Bound by Sin

  Jaykun plunged his sword into the chest of the first guard while out of the corner of his eye he kept watch on Barban, Jileana, and Jalaya. But he need not have worried about the empress. As promised, Garreth was there, cutting through the chain tether with his god-made sword as if it were butter and jerking her to his chest and the safe shelter of his body. He cut her hands free in the next instant. Then he hurried her out of the room.

  Barban saw her escaping and flew into a rage. He grabbed Jileana as Jaykun’s sword flashed in and out of the second and then the third guards’ chests. He held the short shell dagger to Jileana’s throat and screamed, “Stop or I’ll cut her from ear to ear!”

  Jaykun had to ignore him and continue fighting, hoping with all of his heart that Ravi would be able to rescue her daughter.

  “Let my daughter go or I will turn you into a guppy,” she said ominously, holding out her hands as if she could shoot fire from them. For all Jaykun knew, she could.

  “You are not that powerful, witch,” Barban hissed.

  “Are you willing to take that chance, guppy?”

  Barban hesitated, tensed. A small cloud of blood appeared in the water where the knife was pressed against Jileana’s throat.

  Then, seeing Jaykun cut through his fifth guard, Barban tightened his hold on Jileana. Now that the empress was gone, she was the only point of power he had left. As Jaykun dispatched his final foe, he turned to approach Barban with menace.

  Facing Jaykun’s and Ravi’s powerful visages, not knowing what Ravi could truly do to him, Barban hesitated.

  “I’ll tell you one last time,” Ravi threatened. She held up her hands menacingly. “Let my child go!”

  “It’s over, Barban,” Jaykun said. “Let her go.”

  For the first time since Jaykun had known him, Barban finally did something smart. He dropped the knife and backed away from Jileana. Ravi immediately went to her daughter and released her from her bonds as Jaykun went to stand over by Barban. There was no sense in killing him. The room was already full of floating, lifeless bodies.

  Holding his sword on Barban, Jaykun automatically reached out his arm to Jileana. She threw herself against him and he turned his head to catch her kiss, all the while keeping one eye on his captive. When they finally broke apart, Garreth was there with the empress.

  “There are other guards of his in the castle, but not many,” Jileana said. “They got here only an hour or so before you did. They have not had enough time to get firmly entrenched.”

  “I suspect they sent most of their resources to the chains to retrieve Horgon. Am I right?” Jaykun asked Barban. Barban didn’t answer, but the slight widening of his eyes told the truth for him.

  “There might be a large force of them,” Jileana said to him. “The empress’s guards are housed at the chains, but if Barban’s guards manage to beat them and free Horgon, Jalaya will not be safe.”

  “Then Garreth and I must go and help defeat Barban’s forces. I will not have this race embroiled in a civil war if it can be helped. We will put down this uprising and kill it quickly. Only then will Jalaya be safe. And this time, Majesty, you must execute the criminals who threaten you. Putting them in the chains will only give others a focal point if they decide to split into factions against you once again.”

  “I know it,” Jalaya said grimly. “I wanted to avoid it, but I know it cannot be passed over this time. Barban, you and your father will pay for your betrayal with your lives.”

  “But—but my father had nothing to do with this! This was all my idea!” Barban sputtered.

  “I highly doubt that. It is much more likely that your father set this in place in case he was ever taken prisoner,” Jalaya said. “You were merely executing standing orders.”

  Barban paled and it told Jalaya that she was right. Garreth and Ravi found some rope and tied up their prisoner.

  “Make it tight,” Jalaya warned. “He has to be swimming in order to turn into a seal, but be careful just the same.”

  Jileana touched a hand to Jaykun’s chest, feeling the odd sensation of fabric on his skin for the first time in weeks. Her smile trembled. “You came back for me.”

  Jaykun caught her eyes with his, pinning her to the spot. “I will always come back for you,” he said.

  She burst into tears and he tucked her head close under his chin, soothing her with soft sounds.

