Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [166]
“She is an empress sovereign. She will meet her fate,” the Magria said. “Will you meet yours?”
“You ask too much,” Caelan said resentfully. “We didn’t have to let ourselves be brought back to Imperia. We could have fled, made a life elsewhere.”
“For how long?” the Magria said, unimpressed. “Does love prevail against guilt, against a sense of failure, against the suspicion that one has left an important task undone? Can love alone make two people happy when there is nothing else to hold them in place? Or will the initial infatuation fade and tarnish, until only bitterness remains?”
He frowned, and had no answer.
“Do you love Elandra?”
He did not hesitate. What he felt for Elandra was the most sure thing in his life. “Yes, I love her.”
“Do you understand what love means?” the Magria asked him, her cold, severe voice very precise in the silence. “Do you understand that it is more than a union of bodies, that it is responsibility and kindness and sacrifice?”
“Yes.”
She looked at him very hard, and he almost expected to have a truth-light thrown over him. But perhaps in this grove of the goddess mother, truth could be read in him through other ways.
“You have said what you believe,” the Magria finally announced. “Your honesty was described to me, but I wished to examine you for myself.”
Caelan shrugged. “You have tested me, but I am not sure I have passed.”
“Not yet. I ask again if you love Elandra.”
He knew what was coming. His heart seemed to shrink inside him until it was a cold, tight knot. Unable to trust his voice, he nodded to her.
“In the culture of the Traulanders, there is a saying ... to walk one’s path. You must walk your path, Lord Caelan. And the empress must walk hers. Will you let her go to the altar today, or will you interfere?”
“Has she no choice herself?” he asked in anguish. “Can she not determine whether she must accept that—”
“You question matters which are her concern, not yours.”
“What concerns her, concerns me.”
“Not at this time. I will not ask you again, Lord Caelan. What is your answer? Will you let her go to the altar, or will you stop her?”
Fuming, Caelan turned away from the Magria. He knew the answer she wanted, the answer she was trying to force from him. But was he some weakling who could stand by while his love went to another man? No, he would fight for her. He must fight for her. She was all that was worth having. She was ...
He glanced up at the dark storm cloud obscuring the sky and thought of the unnatural darkness that concealed the sky of Imperia. He thought of how again and again in his life he had been hurled against the wall of obedience, of how he had fought and defied everyone until he met the Choven. He thought of when he had sought help for the ailing Lord Albain, and how he had been asked to surrender to a force beyond mystery.
He was being asked again, asked to put himself and his own needs and desires aside for a greater good. When he had thought he had only his own life to risk, it had not been a difficult decision. But to leave Elandra in Tirhin’s possession was more than he could do. Jealousy rekindled in him like a flame. But the fire was not as hot as it had been a few moments before. He was thinking now of the empire, of how threatened and unstable it was. Elandra would be safe with Tirhin. No matter how much such an admission cost Caelan, he could not deny it.
The fire inside him snuffed out. He felt cold and drained inside. Grimly he turned back to the Magria and met her gaze.
It was like shoving aside a mountain to say the words, but he said them. “I will let her go to the altar.”
The Magria’s face reflected no triumph, no flicker of satisfaction. Her blue eyes bored into his as though she would weigh his very soul. “This is your promise, your vow?”
A muscle twitched in his clenched jaw. “My word has been given. I will keep it.”
“Ah. The word of