“They’re a secret way into the God-Empress’s treasure tower,” she said.
He closed his eyes and willed himself composed. Just the sound of her voice was stripping away his composure. “I suppose I should expect you to know that,” he said.
“I’m a thief,” she said. It was supposed to be a joke, but he felt as if his sense of humor, such as it was, had been left behind in the circle chamber along with his dignity. He bowed his head toward the ground far, far below and prayed that she would know enough to simply leave without saying anything more.
“Terrael feels awful about…he didn’t want to have to do that,” Sesskia said. Her tone of voice was that of someone trying to coax a wounded animal out of its den, and it felt as if she’d cut him open and poured acid into the wound. He didn’t want her pity, her of all people.
“Master Peressten is an honest man. He would not have concealed it, even for me,” he said, willing her to hear his true meaning: Go away, leave me to my suffering, you’re just making this worse.
She was silent for a long, blessed moment in which Cederic thought she really had read his mind. Then she said, “What will you do?”
He replied, in a level, controlled tone, “You mean, what will I do now that it is clear that I am a fool, and that I have wasted two years of my time and that of Castavir’s finest minds?”
“You’re not a fool, Cederic, don’t say that.” Her voice was full of pity again, and he felt himself shake and had to struggle to control his anger, though he wasn’t sure who he was angrier at, her for being so blithely, ignorantly cruel, or himself for letting it matter.
“Denril and the other Sais were intelligent enough to see the truth,” he said. “I let my pride in my rank convince me that I could succeed where they could not. That makes me a fool. An arrogant, selfish fool.”
“Don’t say that,” Sesskia said, “you are better than they are, and you made a mistake—”
The cajoling, humoring sound of her voice, as if he were a child to be cosseted, enraged him. He turned on her furiously and shouted, “What do you know of it? You, another of my many mistakes, snatched out of your world because of my carelessness! You simply cannot leave things alone, can you? I did not ask you to follow me. I did not ask for your patronizing sympathy, your cautious tiptoeing around the truth, and I cannot understand why you believe anything you have to say means anything to me!”
Sesskia’s mouth was frozen open, caught mid-word by his torrent of anger. She clasped the front of her shirt as if she expected to find steel emerging from it. Cederic’s words echoed back at him, and he felt the fury drain away, replaced with something cold and heartrending. “Sesskia,” he said, “I didn’t….” Didn’t what? Didn’t mean to lash out at the one person in all the world he never wanted to hurt?
Her face crumpled with a pain that stabbed him through the heart, and she turned and ran. “Sesskia!” he shouted, and ran after her, thinking that he could not let her leave without—he didn’t know what he had to do, but he couldn’t bear for her to go on looking like that. He was two paces behind her when she reached the top of the stairs, but she leapt forward and flung herself through the floor, and he was just in time to see her disappear from sight.
He stood at the top of the stairs, breathing heavily, then sank to the floor and buried his face in his hands. My love, my love, come back, I didn’t mean it, I cannot bear this alone. All his reasons for not telling her he loved her seemed unimportant now. She would never, never forgive him for what he’d said, and any chance he might have had of seeing those beautiful eyes turn lovingly in his direction was gone.
He pushed himself to his feet and walked down the stairs and along the hall to his room, where he got as far as the awful blue rug in the center of the floor before collapsing to his knees and shuddering so hard he thought he might break apart. I cannot lose control, he thought disjointedly, or I will lose myself entirely, and he shook with the effort of controlling himself against the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.
When he came to himself again, night had fallen, and he was stiff and aching from kneeling on the floor for however long it had been. He breathed, rhythmically, with his hands resting on his thighs, and finally he could rise and stretch out his legs and let the blood flow freely through them again. Then he went to the window and looked out over the palace roofs. Sesskia was out there somewhere, hurt and miserable and hating him, and he shuddered again before pushing the thought aside. No sense dwelling on what he’d lost. Even though he’d lost everything.
