Noorinya had gone to the wise women who had read the flames to tell her the fate of her brother’s remains. She had not slept for three days after that, the anger had been so fierce inside her. Only once had she seen the face of The Dark, when she had secreted herself among a crowd of Cliffdwellers, but that fleeting glance had told her everything.
The body of her brother had not been burned. His ashes had not flown on the wind. Thus his soul had not ascended to the High Plain. Instead he had passed through the body of The Dark to emerge as stinking nightsoil, to be disposed of with distaste. Of all the endings which might befall a Plainsman, this was more villainous than any Noorinya could have imagined, and her blood boiled for revenge.
To see the Guardian Talis hunting with The Dark’s guard only enraged Noorinya further. No child grew within her as a result of their joining and neither would there be soft feelings for him while such hatred lived in her heart. The death of her brother and her own craving for a child had filled Noorinya with an emptiness no amount of battle-practice could fill.
Despite numerous consultations with the old women of the tribe, Noorinya had yet to find a suitable mate. Yet on this night, she knew she must join with someone, if only to burn the anger from her heart into the heat of two bodies at battle. So it was that she found herself once again on a path towards the old women’s telling circle.
Striding through the camp, she signalled with rapid finger movements for two of the fire guard to take the perimeter watch. They rose silently to do her bidding and she continued past the shelters to the circle of women who sat around a low-burning fire.
‘I come for a telling,’ she said, standing a respectful distance behind the eldest of their group. ‘The memory stone speaks to me of a child,’ she told them as she had many times, clutching the leader’s talisman in her palm, careful not to weaken the thong which held it to her throat. ‘I had thought the Guardian Talis —’
‘The child you saw was not your own,’ a voice intoned from across the circle and murmurs rose around her. ‘Another’s child.’ ‘A sacred child.’ ‘A child of light.’
The dark mist of pre-dawn swelled around them and again the faceless crone spoke. ‘The child comes to you for protection, and this you must give.’
Noorinya shook her head and instinctively raised the heel of her hand in denial. ‘I could not save my own brother,’ she said bitterly. What chance would she have of protecting another’s child? Yet the wisdom of the old women could not be ignored. ‘How will I know this child? Is it one of my kin?’ Noorinya’s own sister Noola was one of those birthing. Did this mean there would be problems? That her sister would die?
‘It comes to you unborn, and not of our kind.’
Not of our kind? Noorinya gazed at the circle, a large shadow comprised of smaller shifting shadows. ‘We will take in an outsider?’ Her thoughts were at once with the Guardian, and she knew then that despite her anger she still held soft feelings for him. ‘Will there be danger to the tribe?’ she asked.
‘Many will die,’ the voice replied ominously. ‘Yet if the child lives, all will not be lost.’
Noorinya shook her head, the meaning of these words too great a burden for her to carry. The safety of her people was responsibility enough, but to extend that protection to an outsider, at the risk of the tribe …
‘Go now and take a mate,’ the crone’s voice instructed. ‘And do not dwell on these matters, for they are the future.’
‘I honour your telling,’ Noorinya replied respectfully, and bowed with upraised palms extended.
Yet as she backed away the voice added, ‘The last of your choices shall be as the first.’
She blinked, then left them to their murmuring. The last of her choices? Did they mean her choice of mate? She paused to ponder this riddle. The last man she would choose as a warrior’s father would be Breehan the storyteller. Thin, awkward, yet he had the look of an older Preeshuz, and his eyes when they touched hers stayed respectfully on her face and did not stray to her body as did those of the other men with whom she might join.
Could this be the answer to the old woman’s riddle? Noorinya would test it. Straight to the shelter of Breehan she marched, and though it was courtesy to lay a hand on the soft fabric and beg entry, Noorinya found no humility within herself to beg. Instead she snatched back the flap and entered to crouch before a sleepy-eyed Breehan.
He, who had suffered injury and insult at her hands at battle practice, now rubbed at his eyes and looked at his visitor, then jerked rapidly awake. ‘Does battle come?’ he asked, eyes searching out the sword he had no talent to wield.
Noorinya shook her head. ‘There is no enemy.’
‘Then why do you come to wake …’ Breehan trailed off, his eyes wide as Noorinya stripped the coils of cloth from her body.
‘Battle comes,’ she told him, ‘Yet I am no enemy.’
Breehan nodded, unable on this occasion to keep his attention on her eyes. ‘And I am no warrior to best you in single combat.’
‘My strength is greater,’ she agreed, ‘Yet you have that within you which may conquer me yet.’
Breehan smiled at this and shrugged out of his shirt, said, ‘Then please, let us begin, for I am eager to best someone in this life.’
Noorinya found she could laugh, even as the heat of joining grew within her at the sight of his bared flesh. This would be a good bedding, she was sure of it. And not their last. She would thank the mothers on the morrow for the gift of their insight.
‘I ask only one boon before we begin,’ Breehan said, and Noorinya paused, having just pressed him back onto his blankets. ‘Stay with me until morning and join with me as often as I am able.’
