Prince of Magic (27 page)

"That is why I need you to help me take control. We can discuss the ways in which I can rid myself of her when the time is right, but as long as I can use her to do what has to be done… shouldn't I use her?" There was a hint of the girl he had first met in that uncertain voice.

"How long have you realized she's with you?"

"Days," Ariana admitted.

Sian uttered a low curse. "And why do you wait until now to tell me?"

Ariana hesitated before answering. "This afternoon, right after the rain began to fall, I lost myself for a few moments. I was drowning, and Diella was swimming to the surface. It was very much like that day in your chamber, only briefer and more intense. It took everything in me to pull her down and swim to the surface myself. The episode only lasted a few moments, but it scared me."

"As it should," Sian said through clenched teeth.

"I need to keep Diella," Ariana insisted. "But I also need to control her. That means I need you, much as it pains me to admit. I need you to help me keep her under control, and if I can't, I need you to restrain me. Restrain her. And if you can't restrain her, then you must kill her."

Sian's reaction was physical as well as emotional. His fingers jerked, and the light he created flickered. Kill Ariana? He could not. Would not.

She saw his reaction. "If it comes to that, I'll already be gone. You know that, and I know that if you have to kill me, it will be painless and quick. Since I now realize that I will soon be going into the Land of the Dead… dying at your hand seems preferable to the other possibilities."

"You ask a lot of me."

"These days I am forced to ask a lot of everyone," she admitted sadly. "Why should you be any different?"

He did not answer. How could she expect that he would actually kill her? How could she ask him for this?

"Promise me," she whispered.

"And if I can't?"

"Then I will ask someone else," she said sharply.

He could not allow her to do that either. "All right," he finally said. "I promise."

She sighed in what seemed to be relief. "Thank you."

"Tomorrow morning we will begin work on harnessing what remains of Diella," Sian said, his crisp voice that of a teacher. She might not want to hear it, but he would also be teaching her how to separate the dark soul from her own so she could be rid of it.

"If that is best."

"What's best would be for me to take you to my home and imprison you there until this war is over."

"You read the prophesy," she said. "If you take me away to some safe place, you condemn the entire country. The entire world. Maybe we could turn our backs on everything and everyone and have a few wonderful days, ignoring what was happening all around us, but it wouldn't last, and in the end we would be as much to blame for the destruction as Ciro. I appreciate the thought, I even understand it, but I'm not worth that kind of sacrifice. No one is."

The logic of war from a woman. Why could she not be the helpless girl he had once thought her to be? If that were the case, he could steal her away from this madness. His heart sank. Like Ariana, he knew that wasn't possible. Her logic was sound.

"Will you at least allow me to dry and warm you?" he asked. "You have begun to shiver with the cold."

"All right," she said tiredly.

Sian extended his hands until they were almost touching Ariana. He generated heat and a gentle white light from his palms. He held that heat and light close to her damp uniform, her chilled skin, her wet hair. She closed her eyes and basked in the light. Eventually her breathing changed. It eased as she released not only the dampness but the tension from her body.

At his instruction, Ariana lay back on the hard bedroll that would serve as her bed on this night. As her eyes were closed and she was drifting toward sleep, he took the opportunity to study her closely.

Ariana Varden was warrior and woman. Lover and student. Witch and sister to forty-one sentinels who would die for her. He had watched her laugh and seen her cry. He had heard her scream in horror and in pleasure.

It would be very easy to convince himself that he was in love with this remarkable woman. She certainly meant more to him than he had ever intended. Could he kill her if called to do so? Could he take her life if Diella took control?

"Sian?" Ariana called sleepily.

"Yes, love?" He ran his warming palms close to her lower belly, where some of the fabric of her uniform remained damp.

"We're very close to the darkness we seek. Very close."

"I know."

"I can feel it with every step my horse takes. I don't know what awaits us, still I don't know, but it's close."

"Don't think about that tonight, love," he said as he continued his work. She was almost completely dry now.

"How can I not?"

"I will think about it for you while you rest for a while. I will stay right here, and any troubles you have, any worries or uncertainties, any thoughts of darkness, they are mine while you sleep."

She sighed deeply. "Oh, that's very nice."

