Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [49]
Then she came running to him and flung her arms around his neck. “Oh, Caelan, Caelan!” she cried, laughing and kissing his cheek over and over. “How glad I am that you have come home. I have missed you so much. I wanted you back here with me. I made you come.”
He could not understand it. He dared not believe it. And yet... “Lea,” he said, his voice choking as he hugged her back. She was real flesh and blood in his arms. He found himself in tears. “Dear gods, is it you?”
“Of course, silly.”
Pushing away from him, she threw back her head and laughed, then caught his hand and drew him to his feet. Now it was her turn to stare up at him. She did so, studying him hard from every angle.
“How big you are now. How broad your shoulders are. And you’re taller. But so am I!”
Laughing, she skipped away and twirled about the room until her gown belled around her ankles. Then she raced back up to him and gave him another hug around the waist.
“I am so happy now. Did I say how much I have missed you?”
He grabbed her by the arms to keep her from skipping away again. “Slow down, you minx,” he said, half laughing at her antics. It was as though the years had fallen away, and they were playing and tussling the way they used to. He had the urge to toss her high in the air and tickle her until she begged him to stop.
But she was too old for that. Why, she was grown, practically a woman now. He kept starting to say something to her, only to stop and stare, his breath forgotten in his throat, his words lost.
“Look at you,” he said at last. “How, Lea? How did you survive?”
“You told me to wait,” she said. “After a while, I couldn’t do that, but I came back every day to see if you’d kept your promise. And here you are! I knew you wouldn’t fail me. I wanted you to come back, and you have.”
Questions crowded his mind, too many to ask all at once. This was so hard to comprehend. He wanted to dance in joy, and yet he could not believe she was here or that she was really alive.
He pulled her near again, touching her face, tugging at her hair, entwining her fingers in his. They were long and tapered now instead of chubby and small.
“How?” he whispered, his amazement continuing to grow. “You must tell me how.”
“How I made you come back?”
He squeezed her hands in an effort to make her be serious. “No, how you lived after I abandoned you. Where did you go? Who looked after you?”
Her gaze swung away from his. “So many questions—”
“I must know!” he insisted. “I thought you were dead. All these years, I have blamed myself for abandoning you.”
“But you didn’t,” she said earnestly. “You had to help Father. I understand that now.”
“I couldn’t do anything to help him,” Caelan said bitterly, seeing the raid all over again. “I was a boy, without weapons, unable to fight properly. I should have stayed with you. Instead, I ran away and left you crying here in the cave.”
“I don’t cry now,” she said. “I’m too grown up.”
He choked and dropped to his knees before her. “Forgive me, Lea.”
“Hush, Caelan. Hush.” She touched his face with her hands, soothing away his distress. “Don’t be sad. I don’t blame you for anything.”
He kissed her hands, thankful for her mercy. “You were always of a good and generous heart, little one. I blamed myself.”
“I know,” she said, suddenly serious. “You have suffered dreadfully. If only I could have made you come back sooner, you wouldn’t have hurt so much. But I had to grow first. I had so much to learn.”
She sat down in front of him, tucking her gown around her feet as though she were impervious to the ice-cold floor. He noticed then that she wore the nine thumb-sized emeralds in a necklace around her slim throat. Many girls of marriageable age wore their dowries as necklaces. But who had made such a necklace for her? Who had taken her in and given her such fine clothing to wear? Who had cared for her?
“No questions,” she said, holding his large, callused hand in her slim one. “Not now. I promise we’ll talk of those