He began undressing for sleep, though he was sure he’d just lie awake for hours. In the morning, he would leave Colosse—no, he couldn’t afford to indulge his humiliation. He would humble himself before Denril, ignore the whispers and the laughs and the pity, and bend whatever skill he had toward helping save what little of this world they could. It would be his penance for hurting the woman he loved, having to be in her presence and endure her anger or wounded feelings or whatever reaction she would justifiably have toward him.
He dropped his robe to the ground and kicked it away. He didn’t deserve it, what it represented. He didn’t deserve any consideration, not respect nor forgiveness… He sighed, and went to pick it up and hang it properly, but stopped before he could do more than remove the hanger from the wardrobe rail. He didn’t deserve Sesskia’s forgiveness, but he craved it so desperately it burned inside him. If he were going to humble himself before anyone, it should be her.
He dressed quickly and went to her room, knocked on the door and waited for an invitation. There was no light coming from beneath the door, and after only a brief hesitation he scrawled th’an on it to make a window through which he could look. The room was empty. He wiped away the th’an and drew more of them around the lock. They glowed faintly green, then vanished, and it clicked open. He slipped inside her room and locked the door behind him, then lit a few lamps with more th’an and looked around. She would see the light burning, would use the see-through pouvra to investigate, so if he stood here…
Cederic arranged himself in the right place and prepared to wait. It was an intrusion, yes, and she would no doubt hate him more, but he was starting to feel desperate for an ending, even one in which she rejected his apology and told him never to speak to her again. He stood with his back to the door as if he could look through the curtains at the palace.
She always left her curtains closed. She’d said something jokingly about being spied on, joking because they were more than a hundred feet in the air in the Sais’ wing, but there had been a seriousness beneath her words that made Cederic’s heart ache for her, for the suspicion and distrust in which she’d lived her life. He had wanted to be someone she could trust, someone she didn’t have to hide from, and instead he’d turned on her. He closed his eyes and bowed his head briefly. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness. He’d hurt her and now he was imposing himself on her. He was an arrogant, thoughtless fool.
He’d decided to wait five more minutes and then leave when he heard the door open and close, almost noiselessly. If he weren’t always so completely aware of her presence, he’d never be able to hear her approach. She took a few steps toward him, then said, “What are you doing here?”
“Wondering if there is any point in asking your forgiveness,” he said, honestly. He ought to turn around and face her, but his hands were shaking again, and if he looked at her, he would lose control entirely.
“You think you deserve forgiveness?” Sesskia said. She sounded angry, not hurt, and that made it a little easier, because he might not deserve forgiveness, but he certainly deserved anger.
“I think we need forgiveness most when we do not deserve it,” he said. He took a deep breath, and added, “I said things I deeply regret and I am—I cannot express how sorry I am.” He winced. He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded as if he were telling her some banal detail of how his day had gone. Was he completely incapable of expressing human feeling? What had he done to himself over the last t
wo years, that he was so unable to admit to failure?
“Sorry you’ve made a mistake? Or sorry you haven’t been able to correct this one?” Sesskia’s jab stung him into bowing his head. The mistake had been in thinking this was a good idea. “I don’t know why you care about my forgiveness,” she said, “since nothing I say means anything—”
It was more than he could bear. “Sesskia, no,” he said, turning to face her, startling her into silence. He felt as if she’d torn him open again, revealing his every secret, all his hidden desires. “You mean everything to me,” he said, “and I beg you to forgive my hasty words, because I cannot forgive myself for saying them.”
He waited for her to shout accusations at him, to throw more bitter words his way, so he was utterly unprepared for her to instead cross the few paces between them and put her arms around him, laying her head on his shoulder and pulling him close. He put his own arms around her waist in reflex, too stunned for anything else, then madly thought Don’t let her change her mind and clung tightly to her so she wouldn’t leave him, though she didn’t seem inclined to move. If anything, she tightened her grip around his shoulders, and the smell of her hair and the feel of her body against his threatened to send him once again spiraling out of control. He shuddered, and she turned her head and whispered, “I won’t let you fall.”
