Destiny of the Light: Shadow Through Time 1

by Louise Cusack

  ‘This is my companion,’ Djahr said.

  ‘Your … companion.’

  The woman walked towards Khatrene, no expression on her face. She stepped behind her and for a moment Khatrene felt the warmth on her wrists and ankles that preceded their sexual encounters each night. She started, then stood completely still, immobilised by fear and shock.

  ‘We are acquainted, are we not, Khatrene?’ the woman said in a strange disembodied voice, and her scent and the heat of her body were as familiar to Khatrene as her husband’s bed. For a moment she thought she might be sick.

  The woman stepped in front of her and laid her hand on Khatrene’s belly. ‘She is with child.’ Then moved away to stand again at Djahr’s side. ‘We must protect her from harm.’

  Khatrene took a step backwards and hit the wall. She pressed herself against it, staring at Djahr.

  ‘This room is yours, Khatrene,’ he said, his gaze drifting to the windowpanes on which her aura sparkled, before returning to her face. ‘I will miss you in my bed, but the child of The Light is more important than pleasures of the flesh.’

  ‘You …’ Khatrene could barely speak. ‘You want me to sleep here?’

  ‘You will live in this room until the child is born.’

  ‘You can’t …’ Her mind wasn’t working. The shock was too great. ‘You can’t do this to me.’

  ‘Come, My Lord,’ the woman touched his arm again, caressingly this time. ‘The afternoon moves towards night.’

  ‘But you’re … my husband,’ she said. Pathetic though it was, Khatrene had thought that meant something.

  ‘I am the father of The Light’s child,’ he corrected, and suddenly Khatrene felt as though she was looking at a different person. His physical appearance remained the same, but the history between them was irrevocably altered.

  ‘You just … you …’ Khatrene couldn’t get the words out. ‘You only want the child?’

  Djahr smiled at her then, and she wondered how she had ever thought love lived in him — how she’d ever imagined she’d seen warmth in those cold, cold eyes. ‘Lae’s mother was uncooperative,’ he said. ‘She died in childbirth.’

  The warning bludgeoned any resistance Khatrene might have rallied. She nodded to show she understood.

  Djahr took the woman’s arm and they stepped out of the room. A moment later a key turned in the lock. Footsteps echoed and then there was silence, long minutes of silence before the voice spoke.

  THE PRINCESS KHATRENE WILL NOT DIE, the voice said, repeating the assurance he had given her on the Plains.

  Khatrene could only stare at the door. What about The Light?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Beneath the shimmering tablecloth, one of Talis’s hands balled into a fist. His other raised a goblet to his lips. Lae, subdued at his side, did likewise. Talis drank of the Be’uccdha wine, too much and too fast, then spoke, his words as flat as his anger was sharp. ‘The King will rejoice in this blessing,’ he said. ‘He will have the news by now if The Light’s maid has reached the Volcastle.’

  Djahr nodded at this. ‘Tis a week since The Light bore me these glad tidings and time has not faded their importance.’ He raised his own goblet in a toast. ‘To the continued health of The Light, and my son who grows within her.’

  Talis and Lae drank in obedience but there was no joy in them. For his own part, Talis knew only that grief and anger were his constant companions. The reason for Lae’s disquiet was unknown to him yet he suspected nothing other than her continuing jealousy of her father’s new wife. ‘Would you have me use my Guardian powers to assure you of The Light’s health, My Lord,’ he asked, with as little care as he could invest in the words.

  ‘I have made this suggestion,’ Djahr replied. ‘Yet The Light has chosen to withdraw from company, the better to protect her precious burden from accidental harm, as well as that of ill intent.’

  Talis nodded at this for it had a sound of truth about it. Plainsman attacks had recommenced and Mooraz was more often away than at home.

  ‘She wants only my presence,’ Djahr said, and smiled as though in fond memory.

  Talis felt his fingers clench more tightly.

  ‘Her happiness is my own,’ Djahr added. ‘I can deny her nothing,’ and for this Talis had no reply, so while Lae and her father luncheoned, he drank.

  The meal was completed in silence and The Dark withdrew to his chambers where his wife waited, leaving Talis alone with Lae at the quiet table. Lae made no effort at conversation and rather than speak to the woman he would soon take as wife, Talis tortured himself with a vision of The Dark’s return to his chambers. Would Khatrene fall eagerly into her husband’s arms? The memory of their joining in the Altar Caves haunted Talis until he felt sick, and now he had none of her companionship to himself. No opportunity to gaze upon her loveliness, to argue with her quick mind, to bask in the simple affection she felt for him.

  Had felt for him.

  Despite The Dark’s claims, Talis knew this sudden seclusion was not designed to protect her babe from harm. The Light was made of stronger fibre than that. He could only construe that he had been excluded from her presence because he had offended her greatly, and the reason could be no other than his loveless marriage to Lae. The Light had seen dishonour in the act, and with no opportunity to explain his motives or justify his choices, Talis now found himself excluded from her life.

  ‘You have taken a measure of wine,’ Lae said, no accusation in her voice. A simple statement of fact. They were silent a moment, then she asked, ‘What has my father done to anger you?’

