Free Realm of Light by Deborah Chester Page A

charred
heaps littering the ground. Smoke rose from the corpses; the stench from them
choked his nostrils.
    Howling with fear,
the remaining demons fled from him, vanishing into the passageway.
    He let them go,
running instead to Elandra. She lay unharmed on the ground, one leg pinned
beneath the dead horse. Her face was bone white. Her eyes flashed with fear and
something else.
    He pulled her
free, grateful she had suffered no hurt, and lifted her to her feet.
    Fear and revulsion
were mingled on her face. She stared at him as though she had never seen him
before and slapped him hard across the face with her ungloved hand. His cheek
stung fiercely. Taken aback, he blinked and looked down at her.
    “How dare you do
that to me!” she said. “I am not to be silenced with your spells and foreign
magic. You should be whipped and purified.”
    His own temper
boiled up to meet hers. “You were putting our lives at risk—”
    She swung at him
again, but this time he stepped aside and she missed. “Ingrate!” she sputtered.
“You dare talk back to me—”
    “As long as you
are being a fool, yes!” he retorted.
    “It is not your
place to reprimand me. I am your empress!”
    Scorn curled his
lips. He wanted to shake her by her beautiful neck. Instead, he cleaned his
sword and sheathed it, then buckled on his armor.
    “We can argue
later,” he said. “Now we had better go.”
    Elandra stamped
her foot. “No, this will be settled now. You have much to answer for.”
    “Not now.”
    “When?” she
demanded. “Either you recognize my authority, or there is no point in going
on.”
    Caelan refused to
look at her. She was a stubborn fool. She understood nothing. “You put us in
danger,” he said tersely, “interrupting like that. They believed me until you—”
    “And what was I to
do?” she retorted. “Fold my hands while you allied yourself with these—” She
broke off, her throat working convulsively, and gestured at the charred
remains. “Why?”
    He did not intend
to explain. Impatience burned hot in his throat. He wanted to get out of here.
    “We must go,” he
said.
    “And I said we
will stay until this issue is resolved.”
    He sighed, curbing
his own irritation with difficulty. “I will explain. Majesty, but let us go.
They will come back, and when they do we should not be here.”
    A flicker of
unease moved beneath the stubbornness in her eyes. “Very well.”
    As she spoke, she
started ahead of him, but he gripped her arm and pulled her back.
    She wrenched free.
“How dare you!”
    “Your Majesty will
recall that they fled into the passageway,” he said coldly. “If they try to
hold it against us, do you really want to be in front?”
    Visibly fuming,
she stepped aside and gestured for him to precede her. “By all means, go first,
guardsman. And see that you keep your magic directed against the demons,
instead of against me.”
    He glared at her,
then sighed. “I give you my apology, Majesty, for having severed you
without your consent. Although you were not hurt, it can be an alarming
experience the first time.”
    She did not look
appeased. “There will be no second time,” she said icily. “You overstepped
your—”
    “Don’t put me in
my place,” he snapped, losing his temper again. He was damned if he’d bow and
scrape and kiss her foot, groveling in atonement for having saved her life. “I
am here to keep you alive, and that is what I did. If you cannot recognize
that, then you should have chosen a different escort.”
    She opened her
mouth to retort, then closed it again without saying anything.
    He glared at her a
moment longer, then turned his back and strode on. “Come.”

Chapter Five
    At the dark mouth
of the passageway, Caelan paused, holding his drawn sword ready, and peered
inside. Ancient, disturbing symbols streaked the walls, and every time he
glanced at them, his eyes burned. The pale illumination that filled the small
cavern did not reach far into the passageway.