Realm Of Light Part 36

"The man you brought with you," Albain said wearily. "Where is he? Why did he not help you tonight?"

Her fears came boiling up, uncontrollable. She gripped her hands together and tried to keep her lips from trembling. "I don't know where he is."

"What?"

"I don't know! He is gone. Vanished without a trace. And I fear for him. I-"

"But you must explain this. He came to me, did he not?" Albain hesitated, looking unsure. "He healed me."

She nodded, crying openly now, unable to stop herself.

"I saw him," Albain said slowly, "as though in a dream. He was tall and well muscled. Manly. Tanned as dark as a laborer, with hair like gold."

"Yes."

"He held me, and the pain left. He spoke to spirits, who came and gave me strength again."

She pressed her hands to her face. "His father was a healer, Beva E'non of Trau."

"Traulanders have a gift that way."

"His father died several years ago. It was his spirit Caelan sought to help you."

Albain stared at her, looking awed. "He can enter the spirit world? Death was carrying me there, but do you mean this Caelan can enter of his own will? Can he return?"

There it was, her fear articulated now and brought into the open. She raised br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes to her father and shrugged. "I do not know. I thought he could. From things he has told me, he has gone there before. He can do so much other men cannot. He-" She stopped and swallowed, trying to compose herself. "But he is gone. I fear he cannot return, and that he has given himself wholly to save you."

Albain held out his arms. "My poor child."

She ran to him, hugging him tight and weeping against his chest. "I made him do it," she confessed, sobbing bitterly. "He was afraid, and I begged him. I didn't listen. All I wanted was to save you. And now he is gone. He is lost. It is all my fault."

Chapter Twenty-Two.

The rains continued the following day. It was winter, the time of monsoons, when the laborers worked hour after hour to channel the river away from villages and planted fields. The river, swollen and threatening to rage out of control, coughed up Caelan from its muddy depths shortly after midday.

One of the laborers who was pulling logs from the water with grappling hooks and the help of an elephant found him floating unconscious in the water.

This man, streaked with mud and clad in nothing but a loincloth and turban, came running to the gates of the palace and shouted for admittance.

In the council room, Lord Albain, wearing mail and a face as grim as war itself, presided at the head of the table. Elandra, gowned regally, sat erect and silent at his side like the queen she was. She had said nothing all morning while the men argued, hurling accusations and denials. Now and then her gaze moved to the face of Lord Pier, looking pale and drawn after his adventures the day before.

Agreeing to speak under truth-light, Pier had explained his actions to Albain. He made no excuses, no justifications. His report spared neither himself nor the others. It was as though his encounter with dark magic had shaken him. But while he had sought to make trouble yesterday against Caelan, whom he still considered an upstart piece of arena trash, he was not behind the plot to kill Albain in his bed.

The four a.s.sa.s.sins had confessed at dawn and were already hanged. They were employed by the governor, Lord Demahaud, who was now sitting in the dungeons, an agent of the empire no longer.

Albain had scant interest in what he considered a minor attempt on his life. Once more he pulled the discussion back to the emperor's successor.

Lord Pier rose to his feet. "I support crowning Tirhin. Despite the initial chaos, he succeeded in pulling together a fighting force, and he has driven the Madruns from Imperia."

"Yes, to set them loose on the other provinces," a man piped up on Elandra's left. "My lands border Ulinia, you know. I am responsible for protecting half that province. And the Madruns will cross my personal estates before they get this far."

"They will not get here," Albain said with a growl. "My dispatches say that the Lord Commander has deployed three legions to cut them off."

Men pounded the table in approval, and several shouted in satisfaction.

Pier, however, was still standing. "All the more reason to send our delegation to Tirhin and proclaim him emperor quickly. The empire needs order restored. This will do it before we have more invaders on our hands."

"Don't forget who brought the Madruns here in the first place," the small man who had spoken before said. "He let them sack Imperia."

"Renar, hold your tongue," Pier said sharply. "You don't know that is true-"

"I know it is true," Elandra said.

Pier scowled fiercely at her, and several more men jumped to their feet.

"These interruptions cannot be permitted, Albain!" one roared. "The council room is no place for a woman."

"Silence!" Albain shouted, his voice louder than any of the others. "Whether yob like it or not, she has the right to speak."

"A woman-"

"In her official capacity, she is not not a woman. She is sovereign crowned, and she remains so until Tirhin's coronation. If that should even come to pa.s.s." a woman. She is sovereign crowned, and she remains so until Tirhin's coronation. If that should even come to pa.s.s."

"It must!" Pier said.

"Why?" Albain retorted. "Because you have been promised new lands if you will join his cause?"

Red darkened Pier's cheeks. "Have you not annexed property since your daughter went to the imperial palace? It is to your personal advantage to keep her there."

Silence fell over the room. Elandra's face was burning. She gripped her hands together in her lap and forced herself not to move. It took all her strength to keep her face impa.s.sive.

Albain did not rise to his feet. From his chair he glared at Pier, who did not back down. The men watched intently to see what Albain might do. He had been known to issue a combat challenge on less provocation.

"Yes," Albain said at last, his voice heavy. "It is to my advantage that my daughter keep her throne. It is to the advantage of all Gialta. Is she not more likely to favor her home province than Tirhin? Blood ties are stronger than promises."

"We have seen no advantage thus far," Renar piped up.

