Wings Over Talera - Charles Allen Gramlich [93]
“While you were away from me,” she said. “On Earth. I had these rooms built. I never got a chance to show them to you...before....” She trailed off, then just stood there watching me.
I glanced about. The room where we stood was broad and open and airy. Afternoon light slanted through crystal windows where the shutters were thrown back, and in winter I knew the sun would warm this space through the glass.
Though the palace was built of dark granite, planks of yellow pine had been laid over the stone here. And over the planks were tossed thick rugs rich in sunset colors. To either side of the main entrance loomed a massive fireplace, cold now in the glory of spring, and the scattered pieces of furniture were carpentered from sturdy oak and bansul and teak, with only the inlays of rare samphur wood to indicate their costliness. The effect was neither feminine nor masculine, but warm...comforting. I liked it.
To left and right were other doorways leading to other rooms. The left side was a sleeping area; I could see the bed standing huge on legs of winter-dark wood, piled high on top with furs and quilts. The door to the right was nearly closed and I walked over to push it wide. I knew immediately what the room beyond was meant to be, in months or years to come. The ceiling and walls were frescoed with scenes of brightly colored kites and balls, and of animals dressed like people. Children were to be raised and loved in this place.
I turned to look at Rannon, my mind seething with questions. But she had moved away to open a set of casement doors that led, I suspected, onto a balcony. I was wrong. When I followed her through those doors I found that we were on the roof of one wing of the palace. And it had been transformed—into a rooftop garden where ahmbr trees drooped with blossoms of white, vying with apple and pear to shade narrow pathways of pearl-colored stone.
Alongside those paths, spring’s early flowers were in riot—goldenswords and black lilies, silver nyxe, yellow angel-hair and crimson hysis. Honeywhisper moss hung in the trees, dewed with cool mist from twin fountains of jade and garnet.
Between the fountains stood a gazebo whose latticed sides were twined with roses and pepper ivy. Rannon had paused there and was looking back at me. Tears stained the clearness of her azure eyes.
I started toward her, to try an offer of comfort, but she held up a hand to stop me. I halted, hovering while she fought for control. Only when she regained it did I feel the strain in my chest from not breathing, and the tension that ached in my jaws where they had been clenched.
“I want you to listen to me,” Rannon said.
My palms slicked with sweat; my heart began to thud—out of fear that her words would not be the ones I wished to hear. But mutely, I nodded.
“After you...left,” she continued. “I hated myself.”
I opened my mouth to deny her statement, but shut it again just as quickly. She’d asked me to listen and I would give her that no matter what.
“Yes,” she continued. “It didn’t matter that I’d intended for you to surrender yourself to me, that I’d never planned for my brother to come barging in with soldiers to arrest you. I doubted you. And for that I hated myself.”
Her eyes searched mine and she did not look away as she said, “I’m sorry.”
“But I ran,” I said into the pause that followed her last words. “Surely that cemented my guilt in everyone’s mind.”
She shook her head, leaving strands of fine hair caught like wisps of dark silk over her cheeks.
“For my father and brother, it did. And for many among the nobles who were jealous of you. But not for me. I knew why you fled. I saw your eyes. You ran because the one who claimed to love you, doubted you. Hurt you. For that I won’t forgive myself. For that,” she did look down then, “I release you from all pledges you have made to me.”
I froze. It didn’t seem