“Be at peace, brother,” I whispered, gathering him to my breast and rocking him gently as one would a sleeping child. The Prince had bound himself to the last of his fallen enemies, the Gate fire burned white, and the very air sang.
Once the last of the wounded Zhid lay in peaceful sleep, the Prince did not move again. He remained huddled over his knees in the center of the chamber, silhouetted against the brilliance of the Gate fire. I could not think of what to say. After a long while, he raised his head, his eyes glazed with exhaustion, and said, “I know you.”
“Yes.”
“When I can think again…”
“There’s no hurry.”
His chin drooped onto his chest. I could not see if he was asleep.
The white fire had burned away the shadows. The frost clouds sparkled with the brilliance of diamonds, as if the sun played hide-and-seek behind them. The walls of the Gate chamber no longer appeared somber gray, but displayed polished veins of rose quartz and green malachite, and the floor was tiled with intricate patterns of rose and pearl.
I laid Tomas out with the dignity the Champion of Leire deserved, straightening his limbs, smoothing his hair, and arranging his fine clothes to hide the terrible bloodstains. No wound was visible anywhere on his body. I placed the Champion’s sword on his breast and folded his hands across the ruby-studded hilt. My father had been laid out so a lifetime ago, the gentle windings of death masking the ravages of drunken grief in the same way they now erased the remnants of Tomas’s madness. From the passage I fetched the gray robes discarded by the Zhid and covered him.
These duties done, I was at a loss. I dared not leave the Prince. In his current state, a child with a wooden sword could take him down, and death and dangers still threatened from every side. That something marvelous had happened in this place was indisputable, but it seemed a fragile victory.
“Blast and perdition, what’s gone on here?” Kellea stood in the arched doorway, staring at the white fire, the four prostrate forms, the unmoving Prince, and the bloodstains that streaked the lovely tiles like some macabre child’s artwork. “Seri, are you all right?”
I must have looked wretched: soggy, bedraggled, and spattered with mud and blood. “I don’t know.” I had experienced every possible emotion in the past hours and could no longer tell one from the other.
“I felt… well, I could tell something had happened, so I had to come up.” Kellea moved from one body to the next, peering into their still faces. A longer look at the Prince. “Where’s the boy? He was determined to help. I couldn’t keep him back.”
“Paulo…” I peered through the fog, the knot in my belly eased almost as quickly as it formed. A slight body was huddled against the outer wall. The mist drifted by, revealing a thin, freckled face, a portrait of wonder as the boy stared up at the fiery Gate.
“You’re all right, boy?” Kellea and I both breathed easier at his wordless nod.
“What happened here?” She turned her attention to the still forms around us. “Are they dead?”
I tried to gather words. “This one”—I laid my hand on Tomas’s still form-—“is the champion brought by the Zhid to be slain—my brother. They drove him to madness. To his death. The Prince couldn’t save him. The three who were Zhid live, and I believe that when they wake they’ll no longer be Zhid.” The soaring fire filled my heart and dried my tears. “He healed them. And somehow the power of his enchantment—his healing gift—turned the Gate fire white… so he must have strengthened the Bridge, too, I think. He gave everything… and I don’t know what the consequence of that might be. He may not have enough life left in him to wake again.”
“He will awaken if I have anything to say in the matter. And if there is a breath of life left in him, he will remember you, Lady Seriana.”
I would not have wagered an empty box that I had enough strength left to move, but when the voice boomed at us from the direction of the Gate, I grabbed the Prince’s abandoned dagger and leaped up from the floor, standing between the unmoving D’Natheil and the intruder who limped out of the curtain of white fire, leaning on a wooden staff. He was a short, muscular man dressed in a shabby brown robe that gaped open to reveal a wrinkled white tunic belted over scuffed brown breeches. His curly hair and beard were brown, streaked with gray, but a youthful visage made his age quite unguessable. Nothing was at all remarkable about the man, save for his intensely blue eyes and the incredible voice that rang with wind, thunder, poetry, and wickedly prideful self-confidence. I dropped my weapon. No mistaking him. “Dassine.”
CHAPTER 37
“Indeed, I am he that you name,” said the man who walked out of the wall of fire. He bowed to Kellea and me, but his eyes were only for D’Natheil. “If you will excuse me…” He limped across the chamber and tenderly lifted the Prince’s haggard face, examining it intensely. D’Natheil’s eyes were open, but whatever he saw was far distant from that room. He demonstrated no awareness of Dassine, or me, or anything around us. “Oh, my dear son,” murmured the sorcerer. “All I believed of you… How right I was.” He pulled off his brown robe and laid it around the Prince’s shoulders. “Rest now, and we’ll care for you as you deserve.”
He stood up slowly and leaned on his staff. “It will be some time before he can do anything but maintain his own existence, but I believe he will be fine.”
“And he will know who he is?” I said.
“Not today”—Dassine heaved a great sigh—“nor tomorrow. Not for a goodly time. But he’ll know. One day he will laugh, and ride his great horse, and grow enchanted roses for you in the middle of winter. As I told you.”
“Then I’m right. He is…” I could not pronounce the name aloud, lest by the single word my hope would shatter itself on the bulwark of impossibility.
“Oh, yes. In this body lives the soul you know as Karon Lifegiver. It is neither dream nor self-delusion.”
I could not speak.
“Some remnant of D’Natheil will always remain with him, but eventually it will seem neither strange nor uncomfortable. He will never look like himself, of course. His body is D’Natheil’s and that will not change though it appears he has taken on something closer to his own span of years.” Dassine laid a hand on the fair hair threaded with gray.
“How is this possible?”
“Mostly because of Karon himself—his strength and will and unparalleled love for life. His is a prodigious gift. Luck, too, has played its part, as have I—and you.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I can’t stay for stories,” said Kellea, who stood stiffly next the doorway. “Graeme—”
“Heaven and earth, the sheriff!” I said, guilty that my own desire had displaced thoughts of the injured Graeme Rowan. “Master Dassine, our good friend lies injured downstairs…”
“And what has that to do with me?”
“You’re a Healer, are you not?”
“I’m the most gifted Healer that lives, but I do not spend my talent lightly.”
His arrogance pricked like a thorn in the shoe. “I’m well aware of the cost of healing,” I said. “And I don’t ask lightly. A friend is dying from fighting your war.”
“Hmmph.” The sorcerer wrinkled his brow. “I suppose I must look at him.”
“He’ll want no help given unwilling,” said Kellea, snarling. “I’ll care for him myself.”
“No, no, you misunderstand.” Dassine waved one hand dismissively. “I don’t begrudge the man. But it’s been my practice never to spend my power on minor matters, and I’ve no strength to spare today. But if your friend is so desperate a case, I’m quite willing to see to him. I’ll warn you, though, young woman, that this cursed leg makes me damnably bad at dodging pursuers.”
“I think I can get you there safely,” said Kellea, choking on her fury. “There are only three frightened Leiran soldiers wandering about the cavern.”