his time wandering the city and healing when he felt like it.

Everyone gave him the space he apparently needed.

Dekimos had died the day the Dark Sorcerer had invaded Evalanedea, but his healing gifts had been so strong that the blood that had seeped into the ground had been powerful enough to recreate his body and soul.

No one knew the true details of what had happened to him, or his brother Estacles.

There was a healer sitting beside her bed. She had died, hadn’t she?

But…she wasn’t dead, was she?

“Welcome back.” A voice said to her left. She turned. The healer Bronwen sat there, a pencil and paper on her lap. How could she be drawing, when she was blind? Nelciana didn’t know.

There was a weight on her legs, and for a moment she feared something had happened to them. She looked toward the foot of the bed, and her heart sped up. Relief hit her. She had been so worried for him.

She’d felt his soul next to hers while she’d rested.

Lothonos lay sleeping at the foot of the large bed. His dark hair was filthy and stuck up on his head. So unlike him. Immediate tenderness filled her.

All the panic she’d been feeling since waking dissipated.

He at least looked real. And she could feel him, couldn’t she? “Bronwen, is it finished?”

The other woman shook her head. When she spoke it was in a whisper. “No. I am afraid it is just beginning.”

“It wasn’t an illusion, was it? Was he real?”

“Yes. We couldn’t stop him.”

“Loren? The others?”

“Some are a bit banged up. We lost many to this monster. You healed a great deal, did you know that? And comforted so many who could not be saved. And what you did on the cliffs…everyone is talking about your bravery.”

Tears ran down the Laquazzeana’s pale cheeks, and Nelciana felt her grief as if it were her own. So many souls, consumed again. “I didn’t feel it. He wanted my children and my sister. Lotho. He would have fed on them and Kennera and all I loved. Just because he could.”

She closed her eyes as anger filled her. Pain and rage for those lost to that creature’s demands and senseless quest for power.

What did this bastard want to accomplish by taking over the different worlds this way?

None of it made sense to her.

She forced herself to sit up and she pulled her legs free of the male sleeping upon them. She looked at the blind woman. “It is not enough. Where are Eaudne and Phaenna and Aureliana?”

She thought she saw a flicker of satisfaction run across Bronwen’s face. But she might have been mistaken. “They wait, in Thrun. We can get you there quickly, if you wish it.”

“My babes?”

“They are well guarded with Nalik and Cass. They wait, too.”

“What is it that they wait for?” Lothonos asked from the foot of the bed. Nelciana hadn’t noticed he’d wakened. “Nelciana? Because we have spent four days discussing the likelihood that he had taken her soul forever.”

It was coming back to her the longer she was awake. They had fought…she had fought with the Dark Sorcerer when he’d risen. And he had been the one to deliver the killing blow, though it had been
her
fire that hurt him. She had known it when she had fallen.

She was to die at that moment—the Fates had decreed it. And she had.

But it hadn’t been
meant
that she come back.

She had made her choice, though. And there had to be a reason for it.

And that meant finding the Laquazzeana and figuring out what her role would next be. “Lothonos, help me up.” Figuring out if
she
was one of them now. She suspected she was.

No. She
knew
she was.

“No.” He had that implacable look again. The one that said she would never change his mind. “You nearly died.”

“I did die. My soul left my body and went to another…place. I cannot, and will not, deny that. I was gone, Lotho. But I am back now. For a reason. To stop him, to help repair the bonds of families and worlds everywhere. To do other than that is unimaginable.”

“No.”

“Lotho, I’m not asking your permission.” To prove it she threw back the thin blanket and forced her legs to cooperate. She felt like jelly, all over. Weak, but definitely certain of what she was to do.

He shifted, and for a moment she wondered if he was going to lay on her to keep her in place.

But she could see that it was concern rather than stubbornness that made him so intractable. He truly did care for her, didn’t he? As she cared for him. “Please.”

His hands went around her and he lifted her to her feet. “There is an army waiting for you just outside this city, if you are so determined, then.”

“How many of my people are left?”

“Forty-seven thousand.”

“What?” Her total numbers had hovered around the fifteen thousand mark. What was he saying?

