Realm of Light (30 page)

“Greetings,
General Handar,” she said regally, as though dropping unexpectedly from the sky
on the back of a barbarian looter’s dragon was an ordinary occurrence. “It is
good to see you again.”

He bowed slightly,
his frown deepening. “My lady.”

“You will forgive
my haste,” she said. “I will present you formally to Lord Caelan later. We must
speak to Lord Albain without delay.”

“That is not
possible.”

She tightened her
lips with frustration. She should have known her father would be away. “This is
most disconcerting.”

“I’m sure it is,”
Handar said. His tone was ironic.

She knew she had
to curb that immediately.

Before she could
speak, however, he was gesturing to his right. “If you will accompany me this
way—”

“I shall not,” she
snapped. “If you do not recognize the daughter of your own lord and master,
then I am sure one of the courtiers who witnessed my coronation will.”

Handar’s mouth
fell open. Comprehension filled his eyes, and he turned pale. “Majesty!”

She lifted her
chin. “Will I be kept in the courtyard forever, General, or may I enter my
father’s house?”

“Of course.” He
glared at an officer, who whirled around and barked out a series of commands.

The soldiers suddenly
cleared a path toward the steps, facing it on either side and standing at
attention.

Handar bowed low,
humiliation written plainly across his face. “My deepest apologies, Majesty.
I—”

He had been kind
to her once, when she was only a frightened, baseborn daughter of the
household, on her way to a new life. She had not forgotten, but the lesson had
to be taught. She had learned that from Kostimon.

“Why is the
imperial banner not flying?” she asked, cutting across his apologies. “Where is
my father? When will he return? Has he gone to hold a war council?”

“No, Majesty,”
Handar replied, and there was a stricken note in his voice that caught her
attention. “I am afraid there is no war council being held.”

“What do you mean?
What are you saying? Explain.” But already she guessed something was very
wrong. She stared at the man, and her head suddenly felt as though it were
being crushed. She could not breathe. “Do not tell me he is dead,” she said,
horrified by her own words.

Caelan’s arm went
around her, steadying her as she swayed, but she barely noticed. Her eyes were
focused only on Handar’s face.

Her lips felt
frozen. “Is Albain dead?”

Handar lowered his
gaze from hers. “No, Majesty, not yet. But he is dying.”

The steps
stretched upward in endless progression, as though to the sky itself. Halfway
up, Elandra began to tremble, and she thought her legs would fail her.

“No,” she
whispered, unable to believe it. “No!”

Caelan looked down
at her in sympathy, and frowned a warning.

She understood at
once and knew she could not submit publicly to her grief, but inside she felt
as though she were being torn apart. She had not grieved for Kostimon, who in
many ways had been more a father figure to her than her own. But Albain had
been the first man she had ever loved. All her life she had looked up to him,
admired him, craved his affection. She would have done anything for him. Just a
glance or a quick pat on her head when she was a child had sustained her for
weeks.

And now . . . now,
when she needed him more than ever before, to hear he was dying seemed like a
bad dream. She could not believe it, refused to believe it.

Handar escorted
them into the palace, murmuring about accidents and bad portents. There had
been lightning and earthquakes, he said. The river had flooded its banks, and
one of the stable walls had fallen. Lord Albain had been crushed by a panicking
elephant while he tried to help his men restore order.

Caelan never
loosened his grip on Elandra’s hand. She could feel the reassurance he sent her
even as he pinned his gaze on the general.

“And are there no
healers to attend him?” he asked.

“Indeed, yes,”
Handar replied. “Our physicians say he is injured inside.”

Caelan frowned. “The
slow bleeding?”

“It is as they
say.”

Elandra looked up
at Caelan in hope. He was a healer’s son. He understood what this meant.

His blue eyes
darkened with compassion, and he gave her a small shake of his head.

Her mouth opened,
but she didn’t cry out. She had no breath to do so. The world swam before her
eyes, but Caelan would not let her faint.

“Keep walking,” he
said softly. “Hold your head high.”

