The princess looked down at her sleeping child, wishing with all her heart that Tristan could have been buried with their parents and her husband at the family grave site.
But he is buried, she had finally realized one day, looking at the gold medallion around her neck, the one that matched the medallion her brother had once worn. He is buried with his only child, beneath the rubble of the Gates of Dawn.
“Do you think it is possible . . .” Her words trailed off as she realized she was asking Celeste the same question she had been asking almost every day. Lately, as both time and logic forced her mind toward reality, she found herself asking it less. Or at least trying to.
Celeste placed a comforting hand on Shailiha’s arm. “We must be strong,” she said quietly. “That was part of your brother’s last words to me. Despite the short time I knew him, I think perseverance is what Tristan would have wanted, perhaps even demanded of us. He is gone, Shailiha. And no one can change that. I do not mean to be hard, but I think we must believe what my father and Faegan have told us, and look to the future. I shall miss Tristan, and I know you shall even more. But for the sake of your country, your child, and the continuance of the craft, you must accept this.” She paused for a moment, to let her words sink in.
“You have lost so much, especially for one so young,” she went on. “But you are now the Chosen One.”
A tear ran down Shailiha’s cheek. Though she brushed it away, its moistness still clung to her eyelashes. She had long known that the mantle of Chosen One would fall to her should her brother ever perish. But she had certainly never wished for the title, nor expected it to come so soon. Sometimes she wished she had never heard of the craft.
Then a new thought struck her. “With Tristan gone,” she replied quietly, “your endowed blood is second in quality only to mine.” She remained quiet for a time, her mind again going over the other quite-unexpected occurrences that had transpired since the loss of her brother.
First was the fact that Wigg had slowly, miraculously, regained his sight. And the secretive wizards, although obviously very pleased by this event, had said virtually nothing about how it was accomplished.
The second and vastly more important occurrence was that power was very slowly returning to the Paragon. The jewel of the craft now hung around Wigg’s neck, and the gifts of the two ancients were gradually coming back from the brink.
But as had been the case with Wigg’s returning vision, the wizards had said nothing of how this wonderful thing had come about. The princess assumed that with the death of Nicholas had also come the cessation of his spells, thereby releasing the stone’s power and allowing its natural return to the Paragon.
Shailiha was, of course, very pleased by these things, but in the end they did little to assuage the torment she felt over the death of her brother.
“You cared for him a great deal, didn’t you?” she asked Celeste.
Celeste took a long breath, letting it out slowly. Her heavy-lidded, sapphire eyes lowered slightly, as if her mind had been taken to a different place and time.
“Yes, I cared,” she answered quietly. “Or should I say, I was starting to. But I am still . . . fearful of men. Perhaps I always shall be; I do not know. I hope not. There remains a hard spot in my heart that is reluctant to let anyone in. Even Tristan—the one who saved me. But he was the first man ever to treat me with kindness. And I shall never forget that.” She paused for a moment, thinking.
“Father and Faegan have told me that they have plans for me,” she said tentatively.
“Plans?” Shailiha asked. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Celeste answered. “Only that they have to do with the craft. Something they apparently think is very important.”
Celeste watched as Shailiha continued to rock her sleeping baby. More and more, she now dreamed of having a baby of her own some day, for she had finally achieved the freedom in which to foster such hopes. But when these thoughts started to creep into her mind, so too did her memories of Tristan. And then her fears would come again, forcing such pleasantries aside.
“Despite the unexplained death of Nicholas and the collapse of the Gates, there are still many problems,” Shailiha said thoughtfully, interrupting Celeste’s reveries. “The consuls that Nicholas said were under his control have still not been heard from. And we still do not know the whereabouts of the endowed boys and girls, or for that matter, the locations of the women our own age who have been trained in the craft.”
A sad sort of quiet reigned over them for a moment. Aside from the death of Tristan, it was the unnerving disappearance of the boys and girls that had affected Shailiha and Celeste the most. And on this subject, too, the wizards had remained strangely quiet.
“And that is to say nothing of the situation in Parthalon,” Shailiha finally added. “The swamp shrews continue to plague both the warriors and the civilian population alike.”
“And without Tristan,” Celeste said, “overcoming these problems shall be far more difficult.”
Shailiha did not answer, for she did not know what to say.
Trying to cross over had been difficult.
There had been voices. Frightening voices. Voices that came and went, hauntingly wending their way through the fog. Unintelligible words at first, then sometimes less so. But always, finally, they retreated into nothingness. Words that came from nowhere, went to nowhere, meaning nothing.
There had also been azure, the color of the craft. Swirling everywhere. Its dense, glowing texture always surrounding and caressing, but somehow never really touching. Finally also fading away into the blackness that always came, retreated, and came again.
And there had been pain. Pain everywhere. Unrelenting, and horrible. Pain in both the azure and the darkness. Always, always, the pain.
Voices, azure, darkness, and pain. Swirling, mixing together, everywhere.
“This is the last of our chances,” one of the voices said from somewhere far away.
“I know,” replied the other. “There is no other choice.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
A long silence followed. Then more voices. More azure. More darkness, more pain.
“Let us begin,” came the first voice.
“Very well,” replied the other.
The knock on the door was strong, insistent, and decidedly masculine.
“Come,” Shailiha said.
The door opened to reveal Traax. “Forgive me, my ladies,” he said almost apologetically. “But the wizards ask that both of you come with me.”
Shailiha turned to Celeste, a worried look on her face. Celeste looked back quizzically. The wizards had barely spoken to either of them for a fortnight. Something was very wrong. Even the look on Traax’s normally calm face said that some recent turn of events had affected him deeply. A rare thing, especially for an officer of the Minions.
Shailiha thought, biting her lower lip. It may be possible that some of Nicholas’ creatures have somehow returned. Or maybe Ragnar isn’t really dead . . .
She swallowed. Hard. Then she stood and squared her shoulders.
“Very well,” she said calmly. Cradling Morganna in one arm, she donned the sling; then she placed the baby in it, carefully not to wake her, and walked to the door, Celeste following behind.
They continued through the familiar areas of the Redoubt and eventually turned down long, cloistered hallways that were quite unknown to her. Shailiha was glad to see Traax finally slow before a rather large door.
“We are here,” Traax said simply. He walked to a place of subservience behind both her and Celeste and stood quietly, waiting for them to enter. Shailiha knocked once, then twice. Upon hearing Wigg’s voice, she opened the door and walked in.