Shadow War - Deborah Chester [48]
He ran his fingertips over the gem and frowned. It worried him that the emeralds had changed. It was as though he was losing a piece of his last memories of Lea.
Finally he put the emerald back in the pouch. It barely fit there now. He secured the top of the pouch tightly and frowned, still disconcerted.
His sword was a melted lump of metal, useless. He climbed stiffly to his feet and stamped around unsteadily, observing the ring of charred grass around him. What had he done this time, he wondered dazedly. He could barely think, much less remember.
Then he saw a crumpled figure a short distance away. Caelan’s breath caught in his throat. He stumbled over and dropped to his knees beside the prince.
Tirhin lay on his side, unmoving. His clothes were as torn as Caelan’s. The rain had streaked the bloody stains, washing them to pink. Cautiously Caelan touched Tirhin’s shoulder and turned him onto his back.
The prince’s face was pale and drawn with pain. He was unconscious, but not dead. Caelan did not waste time trying to rouse him. He remembered that men attacked by spirits often went mad. It would be easier to handle Tirhin this way.
Kneeling, Caelan pulled the prince’s weight over his shoulder, then stood up, staggering a little. His feet sank into the mud, and he found it hard to get his balance, but little by little he made it up the hill to the main road.
There, the mire was deeper than ever, but Caelan trudged steadily southward. Sidraigh-hal grumbled and belched threats behind him. Caelan was glad to turn his back on this evil place. He hoped he never saw it again.
It would be a very long walk back to the city. If the gods were kind, Tirhin would not die on the way. To live was not what the prince deserved, but Caelan might as well run for his own life as bring home a dead master.
“Traitor,” Caelan said aloud, grimly ignoring the ache in his muscles and the prince’s heavy weight. He forced himself to walk steadily and slowly. He had a long way to go. “Master traitor, what will I say about you when I get you home? What will I do with you? Bargain for my freedom in exchange for silence? Pit my feeble word against your exalted one? Hope to gain an audience with the emperor, which is as likely as learning how to fly? What am I to do? Who will believe me? As a slave and a foreigner, I am nothing, and you are all. There is no one who will believe me, for I have no proof of your infamy.”
Every word he spoke aloud depressed his spirits. Would the prince be grateful for having his life saved? Caelan no longer believed in fairness, not from the man slung across his shoulder.
“All my life I have believed in the wrong things,” he said aloud, speaking to the sky that was slowly brightening despite the rain. “I should be running for my life. I think I would be safer trying to hide in the wilderness than going back to resume my chains.” He sighed. “A fool who serves a traitor. The gods help me.”
Chapter Seven
A loud noise awakened Elandra from sleep.
Groggy and confused, she sat bolt upright and brushed back her long heavy tangle of auburn hair from her face. She listened, even drawing back the velvet bed curtains, but all lay silent around her. Not even the palace servants were stirring yet.
It was that cold, still time just before daybreak, when the night reluctantly released its dark grip on the world. Elandra had been dreaming—strange, unpleasant dreams mingled with intense anxiety about some task she had to perform.
Sighing, she gripped her head in her hands. She felt tired. Sleep came fitfully these days, if at all. She could not stop worrying about the coronation and all it entailed. Since Kostimon had told her last month that she was not to be crowned consort but instead sovereign, she had suffered a sense of gnawing dread.
Everything had been changing so quickly since the announcement. She had already been moved from the women’s wing of the palace to new state chambers