“Wait.” She crossed to the head of her bed and peered at the blown-glass dragon. It was tinted like the sunrise, pink and gold with a touch of blue. But today, not all of its color came from glass.
Ginger felt sick. She sat on the bed and laid her hand over her abdomen, as if that could hold down her bile.
“What is it?” Darz came over to her. “Are you all right?”
She stared across the room at one of the windows and the sky beyond. “Look at the dragon.”
He leaned past her to peer at the sculpture. “I don’t see—” Then he swore loudly. “Flaming hell. That’s sheer malice.”
She spoke dully. “Smearing blood on a symbol of the sun is sacrilege. I’ll have to destroy the statue.”
“No, don’t do that. It’s such a beautiful work.” He was standing over her, studying the sculpture, so close his arm was brushing her shoulder. Touching her. Her longing for him had brought only grief, yet even now it simmered within her, and she despised herself for it. She couldn’t let herself feel. If she did, the fear and shock would be too great.
Darz lifted up the sculpture and sat next to her. “It shouldn’t be hard to clean this.” He used his sleeve to wipe at the blood smeared on the wings. “The glass isn’t damaged.”
Ginger had gone beyond dismay to a numb calm, as if that could protect her. The calm wouldn’t last, though. She would soon crack open, and she didn’t want Darz to see her fall apart. If he were sitting here, so close, so strong and warm, she would end up in his arms and take her transgressions beyond what the Dragon-Sun would ever forgive, if she hadn’t already gone that far.
“Darz, look at me,” she said.
He met her gaze. “I don’t know why this is happening. I swear it.”
“Someone is trying to scare me.” They were succeeding extremely well. “And Darz.” It amazed her how steady she sounded, because she was on the verge of breaking.
“Yes?”
“Do you have any idea how much trouble we would be in if anyone found you in my bedroom, sitting next to me on my bed, holding a desecrated ritual object?”
“Oh!” He jumped up and started to leave, but then he came back. With care, he set the dragon in its niche. “You go into the temple. I’ll clean up the blood here.”
She shook her head. “You can’t be in my rooms.”
He looked as if he wanted to argue. But he was studying her face, too, and whatever he saw kept him from protesting. He limped across the room and turned in the archway. “I’ll be nearby if you need me. Just call out.”
“Thank you.”
“Promise me you won’t destroy that lovely sculpture.”
Her voice shook. “I promise.”
“Take care, lovely fire opal.” Then he left, before she had time to be scandalized. Except she couldn’t summon outrage. She had never known the simple pleasure of a man finding her pretty. No man in Sky Flames would dare take such liberties, but she thought Darz didn’t even realize what he was doing. He knew as much about temples as she did about military maneuvers, which was next to nothing.
When Ginger was alone, she pulled out her opal. The orange color could have been fire solidified into a crystal. Its banked power waited for release. Except the power wasn’t in the opal; it was in her. She wasn’t certain how she knew, for her spells never worked with any other gem. Yet she felt certain the stone unlocked something within her. But only in the cold night. It could do nothing now, offer no comfort.
The dam holding her feelings broke and tears poured down her face. The events of these past days were shattering her life. The scrolls of the Dragon-Sun taught that he protected a priestess from the flames of his power, so that if she were ever in his presence, she wouldn’t burn. But what of these flames destroying her heart? Nothing shielded her from their searing pain.
After a while, Ginger wiped away the moisture on her face. She put away the opal and set about cleaning her rooms. Even after she scrubbed the floor until the tiles shone, they didn’t seem clean. She cried while she washed the dragon. How could someone commit such an offense? She didn’t know which would be worse, that whoever tried to murder Darz had violated the sanctum of her private rooms or that someone in the village had done this.
Darz had been here when it happened, but she knew he hadn’t done it. People thought she was naive, and maybe they were right, but she trusted her instincts. They had always guided her well, and now they told her Darz was innocent. If his attackers had done this, surely they would have tried to kill him again. He had probably been sleeping in his room, so they might not have known he was here, but if that were true, she couldn’t see why they would go after her.
