Glimmer in the Maelstrom: Shadow Through Time 3 (16 page)

She touched his hair, looked into his eyes, lost for a moment in how utterly gorgeous he was. Hers. All hers. ‘Gotta go,’ she said.

He nodded, taking her hand and leading her out of his room and onto the verandah. ‘Just a sec,’ he said and went back down the hallway into the quiet house. Petra heard faint snoring from the kitchen and then heavy footsteps as he carried his mum back to bed. Petra stayed in the shadows away from the entrance so she wouldn’t have to see. A minute later he was back with her and Petra tried to put the thought of his comatose mother out of her mind.

They walked to her place in companionable silence. The air was fresh and clean and the world so still they could almost hear plants growing. Petra had become used to the jumble of scattered debris where once ordered streets and gardens had been. No one bothered to sweep paths any more, though tree branches that fell were quickly gathered and stored under houses so they couldn’t be projectiles in the next storm.

There was always a next storm, and now Petra knew why. In fact, now that she finally believed in the Maelstrom, she wondered how the rest of the world didn’t see it too. But they were still obsessing with sunspots and ocean currents and wondering if the El Nino weather pattern had simply grown larger. Some days Petra wanted to shout the truth at everyone. Other days she was glad they didn’t know. People would only panic. It was probably better to feed them confusion. Still, it felt weird to know something so important that no one else, not even her dad, knew. When she’d been little, Petra had thought her dad knew everything. But he didn’t know this. And though Vandal didn’t have any physical proof to show her, Petra knew it was real. Somehow she just knew.

‘You’re quiet,’ Vandal said as they turned into her street.

Petra glanced up at her house. Outside light still on. Her parents were waiting up. Stupid to think they might have gone to bed while their ‘only precious daughter’ was unaccounted for.

‘Do you want me to walk you to the door?’

Petra heard his reluctance. They both knew her dad would give him a lecture about having her home late. She shook her head, but instead of the simple goodbye kiss they usually shared under the huge bottle tree, she pressed him up against the trunk and kissed him hard, willing time to stop.

He was surprised — she could tell by his momentary lack of response — but then he kissed her back, holding her close, and for that moment the Maelstrom went away. She could feel how much he wanted her, hard against her belly, and that made her reckless and exhilarated. Like a goddess. He called her that sometimes, teasing. She loved it when he teased her. And she really loved it when he kissed her.

‘That tingling touch,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘I really,
really
like that.’

He grinned. ‘Yeah, I noticed.’

‘I’ll be dreaming about it,’ she said, pressing her breasts against his hard chest and closing her eyes to capture the memory. ‘What will you be dreaming about?’

He kissed her again, his tongue hot in her mouth. ‘Having more patience,’ he said when he broke free.

‘I know. God, I wish I was older.’

‘I love you just the way you are,’ he said and kissed her softly, as though to let her go.

Petra clung to his arms and gazed up into his face. ‘You just said … you love me.’

‘Glad you heard.’ He was looking away, over her head.

She tried to smile, stood on tiptoe to force him to look at her. ‘Was that difficult?’

‘Oh yeah.’ Petra saw his Adam’s apple move. ‘And then some.’

‘Hey,’ she said softly, and his gaze slid down to her, his expression guarded as though he wasn’t sure whether she’d laugh at him or … She swallowed hard. ‘Back at you in triplicate,’ she said.

Vandal’s eyes widened in surprise. Delight? Then she was gone, out of his arms and running up the street, her cheeks hot as she darted around the back of her house and let herself in, drinking two glasses of water to calm her nerves before she went into the lounge room to kiss her parents goodnight. Her father harumphed about ‘the boy’ not bringing her to the door, but Petra told them he’d run back to check on his mum and they were okay with that. They knew she was happy, and the fact that her eyes were now better seemed proof of that. Petra had shown them a new age book that said bad eyesight was linked to unhappiness and not wanting to
see
life.

