‘The powers awaken! Look at her,’ Mihale said.
Talis could not have looked away if his life had depended on the action, yet she looked only at her brother, stepping past her maids and into his arms, a rustling mist of jewelled white overlaying her luminescent skin.
They held each other fiercely, as though fearing to let go and lose the love they had recently rediscovered, and to Talis they appeared as two sides of the same coin, one pale and pure as glistening snow, the other burnished with heavy gold.
A softer swishing came as the maids departed, then there was silence apart from the sound of Mihale’s palm rasping against the layered fabric of his sister’s dress. Talis could not see his Princess’s face buried against her brother’s neck, but after a time Mihale grasped her shoulders and pulled her back. They looked deep into each other’s eyes and Talis ached for the love he saw there.
‘I missed you all over again last night,’ she said.
‘I too,’ his King replied.
Then she turned her head and smiled at Talis. ‘Is there something you two know about sunlight that I don’t?’ Talis said nothing and so her gaze returned to her brother, challenging him.
Mihale’s hands were restless on her arms. ‘I thought I would surprise you.’
‘With what?’
‘You will see.’ Mihale dragged his gaze away from her and turned to Talis. ‘The cloak?’
Still affected by her smile, Talis had forgotten he bore it and almost dropped it handing it to his King.
Mihale noticed his expression and smiled. ‘Do you think my sister is dazzling now?’ He laid the black velvet cloak over her shoulders, extinguishing the sparkle of her gown, then said to his sister, ‘When we enter the hall you must walk behind me, Khatter. Do as I say and show no fear.’
The Princess frowned. ‘Okay. I’ll go along with this now, but later we need to talk.’
Mihale turned to his Champion. ‘Take your place with your family, Talis. We shall follow.’
‘Majesty.’ Talis bowed low, then spared Khatrene a last glance before departing through an arched doorway beyond them.
The murmur of voices Khatrene had heard abruptly ceased and she surmised there was a crowd waiting to meet her. She wondered if the tattooed man would be in that group.
‘How do I look?’ she asked her brother.
He touched her hair, and caught her hand again. ‘You saw the expression on your Champion’s face and you need to ask?’
She laughed. ‘Talis is kind. It’s his defining characteristic. How do I really look?’
Mihale took a slow breath and surprised her by looking away. ‘You want words from my eyes,’ he said softly, ‘when it is only my heart which looks upon you.’
Khatrene was still smiling but … ‘Are you blushing?’
He said nothing but she was sure he was.
‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘I was just fishing for compliments. I’m feeling a little vulnerable.’
‘Do not tease me with your beauty, Sister,’ he said, serious now. ‘I am not fully a man and my desires are easily confused. Already I am attached to you …’
‘And I’m ‘attached’ to you. We love each other.’
Mihale shook his head and took another slow breath. ‘My excitement at your return has become confused in my mind. You are older —’
‘Confused with what?’
‘I have never felt this way.’
She smiled. ‘Neither have I. It’s called happiness. I hope to feel more of it.’
‘You don’t understand.’
She looked at him and saw for the first time the anguish in his eyes. ‘You’re right. I don’t understand.’
Abruptly Mihale let go of her hands. ‘You and I are not like other people,’ he said, and something in his voice gave her a chill of foreboding. ‘Just as our mother and father did what was best for Ennae, so must we.’
‘Whether we like it or not?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘It sounds as though you’re preparing me for the worst.’ Khatrene tried not to feel distanced from Mihale but he suddenly sounded more like the King than her brother.
‘I am preparing myself,’ he replied and adjusted her cloak, raising the hood to hide her face deep in its shadows. He seemed edgier than he had the night before. Was it the news of their mother’s death? Would that make him uncomfortable around her?
‘Come,’ he said and took her hand.
‘All right, but later we’re going to talk.’ Khatrene let herself be led, and almost immediately she became aware of music playing inside herself. Not in her head but deep in her chest, the beat of it echoing off her ribs. She recognised the piece instantly.
In the Hall of the Mountain King.
ALLEGRO.
Are you doing that?
DESTINY HAS AWOKEN WITHIN YOU.
They stepped through an elaborately arched doorway into a silent and cavernous room which was much brighter than the hallway they’d left. Khatrene looked around but even as she did, the goblin beat inside her grew faster. She wondered why her actions suddenly had a soundtrack.
The Great Hall was circular, as was most of the Volcastle, but huge and with the largest part of the room on a raised dais with seating all round the edges as far as she could see. Above the dais, the ceiling was open to the sky and sunlight poured down onto the pale stones, reflecting glare into her eyes.
Turning away from it she scanned the rows of people to her left, secure in the knowledge that her own face was hidden deep in her hood. Glints of gold and rich textures in all shades of brown met her eye. These were not the common people of Ennae. She saw Bhoo near the front of the assembly, bowing as his King approached.
When they had been formally introduced the day before Khatrene had struggled not to laugh out loud. It wasn’t simply Bhoo’s name that was absurd, the man himself looked like a child’s nightmare. Short and stunted, ugly, and with a hairstyle better suited to a toilet brush than a person, he had been the last person she’d expected her brother to introduce as his Chief Counsel.