  Married my love. Talis wanted to say. Fathered her child. Instead he said, ‘Your father holds authority over you. I must take that from him before I may be your husband. He will not willingly give it to me.’

  Lae’s frown disappeared and she took his hand. ‘Would you take me from him? I would willingly go with you. I see my father only rarely now, and even then he is distracted by thoughts of her.’ This last word was all but spat onto the table.

  Talis felt a moment’s peace at the thought of leaving Be’uccdha. Still, he could not abandon The Light, even if she would not have him near.

  ‘Come.’ He rose to escort Lae to her chambers and then thought to take some time alone. ‘Until we are wed you must do as your father commands,’ he told her. ‘On the other side of marriage we may choose as duty allows us.’

  They walked in silence, Talis too wrapped in misery and wine to notice Lae’s uncharacteristic silence.

  At the door to her chambers, she said, ‘Will you join me here? You have said no duty calls you.’ Before he could reply, she hurried on, ‘We could play a board of sagea. Though it is my least favourite game, I know it is your best.’ Her attempted smile could bring no answer from Talis. ‘And it does so please you to beat me at something,’ she added, from a continuing jest between them to pretend that her losses were a gesture of graciousness on her part, rather than the result of impetuous playing.

  Talis shook his head and her half-formed smile faded. ‘I fear I am not a good companion today,’ he said. ‘I might take some air.’

  ‘On the outer battlements where your Lady would be, if she were not with child?’

  ‘Just so,’ Talis replied, ignoring Lae’s bitter tone. ‘The wind is dagger-sharp. It cleanses the mind, and I fear I have muddied mine with drink.’

  ‘So be it,’ Lae said, and retired to her rooms, slamming the chamber door behind her.

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nbsp; Yet once he was alone Talis felt strangely lost, as though everything he held dear was locked away from him and his own company was a burden. The battlements called, and indeed he had wanted to breathe fresh air. So his footfalls carried him there, despite the unsettled feeling inside him.

  Alas, the crispness of morning had blurred to afternoon mist yet had Khatrene been at his side, she would have found pleasure in the sound, if not the view. The rhythm of the waves was, to her, like the blood of his world, she had said. He took comfort in that thought now, imagining her by his side, the muted glow of her magical light spreading outward into the thickening mists.

  The need to be closer to her overwhelmed him and he leant recklessly far over the coarse stone wall, to hear the waves more clearly. Yet instead, Talis heard a sound on the wind, coming from the furthest corner of the castle where The Dark’s Hightower stood. Wailing? A song? He leant further forward and turned his head at an unnatural angle to look, and as he did so the sound was quickly followed by his own sharply indrawn breath.

  Mist thickened to obscure his vision, but in the instant before it had, The Light’s magical aura had been clearly visible on top of the Hightower.

  Far from where her husband had said she would be.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  ‘Only a brother could know me so well,’ Mihale’s lover said, her voice husky with desire.

  Mihale, poised above her, felt his strength grow. ‘Khatrene,’ he groaned, and blindfolded, searched out her lips that he might kiss her hard and wipe from his mind any doubt that this was his sister who lay beneath him. The voice was so close a match that small differences in softness and stature could not convince him that this was any other than Khatrene to whom he clung.

  ‘I ached for your arms in Magoria,’ she said, and touched him with such intimate knowledge that he knew they were meant to be together.

  ‘Do not speak, but kiss me, sister,’ he said, and finding her lips again, he savoured the sweet taste of her tongue which wove around his in a dance of such blatant desire he struggled within himself to decide which welcoming cavern held the greater pleasure. Her hands on his body were strong and then delicate, teasing him with bursts of pleasure that seemed to rush him towards glory, then slowed to prolong the exquisite agony.

  Mihale had never known such bliss, and neither had he known such self-deception. Yet having tasted its fruits, he would not give it up. Such feelings she awoke in him. Such passion. Such madness. Barely an hour ago, a courtier had mentioned The Light’s child, and hearing her name spoken in conjunction with The Dark, Mihale had found such jealousy within him, he had straight away fled to his chambers where she waited, to satisfy him that his sister joined only with her King.

  ‘Touch my hair. Is it not pale?’ she whispered, and he fingered the soft strands, careful not to dislodge the cap, as he had once done to both their disappointments.

  ‘Paler than my own and twice as soft,’ he breathed. His blindfold was a saviour and a curse.

  ‘Love me now and do not speak,’ she said, her breath warm and redolent with the nesdai that she loved. Moulding her lithe body to his own, she whispered words of tenderness and admiration that hastened the glory he had only newly discovered; first, and clumsily with a kitchen maid Sh’hale had procured, and now, with her whom he loved above all others. The one who had taken his torment and made it joy.

  ‘Mihale … brother …’

  He felt her own tender bliss, and in the moment that she clutched him and trembled tightly against him, he felt the bursting of his own passions, and groaned against her lips as the out-flowing robbed him of strength.

  ‘How does my royal brother feel?’ she crooned before her warm lips found his own. His hands moved on her nape as the pleasure warmed within him again. ‘We two are one, and there can be no better joining,’ she whispered.