  “Shh,” he said. “It’s all right. I will never let anything hurt you again.”

  “I won’t leave you,” she said with wobbling lips. “I can’t. Y-you’ll just…I’ll just follow you as long as you let me. You don’t have to give me anything; I won’t be in the way. I-I just can’t leave you. Don’t make me leave you!”

  “Jileana, I won’t make you leave me. I love you too much to let you go.”

  “Wh-what did you just say?” she asked tremulously. “Did you just say…”

  “That I love you? Yes. Yes, I did. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I’m sorry I lied to us both about what I was feeling. You were right. I was just too afraid. But when I saw that portal come crashing down and I knew you were in danger…I realized…I realized I had lost my heart to you quite some time ago.”

  “Oh, please. You’re making me sick,” Barban sneered.

  Jileana ignored him and squealed with delight. She wrapped herself around Jaykun and kissed him so deeply it was a wonder their tongues were still attached to their own mouths at the end of the kiss.

  “Now Garreth and I have to go to the chains. I need to know what’s happened. Jalaya won’t be safe until it’s over.”

  “Be safe, my love,” Jileana whispered before giving him one last kiss for luck and sending him on his way, promising to watch over Jalaya with her mother somewhere away from the castle until all the resistance was soundly put down.

  —

  It actually took a lot less effort than Jaykun had anticipated. With Barban captured, Horgon still chained, and the bulk of the empress’s guard quartered just outside the area of the chains, the coup was over long before it really began. It boiled down to the council in the end. Horgon had lost a lot of support because of that council. By giving the most powerful people a place to air their grievances and voice their concerns, Jalaya had taken away their reasons for potentially standing against her and answering Horgon’s call to arms to that degree of traitorousness.

  Jaykun did not give Jalaya the opportunity to waver and change her mind about executing Horgon. He did it for her with one smooth swing of his brother’s powerful sword. He did not, however, have the opportunity to do the same with Barban. Which he supposed was for the best. This way Barban could be executed publicly as a warning to anyone else who thought to become traitors to the empress. In the end, it was a lot of bloodshed for no reason. It was a shameful waste of life. But it could have been much worse. Much worse.

  To Jaykun’s relief, when he got back to Jileana it was to discover that Barban had not had the opportunity to harm her too much. He had roughed her up a bit, threatened her a lot, but he had been too focused on his endgame to worry too much about his “future wife.” If Jaykun hadn’t made it back to Serenity so quickly, things might have gone very differently.

  Later that day they were all in Jalaya’s private rooms: Jileana, Garreth, Jaykun, Ravi, Creasus, Silan, and Jalaya herself. The empress was sitting as she eyed the gathering before her.

  “Jaykun,” she said, holding out her hand to him.

  He obediently stepped forward, dropped to a knee before her, and kissed the hand he held. “Majesty,” he said.

  “Jaykun, we will never forget what you have done for us this day. You have saved the selkie people from a lot of pain and strife. I thank the gods every day for sending you to me.”

  “I am glad to be of service to you, my lady empress.”

  She smiled and opened her mouth to continue, but a sudden eruption of bubbles appeared beside her seat, near where Jaykun knelt, and she leapt up in alarm. Not knowing what the disturba
nce was, Jaykun put himself between the bubbles and the empress and drew his sword.

  Suddenly the bubbles dissipated and in their place was a beautiful woman, with hair as green as grass and eyes as blue as the turquoise ocean waters around her.

  Jalaya gasped and dropped to her knees. “Diathus!”

  It was indeed Diathus, goddess of the land and oceans. Warning bells went off in Jaykun’s head. Diathus was a goddess of the faction warring against his goddess Weysa. Her being there could only mean trouble for him and his brother.

  “Relax, warrior,” Diathus said as if she could read his mind. “I am not here to harm you. Rather, to thank you.”

  “Thank me?” he asked warily.

  “Yes. The selkies are my most beloved children. You have saved them from themselves. For this I am compelled to give you thanks. You have the gratitude of a goddess. The question is, what will you do with it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I will grant you a boon, human man. Ask any favor of me and you shall have it.”

