Shadow War - Deborah Chester [148]
“Caelan!” she cried, lifting her face to the heavens. “Help me!”
Her plea tore his heart. With a wordless moan, Caelan ran to her and reached out.
The vision of Lea vanished as though she had never been there. Anguished, he dropped to his knees and wept for her.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“What good are apologies?” Sien asked from behind him. “You and I can walk around time and go back to that fateful day in the snowy forests of Trau, when you abandoned the only person you loved. Save her, Caelan. You seem to have a strong urge to save people, like an overgrown dog. You could save the empress by turning on me and striking me down. My spell on the doorway would end, and she could go through. But why not save the one person who really mattered to you? Why not save the one person who needed you ? Who depended on you? Lea. A pretty name. A pretty, precious child. Lea.”
Caelan gulped, his throat working. “Don’t say her name.”
“Lea.”
He jumped to his feet and whirled on the priest with insane fury, striking the man with his fist and sending Sien reeling against the wall. “Don’t say her name!”
The invisible barrier across the doorway suddenly shimmered into a tangible rainbow of color, like a bubbled pane of mouth-blown glass. The guardsmen on the other side blurred and nearly faded from sight.
Dabbing at the trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth, Sien nodded. “Anger is a good step. Take another. Embrace the rage, Caelan.”
Caelan glared at him through a murderous haze, the dagger pulsing as though alive in his fist. He felt the tug at his emotions, felt the seduction calling to him from Sien. The need for completion, for sevaisin, stirred within him. It would be so easy to surrender to it, so easy ...
He severed, going deep into the coldness as though he plunged himself into a glacial lake. This time he did not care if he severed so far he could never return. All he wanted was an end to the hurting, an end to the memories, an end to the guilty attempts to serve others in atonement. He would put himself where Sien could never reach him.
A wall of ice appeared before him. He saw how it separated him from the priest. Through its transparent sides he could see the priest gesturing, could see Sien’s lips moving. But he heard no more insidious urgings, no more vile persuasions. He felt no more temptations. He could not see Elandra at all. There was only the void and the compelling coldness that made him brittle, calm, and unapproachable.
In the very great distance, far, far beyond the wall of ice, he saw a column of icy mist that eventually transformed itself into the vague figure of a man.
The figure beckoned to him.
Caelan recognized Beva, and his heart grew even colder. He did not want his father’s approval. He had not come into this place to earn that.
Turning his back on both his father and the priest, Caelan set his face into a bitter wind and trudged away. He would go deep into the void, never to return. He would vanish. He would cease to exist. He would escape all responsibility forever.
But before him stretched the threads of life, a shining network of iridescent strands stretching into the sky and vanishing out of sight in the gray clouds. Frowning, Caelan stopped and looked back.
He saw Sien’s silhouette against the icy mist, a dark shadow standing near the entrance to a cavern. One of Sien’s hands was outstretched. From each of his fingers stretched multiple threads, and the black strands were woven across the mouth of the cavern.
Caelan hesitated only a moment, knowing that severance was his last true secret kept from the priest. If he used it, Sien would seek him out again to wrest the gift from him or turn it into something evil.
But there was no other way. He could not vanish into the void. Escape was not possible, for even