She obeyed him,
her eyes stinging with tears she would not shed. They found the vast entry hall
full of courtiers and the curious, most of whom had gathered to watch her
arrival. The women were veiled and gowned elegantly. The men wore gilded mail
and silk surcoats heavily embroidered in gold and silver. She recognized coats
of arms from across the entire province.
Jinjas
flitted here and there,
peeking out from behind their owners, sharp teeth bared in curiosity, pointed
ears twitching in response to the general air of suppressed excitement.

A part of her
understood that her strange arrival, without guards, without her ladies in
waiting, without evidence of her wealth and power, all served to diminish her
in these people’s eyes. These were the nobles and warlords, men she needed to
impress, men who commanded armies she needed to call on. Yet she walked before
them in mended clothes and unbound hair, lacking jewels, her face pale and
ravaged.

The rest of her
did not care if every opportunity was lost. She wanted only to break away from
Caelan and the general and go running to her father’s apartments. She wanted
privacy, not these staring eyes. She wanted freedom to weep and call on the
gods for mercy.

She began to
tremble again. Her eyes were burning. She could not do this. She could not walk
with cold composure into her father’s chamber and gaze at him in a performance
while everyone watched her. She could not.

“General,” Caelan
said.

Handar paused in
the center of a long gallery. Tall windows on one side overlooked the fields
beyond the walls. People stood in bunches, pretending to chat among themselves,
while in reality they watched like judges. At the far end of the gallery rose a
staircase carpeted in scarlet and dark green. The rosewood banisters were
carved into the twisted, sinuous shapes of scaled serpents and lotus flowers.
High above the staircase hung Albain’s banner with the family coat of arms.
Guards stood at the foot of the stairs, as though to bar the curious from the
private region of the palace.

“Can someone be
sent to attend her Majesty?” Caelan asked. “She has traveled far. She needs to
prepare herself suitably so that she may honor her father.”

Gratitude spread
through Elandra, but with it came worry. “Is there time?” she asked.

Handar bowed. “Of
course, Majesty. He lingers long.”

“That means he is
strong,” Caelan said to her. “There is time for what is necessary.”

She gave him a wan
smile so that he would think he comforted her. Inside, however, she remained
like a clenched fist, too tense and worried to be reassured.

Handar snapped his
fingers, and the major domo came running to bow low.

“May I offer the
most humble greetings and welcome of this house, formerly thy home, Majesty?”
he said, never once looking directly at her.

“Thank you,”
Elandra replied in a hollow voice. Now was not the time to remember her
childhood spent far from grand public rooms such as this. She had been treated
like a servant. She had scrubbed floors for punishment, and she had mended and
fetched like many of the other maids when her step-aunt ordered her to.

While the major
domo issued discreet orders for a chamber to be cleared for her use, Handar
spoke to a man in a long tunic trimmed in monkey fur. This man in turn summoned
a lady who approached in a beautiful gown and curtsied perfunctorily to
Elandra.

“May I assist you.
Majesty?” she asked. “May I offer you the service of my own maids? My
seamstress will be honored to alter some of my gowns for your use.”

Elandra did not
recognize her, but it hardly mattered. “Thank you,” she said.

Caelan released
her hand so that she could be led away in the care of the noblewoman and
servants. Elandra started up the staircase, then glanced back at him, missing
him already. But the lady was urging her on gently, and she kept walking,
feeling numb.

Left behind with
General Handar, Caelan watched Elandra walk out of sight with graceful dignity.
Only he guessed how frightened she was, how shocked.

This latest blow
of fate was surely one cruelty too many. Elandra had endured enough. To now
lose her father, the man whose support she had never for one second doubted, on
the heels of so many other tragedies was too much. If Caelan could have yelled
at the gods and shamed them for their capriciousness, he would have.

As it was, he had
to stand here, helpless and unable to comfort her.

But if he could
not assuage her grief, at least he could change the hostility he sensed in this
room. How quickly people could turn on each other. Petty, jealous, envious, and
shortsighted, they forgot how much they needed to side together at this moment
of crisis. Caelan swallowed his anger at the way Elandra had been received, and
forced himself to pull his wits in line. There would be a change by the time
she reappeared. He would make sure of it.

