Part 33 (1/2)
”Hear me out.” She looked down at her hands and absently picked at her nails. The cuticles were torn, and some had bled recently. ”It's no secret any longer that I love you, and have for a long while. I know you don't love me in return, and never will. Even if I were of n.o.ble birth, you would never want someone as damaged as I am. I can't change the feelings in my heart, but I also can no longer be a part of your life. As soon as I'm able, I'll return home. You'll never have to see my again, or be reminded of how I shamed you with my behavior.”
”Elaysen, stop. You've brought me no shame.” He reached for her hand, but she drew it away and held it curled to her chest. ”I don't profess to understand what's happened to you, or what you're enduring. I wish I could help you more than I have.”
”Do you love me at all? I know it's a terrible thing to ask, but I can't help myself.”
He did not know what to say. His feelings toward her had changed so drastically in recent days he did not understand them himself.
”I care about you and want you to be well.” He turned toward the door. There was nothing else he could say. ”I need to return to the Hammdras, but I'll check on you as I can.”
His mind was fully occupied with Elaysen as he made his way toward the wall. How did he feel toward her? Did he, perhaps, still love her? He admitted to himself that he had at one time-loved her spirit, her pa.s.sion. But she was nevertheless the daughter of an apostate priest who was considered a potential threat to the realm by the n.o.bility. There was simply no possibility of her ever being accepted as queen. He would undermine his kings.h.i.+p in a fatal way were he to marry Elaysen.
That realization had cooled his feelings toward her. The weight of ruling Khedesh had so occupied his thoughts that he gave little consideration to her, or any other woman-he simply did not have time. He had still cared for her, perhaps deeply, but was able to push those feelings aside as matters of state took over nearly every waking moment.
Now he had this disease of the mind to consider. A problem that caused her to become so delusional she had murdered the living incarnation of a servant of the G.o.d she and her father followed. He shook his head as he walked, dismayed. He could not understand how a mind could become so unhinged.
Who else might she kill if she doesn't get better? he wondered. Would she kill Balandrick, or Hollin, or even me? Is it possible for her to get well again after falling so far?
He had no answers. The only hope for her appeared to be a swift return to Almaris so she could fas.h.i.+on the proper medicines, but it would be some time before they could get there.
He found Balandrick talking to a group of Sunrise Guards in the courtyard behind the gates.
”It's pretty quiet right now, Your Majesty,” said the captain. ”They stopped lobbing rocks at us a while ago. I think they ran out of boulders and need to get more.”
”Any sign of demons?”
”None at all.”
”What about those circles of power?”
Balan shrugged. ”They've kept the braziers going and set up what look like a couple of small altars. Kirin's worried, I can tell you that.” Balan glanced at the Staff of Naragenth. ”Too bad your magic stick doesn't still have the power around it like it did at Almaris. You could take out those circles and most of that army in short order.”
Despite his words, Balan's tone was filled with derision, and he regarded the staff itself with a faint expression of disgust.
”Why don't you like it?” asked Gerin. ”It's obvious you hate the staff, but I have no idea why.”
Balandrick stiffened like a boy who'd been caught sneaking a treat. ”I don't hate it. Why do you think so?”
Gerin rolled his eyes. ”I don't care if you do or don't, but it's plain you do, so don't deny it. I just want to know what bothers you so much.”
Balandrick folded his arms. ”All right. I admit it. I loathe the b.l.o.o.d.y thing. Not what it can do, which is pretty helpful in a pinch, but what it...is. That Presence, as you like to call it. Well, that's not really it, either. I don't hate the Presence, because from what you've said, it is trying to be helpful. Like some b.l.o.o.d.y beagle eager to please.”
He stepped closer to Gerin and lowered his voice. ”I'm telling you, Your Majesty, there's something wrong with it. Wrong like that b.l.o.o.d.y awful horn you blew when you were here before. Just looking at that stick makes my skin crawl. I don't know how to explain it any better than that.”
Gerin stared hard at the staff. What are you? he projected toward the Presence. How did you come to be? You must remember something of your origin. Tell me if you can. I need to know. I understand you may still have loyalty to Naragenth and his secrets, but he is long dead. Please. Tell me what you are.
To his surprise, the staff answered.
A series of images of a young boy flashed across his vision, accompanied by a sharp pain in his temples. The boy was young, no more than five or six, with thick dark hair that fell in curls past his shoulders. First he was laughing, running; then other images came, of the boy sick and in bed, feverish and shaking, a woman weeping beside him.
Another image, a man bending over him. Gerin recognized him as Naragenth. A pained expression on his face; sorrow, grief, but also a grim determination, a hardened, almost cruel resolve.
More images flashed by, almost too quickly for him to see and comprehend: Naragenth brandished a knife- The atrium of the Varsae Estrikavis, galleries rising all around him- Dizzying movement toward the marble pedestal on which they'd found the staff- The pedestal open, its top somehow removed- Naragenth placing a leather-bound book into the pedestal- The young boy cold and dead, his wrist slit- The vision ended. Gerin was soaked with sweat.
”What just happened?”
Gerin shook uncontrollably. Not all of it from the draining power of the visions. The G.o.ds above me, Naragenth, what did you do?
Gerin turned and headed away from the Hammdras. Balandrick hurried to catch up.
”Your Majesty, where are you going?”
”To my rooms. I need the Scepter of the King. I need to get into the Varsae Estrikavis.”
”Why? What just happened? You saw something-I know it. The Presence communicated to you again.”
”Yes.” He told Balan what he saw while they walked together.
Balandrick needed no prodding to reach the same conclusion.
”You think Naragenth murdered a boy to make the staff?”
”I'm afraid it might be true.”
”But why did it show you that now? Why not tell you before?”
Gerin pondered Balan's question. ”I never directly asked the Presence how it was made, at least that I can recall. But even if I did, maybe it didn't trust me until now. Maybe it had to get to know me well enough before it would reveal that secret.”
”Is the dead boy the Presence? Is that how Naragenth got it to be alive?” Balan could not disguise the disgust he felt.
”As horrible as that sounds-as horrible as that is-yes, I think that's right.”
They reached Gerin's rooms. He retrieved the box containing the Scepter of the King from the wardrobe where he kept it-safely behind several lock spells, s.h.i.+elds, and Wards-and removed the ivory rod from it.
Do I really want to know what Naragenth did? he thought as he regarded the symbol of his kings.h.i.+p. But he knew the answer. Yes. He needed to know what happened. Especially if Naragenth had done the unspeakable and sacrificed a child in order to make his staff.
A finger of ice slid down his spine as he saw Naragenth standing over the child, knife in hand.
How could anyone do such a thing? He did not understand the cruelty that existed in some men's hearts. He saw once more the battle atop the Sundering and the murdered Eletheros children, whose only crime had been their race. An entire people, extinguished in a holocaust of blood.
He drew magic into himself, then flooded the scepter with power. The spells within it drank his magic and unfolded with great precision. The final spell, the one that worked like the keenest of knives, cut its way into the world where the Varsae Estrikavis existed.
A door marked with Naragenth's sigil and a silver crescent appeared in the room, floating a few inches off the floor.
Gerin wasted no time. He yanked open the door and hurried down the short hallway to the atrium of the Varsae Estrikavis, with the dome high above painted to mimic a sky at dusk.
The black marble pedestal was in the center of the atrium. It stood alone so that Naragenth's great staff would draw all eyes to it, a symbol he had incorporated into his personal sigil. That symbol survived his death and had been one of the few clues of the staff's existence. Wizards had long pondered if the staff bisecting a rayed sun was the staff whispered of in legend.