Going out with Vandal had made her an obviously happier person and her parents were both spiritual people. If anyone was going to believe a link like that, it was them. And thank God they had. Her father had told her repeatedly she was too young for ‘you know what’, and because of Vandal’s reputation as a loner and a possible thug, that had been a major concern at the start. But now, apart from ensuring her virginity, they were okay about her seeing Vandal. More than okay in fact. And as far as Petra was concerned, okay didn’t begin to cover how she felt about being the girl Vandal McGuire loved.

Loved!

She lay on her bed and looked up at the whales swimming across her ceiling, her face locked into a silly grin. ‘He loves me,’ she said, and despite having a bag full of homework and a Maelstrom to worry about, she didn’t think of a single other thing all night.

T
wo days and still no Talis. Faced with another night alone, Khatrene went looking for him. The Volcastle guards were polite, bowing to her as she swished past them, but the few she asked hadn’t seen her beloved. The dark halls were quiet, the candles that lit them casting a lonely glow. Outside the castle it had been hot and still all day. Ominous weather, she thought, but Lae’s party had a seven-day journey ahead of them. For their sakes she hoped this break in the Maelstrom lasted.

Talis’s quarters were on the other side of the great hall which sat at the centre of the castle. Khatrene felt conspicuous walking past the kitchens and then the Guardsmen’s quarters, but she was determined to find her beloved. Although, why he would be in his chambers and not hers was a mystery. Still, when she had been directed to his door and knocked upon it, it swung wide and she found herself staring at Talis over the threshold.

He said nothing, merely stepped outside to look up and down the corridor, then took her arm and pulled her inside.

She looked around his spartan room: bed, fireplace, table and chair, dresser. He was alone. ‘Beloved?’ she said, facing him, reaching up to touch a warrior plait. ‘Why are you here and not … with me?’

Talis stood with his back to the door. ‘I have only just returned from checking the sentries,’ he said, his voice oddly flat. Was he tired?

‘Shouldn’t you delegate that?’ If he was trying to monitor everything himself, it was no wonder he hadn’t been to see her. The castle was huge, its defences complex.

‘At the moment it is appropriate for me to be busy,’ he said, then added, ‘your safety is important to me.’ A simple enough statement, but Khatrene felt as though she wasn’t grasping all of it.

‘Has Mihale ordered you to keep away from me?’ she asked him straight out.

‘He has not.’ No hesitation there but she still felt he was hiding something. For her sake, undoubtedly.

‘Because even if he had, I would still want to be with you,’ she said. ‘We belong together.’

Talis looked deep into her eyes. ‘We do,’ he said, and she felt some of his tension ease.

‘So do you have time to back up those words with some action?’ she said, her hand sliding onto his shoulder and then down to rest on his biceps. ‘Or do you have to go back out?’

‘I should,’ he replied. ‘I only returned to change my clothes.’

‘Well then.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘I’ve arrived at the right time,’ and she strolled to the bed and lay on it, propping herself up with both pillows. ‘Proceed,’ she instructed.

Talis remained at the door, his hands behind his back. Was he teasing her? ‘How was your meeting with Lae?’ he asked.

Strange foreplay. Khatrene shrugged. ‘Terrible. Pagan’s right, she’s like a closed door. Did you see her before she left?’

‘Briefly,’ he replied. ‘And I exchanged heartfelt farewells with Pagan. I will miss them both, though they have changed so much.’

‘Did Lae speak to you?’ Khatrene knew Lae had a soft spot for Talis whom she had once agreed to marry out of friendship and respect.

He shook his head. ‘She did not meet my eye. Nor Pagan’s. She is resolute in her grief, and I have never seen my cousin so melancholy. It does not bode well.’

‘All he can do is to be there for her,’ Khatrene said. ‘Surely her grief will fade in time.’

‘Pagan is not as reckless as he once was,’ Talis said. ‘The Magorian woman Sarah has taught him well. He will be patient with Lae.’

