Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [110]
A few steps short of the top, he stopped and stood there so that she could look down at him. A strange expression lay on her face. She seemed unaware of the rain pelting her, and her eyes held pain. He bowed his head to her, ashamed.
“I am sorry,” he said.
“Surely thou art a god,” she whispered.
His head snapped up. “No! Elandra, do not blaspheme.”
“I saw everything. You were a column of light. He was a pool of darkness.” Her eyes shifted away, then met his again. “It was a prophecy, Caelan. A prophecy of what comes.”
“Whatever possessed Lord Pier,” Caelan said thoughtfully, trying to pretend he felt no shiver of fear down his spine, “I think perhaps it possesses Prince Tirhin as well. My sister is right. I must confront him without delay.”
She nodded, her frown deepening. “We will go. But you must meet my father first.”
Only then did he remember the old man was dying. “Beloved—”
“He has asked for you,” she said. Pleading filled her eyes. “Please ... the physicians are such fools. Can you heal him?”
“No.”
Her breath caught audibly, and he realized she was fighting not to cry. “You know more than they,” she said. “You know many of the arts of healing. You do! At least try.”
He took her hand in his. “Let us go in out of the rain. You’re getting soaked.”
She shook her head, but he escorted her back under the portico.
“Try, Caelan,” she pleaded. “At least try. We need him.”
“I cannot heal others, Elandra. That is not my gift.”
“Are you sure?” she asked him. “Oh, please, please try. Have mercy and go to him. Please.”
He frowned, ready to protest further, but she was not listening to him. He remembered how he had grieved for his own father, whom he had not even loved as Elandra loved hers, and he could not refuse again.
“Let me clean up.”
She gripped his hand and drew him along. “No delays. Come now.”
“But, Elandra, if you want his blessing, I would look better clean and clothed.”
She wasn’t listening. “I will have you go to him while the light still shines a little on your skin. If you could save me within the realm of shadow, and if you have released Lord Pier from the grasp of darkness, then surely you can also save my father.”
He sighed. A physical injury was not the same as an injury to the soul. But Elandra’s stubbornness was a wall around her.
Together they walked through the immense palace that rivaled Kostimon’s in splendor and size. Two Gialtan guards trailed after them, although no one sought to stop them. Caelan did not think he would impress anyone with rain, sweat, and blood drying on him, his tunic torn off his back, and his hair hanging in his eyes.
In the antechamber, the physicians looked startled to see them. One of the men held open an ancient book with a crumbling leather binding and a lock and chain that swung freely. He paused with his long index finger still resting on one of the vellum pages.
Caelan glimpsed strange, arcane writings, and a sense of magic hovered in the air above the man’s head.
Caelan frowned, focusing on the mortar and pestle the second man held and the bottle of liquid in the hands of the third.
They stared like guilty men caught in some act.
“Learned men,” Elandra said with a courteous inclination of her head. “I return with a visitor—”
“Your pardon, Majesty.” Caelan broke in with a sense of deepening unease. “Who are these men?”
She looked surprised. “The physicians—”
“Are they? What are you concocting?” Caelan asked the men.
The three exchanged glances, and he saw lies enter their faces.
“Only a potion to help soothe Lord Albain’s discomfort,” one replied. “The pain grows worse.”
Caelan looked around. He felt a strange charge in the air, something unseen and unwanted.
The hair on his scalp prickled, and he would have set Choven warding keys on the doors and windows as protection if he’d had any.
“What’s wrong?” Elandra asked him, her eyes wide. “What do you see?”
Caelan glanced at her two guards. “Do you serve her Majesty or have you been set to follow her like watchdogs?”
They bristled at his question,