Realm of Light (16 page)

“Oh, Lea,” he
whispered aloud, bending over the cloak. “I came back. I did keep my promise.”

Too late,
said the guilt in his mind.
Too late.

The scent of
flowers filled the air, and suddenly the cave felt warm and almost pleasant.

“It is never too
late, Caelan,” said a feminine voice. “Love is always in time.”

Startled, he
looked up to find the cave filled with a clear, pale light. A slender maiden
stood before him, gowned in pine green with a wreath of flowers entwined in her
golden hair. A thick braid reached down over her left shoulder, the way his
mother used to wear hers. Blue eyes, both merry and wise, twinkled at him.

“Welcome, dearest
brother,” she said.

Still kneeling, he
stared up at her, unable to speak, unable to think. Surely his hunger was
making him see things.

“I am fourteen
now,” she said and smiled so that her dimples appeared. “Am I not well grown?
Do you think I am pretty?”

Then she came
running to him and flung her arms around his neck. “Oh, Caelan, Caelan!” she
cried, laughing and kissing his cheek over and over. “How glad I am that you
have come home. I have missed you so much. I wanted you back here with me. I
made
you come.”

He could not
understand it. He dared not believe it. And yet... “Lea,” he said, his voice
choking as he hugged her back. She was real flesh and blood in his arms. He
found himself in tears. “Dear gods, is it you?”

“Of course,
silly.”

Pushing away from
him, she threw back her head and laughed, then caught his hand and drew him to
his feet. Now it was her turn to stare up at him. She did so, studying him hard
from every angle.

“How big you are
now. How broad your shoulders are. And you’re taller. But so am I!”

Laughing, she
skipped away and twirled about the room until her gown belled around her
ankles. Then she raced back up to him and gave him another hug around the
waist.

“I am so happy
now. Did I say how much I have missed you?”

He grabbed her by
the arms to keep her from skipping away again. “Slow down, you minx,” he said,
half laughing at her antics. It was as though the years had fallen away, and
they were playing and tussling the way they used to. He had the urge to toss
her high in the air and tickle her until she begged him to stop.

But she was too
old for that. Why, she was grown, practically a woman now. He kept starting to
say something to her, only to stop and stare, his breath forgotten in his
throat, his words lost.

“Look at you,” he
said at last. “How, Lea? How did you survive?”

“You told me to
wait,” she said. “After a while, I couldn’t do that, but I came back every day
to see if you’d kept your promise. And here you are! I knew you wouldn’t fail
me. I wanted you to come back, and you have.”

Questions crowded
his mind, too many to ask all at once. This was so hard to comprehend. He
wanted to dance in joy, and yet he could not believe she was here or that she
was really alive.

He pulled her near
again, touching her face, tugging at her hair, entwining her fingers in his.
They were long and tapered now instead of chubby and small.

“How?” he
whispered, his amazement continuing to grow. “You must tell me how.”

“How I made you
come back?”

He squeezed her
hands in an effort to make her be serious. “No, how you lived after I abandoned
you. Where did you go? Who looked after you?”

Her gaze swung
away from his. “So many questions—”

“I must know!” he
insisted. “I thought you were dead. All these years, I have blamed myself for
abandoning you.”

“But you didn’t,”
she said earnestly. “You had to help Father. I understand that now.”

“I couldn’t do
anything to help him,” Caelan said bitterly, seeing the raid all over again. “I
was a boy, without weapons, unable to fight properly. I should have stayed with
you. Instead, I ran away and left you crying here in the cave.”

“I don’t cry now,”
she said. “I’m too grown up.”

He choked and
dropped to his knees before her. “Forgive me, Lea.”

“Hush, Caelan.
Hush.” She touched his face with her hands, soothing away his distress. “Don’t
be sad. I don’t blame you for anything.”

He kissed her
hands, thankful for her mercy. “You were always of a good and generous heart,
little one. I blamed myself.”

“I know,” she
said, suddenly serious. “You have suffered dreadfully. If only I could have
made you come back sooner, you wouldn’t have hurt so much. But I had to grow
first. I had so much to learn.”

