Tristan looked around at his friends, then at the dead body of his son.
Nicholas, he thought grimly. The forced product of a sorceress of the Coven and the male of the Chosen Ones. The child I left behind.
“There is something else that you must know, Tristan,” Wigg said gently. “And this may be the most difficult thing of all for you to hear.” The wizard glanced at the Sphere of Collection, then looked back at the prince. “It’s about Nicholas’ blood,” he said. “All of the power of the stone is now gone from it. Therefore the last part of your son’s living being is finally dying.”
Tristan looked over to see that the little azure waves in the sphere were moving more slowly now. Taking a breath, he placed his hands flat on the table in preparation to stand. Immediately Traax, Ox, and Shailiha stood to help him. Tristan looked darkly at Wigg, and the wizard understood. With a quick, sure gesture from the ancient one, Traax, Ox, and Shailiha all stopped and moved away.
With great difficulty, the prince stood on his own. Walking to the sphere on shaking legs, he stared down at the strange device that had helped save his life. He gently placed one of his palms atop it.
As he watched, his son’s blood slowed its movements even further, finally stopping. And then, as if someone had silently extinguished a candle, the glow emanating from the blood softened . . . and vanished forever.
Wiping away tears, Tristan shuffled over to the table that held the body of his son. The dark blue, upturned eyes were still open. Reaching down, he gently closed the lids. Then he picked the sheet up from the marble floor and carefully draped it over the body. He knew the wizards would want to cremate the remains. And this time he would not stop them.
Nicholas II of the House of Galland, he thought, remembering the words he had carved into the makeshift marker he had shoved into the soft earth over the little grave in Parthalon.
You shall not be forgotten.
Walking back to the table, the prince leaned weakly against his chair. Extremely tired, he wanted nothing more than to return to his bed and sleep forever. He said so. With the help of the Minions, he went back into the other room and fell into bed. Celeste gently pulled the covers up around his shoulders.
Tristan looked up into Wigg’s face as the old one came to the bedside. He could barely keep his eyes open. “Would you do me a favor, Lead Wizard?” he asked sleepily.
“Anything.”
“The next time you and Faegan make such grandiose plans, tell me about them, would you?”
Wigg looked down, his eyes shiny. He raised the infamous eyebrow, and one corner of his mouth came up knowingly.
“We’ll try, Chosen One,” he said softly. “We’ll try.”
Tristan slept.
56
The freshly fallen snow twinkling beneath his horse’s hooves, Tristan rode Pilgrim ever higher up the side of the mountain. It felt good to have the dappled gray-and-white stallion beneath him again, and being here was a welcome change from the relative mustiness and seclusion of the Redoubt. The air was clean, cold, fresh, and laced with the scent of pine needles. As Pilgrim brought down each hoof, taking Tristan deeper into the Hartwick Woods, the memories of this place came flooding back.
Stretching his still-sore muscles, he looked up to the sky. For the most part, the atmosphere above him was blue, with fat, puffy clouds sailing through its boundlessness.
Two weeks had passed since Tristan had regained consciousness in the Redoubt, and much of his strength had already returned. But he still had a long way to go, and he knew it. The dark veins that had once covered his body were gone, and the searing pain had been replaced with the relative relief of fatigue, soreness in his joints, and lingering weakness in his muscles. Otherwise, he felt like himself again. He smiled as Pilgrim stepped over a fallen log half buried in the mountain snow.
The first thing he had done after getting out of bed was to shave off his two-week-old beard. Shailiha had teased him mercilessly about it, telling him that between his recent illness and the full beard, he was looking more like their late father every day.
Everyone was greatly relieved that the threat from Nicholas and his creatures was gone, and their lives had regained at least a modicum of normalcy. Tristan, Shailiha and her baby, Celeste, and the others living in the Redoubt had all taken up residence in the royal palace above. Only Wigg and Faegan had refused to budge, remaining cloistered below. For Tristan and Shailiha it was indeed liberating to again be back in their old home, where the air was sweeter and the light of day could come streaming through the windows and skylights.
But the condition of the castle above was poor, making their security questionable, at best. Not only had the structure been looted, but parts of it, especially many of the windows and doorways, had been destroyed. Tristan had had the Minions transfer some furniture and decorative pieces from the Redoubt, as well as a good bit of food, wine, kitchen utensils, and linens. But the structural repairs had only just begun.
Drawing his ragged fur jacket closer around him to ward off a gust of wind, he smiled again. Shawna the Short and Mary the Minor, each of them wanting to take full control over all the ongoing domestic responsibilities, had begun shouting orders and squabbling as badly as Wigg and Faegan ever had—perhaps even worse.
Tristan had spent most of his time trying to get well. He had been practicing a great deal with both his dreggan and his throwing knives, so as to sharpen his skills and strengthen his weakened muscles. He estimated that he had only reacquired about half of his original speed. But little by little, every day he trained, he also improved. And it was good to practice again, even though he could not do so for prolonged periods.
Shailiha, Celeste, and Martha tended quietly to life at the castle and looked after Morganna. Wigg had joined Faegan in his attempts to restore the falsified Tome, but he also took time from that tedious work to get to know his daughter better.
But whenever Tristan thought of Celeste, as he so often did, he felt strangely conflicted. He was very drawn to her. Everyone living there knew it, including Wigg. But even though he sensed she cared for him, she also showed reticence in becoming closer. Further complicating things was the fact that she was the only daughter of his lifelong mentor and friend. In truth, Wigg knew her little better than Tristan did. Sometimes the prince felt he should try to shelve his feelings in order to allow the father and daughter to first come to grips with their new, blossoming relationship, and only then try to enter her heart more deeply. If indeed he ever did.
Wrenching his thoughts away from Celeste, he turned around in his saddle to check on the object he was bringing into the woods. It was his sole reason for coming up here today alone. For the first time in what seemed forever, there was no bodyguard of Minion warriors or clutch of helpful but quarrelsome gnomes to trample on his sense of peace. For what he intended to do was strictly a private affair.