Destiny of the Light: Shadow Through Time 1 (17 page)

K
hatrene sat at the banquet table beside her brother. The celebrations had been in progress for six days and she was starting to wonder if there was a single thing in the Kingdom she hadn’t eaten. Yet despite the fact that she’d been in the public eye for almost a week, people still cast her wide-eyed glances, awed by the appearance of a legend. The Light.

Khatrene wasn’t happy with the promotion and had been having ongoing arguments with Mihale about it. Among other things. The subject of a husband had been non-negotiable on both sides, yet Mihale still appeared to believe that she’d marry whoever he told her to. Short of a screaming match, she was simply going to have to stand firm.

Yet strangely, she got the impression he didn’t want her to marry. It was odd. And so was Mihale. She’d thought they would pick up their relationship where it had left off but she’d been wrong. Something was different between them and she couldn’t put her finger on it. Was it because she was The Light? He certainly didn’t look at her the same way as he always had. Every so often she intercepted a glance that made her uncomfortable and she had no idea why.

Another thing she didn’t like was being treated like a prize cow. Mihale’s insistence that she sit near the window and not wear a cloak was getting on her nerves. Day after day she radiated rainbow light in all directions, albeit not as fiercely as she had in full sunlight. But enough to make her feel like she was the centrepiece of a freak show. The elaborate gowns Ghett laced her into every morning were starting to get on her nerves as well. They rustled with every movement and were damned uncomfortable to sit in. Given a choice she’d be back in her jeans in an instant.

‘I’m just not buying this prophecy thing,’ she whispered to Mihale out of the side of her mouth. ‘There’s some perfectly logical explanation for this. You said yourself that no-one else had spent as much time in Magoria. Maybe Ennaen physiology reacts to Otherworld sunlight differently. A cumulative affect or —’

‘You are the one prophecy foretold,’ he said for the hundredth time. ‘You have retained your memories of Magoria when no other exiled royal has. Does this not prove —’

‘Are you sure no-one else has ever …?’ She wriggled her fingers and a kaleidoscope of colours shimmered across the banquet hall. Smaller than the Main Hall, it was none the less impressive with its rows of House banners along each wall and an open-ended rectangle of narrow dining tables covered in rich fabric and laden with spectacular bronzeware. Khatrene hadn’t seen the kitchens but had to guess there were hundreds of staff if the amount of food they’d produced was anything to go by.

‘You are The Light,’ Mihale said simply, and Khatrene dragged her attention back to the argument at hand. ‘In the history of Ennae, you are unique.’

She glanced across to the other side of the rectangle where Talis sat and her gaze snagged on his.
There’s that albino crow comparison again
, she thought, remembering their conversation. Which of course brought the tattooed man to her mind.

‘Have I met all the nobles?’ she asked her brother, knowing she hadn’t. Talis had told her the tattooed man was a noble.

Mihale’s glance passed over the company. ‘I believe … not.’

‘Not?’ Khatrene forced herself to look away, to appear casual. ‘Who are we missing?’

Mihale remained silent.

‘So don’t tell me’ She smiled and nodded at one of the few nobles she’d met whom she liked on sight. Barrion Verdan looked like an extra from a Viking movie, but he had a great belly laugh and hadn’t been frightened of her at all. ‘I like him,’ she said to Mihale. ‘That Barrion guy.’ She nodded in his direction and waved. Barrion waved back. ‘Is that a king-size bedspread he’s got wrapped around his shoulders?’

Mihale made a noise which he quickly suppressed, ‘It is the honour cloak of his House. I have not seen it worn before.’

‘Thought I could smell mothballs.’

‘I meant that it is worn only on the most important occasions,’ Mihale whispered close to Khatrene’s ear. ‘Verdan does you great honour by wearing it here, as do the others.’

‘Of course.’ Barrion was the lord whose castle lay under the magical lake. Khatrene was surprised about that. She’d imagined it would take a sensitive soul to commune with sentient water. Barrion looked more like the type who’d go fishing with a shotgun. Except, of course, that there were no fish on Ennae.

Khatrene transferred her smile to Barrion’s younger sister Ellega, who sat like a cocker spaniel next to her St Bernard brother. Ellega’s attention, however, was all on Mihale. Khatrene glanced at her brother and decided he either hadn’t noticed the girl’s adoration or was ignoring it. Interesting. She turned her attention to the other honour cloaks. They all looked like bedspreads to Khatrene. Then her gaze was caught by a narrow face whose dark eyes had been watching her. She frowned. ‘I don’t like this one,’ she whispered. ‘Kert Sh’hale.’

