The Omaja Stone Read online

  But back in the cave, he had viciously fought with his twin brother to stop him from killing her—she’d witnessed it with her own eyes—and that made it difficult to nurture feelings of hatred and disgust for him. She didn’t know what to think or feel, other than ridiculous for trusting him.

  Go easy on yourself, Jiandra, some tentative part of her urged. Other than being a trained killer, Yajna is—or was—basically one hundred percent perfect, inside and out. A woman would have to be blind, deaf, and mute not to be attracted to him. Even then, she’d have to get past touch and smell, and there would be no guarantees.

  And he had an identical twin? That would take some getting used to.

  Speaking of that, something had been puzzling her since they’d left the cave. “What did your brother mean back there when he said, ‘She’ll kill Svana’?”

  “The night after I made the assassination attempt on your queen, Yavi and I were approached by a sorceress who lives in the outskirts of Caladia. She calls herself Gerynwid.”

  “Gerynwid the Shapeshifter?” A chill ran over Jiandra’s spine. She’d heard tales about the fabled witch, stories designed to scare children into being good and obedient lest Gerynwid come to snatch them away in their sleep.

  “Yes. She took us to her manor and fed us an elaborate dinner, saying she wanted to join forces with us to kill your queen. She’d been spying on us with her scrying fountain as we traveled through Villeleia.”

  “Why does Gerynwid want Solange dead?”

  “To take her place, of course.”

  A woman seeks to usurp your throne, Jiandra remembered Zafira saying to Solange. She frowned. “Villeleia would never accept Gerynwid as queen. The council would execute her for being a usurper.”

  “That is why she wants your stone—to take the throne under its powers and protection. And it’s also why she wants us to do her dirty work, so that she appears innocent of any crime.”

  She covered the Omaja protectively with her fingers.

  He felt the movement behind his back. “You have nothing to fear on that account. The stone burned Yavi’s hand and flew back to you; I saw it. I knew it would be difficult to take the stone from you, but now we know it’s impossible.”

  Jiandra lifted the Omaja to glance down at it. “That is what Zehu told me. I guess it’s true.”

  “Zehu?”

  “Zehuraster, of the Old Gods. The Protector.”

  “We do not know him in Nandala.”

  “He said he gave me the stone so that I could be a mighty warrior in Villeleia. I’m no warrior, but for some reason he chose me to have it.”

  “I think this god made the right choice,” he said quietly.

  Jiandra ignored that. Or tried to. “What happened after Gerynwid asked you to join forces with her?”

  “She saw you and your magical stone in her fountain. She told us it was someone else’s stone, and that you were a thief. I decided to look for an opportunity to meet up with you and win your trust, so that Yavi and I could kill you and take the stone.”

  The hair on the back of her neck prickled at the thought of being spied on by Gerynwid the Shapeshifter and followed by two assassins. “I guess it was pretty easy to win my trust.”

  “You should not be ashamed of this, Mahitha. It is a good trait in you.”

  “Good? No—weak. Foolhardy.”

  “No. Good.”

  She fell silent. She was far more aware of the contact between their bodies—his hips between her thighs—than she wanted to be. “What is that word you keep calling me, by the way? ‘Mahitha?’”

  “Mahitha is a title of respect. It means ‘honored woman’ in Nandalan.”

  “Oh.” She adjusted the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Tell me the rest of your story.”

  “By the time we reached the crystal caves up north, I knew I couldn’t kill you. And the only reason Yavi tried to go through with it was to protect Svana. She is Gerynwid’s Nandal maid. Yavi fell in love with her while we were staying at the manor. She was always staring at him, even though Gerynwid screamed at her and beat her.”

  “Oh.” Jiandra swallowed. I can understand the staring part.

  “Gerynwid must have threatened to kill Svana if Yavi didn’t get her the stone.”

  “That’s horrible.” She touched the Omaja with her fingers, wishing there were some way to help the girl.

  “The stone rightly rejected being taken from you. It should remain with you always. I can feel how bonded it is with you, body and soul.”