More likely someone in the village had left the blood. After today’s meeting, she knew all too well how people felt about Darz. But they had violated her room, not his. It couldn’t be because she had spoken today; this had to have happened while she was gone. She had come straight home afterward and seen no one else along the way. Although it wasn’t impossible for someone to have run back before her, she thought it unlikely. If what had happened here with the blood became known, her people would assume Darz had done it and drive him out into the desert to die.
Ginger stood by the bed and watched Darz sleep. He must have dropped off as soon as he lay down. He looked boyish, his great power and strength momentarily lulled. He hadn’t changed his clothes, and he even had one foot on the floor. Shadows of night filled the cell, barely challenged by the candle out in the temple. Caught with an affection she shouldn’t feel, she lifted his leg onto the bed and set it next to his other one.
Darz opened his eyes. “Light, Ginger-Sun…”
She straightened up. “You’re awake!”
He pushed up on his elbows. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.” It wasn’t true; she was tired, scared, and confused. She sat on the stool by his bed. “How about you?”
He scowled darkly. “I am not fine. Someone is harassing you, and I don’t like it.”
Ginger knew that to most people he probably looked large and dark and menacing. But he didn’t frighten her. “They must have come in while I was at the meeting.”
“I was asleep.” He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, only a few handspans away from her. “Has anyone ever hounded you this way before?”
“Never.” She hesitated, distracted by how close he was sitting to her. “It isn’t because of me, I don’t think. It’s you. People are scared.” With apology, she added, “They want you to leave. I convinced them not to turn you out, but you shouldn’t stay in the temple with me anymore.”
He grimaced, pulling the stitches on the gash that snaked down his face. “I sometimes forget how provincial these isolated villages are.”
Ginger bristled. “We may be small and far from Quaaz, but that doesn’t make us worth any less than other places.”
His face crinkled with a smile. “You should see how you blaze when you’re angry.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not!” He glared at her. “Can a man do or say nothing around you without getting into trouble?”
“Pretty much not,” she admitted.
He motioned around them. “I never know what to do in these places. It’s why I avoid them.”
“You mean a temple?”
“The last time I was in one, I thought the priestess was going to skewer me with my own sword.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Why am I not surprised?”
His eyes glinted. “I tried to stop my cousin Lima from getting a nuptial blessing.”
“You didn’t like his bride?”
“Her groom.” He glared as if she had invoked an offense of great proportions. “Her skinny husband who wouldn’t know what to do with a sword if it jumped into his hand. What the blazes kind of man is that for Lima, eh?”
“I can think of far worse traits for a husband,” she said. “For example, a man who glares and yells and interferes in the lives of his fam
ily because he doesn’t think thin grooms are worthy of his kin.”
She thought he would shout at her, but instead he burst out laughing. “Saint Citrine, you sound just like Lima. She does what she wants no matter what I say.”
That made Ginger feel like a cat with a bowl of cream. “I think I would like her.”
He regarded her warily. “I don’t know if Taka Mal could survive putting the two of you together.”
She smiled, relieved he had decided not to shout. “Is she happy with her skinny husband?”
“Yes, actually,” he said grudgingly. “She loves him. He loves her. They have a baby. They are quite happy.”
She heard what he didn’t say. “But you aren’t.”
For a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then he said, “I was supposed to marry her.”
No wonder he was upset. It wasn’t unusual for cousins to wed, though she had heard it was less common in the cities. Here in Sky Flames, it happened all the time. She was probably related to half the people in the village.
“You must love her very much,” she said.
“Well, no. I mean, yes.” He glared at her. “Yes, I do. Like I would love my kin. Not as a wife. But still. It’s the principle. That she would choose him over me.” He scowled and crossed his arms.
