Destiny of the Light: Shadow Through Time 1

by Louise Cusack

  ‘My Lady of Be’uccdha is known to have the tongue of a trickster,’ Talis admitted, brushing another vine from their path, ‘but her heart is good. I would trust her with my life.’

  Khatrene found herself suddenly curious as to how Talis had made such an unlikely match. Maybe he’d won Lae in a hand of poker. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘how did you and Lae come to be …’ Maybe it was none of her business. ‘It’s not important. I just wondered …’

  ‘Whether my marriage was arranged, as yours will be?’

  Khatrene raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t race off to buy me a toaster just yet,’ she said, then waved away his questioning glance. ‘A figure of speech. Do you mind if we don’t talk about this business of my brother choosing me a husband? It’s too bizarre.’

  ‘Perhaps when My Lady knows more of our spiritual teaching and the prophecies we live by …’

  She’d still think it was a bad idea, but she had to agree that she didn’t know much. ‘Mihale really only told me about the battles. They were obviously the parts that interested him most.’

  ‘And I am glad he spoke to you of Ennae,’ Talis said earnestly, then at her puzzled frown he added, ‘In case … your return, with no memory of your homeland, should cause you fear and distress.’

  ‘It did,’ she reminded him. ‘But I suppose you’re right. It would have been harder to believe in Ennae if I’d never heard the stories of the brown kingdom.’

  A moment passed in silence before he asked, ‘Do you question still?’

  Khatrene thought about that for a full minute before she raised her head to look at him. ‘No. I believe in it now.’

  Talis smiled in reassurance, then caught her arm when she tripped on another gnarled root. ‘When we reach the Volcastle and you are reunited with your brother he will see to your studies,’ Talis told her. ‘As a Princess of Ennae, you must know the prophecies concerning the Four Worlds and —’

  ‘Refresh my memory of the Four Worlds again.’ Khatrene remembered the four-ringed diamond symbol she’d seen on the Royal Shrine and wanted to know more. ‘There’s the Earthworld of Ennae, the Waterworld of Magoria …’

  ‘The Fireworld of Haddash and the Airworld of Atheyre. Four Worlds separated at the dawn of time. Four Worlds destined to be reunited.’

  Khatrene nodded, vaguely remembered Mihale having told her that. ‘Okay, Four Worlds. And they’re all joined by this Sacred Pool you brought me through?’

  ‘My Lady, no,’ Talis said quickly. ‘The pool links Ennae and Magoria alone.’

  ‘So these other two worlds —’

  ‘Are the places of after-death to which human souls ascend. The Guardians open the way to these worlds, in fire and in air, but cannot send through to air that which is not called. Those who do not go to Atheyre end up in Haddash.

  Talis was deadly serious but Khatrene couldn’t help the smile that broke out over her face. ‘So the Fireworld is Hell, and the Airworld is Heaven. That’s so convenient.’ She held up a hand. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not mocking your spiritual teaching but there’s a religion on Magoria that has the same two worlds as part of their … prophecy.’

  Rather than being affronted, Talis nodded wisely at this. ‘The Great Guardian protects the Four Worlds. Perhaps he planted this prophecy on Magoria.’

  ‘And the Great Guardian is …?’

  ‘The living spirit which permeates the Four Worlds and guides us towards our destiny.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Are you the Great Guardian? she asked the voice.

  Pause. I AM MERELY A GUIDE.

  Khatrene couldn’t help herself. Not a very helpful one at that. She turned back to Talis. ‘Okay, I promise to find out about the Four Worlds when I’m settled into the Volcastle. But only if you answer my question about you and Lae. How did you two managed to get betrothed?’

  Talis frowned. He clearly thought he’d sidestepped the issue. ‘We marry according to our station, My Lady,’ he said finally. ‘As Champion to the King, I must marry a daughter of one of the noble Houses.’

  He hadn’t really answered her question, but she let that ride for the moment. ‘Were there many daughters to choose from?’

