The Greater Challenge Beyond (The Southern Continent Series Book 3) (32 page)

He needed to study a sapphire, he decided.  He needed to look into the elemental nature of the gemstone Ariana had been embodied in, when she had not taken human form or been a flying sprite.  Knowing that the blackened gemstone was down in his room, in the handle of his sword, he flew down the stairs and burst into his room, then picked up the sword and carried it to the window, so that he could use the daylight to examine it.  The jewel was embedded in the very end of his hilt, and he needed several seconds to manage to pry the stone from its firm setting.

He held the darkened stone up in the sunlight that streamed in through the window, no longer noticing the fading floral fragrance that wafted in through the opening, as he studied the faceted jewel in the light.  It was darkened, and cracked, damaged by the exposure to more energy and stress than nature could ever have produced, except through the concentration of power that had occurred within Grange’s wand, power that Grange himself had compressed into the wand in the first place.

Grange gently called the energy forth, and he focused the lightly glowing power upon the jewel, treating it as if it was going to become an amulet.  He watched the energy flow across the surface of the stone, bending around the angles of the facets.  In places the energy entered the damaged spots and cracks; the energy seeped into the stone’s interior in those spots, while in other locations it simply flowed, or even piled up in a backup caused by a lack of smooth flow.

He closed his eyes, and tried to feel the reactions of the energy.  He could sense that it was penetrating the many cracks and fractures, but in most places the cracks were shallow damages.  There were a few openings that descended further into the mineral structure, and Grange focused ever more closely on the energy that was entering the jewel, finding the few fractures that had been so deadly and delved so deeply into the heart of the stone.

The jewel felt like a contradiction to Grange’s sense of the energy.  It was hard and crystalline and had never been alive.  It was not inviting to the storage of energy, the way an amulet was.  Yet within the crystal patterns there were regular, microscopic chambers that opened up into seemingly vast – in an illogical and contradictory fashion – spaces, places that felt capable of absorbing endless amounts of energy.  Grange felt the minute ripples that flowed back through the penetrating energy as the head of the power entered into multitudes of chambers and was absorbed readily. 

The power flowed on and on and on into the interior of the jewel, and Grange kept his eyes closed as he found and felt the few available openings through which his power could flow inside the jewel, letting him learn about its construction and capability.  It made him marvel at the apparently infinite storage space that existed within the limits of the jewel’s size, so that he tried to send more of his energy into those available openings.

There was almost a musical quality to the minute vibrations that hummed in the energy during its interaction with the jewel’s innards.  Grange realized that the force he exerted to press the energy inward played a role in determining the frequency of the vibration, and the tenor of the tone.  He let the feelings-that-were-almost-sounds climb and descend the scales, then found the suitable tone that satisfied him with its feeling of harmony, and he held the movement of energy at precisely that current.

He stood longer, with his eyes closed, listening to and feeling the energy engaged in the dead jewel.  A noise distantly happened behind him, making him open his eyes and turn, to find Geric standing in the doorway.

“Begging your pardon my lord, but the dining hall will close soon.  Do you want anything from there, or will you go into the city for something?” the servant asked.

Grange’s head swiveled to look out the window, where the sight of the setting sun confirmed that the day was indeed nearly over.  Somehow.  It had been much earlier when he had started to tinker with the stone, but it was suddenly nightfall.

“Thank you Geric,” he said hollowly.  “I’ll head right down to eat something.”  He may have spoken the last words, or he may have only muttered them, or he may have only imagined the words but never actually said them aloud.  He had been distracted by the sight of the jewel in his hands.  It was a beautiful dark blue once again, its color lightened, the cracks no longer visible on the surface, almost glowing in his hand as he held it and pumped power into it.

He pressed the jewel into the hilt of his sword once more, then went to the still half-full dining hall.  Many of those within greeted him familiarly, And Remar, one of the men who regularly courted Hope, asked Grange how Jenniline was recovering.

“She’s well on her way to recovery,” Grange answered.  He immediately, belatedly realized that he had not checked on her, or thought about her, or invited her to dinner with him.  He had been too preoccupied with the exploration and restoration of Ariana’s jewel to think about anything else.

