Destiny of the Light: Shadow Through Time 1 (39 page)

‘I sense disapproval in your tone,’ Bhoo said. ‘Do not fear that your brother will marry the one he joins with now. I have arranged for our Lord and King to marry Ellega of Verdan within the month.’

That sounded like good news, but not knowing who was involved in the plot to drug them both meant Khatrene didn’t know who to trust. Before she could make any comment, however, Ghett interrupted. ‘Yet I bear his child. The heir to the throne.’

‘And I wonder how you managed that,’ Khatrene said, shooting a glance at Kert who was now frowning. ‘Let me guess, you brought your King a little nightcap each night to keep him interested? Or was the drug in his food?’

Ghett cast an undecipherable glance at Khatrene and continued to put on her jeans. Scratch that — Khatrene’s denims. Since she was a good head shorter, and far curvier than her mistress, it was a testimony to her brother’s addled state that Ghett had been able to delude him so well.

Mihale himself was gazing at Khatrene, and he looked so lost and full of longing that any disgust she’d felt bled away. Somewhere inside this confused young man was the brother she remembered and didn’t want to lose. ‘I cannot quieten my love for you,’ he said, his voice husky with emotion.

‘You’re not thinking right,’ she told him. ‘Ghett has been drugging you. And Djahr must be involved somehow. She drugged me too.’

‘Love is a drug,’ he said softly.

She shook her head and took a step towards him. ‘Look at me, Mihale,’ she said. ‘And listen. You’re going to marry Ellega.’ She turned to Bhoo for support and he nodded. ‘She loves you and you’ll love her back.’

‘But I want no-one else,’ he said, and came towards her. ‘I only want you.’

She held up a hand to stop him. ‘I’m your sister. It’s not going to happen.’

He shook his head, eyes so full of pain that Khatrene couldn’t bear it. The sickness of his joining with Ghett had been easier to endure than watching him fall apart. ‘Then what shall I do?’ he whispered.

‘You will love me as my brother.’ She glanced at Ghett. ‘And get rid of her.’

Ghett merely smiled at Khatrene and stepped up to Mihale, her hand sliding into his shirt.

‘Can’t you see what she’s doing? She’s manipulating you with sex.’ Khatrene wanted to slap him. ‘Djahr is coming to kill me. Do you understand that? If you can’t or won’t protect me, let me go back to Talis.’ She couldn’t stop herself adding, ‘At least he protected me even when he thought we would never be lovers.’

Ghett, who was looking up into Mihale’s face, became still, then backed away from him and even before her brother turned towards her, Khatrene felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.

‘You taunt me with your lovers now?’ he asked, his voice low and with an undercurrent of ugly, twisted emotions. The helplessness she had seen moments before was gone, obliterated by fury. ‘I know that you withhold from me what you have given freely to others,’ he said softly. ‘How many have there been, sister? The Dark. Your Champion. More than that? Perhaps some of the Plainsmen, or a Be’uccdha guardsman who caught your eye?’

She shook her head. ‘You know that’s not true.’

‘I know you give to others what you will not give me.’

His pale eyes glinted in the lamplight and Khatrene feared him then. He was truly mad. She hadn’t wanted to believe that, but now it was obvious. Khatrene suddenly doubted that removing him from Ghett’s influence would help. He was too far gone.

‘Sh’hale,’ he said imperiously, and turned to his Champion. ‘You will find this one to whom my sister gives her favours and you will kill him.’

Khatrene watched in numb shock as Kert bowed, fanatical hatred glowing in his eyes. This was the order he’d been waiting for. He straightened. ‘The traitor to your throne cannot be far, Majesty. We know he was with The Light and will remain nearby while we have her. I will find him this time and kill him myself.’

‘No,’ Khatrene cried. ‘Talis is not a traitor.’ Then louder to Mihale, ‘He’s a Guardian who serves you. I can’t believe you’d order him killed. And what about Pagan? Are you going to kill him too?’ This last was said loudly enough for Laroque to hear if he was still outside.