  He frowned, as though mentally counting. ‘Twenty-three,’ he said at last.

  ‘A smorgasbord.’ She looked at him with fresh eyes. ‘Did you get to pick?’

  ‘Of the twenty-three, only six were of a suitable age and unmarried.’

  There it was again, an oblique answer. She didn’t let it deflect her. ‘So you had six to choose from and you picked Lae?’ Khatrene was getting past the point of caring if she embarrassed Talis. She wanted to know.

  He stopped, glanced up and sighed.

  Khatrene followed his gaze. The latte sky was barely visible through the tangle of vines that clung to the fungus trees, but it appeared to be darkening. She tried to remember how long they’d been walking. The ground beneath their boots had grown softer and she could smell a fetid, rotting odour on the wind. Laroque was right, it got worse.

  ‘Rue Marsh,’ Talis said and pointed ahead. ‘It is said that the marsh encourages melancholy and despair.’

  ‘Then it’s lucky you’re warding that away, isn’t it?’ Khatrene gazed at him for a moment before she said, ‘I still don’t know if you picked Lae or not.’

  He glanced away, as though pondering, then said, ‘Lae was of my choosing.’

  Khatrene let out her breath. There, he’d said it, but she felt strangely unsatisfied by the answer. ‘Why did you choose her?’

  He was very still, his voice soft, as though speaking to himself. ‘Guardian blood runs through my veins, as it runs through the veins of my uncle and my cousin. Only we three remain with the power to open a way between the worlds, and Pagan has yet to prove his skill. It is my duty to sire sons who will also carry the blood.’

  ‘But why Lae? Do you love her?’ The words were out of her mouth before she could call them back. Still, she tried. ‘I’m sorry, Talis. That was absolutely none of my —’

  ‘Is love important to you, My Lady?’ He had turned back and was looking at her steadily, She realised it had grown darker in the last few moments. Nightfall would be upon them soon but neither of them moved to stop Pagan wandering ahead, or to light the torches they would now need to make a camp.

  She pushed her hands into the pockets of her jeans and made herself hold his gaze. She’d started this. ‘I’m not sure. I’ve never been in love.’

  ‘And you wish to know if I am?’

  She nodded, unable to form the small word.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and night fell around them like a cloak.

  Khatrene felt lost in the sudden transition. She could no longer see the expression on Talis’s face and that disconcerted her. ‘I’ve heard a lot of people don’t find love.’ she said, feeling awkward now. ‘I guess you’re lucky.’

  She saw him move, a dark shape in the shadows, then heard the scratch and flare of his torch. ‘Come,’ he said, holding the brand aloft, extinguishing the shadows as much with his comforting presence as the light he now held. ‘Let us find Pagan before he falls into a swamp.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  There was a noise. Khatrene wasn’t sure straightaway if it was the voice inside her mind or an external sound. She was on her back, gazing at the tops of the hoary fungus â€�
�trees’ with their canopy of ropey vines, uplit by the hazy brown light of their fire. For an hour she’d been struggling to clear her mind for sleep, and now this; a humming, like the lowest note of a harmonica. Simultaneously with the sound, a dark shape came into their midst, blotting out the campfire light as it passed her.

  Khatrene opened her mouth, but before she could scream the figure lunged at the sleeping form of her Champion, something glinting in the firelight as it descended towards Talis’s chest.

  A dark shape loomed up beside her and she screamed in fright as it grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. ‘Silence, My Lady,’ Pagan hissed and with a solid shove, set her back against the nearest tree, positioning himself, sword drawn, between her and the struggle on the ground.

  Khatrene stood helpless, watching Talis grapple with the intruder in horrifying silence. No grunt or moan touched her ears, only the sound of their harsh breathing. Dread sat on her chest like a lead weight.