Khatrene smiled. ‘As you were with her. I remember the first time you introduced me to her, I was in awe of your tolerance of her mischief.’

Talis was slow to smile. ‘She was like the sister I had never had. And many of her pranks were aimed at Pagan. I approved of those.’

The mention of a sibling reminded Khatrene of her concerns about Mihale. ‘Can you tell me how Breehan died?’

Talis gazed at her from the door but said nothing and she wondered suddenly whether Mihale had sworn him to secrecy. The thought stirred an uneasiness in her, to think that Talis might keep things from her. But wasn’t she withholding information herself? ‘Mihale told me he stabbed Breehan. I don’t understand why.’

‘Nor do I,’ Talis replied. ‘Where gentleness and humour once resided, there now dwells only fickle curiosity unburdened by conscience. Today the mistress of the kitchens was summoned to his royal chambers, a matron of twice your years. She left several hours later in a state of dishevelment.’

Khatrene’s mouth fell open. ‘He raped her?’

Talis shook his head. ‘Exhausted but radiant, the corridor guards reported. I believe there was no coercion, but this is not the Mihale I know.’

Khatrene felt sick herself. The mistress of the kitchens and her seventeen-year-old brother? ‘Could he be drugged again?’ she asked, remembering all too well the horror of that experience — her brother thinking he was in love with her, making love to a woman impersonating her.

The Dark had been behind that, hoping to break the bond between the twins, to isolate Khatrene so he could control her once she carried his child. And it had worked. She’d fled the Volcastle to live at Be’uccdha where she’d quickly fallen under her husband’s spell and conceived his child. Then he’d locked her in his Hightower. If Talis hadn’t rescued her, she would have been killed straight after the birth and her daughter would have been raised amid the evil and perversion Djahr personified. The horror of it was so encompassing it overwhelmed the present and Khatrene struggled to remember that her husband was dead. The only thing that threatened them now was the Maelstrom.

‘I see none of the signs that were evident last time,’ Talis said.

‘But you’re not sure?’

‘He will not let me use my Guardian power to test his vitality.’

She frowned. ‘Maybe because you’d see into his mind and find out about the voice if you did.’ And the voice must be there, otherwise how could he have known about the talisman and then Glimmer’s absence?

‘Did this voice inside your mind control your actions?’ Talis asked.

‘It was advice. I was free to act in any way I chose. I don’t understand why things are different now. Could the drugs have caused some lasting damage?’

Talis shook his head.

Khatrene struggled to understand, then made an odd connection. ‘Did Mihale ask you about Vandal?’

‘Pagan’s son with the Magorian woman?’

‘He asked me if I’d watched him in the seeing-storm. What I thought of him. Why would he do that?’

‘I know not,’ Talis replied, and something in the blankness of his expression reminded her of Lae.

Khatrene stopped thinking about her brother and sat up on the bed. ‘Why are you still standing over there?’

He seemed to rouse himself then, and locked the door before coming to sit beside her.

‘So, I don’t get a strip show tonight?’ she asked.

His smile seemed sad but he was probably just tired. ‘Your Magorian expressions never fail to shock me,’ he said. ‘I should be used to them by now.’

‘Fifteen years is long enough to pick up way too many bad habits,’ she agreed. ‘Imagine what Pagan must be like.’

’He does not remember his time there,’ Talis reminded her, his hand rising to tuck a blonde curl behind her ear. Then he met her eyes. ‘The Maelstrom is coming,’ he said and Khatrene nodded. There was no arguing with that. ‘Yet I feel a longing within me that is … foolish considering our circumstances.’

She looked deep into his eyes. ‘I want a baby too,’ she said. ‘Your baby.’

Talis leant forward and kissed her, so sweetly, so tenderly, that Khatrene felt herself slip back in time to their first kiss as runaways in the Plainsman encampment, when she had barely realised that she could love Talis. Her life was so different now, she was so different; her empty spaces and dark corners were filled with the light and warmth of his love. He had transformed her so completely that she couldn’t remember clearly what her life without him had been like.