‘Do not kill the boy,’ Mihale said.

Kert bowed and turned to leave but Khatrene snatched at his arm. ‘What sort of Champion are you? You’re supposed to protect my brother, not run off on your own personal vendetta.’

Kert shook her off. ‘By killing his enemies I do protect my King,’ he said, and pushed past her, his thoughts already on the execution he was planning.

‘Two Guardians will remain,’ Mihale told her. ‘I do not require three.’

‘I don’t believe this.’ Khatrene stared at her brother. There was nothing she could do for him. She had to save herself. Save her child.

Bhoo stood and brushed down the front of his elaborate jacket, adjusting the ties until he was sure they were all straight. ‘The Dark approaches. I will go now to greet him,’ he said to no-one in particular.

Khatrene felt instinctive fear but she kept it from her voice. ‘You’re trying to bluff me,’ she said. ‘To distract me.’

Bhoo didn’t even glance at her as he stepped up to his King, bowed, then departed the tent.

‘I go now, Majesty,’ Ghett said softly, all trace of the confident seductress gone from her voice. In fact, if Khatrene hadn’t known her to be a brazen manipulator she would have thought Ghett was frightened. But of what?

The tent flap settled behind Ghett and with it came silence. Khatrene hadn’t taken her eyes off her brother, hoping perhaps that some miraculous transformation would occur once the others were gone. But Mihale simply walked over to a low couch and draped himself across it, ignoring her completely. He looked so much like the carefree brother she loved. And yet so unlike him.

Outside she heard voices and the sound of many footsteps. Was Kert rounding up a huge party of guards to go after Talis and Pagan?

There was nothing she could do about that so she forced herself to concentrate on Mihale, and on the necessity of protecting her child. ‘Is Djahr really coming?’ she asked her brother.

‘Bhoo does not lie,’ he said, then glanced up at her. ‘You lie.’

‘When?’

‘You said you loved me.’ He glanced away and she thought she saw his lip tremble.

‘I do love you,’ she said. ‘I don’t like the way you’re behaving at the moment, but that’s not your fault, Ghett has been drugging you. Do you understand?’

‘If you love me in spite of my behaviour,’ he said, ignoring the rest of her statement, ‘then I must think that in spite of your husband’s jealous rage, you love him too?’

Clever leap. She shook her head. ‘I never loved Djahr. That was sex and he was drugging me. Like you and Ghett. It’s not love.’

‘And Talis?’

‘He is the only man I will ever love as a husband. Killing him won’t make me want someone else.’

‘You say that now —’

‘And I’ll say it again in ten years. Don’t do this. Talis rescued me from Djahr because I ordered him to. It’s his duty to obey me. You can’t punish him for that.’

‘I can punish you,’ Mihale said softly, and looked at her sideways with what would have been a mischievous expression if not for the cool, assessing eyes.

She nodded, trying not to be frightened of his wild mood swings. ‘Wait until my child is born,’ she coaxed. ‘It won’t be long.’ He wasn’t watching her so she took a step backwards, away from him.

‘You believe now in the destiny of The Light’s child?’ he asked.

‘I believe a lot of things,’ she said, backing closer to the door flap. Kert was gone and he’d taken most of the guard with him by the sound of it. If she could get out of the tent now, she might be able to get back to Talis before they found him. She was about to have a baby and that, not her brother’s plight, should be driving her actions.

‘I believe you would die to save your child,’ Mihale said.

‘You’re right there,’ she replied, edging closer to the door. ‘After Djahr locked me in his Hightower and said he was coming back to torture me, I risked my life to escape. To keep my baby safe.’ Khatrene heard a sound behind her. Hairs raised on the back of her neck.

Bhoo spoke. ‘My Lord The Dark.’

Mihale rose from his couch and looked past Khatrene. ‘Be’uccdha,’ he said and smiled.

