Destiny of the Light: Shadow Through Time 1

by Louise Cusack

  ‘It was just a joke, Noorinya,’ she said carefully. ‘I’m not interested in Breehan. He’s yours.’ She was sure that sounded outrageously sexist, but she wasn’t about to risk an apologetic glance at Breehan.

  ‘Beware of my temper,’ Noorinya said, as though anyone who’d ever met her needed to be told that.

  Khatrene nodded. ‘I’ll keep my eyes to myself,’ she said, and went back to eating her stew, eyes glued to the mug.

  Noorinya stalked off in the direction of her tent and Khatrene figured it was lucky there were no dogs on Ennae, or the Plainswoman would have kicked one for sure. From the corner of her eye she saw Breehan rise shortly afterwards to follow her. That made Khatrene feel a little less inept. She wasn’t the only one having difficulty handling a relationship.

  ‘My kinswoman will kill you,’ came a small voice from behind her.

  Khatrene turned and smiled. ‘Weedah.’ She patted the ground and Noorinya’s young nephew plopped down at her side. She poked him in the ribs. ‘I hear your pranks have been making my Champion’s life a misery.’

  He raised an eyebrow, eloquent comment on just who was making Talis’s life a misery, and said, ‘I am a welcome distraction in his life.’

  ‘Clean clothes and a bath would be a welcome distraction,’ Khatrene said. ‘Healing little boys who cut themselves for fun is a nuisance.’

  ‘I am training myself for a warrior’s life,’ he said and puffed out his nine-year-old chest. ‘One day I will lead the tribe and I need to know the ways of pain.’

  ‘Right.’ Khatrene could see why Noorinya was fond of Weedah. He was so much like her it was frightening. ‘Isn’t it past your bed time?’ she asked.

  He gave her a scornful glance and rose, but a moment later she heard him yelping and giggling as he played a game of tag-and-run with his ‘band’.

  The conversations around her resumed in the wake of Noorinya’s stormy departure and when Khatrene had finished her food, Weedah’s mother Noola came to sit with her. Mute since birth, Noola had resisted Talis’s recent offer of healing and as Khatrene watched her speak with her hands, she understood why. The gentle smile and graceful gestures, so unlike her sister Noorinya’s manner, were what made Noola unique. To take away the need for them would be to make her into a different person.

  Yet much as Khatrene enjoyed Noola’s company, she often didn’t understand their ‘conversations’. Plainsman sign language was complex, and important not only for Noola. The tribe never spoke while travelling and thus avoided detection by slipping silently through the mists, using some kind of internal sonar to avoid walking into their enemies. A series of warbling high-pitched whistles were used to send messages from one sentry to another over long distances but Khatrene had given up trying to learn them after one too many jibes from Noorinya.

  This night Khatrene was trying to follow Noola’s tale about the birth of her baby, and having heard it was harrowing, was pleased to be understanding only half of it. Luckily she was given a reprieve by the arrival of Noola’s eldest son, Hanjeel, with the newborn infant who was apparently ready to be fed. The antithesis of Weedah, Hanjeel was quiet and respectful like his mother, and as he sat holding Noola’s new baby carefully in his arms Khatrene couldn’t help but remember the poor infant squealing in pain the day before when Weedah had given it a Chinese burn ‘to teach it the ways of pain’.

  Wisely, Noola had chosen Hanjeel as the male relative to care for her child in its first week of life. Another interesting Plainsmen custom, this one had been designed to conceal the gender of newborn infants from their mothers during the crucial bonding time. With no gender cues, new babies stopped being sons and daughters, and became simply young warriors in the tribe. It seemed awkward to Khatrene, but she could see how it would contribute to the equality of the sexes which had helped the Plainsmen to survive.