  They rolled closer to the fire and in the flickering light she saw the shoulder of Talis’s jacket was wet — told herself it might not be his blood. But the sickness in her stomach argued otherwise. Again, she saw a glint in the firelight and put both hands together over her mouth, pushing down the moan of fear in her throat. The grappling battle continued and Khatrene forgot to breathe. Her head was light, her brain pounding.

  Tell me he isn’t going to die, she demanded of the voice.

  THE MOMENT DRAWS NEAR. HE WILL SACRIFICE HIS FUTURE FOR YOU THIS NIGHT.

  ‘Noooo,’ she wailed, the sound muffled by her fingers.

  Pagan reached back a hand and she latched onto it.

  ‘Do something,’ she whispered.

  He shook his head, looked back to the fight. Talis had rolled the intruder beneath him and appeared to have the upper hand, but his shoulder dripped blood. Khatrene squeezed Pagan’s hand so hard her fingers hurt.

  The weapon glinted in the firelight again, this time in her Champion’s hand. She watched it waver above the intruder’s chest and involuntarily her own hand in Pagan’s wrenched down.

  ‘Now,’ Pagan breathed, and Khatrene saw the intruder’s hand slip. Talis plummeted the blade into his chest where it lodged with a squelching sound that was like nothing Khatrene had ever heard before; a sound so sickening she couldn’t help but picture the damage it had wrought. The sound of sure death. Even before Talis rolled off the body she knew the threat was gone. Pagan surveyed the area around them and then stepped forward.

  Khatrene’s hand, released from his, fell limply to her side as she slumped back against the tree. She tried to swallow. Felt sick.

  Pagan crouched and pulled the hood from the intruder’s face. ‘Raider,’ he said. ‘The pale skin of a cave-dweller.’ He looked up at Talis. ‘This one must have followed us from the Plateau.’

  Talis hadn’t moved and Khatrene suddenly found she had the strength to go to him. Edging around Pagan, she shuddered as she looked down into the colourless eyes of the dead Raider, his albino skin and bald head smeared in blood.

  Talis, watching her approach, said to his cousin. ‘Remove the body and search the near forest. Come if I call.’

  Pagan nodded, then picked up the limp arm of the Raider to drag him away. Khatrene shuddered again.

  ‘Are you harmed, Princess?’ Talis asked, trying to sit up.

  She dropped to her knees beside him and pushed him back down. ‘I’m fine. You’re the one bleeding,’ she said in a no-nonsense voice, but her hands trembled as she peeled the quilted jacket and thin shirt away from him. Talis lay quiet, a stillness in his eyes that worried her. Then she saw the wound.

  ‘Oh, God.’ Bruised skin peeled back from a jagged, ugly cut revealing brownish mush with … something lighter. Bone? A wave of nausea washed over her. There was blood everywhere.

  Looking away for a moment, Khatrene wadded up his shirt and then pressed it onto the gaping wound, as much to hide it from her eyes as to staunch the blood flow, which she knew had to be done quickly. She swallowed a couple of times before she could say, ‘Is this the only damage?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He’s not going to die. I won’t let him die, she told the voice who remained ominously silent.

  Her knees hurt, so she moved from a crouch into a seated position snuggled against Talis’s side as she leant across him to hold her makeshift pressure bandage against his wound. Some of the blood had run across his broad chest and pooled in the dark hairs. Her arm, lying across that chest, was now smeared in his blood. The rusty colour of it, so unlike ‘real’ blood, turned her stomach.

  ‘Can you heal this?’ she asked Talis.

  ‘My cousin will return soon,’ he said softly, ‘then we will work together to heal that which I have no strength to heal alone.’

  Khatrene nodded, glanced at the wadded wound again, then back to his face. Sickness gripped her stomach, but beneath that a fiercer emotion boiled and she suddenly found she was unable to keep it in. ‘Why didn’t Pagan help you fight that Raider?’ she asked. ‘Is there some law that says you can’t help another warrior?’

