With the cunning of many years spent at court, Laroque turned, ostensibly to scan his men. Instead, his gaze lingered on the Princess Khatrene and her Champion who now stood apart from the others, their smiles a harmony of accord.
Away from the thick vegetation of the Elder Stand, feeble sunlight filtered through thick overhead clouds, illuminating the skin of the Princess exactly as it had for a brief moment on the Plains. Even her hair, which she had freshly loosed, glittered like threads of ice. Again the thought came to him that she may be The Light. However, it was not the question of her divinity that concerned Laroque this day.
He would rather know how the Princess came to be so content. Had her Champion finally found a way to soothe her temper? There had been a stilted reserve between them which appeared to be gone today. Laroque did not know how.
Nor should he care.
Battle could fall upon them at any moment but the insignificant matter would not stay at rest. It tugged on the edges of his mind like a persistent river current.
‘Argh, the river is the colour of piss,’ Pagan said from behind him.
‘The river is clean,’ Laroque said, his disagreement coming from habit. ‘And its appearance should be of no concern to a warrior concentrating on finding a suitable crossing.’
Pagan favoured his father with a patient glance before strolling down the line to inspect the lower section of the river bend. Laroque watched him pass the Princess and her Champion, and although he did not hear the comment Talis threw, he saw Pagan’s mock bow and heard the Princess’s merry laughter. Talis turned back to her then with his own smile, one of such carefree design it did not seem as if he was far from safety on a mission of considerable danger, but rather at a tournament picnic in the Volcastle woods.
The line named duty which clearly stood between a Champion and his charge had blurred, and Laroque did not know how. Yesterday it had been in place. He had seen the awkward way Talis spoke to his Lady and heard raised voices, not for the first time. Quickly, he had sent Pagan to diffuse their anger, which he had. The Princess and her Champion had shared laughter in Pagan’s wake and when next he’d glanced at them the Princess had been asleep. Nothing more.
Why then did Talis’s eye linger on her today where it had not yesterday? Laroque knew well the shock of her beauty, remembering the way his heart had raced in the presence of her mother, the Queen Danille. The pale, clear skin, the striking royal-hued eyes, and hair of such a soft colour that it seemed to melt in the light. Khatrene was no less beautiful and perhaps more so. Certainly she smiled more than Danille had.
But perhaps when this Princess was wedded to a man she had not chosen, as her mother had been, then might her easy smile be locked away. Then …
He shook his head and turned back to the river, struggling to clear his mind. The Princess was the responsibility of her Champion. It was the rescue of Lae Be’uccdha which should occupy Laroque’s thoughts. Talis was a grown man, not a boy to be watched over in this fashion. He had the trust of his King and he would have the trust of his uncle as well.
Still, as the pair drew closer Laroque held half an ear open to their conversation.
‘I’m washing my hair on the way over. I don’t care what you say,’ the Princess said, her tone light.
‘Shall I call back my lady’s assistant?’ Talis replied, his own tone gently mocking.
‘No need,’ she replied.
‘I’ve found a crossing, Father.’ Pagan’s approach was both a relief and an irritation. ‘A hundred paces down. I’ll warrant it’s only chest deep.’
Laroque turned to his son. ‘You are not wet. How was this tested?’
Pagan hesitated, threw a glance at the Princess, and then in a gesture so obvious Laroque felt embarrassed for the boy, he puffed out his chest. ‘My eye tested it, and I’ll warrant it’s true.’
Laroque pondered the things he could say and chose, ‘Then you have done well. Lead us to it.’
Pagan set off ahead and Laroque found his gaze meeting the strange beauty of the Princess’s eyes. She smiled at him, and he felt even his old heart move faster.
‘He’s young,’ she said, and shrugged to show she had taken no offence.
Laroque offered a small bow. ‘My lady has a generous heart. The man your royal brother chooses for your husband will be lucky indeed.’ He cast a glance at Talis and moved on, hearing only silence in his wake.
