Destiny of the Light: Shadow Through Time 1 (5 page)

Khatrene felt the tension leach out of her body. The fingernails that had been digging into her palms relaxed and she sighed, only to catch her breath again in a gasp. In the same second that she realised Talis was heading straight for her, she felt an arm come around her throat, dragging her up.

‘Monit!’ Talis shouted. ‘If you harm the White Princess, the blood of your loins will die by my hand and the hand of my House from this day forward.’ He halted two paces from her and stood, his breath coming fast, his sword half raised, eyes locked on the man whose sweaty arm was choking her.

Khatrene was terrified but the desperation on Talis’s face prompted her to action. She pulled on the Plainsman’s arm and gained enough space to breathe. ‘Talis, he’s not going to hurt me,’ she shouted, trying to get his attention.

‘I’m going to kill you,’ Monit hissed in her ear, his breath only marginally fouler than the smell coming from his unwashed body.

Talis stiffened, the expression on his face so intent Khatrene wasn’t even sure he’d heard her.

You better be right
, she told the voice. ‘Talis, listen to me. I’m not going to die, and neither are you.’

‘The White Princess knows all,’ Monit mocked, but she’d caught her Champion’s attention.

His gaze wavered and slid across to her eyes. ‘How —’

All in a blur, Monit flung her aside and plunged his sword at Talis. Khatrene opened her mouth to cry out, but even as Talis was raising his sword to fend off the attack, Noorinya’s short blade drove through her lieutenant’s ribs. The force of her attack propelled Monit to Talis’s side where he fell with a choking sound that finally penetrated the cotton wool surrounding Khatrene’s emotions. A wave of anguish swept over her and she put a hand to her mouth, fearful the sickness would surge up from her stomach.

This is real. These people are real. I can feel it now.

A
ND SO WE BEGIN.

Though the fighting went on, Noorinya raised her head and howled, a chilling sound that seemed to reverberate through all the warriors around her. Then she dropped her blade and fell to her knees at Monit’s side, grief etching hard lines in her young face as she covered the wound with her hand. Khatrene’s fingers bit into her own arm to stop herself fainting. Monit’s violent death by such an unexpected hand had shocked her, the more so when fat tears slid down the Plainswoman’s dark cheeks.

‘Hold,’ Talis bellowed. ‘Still the fighting.’

Noorinya raised her head briefly and added her voice to his. ‘Plainsmen, hold. On your leader’s command I tell you to hold.’

An abrupt silence fell around them and Khatrene felt cocooned by it. She watched Talis crouch opposite Noorinya and cover her bloodstained hand with his own, an act that somehow comforted Khatrene as well. She had thought the Plainswoman solid and strong but beneath Talis’s large hand, Noorinya’s appeared delicate.

‘I will not forget that you saved my life,’ he told her.

Khatrene was moved by the compassion in his eyes.

‘Today I killed a friend to save an enemy,’ Noorinya replied. ‘This is not the warrior way.’

‘No,’ Talis agreed. ‘It is not.’

Noorinya looked up and they held each other’s gaze for a long moment. Standing above them, Khatrene felt like an intruder, and she wanted her brother then. She wanted to feel that sense of connection and caring that she could see between these two people, and hadn’t felt for so long herself, its absence was a physical ache inside her.

She wanted to hug Mihale and never let go. She wanted to see his smile and count his freckles and watch his eyes light up when excitement gripped him. She wanted to be his sister again, and more than anything, she wanted to tell him how much she loved him. Through all the dark lonely nights when she’d convinced herself he was dead, that was the one thing that had hurt the most — the fact that she’d never said those words out loud. She wanted that chance, and now she knew she’d do anything to get it.

‘I must leave,’ Talis said to Noorinya, and still they stared at each other.

At last the Plainswoman removed her hand. ‘You may take your force and withdraw unharmed,’ she said.

Talis turned to his Princess, his relieved expression conveying clearly that he had never lost sight of where his duty lay. ‘My Lady, we must leave,’ he said, coming to her side and offering his arm to help her.

Khatrene took it gratefully, ignoring the blood on his hands that now smeared onto hers. She wanted to thank him for saving her life, for doing whatever he’d had to do with the Plainswoman to buy them time, but …

A
RE YOU THINKING HE DOESN’T DESERVE GRATITUDE FOR ENJOYING HIMSELF
?