Noorinya frowned at these odd words. ‘More than once?’ she asked.
Breehan reached between them and touched her between her legs. She jerked in surprise and then stared at him wide-eyed as his hand moved on her.
‘Storytellers may be of little use in battle,’ he said, smiling at her reaction, ‘but they keep safe the lore of the tribe. In joining there is much which can be learned.’
Noorinya closed her eyes as a groan of pleasure worked its way up her throat. ‘I will … stay,’ she said. And apart from cries which woke much of the camp, that was all she said for many hours.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Khatrene sat in her Morning Room, a chamber Djahr had given her simply because she’d admired the view. Lae sat across the table from her working on a tapestry and Talis stood obediently at the door. Seemingly all was well, save for the litany repeating in her mind, Something is wrong. Something is wrong.
Ominously, the voice said nothing.
‘Have you thought any more about the sort of gown you’d like,’ she asked Lae, unsure as to the etiquette of discussing wedding arrangements in front of the groom. ‘The one your father designed for me was simply beautiful. That fabric —’ Khatrene cut herself short when Lae’s eyes widened and her gaze darted away. ‘But of course, you’ll want your own design,’ she added quickly, hoping that wasn’t a social gaffe either. Talis wasn’t expected to design a gown. That was a Be’uccdha tradition. The Guardian House left the arrangements completely with the bride’s family.
So much to learn and remember. Of course, if she had her memories it wouldn’t be a problem, but despite many things looking familiar, there was still nothing of her childhood resurfacing.
‘With The Light’s permission,’ Lae said stiffly, ‘may we discuss this at a later time?’
Khatrene put a hand out towards her, ‘Of course,’ then pu
lled it back when the girl flinched.
The relentless premonition would not be silent, Something is wrong. Something is wrong.
In fact, something had been wrong since the wonderful day Djahr had opened his heart to her in the Altar Caves and they’d made love — as opposed to having sex. She’d been in a state of delirium ever since, despite the fact that their nightly physical gratification sessions followed the usual pattern. Things would change, she was sure of it, and so happy had she been, baiting Djahr about his paternalistic attitudes and planning for the baby she would soon carry, she’d barely noticed Talis’s week long absence. On his return, however, a palpable disquiet intruded on her blissful idyll and she began to notice strained silences, unmet glances.
Cruel fate had obviously decreed that the moment she started experiencing some real happiness, the people around her would behave oddly in her presence. And why?
Why? she demanded.
HOW PETULANT YOU SOUND, the voice replied. LIKE A CHILD DEMANDING TO KNOW THAT IT IS LOVED. IS IT NOT ENOUGH THAT YOUR HUSBAND SHOWS YOU AFFECTION?
Was it? Khatrene frowned. Maybe she should be satisfied with that.
She glanced at Talis, noticed the way his gaze skidded off her, as though he’d been watching her until that moment. Then she looked back at Lae and had the same experience.
Am I paranoid?
THE VALUE OF SANITY IS SUBJECTIVE.
Why aren’t you helpful any more?
No reply.
‘I’m going for a walk,’ she said, and rose abruptly from the table.
Lae’s eyes remained downcast. ‘As you wish, My Lady.’
Khatrene swept past her, and even the heavy fabric of her gown irritated her legs. Her jeans were back at the Volcastle or she would have gone and put them on to negate any part of her that belonged in this world. She was through the long, lighted corridors and out into the misty sunlight before she realised Talis was behind her. Damn him too, she thought. Like her dress that tangled in her legs, he was always underfoot.
She looked around the empty stone battlement and was irritated further by the feeble shards of light emanating from her skin. Anaemic colour bled into the surrounding mists, reminding her of a colouring-in book she’d owned in Dakaroo, the type you brushed with water to reveal the colours. More often than not, now, she looked back on her time there with fondness. They’d been happy years with Michael, overshadowed, of course, by their mother’s illness. But the simple life of school and friends in a small country town had given her a freedom she knew wasn’t possible in Ennae. Not if you were a princess. And especially not The Light.
Although to balance the picture, if they’d never left Ennae, Talis or another of the Guardians would have been able to cure their mother. If they’d chosen to … Djahr had recently told her the Elder Sh’hale was suffering an illness much like her mother’s. Khatrene knew Guardians were allowed to use their healing power on the nobility. Why hadn’t Talis been called to cure him?
Or had he?
She turned slowly to look at Talis and found his attention already upon her. What if he’d refused to go because he didn’t like Kert? ‘I don’t really know you,’ she said, and realised that was true of everyone she’d met in Ennae, even Mihale. Even Djahr, she had to admit, much as she would wish it otherwise.
Talis’s hair lifted slightly in the faint breeze yet his warrior plaits remained still beside his face. His dark eyes looked straight into hers with an expression she couldn’t identify. There’d been a change in him since his return from the Plains. A barrier around him she hadn’t seen before. Was that a warrior trait? Had killing deprived him of the tenderness she knew he was capable of? Or rather, she’d thought him capable of?
