Christine feehan - Dark Slayer 20

There was something extraordinary about the room, and not just the sheer work it had taken. The feel of it intrigued him. He placed his hands palm out toward the walls. Power crackled. Warmth and peace filled him. He frowned and dropped his hands, turning his head to study the rich carvings. Each wall, about thirty feet high in the shape of an oval, was carved with intricate drawings. A forest took up one wall, each needle and limb and gnarled trunk in rich detail. He moved closer. A second wall held a waterfall spilling into a pool of water, a pack of silver-tipped wolves, six of them, was etched in various positions in and around the forest and pool. He noted the shrubbery and flowers and the round moon and stars. Along the bottom of the wall, near the chamber basin where she rested, she had carved a single phrase.

Kuc3ak es kune jelaam es andsz entolam sielerauhoet, andsz entolam pesadet es andsz entolam kontsiverauhoet: May the stars and moon be my guiding light and grant serenity of the soul, protection from all harm and a warrior's heart-peace.

It was more than a work of art. Embedded into each letter, every loop and whorl, the vines running in and out of each word, was the feeling of tranquility. When he ran his hands over the sentence, an inch away from the wall, he could feel vibrations and knew that woven into those words, into the very rock itself, were powerful safeguards.

Razvan laid his hands on the rock wall. Again the wall hummed with life. The walls were solid rock, impenetrable like her basin of soil. But more than that, each wall held safeguards, potent ones. He recognized the beginnings as mage, but they were so different it would be nearly impossible to unravel them. Nothing was going to get through those walls. No one would ever find her, and she was perfectly safe.

He groaned aloud. She had brought him to her sanctuary. He was probably the first person to ever see her home, and with him, he brought an enemy beyond all others. Xavier could possess his body, and now that it was strong and fit and filled with power, the evil mage would want Razvan's body for his own more than ever.

Razvan touched her violin, and felt the joy and artistry of her music. Her emotions were everywhere, buried in the art she created in the warmth and sanctuary of her home. He went up smooth, polished rock steps and through the narrow opening into the largest room. This was obviously her living quarters, where she spent the most time. The cavern walls had been etched out one inch at a time until she had created a round tower, rising up a good forty feet. Although relatively small, the chamber appeared spacious in its simplicity.

There were a couple of chairs and a thick rug of wool with a bit of wolf hair clinging to it here and there, giving evidence that her pack often lay in this room. He found a book of poetry and another on samurai battles and strategy and code of honor. Both were old and lay on the small carved table by a chair. He picked up the samurai book, told in an ancient language, and thumbed through it, noting the small writing in the margin and the underlining of phrases on every page. The book was worn, and obviously read often.

As in the bedchamber, the walls were covered in drawings, each stroke carved into the wall, which must have taken years to complete. The craftsmanship told him something about her. She was patient. She was meticulous. And a perfectionist. She was an artisan whether she knew it or not. The faces of ten young men stared out at him. Each face held an expression of love. When he lifted his hand and ran his fingertips over the smooth etchings, he felt the love. Her love. Their love for her. Anguish and sorrow at her loss of them. This, then, was her monument to her lost family.

Razvan had known love. His father and mother. His sister, Natalya. He carried those memories long after his emotions had faded-and it had taken a long time, even when he embraced that darkness in him, reached for it, desperate to be numb so he couldn't feel loss and guilt and an overwhelming sense of failure and despair. The blood in him ran strong whether he wanted it or not. When he touched those faces, the love there, the sorrow, nearly drove him to his knees. Every single stroke of the implement used to forge those beloved lines from memory was done with tears running down her face and absolute love in her heart.

As the pads of his fingers traced over the hair and foreheads, down to the eyes, noses and mouths, he felt the difference in her. At first those hands had been innocent of knowledge of the fate of her brothers. Little by little, the knowledge had been gained over centuries, until she knew of the betrayal of her five older brothers. His hands stilled and he drew in his breath sharply. Vampires. Betrayers. Master vampires banding together and plotting the downfall of the Carpathian people with… His heart sank. Her enemy. Her worst enemy. Xavier.

It was all there in the stone. Every detail, every emotion, the blood and the tears and every ounce of love and forgiveness she had in her. She resolved never to see them as they were now, only to remember them with love in her heart where she could touch their faces here on this memorial and remember nothing but love from them.

He wanted to weep for her, for her lost family. He couldn't imagine what strength it must have taken for her to go on, so alone, so lost, the pain of her loss nearly intolerable, the strength of her love enduring. The other five faces were family-yet not blood. He felt her deep love for them, the caring, but fear was woven in there. She dreaded knowing their fate, and so he had stopped looking, afraid that they had taken the path of her brothers. The love shone through along with her dread of the truth.

Below the faces of the ten men were six wolves, carved in exquisite detail, so real looking he touched the rock to see if the fur was really of stone. Each face was different, as if she'd studied a wolf and transformed the living creature into part of the earth for all time. The room was beautiful yet very simple and felt like home and love.

He studied each face carefully, both man and wolf, knowing these were the important beings in her life. He wondered, if things had been different, whether his face would have been on the wall, immortalized with her family.

Along the bottom of the wall she had carved sentences in the Carpathian language, the letters intricate with vines and leaves weaving in and out of them along with finely etched flowers woven into the sentences.

Siv pide kod. Pitaam mustaakad sielpesaambam. Love transcends evil. I hold your memories safe in my soul.

Once again, as he passed his hand over the words, he felt the emotion pouring from the wall, so much so that he felt burning behind his eyes. Her love for her brothers, for her family and her pack, was tremendous and unwavering. Even with the knowledge that her brothers were dead to her, that they had betrayed her memory in the worst possible way, she not only was determined, but she succeeded in remembering them only as the family she had loved and adored.

There was courage in those words, he decided. Courage and strength and determination. If there was a way to recover the lost souls of her brothers through sheer love and forgiveness, she would find a way. He traced the small crosses cut deep beneath each of her brothers' faces and those of the De La Cruz brothers. Protection sparked back at him, as if that wall held the safeguards to protect her loving memories should she encounter the evil that her family had chosen to become.

A short tunnel veered off to the right and an open arch led through to a third room. He glanced inside the third room, which was nearly an extension of her family room to find a soothing pool, with a small real waterfall spilling out of the rock. This room had carvings, but just the faint beginnings of them. He could make out a huge tree trunk, with many long, sweeping branches reaching across the rock as if to shade the pool. It was a work in progress and he wished he'd be there to watch her work.