  “You can?”

  “Yes. When I’m touching you I feel it resonating in your body with a strong mystical energy.”

  “You can feel that too?”

  “Yavi and I were trained in the fighting arts by a warrior-mystic when we joined the Assassin Army. From this master I learned the discernment of spiritual energy. If you had tried to read my mind with the stone as we lay in the tent, I would have felt that energy being focused on me.”

  A chill came over her. “What would I have seen, Yajna? Were you thinking about killing me?”

  “No,” he replied.

  “What then?”

  He hesitated. “You would have seen frustration and confusion, because I knew I couldn’t kill you from the moment I saw you trying to revive the dead man in that freezing river. Read my mind now; you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”

  Jiandra didn’t. She fell silent, lost in her own thoughts.

  #

  When they reached the campsite outside Caladia that night, Yavi was already there waiting for them, huddled over a small fire. His face was ashen as he struggled to his feet to greet them, cradling his left arm against his torso. It was wrapped in makeshift blood-soaked bandages. He muttered to Yajna in Nandalan, limping toward him, tears streaming down his face.

  Yajna answered him in Villeleian. “You fought the sorceress? What happened?”

  Yavi switched to Villeleian as well, his voice breaking with grief. “She fed Svana to her wolves.”

  Jiandra pressed her fingers to her mouth in horror.

  Yajna’s lip curled in contempt. “Vile witch! Did you leave the sorceress alive?”

  “I’m not sure.” Yavi shifted painfully off his injured leg. “I cut her badly with my swords, but I could still hear her screaming as I rode away. I destroyed her scrying fountain, so she will not be able to spy on us at least for a bit.”

  Yajna nodded. “Good. I think we should keep moving.”

  “He can’t travel like that.” Jiandra indicated Yavi’s injuries. “I’ll heal him.”

  Yavi looked up. “You would heal me? After I tried to kill you?”

  “Yes, well—I’m not the most…vengeful person in the world, I suppose. But you would have to promise not to do it again.” She offered him a half smile.

  He swiped at his tears with his good sleeve, his expression softening. “Never again. Not after my brother risked his life to protect you. This horse’s arse never tells me anything.”

  Yajna grinned. “Go ahead and heal him, Mahitha. I will injure him again if need be.”

  She gently touched Yavi’s bandaged arm. He grimaced, then stared down at it in amazement as he felt the change. He unwrapped the bandages to examine his arm, and felt around the newly healed area with his other hand. “She sliced me open with her talons—I could see bone. Thank you, Mahitha.”

  “What about your leg?” she asked. “You were limping on it.”

  “She shot me with a lightning bolt.” Yavi showed her where it had torn through his boot leather and gone through his breeches to sear his calf muscle. “It burns like hellfire.”

  Jiandra reached down and healed that too. He straightened and walked around normally, smiling in relief.

  Yajna spoke up. “Mahitha, would you be willing to heal the wounds this brute gave me in the cave?” He touched the swollen gash on his lip, crusted with dried blood, and held out his lacerated hands and knees.

  “Oh, I have some wounds from
that, too,” Yavi said, raising his shirt to reveal a large, angry red scrape just to the left of his abdomen.

  Jiandra caught herself staring at his naked, rippling muscles, and cleared her throat. “Yes, I’ll heal both of you. Just show me everything. Everything that needs healing, I mean.”

  Later, they rested by the fire while the horses grazed. Exhausted, Yavi slept on his bedroll while Jiandra and Yajna sat in silence, gazing into the fire.

  “Jiandra, I’m sorry,” he said suddenly.

  Jiandra glanced up at his face.

  He stared at the fire, tossed a small twig into the flames. “Do you think you could ever trust me again, after learning the truth?”

  “No. Not completely.”

  He fell quiet.

  “But I can’t get over the fact that you could have tried to steal the stone while we slept in the tent, and you didn’t. So I figure it must be true that you already had your doubts by then.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was Yavi the whole time?”

  “Hiding in the trees nearby. He traveled with us, signaling me when we needed to get off the road and hide in the trees.”