‘I am Talis,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘That’s your name but what else do I know?’ She looked away. ‘Sometimes I don’t know what to believe. Who to believe.’
‘Your brother will not lie to you,’ Talis said.
She looked back at him. ‘But you will?’
His expression remained unchanged. ‘Destiny will out.’
‘Here we go with destiny again. Do you really believe in that?’ she asked, ‘That everything works out for the best?’
Talis shook his head. ‘Destiny is a pathway into history, not a child’s tale with a happy ending.’
‘Are you telling me I’m going to be unhappy?’
His intense gaze never wavered. ‘I do not know.’
‘Do you want me to be unhappy?’
‘No,’ he said quickly, and Khatrene found she believed him.
Then she looked at Talis a long, hard moment. ‘You’re not happy,’ she said, and was stunned that she hadn’t noticed before. It was glaring at her as though he had the words written on his forehead.
He was slow to reply. ‘My destiny lies on a path that requires patience and fortitude,’ he said. ‘I fear happiness does not also lie along that path.’
‘But you have Lae —’ Khatrene stopped the moment she saw the look in his eyes. ‘You don’t want to marry her, do you?’
Talis simply continued to look at her and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before. The memories of their conversations flitted through her mind and she snagged one. ‘But you told me you were in love. On the way to the Volcastle. We were talking about Lae —’
‘Your discourse is animated,’ Djahr said, appearing out of the mist at their side. Khatrene jumped in fright and Djahr held out a hand to steady her even as he cast a slow glance at Talis. ‘Although I must say, you choose an odd setting for it.’
It took Khatrene a moment to gather her wits. Then another, wondering how much of their conversation Djahr had overheard.
‘The Light is often found on the battlements, My Lord,’ Talis replied evenly. ‘And I with her, admiring the view.’
Djahr looked around himself into the blanket of mist. Behind them the castle itself could barely be discerned. ‘Which view is this?’ he asked, and looked back to Khatrene. ‘Beloved?’
Khatrene had been about to bail Talis out when she registered that endearment. Beloved. Djahr had never called her that before. Not even in the Altar Caves when they’d —
‘I have a surprise for you,’ he said, and put out his hand. She took it, unable in that moment to remember what she and Talis had been discussing. Knowing it couldn’t be as important as Djahr calling her his beloved. Was this the beginning of the marriage she had dreamt of?
‘I take The Light from your care,’ he told Talis. ‘Be at leisure until she requires you again.’ Then he floated her away through the mist, and as always when he looked at her that way, the rest of the world ceased to exist. Once inside the castle they walked through the Be’uccdha banquet hall with its austere display of weaponry on the walls. Then to the inner corridors where the only lighting was squat wall-mounted candles whose flames swayed with the breeze of their passing.
‘I like surprises,’ Khatrene said and squeezed his hand.
‘I know,’ Djahr replied, and Khatrene felt warmed by the satisfaction that seemed to sit newly on his features.
For a time they wandered on a level through corridors she’d not explored before. Then he turned her up a set of winding stairs and they climbed for several minutes before she pulled him to a halt. ‘Let me catch my breath.’
His answering smile was full of tenderness and Khatrene felt her happiness grow. Yet at the same time as she was feeling excited to be with him and wondering if this would be a repeat of their Altar Caves experience, something of
their gloomy surroundings pervaded her thoughts. She tried to shake it off but couldn’t, and found herself noticing the way his eyes had narrowed marginally, and his deliciously full lips had formed a set smile.
‘Shall we continue?’ he said at last.
‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ She started up the stairs again, her unsettling thoughts creeping into her bones, making her feel cold. Lonely. ‘It’s a long way up, this surprise,’ she said, and clutched his hand more tightly.
‘I know your penchant for ocean viewing,’ he replied and Khatrene felt some of her tension ease. Of course. He wanted to share some scenic panorama with her.
The stairs ended at a doorway and Djahr pushed the heavy door open. It creaked, and Khatrene stepped past it into a square room lit by bright sunlight pouring in the many windows which lined it. Immediately her aura burst forth and behind her Djahr made a sound of contentment.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, and stepped around a conveniently placed bed to reach one of the windows, the better to admire her gift before stepping back towards other pleasures. Unfortunately her directional sense had been confused by the long, winding ascent and she couldn’t be sure if she was looking down onto the edge of the Plains or the Ocean. Mist spread out below her like a carpet of cotton wool as far as the eye could see.
If only it had been a clear day. Still, Khatrene wasn’t going to say that. ‘Simply beautiful,’ she said, turning back to Djahr. At which moment, her smile of happiness and words of thanks died on her lips.
Beside her husband there now stood a dark-haired woman. A beautiful, voluptuous dark-haired woman. Her hand lay on his arm.
‘Who is this?’ Khatrene asked. But somehow she knew. Even before he answered she could feel her future collapsing like an ill-constructed house of cards.
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