"That was Kostimon's doing. When the empress fled Imperia, to whom did she come to raise an army? Us! Not the-"

A knock on the door interrupted him.

"Yes?" Albain called, glowering. He took advantage of the interruption, however, to press his hand to his side and lean forward carefully to pick up his wine cup.

Elandra watched him in concern and said nothing. She had promised him she would stay silent, and she was trying to keep her word despite that one slip. More than once her fists had clenched in her lap, and her anger had nearly driven her to reprimand those who were foolish, ignorant, or wrongly informed. She had been in Imperia. She was a direct witness to the events and the terror. She had been the last person present to see Kostimon alive. Yet these men would not question her. They ignored the information she could have provided.

She sat there, seething, and hated them all.

A guard entered the room and saluted smartly. "The man has been found, my lord."

"What?" Albain asked. "What man?"

But Elandra was already on her feet, her heart in her mouth. She rushed around the table and went out the door, leaving the guard to follow her.

Out in the corridor, she looked around wildly.

The guard bowed and pointed. "This way, Majesty."

She followed him, with Alti and Sumal trotting at her heels. They were not permitted in the council room, but after last night they had come to her with deep shame and apologies, vowing they would not leave her side again.

Outside, the rains had stopped. Puddles steamed in the humid courtyard. A laborer, muddy and practically naked, stood there ringed by soldiers. His elephant held an unconscious man in its mouth.

Elandra recognized Caelan at once. She stopped in her tracks with a gasp.

The captain of the guard took one look at her face and issued orders. The elephant slowly lowered Caelan to the ground.

"They pulled him from the river, Majesty," the captain said.

Elandra kept her distance. Her heart was pounding. She felt as though she might faint, but stiffened her knees and held on.

A voice, too strange and hollow to be her own, asked, "Is he dead or alive?"

Someone knelt and touched Caelan's throat. "Alive, Majesty."

Her ears were roaring. She felt as though ground and sky were trying to turn upside down. Somehow, however, she fought off her dizziness. She dared not move, dared not kneel beside him to wipe the mud and slimy weeds from his face. She feared if she did anything, the bands of her self-control would burst and she would fling herself, howling, across his chest.

She made a small gesture. "Take him inside quickly. See that he is cared for. And reward this man well."

The laborer bent double in his grat.i.tude. Elandra turned away, following the men who struggled to carry Caelan up the steps into the palace. She felt as though she were floating, as though her head had sailed far above the rest of her body. With every step, a corner of her mind chanted, He is alive. He is alive. He is alive. He is alive.

What he had been doing in the river was something to determine later, if it mattered. He was alive. He had come back. The pain in her heart could leave her now, and she lived again.

Inside the palace, she summoned servants and issued orders. Her father's own valet, understanding exactly what his master owed Caelan, came and washed him personally, dressed him in a sleeping s.h.i.+rt, and tried to revive him with various remedies that Elandra inspected herself.

He seemed unharmed. No bruises or cuts marred his skin. His breathing was even. No fever raged in his body.

But he would not awaken, no matter what they did. Finally, Elandra sent everyone away and settled herself at his side. She held his strong hand in hers, tracing her fingertips over his knuckles and the taut veins in the back of his hand, needing the contact of her skin against his, her flesh to his.

"Please come back to me," she whispered to him. "I need you so. Please come back."

Eventually a soft argument outside the door caught her attention. She straightened just as the door eased open.

Alti looked inside. "Your pardon, Majesty. A visitor has come."

Expecting her father, she smiled. But when Iaris walked in, the smile dropped from Elandra's lips.

Her mother carried a small stone flask in her hands. Ignoring the hostility in Elandra's gaze, she walked up to the bedside and put the flask on the small table. Then she stood, gazing down at Caelan. Her eyes, as usual, were unreadable.

"So this is the man who replaces your husband."

Elandra's face grew hot. "This is is my husband." my husband."

Iaris's brows shot up. "I see."

Her voice held censure and contempt, but Elandra met her gaze without shame. It was Iaris who looked away first.

"You make a scandal," she said.

"Kostimon is dead," Elandra replied. "Now I make my own choices."

"You want the throne. That binds you to the place of a widow."

"I have have the throne," Elandra said angrily. the throne," Elandra said angrily.

Iaris's eyes flashed. "Do not deceive yourself. In name only, if that. No matter how much your father yells and bl.u.s.ters, the men of Gialta are proud. They will not follow a woman to war."

Elandra rose to her feet and pointed at Caelan. "They will follow a warrior. They will follow him."

"A slave? My dear, hardly."

"I told you he is a king."

Iaris smiled, but it was not kindly. "You live in dreams."

"And you judge like one blind. Did Pier's men try to drown Caelan in the river?"

"No."

"I hope you speak the truth," Elandra said fiercely. "You do not want to become my enemy."

Her mother looked at her harshly, then turned on her heel and left the room.

Elandra frowned after her a moment, then picked up the flask and unstoppered it. She sniffed cautiously at the stopper, and wrinkled her nose. Suspicious, she closed the flask and threw it out the window.

A moment later, Caelan opened his eyes. They were deeply, intensely blue, and they looked at her without recognition.

She smiled at him, gripping his hand. "h.e.l.lo, beloved."

He frowned, gazing around before his eyes returned to hers. "h.e.l.lo." He sounded very tired.

"What were you doing in the river?" she asked with a little catch in her voice.

"River?" His frown deepened. "I had to swim."