As though sensing her disquiet, Mihale’s fingers tightened on hers as he ushered her past his subjects towards the steps that led to the dais. She felt like a dark spectre gliding through a sea of gold. The orchestration was growing faster inside her and she was having trouble keeping her footsteps even. An acrid smell of sulphur made itself known over the sweet incense in the chamber, and as she began climbing the stairs she saw a trail of smoke rising towards the open sky.
Even before they reached the top Khatrene realised there was a hole beneath that sky opening. A hole filled with fire. She’d imagined a ceremonial pit, but the gaping chasm that met her eye as she reached the top was half as wide as the room, and such a shock that she pulled Mihale to a halt.
It’s a volcano. The castle is built around an active volcano.
SHOW NO FEAR.
Khatrene simply stared. Mihale was positioning her two steps from the edge and there was no railing, nothing to stop her falling in if she tripped. Through the swirling smoke she could see a russet glow far below her. Heat billowed up and the sun blazed down from above. She felt dizzy with fear.
The symphony inside her mind grew more strident and compelling, racing towards a thundering climax. Mihale turned her to face the waiting crowd. Khatrene raised her head, found Talis in the throng and kept her eyes on him. Her heart was pounding, and the hand that held Mihale’s felt sweaty and hot. Beside her the open volcano growled and rumbled.
�
�€˜Loyal subjects of Ennae …’ Mihale said, his voice deeper and more commanding than Khatrene had heard it before. Her skin prickled and she suddenly imagined that this was a stranger standing beside her, and that her idle thoughts about sacrificial virgins had some basis in fact. ‘… We come together today to celebrate not one lifeday or even two, but to see the fulfilment of a prophecy.’
A prophecy? Khatrene tried to concentrate, to remember if anyone had mentioned a prophecy since her arrival in Ennae, but the crazed symphony was plummeting to a conclusion, thundering inside her chest so hard she wondered how her heart could compete with it. Cymbals clashed and she shuddered at their echo throughout her body.
The final crescendo was stuttering to its peak as Mihale said, ‘Within our lifetimes the Four Worlds will be joined.’ He reached up and loosened the tie of her cloak, held it in his hands and turned back to his subjects. ‘The Light has reached Ennae!’
The deafening finale crashed through Khatrene’s body as Mihale tore the cloak from her shoulders and suddenly the whole hall was illuminated in a rainbow of colours.
Khatrene stood with her mouth open, gaping.
Mihale dropped to his knees beside her and she stared at him through a haze of multicoloured light. She looked up to the sky, then back to the floor of the hall where the crowd of people had fallen to their knees. Like light off a prism, beams of colour shimmered and bounced off the pale stone walls. In a hall full of people only Talis remained standing, and across the distance they stared at each other, both incredulous.
What is it? Khatrene wanted to ask him, but he was too far away.
She looked back to her brother and something in the way he was staring at her sank in. She raised one of her hands in front of her face, blinked, then swallowed hard.
She was the prism. Coloured light was pouring from her body everywhere the sun touched her, as though her skin was a paper lampshade.
‘This …’ She looked at both her hands, then back to Mihale.
There was no dizziness, no warning that she was going to faint. Khatrene simply dropped like a rock.
Standing at the back of the hall, Talis saw her slump and was away, more quickly than her brother who at least managed to save her striking her head on the stones.
Bhoo stood and faced the nobles. ‘All leave!’ he cried in a voice too big for his body, arms raised to gesture towards the arched doorway. ‘Retire to the banquet hall. The king and his Princess will join us there.’
Talis was past them and bounding up the stairs, skidding to a stop at his king’s side while Mihale laid her gently down and stood back, as though afraid. Talis was also afraid of his Princess who lay with the circlet fallen from her head and her hair in pretty disarray.
‘Is she harmed?’ his king asked.
‘I think not, Your Majesty,’ Talis replied. ‘Perhaps it is shock.’ He knelt to lay a hand on her forehead and the strange coloured light danced on his fingers. Though he was reluctant to touch her, he did so using his Guardian power to reassure himself that her mind was unchanged and her vitality high. The display of her aura had not changed her. He stood. ‘Your Majesty, she is well.’
‘But I am not,’ the King said, and then came the one-sided smile Talis had seen only in private. ‘I am scared out of my wits. You saw this wonder. How are you not amazed?’
‘Majesty, I too am awed, but I see the Princess unharmed and her mind unchanged. She is still the sister you know and love.’
Mihale shook his head. ‘She is a crystal of power. An unknown, unknowable —’
‘She is the same twin, Majesty, who poured ink into your shoes so you would mark the stones of the temple floor with your pious feet.’
Mihale’s frown faded and he found his smile again. ‘The tiny villain. I remember that,’ he said and grasped his Champion’s arm. ‘I miss your counsel when you are not here, Talis. Your mind is not full of intrigue and plotting, but gives me simple answers to simple questions.’
Talis inclined his head. ‘I bring no truths, Majesty, save to remind you of that which you already know.’