  Jaykun could hardly believe his ears. Here was a mighty god thanking him for his services? Willing to grant him anything he desired?

  “Here is the dilemma,” the goddess said with a chuckle. “Do you wish to be freed from your curse, or do you wish to have your brother returned to you? Which do you ask for?”

  “How can you free me from my curse?” he demanded of her. “It can only be released by the god who set it upon me and that is Lothas.”

  “And Lothas is my husband. He will do whatever I ask of him.”

  Her husband. He had forgotten that part. “And what of Sabo? He has cursed my brother. What will keep him from casting Maxum back into the earth somewhere else?”

  “That is not my concern; it is yours. But if I free your brother, he will suffer as you suffer. Every night from dusk till juquil’s hour the earth will swallow him whole again. Suffocating him. Crushing him. Just as it is doing even now.”

  The dilemma was no dilemma at all. Not to Jaykun.

  “Free my brother,” he said quickly. “I will bear my curse for as long as he does if it means he will have some hours of life once again, some reprieve.”

  “Hmm. A selfless choice. You impress me. And I am not easily impressed.” Suddenly the room dissolved around them and Diathus, Jaykun, and Jalaya found themselves at the edge of the chains. The earth began to rumble and bubbles rose up from a spot not too far from where they stood. Rock and soil spewed upward into the water, clouding the water with silt and making it impossible to see. But in the next instant, the rock and soil cleared away and the water was as clean as ever. Jaykun knew it was the hand of the goddess that had made it so.

  And there, floating naked and unconscious, was his brother Maxum. Jaykun swam to him and grabbed him up close. He could feel in the limpness of his body that every last one of his bones was broken, pulverized by the pressure of the earth.

  But that didn’t matter because he knew that Maxum had also drunk from the Fount of Immortality, which meant he would heal as rapidly and completely as Jaykun and Garreth did.

  “Thank you,” he whispered fiercely to the goddess. “Thank you with all of my heart.”

  “If you really wish to thank me, you can stop fighting in Weysa’s name,” Diathus said.

  “This I cannot do. I have made a vow to—”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, waving the matter off. “I suppose it cannot be helped. What I need is a warrior of my own to fight in my name. Perhaps your brother would do this?”

  “And pit one brother against the other?” he asked. “For that is surely what would end up happening one day. Didn’t we just avoid a battle that would pit brother against brother? Selkie against selkie?”

  “This is true. But I have not freed him so he could fight in Weysa’s name. She is my enemy, after all.” She thought on it a moment. “If you can vow to me that your brother will not fight in the name of any of the gods that oppose my faction, I will get Lothas to release you from your curse.”

  Jaykun couldn’t believe the offer. It would be like getting everything he wanted all at once. His brother and freedom from his curse…and Jileana. What more could he ask for?

  “I cannot make a vow for my brother,” he said at last, knowing it was true. Maxum had always been his own man. He had always done whatever he wished to do. He had sold his sword to whatever cause struck his fancy. Jaykun could not take that right away from him.

  Then he felt the slight squeeze of a hand around his arm. He looked down and met the pain-filled eyes of his brother. Maxum could not speak under the water, not having the benefit of Ravi’s magic, but the nod of his head was unmistakable.

  It was as good as his word.

  “We do so swear. Maxum will not fight in the name of any god.” He had said “any god” on purpose. He did not want Maxum beholden to any of the gods. If Maxum must suffer Sabo’s curse, he would do so on his own terms.

  “Very well. As long as he holds to this promise, you are free of your curse. I will speak to Lothas straight away and it will be done. Congratulations. Your burning days are finished.”

  Then the goddess turned to Jalaya. “You are the rightful queen of your people. Never doubt that. Never forget it. I cannot protect you at all times—the war garners much of my attention—but if you need me, pray to me. I will try to answer you if I can.”

  “Thank you, my beauteous goddess,” Jalaya said, humbly kneeling before Diathus.

