Zanaikeyros - Son of Dragons (Pantheon of Dragons #1)(77)
Jordan thought about the layout of the desk and the few items she had seen. “Yes,” she said softly. “It was sitting in the corner.”
Zane inclined his head. “If you place your hand over the top of the globe and grasp it, the stone will warm to your touch, and then it will begin to glow. Every radio frequency or wave used in the human realm can be duplicated and harnessed—recreated and captured—in that sapphire stone. It was easily manufactured by the gods. Should you choose to communicate through a human device, you need only to invoke the sapphire sphere. There are several on every floor of the lair: one on each desk, and a larger one on the accent tables at the end of each communal hall.”
Jordan swallowed any potential protest and chuckled insincerely. “That would have been nice to know.”
“Yeah,” Zane teased her. “You would’ve called every agency you could think of: the FBI, the CIA, heck, the White House—am I right?” In spite of his momentary levity, he understood the gravity of the situation and pressed on without awaiting an answer. “Point being: I withheld the entire truth, at least initially, because our connection was too…uncertain.” He tempered his voice, and his dragon eyes narrowed. “And I withheld the entire truth about something else as well.”
She held his gaze without wavering. “About what?”
“The temple. The consecration. The full stakes involved.”
Oh. Shit.
She braced herself for the worst—if he was going to tell her something awful, something unthinkable, she wanted to suppress any potential hysterical reaction.
“Do you remember that night in your apartment when I told you I would not let you die, nor would I relinquish my life to make this easier?”
She nodded.
“What did you think that meant?”
“I don’t really know,” she answered honestly. “That you weren’t going to let anyone—or anything—kill me, and that you weren’t going to allow me to risk your life, or your safety, either.” She cringed. “I know I almost got you killed, Zane—I just…I just don’t know what to say. I had to do what I did. It was—”
“No,” he interrupted, once again squeezing her hand. “We can speak more about that later, if you wish. Right now, I’m referring to something else.”
She stared at him blankly, feeling a bit like a child being chastised by a teacher. “Okay.”
“Jordan, there are consequences for failing to bring one’s dragyra to the temple on the tenth day of the claiming.”
If not for the warm, calming water, she would have visibly shivered. “Like what?”
He lowered his voice instinctively. “If you fail to show up, you will…perish…in your sleep that night. And I…I will have my amulet removed by Lord Saphyrius.”
Jordan shot up in her seat, recoiling. She wrenched her hand free of his and held it up in question. “What do you mean by perish?”
He frowned. “Perish.”
She shook her head in disbelief, and then her eyes shot to his amulet, resting so conspicuously on his naked chest: The uneven natural stone was exquisite, priceless…ominous. “What happens if he removes your amulet?”
Zane glanced away, and his silence shook her soul.
“Zane, what happens?”
He showed no emotion whatsoever. “My existence will be no more.” And then, as if he was reading a fictional page from an ancient text, he went on to tell her about the seven white clay mountains—the Garden of Grace—and how the statues were the souls of the Dragyr’s dead, immortalized as gemstones forever. He reminded her, yet again, about the life-force imbued in the sacred stones, making it clearer this time that, for all intents and purposes, the gemstone was the equivalent of a human soul—once it was gone, the body was no longer animated.
Jordan felt faint.
She felt disoriented and sick to her stomach.
This was insane.
Unthinkable.
Utterly…and absolutely…horrific.
After several protracted moments had passed—she would process the bulk of it later; they still had four more days—she asked him, “Has anyone ever done that? I mean, a human woman refusing to enter the Temple?”
Zane’s countenance changed, and his features grew strained. “Yeah. It’s happened.”
He rolled his shoulders in an unconscious gesture, trying his best to relax, and for the second time since she’d met him, Jordan caught a faraway look in his eyes—she had seen that look before, that night in her living room when he had crouched in front of the sofa and taken a drop of her blood. “Zane…” She spoke softly. “That night, when you asked me about my family, whether or not I had a lot of relatives, I told you about my parents…about my grandmother passing away.” She sighed. “You had this really distant look in your eyes, the same one you have now. What is that about, Zane? Who did you lose?”
Zane stirred restlessly in the tub, sending several waves of water rippling across the surface, and then he slowly shook his head, dismissing the subject.
“Am I the only one who has to be vulnerable?” she asked. “The only one who is constantly exposed and off-balance?”
Zane blinked his sapphire-gold eyes; his tongue snaked out to lick his lips; and his features looked positive ashen…like he had just seen a shade. “Jaquar.”