Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [0]
Ruby Throne Trilogy Book 3
Deborah Chester
Part One
Chapter One
Gloom shrouded the cavern beneath the Temple of Gault. Torches flared everywhere, yet their ruddy light revealed little. Hurrying through the shadows in the wake of Sergeant Baiter, the Empress Elandra felt as though she walked in a dream. Her life had been turned completely upside down. She was a refugee now, with no home, no guards, no protector, and possibly... no husband. She had come here for safety, but this was no sanctuary.
Perhaps fifteen guardsmen in armor and crimson cloaks milled about, engaged in various tasks. A couple of servants, pale-faced with fear, crammed provisions into saddlebags under the gimlet eye of a square-faced sergeant. Half the guardsmen were checking saddles and gear. The rest were piling stones from what looked like dismantled benches across a doorway in the distance. The remaining granite benches stood in an eerie semicircle about an altar surrounded by empty copper cauldrons tipped on their sides. All the men moved with haste, but there was no panic, and relatively little disorder.
The torchlight flickered up the soot-blackened walls, casting shifting, ruddy illumination over the scene and glinting off the rolling white of the horses’ eyes, the sharp rowels of men’s spurs, and the wire-wrapped hilts of swords as their scabbards were buckled to saddles. The air smelled of sweat—from horse and man—a pungent, honest odor overlaying a lingering, cloyed fragrance of incense and death.
Glancing again at the abandoned altar, the Empress Elandra shivered and drew her cloak more tightly about her shoulders. This was a forbidden place. Blasphemy seemed to crawl upon the walls, and no priests were in sight. She stumbled after -the sergeant, consumed with exhaustion, finding herself stupidly near tears.
It was just reaction, she told herself, struggling to maintain her composure. She had spent the night fleeing for her life from both creatures of the darkness and savage Madrun invaders who were now looting and burning the palace.
Her home ... ablaze in the night.
She choked again, and the sergeant glanced back at her in swift concern.
“It’s not far, Majesty. Stay close to me.”
She nodded and quickened her step although her legs felt leaden. They were heading to a part of the cavern where officers were standing among haphazard stacks of boxes, scroll cases, and misshapen bundles. No doubt these were the scant items that had been salvaged from the palace. Elandra herself had managed to save nothing. She had only the dirty, torn clothes she was wearing beneath her cloak and the magical topaz jewel that she carried in a small embroidered bag strung around her neck. Even her dagger had been given away to the guardsman Caelan E’non, who had saved her life and brought her safely to this place beneath the temple.
At the thought of Caelan, however, her fear returned. She glanced back over her shoulder, but did not see him for the confusion around her. A horse, overly excited by the commotion, broke away and went shying sideways through the men, kicking and squealing before it was brought under control again.
“Majesty!” the sergeant said in alarm, holding her back.
Elandra looked at him, and hastily he released her arm. His square, honest face turned as red as his cloak.
“Forgive me, Majesty,” he said, aghast. “I thought only of your Majesty’s safety.”
Wearily she thought of the imperial protocols. A man like him could have his hand cut off for having dared touched her. She was an empress sovereign—by law, equal to the emperor himself. By law, she could appear only in the midst of her ladies in waiting, with chancellors in attendance, her protector at her back, and her own specially picked guardsmen surrounding her. But the Madrun barbarians had ended imperial law tonight. The empire was falling, and she did not know whether anything would ever follow protocol again.
Impatiently she shook her head. “You are forgiven, Sergeant. Please, escort me to my husband without delay.”
He saluted her. “Yes, Majesty.