‘W
e must part and search separately,’ Talis said, taking a moment to lay a hand over the slash on his thigh and heal it. Beside him in the concealing shrubbery Pagan kept watch, his eyes restless as he scanned the misty glade before them.

‘Search where?’ he asked impatiently. ‘We do not know where The Light has been taken. For all we are aware, she may be —’

Talis suddenly raised his head, turned to his cousin. ‘What time of year are we now? Near to solstice?’

Pagan said nothing a moment, then his own eyes widened. ‘The Ceremony of Atheyre!’

‘I had lost track of the days.’

‘And this explains why there were Sh’hale guardsmen in the Elder Stand,’ Pagan said. ‘They do not search for us with Be’uccdha, but merely escort their King.’

‘Then if The Light was captured by Sh’hale’s men as we suspect, she would be taken to the King’s encampment.’ Talis closed his eyes to offer a prayer to the Great Guardian. If Khatrene was with her brother she might still live. ‘I will go to seek her there,’ he said.

‘Shall I go with you,’ Pagan asked, ‘or remain here to secure your escape?’

Talis gazed through him a moment, considering, then said, ‘Our mutiny against Be’uccdha may have angered the King. If it should go against us and my life be forfeited, you must try to rescue The Light yourself.’

Pagan appeared taken aback by this, but he kept his head up. ‘I will do what must be done to safeguard the child,’ he said.

Talis nodded. He had impressed this upon Pagan and tried to hold it firm in his own heart — that no matter how much he loved Khatrene, her child was more important to Ennae. ‘Remain here, near the river. If I do not return in four hours, you must rescue her in whatever way you can.’

Though this clearly daunted Pagan, he clasped his cousin’s arm and said, ‘Good fortune go with you.’

‘And you,’ Talis replied. Then with a last glance around them he slipped out of concealment and ran through the Elder Stand, preparing himself to defy even his own King to save the child of The Light. To protect his beloved.

‘M
ajesty.’

Khatrene closed her eyes and felt cold, stark terror wash over her. The sound of that voice had made her shiver with excitement once. Now it closed over her heart like a steel-jawed trap and squeezed the fight out of her.

Mihale saw her waver and he stepped forward to take her hand, leading her to the couch he’d vacated where he sat her down. She looked up into his eyes, sickened by the expression she saw there, yet before he released her hand she felt a surge pass through it. He jerked, as though startled, then blinked and gazed at her freshly, as though waking from sleep and seeing her for the first time.

The baby.
Instead of putting Mihale to sleep, as it had done to Talis, it had shocked Mihale, yet Khatrene wasn’t sure why. To wake him up? To …

Yet rather than wondering about Mihale who was now turning to meet his guest, she should have been thinking about escape. A plan should have been formulating in her mind but the sound of Djahr’s voice had slowed her brain. She couldn’t turn around and look at him and felt sickened by her own fear.

‘Majesty, I come to claim my wife,’ he said with a finality that struck Khatrene like a blow. She couldn’t go with him. Wouldn’t. But in the struggle, what would happen to her child?

‘My sister seeks asylum from your care, Be’uccdha,’ Mihale said and Khatrene blinked, looking up in surprise at her brother who now stood gazing imperiously at his subjects. The change in his demeanour was astonishing. ‘She comes to me for sanctuary and I will give it to her’

The pause that followed this remarkable statement had the hairs rising again on the back of her neck. What had the baby done? Taken the drug from Mihale’s mind the way Talis had removed it from hers?

‘Majesty,’ Djahr said, his voice soft with the hidden menace Khatrene knew only too well, ‘you gave her to me as wife —’

‘At which time you promised to love and care for her.’

Another pause.

‘She is with child, Majesty,’ Djahr said. ‘She has been … loved.’

Khatrene swallowed back sickness, then felt the calming wash of the baby’s power settling her stomach.

Mihale took a step away from her, towards Djahr, yet Khatrene still couldn’t turn her head, couldn’t bring herself to look at the husband who had come to claim her.