Ah. Male pride. “Perhaps she felt no one could ever measure up to you, so she had to settle for less.”
Darz gave a hearty laugh. “I very much doubt that.” He lowered his arms. “So you think your people will throw me out?”
“I hope not. We need to make you less threatening.” She considered his large build, bulging muscles, and scars. “Or if that won’t work, at least convince them you need time to finish your recovery and arrange travel.”
“Why aren’t you afraid of me like the others?”
“Should I be?”
He answered in a low voice. “Yes.”
He caught her off guard; she had expected him to say Of course not. She was suddenly aware of the dim light, how it added intimacy to their meeting, as if the shadows offered a veil to hide forbidden behavior.
Darz traced his fingertip down her cheek and across her lips. “You’re so damned beautiful.”
She couldn’t answer. The Dragon-Sun would surely send flames to smite Darz. Except apparently the dragon was asleep or paying no attention to her inconsequential temple, because no fire appeared. Ginger knew she should push Darz back, turn him away, banish him. Instead, she sat like a deer hypnotized by the glow of a campfire in the dark. Wind keened across the sands outside, and black-wings called through the night.
Darz cupped his palm around her cheek. He had taken the bandages off his hands, and his stitches scraped her skin. A flush of heat went through her. He bent his head, and when his lips touched hers, it jolted her body like a shock of heat. She had to stop! If anyone walked in right now they would probably kill Darz and maybe her as well. But she wanted so much to hold him, to know at least once in her life how it felt to be kissed by a man who desired her.
Darz apparently had no fear, or else he was too innocent of temple strictures to know how badly he sinned. When he pulled her off the stool, she broke away from the kiss. He easily lifted her to sit next to him on the bed and engulfed her in his embrace, his arm muscles corded against her back, his bandaged torso pressing against her chest. He was too strong, too big, but she couldn’t make herself tell him to stop. She wanted so badly to believe the Dragon-Sun wasn’t punishing them because he had chosen this man for her.
Darz kissed her as if he were stranded in the dunes, parched for water, and she was the oasis. His beard scratched her cheek. She felt hot, then light-headed, then wobbly, and she never wanted it to end. He laid her beneath him on the bed—and Ginger finally came to her senses.
She jerked away her head. “No!”
He nuzzled her cheek, his body stretched out on top of her, his breath coming faster as he tried to kiss her again.
“Stop, please.” She struggled, pushing at his shoulders.
He inhaled sharply. Then he pushed up on his elbows and looked down at her with heartbreaking affection. “Why, Ginger? I can tell you want me.”
“This is sacrilege.”
“A beautiful fire-lily should be cherished, not imprisoned here like a dead flower pressed in a book.”
She stared up at him. “The dragon will punish us both.”
He searched her face, and she could see details of his eyes. They weren’t truly black, but dark brown with the thinnest veins of gold. His low voice rumbled as if it were a spell of desire. “Would it be so terrible if I made love to you? Surely the Dragon-Sun doesn’t wish you bereft of companionship.” He brushed his lips across hers. “It’s a crime to isolate such a lovely girl.”
“Darz, get off.” She hit at his shoulders with her fists. “Now.”
With a groan, he pulled away from her and sat up on the edge of the bed. Cold air filled the space where his body had been. She sat up next to him, tugging her wrap, which had slipped off her shoulders. Then she stood up, miserable, her eyes downcast.
“Priestess,” he said. “Look at me.”
She raised her gaze to his. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m so lonely here, sometimes I feel as if I’ll die of it.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “And if you seek to take advantage of that for your own pleasure, you are cruel beyond all measure.”
She turned and walked to the archway of the room. As she reached it, Darz said, “Ginger.”
She paused, one hand on the door frame as she stared across the shadowed temple. She knew if she turned, she wouldn’t be able to leave. So she walked out of the cell, the floor cold against her soles as she left behind his seductive warmth.