  “How was he signaling you?”

  “Bird calls.”

  Jiandra frowned, trying to remember hearing anything unusual. “Gods, I was a dunce. I never heard or noticed a thing.”

  “You wouldn’t. We are master assassins in Nandala’s army. We’ve been training for it for seven years.”

  “I just can’t believe how easily I fell for you. For your trap, I mean.”

  “You are pure of heart, Mahitha.”

  “Stupid is more like it.”

  He scooted closer, touched her chin to make her look at him. “No. Pure.”

  Jiandra twisted away from his hand to avoid his gaze. “So Yavi was watching us here at the camp yesterday?”

  “Yes. Getting very impatient with me. He wanted to switch places, but I refused.”

  She thought about that. “I think I would have known he wasn’t you.”

  “Why?”

  Because you seem…gentler. “I don’t know…he’s just…different from you.”

  “Uglier?” A faint smile played about his sexy lips.

  “No…you’re both equally ugly.”

  He chuckled, and she realized it was the first time she’d heard him laugh.

  She stifled a smile. “No, I just think I would have noticed you weren’t…acting as kind to me as before.”

  “Jiandra, I wasn’t acting. I concealed who I really was and my mission, but everything I told you about my childhood in Nandala was true. I wasn’t faking kindness when I helped you, took care of you, protected you. I wanted to.”

  Jiandra studied his face. By the Gods, he was handsome with the firelight glinting in his silver eyes.

  “Read my mind with your stone. I want you to know I am telling you the truth.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “That’s not necessary.”

  “Do it. Please.”

  She studied him.

  “Please, Jiandra.”

  She took a breath, reaching up to touch the stone. “Are you sure?”

  “I want you to know I am telling you the truth.”

  “Okay.” She sighed, then faced him and focused the energy of the stone. His thoughts came to her in a string of sentences as well as moving pictures: I want you to know me. I will never harm you or allow harm to come to you again. She saw herself in his mind’s eye, sobbing in the river, trying to break the Nandal prisoners free from the cart. Worthy of admiration, a true champion for my people. Through his eyes, she saw herself sleeping in the tent in front of him, while he looked down at the side of her face and neck. She was surprised by how beautiful she looked through his mind’s eye. Then she saw him arguing with his brother in the trees, Yavi berating him for not stealing the stone yet. I’m not a murderer. I want to make this right. She’ll know my true character when I submit to the executioner and my people are delivered. Beautiful green eyes, piercing my very soul…they will see who I really am.

  Jiandra broke off the Knowing. “Oh—”

  “What happened?”

  “You were…you were thinking about your execution.” Beautiful green eyes?

  “Do you believe me now?”

  “I…don’t know.” Could he have hidden, malicious thoughts the Omaja didn’t detect? She wanted to believe him, which was exactly why she held back a bit. She swallowed down a lump in her throat. Being inside his head was an intimate experience, making her feel closer to him, a feeling that she wasn’t sure was a good idea at the moment.

  “You should rest for a while, Mahitha. I’ll keep watch.”

  “No, I can rest on the horse later against your…while we travel, I mean.” She cleared her throat. “You are the one who should rest. I can keep watch.”

  “I don’t wish to sleep.”

  “Neither do I.”

  His mouth curved into a half smile. “Then I suppose we can keep one another company a little longer, while Yavi rests.”

  Jiandra nodded, and they sat in silence for a while, watching the fire.

  Soon they roused Yavi, packed up the horses, and set out again, heading south. Jiandra rode behind Yajna, lightly holding onto his waist. Beautiful green eyes? Had he done that on purpose, so that she would hear it? Or had she dreamed it, because a part of her wanted to hear it? She reached up for the Omaja, tempted to try reading his mind again. But he would know, he said. And what if he was now thinking about her gullibility, how easily she’d fallen for his ruse? Best not, she told herself. Leave well enough alone.

  He glanced back at her as she played with the Omaja, and she dropped her hand away. He probably knew what she was thinking. That was the irony. He didn’t need a magical stone to read her like a book, because she was no good at hiding anything.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were holding the stone.”