*
Khatrene shivered and rubbed her arms, then gave up when she realised it wasn’t making her any warmer. It had been a stupid idea to wade through the thick water of the river, even if it had sloughed off the accumulation of four days’ dirt. At the time, nothing short of an armed attack would have stopped her, and despite its strange colour and slushy consistency of unset jelly, it had been wet and as a consequence felt wonderful.
Now, sitting on the floor of a pitch-black, draughty cave, she could think of cleverer things to have done. Like letting Talis carry her across. He had offered.
But no. She’d decided to wade across the ten metre stretch of icy sludge, intent on getting clean. Fully clothed, she’d scrubbed herself as best she could while struggling to push past the water’s heavy resistance and find safe footing on the smooth stones of the riverbed. In the middle of the river she’d ducked her head under and rubbed her face. That had felt like scrubbing with honey, but it had effectively rinsed her hair which was now in a plait and hung down her back like a wet rope.
A long walk would have dried her completely but they’d crossed the open ground to reach the rabbit-warren of tombs they called the Shrine in less than ten minutes. The deathly silence of the guard around her and the eerie early morning shadows cast by the squat, ugly shrines had already unnerved her. Then Talis pointed out the royal family’s shrine, where a plaque for the father she didn’t remember was placed. It was a clean-cut rectangle of pure white marble, like an enormous brick slapped onto the soft fungus-covered ground.
Laroque’s guard, which was spread out before and behind her, padded silently on past the lesser shrines which made this one look like a swan in a flock of grubby ducklings. Khatrene wasn’t sure whether she thought her family’s shrine was impressive or pretentious until she saw an early morning shadow slide into a symbol carved on either side of the entry; four circles that touched to form a diamond.
She faltered, blinked, and like a person drenched in a sudden downpour, she was changed, her whole perception of Ennae … ‘I know that symbol,’ she whispered, and closed her eyes on the brown landscape but could not escape the circles. They were inside her mind, only this time in colour. At the apex was white, the left circle blue, the right brown and beneath them was a colour she could only describe as fire.
Four circles. And Michael had told her there were four worlds.
She opened her eyes and stared at Talis, suddenly seeing him not as a man who was helping her, but as a part of Ennae. A Guardian. As important to the survival of this world as the vegetation which fed them and the air they breathed. For Ennae to survive, there must always be Guardians. But as quickly as the insight had come to her, it disappeared. She looked at the circles again and they were simply circles. But she remembered what she’d seen.
‘My Lady,’ he whispered, looking from her to the shrine, ‘Can you continue?’
‘I know that symbol,’ she whispered urgently, and pointed to it.
Talis nodded. ‘It is the symbol of the Ancients. The Royal Seal.’ She’d expected him to be surprised but his expression showed relief more than anything else. ‘The spirit of your ancestors awakens within you. It recognises what you cannot remember.’ He held her gaze a moment longer then flicked a glance behind them. He was al
ways looking around them, searching for danger. That was his purpose. Yet before Khatrene could lose herself again in the revelation she’d had, she noticed that the guard was banking up behind them.
She started her feet moving and reminded herself that Talis would be more concerned with the life of his betrothed than her lost memories. Distracting him with trifles might unsettle his concentration, and if something bad happened to the daughter of The Dark as a consequence, Khatrene would never forgive herself. She resolved to keep her mouth shut as she padded along by his side. What she had seen, however, was still inside her like a warm meal in her belly, satisfying and comforting. She did belong here.
It had been hard to accept that she had spent her childhood here when she didn’t have any proof of it herself. But now she had something. She recognised the circles. Somehow that brought Mihale closer and she tried to hug that to herself as they followed the guard along winding trails between the clay-coloured shrines which were nothing more than glorified boxes.
It was a morbid place, and Khatrene’s happy glow soon faded. She tried not to feel oppressed but the cloud cover was thick and low, giving her the disconcerting expectation that she was about to be crushed by a huge quilt of brown cotton wool. At last they reached a larger, pitch-black rectangle with an open doorway.
