Return of the Guardian-King (24 page)
No. Not hoping—waiting.
And all the while that horrid voice kept repeating over and over:
“You will
all be taken. All . . . nothing of his can remain.”
Then, finally, a prodigious push, the fire of her flesh ripping to give the babe room, and the release of terrible pressure. She lay gasping, head swimming with the pain, blackness clouding her vision . . . and heard a cry. Someone held her daughter up for her to see, blond-haired, pink-skinned, bloody but crying lustily.
“Abrielle,” she gasped. “Her name is Abrielle. After her father.”
Thank Eidon. No blackness
. The spore hadn’t gotten to her child. Relief flooded Maddie in a great tingling wave. Then she felt a strange heaviness in her womb, a sudden flash and the sense of something tearing again where it should not be tearing. . . . And now someone was crying out at the foot of the bed about the blood. Too much blood.
She felt it pouring out of her . . . and realized suddenly that it was not the child the spore had been after but Maddie herself. It had congregated on the womb so she would think it wanted her baby, but it didn’t. Couldn’t have gotten through anyway, for all the water. . . . They just wanted her to think that so she would not defend herself, would not do the purge until it was too late.
“And now you are ours. All that was his must be taken—especially you.”
“Why? Why must I be taken?”
She fell into deep darkness, into the nausea and dizziness brought on by the poison of the spore in her veins. Guilt and despair overwhelmed her. She would die now, and who would care for her children? Who would protect them? Why had she been so foolish? Why hadn’t she guessed what it was doing?
She deserved to die, wanted to die. . . .
For now at last she would see Abramm.
She felt her life bleeding away, her body growing light and empty.
“Soon,”
said a warm, friendly voice.
“Come to me, child. See your husband
who has died and waits for you with me.”
It made no sense that she should mourn that statement. He was dead?
“And never coming back to this mortal life. But you can come to him.”
Yes. She could go to him. . . .
But then she heard her husband’s voice, and it held her back. He was praying, and she sensed his spirit knit somehow with hers again. She felt his horror at what was happening to her, his anguish at the life fading swiftly now from her flesh, felt his deep, powerful love for her.
Why would he feel anguish if he knew she was coming to him?
Why was he praying?
Though it was like moving a millstone across the floor, she shifted her attention from the friendly voice to the deep, smooth tones of her husband and forced herself to hear the words:
“Father, open her eyes. Tear away the veil her enemies have woven before
them. Remind her of who she is and who you are. That nothing can stand against
your might, that she has only to rest in that and stop her striving. Draw her out
of this darkness, my Father; don’t let them do this. Her children need her. Her
realm needs her. And you know how much I need her. . . .”
The meaning in his words registered slowly, tearing the veils of Shadow and spore from the eyes of her soul as she realized she had been deceived. The warm voice was not that of a friend at all. She didn’t have to die. Nor did she want to. And Eidon’s Light was right there, waiting for her to call upon it, stronger than any darkness, even this horrible spore. The moment of realization unleashed it.
Blinding, instant heat sizzled away the black oil that had stained both flesh and spirit, and a strong but gentle hand took hers. She looked up into Tersius’s eyes. No reproach, no disappointment there at her gullibility. He always knew. He always accepted anyway.
Come, my daughter. I have something
to give you
.
He led her up a short stair into a small white room where an even brighter window blazed in the wall at his back. She tried to see through the brightness, but it only blinded her. And when she looked back at him, she could hardly see him for its flashing afterimage.
Slowly she made him out again, smiling down at her, love personified. But as the light faded further, she saw it wasn’t Tersius after all but her husband standing before her, holding her hands in his.
His thick blond hair fell about his shoulders, and his beard was long and full—scruffy looking, she’d have termed it once. It didn’t diminish his appeal in the slightest. Those incredible blue eyes stared down at her from beneath his level brows, igniting fire in her chest. She ran her fingers down the twin scars on the left side of his face, then over to his lips.
“I’d forgotten how astonishingly handsome you are,” she murmured.
He smiled at her, shaking his head as he stroked back her hair, then bent to kiss her. His lips were warm and soft, the length of his body hard against hers as he pressed her to him, the sensation so strong, so solid, she guessed she’d died and entered Eidon’s eternal realm of Light after all. . . .
It had to be the eternal realm, for it was not like any dream she’d ever had—vivid, intimate, and lasting all night. Drifting in and out of sleep, she felt again and again the sheer delight of his body against hers, warm and strong, the familiar smell of it, the languid warmth of his arms around her, making her feel safe, secure, and loved as only he could.
As the light began to sift through the shuttered window above their cot, she saw her surroundings for the first time: a small, bare, stonewalled cell, with cobwebby wooden rafters and an endlessly blowing wind outside. Not what she’d expected. He shifted beside her and an icy draft chilled her shoulder. She rolled onto her back, not surprised to find him looking at her, propped up on one elbow as he lay beside her.
“I didn’t expect Eidon’s realm to be so cold,” she said. “Or to have all this wind.”
Abramm chuckled softly. “That’s because we’re not in Eidon’s realm, my love. We’re in Caerna’tha.” He stroked the fall of her hair beside her face, then tucked it behind her ear. “Though how you got here I cannot imagine.”
“Well, I suppose I’ve come by coach. . . .”
He lifted a dark brow. “Coach?”
“Lately, it’s the only way I’ve been able to go anywhere since—” She broke off as a new thought struck her, one she was amazed she’d forgotten. “You have a daughter, sir.”
“A daughter?”
“Born this very night.”
The dark brow lifted again. “And after giving birth, you took a coach to Caerna’tha.”
“I must have.”