When Ariana woke, her troubles would be waiting for her. But for tonight, they were his.

He did not have Ariana's gift for protection, but he could share his power with her in hopes that it would strengthen her own abilities when she needed them most. In the days to come she would need tremendous strength to control Diella, and she would need much energy in order to shield herself when it was necessary. Sian projected his strength into the sleeping woman with a pulse of purple light that shimmered around her and then was absorbed. He shared with her all that he had, all that he was.

What he gave Ariana was more than illusion, more than a magician's well-practiced tricks. What he gave her was a piece of himself.

How could she believe that he would ever take her life? Even if Diella took control, he would never accept that there was no hope of bringing Ariana back and expelling the evil empress. To purposely kill this woman who had become so important to him was impossible, and yet he did understand her request. If Diella had uncontrolled use of Ariana's body, how much damage could she do during this all-important battle?

He began to chant in a lowered voice that no one beyond the tent would be able to hear. In the ancient language of the wizards he called for Ariana to be protected, to be strong, to be victorious. The Prophesy of the Firstborn doomed her, but that did not mean the days ahead were set in stone. With enough power… with enough light and love…

Sian's fingers trembled and his hands jerked, as words from that damned prophesy came into his mind.

Those who are called must choose between love and death, between heart and intellect, between victory of the sword and victory of the soul.

Wasn't that precisely what Ariana asked of him when she requested that he take her life if Diella took control? If these scribbled words were correct, then all those who had been called would face such a choice.

Did that mean Sian had been called to this war much as the firstborn had been, that he was, as Ariana had said more than once, meant to be here?

He draped his body over hers, as he felt his energy begin to wane. The choker at his throat burned, as the connection he and Ariana had forged deepened. He was inside her in a way he had never been before, as his light and hers merged. She did grow stronger, he felt it.

So did he.

When they rode into what was left of the village, Sian was at Ariana's side. He looked like himself again, dressed entirely in black and no longer foolishly attempting to hide his face from her. Even though she remained annoyed with the enchanter, she was very glad to have him so close.

She couldn't afford to let the men who followed see how grateful she was to be able to draw from Sian's strength. They might think it a female weakness, and she could not allow the sentinels to see any weakness from her, female or otherwise. Since calling Sian to her side she'd felt considerably stronger, and Diella had remained silent. Perhaps the empress was afraid of the enchanter.

When she'd noted this small village indicated on the stone map in the palace, glowing red and turning black and becoming red again before disappearing, she'd had no idea what the sign meant. Now, too late, she understood.

A battle of sorts had taken place here, perhaps the first battle in this war, but she and her army had arrived much too late to be of assistance. She'd led her sentinels here before taking the road to the Anwyn mountains, but she hadn't been fast enough.

Everything had been burned. Public buildings along the main thoroughfare, as well as homes which were spread just beyond, had been destroyed. Nothing had been spared the flame, but that was not what disturbed Ariana most as she rode down the center of the deserted street. She did not have the gift of sight, like Aunt Juliet or Keelia, so she could not see what had happened here. But as an empath, she could feel it.

Stark terror filled the air. The energy she had learned to feel—and sometimes see—reverberated with violence and fear and nightmarish screams. Men, women, even children… the innocent had suffered in the most horrible ways. The fire that had come at the end had been almost a relief for those who'd survived that long.

Beside and underneath that fear, there lurked another sort of energy, one that made Ariana tremble to her core. There was fiendish delight here, mingled with the thrill of a particularly nasty kill. There was hunger. Hunger of the most demonic sort. And power. Dark, wicked power.

The destruction of this village had happened very quickly. She felt that in the way the emotions that surrounded her blended and changed with fast precision. In a matter of hours the villagers had gone from innocently unaware to horrified to mercifully dead.

"Ariana," Sian said, and she suspected from the impatient and concerned tone of his voice that it was not the first time he'd called her name.

"Yes?" She turned to him as they stopped before one of many buildings that had been burned to the ground. His expression might've been unreadable to the others, but not to her. He was worried. Not about what had happened here, and not about the battle still to come. Those were past and future, and Sian was very much in the present. He was worried about her. Only her.