Carpathian 20 - Dark Slayer

have taken hundreds of years, yet she had conceived the idea and then painstakingly done it. He stood in one fluid motion, shocked at the way his body responded to the strength running through it, but he was more interested in the woman and what she had wrought than in how his body worked.
    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.
    Kuć3ak és kune jeläam és andsz éntölam sielerauhoet, andsz éntölam pesädet és andsz éntölam kontsÃverauhoet : 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