‘It’s lucky then that he will be my new Champion and not yours,’ Mihale replied.

Khatrene turned to her brother. ‘What’s wrong with Talis?’

‘He cannot be in two places at once and we are not children who will spend our days together.’

‘We’ll be close,’ she argued. ‘Surely he can guard us both in the Volcastle.’

Mihale looked at her for a moment, sadly she thought, and when he spoke again his voice was soft. ‘We shall not both live in the Volcastle.’

Khatrene stared back at him.
Oh no. He’s not going to
—

R
EMEMBER YOU ARE A PRINCESS
.

‘The Light of Ennae will bear the child to join the Four Worlds,’ he said, and despite his firm delivery of these words she could see sadness in his eyes. He didn’t want this any more than she did.

‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘We’ve discussed that. But it’s not going to happen in the near future.’

Mihale shook his head. ‘Destiny cannot be ordered to suit your whims.’

‘This isn’t a whim.’ People turned towards them and Khatrene lowered her voice. ‘It’s my life.
My
life.’

Mihale turned to look over his shoulder at the doorway behind them. Khatrene watched incredulously as he raised his hand.

Oh God. This is it.
Mihale had chosen a husband and was about to introduce her to him right this minute.

‘Don’t do this, Mihale,’ she warned, grabbing his arm.

He disengaged her hand and stood, clapping his hands to gain everyone’s attention.

Khatrene lowered her head and stared blindly at her poached irtin soup. If there was going to be a scene she’d simply have to handle it with as much dignity as she could muster. Then strangle her brother later in private. At least she knew it was no-one she’d met. It wasn’t Kert Sh’hale, or Barrion Verdan with his bear-rug chest.

The murmur of conversation around the tables stilled and Khatrene tried to concentrate on her breathing. She needed to be calm. In control. Assertive.

‘My lords and ladies of Ennae …’ her brother said in the ‘regal’ voice he used for pronouncements. ‘This day I bring you joyous news. Who among us does not know the destiny of The Light?’

Khatrene kept her head down but raised her eyes high enough to see Talis who was looking at her brother. She tried to decipher his expression. Definitely not happy. His frown told her that much. But what else. Fear? Foreboding?

Khatrene could think of a few ‘f’ words herself.

‘… The wonder that lies within her, waiting to be born.’ Her brother paused. ‘And destiny, in the form of a husband, would hurry that wonder.’ There were chuckles around the table and a loud thumping from Barrion’s direction.

Talis flinched at these words and Khatrene felt the kick of adrenalin. Fear. Talis was frightened for her. She should be frightened.

‘The ancient prophecy will be fulfilled. Know you all now, that The Light shall find its quenching in The Dark.’

Talis closed his eyes, as though he couldn’t even look and Khatrene blinked. The Dark? Lae’s father? The man who bossed everyone around?
Mihale has got to be joking.

‘And so I bring together those who will be wed,’ Mihale intoned, ‘Khatrene of Ennae, and Djahr of the House of Be’uccdha.’

All around her people were rising from their seats, clapping the back of one hand into the other, shouting words of encouragement, but it wasn’t until she felt her brother’s hand on her arm that Khatrene could bring herself to stand up.

Peripherally, she’d seen the man step in front of her, the bronze of his robe with some swirling design on it. But now Mihale had pulled her to her feet and she had to stop looking at her soup.

‘Khatrene?’ her brother said.

She swallowed. Then gradually, as though her head was being raised by a slow pulley, she looked up at the man her brother had chosen. The man she was going to have to insult. Their spiritual leader who had probably never heard ‘no’ before in his life.

Lean. Expensive clothes. Cadbury-coloured skin on his hands, darker than Lae’s. Nice hands, though.

‘Princess. You do me great honour by considering my suit,’ he said, and his voice was the soundtrack to her dreams.

Khatrene’s gaze continued up, registering the tattoo and the familiar features, then she fell into his eyes without a splash, like sliding into a pool of warm, dark honey. Her skin tingled and the light around her took on a shimmering, golden hue. The buzzing in her ears became a contented hum and she heard herself sigh, a soft sound that mixed pleasure and relief.