How do you know he enjoyed himself?

Silence.

Khatrene glanced back at the Plainswoman. Hesitated.

Did he?

Again there was no reply.

‘Moniiiiiiiiit,’ the Plainswoman wailed, her voice high and thin as she rocked over the body.

‘We must leave them to their grief, My Lady,’ Talis said and Khatrene dragged her gaze away, stumbling beside her Champion as he guided her past corpses, avoiding the proximity of the remaining Plainsmen who now stood with heads bowed, hands rubbing together in time with Noorinya’s rhythmic moans.

‘Talis, I …’

D
O NOT SPEAK TO HIM OF MY PRESENCE
. I
F YOU TELL ANYONE, I WILL LEAVE.

I wasn’t going to.
She pulled Talis to a stop, just short of where the dark coats waited, out of their hearing. ‘You saved my life,’ she said.

His eyes scanned the bloodied field before returning to hers, obviously eager to be away. ‘This is the task of a Champion,’ he said, dismissing her gratitude.

‘I can see it’s your job to fight for me, but I don’t think you would have been trained to do … whatever it was the Plainswoman wanted.’

Talis said nothing, neither could he meet her eye.

There were a strained couple of seconds before she added, ‘I could see you didn’t want to, and … anyway, I want you to know that I appreciate what you did for me.’ His shifting gaze slid into contact with hers and some hunger in his eyes compelled her to add, ‘I’ve never felt as safe with anyone as I feel with you.’ And to remind herself that he was her link to her brother, she took his hand and squeezed it. ‘While you’re around I can believe this isn’t all a dream. I know you’ll take me to my brother.’

Talis nodded, his eyes solemn. ‘I was the Champion of your forgotten childhood, Princess,’ he said softly. ‘Perhaps this gives you confidence in my skills.’

‘There is something … familiar about you,’ she said, her gaze caught on his. Inside her an emotion stirred. Excitement? Gratitude? She struggled to pin it down. Was it a childhood memory, or simply the fact that Mihale’s descriptions of the White Twins’ Champion was fleshed out before her? Talis certainly displayed all the valour and courage he had shown in Mihale’s stories. She wished now that she’d paid more attention to her brother’s recitation of the battle scenes. It was information that might prove useful in the near future.

In her peripheral Khatrene saw one of the dark coats approaching and in the next moment felt Talis tactfully slip his hand out of hers. A much older man with a luxuriant beard and long faded hair that matched Talis’s, two thin plaits at the front, stopped in front of them.

‘Princess Khatrene.’ The old man bowed respectfully, but as his gaze rose to encompass her face inside its hood, she saw his surprise.

I’m supposed to be thirteen, she reminded herself.

Talis too, must have seen his expression. ‘Uncle, I would introduce you to our King’s sister who has been many years away from her home and does not remember it.’ He grasped the older man’s upper arm and turned to her. ‘My Lady, may I introduce my uncle, the Battle Captain Laroque, head of the House of Guardians to which I belong. Uncle, the Princess Khatrene.’

Laroque dropped heavily to one knee and Khatrene struggled to hold back laughter. Being called ‘My Lady’ was bad enough, but kneeling? Still, she managed a gracious smile by the time he had raised his head, and even inclined her own regally as she supposed a princess should. ‘Your nephew is very brave,’ she said, taking the old man’s hand and helping him to rise. ‘I couldn’t wish for a better Champion.’

Laroque nodded at this, despite the worry still lining his eyes. ‘It pleases me to hear you bestow honour on the House of Guardians … My Lady.’ He appeared to accept Talis’s word that she was Khatrene, but to be sure, she pushed back the hood of her borrowed cloak and shook her head, setting her long blonde hair swirling around her face.

Gasps rose from the group of remaining dark coats and Laroque stilled them with a gesture. He turned to Talis. ‘We must be away before the Plainsmen stir again.’

‘I hear you, Uncle,’ Talis said. Then to Khatrene, ‘We are many days’ journey from your brother, My Lady —’ He broke off, frowning as Laroque gestured one of his men forward. A tall dark coat broke away from the group and loped over.

