Shadow War - Deborah Chester [147]
Sien laughed, a horrible gloating sound. “If I could give you a way to go back and save the life of your father, would you take it?”
Caelan froze in revulsion. His fingers clenched knuckle-white on his dagger. Don’t listen, a voice in the back of his head warned him.
“If I could give you a way to go back and change your decisions?” Sien continued, his voice insinuating and soft. “What is the child’s name? Lea? Do you want to know exactly how she died in the forest?”
Caelan shut his eyes. “Be quiet.”
“But if I let you go back to save her, would you go?”
The never-healed wound broke open afresh, welling raw hurt. Caelan clenched his eyes shut harder, and tears stung against his eyelids. If only he had stayed with her. If only he had remembered his responsibility was to protect her. If only he hadn’t thought he could make a difference at the hold.
“I was just a boy,” he whispered aloud. “I did my best.”
“You made a mistake,” Sien said. “Undo it. Go back and save your sister. Forget this woman who stands here. Think of Lea. She loved you so much, Caelan. She trusted you. And you promised to return for her. Why not keep that promise now? I can send you back to her.”
Caelan shivered. Inside, he felt as though he were breaking in half. It hurt, and it would always hurt. To be able to undo his mistakes. To be able to change the course of his life ... but such longing was only a belief in falsehood. Change was not possible.
“It is possible,” Sien whispered. “Trust me.”
Caelan forced open his eyes. Tears spilled hot down his cheeks, and he turned his back on the priest. Inside, he struggled away from temptation and tried to harden himself against the priest’s lies. He understood what Sien wanted now. Sien wanted him to abandon Elandra in these corridors, to leave her able to see her husband and his soldiers yet barred from reaching them until the Madruns eventually found her.
He could save Elandra, or he could believe this lying priest possessed the ability to manipulate the past enough for Lea to be saved.
Caelan clenched his free hand at his side until his powerful body trembled. Either way, the price was too high. How could he make such a choice?
“Caelan.” Elandra whispered his name.
He turned his head toward her. The way she stood before him would be forever etched in his memory. Her ivory skin, the flawless beauty of her face, the burnished glints of candlelight in her auburn hair. Caelan felt emotions stir and awaken in him, a force fiery and hard to control. It was as though he were suddenly dipped in heat, his ears on fire and roaring, his eyes burning in their sockets, his breath seared in his lungs. He stood suspended in the spell of her luminous eyes, helpless in his new knowledge of himself and her.
Her eyes glistened as she gazed back at him with understanding and compassion. A tear brimmed over and fell down her cheek. Still meeting his gaze, she shook her head. “Don’t—”
“Caelan.”
A different voice uttered his name this time. The sound of it gave him a profound shock. His gaze snapped away from Elandra, and he saw Lea kneeling on the ground less than two strides away.
The child crouched there, hugging herself beneath her scarlet cloak and shivering violently. Her golden curls straggled from the edge of her hood, as bright and pretty as ever, but her face was pinched and gray; her lips were bloodless with cold. Dark smudges lay under her eyes, which were dull with suffering. She was starving to death, freezing to death. He could feel the icy blast of wind off the glacier. Its force was brutal, merciless.
Lea whimpered. Shivering so hard her teeth chattered, she knelt there for what seemed like an eternity, while he watched helplessly, his grief like a stone in his chest. Finally she struggled to her feet and walked on, bent nearly double against the howling wind.
Caelan opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He could smell the crisp scent of the pines. He could