She sat down in
front of him, tucking her gown around her feet as though she were impervious to
the ice-cold floor. He noticed then that she wore the nine thumb-sized emeralds
in a necklace around her slim throat. Many girls of marriageable age wore their
dowries as necklaces. But who had made such a necklace for her? Who had taken
her in and given her such fine clothing to wear? Who had cared for her?

“No questions,”
she said, holding his large, callused hand in her slim one. “Not now. I promise
we’ll talk of those things, Caelan, but later in a less important time.”

“But—”

“Hush,” she said,
her blue eyes very serious now. “I must study you. There are things I must
know, and I will learn them quicker this way than if we talk. Don’t close
yourself to me. Please.”

Before he could
speak, he felt her brush against his mind and riffle his thoughts. He felt her
soul slip through his, leaving a refreshing sense of having dived into cool
water on a hot summer’s day. He felt her sift through his past before he could
stop her, then she was gone from him, separate, blinking in front of him, and
looking a little pale.

“Oh, my,” she said
breathlessly. “Oh, my.”

She knew it all,
knew his failures, his moments of shame, his secrets. Just as she had always
known them. It had never been easy to keep anything concealed from her. Now he
suspected it might be impossible.

She turned his
hand over in hers and stroked his palm with her fingertips. “So much blood,”
she murmured. “So much killing. I can hear the death screams of countless men.
Do they trouble your dreams?”

There was no point
in lying. “Yes.”

“Have you taken
enough lives to pay back the Fates for Father’s death?”

He squirmed
uncomfortably. Lea went, as always, straight to the heart of the matter. “No,”
he said after a moment. “That will never be erased.”

“Why do you blame
yourself for Father’s death?” she asked.

He looked into her
eyes for grief and found only clear-eyed concern for him in their depths.
Sighing, Caelan said, “I don’t know. It’s been so long. It’s all confusion
now.”

“Yes, you are
confused. I thought you would have finished your lessons by now, but you
haven’t. You are always so slow, Caelan.”

“What—”

She jumped to her
feet. “Do you still have your emeralds? The ones we found here together? They
were to be your talismans. Did you keep them or sell them for a sword?”

“Come and see.”

He took her back
to the other cave, where the formations of stone hung twisted and folded as
they had for all time, where his huge emerald still glowed beside the little
fire, where Elandra lay caught in the dark spell that had captured her.

Lea gasped and
shrank against him in unexpected shyness. “Who is she?”

“Her name is
Elandra. She is our sovereign empress and the wife of Emperor Kostimon.”

“She is
beautiful,” Lea whispered.

Joy swelled his
heart. Lea’s approval meant everything. He hugged her and kissed the top of her
head.

Lea pulled away
from him. “Is she sleeping?”

“No,” Caelan said,
his joy fading. “She is dying.”

“How?”

“A
shyriea—a
demon that flies and attacks like—”

“I know what it
is,” Lea said.

He glanced at her
in wonder, but asked no questions. “It bit her. The venom is poisoning her
blood, turning her into the darkness. I fear—I fear she will change into—”

Lea turned and
gripped his hand a moment. Her blue eyes met his, and they were direct,
reassuring, and oddly mature. “Do not fear, Caelan. You have brought her into a
place of protection, just as you brought me. No harm can befall her here.”

“But—”

She lifted a
finger to her lips to silence him, then turned and knelt beside Elandra. With
gentle hands she touched Elandra’s brow. Closing her eyes, Lea began to sing a
low, wordless melody in a voice like gold.

It was like
hearing his mother sing to him again at bedtime. Caelan turned away for a
moment, overtaken by memories of gentle hands smoothing the bedclothes, of soft
lips kissing his cheek, of the song lulling him into the warm caress of sleep.

Overcome, he found
his throat choking up. In silence he fled, stooping through the tunnel to the
mouth of the cave. Rushing outside, he stood in the gully, shielded a bit from
the wind-whipped snow, and drew in rapid lungfuls of the frosty air.