  “Enough of that. You are an empress. Stand and be recognized as one. Farewell, beloved child.”

  With that, Diathus disappeared in a rush of bubbles.

  Jileana snuggled into Jaykun’s side, holding him as tightly as she could, as if she were afraid he might disappear…or burst into flames at any moment. But dusk had come and gone, and as promised, Jaykun remained free of his curse.

  “I am afraid it might all be a dream,” she said for the third time that night since they had settled back in her cave.

  “So am I,” Jaykun said. “I’m afraid Sabo will discover Maxum is free and take him away again. With any luck this war between the gods will take up too much of his attention for him to care about what happens to one man.”

  “But you said he cared enough to taunt your brother Garreth when he was in pain.”

  “I know.” Jaykun gnawed at his lip a little. “I guess it’s best to hope for the best. Perhaps Weysa will protect him. He may not have to fight for a god, but he can pray to one. He was always devoted to her. As a gold-sword, he thrived on conflict, solving it with his blade. But that was many, many decades ago. He has been suffering in the ground ever since.”

  “Has he said much to you?”

  “Not much, but I will not push him. He has been through a great deal. If he is anything like me, it will take some time for him to adjust to a torment-free existence.”

  “Not free,” Jileana noted. “Just less of it.”

  “Aye, this is true.” He turned his head and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “And how are you doing? Are you certain Barban didn’t hurt you?”

  “He didn’t have time to hurt me. He was focused on taking over the castle and freeing his father from the chains. I think he was supposed to kill the empress, rather than keep her captive, but he disobeyed his father’s orders just for the opportunity to lord it over her.”

  “Well, it is a very good thing he did. And a good thing I came as quickly as I could. If the battle at the chains had gone badly…I don’t know what would have happened. Nothing good—I know that much.”

  “Nothing good,” she agreed. “But I still can’t believe you tried to sail into those storms. I warned you they were impassable.”

  “I knew they were. I was hoping to get far enough in that we could swim the rest of the way. And it worked.”

  “It worked, but your brother had to suffer drowning.”

  “He survived it.”

  “I’m sure it is a memory he cannot put aside too quickly.”


  “But he need not worry about drowning any longer now that your mother has gifted him with the ability to breathe and speak beneath the waves.”

  “This is true.” Jileana rose up on her elbows and kissed his mouth slowly and searchingly.

  “What was that for?” he asked when she lifted away.

  “Do I need a reason?”

  “No. But it felt as though there was one.”

  “There was indeed. It suddenly occurred to me how much I loved hearing you say you love me and I thought if I kissed you well enough perhaps you would say it again.”

  “Mmm, perhaps I would. But all you need do is ask me and I will gladly let you know how I feel.”

  “But asking is not the same as a spontaneous utterance.”

  “Ah. So you prefer that it be my idea.”

  “Something like that,” she said with a prim lift of her chin.

  He chuckled at her. “Very well, then. I shall make it my duty to spontaneously utter how very much I love you, how deeply you have entrenched yourself in my heart, and how I cannot face the idea of a future without you. I will tell you I was a coward and a fool for treating you the way I did, and I know how lucky I am that you have forgiven me for it.”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” she said softly, kissing his mouth again until heat was bleeding all throughout his body. “You were in pain. I understood that. But I’ll have you know I had no intention of going back home after the week of the full moon closed the portal.”

  “I see.”

  “That is why my father and brother were saying goodbye to me like that. They knew I wasn’t going to come back for quite some time.”

  “They knew more than I did. Then again, I saw only what I wanted to see, what felt safest for me. For all that I am a man who takes great risks, I was afraid to risk it all on love. I confess I am still afraid. I fear all this good fortune. I feel as though somewhere, somehow another scimitar will fall and someone in my family will be in its path.”

  “You cannot live your life in such ways. You cannot refuse to celebrate just to dread what might or might not come next. If your experiences have taught you anything, have they not taught you to live and thrive in every moment? That there is no knowing what will come next?”