Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [29]
Gathering a handful of pebbles, Caelan tossed them one by one at the opposite wall.
“You have never learned to stand fast,” Beva said finally. “Your will is like a river, winding along the easiest path. Yet, like the river, you resist change and will not allow the channel you follow to be altered. This is not the way, my son.”
It wasn’t an apology. Beva was simply trying another argument on the same old line. Caelan ached with disappointment, but even that was nothing new. He went on tossing pebbles at the wall.
“They also told me you used severance to remove a warding key from the gate,” Beva said quietly. “That, more than anything else, shows me the strength of your talents. If you would just surrender to the true ways, you would surpass even what I have accomplished.”
Caelan frowned, refusing to look at his father. He did not like what he heard in his father’s voice. Admiration? Greed? Caelan shivered and said nothing.
All he’d ever asked for was simple affection, plain dealing, and freedom. All he’d ever received was cold isolation, lectures, riddles, and philosophy lessons. Now he wasn’t sure exactly what his father wanted. All he knew was that the blow from his father had destroyed something necessary and vital between them.
Beva said something else, but Caelan didn’t listen. He was busy planning his next course of action. As soon as he reached E’nonhold, he would persuade Old Farns to unlock the arms room. He would gather weapons, provisions, and adequate clothing. If necessary he would break into his father’s strongbox and take his inheritance. He would see his little sister and give her a proper goodbye before he left her.
“Caelan,” Beva said again, sharply enough to penetrate his thoughts this time.
Caelan looked up, keeping his expression blank and cold.
Beva sighed. “Very well. If we cannot have a discussion, I will bid you goodnight.”
Caelan’s heart still thrummed strongly with anger. He met his father’s gaze, aware of all they would never have as father and son, all they would never share. His father had killed his love. It was finished.
“Goodnight,” Caelan replied and turned away.
Chapter Six
IN THE STILL grayness of dawn, they broke camp and emerged cautiously from the cave where they’d sheltered for the night. Heavy snow had fallen during the night, and the ponies floundered their way through tall drifts. It was not snowing now, but as they followed the steep trail into the mountain pass, they entered the gray bellies of the clouds until all was dim mist and fog.
Caelan could barely see his father’s back, although his pony crowded close to the heels of the other. Beva’s white fur cloak and the white ponies looked ghostly in the gloom. Around them the hills rose steeply, rocks jutting, the trail growing ever steeper and more treacherous.
The fog was freezing in the cold, coating the world in thin ice. Whenever Caelan moved, it splintered and showered off his clothing like glass.
Then they were high above the world, up in the Cascades themselves, and despite the gloom, the beauty of this silent, frozen world made Caelan catch his breath in appreciation.
The mighty waterfall that gave the mountains their name was frozen, a vast sheet of ice hanging in midair. During warm months the waterfall thundered with a force that could be heard for miles, but now its voice was hushed. It was as though the gods had struck the river and stopped it, leaving it suspended until spring thaw when it would rush, gloriously cold and rapid, mist rising high to make rainbows in the air.
They rode up the trail beside it, then turned and passed behind the great sheet of ice. Caelan put out his hand and trailed his fingers across its surface for luck, the way he’d been doing since babyhood when his mother told him about the blessings of the Cascade River. It was she who first dipped his chubby fingers in the icy water. It was she who told him the river’s father was the mighty glacier high above them on the top of the world, and that was why the water would always run cold. It was