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She brought her mouth up to his, no longer shy, knowing he was the answer to
her questions.
"Kiasidira!" She heard Lucial s whining voice.
Khamsin ignored her father, having more important things to tend to.
"Rothal!" It was Melande and she, too, received no response.
Finally, Khamsin pulled away. She studied the face yet inches from hers.
Nothing had changed. He was still the man she knew as Rylan the Tinker and
always would be. But many changes now beckoned to her.
"What will you do," she asked him softly, "in eighteen years, when I m older
than you?"
He touched his fingers to her lips. "In eighteen years, child, you will still
be eighteen, as you will also be for the next five hundred. You re Raheiran,
and to a true Raheiran the Orb grants unlimited knowledge, and a limited
immortality. It s the price we pay for the duty that befalls us.
"Unfortunately," he said with a sideways glance towards Lucial, "some of use
choose to ignore and abuse that duty."
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"Some of us," Lucial shot back, "aren t muddled by weak sentimentality."
"No. Just greed. When a Raheiran comes into his or her power, it s easy to be
tempted to want to control, instead of guide. Sometimes the Gods have bred a
little too finely," he added, his mouth twisting slightly.
Khamsin remembered what Ciro had said: that the Sorcerer was Tarkir s
offspring, but not Ixari s. Lucial and Melande were.
"That s why Merkara told my mother to keep you safe from us for all that
time. He knew, just as we all did, what you d learn, what you would become. It
was important you reach that day without any outside influences from us."
"Yourmother kept me safe?"
"Merkara s half-sister. You called her your Tanta Bron."
Khamsin opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it.
"She was keeping you away from us until you could make your own decisions.
Bronya knew the mistake she made in allowing Tarkir and Ixari to raise me in
their temples. She saw what Lucial and Melande had become, knowing only
priests and priestesses, who jumped at their every whim. She didn t want to
repeat that mistake with you.
"And she refused to let me near you, until she could be sure I wasn t like
them& " he motioned with a dismissive gesture towards the Witch and the Wizard,
"& anymore."
He lifted his gaze from her face and looked at his siblings. "Kiasidira has
decided. And she has the power to enforce the decision."
Melande stepped to the curtain, her mouth a tight line. "My riders& "
"Your riders will cease, Melande. As will yours, Lucial. You may not have
wanted to listen to me before. But you will listen to us, now."
"I ll see you in hell, Rothal-kiarr!" For a moment Melande s eyes burned with
an intense fire, a look that had been known to reduce mere mortals to ashes.
The Sorcerer merely raised one eyebrow in a quizzical expression. His voice,
however, was hard as stone.
"Be ye gone, witch."
And Melande disappeared.
Nixa trotted over to sniff the spot where the Witch had stood, and sneezed.
Lucial eyed Khamsin warily. "You may have a winning hand, Ro, but the game s
not over. Not yet."
Tarkir s sons stared at each other through the curtain, Lucial dropping his
gaze only seconds before he, too, disappeared.
And then there was a silence in the room. Nothing stirred, not even Nixa who
crouched down on all fours  til her paws were invisible. She stared at a
nonexistent point in the distance.
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Rylan, too, stood motionless, his hands resting lightly on Khamsin s
shoulders. His own sagged ever so slightly with a hint of tiredness. The eyes
that studied the small form in his grasp now lacked the brazen confidence that
shone in them, only moments before.
But Khamsin saw none of this for she stared where the gray feline stared, at
nothing, as it was often in nothing that it was easiest to find what you seek.
He waited for her to turn her face back to his.
"I know you re angry with me. You ve a right to be, no doubt. So say what you
will. Or ask what you need to know."
She paused thoughtfully. "What constitutes a  winning hand, Rylan? I don t
know. I ve never played cards before, you see."
She could tell by his expression that wasn t the question he was expecting,
but then, she had no intention of doing the expected. Nor of facing, at the
moment, the very serious issues she knew they d have to deal with soon enough.
She was exhausted, emotionally and physically, and suspected he was as well.
She needed, more than answers right now, to see his smile.
He responded with the genuine warmth her heart sought. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]