‘My sister tells me of much distress at your hands, Be’uccdha,’ Mihale said.

‘As my wife, she is no longer under your protection, Majesty,’ Djahr pointed out.

His voice had an edge in it now. Irritation. Anger. Khatrene’s fingers clenched convulsively on her dress, as though she was going to somehow run away, get past Djahr. But that was impossible.

‘I know our laws,’ Mihale said. ‘Their tenets say you lost authority over her when she lay with another. She is no longer your wife.’

‘She is my wife,’ Djahr said purposefully, ‘until I release her.’

Khatrene felt the jaws of the trap inside her chest, squeezing the breath out of her.
It’s only fear. Don’t be scared
, but being scared wasn’t the problem. Khatrene was terrified. For herself. For Talis. And now for Mihale.

Fighting that debilitating terror, she forced herself to turn around, to look at Djahr, yet before her gaze reached him it was caught by Lae. Khatrene winced when she saw the tattoo on her face — a copy of her father’s swirling pattern. That tattoo had been the symbol of Khatrene’s hatred for Djahr and it was difficult to separate his daughter from that legacy. But Khatrene overcame her prejudice and the two women exchanged a silent communication.

I’m terrified
, Khatrene’s eyes said.

I will help you
, Lae’s replied.

Mihale slowly withdrew his sword and pointed it at Djahr’s chest. Khatrene’s breath caught in her throat. ‘You will not take her from me,’ he said coldly, and for the first time Khatrene saw Mihale as a king. Not simply her brother dressed in fancy clothes, but the man who ruled Ennae. A king who would protect his sister. She was so grateful to have him back she would have cried, if she hadn’t been so terrified of losing him.

Laroque moved to his King’s side while Bhoo stood a distance away, observing.

Standing beside Djahr, Mooraz was silently watchful and Khatrene was relieved that his sword was still in its sheath. She’d seen Mooraz in action, a deadly blur of steel, and didn’t want to imagine her brother’s chances against him. Although surely none would dare harm Mihale in his own encampment.

‘My sister remains at my side,’ Mihale said. ‘Take your force and withdraw, Be’uccdha, before you anger us.’

‘I do not leave without my child,’ Djahr replied, his dutiful veneer fading. ‘If you would keep her I shall cut it from her belly. Your Guardian can see to her survival.’

If Khatrene hadn’t been sitting, she would have fallen. Dizziness buzzed in her ears before it was taken from her by the child, but the numbness of emotional overload remained. Djahr could do it. He could cut her open and take out her child, dismissing the blood and her screams of pain. Delighting in it probably.

She looked at him then and noticed the Shadow Woman lurking behind him. Hatred grew hot inside her. He would not have her child to raise amid perversion and evil.

She pushed herself awkwardly to her feet. ‘Do you think I’d give my child to the man who murdered my mother? The man who gave her a slow poison so she’d die by agonising degrees?’

Mihale’s sword wavered and dropped as he turned to face his sister. He couldn’t seem to speak, but simply looked at her with dazed horror large in his eyes.

Laroque asked for both of them, ‘Do you truly mean this, My Lady? Djahr of Be’uccdha poisoned the Queen?’

‘And bragged about it.’ Khatrene was trembling, whether from anger or delayed shock, she wasn’t sure. ‘My mother had the sense to reject his advances. She wouldn’t join with him and so he killed her. Slowly.’

Djahr’s expression did not change. ‘Lies will not sully my claim. The child is mine.’

Mihale turned his sword hack to Djahr and said, ‘My sister does not lie.’

‘And I do?’ Djahr stood calmly with his hands at his sides and Khatrene wondered why he seemed so unafraid.

Tense silence settled inside the tent. The Shadow Woman drifted towards the relative safety of where Bhoo stood. At a gesture from Djahr, Lae moved away from him also, managing to position herself closer to Khatrene who didn’t have a clue what Djahr hoped to achieve. He couldn’t take her without Mihale’s permission and he certainly couldn’t hurt her brother and have any hope of escaping.