“When your soul entered
this
world, it called out to all of your family bloodline. And
they
answered.” He led her to the window. “From every world out there—including your Evalanedea. They wait for you. As soon as you are ready.”

He didn’t like it, but she rested for only two days. During that time their babes had been returned from where they waited with the Laquazzeana Black and his female. Lothonos refused to leave her side.

If he had his way he never would again.

At least for a very long time to come.

The forty-eight hours came to an abrupt end when he found her out of her bed and dressing.

“What are you doing?”

She still looked so damned frail.

“I am going down to meet with the Evelanedeans. Jordan said…there are many that I
used
to know. I need to speak with them. Let them know that I hadn’t abandoned them five thousand years ago.”

“Of course you didn’t. If you’d stayed, he would have killed you then. And you wouldn’t be here today to help stop him. You wouldn’t be with
me.
”

“No, I wouldn’t.” She paused and looked at him. “Lotho…I…When I was
gone
I thought of you. Not just the children.”

“I know. You spoke my name several times in your sleep. I was hoping you were having good thoughts.”

She smiled. “I was. And I know…I know you care.”

“I have for over a century. From the moment I looked up and realized that you were
there.
And female. And beautiful. And that everything about you fit
me
specifically. I have never trusted in the Fates the way many did.” For those who knew Phaenna the Fates had gone from being revered to being objects of great disgust. But that mattered little to him.

Lothonos watched as she ran her fingers over the old wood staff that had been delivered to her bedside from the army below. Her sister Loren had delivered it. It seethed with power; he could sense it from where it stood.

It had been her mother’s.

He’d heard the legends from the Nellanas who had followed her to the Gaian world, and from those who had arrived before she had and melded with his own Kind.

Nevva Nellana had been one of the most powerful Evelanedean witches to ever exist. She had married a male with Evelanedean Druidic ancestry. After her marriage, her power had grown.

And then she had given birth to twelve daughters.

Some of the rarer legends stated that some of her power had been gifted to each daughter when they’d taken their first breaths. The power had grown as the babes had.

And that power had gone to feed the Dark Sorcerer when he’d taken their last breaths.

Except for Nelciana and Loren’s. They still possessed theirs, didn’t they? What did that mean for them?

The Dark Sorcerer was out there. He hadn’t been killed.

Logically Lothonos didn’t see it making much sense for the sorcerer to come after the Nellana witches daughters, but what if that was the sorcerer’s plans?

Come for them, take their powers?

With their mother dead, that power Nevva wielded may have shifted somewhere—and it was very much a possibility that it had ended up in the last living ties to the Nellana line.

Nelciana, her Laquazzeana sister…and the babes he had fathered.

His unease doubled.

As soon as he finished with Nelciana, he would be requesting Eiophon’s top wolves to protect the babes. This war would not touch them.

Of that he would be certain.

Nelciana’s hair hung down her back freely. She looked so bedraggled, though she was clean and dressed in simple Dardaptoan garb. So small and feminine and defenseless.

They hadn’t spoken of the
change
she had undergone. He knew she was Laquazzeana now. But what it meant, he had no idea.

The idea of her anywhere near what he suspected was about to come their way bothered him just as much as the idea of it anywhere near their babes. Perhaps it would be best for him to subdue her and carry her back to Levia where she belonged? He could doubly fortify his home, surround it with Druids and Lupoiux wolves. Protect her as best he was able? She would not like it, but why should that factor into his decision at all?

He discounted that idea. He would not take her choice, her will, from her again.

Looking at her, with her dark hair flowing everywhere, her blue eyes—often described as purple by her people—wide and filled with power, and her cheeks flushed from her recovery, he wondered why it had taken so long to realize that he didn’t just care for her, he
loved
her.

She wasn’t just the timid, slightly foolish goddess he had first thought her. When she and Kennera had first arrived in Gaia they had been so foreign to his experience, he had put distance between them. Had written them off with little thought.

Then Kennera’s future had appeared to him, tied so closely with his cousin’s.

He’d used Nelciana, hadn’t he? He’d played on her desire for babes, and he’d used it to get what he wanted. Without real thought of her.