She imagined this must be the shrine of The Dark, the place where her brother’s adviser had apparently ‘seen’ Lae in a vision. Around her, the men of Laroque’s guard were deathly silent. She couldn’t ask Talis, so instead she asked the voice. Where are we?
BE’UCCDHA SHRINE. HEREIN LIES YOUR CHAMPION’S BETROTHED.
That was easy. Is she all right?
There was no reply from the voice, but instead of letting herself become frustrated, Khatrene thought about Mihale, picturing him in her mind, calming herself as she visualised their happy reunion. It was a distraction technique she’d devised to keep herself sane and to thwart the voice which obviously got a kick out of irritating her.
Talis touched her arm and she opened her eyes, nodding when he gestured for her to follow him. They entered the shrine, and a set of deep stairs descended in front of them. The bronze light cast by Talis’s flickering torch led them down to a passageway where they secreted her in a small anteroom the size of her old bathroom. Talis was sure battle threatened and to keep her with them under such circumstances was apparently out of the question. A single guard was posted inside the door and the rest of the party moved on to find Lae, taking their torches with them.
Except for the voice and her still and silent guard, Khatrene was alone in darkness so deep she had to sit down for fear of losing her balance and falling over.
Worse, she was cold. Not winter cold, worrying about pneumonia. Just uncomfortable cold. Her boots had stopped squelching but her socks were still sodden and the constant drip from the end of her plait down her spine was driving her crazy.
THE TEMPERATURE IS INCONSEQUENTIAL. YOU MERELY DISTRACT YOURSELF FROM THOUGHTS OF A HUSBAND.
She shivered again. Bloody voice. She’d been trying to forget what Laroque had said. Pass it off as a misunderstanding. Except that Talis had become very quiet afterwards. As though he’d known it would upset her. As though it were true.
She resisted for all of one minute, then asked, Does Michael —
MIHALE.
Right. Mihale. Does Mihale think he can choose a husband for me?
THE HUSBAND IS CHOSEN.
Khatrene blinked in the darkness, couldn’t begin to believe it. You know this for sure? she asked, hoping for once that he wouldn’t reply.
IT IS THE KING’S DUTY TO ENSURE YOUR DESTINY IS FULFILLED.
Well to hell with that, she said instinctively, but something in the voice’s tone reminded her that Mihale wouldn’t be the same person she’d lost ten years ago. She wondered then if she’d be able to recognise her brother inside this King of theirs. It was hard to imagine the Michael she’d known, the dreamer with the ready smile and the trademark shrug, being burdened with the responsibilities of an entire kingdom.
DID YOU NOT CARRY THE SOLE BURDEN OF YOUR MOTHER’S CARE AT JUST THIS AGE?
I guess I did. Khatrene found herself drifting through memories of her mother’s debilitating disease and the crushing weight of responsibility she’d accepted — unquestioningly accepted. Saturday nights spent listening to her mother’s breaths, hoping they wouldn’t stop, knowing her friends were out dancing, kissing, living. If there had been a boy she’d been interested in it would have been worse, but thankfully she’d been spared the drama of unfulfilled longings. Instead she’d buried her grief at her brother’s loss and grown tough to survive the rigours of being a fulltime carer at an age when her friends had been only interested in fun.
Yet at the same time as she’d been struggling with money and dealing with her mother’s growing helplessness, her brother had been here in Ennae, learning to be a king. Two years for him, she realised, had been ten long, heartbreaking years for her. She couldn’t begin to guess which of them had suffered more.
PAIN BRINGS STRENGTH.
Khatrene pulled up her legs and pressed her face against her knees, feeling the drag of her plait across the back of her neck.
Right. Nothing like a cliché to make you feel better.
She sighed. Maybe she shouldn’t worry about the husband thing just yet. According to Talis they were at least five days from the Volcastle. Assuming of course that they found Lae here — alive she hoped, for Talis’s sake.