“You’ve not heard of Caerna’tha, I take it.”
“I have, I just . . .”
“We’re in the Aranaak, love. In the dead of winter. There’s fifteen feet of snow on the ground. You couldn’t have come by coach.”
“Oh. Well . . . we must be dreaming, then.”
“Yes.” He smiled. “Though it would be very nice to have a daughter.”
“Why are we in the Aranaak?”
“Well,
I’m
here because it’s as far as I got before the winter set in. It takes a while when you have to walk everywhere. I guess from the remark about the coach, you’ve forgotten that. As for why
you’re
here—”
The distant thunder of footfalls accompanied by voices broke into the wind-glazed silence. She looked round at the door, which had begun to rattle and clank. “What’s that?”
“Oh, they’re just unchaining the door.”
“Unchaining the door?” She sat up, clutching the blanket to her chest. “You’re a prisoner here?”
“No. I suggested it.” He sat up behind her, moved the curtain of her hair aside, and kissed the side of her neck. “You have no idea how good you smell. And feel . . .” His hands slid up her arms and she leaned back against him.
“We’re just going to sit here? Without anything on? Even in a dream, Abramm—”
“We’ll wake up before they see us.”
“I don’t—” She twisted round to face him, tears rising in her eyes. “Oh, my love, I don’t want to wake up.”
“You must.”
“I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to be without you.” He silenced her with his mouth. When he pulled away again, she was breathless. And the chain was rattling off whatever loop of metal had held it.
He dropped his forehead against hers. “You have Eidon always and first,” he said. “As soon as the passes are clear, I’ll come to you.”
“Do you even have the power to make that promise?”
“No. But Eidon does. And he has promised me. Wait. I will come.”
He kissed her again, a quick, hungry embrace before the door banged open. She turned to it with a gasp, only to find it wasn’t a door anymore but a window looking out across a wide, snow-filled valley. She glimpsed ragged, snow-clad peaks looming above it all just before the sun broke through one of the passes and blazed into her eyes, blinding her with its brilliance.
Trap paced back and forth across the green-and-gold carpeting of the First Daughter’s sitting chamber. Shale Channon sat on the chair before the fireplace, keeping watch over Simon and Ian asleep on quilted pallets beside him, while over in the corner little Abrielle cried in the cradle where Channon had just placed her. He said she’d been crying ever since Carissa had brought her from the birthing chamber—actually the First Daughter’s bedchamber— and thrust her into his arms.
“Her name is Abrielle. Keep her safe,”
she’d said before fleeing back to Maddie and closing the door. But not before Channon had heard the other women’s alarmed voices talking about too much blood.
That had been hours ago. Trap, who’d been occupied with his own battles drawing the spore out of little Simon and instituting a purge for both of them, had awakened shortly after Carissa had brought in Abrielle, sometime in the middle of the night. Now the sky was beginning to lighten, yet still no one emerged from Maddie’s chamber, and the last sight he’d had of her had been frightening. Lying there on the stretcher, she’d writhed and screamed, turning slowly gray as the dark spore rushed through her body. The child, Abrielle, appeared untainted by it, but Maddie must still be fighting it.
A distant wailing arose from out in the courtyard: a lament for the king’s passing. Hadrich’s body still lay on his bed, where his personal servants would mourn him with appropriate wailing for several more hours yet. And someone somewhere was playing a dirge on a Chesedhan bladderpipe. He supposed workers had been all night procuring and preparing the marble slab that would sit in the main entrance antechamber of the palace for the next week.
Meanwhile, Ronesca fought her own battles in her own chamber. Channon said the Great Kohal himself, Minirth, and an army of his underlings were ministering to her, the crown princess who was now queen.
He shuddered to think of all that had happened in the last day. How the king of Chesedh had been killed and had nearly taken his daughter, her three children, his daughter-in-law, and her sons with him. Nearly all the contenders for the Chesedhan crown. Or, seen another way . . . all of Abramm’s children and his wife. It was, he knew, the product of no human machination but of something far greater and more malevolent.
“Why does she keep screaming like that?” he burst out.
“She wants her mama, I’d say,” said Channon. “Probably hungry.”
Then, why don’t they come and get her?
But he did not voice the question, for the answer was too horrifying to contemplate.
And little Abrielle—his heart had turned over when he’d heard her name, when he’d seen her little face—was fair as the boys, with the same blue eyes and long thin body. No jailer’s dark-pelted child, that was sure.
As the day wore on, he began to think what would happen to them all if Maddie died. For her, it would be a release and a glorious reunion. She would be with Abramm. But she would leave three children orphaned in a realm that already saw them as a threat. Children whose grandfather had just died in a hideous manner and whose uncle’s concern for them was questionable. At best.
He stopped pacing and stood still, eyes shut, seeking to master the rush of grief that threatened to sweep him into an abyss from which he wasn’t certain he would escape. Bad enough to lose Abramm—even now he struggled to believe it was so. Even now he found himself asking himself what Abramm would think about their situation or what he would do when he returned . . . only to recall there would be no return.
He drew a deep breath and let it out. The tightness in his throat eased. He drew another and exhaled again.
Then abruptly he went to the bassinette and picked up the infant, whose faint, reedy cry was driving him crazy. He cradled the tiny girl to his chest and continued to pace, more slowly now.
Shortly thereafter a new girl came into the room, stopped, looked around at all of them, then came toward him to drop a tentative curtsey. “I’ve come for the babe,” she said.
He frowned in suspicion. “Why?”
“Lady Iolande said the princess would be needing a wet nurse, sir.”
“And you are that?”
“Aye, sir.”
“What happened to your own child?”
“Died, sir. Two days ago.”