She was touching the staff with a reverent hand; he wanted those hands on him. Wanted her focus on
him.

She looked up at him, power swimming in her eyes. Was she even seeing him? Or something else, something so far in the past? He stepped closer.

He wanted to touch her. To feel the power that such a small feminine body could contain. Was it the Nellana power that was so seductive—or the beautiful woman who housed it? He’d touched that body before, knew—and remembered—every intimate curve she possessed.

She’d changed very little after the delivery of their babes, save for her breasts. They were plumper, though he suspected she’d bound them for today’s activities. His fingers curled with the sudden urge to remove those bindings and cup her flesh again. His body tightened.

She carried her mother’s sword at her side. Her mother’s staff rested in her palm. Powerful weapons. The irony that what some were calling the Laquazzeana of
family
would be forever associated with a burning sword hit him. And the staff? What did it mean?

She must have read his mind. “The sword was ceremonial. But mother’s power as
queen
of Evalanedea was contained in the staff. And now it is
mine.
To rule with wisely. The moment I am able.”

Resolve hit him. If that was her path, then it was his to be at her side. Assisting her, protecting her. Loving her. He raised his sword. “It is a beautiful piece, but can you use it to defend?”

He could see her eyes as they refocused on him. “I can.”

“Then prove it.”

Just as he would prove his love for her every moment of time they had together.

The woman was tall and dark of hair. Her face was neither beautiful nor ugly. Her clothes were actually human in design. But she carried herself with confidence.
She had met them at the front of the Evelanedean army of witches the moment Nelciana entered what functioned as the healer’s hall’s courtyard.

It would
always
be courtyards where their followers could see the Laquazzeana, wouldn’t it?

“We’ve waited for you, my lady.” She went to one knee in front of Nelciana, her own sword stuck in the ground in front of her. As she did so, the rest of the people behind her did the same. The women. There were close to sixty thousand people behind her, and Nelciana thought most were women.

And the strength of the powers they possessed rendered her speechless. Nellana Witches and her Druids everywhere she looked.

And they bowed before her and the sister that stood at her left. It wasn’t like it was with Cass, one of their reborned sisters; the soul the young once-human possessed was an old one, but she and Loren,
they
were Nellana first souls.

And Nellanas had always been the called into battle. Someone took Nelciana’s hand and she looked over. Loren was there, both young and old. How did she do it, knowing all those times she had died and been worth nothing? How many lives had her sister been so cursed? Eighty? More? And each time she grew from a child to a woman, the knowledge of all the other lives, loved ones lost repeating in her heart?

Yet Nelanora—
Loren
—still stood proud and strong beside her. The Laquazzeana power radiated from within her sister. “We are meant to do this. Two Nellana Laquazzeana protecting Evalanedea once again. I’m not sure the specifics, but everything was leading to this, wasn’t it?”

“I think it was.” She wrapped her fingers around her sister’s. Her baby sister, whole beside her once more. Nelciana wanted nothing more than to take Loren and hide her, keep her safe from all that would harm her.

Just like Dres and Nella. Thoughts of her children had her shoulders straightening, and had her turning back to the woman who led the army of thousands. “Stand, Devorha of Evalanedea, you do not need to ever kneel before me. Those days are long gone. Now we stand as equals.”

“My lady? You are Nellanas, and Laquazzeana. Our people will show respect.”

“And yet is it not more respectful to stand before your queen when she asked? To know that she looks upon you with great favor?” Nelciana stepped toward the woman. She had once been Nelciana’s closest friend next to Kennara when they had been children. She had been but a village girl who had played with the daughters of the elder goddesses at the behest of Eaudne; they had always been aware of the separation between them. By the time they had reached adulthood they had been pulled away from one another by duty. By social class and archaic notions of loyalty and family, friendship.

No more.

Nelciana would not see the ones she had loved lost again all these years later. “Stand, Devvie. And know that I have missed you every day. I thought you lost with all of the others. Know that you have been loved and missed by me.” She pulled the woman to her feet and wrapped her arms around her. Devorha stiffened, but she did not pull away. Finally after a long moment, her own arms went around Nelciana and she returned the embrace.