Laroque turned back to her. ‘If you will bend to my will, Princess, I would have you escorted by my son Pagan while we make our escape. I must confer with your Champion.’

‘But …’ Khatrene looked to Talis and found his frown deepening. She was still trying to cope with the knowledge that they were ‘many days’ journey’ from Mihale. She’d expected to find him quickly.

‘Here is my son who is a Guardian in training.’ Laroque laid a hand on the young man’s broad shoulder. ‘Pagan, you will be the Princess Khatrene’s strength while her Champion is occupied.’

The dark coat looked her up and down with considerably less respect than she’d received thus far and merely nodded, apparently unconcerned by her age.

Khatrene returned the favour, and found herself doing a double-take. Pagan of the House of Guardians was young, extremely good-looking, and trying hard to hide a smirk.

Laroque turned back to her, ‘Do I have your leave, Princess?’

Khatrene shook her head. She wasn’t sure how he’d take this but a bad idea was a bad idea. ‘No. I’m sorry, but you don’t have “my leave”. I want to stay with Talis.’ What if they were attacked again? Could this Pagan even fight? Talis was covered in blood but this boy’s long dark hair was so glossy and clean it looked as though he’d just stepped off a magazine cover. Mihale’s bedtime stories had been full of danger; fierce Plainsmen, the outcast Raiders, stealthy assassins. Not to mention evil swamps. mountains of madness and enchanted lakes.

Laroque softened his voice but it was just as insistent. ‘My Lady, I must discuss with your Champion the direction of our journey.’

Talis didn’t look thrilled either, but he had already taken a step away from her. ‘I will not be far away, Princess,’ he said.

To which the voice added, Y
OU WILL BE SAFE
.

She looked from Talis to Laroque, then grudgingly nodded. ‘All right. But don’t go where I can’t see you.’

Talis nodded his agreement to this command, then caught his cousin’s eye and held it a hard moment, ‘Guard well,’ he instructed, before turning to accompany his uncle across the Plain. The remaining dark coats, perhaps twenty in all, waited for their Princess to follow, then took the rear. Khatrene noticed three of them holding limp compatriots in a fireman’s carry. Had they lost only three in that battle? There looked to have been at least twenty dead. She shuddered and pulled Talis’s cloak more tightly around her shoulders.

‘My Lady?’

Khatrene turned to her replacement Champion, who was still smirking.

‘Shall I carry My Lady,’ he drawled, ‘or would the Princess prefer to walk?’

She raised an eyebrow at him. Below the brooding eyes and sculpted cheek-bones, and to the sides of the kiss-me-I’m-yours-lips, were a pair of dimples that appeared custom-made to melt a female at forty paces. The giggling nurses who’d come each day to help care for her mother would have fallen all over this one.

‘I’ll walk,’ she said and set off beside him, shaking her head when he offered his arm.

‘As My Lady wishes,’ he replied, in what would have passed for subservience if she hadn’t noticed the way he was swaggering beside her and turning occasionally to glance back at his fellows. Probably winking.

Ahead of them, Talis and Laroque were deep in conversation. Khatrene wondered what they were talking about.

YOU.

Why?

What are they saying?
she asked again, but the voice was silent and after a moment Khatrene felt anger building. She was sick of silence. The last ten years of her life had been defined by silence and she was damned if she was going to put up with it if she didn’t have to.

‘Pagan, is it?’ She turned to the young man, only to find him watching her already, his attention on her denim-clad legs emerging from beneath Talis’s cloak. ‘Can we talk, or are you only allowed to guard me?’

‘I am here to obey My Lady’s every whim,’ he murmured, his gaze sliding over her cloaked form before drifting confidently back up to meet her eyes. His seductive smile was so audacious she couldn’t help smiling back.

He was good. No doubt about that. But she was smarter. ‘Excellent. Tell me about Ennae.’

‘M
uch has happened in the three years you have been away,’ Pagan said, and Khatrene felt her belief in Ennae waver. Talis had said the same thing — she’d only been gone three years — but how could that be when she was physically twenty-five? And how could Mihale be thirteen? He’d been fifteen when he’d disappeared, and if only two years had passed on Ennae since that time he had to be seventeen. But even that was ludicrous. He was her twin. She was twenty-five.

