Blood Heresy
CHAPTER ONE
PLOTS AND BETRAYALS
The pool chamber glittered in reflected light from the skylights to the mirror tiles covering the walls to the intricate floor mosaic of inhuman dancers, rainbow hues against pure white. A hot artesian spring fed the pool, making it comfortable year round. Zyne sat beside it, her legs curled beneath her. Her eyes traced the pale, intricate tiling.
"Where is Anksha?"
Hoon studied her from the couch opposite the pool, dabbing blood from his lips with a handkerchief. A small, nude body lay on the floor at his feet, crumpled in the final stillness. The little nibari had been delicious. Timon would be unhappy to learn that he had killed another one. Timon had a strange set of ethics for a vampire. "With Timon."
"And where is Timon?" Zyne probed, rising and walking to the edge of the pool. She squatted with her wings fanned out behind her and stirred the water with her foot.
Hoon frowned, returning the handkerchief to his sleeve. "On one of my estates."
"Which one?" Zyne eyed him coldly. "I want to know as I may want to go there."
"You do not need to go there. Our concerns are in Minnoras."
<Anksha is a threat, Zyne. When she sees how much power and beauty you have she will be jealous. You must make Hoon bring her here so we can destroy her,> whispered the voice in Zyne's mind.
"I am lonely," Zyne wheedled, leaving the pool to pace. "I miss Anksha and Timon."
Hoon's head tilted and his eyes narrowed. "When the work here is done, I will send for them."
Zyne sighed heavily. Once Hoon would have embraced her, but he had held his distance since her rising. She no longer shared his bed. Instead, nibari warmed it. Was he afraid? The voice in her head kept telling her that she was more powerful than Hoon. "When do we start the work?"
"Tomorrow night in the Poor Quarter."
"Can I at least get some air?"
"So long as you do not leave the manor grounds, yes."
Zyne stretched her wings, flexing them. She craved flight as she had once craved the ocean's depths. She left Hoon and soon found herself standing alone on the rooftop in the night shadowed silence, above the peacefully sleeping city that could not imagine her existence. Standing there felt as right as darting among the fishes with her spear had once been. A craving for solitude had laid hold of her and dragged her out. Hoon did not trust her, did not want her to have any time alone for her own devices-she did not trust him.
The chill breezes swirled her hair; but she did not feel the cold. The coolness rose from the nearby Idar River and settled over Minnoras with wisps of silver fog. She studied the city from her perch: the palace with its spires at the center; wooden houses pressed tightly together, sharing walls in the Poor Quarter; the stone and brick mansions of the wealthy along the north end with their gardens; and then she spied the abandoned wizard's tower, damaged over twenty years past in the Great War when Zol invaded northward. That building would fit her needs nicely.
<I am the Mother of Power,> whispered the voice in her mind as if reciting a practiced cant. <I am the ancient queen. I am the dark eternal Queen of Night. Destroy me a thousand times and I will always return. Night always returns no matter how often it is banished by the day. I will rise from my box. My box, which anciently my worshippers kept upon my altar in sacred places until I was thrown down in petty jealous wars with Bellocar's other wives, the ones who perished at the hands of Tala and Aroana in the early days of conflict. My worshippers hid my box and released me in secret. But I had been damaged. And Willodarus hurt me further. Will you help me regain myself, Zyne? Will you help me become a god again?>
Zyne wavered before the seductive voice. Her own people worshipped a banished god from before the coming of the foreign gods, the young Gods of Light, who had answered Ishla the Tinkerer's call and crossed the void with their legions.
Galee sensed this: Zyne could conceal nothing from her. <I have sought to build or seize a kingdom to gain enough power to crack open the Gate of the Hellgod, to release my mate and his surviving wives. One of these is the god of your people.>
Zyne sank to her knees, wrapping her wings around herself, shaking. Except for that slight movement, she might have been a crouching gargoyle. "I am no longer seiryn. I am something else."
<You would belong to me. I would love you. I would be your god. The sa'nekaryiane. As I was meant to be. As I was for the nekaryiane in centuries past.>
"We sent her power with our prayers and sacrifices so she would be freed."
<She will be free. I swear it.>
Zyne had gotten a child from Josiah Abelard to steal his genes for her parasitical race and produce a generation of powerful mages. The tritons had captured her after the abortive assault on the Sacred King, forced the unborn from her body, and prepared to execute her the next day in a rite to Nerindalori, God of the Waves. Hoon and Anksha had rescued her. Standing there, listening to promises of greatness from the voice in her head, she felt no obligation to either of them. "I am yours."
<Hoon wishes to use you to gain a kingdom. I will have a kingdom instead.>
She shivered. "What is it you wish?"
<A body. I must be reborn as sa'nekaryiane.>
"How?"
<Find a woman, close to term. I must build a body from that of an unborn child to house my soul. There is a tower on the far side where those who wait for me gather. I have heard their prayers, sensed their offerings. Tell no one. Especially Hoon. Take four or five men to help subdue and handle her. We will eat them afterward.>
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