Stone was crashing around them, filling the air with dust. Something-someone-was screaming. Then, mercifully, the shaking stopped, Miranda’s feet connected with something solid and, bracing her feet against the wall, between them they managed to get her over the edge.
He caught her, rolling away with her from the precipice, holding her, even as the pain exploded in his shoulder, his head. As her voice exploded in his ear.
‘Idiot!’
‘Without a doubt,’ he managed as she sucked in a breath, presumably to continue berating him. The dust caught in her throat and she began to cough. Not that she let a little thing like that stop her.
‘Don’t you ever do that again!’
‘I promise.’ He might have laughed if it didn’t hurt so much. Maybe it was hurting so much because he was laughing, he couldn’t tell.
‘I mean it! I’m not worth dying for, do you hear me?’
He heard her, heard a raw pain as the words were wrenched from her. It wasn’t just reaction, he realised. Or shock.
She truly meant what she’d said and, despite his own physical pain, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close even though she fought him like a tiger. Held her safe until she stopped telling him over and over, ‘I’m not worth it…’
Until she let go, subsided against his chest and only the slightest movement of her shoulders betrayed that she was weeping.
It was her struggle to conceal the hot tears soaking into his shirt as they lay huddled together on the earth that finally got to him.
She had every right to howl, stamp, scream her head off after what she’d been through. She certainly hadn’t shown any reticence when it came to expressing her feelings until now. In truth, he would have welcomed the promised kick, or at least a mouthful of abuse. Anything that would stop him from asking her why she wasn’t worth dying for.
He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to get that involved.
But, even as he fought it, he recognised, somewhere, deep down, that it was a forlorn hope. Her life belonged to him, as his belonged to her.
From the moment he’d reached out in the dark and his hand had connected with this woman, their survival had been inextricably linked. Whatever happened in the future, this day, these few hours would, forever, bind them together.
And they were not home free yet. Not by a long way.
‘Hey, come on. No need for that,’ He said, tugging out the tail of his shirt and using it to wipe her face, as she’d used hers to wipe the dust from his in what now seemed like a lifetime ago.
Kissing her cheek. Kissing her better.
‘Don’t!’
His kiss was almost more than she could bear. The gentle innocence of it. Almost as if she were a child. It nearly undid all his good work in putting her back together. It took what little remained of Manda’s self-control to stop herself from grasping handfuls of Jago’s shirt, holding on to the solid human warmth of his body. Clinging to the safety net that he seemed to offer.
‘Enough,’ she said, scrubbing at her face with her sleeve to eradicate the softness of his shirt against her skin. The softness of his lips.
Wiping out all evidence of her own pitiful weakness.
She hadn’t cried in years. She’d been so sure there were no more tears left in her. But this stranger had risked his own life to save her…
‘You should have let me fall,’ she said. ‘I told you to let-’
‘Next time,’ he cut in, stopping the words.
Damn him, she meant it!
She closed her eyes in an attempt to stop more tears from spilling down her cheeks, took a breath, then, when she could trust herself to speak, said, ‘Is that a promise?’
‘It’s a promise.’
‘Right. Well, okay…Good.’
‘You have my word that the very next time you’re climbing the wall of the inner sanctum of the Temple of Fire you’re on your own.’
‘What? No!’
‘Isn’t that what you meant?’
‘You know it isn’t. We’re not out of here yet and what’s the point of us both dying?’
‘No one is going to die,’ he replied with a sudden fierceness. ‘Not today. Not here. Not in my temple.’
‘I wish I had your confidence.’
‘You’ve got something better, much better than that, Miranda Grenville. You’ve got me.’
It was a totally outrageous thing to say, Jago knew. His shoulder was practically useless and the headache that had never entirely eased was now back with a vengeance. But a spluttering laugh that she couldn’t quite hold in reassured him.
‘So I have. While you, poor sap, are stuck with me. Useless at taking orders and with a trust threshold hovering on zero.’ With that she stilled. ‘I could have got us both killed back there.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up about it. We react in the way we’re programmed to.’
‘And you’re programmed to be the hero.’ She laid her hand against his chest. ‘Thank you for holding on.’ Then, as if embarrassed by her own gratitude, she said, ‘So? What next, fearless leader? We’re not out of the woods yet.’
He caught her hand before she could move and lay back, taking her with him. Closing his eyes. ‘We rest. Try and get some sleep.’
‘Sleep?’
‘What’s up, princess? Missing your silk sheets and goose down pillows?’
‘Silk sheets? Please…’ But she shivered.
‘You’re cold?’
‘Not cold, although it is colder up here. There’s more air, too. Do you think there’s a way out?’
‘Part of the roof has gone. Look, you can see a few stars.’
‘Oh…’ Then, eagerly, ‘Can’t we press on?’
‘We need to recover a little before we attempt another climb,’ he said. He needed to recover. ‘And when the eagle collapsed it took part of the floor at this level with it. It seems solid enough here, but…’
‘We could take more pictures.’
‘If we wait, we’ll have daylight,’ He said. ‘There’s no point in taking any risks.’
‘I’m not sure about that. It’s easier to be brave when you can’t see the danger.’
‘Trust me.’
‘You keep saying that.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess it makes sense,’ she said, but not with any real enthusiasm and who could blame her? ‘It’s just this place. It gives me the creeps.’
‘Afraid of the dark?’ He released her hand. ‘Come on, cooch up,’ he said, holding out his arm so that she could curl up against him, ‘and I’ll tell you a bedtime story.’ She ignored the offered comfort, keeping her distance. He went ahead with the story, anyway. Telling her about the people who’d built the temple. The way they’d lived. What they had worshipped.
He thought she’d be happier if she knew that they didn’t go into for bloody sacrifice. That their ‘fire’ was not a thing to fear. How, when the moon was full, they’d built a fire on the altar at the heart of their temple, then heaped the huge night-scented lilies that bloomed in the forest on to the embers so that the eagle could catch the sweet smoke that was carried up the shaft and fly with it in his wings as a gift to the moon.
‘How can you know all that?’ she asked in wonder.
‘They carved pictures into the walls, drew their ceremonies in pictograms. And laboratories have analysed the ashes we found under centuries of compacted leaf litter.’
‘But that’s really beautiful, Jago. Why didn’t the guide tell us all this?’
‘Because the guide doesn’t know. I haven’t published any of my findings.’