P
ATIENCE.
U
NDERSTANDING WILL COME.

To hell with patience.
Is Mihale only seventeen?

The voice said nothing and Khatrene assumed he was ignoring her. Talis strode at Laroque’s side a good ten metres ahead, his hand on his uncle’s shoulder. She could see him clearly, although the sea of warm golden haze around them would swallow him if she didn’t keep up.

Pagan strode dutifully beside her and she was just deciding what she wanted to ask him first when the voice said, I
F
I
ANSWER ALL YOUR QUESTIONS
, I
REMOVE YOUR NEED TO TRUST
. H
OW THEN WILL YOU LEARN TO HAVE FAITH IN THOSE WHO SERVE YOU
?

Khatrene didn’t know whether to be incredulous or very, very angry.
I’m not here to do a management course for royalty. I’m here to find my brother.

Beside her, Pagan cleared his throat. ‘I’ll warrant much has happened to the little Princess my cousin saw into exile in Magoria.’ He looked her up and down again, his gaze not missing any of her scant curves. ‘It is a pity you will not remember it, My Lady.’

The voice wasn’t answering her and Khatrene vented some of her frustration on Pagan. ‘Oh, I remember the whole fifteen years of my time in the world you call an
illusion
,’ she said.

‘My Lady remembers Magoria?’ Pagan’s steps faltered but Khatrene pushed on, intent on keeping Talis in sight. The young Guardian had to lope to catch up. ‘Legend tells it is a brightly-hued world of surpassing contentment and pleasure.’

‘Sorry to disappoint you but the Garden of Eden has been shut down,’ she said. ‘Dakaroo was colourful I suppose, as country towns go. But contentment and pleasure were in short supply. I’m hoping for better things here,’ she added facetiously.

‘Daka …?’ Pagan’s smarmy smile had disappeared in confusion and it dawned on Khatrene that she might be digging herself a hole. If she undermined these people’s beliefs in their illusion world it might cause problems. In future she’d do better to keep quiet about Magoria and try to find out about Ennae. At least until she was reunited with Mihale.

She cleared her throat, dredged up a weak smile. ‘Let’s not talk about Magoria any more. I want to forget it.’

Pagan bowed graciously, ‘As My Lady wishes,’ though he was clearly still curious.

‘I’d rather know about Ennae. Will you tell me about that? The war. Is it over? Are we safe now?’

‘Would My Lady like to hear the tale of how the Northmen invaded our kingdom after your father was murdered? The Great Houses fought together to drive them back over the mountains.’ Pagan’s eyes began to glow with the same excitement Mihale’s had when recalling the brown kingdom’s best swordsmen in action. ‘Many battles were won and much valour shown —’

‘I’m sure it was thrilling.’ She cut him off before he could get warmed up. Typical male. Only interested in the gory parts. ‘But you were obviously victorious. Is my brother safe now? Is the Kingdom at peace?’

‘I can assure you of your personal safety,’ Pagan said and waved expansively at the force he accompanied.

Khatrene nodded. Despite not having Talis at her side she had to admit feeling safer in the middle of such a large group. ‘Talis said there was a traitor.’

‘Your father was murdered by Roeg, My Lady,’ Pagan said quietly, flicking a glance ahead at his cousin and father. ‘It was a shock to us all that the King’s own Champion would kill his charge, let alone ally with the Northmen in a planned attack.’

‘But he’s dead now, this traitor?’

‘His body was not found but The Dark has named him dead.’

‘The Dark?’

Pagan’s frown returned. ‘My Lady does not remember The Dark?’

Touchy area. Should she admit she couldn’t remember Ennae? She’d already told Talis. But what if they decided they had the wrong girl and sent her back?

Y
OU ARE THE
P
RINCESS
K
HATRENE.

Then why do I remember Magoria when I’m supposed to remember Ennae?

Y
OUR DESTINY REQUIRES IT.

Khatrene was tired of hearing about destiny, but she had to admit that she’d rather have memories of Magoria than nothing inside her head at all. She didn’t want to become Ennae’s first blonde joke. ‘So the traitor is dead and the … North people are gone? For good?’

