Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [124]
Albain said nothing, but simply scowled in the distance, deep in thought.
Elandra rubbed her face wearily. Most of the night was gone. She felt wrung out and restless, too tired to sleep now.
Albain sighed at last. “Politics are a damned nuisance. I’d rather have a simple war any day.”
Despite herself, she gave him a wan smile and kissed his cheek.
“I’ll dig into the rest of it later,” Albain said, yawning. “Don’t look so worried, child. Your mother can’t hurt me. The only thing between us is you, and that we dealt with a long time ago.”
“The Penestricans told me the truth,” Elandra said softly. “About you and her.”
Startled, he met her gaze, and sadness filled his eye. “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “I never meant you to know that.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I wish I did not know it either. But in a way it prepared me for this meeting with her. She would have hurt me had I not known. Truth is better than one’s dreams and imaginings.”
Albain gripped her hand hard. “I wish to Gault you were a boy. I would set you on the throne myself.”
That, unlike everything else, did hurt her. It hurt her deeply.
She stared at him a moment, then bent her head and rose swiftly to her feet.
“Elandra,” he said.
“I must go.”
“Elandra, wait.”
He said it as a command.
She stopped unwillingly, her back to him to hide the tears swimming in her eyes.
“It was a stupid thing to say. I retract it,” he said to her earnestly. “I’m sorry. I owe you better than an old man’s outdated way of thinking.”
“Everyone else thinks the same way,” she said, struggling to keep her voice light. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. It should matter. Kostimon could see farther than that. He gave you a chance. And I promised you my army.”
She turned on him, not caring now if he saw her tears. “But can you hold your own warlords?” she asked. “They scheme and intrigue and throw spells the jinjas do not sense. We are slipping from the light into darkness, and every man is running to grab what he can.”
“The man you brought with you,” Albain said wearily. “Where is he? Why did he not help you tonight?”
Her fears came boiling up, uncontrollable. She gripped her hands together and tried to keep her lips from trembling. “I don’t know where he is.”
“What?”
“I don’t know! He is gone. Vanished without a trace. And I fear for him. I—”
“But you must explain this. He came to me, did he not?” Albain hesitated, looking unsure. “He healed me.”
She nodded, crying openly now, unable to stop herself.
“I saw him,” Albain said slowly, “as though in a dream. He was tall and well muscled. Manly. Tanned as dark as a laborer, with hair like gold.”
“Yes.”
“He held me, and the pain left. He spoke to spirits, who came and gave me strength again.”
She pressed her hands to her face. “His father was a healer, Beva E’non of Trau.”
“Traulanders have a gift that way.”
“His father died several years ago. It was his spirit Caelan sought to help you.”
Albain stared at her, looking awed. “He can enter the spirit world? Death was carrying me there, but do you mean this Caelan can enter of his own will? Can he return?”
There it was, her fear articulated now and brought into the open. She raised brimming eyes to her father and shrugged. “I do not know. I thought he could. From things he has told me, he has gone there before. He can do so much other men cannot. He—” She stopped and swallowed, trying to compose herself. “But he is gone. I fear he cannot return, and that he has given himself wholly to save you.”
Albain held out his arms. “My poor child.”
She ran to him, hugging him tight and weeping against his chest. “I made him do it,” she confessed, sobbing bitterly. “He was afraid, and I begged him. I didn’t listen. All I wanted was to save you. And now he is gone. He is lost. It is all my fault.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The rains continued the following day. It was winter, the time of monsoons, when the laborers worked hour after hour to channel the river away from villages and planted fields. The river, swollen and