6
Sand Shadow
Ginger stood on the crest of a sand dune with her tear-streaked face tilted to the heavens. Stars filled the night. The sky glittered like a black sea saturated with diamonds.
“Why is he here?” she asked, her voice muted in the immensity of the night. She was alone, far from the village, far from the temple, hidden among endless mountains of sand. “Are you punishing me for wanting another besides you?”
Now that she was away from the temptation of Darz’s passion, she could think. After what had happened in the town meeting today she knew she could never marry Darz, even if he had wanted it, which she doubted. The people of Sky Flames would never sanction her union with such a stranger. She could defy their will, but then she could no longer serve as their priestess. They would turn her out, just as they wanted to turn Darz out.
He was toying with her. A naive girl alone and a bored warrior; she probably seemed like a water-peach ready to pick. But if he took her from the vine that nurtured her—her home and the temple—she would wither.
Her solitude was like a great glass sphere closing her away from life. She could see the rest of the world, but never touch it. Tradition cloistered her, and the miners guarded her. Even tonight, Tanner had been posted outside the temple and had followed her into the dunes. At least he was discreet; she hadn’t seen him after she started walking.
The wind rippled her shawl around her body, over the tunic and leggings she had donned in defiance of everyone. At night, temperatures plunged. With a shiver, she pulled the shawl around her body. Then she lifted her hand out of its folds and opened her palm to the sky. The opal lay there. A glow lit its center, as if it had an ember of fire in its heart.
“What are you?” she whispered. Her focus on the gem caused the light to flare, and radiance streamed out of the pyramid. Her apprehension surged; if Tanner saw, he might condemn her.
Ginger spoke in a low voice. “Warmth!” She had discovered that single words helped focus her concentration. The light faded, and her hand grew warm.
“Soothe,” she murmured.
A sense of well-being seeped through her. It didn’t take away her loneliness or her grief. She wasn’t even sure why she grieved; maybe for the glimpse Darz offered of a life sh
e could never have. But her sorrow somehow became more bearable.
Perhaps it was time to tell the elders she wished to marry. They would select an acceptable husband. She could imagine the type they would pick, though, an upstanding citizen in Sky Flames, perhaps Kindle, the Flame Sentinel who had helped her up the stairs at the meeting. Or they might choose someone like Dirk Bauxite, the house-builder who had challenged her that day and watched her with that covetous hunger. Dirk frightened her, with his hard attitudes that left no room for softness. She knew the elders would consider it in her best interest to have someone take a “strong hand” with her. The dragon only knew what someone like Dirk would do if she became his wife. She grimaced and knew she would never bring up the matter with the elders.
Her focus slipped, and the opal’s vestigial glow faded. Closing her hand, she took away its last sliver of light. She began the long walk home. The moonless night wasn’t truly dark, not with the glitter of stars overhead. The shushing of her tread in the sand was the only sound in the vast landscape.
In fact, it was too quiet. She stopped, listening. The deep silence was unnatural. Then a black-wing cried somewhere, and with an exhale, she resumed her walk.
A figure appeared on the next dune.
Ginger went stock-still. He stood on the ridge, silhouetted against the stars. She couldn’t be certain, but she thought he was staring straight at her. She was on the crest of a dune, so she would be as visible to him as he was to her.
Darz. He had come looking for her. She clung to that hope though she knew he was in no condition to wander the desert. Just limping across the temple had taxed him.
As soon as the figure started down the dune, she knew it wasn’t Darz. He couldn’t run in that fast, sliding gait. It didn’t look like one of the miners; something about the way he was approaching, with such deliberate speed, was wrong.
Where was Tanner? She backed up along the ridge, then realized she had nowhere to go. The temple was to the south, exactly in line with the figure, and the village lay beyond that. No one wandered here except animals that lived in the dunes. Sand-cats rarely ranged this far east, and they were the only predators that posed a danger. Except human ones. He might mean no harm, but if his intentions were benign, why hadn’t he called out or identified himself?