Realm of Light - Deborah Chester [91]
“No,” Caelan bit off the word. “Never. He was my owner.”
“Put away the bitterness,” Lea urged him. “The past is gone. All that remains is the present... and the future. You need him, Caelan. You need to make peace with him.”
“For what he has done, he cannot be forgiven.”
Lea frowned. “Caelan, you must learn to forgive! Did today teach you nothing?”
“Stop pushing!” Caelan snapped at her. “Why are you never satisfied?”
“Because you have so much to learn.”
Elandra was amazed to hear a grown man corrected by such a young girl, but she also knew that wisdoms seldom looked their true age. Lea was a very old spirit indeed inhabiting that lithe, youthful body.
Caelan hesitated, still scowling at her, then abruptly caught her hands in his. “Come with us.”
She shook her head. “Not yet.”
“When?”
“When it is time.”
Frustration filled his face. “But how am I to know if you are well? How am I to be responsible for you? How am I to take care of you?”
Lea reached up to caress his cheek. “Look within your heart to know that I am well. But you have much else to tend now, my brother. I am not your task.”
Then she turned and held out her hand to Elandra. “And you, dear lady who loves my brother, you also have much before you. Receive the blessing of the spirits to guide you on your way.”
Surprised by the benediction, Elandra inclined her head. “Thank you.”
“Good journey,” Lea said. She drew a leather pouch from her saddlebag and handed it to Caelan. “This is food so you will not have to hunt on the way.”
He took it in silence, everything he could not say knotted in his face. Wordlessly he swept her close and hugged her hard. “I cannot lose you again,” he whispered.
Lea closed her eyes and hugged him back. “You never will,” she promised. “I will come. If the gods are kind, I promise you I will come.”
Then she pulled away from him, tears shimmering in her eyes. She curtsied to Elandra and climbed back on her pony. With one last silent wave, she rode away.
Since then, Caelan had been quiet and preoccupied. At night in camp, sitting together by the flickering campfire and listening to the strange sounds of unfamiliar plains and marshlands, he had little to say. Perhaps he did not want to speak of his plans while he could be overheard by the Thyzarenes. Perhaps something else troubled him. Elandra kept her own counsel and let him be. As long as his arms held her through the night, she knew all would be well.
And now, with the wind whipping her cheeks and sending locks of her hair streaming out behind her, she looked down and saw the thick jungles of home.
Her heart lifted with joy. Suddenly she felt invincible, incapable of doubt or failure.
She pointed. “Look! There is the river.”
Bwend nodded and nudged Nia with his left foot. The dragon wheeled lazily and turned toward the river. It was overflowing its banks this time of year, fat with monsoon rains, flooding the paddies and sweeping away humble villages. In places it spread all the way into the edge of the jungle, and lay there among the trees, stagnant and stinking with great clouds of flies rising off its surface.
The dragons did not drop altitude, and soon Elandra understood why as they came to mountains. Clouds mounded over the peaks, pouring rain on the near slopes. The water pelted Elandra hard, making her draw up her hood and shiver.
She didn’t really care, however. The ripe, earthy scent of the jungle lifted to her nostrils, and she gloried in its untamable savagery.
Now they did drop lower, coming close enough in places for her to see the colorful birds and wild parrots that lived in the tree-tops. Screaming monkeys fled before them, surely fearing the great predator dragons that flew overhead.
Part of the mountain slope stood bare where trees had long ago been hacked down. Ancient stone ruins revealed themselves, bizarre faces carved on an immense scale and worn by time. Vines twisted over them, and from the darkness of a cave mouth there appeared to be a group of wild jinjas huddled together. They