He focused on the image of her room, and her bed sitting against the wall, then called upon the energy, and sent his voice traveling in that direction.  “Jenniline, I have gone to dinner.  If you want me to bring some food back up to your room for you,” he began, then hastily rose from his seat and walked over to the dining hall windows, “wave out your window towards the dining hall,” he instructed.

He ceased the communication, then watched and waited as seconds passed by in the fading light of the nightfall.  A candle suddenly appeared in the window on the upper floor of Grange’s tower, and he could see a pale face that was illuminated by it.

“I see you,” he let the energy carry his voice once again.  “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he told his counselor, before he turned and returned to his seat.  He ate quickly, gathered up an extra plate of food, and carried it with him back to Jenniline.

“You’re treating me as if I were a child, putting me in bed during the day and bringing food to me,” Jenniline complained as Grange placed the food on the table on the bottom floor of the suite.

“You know, the worst part is that I don’t mind it,” she gave a sly grin, before she started eating her food.

“Look at what I did today,” Grange told her, as he raised the handle of the sword to reveal the restored blue gemstone.  “I improved the stone.  I fixed some of the damage the demon did to it when it attacked with my wand,” he explained.

“And this stone was special to you before?  It had a spirit inside?” Jenniline asked politely as she ravenously attacked her meal and vaguely recollected some of the history Grange had shared with her.

“Yes, it was a woman named Ariana, and she was a spirit made of energy,” Grange briefly agreed.

“I want to bring her back into being,” he said in a softer voice as he studied the stone himself.

Jenniline stopped between bites to look at him.  “Are you serious?  You want to bring her back from the dead?”

“It’s not exactly like that.  She wasn’t human, and she didn’t exactly die.  Her energy is out there somewhere, if I can just manage to bring all the parts back together,” he explained as much as he could, knowing that he made the concept sound easier than it actually was likely to be.

She still looked tired, he decided.  “Have a good night.  Send Listrid up to fetch me if you need anything.  If you feel better in the morning, perhaps we’ll be able to go practice swords,” he offered.

He returned to the roof top and sat down with Ariana’s jewel, then began to call the energy to accumulate in his wand, while he looked at the jewel and tried to comprehend what he would have to do for it in order to restore Ariana’s existence.  He sat in the darkness for hours, filling the wand ever fuller, as the moon shone brightly down upon him, increasingly bright as it approached the zenith of its cycle.

He fell asleep sometime later, and awoke in the morning under a cloudy sky that threatened a long day of rain ahead.  He and Jenniline went to breakfast together, as she seemed healed and recovered from the previous day’s attack, and then they practiced their sword work at the armory.

After lunch, Grange waited for Hope to arrive so that he could hold the last of the interviews with the princesses.  He had managed to meet and know several young ladies through the process, and found them to be interesting women.  He had also managed to use the time he had available while he waited for his wand-consecration ceremony to finally be carried out, and he had practiced his weaponry while also communicating with Brieed. 

But the time had come to meet with Hope.  If Jenniline was not someone he could consider as a potential mate, then Hope would turn out to be the only one of the princesses he would want to choose.  Not, he reminded himself, that he expected his Southgar adventures to lead to a marriage and reign in Southgar at the end of the day.

Once his wand was completed, he would go to see Acton and hopefully finally speak with the god, to seek a reprieve from the unnecessary marriage requirement the god had imposed on him.  He would go out to fight the battle with the demons – he now thought that the restoration of the jewels and the replication of Miriam’s sword made a victory there truly possible – and he would go to the camp of the Bloomingians to seek to end their exile from Southgar.

After those were done, though, he wanted to leave.  He had to leave; he had to go to Palmland to help his friends caught in the unexpected war in that land.

He heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs leading to the roof.  The clouds overhead were still threatening, so he called upon the energy to cast a lightly glowing canopy over the roof, protection from the rain that seemed certain to fall sooner or later.