‘Can we do it now?’ she asked.

He touched her forehead with his palm and she felt tingling warmth sweep down her body to the organs where their child would grow. She trembled and felt her cheeks flush.

‘Are you stirring up my hormones?’

His hand fell away. ‘Pretend this is our last time,’ he said, and smiled to reassure her.

She smiled back, a puzzled smile, and kissed him again, pulling him back onto the bed. ‘You’re the boss,’ she said against his lips.

He shook his head, undoing the buttons on her dress, and they uttered no more words; instead their hands spoke of love not dimmed by familiarity but strengthened by the knowledge they had gained of each other.

There was always pleasure, which Khatrene could feel throbbing inside her, building towards release as Talis touched her, kissed her, claimed her, but this time there was another feeling — destiny, such as she hadn’t known since the first time she’d lain with him. Then Glimmer, barely conceived within her, had shown Khatrene the memories of her past, her present and the future. They had flicked past too quickly to register them consciously, but they were obviously still inside her mind, stirring as she gazed into her beloved’s eyes, as she felt his strength move inside her.

‘A daughter,’ Talis breathed, close to his own release. She kissed him hard, not wanting the future to intrude on the first time of peace they had found together. But it would not be denied.

The memories Glimmer had given her exploded within her mind again as hot pleasure clutched at her loins and breasts. She clung to Talis but her sight was directed inwards at the vision her mind produced: a freeze-frame of Glimmer, in the centre of a swirling storm, arms out-thrust, surrounded by lightning bolts of energy. It was a heroic pose, but Khatrene felt fearful of it, as though the next frame would show Glimmer’s body falling like an empty shell, her life-force used up with her power.

Khatrene’s eyes snapped open and she stared blindly into Talis’s.

‘Beloved,’ he said, stroking her hair from her face, frowning at what he saw there. ‘What do you fear?’

‘I don’t want my daughter to die.’

‘We will all die,’ Talis said, holding her against his chest where she could hear the reassuring thump of his heart. ‘That is the only certainty in life.’ His lips pressed against her forehead, then he said, ‘It is likely that one of us will die before the other, but that does not bode ill.’

Khatrene felt sick at the thought of losing Talis, but she knew he was right. The loss of a partner was to be expected. ‘But what if Glimmer dies before me?’ she asked. ‘She’s my daughter. That shouldn’t happen.’

Talis held her closer. ‘If that is her destiny —’

‘No.’ Khatrene knew her feelings couldn’t change the future but she had to say it anyway. ‘I don’t want her to die. Not before I see her again.’ She’d only had her baby for a scant few hours before they’d been separated. It wasn’t fair. ‘I want to hold her again.’

‘I know.’ Talis stroked her hair. ‘I know.’ It was a moment before he spoke again. ‘There are things I would change if I could,’ he said wistfully. ‘Yet we must take the love we are offered in the time that remains.’

Khatrene pulled back to look into his eyes. ‘You sound so sad.’

He shook his head. ‘I fear only that our time may be short,’ he said. ‘Will you promise me something?’

‘Anything if you keep holding me like this,’ she said and nuzzled his shoulder. Talis was right. The Maelstrom was upon them. They must make each moment count.

‘No matter what occurs, you must not anger your brother’

Khatrene opened her eyes and remembered the questions she’d meant to ask. ‘Is this something to do with Breehan’s death? Did Breehan upset him?’

Talis kissed her again, this time with desperation rather than passion, ‘Promise,’ he demanded, and Khatrene could only nod in obedience.

‘Will you tell me what happened? How Breehan died?’

Talis gazed into her eyes, yet before he could reply there was a rap on the door.

‘Open in the King’s name!’

Talis gripped her shoulders hard. ‘Remember your promise,’ he said, then rolled away as the door was smashed open.