Setting his jaw,
he turned on the general, who had been looking at him like he was some kind of
encroacher. Caelan knew they had all witnessed the familiarity of his steadying
arm around Elandra, the way she clung to his hand, the way she looked to him
for guidance and comfort. He was no nobleman, by the state of his clothes or by
his origins. And surely someone present had visited the arena in Imperia and
would recognize him as a former gladiator.

For an instant
Caelan felt the old shame of slavery like a ghost perched on his shoulder, then
he shook it off. Kostimon had once been no one from nowhere, and he had made
himself emperor. Without leadership, these fancy courtiers were doomed. It was
time they knew it.

“We were not
properly introduced,” Caelan said to the general with a courteous nod. “I am
Caelan of Trau.”

Handar’s eyes
widened, but before he could respond, another voice rose from the crowd:
“Caelan of the arena is more accurate.”

Men broke into
laughter, and the ladies nudged each other and smiled behind their hands.

Caelan’s temper
snapped. He whirled around in the direction the voice had come from. “Who said
that?”

More laughter rose
up, jeering and contemptuous. Caelan glared at them, refusing to be driven
away, knowing that if his nerve broke here, he wasn’t worthy to stand beside
Elandra, much less face the coming shadows.

“Who spoke?” he
demanded again.

“Really? A
gladiator?” a rotund, red-faced man said, hooting as he held his sides. “Gault
help us, a pretentious brute from the arena.”

Caelan’s face
burned, but he didn’t move. His gaze searched the crowd, while they laughed and
pointed at him, insulting him openly.

Finally a tall,
rawboned man with his black hair scraped back in a warrior’s braid pushed to
the forefront of the crowd. He wore old mail, and his surcoat was faded. His
gauntlets were folded over his sword belt, and his spurs jingled as he walked.
A long, white scar ran down one side of his neck, and he was missing his ear on
that side. His thumbs were hooked casually in his belt, showing broad, callused
hands scarred across the knuckles from fighting. His brown eyes held scorn, but
they were wary, seasoned eyes that had looked on many battles. He was perhaps
twenty years older than Caelan, and carried his age as a man in his full prime.
Only the jewel in the hilt of his sword and the embroidered coat of arms on the
breast of his surcoat proclaimed his high rank. Clearly this man had come for a
war council.

He was exactly the
ally Caelan needed. He was not someone to be made into an enemy.

“I am Pier,” the
warlord said, introducing himself in the stark way of the aristocracy. “I have
seen you fight, and I have won money on you. You did once belong to Prince
Tirhin. Now it seems you belong to the Empress Elandra.”

Another murmur ran
through the crowd.

Caelan glared at
him. “I belong to no one,” he said. “I was born free. I walk free again. I have
been a soldier in the Crimson Guard. Now I fight to save the empire from her
enemies.”

“Pretty speech for
a gladiator,” Pier said coolly. Snickers spread out behind him. “You wear the
armor of an imperial guardsman. Some of it anyway, but you do not carry a
guardsman’s weapons. And you have no cloak to show your rank ... or lack of
it.”

Caelan’s head
lifted proudly. “I have been told the men of Gialta are among the best warriors
in the empire. I did not know this was a lie.”

Angry voices rose
up.

He lifted his own
voice to carry over the buzz. “Or that the men of Gialta judge others by what
they wear and how pretty they smell.”

Several men now
had their hands on their weapons. Caelan met glare for glare, not caring if he
insulted all of them.

“Take care,
stranger,” General Handar warned him softly. “If the empress is all the
protection you have, it will not be enough.”

His warning only
goaded Caelan’s temper further. He let his contempt for them show plainly.

“The empress comes
to you, having been attacked by demons and Madrun barbarians in the dead of
night, within what should have been the safety of her own palace, her own
apartments. She comes to you, having seen Imperia burn, having fled for her
life from those trying to slaughter her. She comes to you, with the screams of
dying men and women still ringing in her ears. She comes to you, with her
husband dead, to find her father dying. Her own protector was slaughtered while
saving her life. Her guardsmen were massacred in the palace. She has seen
betrayal and evil from those whom she trusted. Yes, even from the son of the
emperor, a man who drove her to her coronation in the processional and swore an
oath of fealty to her that day.”