“Draconian safryres attract and deflect energy,” O’ne said.
“I have called for your donatta to deliver you to the palace and instructed her to bring you another inhaler,” L’yla said. “While you await your mate, please inform the prince the defiler of the first temple has met with a rightful end, but there are other humans on the planet. There are good ones, and there are bad ones. He will need to sort them out.”
“Of course…Priestess,” he replied.
“I will grant you a moment,” she said to both of them. Then she turned and left the sanctuary, followed by the eleven. A bemused smile curved O’ne’s lips. “She would not have been the one I would have picked to succeed me, but that is why the Eternal Fyre does the choosing. Already she grows into the role faster than I did.”
“It must be awkward to defer to your former, uh, understudy,” he said.
“On the contrary, it is the answer to a prayer.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
O’ne slipped into the pool room where H’ry swam, unaware of her presence. His clothing lay piled on the floor, a knife sheath poking out from beneath his shirt. After the attack at the temple, she doubted he’d ever venture anywhere unarmed. Bending, she picked up the leather case and slapped it against her palm before extracting the blade.
She ran her thumb along the dagger’s gleaming edge. Eons ago, similar weapons had been used on Earth, but chiseled from stone, those knives hadn’t been nearly as sharp as H’ry’s modern one.
He continued to crawl through the water with bold, smooth strokes. My mate, she thought with gratitude and thankfulness. They shared a future now. But how could one embrace the future while still clutching remnants of the past?
The time had come to let go. With the dagger, she sliced and sawed away the ancient ties, old hurts, and bitter regrets, leaving her feeling lighter, unfettered, free. When the deed was done, she laughed as she shook her head.
“Oh my god! What did you do? Your hair! You cut your hair!” H’ry stood in the pool, gaping at her.
“A little trim.” She stood among yards of hair puddled at her feet and shook her head again, reveling in the carefree swing and lightness of her new waist-length tresses. Maybe she’d cut more later. She’d try this and see how she liked it.
She dropped her dress atop her hair and eased into the water. “I will never forget my daughter, but remembering does not mean I must continue to suffer. Her fyre lives in me and in her descendants. I’d vowed not to cut my hair until all my children returned to me. I now realize I can never reunite with them all, and, as Jackson Biggs showed, even if they return, they may still be lost to me.
“If I am to live, I must let go. I don’t want to squander the future by clinging to the past.” She waded toward her mate. “I didn’t become priestess to serve but to avenge. If I hadn’t sought to hurt those who’d wronged me, I never would have gone to the temple upon returning to Draco, and I wouldn’t have been exalted. But then I wouldn’t have met you or known Helena and Rhianna.”
She stopped in front of him. Water had darkened his hair, plastered it to his scalp. Her vision riveted on a single droplet trickling down his muscular chest. The bruise had darkened. He’d had such a close call. Giving him the safyre had been an impulsive act, a selfish desire to leave her mark, to ensure he would think of her when he met the woman who would give him children.
Now she realized the woman of her vision whose face she’d been unable to see had been her. H’ry’s future had been their future.
“Maybe the reunion with your children was all part of the Eternal Fyre’s plan,” he suggested.
“Perhaps it was.” She shook her head, not to disagree but to revel in the new freedom. Even soaked, her shorter hair felt unbelievably light. Then she leveled a stern gaze on him.
“You saved my life. You took the blaster hit meant for me.”
With a sheepish smile, he tipped an imaginary hat. “All in a day’s work, ma’am.”
She was not amused. “Don’t ever do that again.”
His expression turned serious in an instant. “I can’t and won’t promise that.”
She glared.
“You’ll just have to promise not to put yourself in danger.”
That she couldn’t do. She might have to accept a standoff. “You’re really okay?”
He rubbed his chest and then fingered his skull. “Got a pretty bruise and a heck of a goose egg, but I feel great. Alive is great!” He flashed a tummy-curling grin. “Why are you standing all the way over there?”
She melted into his arms, hugged his waist, and kissed his chest.
“The diamond, uh, safyre is in my room. I don’t wear it when I swim. I need to give it back to you.”
“No, it’s yours. I wanted you to have it.”
“A parting gift. But now we’re not parting.”
“All the better!” She smiled up at him.
He grinned back and then said, “You were gone longer than I had expected. I started to get worried something had gone wrong.”
“L’yla had to perform the rebirth ceremony from the beginning. Afterward, she sought my counsel. Even when one desires to serve, one cannot be fully prepared for the enormity of the responsibility, but she is adapting well and fast. Her fyre burns true and pure. She will be very, very powerful—more than I ever was.”
“The Eternal Fyre is where it needs to be?”
She nodded. “The sacred flame burns in the consecrated temple.”
“And you don’t have any more official duties?”
“None.” She rubbed her cheek against his chest, appreciating the tactile