  ‘In single combat, a warrior of my rank is expected to best his —’

  ‘While you’re asleep?’ She couldn’t help herself. ‘You’re expected to “bestâ€� someone who attacks you while you’re asleep?’ Not to mention the fact that he was still weakened from the Rite of Revival.

  ‘The Raider is dead,’ Talis said simply.

  ‘Well, good for you!’ she shot back. ‘But what if he wasn’t? What if you were dead? I suppose you’d end up in Valhalla with all the other “greatâ€� warriors. Better to die an honourable death —’ Khatrene broke off on a hiccupped breath that sounded suspiciously like a sob. ‘And what about me? What happens to me if you die?’

  He was watching her closely, his eyes dark in the glowing firelight. ‘Our Lord and King would appoint another Champion for the White Princess.’

  Khatrene sucked in an unsteady breath. ‘I don’t want another Champion.’ Her bottom lip was trembling. ‘I want you.’

  He nodded and they continued to gaze at each other.

  ‘Can we call Pagan back?’ she said. ‘Your breathing is very shallow.’ Not caring about the blood, she leant forward and pressed her ear to the left side of his chest, making sure not to loosen her pressure on the bandage. ‘Your heart is beating too quickly,’ she said, ‘but it’s not faint.’ She listened to the lump, lump, lump sound of it and felt some of her agitation fade. Such a solid, reassuring beat. Even his scent was comforting. She pulled away from his skin a little and thought she could still hear his heart beating. ‘It’s loud.’

  Talis was sure it would leap out of his chest, the same chest Khatrene’s hair now danced over. ‘The effort of mastering the way between the worlds,’ he managed to say. ‘It strengthens the heart.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ She laid her cheek against him again and closed her eyes, the better to concentrate. ‘It sounds strong.’

  Talis shook his head. It was a weak heart. A foolish heart that ignored the true motivation for her actions and filled his mind with visions of soft caresses and tender vows. It had to be halted. ‘My Lady,’ he said.

  ‘I thought we’d agreed you weren’t going to call me “My Ladyâ€� when we were alone together.’

  Her bantering tone begged a friend, yet Talis had never felt less a ‘friend’ than at that moment, and even less an impartial Champion. ‘I am confused. Forgive me,’ he said.

  She frowned. �
�€˜Maybe you’re in shock.’ She laid the back of a cool hand against his forehead and the tenderness of the gesture was almost his undoing. ‘No, you’re hot if anything.’ She reached down to clasp his hand, then shook her head, making the cool strands of hair dance over his chest once again. ‘Your extremities aren’t cold. Maybe it’s just a combination of blood loss and tiredness.’ She looked back up into his eyes. ‘You certainly don’t look … right.’

  ‘There is no near-danger,’ Pagan said from behind her. Then as he came closer, he added, ‘Ho, Cousin, I see you are showing off your wares.’

  Before Talis could frame a scathing reply the Princess said, ‘Don’t worry, Pagan. You’ll have a manly chest one day.’ With her free hand she gestured at the fire. ‘Throw some more wood on there so we can see what we’re doing, then come and heal Talis.’

  ‘Yes, Majesty,’ he said cheerfully enough, clearly undisturbed by the jibe.

  Talis, however, was deeply affected and closed his eyes, feigning fatigue. The Princess … Khatrene, he savoured her name in his mind, she of the beautiful eyes and wistful smile, thought his chest manly? He could not look her in the eye while such pleasure tumbled through him. If she would notice to speak such a thing, did that mean her feelings for him ran deeper than mere gratitude for good service?

  Humility and control were the tools of a Champion, but in Talis’s armory they had rusted to misuse this night. He should not gloat that she chose him above his more comely cousin. And neither should he look at the Princess with the eye of a husband when he was nothing to her but a servant.

  Yet he did, and while her gentle hands lay on his bared flesh he imagined such intimacies as to shame his own name and the honourable House of his birth.

  Lae, whom he had struggled to keep in his thoughts, was as distant to his heart as the Princess was close. It was agony and rapture at once.