“Grange, are you ready, my lord?” Hope asked, as she stood at the top of the stairs, peering at him, then at the clouds.  “Your servant told me to come up here.  Do you wish to meet in your quarters?” she motioned down the staircase.  “To avoid the rain?”

“There’s protection from the rain,” Grange told the young woman.  “Come sit with me and chat.”

“Speaking of protection, do you remember that I named you my ‘Royal Protector’ when we were fleeing through the wilderness?” Hope asked.

Grange smiled momentarily at the recollection; the two of them had been on the run from the Bloomingians.

“It was an honor,” he said.  “I hope I can continue to be your Protector.”

“So do I, my lord,” she answered.

“I’ve not seen much of you since everything changed,” Grange said as he stood, and waited for her to sit down.  “But I still remember that you risked your own safety to rescue me from the prison cells.”

“I could hardly leave you down there, after all you’d done to rescue me,” she answered.

“I suppose it’s a bit ironic, isn’t it?” she asked wistfully.

“What is?” Grange didn’t follow her logic.

“You rescued me from being forced to marry a Bloomingian, and now you’re being forced to marry one of us,” she replied.

“Jenniline is your choice, isn’t she?” Hope asked.  “You’ve met all the rest of us, but you’re settled on Jenniline?”

“Do you object to being chosen?” Grange asked.  “Is your heart set on someone else?” he clarified.

“You don’t have to tell me who it is, if you don’t want to.  But I wouldn’t want to take you away from someone else who you truly love.  Goodness knows you’ve got so many choices fluttering around you whenever I see you,” he smiled.

“Grange, are you asking seriously?” Hope asked.

“Hope,” Grange sighed, then closed his eyes.  “Jenniline and I both agree that I won’t select her.  If I had my way, I wouldn’t select anyone; I don’t truly belong here, other than for the reason that this seems to be where I have to fight the war with the demons that is coming.

“And I certainly don’t deserve to be the king of Southgar,” he added.

“So,” Hope asked in confusion, “what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I don’t want to choose a bride at all, and I don’t expect to marry anyone I choose.  I don’t really expect to live in Southgar after the demon war is over,” he tried to be honest with the lovely girl.

“So don’t choose anyone!” Hope cried.  She stood up and faced him.  “Don’t break some girl’s heart by telling her you want to marry her, then run away from her!”

Raindrops started to fall, striking the energy shield above the tower roof.

“I’m trying to say that I don’t want to do that,” Grange replied.  “But I may be forced to.”

“Well, don’t do it to me,” Hope told him intensely.  “I only want an engagement to a man who will truly love me, and stay with me.”

“But if I had to choose someone, it would be you,” Grange rebutted.

“It’s not such an honor to be the second place choice,” she countered.  “If you want to go someplace else, to marry someone else.  Go ahead, but don’t make a mess of my life.

“Will that be all?” she asked, ready to quit the meeting.

“No; won’t you just stay?” Grange impulsively asked.  “Stay and talk, the way friends talk?

“I have Jenniline to talk to, and the gods to listen to, and nobody else,” he unburdened himself of the loneliness he felt.

The princess looked at him gravely, then sat back in her seat.

“You can keep the rain off of us?” she asked.

Grange smiled and nodded.  “I could keep the rain off of the whole city,” he told her.

“But when you and I met at the Bloomingians’ camp, you had no idea of what you could do,” she marveled.

“I didn’t even remember how to speak this language,” he pointed out.

“So, will Kiergar and Remar be waiting for you to return from this meeting?” Grange asked her, referring to a more persistent pair of the suitors who often followed Hope’s movements.

The princess smiled.  “They will be in a tizzy!”

“It seems so cruel for you to keep all these gentlemen on a string, when you’ve got so many lovely sisters who deserve attention,” Grange commented slyly.

“I don’t try to hold on to them!” the beautiful girl immediately objected.  “I don’t encourage them at all.”

“But you’re so nice to them, they take it as encouragement,” Grange observed.

“I think they do,” Hope moaned.  “I try to invite my sisters to stay with me, to help promote them to the callers.