It was so unexpected, the old dream coming true, that he expected to feel the sharp pinnacle beneath his feet. She was strong, and unwavering, definitely no dream, so he held onto her while grief and humiliation and pain and anger raged through him, and let her bear him up as he fought for control, to remain Cederic and not some creature mastered by his passions. He wondered, as he held her, what had motivated her, pity or compassion or, if he were truly blessed, love, and realized he didn’t care which of the three it was just so long as she held him close. You will endure, he told himself, and knew it was true; he had a duty to this world, and that was more important than Cederic Aleynten’s pride.
Finally, he felt himself calm enough to be rational again, and became conscious of Sesskia’s strong, unwavering presence. She will not lie to me, he thought, and said, “Tell me you love me.” It was not an order, but a plea.
She shifted her weight, and her fingers trailed along the base of his neck. “I love you,” she said. “And not because you told me to say it. I love you.”
He breathed out a long, thin sigh of relief. “Tell me I am not useless and a failure,” he said.
“You could never be useless, and you are not a failure.”
“Tell me I still have something to offer this world.”
She let out a low chuckle. “Vorantor’s an ass. You may have to save the world over his objections.”
He laughed, and was surprised to realize he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done it. “Denril hates me,” he said. “I tried to believe otherwise, but the summoning kathana almost failed because he tried to take too great a role, hoping to make himself look powerful in the God-Empress’s eyes, hoping to lessen me. I had to fight him to keep it under control. Then I humiliated him by creating that shield kathana as easily as breathing, something he knows he could never do.”
“Inventing a kathana on the fly, or breathing?” Sesskia said. “Because I know he used to be your friend, but I personally would be just as happy if he forgot how to breathe.”
Cederic laughed again, harder this time, and it relaxed a tension he hadn’t even realized was in his chest. He loosened his grip on Sesskia enough that he could look at her, and his heart ached with joy to see the way she smiled at him, those beautiful eyes shining with happiness. She truly loves me, he thought with amazement. “I cannot wish Denril dead,” he said, “though I wish I did not have to walk back into that circle chamber today and submit to his patronizing scorn. I have been too proud, Sesskia, and now I will have to pay for it.”
She smiled, and shook her head. “You still know more about magic than anyone else,” she said, “and everyone knows it, and this will pass, and you’ll make Vorantor’s kathana work better than he ever could. And we’ll save the world.”
That dispelled much of his good humor. “Part of it, anyway,” he said, feeling bitterness and humiliation rise up in him again. Sesskia made a little noise, part impatience, part sympathy, and took his face in her hands to draw him down so she could kiss him.
Her lips were warm against his, warm and soft and tender, and all his bad feeling melted away as they kissed, slowly, letting everything else fall away, even his amazement at the turn the night had taken. She slipped her fingers across his cheeks to follow his hairline, then down to rest on the front of his robe, and he found himself kissing her more intensely, drawing her closer.
Then she slid her hands inside his robe, touching his chest and his shoulders, and he lost track of everything except removing her shirt and her trousers and her underclothes and helping her do the same for him until there was nothing but her skin against his, silky-smooth and warm. He took half a step back so he could look at her, the curves of her hips and her breasts glowing in the low light. She ducked her head a little, and he thought she blushed.
He started to tell her how beautiful she was, how he’d gone so many weeks wishing this could happen, when she said, “I’ve never done this before.”
He gave her a look of total astonishment, then mentally kicked himself when she ducked her head again, lower this time as if she couldn’t bear to meet his gaze. Yes, let’s make this beautiful, wonderful woman feel insecure and self-conscious when she’s standing naked in front of you. “Never?” he said, then kicked himself again.
“No,” she said.
She still wouldn’t look at him, so he put his fingers under her chin and raised her head to kiss her, threading the fingers of his other hand through her hair to cup the back of her head. “Are you ashamed of that?” he said.
