Free Valdemar Anthology - [Tales of Valdemar 02] - Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey Page B

etched in terrible lines across a gray face shifted as eyes she would have sworn couldn’t grow any wider, did.
    He clung to her; his face made her breasts ache, her spine curved in until it was almost painful just to sit, but she sat. She sat.
    And the priest came.
    She heard his voice at a distance. She heard his words as if they were spoken from within her. He was praying. After a moment, she joined him, although she didn’t know the words that he spoke. Hers were as heartfelt, and they were all she had to offer.
    â€œCome home,” she whispered, kissing the sweaty, damp strands of this stranger’s hair, stroking his face as if it were the fevered face of her eldest. “Come home.”
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    Darius was waiting for her. Companions, it seemed, were not considered beasts of burden in even the grandest of venues; he stood in the light of the windows as if he were a dream. He walked forward slowly as the priest helped the man to his feet.
    :Kayla,: he said gravely. :What you did here was bravely done.:
    â€œWhat did I do?” she whispered softly.
    :What you were born to do.:
    The priest was staring at her. She turned to him and bowed. “I–I’m sorry,” she stammered. “But—I—I—”
    He shook his head. “He came to this place seeking help. And you came to this place offering aid that we could not offer. Do not apologize, child. But—”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what—what I did.”
    â€œYou saved him,” the priest whispered. “I was so certain—” He closed his eyes a moment; she thought he might retreat into prayer again. But he shook himself free of the words, and when he stood, she saw that he was over six feet tall, his shoulders wide and broad. As her father’s had once been, before the mines.
    â€œThere are others,” he said after a moment. He turned and bowed to her Companion. “She is your Chosen?”
    The Companion nickered softly.
    â€œBut she wears no white, no gray. Child, can it be that you have not yet made your journey to the Collegium?”
    â€œI—no. I think we’re on the way there.”
    â€œMight I ask—if it’s not too much—that you come to the infirmary?”
    She looked at Darius. Darius was absolutely silent, as if he were adornment to the statues, the windows, the altar of this place.
    Her decision, then. She nodded.
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    He led her through the cloisters; she realized later that this was a courtesy to Darius. Darius was comfortable in the apse, but once the halls narrowed, movement would be restricted, and it was clear what the Companion—no, her Companion—thought of that.
    She even smiled, felt a moment of almost gentle amusement, until she glanced at the older man’s face. Care had worn lines from his eyes to his lips, and she thought that no matter what happened in future, they were there to stay.
    They grew deeper as he left the cloister; deeper still as he walked down a hall and stopped in front of a door that was slightly ajar. “Here,” he said quietly.
    She nodded and opened the door.
    And stopped there, beneath the lintel, staring. There was more than one room; she could see that clearly in the streaming light of day. And there were beds, bedrolls, makeshift cots, with only barely enough room between them to allow a man passage. Each of the beds was occupied.
    Darius.
    :Kayla.: The word was urgent, but real.
    She was afraid.
    â€œI can’t—I can’t go in there,” she whispered.
    :Kayla.:
    But the door was no protection; it was open. She could hear weeping, whimpering, screaming. Her hand caught the frame of the door and her fingers grew white as she held it.
    :Bright heart.: Darius said firmly, :see with your eyes. Hear with your ears; hear only with your ears.:
    She drew a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. See, she thought, with your eyes.
    She could do that. She could