  Soon other mothers came to sit with them, regaling Khatrene with enough delivery stories to make her feel squeamish. When she wanted to leave, they demanded a retelling of the story of her entrapment and subsequent escape from The Dark. Although Khatrene had been unconscious for the most exciting parts, Pagan had filled in the blanks for her so she was able to describe his gory sword fight with enough details to satisfy the bloodthirsty Plainsmen.

  At last, when the fire was burning low and the second moon had risen, she was allowed to excuse herself to return to her small, crude tent and collapse after her long day of walking and talking. Sleep, however, proved elusive.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about Talis. About how tortured he was by her inability to say three simple words. Say them and mean them.

  Khatrene rolled over and kicked off her rough blanket. It was hot. She wished they had sheets, then she wished she could stop complaining, even if it was only in her own mind. The Plainsmen had kept her alive. Safe. It wasn’t their fault if the bedding was hard, or that bathing could only be done with water pulled up from the ravine in buckets.

  Still, to be fair to herself, it wasn’t only the physical discomfort. There was emotional discomfort as well. She hated that she couldn’t feel what Talis wanted her to, and why was she holding back? It couldn’t be fear of rejection. Talis would love her forever. She knew that. Was it fear of losing him? Of falling so deeply in love that if he died, which was always a possibility, she couldn’t bear to live?

  Why can’t I love him?

  YOU CARRY ANOTHER MAN’S CHILD.

  No. That didn’t worry Khatrene any more than it did Talis. It’s my baby. Nothing to do with Djahr.

  YET HE IS THE CHILD’S FATHER, AND STILL YOUR HUSBAND.

  Maybe legally, but not in my heart. The only feelings Djahr inspired in her now were fear and revulsion, before she blocked them out. One day she’d have to deal with her feelings, talk to Talis about just how evil her husband had been, but not now. It was too close, too horrifying. Every time the thought came into her mind that she was carrying the child of her mother’s murderer she went blank in self-defence. She simply couldn’t deal with it.

  HE IS SEARCHING FOR YOU, the voice said.

  Khatrene’s fingers tightened on her coarse gown. He wants the baby. Not me.

  WHAT DO YOU WANT?

  Khatrene frowned, pushing Djahr from her mind. I want my baby to be safe, and … let’s be honest, I want Talis.

  WHILE HE LIVES HE WILL GUARD YOU.

  That’s not the kind of wanting I meant, she said frankly.

  IF YOU WOULD LIE WITH HIM, YOU MUST TELL HIM OF YOUR LOVE.

  Which love is that?

  ASK HIM WHERE YOUR MEMORIES ARE.

  Khatrene felt a stillness come over her. My memories? My childhood memories? Are you telling me that Talis had something to do with me losing them?

  TEST THIS FEELING OF ‘RIGHTNESS’ YOU HAVE FOR HIM AND SEE IF IT IS LOVE. ASK HIM.

  Khatrene said nothing more, but lay staring at the ceiling of her tent. Two hours later she heard Talis arrive and felt a slight breeze as he pulled back the flap to look in on her.

  ‘Can I talk to you?’ she said before he could withdraw. She sat up, pulling the blanket around her shoulders. The night was still warm but the chill of her thoughts had penetrated her bones. Even the moonlight coming through the opened top of her shelter felt cold.

  ‘Certainly,’ Talis replied. He entered and sat across from her, his eyes wary, as though he had heard the suspicion in her voice.

  ‘Where are my memories?’ She’d had two hours to work out how she was going to approach this. Straight out seemed the best way.

  Talis never blinked. ‘Your childhood memories live within my mind,’ he replied, as though he was telling h
er what they were having for dinner. She would have been incredulous if she hadn’t seen his Adam’s apple move violently a second later. He wasn’t as calm about this as he appeared.

  Khatrene was far from calm.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked.

  Talis simply stared at her.

  Khatrene stared back.

  His Adam’s apple moved again. ‘Do you love me?’ he asked.

  ‘Do I love you?’ For some reason Khatrene was having difficulty holding his gaze. ‘Funny time to ask.’