  “Oh, it’s just a nervous habit.”

  “I will protect you, Jiandra. You have nothing more to fear, from us or any other threats.”

  Not helping. Not helping one bit. “I, ah…I’m just a worrier sometimes. Pay me no mind.”

  Thankfully, he fell silent, and they continued their ride.

  Well after midnight, they reached the river where the prisoner cart accident had happened and stopped to water and graze the horses for a bit. Yajna disappeared into the dark forest along the river’s edge to look for his horse.

  “Do you think the horse will still be there?” Jiandra asked Yavi while they waited.

  “Perhaps, if someone did not find him. It has been less than two days.”

  She fell silent, feeling a little awkward being alone with Yavi.

  As if sensing her uneasiness, he spoke gently. “I owe you an apology, Mahitha.”

  Jiandra kept her gaze low.

  “My brother and I are not cold-blooded murderers.”

  “I know,” she mumbled.

  “No, I don’t think you do. Did Yajna tell you why we tried to assassinate your queen?”

  “No. But why do you say ‘we’? He claims he acted alone.”

  “That’s because he’s a stubborn bastard.”

  “Which of you shot the arrow?”

  “Yajna, but I was with him. We were working together, as we always do. Speaking of the arrow, did he tell you he missed on purpose?”

  “No.” Jiandra’s heart leapt in eagerness to know more, anything that would ease her conscience about Yajna.

  “Our emperor told us that if we traveled to Villeleia and assassinated the new, inexperienced queen and last living D’Ornelis heir, it would weaken your country. Nandala could attack and reap the spoils of your wealth, saving our people from starvation up north. In return, the emperor said he would restore our father’s line as successors to the throne. Nandala’s rule once belonged to the ancient royal house Zulfikar, of which my father, Yajna, and I are the last su
rviving heirs. But the Zulfikars haven’t ruled Nandala for over a century, due to the weakness of our ancestors. A stronger rival rose up, defeated them in battle, and took the throne. They would have eliminated us completely, but a Zulfikar male escaped and hid in the far eastern hills.”

  “You and Yajna are royals?”

  “Not anymore, but we would have been. If we had chosen to complete the assassination.” He stroked his horse’s mane. “It doesn’t matter now. Yajna has made up his mind to turn himself in to pay for our deed.”

  Jiandra saw him swipe at his eyes with his hand.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “He is my brother. I don’t want him to die.”

  Just then Yajna came riding out of the woods on a beautiful black horse, wearing leather armor and a cloak identical to Yavi’s, with an intricately carved longbow slung across his back.

  “Tejeshwar smiled upon me, brother! I found Sunil still carrying my tent, my armor, and my weapons.”

  Yavi nodded stiffly and mounted his horse. Jiandra followed suit, climbing onto Otto. She could hardly peel her eyes off Yajna in his handsome armor, and couldn’t stop thinking about all that Yavi had said.

  They continued south, and just before daybreak, they arrived in the woods outside Broomfield. They stopped at a bridge, and the brothers found a hidden clearing in the woods along the riverbank. Yavi and Yajna now each had their own tents, and Jiandra—feeling a little forlorn—set up her own by herself. She took her extra set of clothes to wash in the river while Yavi and Yajna disappeared around a bend to bathe. They returned to the campsite a little later with some trout. Yajna roasted it over a fire, and the three of them feasted hungrily on it as well as on the leftover fruit and nuts he’d gathered the day before and stored in Jiandra’s saddlebags.

  After eating, the twins stamped out the fire, washed their utensils, and put everything away.

  Yajna returned to her side by the smoldering ashes of the campfire. “We should get some sleep before nightfall.”

  She peered up at his face in the daylight, at the handsome angle of his jaw and his sexy lips. She half wished his statement had been an invitation, because she found herself wanting another shot at having him in her tent. He offered a hand to help her to her feet, and she grasped his strong fingers. She gazed up at him, not releasing his hand.