Around them the room fell silent but Khatrene doubted she would have heard an explosion. This was the man her brother wanted her to marry. The man who humbly asked her to consider his suit. The man she would have walked across cut glass to find.

‘Djahr,’ she said, trying out his name, surprised at how faraway her voice sounded.

‘Khatrene,’ he replied softly, and she thought she would melt onto the floor. She trembled, actually trembled when he spoke.

Lae, who stood opposite The Light and with Talis at her side, could see only her father’s elegantly robed back, yet she sensed the silent discourse between himself and his newly betrothed from the satisfied glances of those around her. The beams of strange hue emanating from The Light had pulled back from dancing around the room to encircle her father, and even as Lae watched, the swaddling glow turned gold and began to pulse, as though with a heartbeat of its own.

A soft sound of surprise came from those who watched, but Lae felt none of their excitement. Her stomach lurched alarmingly and she gripped Talis’s arm. ‘Betrothed, I am ill,’ she said, and leant towards Talis. ‘You must help me,’ she whispered. ‘Or I fear my stomach will betray my misgivings at this union.’

Talis turned to her, his eyes full of the same distaste that had so upset her digestion and a rush of gratitude swept over her. Gratitude and relief that fate had gifted her a man who shared her sentiments so exactly.

‘Look at the happy couple as though nothing was amiss,’ he instructed her and Lae obeyed.

Her father was bowing to his new-betrothed and beyond, Lae could see at last The Light, whose expression startled her. ‘She looks with love on my father. How can this be?’

‘Sit.’ Talis’s hand closed over Lae’s own as they both sat and she felt a fierce pressure there. ‘Breathe,’ he said, and so Lae did, her thoughts quieting with the even breaths. A tingle of Guardian power crept up her arm from his hand and then ventured forth to find her stomach and quieten its rebellious acids. In moments she could feel the sick tightness in her throat subside. Lae relaxed and Talis made to withdraw his hand but she held it still, feeling a warmth from his healing within her, low in her belly.

The secretive nature of his touch, hands held beneath the table covering, made her think of other secretive touches they might share, and boldly she let herself long for his large hands to touch more than her check or her own hands. Her breasts were still buds, unripened fruits of pleasure, yet they ached for his glance and the roughness of his sword-callused palms.

Heat filled her body even as these thoughts filled her mind and in a moment of passion she leant close to whisper, ‘I will not think of my father’s wedding night, when thoughts of my own occupy me so greatly.’

In reply to this daring comment Talis said nothing and as long moments passed, Lae’s embarrassment grew. Yet he could not know that the esteem in which she had long held him was recently deepened by desire.

A moment’s consideration led her to say, ‘I see you are much troubled by this merger. But do not fear that it will affect our own.’

Talis turned again to face her and his eyes showed some great turmoil. He shook his head and did not speak.

Lae was confused. ‘The Light will live in Castle Be’uccdha,’ she said, ‘and you with her.’ She smiled, hoping to steal the frown from his brow. ‘I will be with you, and have my father still. What more perfect life could we share? She will have your days and I your nights —’

‘No.’ Talis shook his head again and the weight of pain on her betrothed’s face stilled her tongue.

‘No?’ Lae could not find a place within herself to accept the word. In her eyes, Talis had never seemed more beautiful, though she did not care for dress or detail. Yet in the formal uniform of his House, with ribbons of gold falling from his broad shoulders and threaded down his warrior plaits, the darkest of fabric clinging to his long limbs he seemed all of a man any woman could hope for. Was he not to be hers?

‘Speak, my love,’ she whispered, and heard the tremor of fear in her voice. ‘What grief is this that steals my happy future?’

For reply, Talis turned to glance at another. Lae followed his direction and found Kert Sh’hale watching them closely. Lae eyed him curiously then returned her attention to her beloved. ‘Does Sh’hale grieve you, my love? Will I poison his water?’

Talis made a sound that could have been a laugh, though humour obviously sat far from his heart. ‘Sh’hale wants your hand,’ he said, then looked to Lae. ‘Would you have his?’

Lae thought she would slap her betrothed, to wake him from delirium. She shook her head, ‘I plight my troth with you. I will have none of him.’ This last said loudly enough for those beyond to hear. ‘What do you mean by this questioning? Would you take back your vow?’ Tears hung close but Lae would not shed them before this company.