  ‘If you love me, you will forgive me.’ He looked as though he seriously believed that.

  ‘I am … so not feeling romantic,’ she said.

  ‘Not …’ He looked down to his hands, then back to her face. ‘It is not romance of which I speak,’ he said softly, ‘but of love, whose patient heart forgives the most … errant transgressions.’ His eyes pleaded for understanding and Khatrene felt the familiar tug of attraction.

  She took a deep breath. ‘I really want to be angry with you about this,’ she said, her gaze shifting away to the warrior plait on one side which had come undone and was starting to unravel. ‘But you’re making it hard. Tell me how you got my memories and why you haven’t given them back.’

  ‘Why will you not look at my eyes?’

  ‘Tell me what I want to know.’

  ‘I will not,’ he said quietly.

  She struggled to meet his eyes and then wished she hadn’t. He looked as though his very life depended on her next word. ‘Why not?’

  ‘You must forgive me first.’

  Khatrene shook her head. How could she forgive him? He’d stolen her childhood with no apparent intention of giving it back.

  ‘If you can forgive such a crime I will know that you love me.’

  So this was why the voice had told her to ask. ‘You’re testing me.’

  Talis looked like the one being tested. ‘The pain of your husband’s betrayal comes between us at each turning—’

  ‘This isn’t about him.’

  Talis frowned, his expression so earnest it hurt to look at him. ‘You fear I will prove untrustworthy. As he did. The accusation lies in your voice.’

  ‘Well, haven’t you —’ Khatrene stopped herself, pushed Djahr out of her mind and thought about what Talis had just said. Had he betrayed her? She looked into his eyes. Really looked. Talis remained still under her inspection. Finally she said, ‘I don’t believe you stole my memories. I must have given them to you.’

  He said nothing, but Khatrene could see the change come over his face.

  She went on, ‘You didn’t tell me when I came back to Ennae … because you were afraid that I would blame you? But it wasn’t your fault. Was it?’

  He shook his head. Then unable to suppress his emotions any longer, he took her two hands in his and pressed them to his face, kissing them both.

  Khatrene swallowed, felt her own shoulders relax. ‘That was close,’ she whispered.

  Talis nodded, his gaze returning in her eyes, her hair, her lips. A long moment passed before he said, ‘You love me.’ It sounded more like a question than a statement.

  A resolution to their romance was clearly Talis’s top priority. But for Khatrene right at that moment, finding out about her past came first. ‘How did you get my memories?’ she asked, ‘And when can I have them back?’

  Disappointment flashed across his face, but he covered it quickly. ‘It was the day of your father’s death. You were leaving Ennae. Going into exile.’

  ‘I was ten.’

  Talis nodded. ‘The Dark had ordered me to open the Sacred Pool —’

  ‘He didn’t send us into exile to protect us,’ Khatrene cut over him. ‘It was to punish my mother because she’d rejected him.’ Talis frowned and Khatrene was suddenly afraid that he wouldn’t believe her, that Djahr would go on deluding people as to his true nature and nothing she could say would make a difference. ‘I’m not drugged and I’m not mad,’ she said. ‘Djahr wanted my mother, and when he couldn’t have her —’ Khatrene swallowed, couldn’t go on.

  ‘He sent her away. With her children.’ Talis nodded. ‘The memory you have of The Dark,’ he said softly. ‘This was your mother’s memory.’

  Khatrene swallowed back her grief and squeezed his hands in gratitude. He did believe her. ‘It was my mother’s memory,’ she said. ‘When she died it somehow came into my mind. It was to warn me to beware of him but I stupidly —’ She pressed her lips together, trying to block out the self-recriminations. ‘He’s so evil, Talis,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Worse than you could possibly imagine.’