Pagan took his time answering that one. ‘Two months past, one of their number was found in the forests of Verdan —’

‘Near the Verdan Hold which is … under the enchanted lake?’ She was sure that was right. The idea of a body of water with a mind of its own had caught her imagination. She’d always listened closely when Verdan had come into the stories. To realise now that it was supposed to be real sent a shiver down her spine. Sentient water. She had to see that.

Pagan was impressed. ‘My Lady has not forgotten the land of her childhood, no matter the trials suffered in Magoria.’

‘How could I forget my home?’ she said and smiled in reassurance. Which of course raised the question again in her own mind. How could she forget her home?

Y
OU MUST LEARN PATIENCE
.

If you learn not to patronise
, she shot back, then after glancing forward to assure herself Talis was still in sight she said to Pagan, ‘Do you know why the Northerner was at Verdan?’

Pagan shrugged. ‘A scout. He will take no message back to his legion.’

By the satisfied expression on Pagan’s face she could guess the scout’s death had been unpleasant. But before Pagan could recount it for her she asked, ‘If they’re sending scouts, doesn’t that mean they intend to come back?’

‘My Lady should not concern herself with matters of defence. Our Lord and King Mihale rules Ennae with courage and strength.’

So the voice wasn’t the only one patronising her. ‘I’m sure my brother is very capable but he’s also very young. Does he have advisers? Older men of experience —’

‘Our Lord and King’s Chief Counsel is a seer, My Lady. It was he who sent us to your side.’

‘At just the right moment.’ Khatrene thought about that.
Was that you? Are you ‘guiding’ my brother as well?

I
SPEAK ONLY TO YOU
.

Then who was this Chief Counsel? Khatrene frowned. There were too many questions and if she wasn’t careful she’d get bogged down in them. Instead she asked, ‘What’s my brother like now?’ If Talis was right and it was days until she would see him, at least she could appease her loneliness by talking about him. ‘Is he a sword-fighter too?’

Pagan grinned at her then, all white teeth and dimples. Khatrene wished her mother’s nurses could have seen him. They’d probably have fainted. ‘Not five mornings past your brother bested me in single combat,’ he said, as though that was quite an accomplishment.

‘You’re a good fighter then, are you?’ she asked, and prepared herself for some major bragging.

Ten minutes later she was still waiting for a break in the conversation to butt in.

‘… and then with the full weight of the Plainsman’s body behind the attack —’

‘Pagan. Pagan!’ She finally caught his attention and was hard put keeping a straight face. He was so enthralled in his own story she was sure he’d completely forgotten the original question. ‘You were going to tell me about my brother?’

He grinned again, not taken aback in the slightest. ‘Very well. Shall I tell My Lady of his penchant for archery? His skill in the dance of swords? Or his newfound talent for discerning when tip or blade are best used in a knife-fight?’

This time Khatrene couldn’t stop herself laughing out loud. ‘None of the above. I want to know what he talks about. Who his friends are. Whether he’s happy.’

‘Ah.’ He nodded. ‘The questions of a woman.’

She would have slapped his smug face, only his air of superiority was so fragile it was really rather endearing. ‘Yes, the questions of a woman,’ she replied. ‘Of a sister who wants to know if her brother is happy, not whether he can split heads at forty paces.’

Pagan’s smile faltered. ‘My Lady knows of a warrior who can perform such a feat?’

Khatrene couldn’t stop herself. She laughed out loud again.

‘Do you think that she is truly The Light?’ Talis turned from his uncle to gaze at the Princess who sat alone by choice at the resting place they’d reached four hour’s march from Noorinya’s camp. Her back against a rock, her mouth moved in a bored rhythm as she chewed the strips of sour-bread she had been given. Her gaze was quietly watchful.

So too was Talis’s as he observed her pouring water from his flask onto her hand, then tilting it to watch its fall. She frowned, caught some of the liquid in her fingers and rubbed them together. At last she took a sip from the flask, then another before returning to the sour-bread.

Around them a few scattered boulders signalled the ending of the Plains and the start of rockier terrain which would lead them through the forests and then home. Away from Plainsman territory, they were about to enter the lands inhabited by the outcast Raiders, imperfect ones who had been purged from their society generations ago by The Dark of the time. Inbreeding had multiplied their defects into deformities. Pale-skinned night-fighters who hated all those allied to the throne, they seldom strayed from their caves, yet a force of this size might draw their attention. Talis knew he must be on his guard, yet the clarity of mind which Guardian training had given him was sullied today by the reckless emotions his Princess had stirred.