‘And in times such as these I need reminding.’ Both men looked back to the Princess and were silent a moment. ‘Yet, despite your counsel I feel fear in her presence,’ his King said softly, staring down at her. ‘Fear of my own sister.’
Talis made no reply. He had expected some proof of the prophecy to discharge his doubts, but never, even in dreams, had he imagined such wonder, such divinity.
Even now as Talis looked upon her, laid low by fear of her own powers, he felt awed by the destiny she would fulfil. Within her belly would grow a child to join the worlds. In Talis’s own lifetime, Ennae would be one with Magoria, Atheyre and Haddash. The peoples of the Four Worlds, so long separated, would finally become one. The ache of longing, the pain of loneliness, all would be gone, so said The Dark.
Yet Talis doubted that. As he looked upon his Princess and knew another man would father her child, he felt as though his loneliness and longing would never end.
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘My Lord The Dark, your daughter comes.’
Djahr of Be’uccdha turned away from his contemplation of the Everlasting Ocean with its impatient waves surging onto the rocks below — a view admirably suited to his mood that day. He waved his steward away. The man bowed and scurried back down the steps, leaving his master to wait on the open battlement of his East Tower.
It had taken days to bring Lae home and the agony of it had worn Djahr’s patience to bones. Yet at last she emerged into the sunshine, her arm held firmly by Mooraz who had brought her safely to her father. For a moment Mooraz continued to hold her, his deceptively slow glance seeking danger, his hulking form a reassuring weight beside his slight charge. But finding no threat, Mooraz released her to fly into her father’s arms, there to be held and stroked and cherished.
‘I had thought were you dead, child,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘I am glad to find you safe and unharmed.’ She hugged him close and Djahr let his cheek rest on her head, feeling at last the blessed relief her presence brought him. ‘When you next feel the urge to pay homage to your mother’s memory,’ he said softly, ‘you will take Mooraz for protection.’ Yet he said no more, for he had resolved not to berate her for fleeing a ceremony she should have eagerly anticipated — a ceremony that in deference to her fear he had decided to postpone.
It was enough for Djahr to know she had not been waylaid by Plainsmen or the Raiders of the forest, and he’d already had that reassurance by running messenger. She was safe and that was all he would concern himself with.
Raising his head, he glanced at Mooraz. ‘You gave our thanks to the King’s Guard who found her?’ he asked.
Mooraz nodded his braided head. ‘The Guardian Laroque.’
Before Djahr could reply to this, Lae muttered into his robe. ‘Talis was there with the White Princess.’
‘Daughter?’ Djahr pulled her away from his chest. ‘Did you see our King’s sister, returned to Ennae?’
Lae looked at her father, then slid a measuring glance at Mooraz. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘But I would speak of it only when we are alone.’
Djahr took his daughter’s hand and nodded for Mooraz to leave them.
The Captain bowed, his braided hair falling forward in thick clumps. ‘I will await My Lord’s call,’ he said, then straightened and descended the steps, the faint clunking of his sword against a thigh guard marking his exit.
Djahr led Lae to the parapet, and sat beside her while she tucked a fallen curl into her crudely fashioned haircoil and returned her hand to his. Her dress was soiled and dusty but Djah
r wanted to hear her account before she retired to her chamber and her maids. ‘Tell me this news,’ he commanded.
Lae gazed at him as though to speak, yet seemed to struggle for words. ‘The White Princess is … changed, Father,’ she said at last, her voice soft as hoar grass and hesitant with uncertainty. ‘I could scarcely recognise within her the Khatter I once called my friend. I’m not sure, but I wondered … perhaps she is bewitched.’ Lae lowered her head and her voice. ‘Or plans to bewitch my betrothed.’
‘Bewitched?’ Disturbing enough that Mihale’s sister had been returned to Ennae without Djahr’s knowledge, but, bewitched? Foreboding, like a dark kernel, cracked within him and the miasma of unknown fears filled his chest. ‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘I saw the child not three years past —’
Lae looked up at him, ‘Father, she is no child,’ and squeezed his hand, as though begging for his belief. ‘She looks nearer in age to Talis than to myself. At first glance I thought she was … the Queen Danille …’ Djahr tensed at this name and could not still the sudden quickening of his heart, yet Lae shook her head. ‘But it was Khatter. My Khatter, grown to be a woman before me.’
Djahr could only stare at his daughter, wondering what unknown power in Magoria had aged the White Princess so quickly. And her brother, who had also appeared older than he should be.
Lae met his gaze. ‘If a woman bewitched is the master of my betrothed, should I fear for his safety?’
‘All should fear the coming of The Light.’ Djahr’s Shadow Woman slid invisibly behind his hair to press warm against his neck, and though he continued to stare at his daughter, Djahr’s thoughts lay shattered in his mind.
‘Khatrene of Ennae is … The Light.’ His voice had unconsciously taken on the deeper ceremonial tone expected of The Dark and Lae responded to it, touching a palm to her forehead, her eyes wide.
Destiny of the Light: Shadow Through Time 1 Page 19