Chapter Five
The next morning, Breccon woke up with the suns, one hand still clenching his dagger and the other wrapped firmly around Katharine’s waist. He’d fallen asleep in this protective pose sometime in the early morning after a night of restless sleep. The only thing keeping him remotely calm was the knowledge that they would be at the Temple of Kaal-Nokt before the day was out. After the inevitable adrenaline rush that came from a good battle—not to mention the triumphant sharing of body and soul he and Katharine joined one another in afterwards—he should have slept soundly through the creeping Rune-Yonian night, but he found himself tossing and turning, rattled by every crack of a twig or rustle of a bird’s wings. Less than a day’s journey separated them from the Temple, but anything could happen in that small stretch of time. His injury could worsen. More raiders could come after them. Katharine could announce the futility of this entire journey and demand to return home to Earth. All night these terrible possibilities haunted him, and when the suns rose, he realized there was no point in fighting his fear of them any longer. Sleep would not return; he might as well face his own waking nightmares.
Three challenges of the Kaal-Nokt had passed them, three challenges that had been decidedly less traumatizing than he feared. The legends of the princess Kaal-Nokt and her Tallel soldier had them fighting off rumbling armies single-handedly and sinking pirate ships with nothing but Rahi stones. Of course, the tales were hundreds of years old... And would a princess and a warrior have told anyone that the stones wanted nothing more than to teach them lessons of the flesh?
Breccon stopped himself short. No, they weren’t just lessons of the flesh. They were more than that. He counted back through the days and the challenges they faced. Being with her under the song of the birds, having to hold her so delicately, it reminded him that they couldn’t always take love so seriously. After his almost punishing lovemaking to her in her cell, he needed that reminder. Having to watch her from across the waterfall, unable to touch her... It told him he loved her even without the physical, that in spite of the circumstances surrounding their first meeting, he still loved her even when removed from her. And in their battle he saw the truest mark of Warrior love, of a Ress as his people saw them. He was willing to fight alongside her.
These questions still haunted him, even after Katharine woke and they made their final hike towards the Temple. Breccon could not help but focus on one striking truth. Those were all lessons he learned about how he loved her. He still had no idea, no clue, if she truly loved him. It made every step up the final mountain heavy with uncertainty. Not even her bright optimism and hope, played like perfectly tuned lyres as she spoke through their trek, could distract him. The unknowing gnawed at him. The mystery bit into his neck and drained him of life. It made him dread what was to come. For no matter how he tried to imagine a scenario where they walked out of the Temple in glory, he could only predict failure. He could only see himself returning to his home alone, miserable for having lost the woman he loved.
“Is that...?”
Katharine trailed off and dragged Breccon from his own waking nightmares. At the top of the Seventh Mountain, the trees cleared, leaving behind a puddle of barren land dominated by a stone temple. Unlike the Chamber of Warriors, which was warm and almost homey to Breccon, this Temple was faceless. Cold. Unfeeling. A tall box of stone broken up only by an open entranceway leading to an illuminated interior, the Temple seemed to confirm every one of Breccon’s deepest fears about this journey. From the place where Katharine stopped in surprise, he couldn’t see inside. All he could see was the flickering lights of the lamps and the white stone walls that would soon hold them.
“Are you ready?” Katharine asked after a long, silent reflection.
His brow furrowed. Her voice didn’t tremble or arch. It was solid, sure. It wasn’t a question asked so he could ask it back, or even so he could tell her everything would be all right. She was ready.
He took her hand, hoping he would be too, dreading what would happen if he wasn’t.
“Let’s go inside.”
In just a moment, he would know everything he didn’t have the courage to ask her. Did she love him? Was it as true and real as the love he felt for her, or was he someone she clung to out of pity and the desire to save those who needed her? Everything would be revealed once they entered that Parthenon before them.
“Wait,” Breccon snapped, just before they took the first of the stone steps.
Katharine halted.
“What’s the matter?”
During their time on the ship that ferried them between Earth and Rune-Yon, Breccon had spent more hours than he could count memorizing the details of Katharine’s face. It was so beautiful, so human. It seemed to be painted with thick lines and honesty and generous swoops of sincerity. She held the secrets of the unknown universe, but not closely. She displayed them for anyone to see. She was earnest, true.
He wanted to believe those things of her now, that he hadn’t just been a fool painting things onto her that weren’t there. Even now, he couldn’t see a hint of deception in her. She carried none of the doubt he did. Her pink lips curved into a reassuring smile, trying to lift up both of their weight.
She was certain. He just wasn’t sure of what.
So, he kissed her. Tried to determine the truth from her gasp into his mouth, from her warm lips on his, from her hands wrapping around his neck. And when he found he couldn’t glean anything from the kiss, he simply kissed her to say goodbye. If they failed, this would be the last thing they ever shared.
It was Katharine who broke away first, with swollen lips and unfocused eyes. She reached for his hand again.
“Let’s go.”
Ten steps separated Breccon and Katharine from the Temple, and Katharine took them with surprising speed, practically pulling him along with her. No sooner did she step inside than her feet halted and her hand turned cold in his.
Breccon hadn’t known what to expect. No one had invoked the Rite of Kaal-Nokt in almost six hundred years. Had he expected some old crone of a priestess to stand there and serve their judgment? Had he expected trick-traps and an army of enemies to defeat?
He hadn’t. But he also hadn’t expected to see his own mother and the Council of Warriors standing in a half-circle around a roaring fire pit in the center of the stone room, waiting patiently for their arrival. His stomach dropped. They were the ones who would decide their fate? Not the magic?
“Katharine of Earth. Breccon of House Tallel. Come forward.”
With nothing left to do and no possible escapes to pursue, Breccon and Katharine followed the order, stepping until they stood directly across the fire pit from Mayyalka and the hooded Council members.