She shook her head a little. “Afraid of being awkward and terrible,” she said.
He kissed her again. “You could never be awkward and terrible,” he said, “and I promise to show you the truth of that.”
He was gentle with her, taking pleasure as much in her reactions as in his own. It felt a little like the first time for him as well, because of all the lovers he’d had over the years, Sesskia was the first woman he had loved so intensely, body and soul. Her initial shyness—and when had she ever been shy with him?—soon passed, leaving her so responsive to his touch that he had trouble going slowly, he wanted so much to lose himself in her. Then she gasped, and arched her back, and the look of astonishment on her face pushed him over the edge and made him forget everything except his joy at the two of them becoming one.
As he came back to himself, he found, to his horror, that she was crying. “No, Sesskia, love, did I hurt you?” he exclaimed. “I thought—I’m so sorry, I didn’t know—”
She shook her head, and smiled at him through her tears. “I’ve never felt like that before,” she said, “well, obviously not, but I mean—I have never felt so loved in my entire life, and I don’t know how…this is how it came out. I don’t know why. It was just too big a feeling for anything else.”
He kissed her cheeks, kissed away the tears, and said with a smile, “Then I think we should do that again, and see if we cannot bring you to laughter instead of tears.”
Later, he lay with her tucked into the curve of his arm and marveled at the miracle that was her love for him. He had been stupid to think he should wait to tell her that he loved her until after the convergence was over and the results, whatever they might be, had fallen out. He felt at peace for the first time in weeks. No, years. The reality of her strength bearing him up was so much better than dreams.
“I wonder what Aselfos has planned,” Sesskia said, mostly to herself.
He smiled. “I would ask where that came from,” he said, looking down at the top of her head, “but I have learned that it is better for me not to know the paths your mind takes at times.”
She shifted so she could s
ee his face. “It was a tortuous path,” she admitted. “It’s just that I don’t like not knowing what’s coming. And I don’t know how to find out more.”
The idea of her coming face to face with one of the God-Empress’s soldiers, or Aselfos himself, during her nightly wanderings sent a chill through him, and he tightened his arm around her as if that would protect her. “Your safety has been uppermost in my thoughts since we arrived here,” he said. “The God-Empress’s interest in you is dangerous, and your nighttime wanderings put you at risk of drawing her wrath, should she learn where you have been and what you have seen.”
“I’m at risk every time she summons me,” Sesskia said. “And I also don’t like that Vorantor has a secret plan we don’t know about. I think I should investigate it.”
He sighed. “Is there any point to me forbidding it?” he said.
“None,” Sesskia said with a grin. “And don’t think you can get away with threatening to withhold sexual favors, because I know you won’t be able to stick to that threat.”
She poked him in the stomach, and he took hold of her hand before she could do it a second time. The mischievous light in her beautiful eyes sent desire rushing through him again. “I would never dream of doing that,” he murmured, “when I could entice you—” he kissed her, his lips lingering on hers—“to do what I want—” he moved to kiss her throat, then her shoulder—“by promising sexual favors instead.” She laughed with delight, and he found himself incapable of saying anything else.
He ended up lying beneath her, both of them breathing heavily from exertion, and he closed his eyes and put his arms around her. “I had no idea,” he said, “when I woke this morning that this is how my day would end, humiliated by my former friend and then lying together with you in your bed. It seems unreal, except that you are so wonderfully tangible.”
“As are you,” Sesskia said, rolling over to nestle against him once more. He turned out the light, and they lay like that, not speaking, in the quiet darkness. The feel of her body against his, so content and peaceful, filled him with joy once more. That he might give anyone that kind of happiness had never occurred to him; he’d been so consumed with this oncoming disaster for so long that he’d forgotten there was anything else to life. And yet there she was, relaxing in a way that told him she was settling in to sleep, trusting him enough to leave herself defenseless before him. That she intended to spend the night with him, to wake as one with him.
The Summoned Mage (Convergence Book 1) Page 36