A roar went through the crowd. Finally Nelci stepped back.

“I have brought with me an army, my lady. For
you
to lead as you wish. And you have my blade, my heart, my loyalty, and my life should they be called.”

“Thank you.” She looked at all the faces behind Devorha. “Where did you all come from? Many of you I am ashamed to say that I do not know. You have not been in Gaia this whole time?”

“We never left Evalanedea until four days ago to gather here.”

“I thought the Dark Sorcerer wiped the village of everyone.”

“Only those that shared Nellana or Dardaptoan blood. The rest of the village headed for the mountains. We regrouped there. There were not many of us, less than three hundred. We became nomadic to escape the sorcerer’s mercenaries.  As time passed we joined with other bands, until our numbers grew to large enough to garner his notice again. That is when those who of us who were able and powerful enough took up the sword. We have trained to fight him for over four thousand years. We will fight as long as the Nellana need us to.”

“Even though there will be lives lost? Are you sure this is the choice that all are making? I will ask no one to die. Not now.” Not after so many people have been lost. She was not like Kennera; her friend remembered the names of every one of the Dardaptoans who had been lost over the centuries.

Nelciana remembered their hopes and dreams. Their fears.

She would not be able to stomach an army of fifty thousand more souls dead upon her command.

“My lady,
none
here are here by force. We understand the risk we are taking. Evalanedea is
our
home. We fight to defend her, to restore her to what she should be. Peaceful. Beautiful. Welcoming. Not overcome with the evil that has flooded it these last centuries. We fight for our land, and our families. And we fight for you and your sister and your mother. And your daughter and son.”

Nelciana closed her eyes as the emotion filled her. She was not so deserving of their loyalty. She had abandoned Evalanedea and her mother’s people there for thousands of years.

And they had been waiting for her to lead them?

Why?

She opened her eyes and met those of her only living sister.

It was so clear to her then.
They
were it. They were the only Nellanas left.

Loren smiled. “Destiny decides for all of us, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does.”

Nelciana looked back at Devorha. “Thank you. Your numbers will be needed.”

“There are more, my lady.”

“Pardon?”

“My sisters. They bring more from the far corners of Evalanedea. Ten thousand each, who have been ready for the call. These are seasoned, experienced Nellana Witches. And they gather for you.”

“All of your sisters?” Devorha had been the second of seven, hadn’t she?

Like Nelciana had been the second of twelve. Nelanora had been the second to the youngest. All of the others were now gone.

How fortunate Devorha had been. “All six?”

“No, my lady. My parents were able to get all of the younger out of the village. Zelpha, Divya and I joined them when we were able. But Scyamiana fell.”

“The Fates have blessed your family, then. For her soul has been reborn, as a Lupoiux wolf who guards my children. She is still a friend. And very young. Your parents? ”

A sadness entered Devorha’s blue eyes. “They were lost a hundred years ago to one of the Dark Sorcerer’s plagues. Many of our elder folk were.”

“How many of my mother’s and father’s peoples still live?”

She had assumed them all gone. Weren’t the witches of her line some of the first and easiest targets of the Dark Sorcerer?

“More than five thousand made it to the Islands of our ancestors. But they are not warriors. Another three thousand made it to the eastern lands. Zelpha guides them now. We scattered, my lady. I suspect the Dark Sorcerer has left the Witches alone to feed upon us when he needs strengthened. Now we are finally growing. The Druidics, as well, though the Druidics keep to themselves, still. ”

They always had. Her father had been a Druidic scholar before he met her mother. He had agreed to join her clan because she was fated to be the next Nellana ruler. They had been so happy together and so in love. “They always have.”

“I have sent emissaries to each Druidic clan that I knew of. I’ve bid them send their best. I do not know if they will answer the call. You are Nellana Witch, after all.”

“But I am more like our father,” Loren said. “I am Druid and I am Witch and I am Laquazzeana. If called upon, I will lead our father’s people, Nelci. You can lead our mother’s. Together we will face this damned sorcerer. Wipe the dirt with him.”

“I wish it would be that simple.”