“You have arrived at the Temple of Kaal-Nokt. You have traveled a long way. You have faced many challenges. Defeated many enemies.”
As his mother spoke in even, unattached tones, the amulets around their necks began to glow in earnest, and a heat spread across Breccon’s chest that had nothing to do with the flames rising up in the pit separating them and the council. Then, she said the one thing consuming Breccon’s nightmares.
“And yet, you still have been found wanting.”
If his heart had a sound, it cracked at those words. Wanting. Just like he’d wanted Katharine to love him, he was still left wanting. His throat closed. His chest ached. His vision blurred. Was this what dying felt like? In the vagueness of his vision, he saw his mother raise one hand over the fire and extend her sword as if to cut it.
“By the power handed down to me by the—”
Everything that followed went too fast for Breccon to comprehend, much less participate in. One moment, the ritual was proceeding in quiet, heartrending reverence, and the next, Katharine had leapt through the flames, knocked his mother to the ground and taken her sword. By the time Breccon fully returned to comprehension, Katharine stood over the High Maiden with her own sword to her throat.
“Katharine!” Breccon called, but it was too late. Katharine had control of the Temple now, and she would not relinquish it. She didn’t even look at him.
“How dare you?” she spat. “How dare you say we can’t be together?”
For his entire life, Breccon never knew his mother to cower before an enemy. She carried more than one sword, and as the best fighter of their House, there was no reason she shouldn’t have been able to take down the wet-eyed human with a too-long sword.
To his surprise, she didn’t move. She stayed in the submissive position on the ground, holding back her Council with a single wave of her hand.
“Say what you have to say, human,” she said. “It is your last chance.”
The amulet around Katharine’s neck bathed her in mystical light. Breccon had never believed in gods and goddesses, but if there ever was one, surely Katharine belonged among them. The fire between them flickered in her eyes. Once again, Katharine became a warrior right before him. Only this time... It wasn’t because of a danger. Not a physical one, anyway. Breccon held his breath. A silent prayer escaped him that this could be the culmination of his every hope, a rejection of the cruel miseries he put himself through imagining.
“You can’t do this,” Katharine said, placing a second hand on the sword to keep it from shaking. “You can’t make me leave him.”
“Oh?” Mayyalka replied, raising an eyebrow. “I believe you agreed to the conditions of the Rite.”
“Yes. I did. And I will honor my word. I will accept whatever fate you decide.”
Breccon’s stomach dropped. No, he was wrong. She wasn’t going to plead for their love. She was going to beg to stay and help with the illness.
He believed that, at least, until Katharine bent down to his mother’s side and gave the bravest speech anyone ever delivered to a High Maiden, the one person who no one spoke down to.
“But mark my words: if you make me leave this planet, I will spend my every waking moment devising a way to return.” She glanced at him, a teary smile breaking across her face. He watched her swallow and try to blink away the emotion to no avail. “I am in love with Breccon, Warrior Prince of House Tallel, and not even banishment and a million stars could separate us. I will never stop loving him. I could never stop loving him. Not even if a million High Maidens command it.”
It all made sense now. The certainty wasn’t because she thought she could game the system or that she would make her way into the tribe by convincing them that they needed her skills and medicine. She was certain and unafraid because she loved him, because she knew that love had to carry them through. His shattered heart melted back together by the heat of the fire and her words.
Mayyalka rose to her feet, regaining that regal pose she taught him to carry himself with as if she hadn’t just been lying on the floor with the edge of a blade near her throat.
“Why have you come here?” she asked, echoing their first visit to the Chamber of Warriors. This time, Katharine answered differently.
“Because I’m in love with him.”
“Not to save his people?”
There was silence. Troubling silence. Katharine took a deep breath and exhaled with exasperated force.
“Saving his people gives me purpose. Breccon gives me life. A life we can share.”
It was only Breccon’s lifetime of training as a warrior that kept him standing. His composure was a practiced art. Without it, he would have fallen to the ground and kissed Katharine’s feet. He might have swept her into his arms and kissed her right there in the Temple. He swallowed to keep tears at bay.
“And you, Tallel.” Mayyalka turned her attention on him. He straightened and tore his gaze away from Katharine’s open smile. “Why have you come here?”
He cleared his throat. He was a warrior. He’d won battles and saved more lives than he could count. He would not shake in fear at the gravity in his mother’s voice or cry at the devotion of the woman he loved. Now was his time to show his strength. Now was the time to win her.
“Because Katharine of Earth is my Ress. And if you send her away, I will only follow where she goes.”
Mayyalka’s stony eyes melted. She relaxed into the smallest of smiles, which was still the biggest smile Breccon ever saw his mother give. Her head bowed slightly, deferentially, like a teacher who’d just taught a secret lesson.
“You have passed the test,” she said, cryptically.
The glowing amulets faded. Katharine stuttered.
“The test?”
“Doubt. You have not faltered beneath it. Come.” Mayyalka opened her arms to them. Breccon rushed to accept her offer. “Give me your hands.”
Katharine took one of both Mayyalka and Breccon’s hands, and the three connected in a triangle beside the fire as the council looked on. For a moment, Breccon thought he felt Katharine’s hand shaking, but soon realized he was the guilty one. After all of the fighting and the trials, the uncertainty and the fear, he and Katharine would finally be certain. She would be allowed to stay.
“Breccon Tallel, will you take this Katharine into our House, and teach her our people’s ways?”
“I swear it in this life and the life to come,” he gave the vow of his people.
“Katharine of Earth.” The attention of the room turned to Katharine. “Will you marry my son, and join the Warrior House of Tallel?”
Breccon held his breath, waiting for her answer. Hoping that they would finally be one.