Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [71]
She drew a deep breath and met Anas’s gaze. “I will do it,” she replied.
Anas nodded, and concentration tightened her face. “Begin.”
At first it was difficult to focus. Elandra’s mind was jumping from one thought to another, refusing to settle, refusing to obey. She held her gaze steadily on Anas’s, thinking of their blue depths as blue topazes, not so very different from her golden one. Anas would help her. All she had to do was try ... and trust.
Gradually her thumping heart slowed down. She remembered to regulate her breathing. She remembered not to blink. She found herself drawn into Anas’s blue eyes. How clear they were, how compelling and intelligent. They were such a different shade of blue from Caelan’s, flecked with gray and green in the depths. Compassion and kindness lay in their depths, swirling with the colors, reaching out for Elandra so that no longer was she alone, no longer was she aware of the howling wind, no longer was she aware of the ugly, seared landscape of what might be.
Elandra dropped into a clear, empty place, and Anas slipped into her mind as gently as the warm splash of a summer raindrop. Almost at once she was gone, as though she had never been there.
Disappointment filled Elandra, shattering her concentration. She drew back physically, blinking hard to hold her composure. “You couldn’t help me,” she said, feeling hope crash from her.
“I—”
“Hush,” Anas said, drawing Elandra into her arms and hugging her tightly. She stroked Elandra’s hair as Elandra wept, unable to be strong now. “Hush. Don’t talk. Let the tears cleanse you.”
But after a few wracking sobs, Elandra’s fear choked off her emotions, and her tears stopped. She clung to Anas a moment, grateful for her kindness, then pushed herself away.
Bleakly she tried to remember she was the daughter of a warrior. Warriors did not cry. They did not dishonor themselves with cowardice. They faced what had to be done, and they did so quickly.
“I have no dagger,” she said, fighting the unsteadiness in her voice. “Have you? A knife thrust is the quickest way to end—”
“Will you kill yourself now that you are cleansed?” Anas asked in amazement.
At first Elandra did not believe she had heard correctly. Then she lifted her gaze to Anas.
The Magria gave her a fleeting smile. “It is done.”
Elandra couldn’t believe it. “But how? You were so quick, I didn’t think it—How?”
“That is why I am a Magria and you are not,” Anas replied, but for once her arrogance did not offend Elandra. She pointed at the ground, where a small black puddle smoked ominously. “It can harm nothing here. But let us not linger in this place, for it can draw things to it that we would rather not meet.”
“Like the cloud?”
Anas frowned. “You saw that?”
“Yes, a terrible, monstrous thing. Hecati sent it after me—”
“Nonsense! She has no such power,” Anas said in astonishment. “Do you have no recognition of the portents?”
Elandra stared back in puzzlement. “Then what kind of—”
“You saw history, wound into a maelstrom,” Anas said impatiently. “The cloud was the lifetime of Kostimon. If it passed by you, it should have taken you up into its center.”
“It came right at me,” Elandra said. “Then at the last moment it veered away.”
Anas’s blue eyes widened. “Your destiny has protected you.”
Before Elandra could respond, the Magria turned and strode away. Elandra hurried after her, feeling hollow and strange inside. A terrible suspicion was spreading through her, one she hardly dared let herself believe. Yet what else could it mean?
“Kostimon,” she whispered. “Are you saying he is dead?”
“Yes, he is dead.” Anas sounded almost pleased. “You saw his soul and all his knotted threads of life—the history of his existence—swept away into the darkness. I wish I had been able to witness it.”
Elandra frowned. She had known it must happen soon, but even so she hardly dared believe it. What she had felt for him had not been love, but she had respected him.