Shadow War - Deborah Chester [140]
The heat cast by his emeralds intensified to an almost unbearable degree beneath his breastplate. Tempted to draw them forth and join their power to that of Elandra’s jewel, Caelan tugged at the cord around his throat; then the corner of his eye caught movement to one side.
He plunged deep into severance, and pivoted sideways quicker than thought.
The thrown dagger came hurtling through the air, plunging through the spot where he’d been standing only a split second before. It thunked into the wooden panels of the door and quivered there.
“What—” Elandra cried.
In her startlement, she let her hands drop. The circle of light dipped low, and in that instant one of the shadows leaped at her.
She fell back, screaming.
Caelan’s arm went around her, and he dragged her close even as she kicked and screamed against the onslaught of the shadow. The thing seemed wrapped around her throat. Caelan could hear her choking.
He shifted to sevaisin and found nothing to join with. The shadow had no substance, no existence of its own. Caelan caught only a faint effusion of someone else ... a man familiar, yet no one he could recognize. It was like looking at a reflection in a pool of water, hazy and indistinct. In frustration, Caelan sought to join with the source of the shadow.
And found himself suddenly sucked into a tide pool of surging emotions, hatreds, vile passions, and perversions. Overwhelmed by the fury of them, Caelan temporarily lost himself. He was being sucked in ... he was becoming ... he was one with ...
“No!” he shouted, and severed.
The shadow screamed in his mind, a mortal cry that went through him like a knife plunge. Freed of that which had controlled it and had tried to control him, Caelan came to himself with an abrupt jolt.
He found himself on his knees at the top of the temple steps. The moonlight bathed him in silvery radiance and coated his sword where he had dropped it. The empress lay on the stones, unconscious or dead, he did not know.
Chapter Twenty
Frantically Caelan pressed his fingers against Elandra's throat and found a pulse. He sagged with relief and gathered her still body in his arms, drawing her back into the concealment of the darkness.
Across the parade ground, a group of Madruns were coming now, having been alerted by the screams and the flash of light. Bearing torches, they ran with their uncanny speed, and more joined them. It would be scant minutes before they arrived to finish what the shadows had begun.
Laying Elandra down next to the door, Caelan retrieved his sword, then remembered the half-seen assailant who had thrown the dagger at him.
Breathing out short and hard, Caelan closed his fist around the hilt of the dagger and plucked it from the wood. Using sevaisin he joined with the weapon, learning who owned it and who had thrown it.
Agel.
The answer made him ill, but he snapped from the joining and gazed around swiftly without sparing time for his emotions. His nostrils flared, drawing in scents, sifting them. He spared one more glance at the approaching Madruns, then hurried off to the right, in the direction from which the dagger had been thrown.
At the front corner of the temple vestibule, he found a narrow flight of steps heading down the side of the temple. At the foot of them crouched a man in pale robes, struggling with a broken shoe lacing.
Agel.
Caelan’s heart felt like stone in his chest. Gripping his sword, he went hurtling down the steps.
Agel sprang up to run, but he was hampered by his shoe. He went no more than a few paces before Caelan caught him and drove him full force to the ground.
Crying out, Agel lay unmoving beneath him. Caelan scrambled up, seizing his cousin by his robes and hauling him upright. He shook Agel