Yet in the middle of the tent, Djahr and Mooraz stood poised, for what? Opposite them, her brother trembled with anger, his sword only inches away from Djahr’s chest, an aging Battle Captain his only shield. A surreal atmosphere of threat pervaded, yet Khatrene felt no premonition of danger. Her brother was the King.

‘If I discover you have done ill to my mother,’ Mihale said slowly, his sword tip drifting closer to Djahr’s chest, ‘you will forfeit your life for the misdeed.’

‘These were also your father’s last words.’ Djahr’s hand moved slowly towards his waist.

‘I knew it,’ Khatrene cried, her hands bunching into impotent fists. ‘You started the war. You blamed it on Roeg.’

Djahr smiled, said to Mihale, ‘If you would take my life for such a trifling misdeed, then I have little to lose and all to gain by taking that which is mine,’ and on the final word he withdrew a short blade from his robe and feigned striking her brother, then stepped back out of Mihale’s reach, his gaze fixing on Khatrene, judging the distance between them.

Mihale followed Djahr with his sword, yet before it could strike, Mooraz had his own unsheathed and was smashing away Mihale’s thrust, so quickly Khatrene’s eye could barely register the movement. Laroque, slower to arm than his opponents, had barely withdrawn his sword and turned it on Mooraz when it was knocked away, and the fine Be’uccdha steel of Mooraz’s blade drove into the old Guardian’s chest.

‘No!’ Khatrene screamed as Lae reached her, but it was too late. Laroque was falling at his King’s feet, the heavy form losing all dignity as it thudded to the ground, precious Guardian blood spilling carelessly onto the royal carpets. Then she screamed again as Mihale turned his sword on Mooraz.

‘Mooraz,’ Lae whispered, clutching Khatrene’s hand, watching in horror as her father’s Guard Captain raised troubled eyes and his bloodied sword to counter Mihale’s attack. Yet before there was a clash of steel, before Khatrene could cry out a warning, well before her brother could react, Djahr had buried his short blade in Mihale’s ribs and twisted his wrist.

Her brother jerked, made a sound so horrible she knew it would live in her nightmares for the rest of her life, and then his sword fell from his hand. Lae screamed over and over and Mooraz dropped his own sword to stand staring at his King. Djahr withdrew the dripping blade, touching it briefly to his hand to admire the bright crimson blood, so different to their own, then flicked it carelessly aside. ‘The Balance is restored,’ he said and smiled.

Khatrene could say nothing, could do nothing but watch her beautiful, beautiful brother crumple to the ground beside the body of Laroque.

Uncaring of her own safety now, she moved to his side, her steps jerky. Someone helped her. Lae? Then she was sitting beside him, her hands touching his face, turning it towards her. His eyes were open and the pain and surprise she could see in them was so wrenching she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think.

From within her the child made a sound, a hollow mournful cry that came from her opened mouth but was not her own, despite the fact that it echoed her own loss completely. Khatrene barely heard it, yet it silenced those who watched her grief.

All Khatrene could see, all she could feel was the life ebbing out of her brother. Finally she found her own voice. ‘You can’t die,’ she said to him, tucking his hair carefully behind his ear. ‘You’re the King.’ Yet his glazed eyes continued to stare through her, his lips trembling.

His body jerked and blood foamed on his lips. Khatrene wiped it away with the hem of her skirt, found his limp hand and held it. She couldn’t stop shaking her head in disbelief, staring at her brother whose vulnerable eyes were still widely open. His lips had stopped trembling and the twitching of his limbs had stilled, yet she knew he wasn’t dead. He was the King. The King couldn’t die.

‘He’s not dead,’ she said aloud and looked up at Djahr, to defy his right to claim another victim in her family.

‘Yes he is,’ Djahr said deliberately, ‘and now you will die at his side.’