Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [50]
“But—”
“Hush,” she said, her blue eyes very serious now. “I must study you. There are things I must know, and I will learn them quicker this way than if we talk. Don’t close yourself to me. Please.”
Before he could speak, he felt her brush against his mind and riffle his thoughts. He felt her soul slip through his, leaving a refreshing sense of having dived into cool water on a hot summer’s day. He felt her sift through his past before he could stop her, then she was gone from him, separate, blinking in front of him, and looking a little pale.
“Oh, my,” she said breathlessly. “Oh, my.”
She knew it all, knew his failures, his moments of shame, his secrets. Just as she had always known them. It had never been easy to keep anything concealed from her. Now he suspected it might be impossible.
She turned his hand over in hers and stroked his palm with her fingertips. “So much blood,” she murmured. “So much killing. I can hear the death screams of countless men. Do they trouble your dreams?”
There was no point in lying. “Yes.”
“Have you taken enough lives to pay back the Fates for Father’s death?”
He squirmed uncomfortably. Lea went, as always, straight to the heart of the matter. “No,” he said after a moment. “That will never be erased.”
“Why do you blame yourself for Father’s death?” she asked.
He looked into her eyes for grief and found only clear-eyed concern for him in their depths. Sighing, Caelan said, “I don’t know. It’s been so long. It’s all confusion now.”
“Yes, you are confused. I thought you would have finished your lessons by now, but you haven’t. You are always so slow, Caelan.”
“What—”
She jumped to her feet. “Do you still have your emeralds? The ones we found here together? They were to be your talismans. Did you keep them or sell them for a sword?”
“Come and see.”
He took her back to the other cave, where the formations of stone hung twisted and folded as they had for all time, where his huge emerald still glowed beside the little fire, where Elandra lay caught in the dark spell that had captured her.
Lea gasped and shrank against him in unexpected shyness. “Who is she?”
“Her name is Elandra. She is our sovereign empress and the wife of Emperor Kostimon.”
“She is beautiful,” Lea whispered.
Joy swelled his heart. Lea’s approval meant everything. He hugged her and kissed the top of her head.
Lea pulled away from him. “Is she sleeping?”
“No,” Caelan said, his joy fading. “She is dying.”
“How?”
“A shyriea—a demon that flies and attacks like—”
“I know what it is,” Lea said.
He glanced at her in wonder, but asked no questions. “It bit her. The venom is poisoning her blood, turning her into the darkness. I fear—I fear she will change into—”
Lea turned and gripped his hand a moment. Her blue eyes met his, and they were direct, reassuring, and oddly mature. “Do not fear, Caelan. You have brought her into a place of protection, just as you brought me. No harm can befall her here.”
“But—”
She lifted a finger to her lips to silence him, then turned and knelt beside Elandra. With gentle hands she touched Elandra’s brow. Closing her eyes, Lea began to sing a low, wordless melody in a voice like gold.
It was like hearing his mother sing to him again at bedtime. Caelan turned away for a moment, overtaken by memories of gentle hands smoothing the bedclothes, of soft lips kissing his cheek, of the song lulling him into the warm caress of sleep.
Overcome, he found his throat choking up. In silence he fled, stooping through the tunnel to the mouth of the cave. Rushing outside, he stood in the gully, shielded a bit from the wind-whipped snow, and drew in rapid lungfuls of the frosty air.
Lea’s song made him think of purity, of kindness and peace, all the virtues, innocence and goodness. The notes of her music were being woven around Elandra, protecting and preserving her. But the song had driven him out, for he was tainted. Blood would forever stain his hands. Even if he lived as a hermit on a lonely rock for the rest of his days, he would never