Khatrene’s toes wriggled impatiently in her soggy boots. She wondered how long Talis would be. It wasn’t that she was nervous in the absolute blackness of the shrine, and there were no bugs or animals to be frightened of. But time was dragging and —
THE DAUGHTER OF THE DARK IS FOUND. SAFE.
Khatrene tensed. Talis?
NONE ARE HARMED.
Her shoulders relaxed.
Good.
They would return for her as soon as they could. Talis’s last glance assured her of that. He’d been just as uncomfortable about their separation as she had been and it reassured her to know that he took his job seriously. An image of Talis’s worried frown formed within her mind, the dark eyebrows drawn together over steady brown eyes. She smiled. After years of worrying about her mother, it was nice to have someone worrying about her.
But before she could fix Talis in her mind, his face was replaced by that of the tattooed man. Khatrene felt her breath catch. The image was so clear, so … real. And the vision’s background, of a luxuriously appointed room, all furnished in brown, whose window looked out onto a brown ocean was unquestioningly Ennean. Yet rather than dwell on the intricacy of the tapestries, Khatrene’s attention lingered on the tattooed man’s features, his proud nose, seductive eyes and eminently kissable lips, hugging the thrill his glance aroused in her.
The smell of the cave, a cross between over-brewed coffee and burnt leaves, became stronger, the air crisper, as though the mere thought of him brought all her senses alive. Was he part of her past? The memories she’d lost?
Is he here in Ennae? she asked the voice. Is he married already?
Silence greeted this question and Khatrene felt her excitement build. There was no way she was being married off like a prize sow before she found out who the tattooed man was. If there was even the slightest chance that he felt the same way about her that she felt about him, marriage might well be on the cards. But on her terms. Though she loved Mihale enough to die for him, her brother would have a fight on his hands if he thought he could stage-manage her life for her.
With that determined thought in mind, she settled herself to wait.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘I told you, no one kidnapped me,’ Lae said, stepping away from the stup
id boy, Pagan, to be closer to her betrothed whose gentle hand on her cheek and words of concern had swept away the loneliness of her vigil. ‘I came here to speak to my mother’s memory.’ The lie came easily as she gestured to the small stone tomb where they’d found her kneeling. The ash she had quickly smeared on her cheeks and her arms gave her the look of a penitent which added credence to her hastily constructed deception.
‘You came of your own free will?’ Talis asked.
‘To seek my mother’s counsel before I suffered the tattoo of Be’uccdha upon me.’ Lae knew these words would tell her betrothed she was now a woman to be his wife. It was a sacred moment to Lae and she wished she could be alone with Talis for it, yet there was a tightness to the way the heavy stone walls deadened the sound of guardsmen’s footsteps and the crackling of their brands. ‘None have touched me,’ she said softly, ‘Or —’
‘I do not wonder why,’ Pagan said from behind.
‘Or harmed me,’ she finished, setting her teeth. Tired of sleeping on a stone floor and with no food left in her satchel, there was precious little humour in Lae to appreciate the jesting of a dolt apprentice. Especially when that jesting spoilt her special moment. Still, there would be many more special moments in their courtship, which could now begin in earnest. Though she had been betrothed to Talis these last six months, in that time he had been only her friend. With the coming of her womanhood, he would look to be her lover and though they could not join until their vows were taken, Lae knew there would be kissing. That, and more.
The fears which had seen her flee her father’s castle were but a dim memory now, and she had convinced herself that a flaw in her newfound ability to see auras — to discern good and evil in people as her father could — had been the cause of her upset. The swirling eddies of evil she had witnessed in her father’s aura could have been no more than a trick of the fading light. For who knew better than The Dark’s own daughter how he had sacrificed his personal life for the betterment of Ennae? Renouncing the marriage bed on the death of his wife had caused him much deprivation, as it would to any man in his prime, yet her father had done so willingly and Ennae had not been visited by the blackness for many, many years.
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