‘How can she not be The Light?’ Laroque said. ‘Look at her.’

Talis nodded, seeing what his uncle saw. The Princess’s pale skin had begun to glow luminously not five minutes ago when the constant cloud cover of the lowlands had thinned. ‘If she glows here in the late afternoon,’ Talis said, ‘when the sun’s light is but a watery shadow …’ He need say no more. They could both imagine what magic would be wrought when the hot beams of full sun fell on her in the highlands of her brother’s Volcastle. There would be no doubting her destiny then, and the whole future of their world, of the Four Worlds, would be altered irrevocably.

Also unspoken, and unthinkable to Talis, was the knowledge that if the Princess Khatrene was The Light, her husband was already chosen.

‘And the mystery of her years,’ Laroque went on. ‘Do you know the prophecy that tells “The Light will not live by the days and minutes of our existence”?’

‘Aye.’ Talis dragged his heavy gaze from the Princess before she could find it there and contemplated instead the hour when he had sent her into exile. It was the first time he had used his Guardian powers to send a royal to Magoria, the first time in many generations that it had been done, and unpractised in the art, Talis had blamed himself for the loss of her memories. But if the White Princess had grown to become The Light, perhaps it had been her destiny, rather than his accident, which had stolen them from her mind and gifted them to him.

‘If she is ‘The Light …’ Laroque went on, but Talis struggled to concentrate. His mind was fixed on beauty and jealousy. Jealousy above all. The memory of the Princess’s laughter in the company of his cousin cut Talis’s heart like the blade of a fine dirk. The admiration he had seen in her eyes, the —

‘… then your duty is doubled. It is a pity we can spare no men to aid you.’

Talis frowned at this. ‘Are you not here to aid me, Uncle? To help escort the Princess on her journey to King Mihale?’

Laroque shook his grey head. ‘We only detour at the request of the King’s Counsel on the mission he set us upon. To rescue your own betrothed.’

‘Lae?’ Shock raised Talis’s voice. He took a step closer to his uncle. ‘What rescue is this? Is she harmed?’

‘Not harmed that we know.’ Laroque laid a hand on Talis’s arm in reassurance. ‘We fear she has been kidnapped, yet there is no ransom called.’

‘By whose hand?’ Talis’s own hand slid unconsciously to the hilt of his sword. ‘Who would take the daughter of The Dark and hope to live?’ he demanded.

Laroque watched his nephew closely. ‘We do not know, yet fear for her safety. Our Lord Counsel saw her in a vision at the Shrine of Be’uccdha. We go there now to find her.’

‘Raiders,’ Talis surmised and stared blindly at his uncle, breaths coming fast as the battle fury rose in him. ‘Let any man harm Lae and I will cut him into pieces of such size as will fall through the cracks of this Plain. Why did you not tell me of this earlier?’

Laroque gazed at him steadily. ‘You cannot accompany me. Our Lord Counsel has ordered you to escort our Princess to the King. Should The Dark discover you were sent to the Plains —’

‘Then only the King’s Counsel will suffer and not the King,’ Talis argued. ‘And if our Princess truly is The Light, The Dark will find no grief in her presence.’ This last was said bitterly, for Talis had no rein on his voice now. ‘Lae is my betrothed.’ He stared at the older man, daring him to argue. ‘I will go.’

‘And the Princess?’ Laroque nodded towards her. ‘Will she follow us into danger and battle?’

Talis turned to glance at her, returning her puzzled frown with one of his own. ‘Cannot another warrior —’

‘As Champion to the White Twins, your first duty belongs to her.’

‘And what of Lae?’ Talis turned back to his uncle. ‘I will not leave the fate of my betrothed in the hands of another.’ The two men gazed at each other, both weighing the consequences of these words.

‘What’s all the shouting about?’ Khatrene came to a stop next to Talis, but not too close. Even from a distance she’d seen fury rising off him like steam. ‘Laroque?’ she asked the older man when Talis refused to reply.