Lea’s song made
him think of purity, of kindness and peace, all the virtues, innocence and
goodness. The notes of her music were being woven around Elandra, protecting
and preserving her. But the song had driven him out, for he was tainted. Blood
would forever stain his hands. Even if he lived as a hermit on a lonely rock
for the rest of his days, he would never be able to purify himself.

Wrapping up in his
cloak against the terrible cold, he stood shivering against the embankment,
risking attack from the wind spirits, letting the harsh sleet rasp his face.
Now and then when the wind lulled momentarily, he could hear a note or two of
Lea’s singing. He wished she could sing such a song over him and wipe away his
past, but he knew that was not possible. For Caelan could feel his future all
the way to his bones. He thought of that moment when he had been linked
together with Kostimon in Choven fire against the
shyrieas
; he thought
of the various swords he had held and how some of them sang to him of battle
and how others whispered combat secrets that no man knew to teach him. He had
been made for war. Every muscle and sinew in his strong body had been forged
for combat. He would fight again, and he would kill again. That he knew.

And therefore,
Lea’s song of healing was not for him.

“Caelan?”

Her voice reached
out softly to him from the cave.

Turning his head,
he listened a moment, then climbed back inside. When he reached the women, he
saw that the fire had gone out, yet light still glowed around Lea and Elandra.
The little cavern was warm and comfortable. The scent of flowers seemed very
strong. He could feel a presence with them that made his skin prickle uneasily,
then it was gone.

Lea was smiling
with her eyes closed. She still knelt there beside Elandra, and for an instant
she seemed to fade and grow transparent. It was like looking at a ghost or a
spirit.

Caelan’s heart
fell within him. In an instant he understood that Lea was not real, was not
alive as he had thought. The miracle of her survival had been only a dream.
Yes, she was here, but as part of the spirit world, and that meant she was
indeed dead and lost to him.

Staring at her in
horror, he slowly backed away.

Lea turned her
head to look at him, and her blue eyes widened. “No, Caelan!”

He couldn’t bear
to speak to her. What cruelty was this? What capricious god took amusement at
giving him Lea against all hope or reason, then made her nothing more than a
ghost?

Lea’s eyes tried
to hold his. “You’re wrong. Please listen—”

With a cry, Caelan
turned and ran, stooping, down the tunnel. He had to get out of here, had to
get away from her.

She came after
him, throwing her arms around his waist and squeezing tight to hold him.

He turned on her,
pushing her off. “Get away from me!”

Tears filled her
eyes. “I’m real. I’m real!”

He shut out her
voice, refusing to listen. Again he turned his back on her and headed for the
mouth of the cave.

She caught his
cloak and tugged. “Please, please listen to me. Touch my hand. I’m flesh and
blood, Caelan, just like you.”

Her pleas tore at
his heart. He wanted to believe her, yet he couldn’t. All he trusted was the
evidence of his own eyes.

“Do you not waver
from the sight of others when you
sever!”
she asked. “Has no one ever
been frightened by you? Has no one ever misunderstood what you are doing?”

He glanced back at
her with a frown. “What?”

“Can you not come
and go among people without being seen? Can you not step into the spirit world
and exit as you choose? Can you not move faster than thought, so fast sometimes
your opponent cannot see you?”

His frown
deepened. He did not want to listen to her, yet he could not help it. How could
she know what it was like?

“Oh, Caelan,” she
said, her voice full of compassion, “do you not yet know what we are?”

He stared at her,
too amazed to answer, but his mind was shifting into one rapid thought after
another. Lea, who could read his mind, who had answered his thoughts as though
they were spoken aloud since she had first learned to talk. Lea, who wished for
things that then came true, as though her will could bend events themselves.
Lea, whose gentle spirit had always been his guide and conscience.

“What are you
saying?” he whispered.

She stepped
closer, her eyes still locked on his. Holding out her hand to him, she said,
“Am I real?”

He flinched back.
“I don’t know! I have lately walked in a place where the mind can be twisted.
All these years I have grieved for you, thinking you were dead, wishing I could
see you again.”