  ‘Stay with me always,’ he said, when he could speak.

  ‘I will obey my King,’ she replied in his sister’s voice, pressing closer to his body as though to stave off the moment when she must become someone else.

  Mihale shook his head. ‘Khatrene …’ he said, tears in his eyes.

  ‘Shhh. I will bring you a calming drink,’ she told him, and he reluctantly opened his hands. Ghett saw that they were trembling and wondered if doubling the quantity of the stimulant prescribed by her master had harmed the King.

  She slid from his arms and his bed and went to his dressing chamber where she had secreted the potent aphrodisiac The Dark had given her to administer to both The Light and her brother the King. Particularly in the King’s case, Ghett had been careful to ensure he only ever received it on retiring, which guaranteed that evidence of its presence would be gone before a Guardian could detect it. This was easier now that she shared his bed.

  Having successfully poisoned the Elder Sh’hale and left his son to believe it was his plan, and not her Lord The Dark’s, Ghett had not demurred when her Be’uccdha Lord again requested her services. A blend of herbs ground with strands of The Dark’s own hair created a potion which made him irresistible to his bride-to-be. Ghett had been giving Mihale these same herbs ground with a strand of Khatrene’s hair since the day of his sister’s betrothal. Exactly as The Dark had predicted, the King’s infatuation with his sister had become an obsession, which in turn had pushed Khatrene more firmly towards her new husband.

  Now that The Dark’s objective had been obtained — his child growing within The Light — Ghett was not required to drug the King further. Yet on her return to the Volcastle she had resumed administering the aphrodisiac for her own purposes.

  Though The Dark’s esteem of her had grown and she would have received a just reward for her services, Ghett wanted more. As a lowly born servant, she could not aspire to marry a lord, yet there was a way for her to live as a lady. If she could remain in the King’s bed long enough to find his child in her belly, her future would be assured. The mother of an heir to the throne would be given servants of her own, gowns, jewels. Yet with Mihale’s heart now fixed solely on his sister, there was only one way for Ghett to achieve her goal. She must be that sister. The reward would be great, yet along this path lay danger.

  Though none on Ennae had the gift of discernment to see the evil in her Lord, Ghett knew he desired the throne of Ennae and an heir to that throne would thwart his plans. Her own plans must be hidden most carefully.

  Ghett stirred the potion and poured it into a goblet then paused to confront her reflection. ‘Khatrene,’ she addressed it, in the voice she had studied so carefully. Then she lifted her bleached fibre wig and peered beneath it. ‘Or is that you, Ghett?’ she said with a mock frown.

  Ghett smiled at her reflection and spoke then in her own voice.

  ‘Little King. Little heart.

  Sister tore it all apart.

  Then fled to wed an evil man

  and bear a child to rule the land.

  Yet some will burn and some will drown.

  But one child lives to wear the crown …’

  So saying, Ghett rested a hand over her flat belly and her smile grew wider to reveal the sharp white teeth within.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Talis strode towards the far corner of the castle where the Hightower entrance must be found, toward the place where he had seen The Light’s aura. No arguments rose against this wayward action. He simply followed his heart.

  Unfamiliar corridors led him finally to the foot of the Hightower stairs, where the stones were of a coarser make and the floors bare. Even the lighting was of an inferior design. Thick, stunted candles dripped wax and spluttered noisily. There was a strange feeling to this part of the castle, an abandoned air that reminded Talis of the Volcastle dungeons.

  Slowly, not know
ing what he would find, Talis ascended the square stairwell on silent feet. Intermittent slots in the outer wall admitted feeble shafts of light, scant illumination for the dark stones underfoot. Near the top he heard a faint sound and became still, listening to the breathing of a man above him. He estimated the distance between them, and an echo told him it was most likely a guard outside a closed wooden door.

  The Light kept apart in a guarded room? Talis frowned. For how long? And why? Was he not her Champion, sworn to protect her? Surely The Dark did not suspect him of ill intentions towards his charge? Unless …

  Talis lowered his head, remembering the stilted conversation he had held with The Dark a bare hour before he had witnessed in anguish their joining in the Altar Caves. Did the husband of The Light suspect that which lay within her Champion’s heart? Was this the reason he had been cut from her life?

  Despair ate Talis’s soul as he imagined a life without her. Yet what of Khatrene? Was she to suffer for her Champion’s sins?

  That must not happen, Talis resolved. If The Dark wanted to keep her from being adored he must punish the criminal, and not the victim.

  With this thought in mind, Talis turned to descend the stairs, intent on finding his host and begging leave to return to duty in the Volcastle. The Light would be well guarded by Mooraz until she chose another Champion. He would depart and her husband’s affection would return to her. Surely she craved this above all else.

  Nearer to the bottom of the stairwell, Talis increased his pace and was almost to the corridor below when he was confronted by an armed guard.

  ‘You!’ the guard said and drew his sword, confirming Talis’s suspicions as to the motive for The Light’s confinement.

  ‘Do not speak,’ Talis said hastily, touching a palm to his assailant’s forehead before his raised voice alerted the guard above. In front of him, the man became still and stood awaiting Talis’s orders.