  Talis frowned again. ‘Can you not tell me?’ he said. ‘Noorinya makes wild accusations, yet she hates The Dark —’

  ‘With good cause. He told me his men captured Plainsmen children and that he ate them. Ate them, Talis.’ Her hands clutched his. ‘He’s a predator. I know you don’t know what that word means, but it’s bad. Very bad. He’s at the top of the food chain. You can’t compete with someone like that.’

  Talis simply gazed at her. ‘Yet when I asked Lae to give me a reason to take her from her father’s house …’

  Djahr’s so cunning I doubt even Lae knows what he’s really like.’ And that thought saddened Khatrene immeasurably. Talis’s ex-betrothed, mischievous nuisance that she was, did not deserve a father like that. No one did.

  ‘I had thought to save her from Sh’hale,’ Talis said, his voice soft with shock. ‘Yet I have left her unprotected in a House of a greater evil.’

  ‘I don’t think Djahr would hurt her,’ Khatrene said. ‘In his own twisted way, he loves Lae. Even I could see that.’ Which of course reminded her of all the things she hadn’t seen while she’d been falling in lust with a cannibal.

  They were both silent then before Khatrene squeezed his hands and said, ‘You were going to tell me about my memories.’

  He nodded, dragged his thoughts from wherever they had strayed and said, ‘The Sacred Pool was open and you were soon to go into exile. Yet before you left, you asked me to take a memory from your mind.’

  ‘What memory?’

  Talis gazed at her a moment before he said, ‘That of you stabbing a Raider to death.’

  She pulled her hands out of his. Shook her head. ‘I killed someone?’ She couldn’t believe it. ‘I was ten.’

  ‘And wished to have the memory taken from your mind.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that.’

  ‘Yet in the exchange the sum total of your memories came into my mind. Before I could give them back you were gone, to Magoria.’

  ‘All of which you could have told me the moment I returned. Only you didn’t, because …?’

  Talis hesitated, then said, ‘The years have fragmented them within my mind. They are no longer the sealed collection I received.’

  ‘You can’t give them back.’

  Another pause. ‘Not in their entirety. I have snatches of your recollections …’ He looked so sorry she wanted to let him off the hook. To tell him it didn’t matter. But it did. A lot.

  ‘I’ll be happy to take whatever you can give me at this point.’

  Talis nodded, then with what looked like apprehension in
his eyes, raised his palm to her forehead. Khatrene braced herself for the tingling warmth that came with any connection to Talis’s Guardian power, but instead she felt a sharp jolt, like a cap gun explosion between the eyes. She flinched, and Talis dropped his hand.

  ‘It is done.’

  Khatrene’s voice was wary. ‘What is done?’

  ‘The memories I have cobbled together. They are within your mind.’

  She swallowed, closed her eyes and searched the darkness. Found nothing.

  What do I do, she asked the voice.

  YOU SIMPLY REMEMBER.

  And then Khatrene did. Without conscious effort on her part she saw flashes of a life she’d never known existed. They slowed and she said, ‘I can see a man in the Volcastle Great Hall. He’s standing next to my mother.’

  Khatrene knew who it must be even before Talis said, ‘Your father, the King.’

  She swallowed, suddenly choked up. ‘I’ve never seen him before,’ she whispered and felt Talis take her free hand in his. She clung to him. ‘Now he’s walking with another man. Walking towards me. The other man is smiling at me. His cloak has pictures of … daggers on it.’

  ‘Roeg.’

  Something in Talis’s voice registered and Khatrene opened her eyes. ‘Roeg is the traitor,’ she said, remembering the stories she’d been told. Yet the man of her memories looked incapable of such treachery.

  ‘The King’s Champion,’ Talis added.

  There was more. She could see it in his eyes. ‘What was he to you?’

  ‘Mentor, teacher.’

  ‘You feel betrayed?’

  ‘That he could conspire with our dread enemies to the north, then kill the King with his own hand …’

  Khatrene knew she should hate Roeg as well, but as she closed her eyes and saw him again in her mind, she felt nothing but trust. ‘Are you sure it was Roeg?’ He looked so honest.