The Blaze Ignites (8 page)

Cairikson looked up at me again. “Can I go
see my mama?”

“Of course you can,” I said, still trying to
fight off fatigue.

I leaned towards Nekinda to hand her back her
son. “No wait, please,” she said, stopping me. “Please just hold
onto him for a moment.”

Confused, I sat back again as she crawled
over and caressed his face. “My son, do you know how much I love
you?”

“I love you too, Mama.”

Nekinda sobbed softly, then swallowed
heavily. “I know you do, sweetie. Now listen to me very carefully,
okay? This is the White Warrior. You’ve heard me tell you of the
great deeds the White Warrior has done. Do you remember those
stories?” Cairikson nodded. “She is a very, very good, brave,
powerful person.”

“I know it, Mama. She made me all better. I
don’t feel sick anymore.”

Nekinda’s tears were falling like rain. “I
know she did, sweetheart. Now listen, I want you to listen to her
and do as she says, just like you do with me. She’ll look out for
you until she gets you home to Galad Kas. She always knows what’s
best. Do you understand me, honey?”

“I do, but why are you talking like this,
Mama? I’m scared.” His eyes filled with tears as I wondered the
same thing.

“I know you’re scared, but the White Warrior
will never let harm come to you, or those that are good. There’s
nothing to be afraid of while you’re with her, okay?”

“Yes Mama, but why are you talking funny
still?”

Nekinda leaned down and kissed her son’s
forehead several times. “Because sweetie, she saved your life, and
now Mama has to save hers in return. She’ll explain things to you
when she feels she should. Now I want you to close your eyes and
count to twenty. Remember how to count?”

“I do,” he said hesitantly, then closed his
eyes and began counting.

I leaned forward. “Nekinda, what are you
doing?” I whispered.

“I can’t let you be discovered. It would mean
more lives than my son’s…or my own.”

My brows dropped, “What do you…”

“Thank you, White Warrior, for saving my
son,” she interrupted. With that she reached down and yanked my
Salynn blade from my holster. Before I could stop her, she plunged
it into her heart.

“NO!” I screamed, and the small room exploded
with voices and movement.

As I watched in horror, the air grew thick
and everything seemed to slow down before my eyes. Nekinda was
falling backward with my knife protruding out of her chest and
Cairikson’s eyes were opening. I gasped and pulled the blanket over
his face so he wouldn’t see his mother’s dead body. I forced myself
to my feet and practically threw the boy into Ortheldo’s arms. “Get
him out of here!” Without question, Ortheldo quickly carried the
screaming boy outside.

I ran back to Nekinda and fell to my knees at
her side, but I was too late. Her fair face was shrouded in a grey
cloud of death, her lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling and a
blood pool expanding around her. I covered my face with both my
hands and silently begged for an answer to this.

I looked at her again a moment later,
completely confused and hurt. “Why?” I whispered looking into her
dead eyes. “You had a son to live for.”

I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders and I
was slowly pulled back against my brother’s chest as he kneeled
behind me and wrapped his arms around me. “Azrel,” Rabryn said,
“she was linked to Hathum by Jonoic.”

My head snapped around to look at him, which
only made the fierce pounding in my head worse as I continued to
battle this odd fatigue. “What? She
wasn’t
evil!”

“No no, she wasn’t evil but. . .”

“And Jonoic’s dead! You killed him!”

“I know Azrel, but listen to me. Nekinda had
a link in her mind, put there by Jonoic, which stretched straight
to Hathum. Jonoic put it there, knowing that if he failed to see
proof of who you were, Nekinda might, as you usually associate more
often with Good people like her.”

I looked up into his intense blue eyes, “How
do you know?”

“Nekinda warned me herself when Acalith and I
first found her. I didn’t tell anyone else because I didn’t want
her sent away before she could see her son healed.”

I closed my eyes tightly and pressed my face
against his chest again. He held me tight. Nekinda had seen every
shred of proof that Hathum needed in order to prove that I was the
White Warrior. She’d seen my eyes fill with my white tears when I’d
almost wept at the first sight of her. She’d seen me kick open the
wagon door in a unique way no one else would be able to do, and
she’d just seen me use my magic to heal Cairikson.

“But why kill herself?” I asked, my face
still pressed into my brother’s chest. “If Hathum has seen me
through her, then he’s seen me already.”

Rabryn rubbed my back. “Nekinda told me she
could feel it when Hathum checked in on her. He wasn’t watching
while you interacted with her. If he had been, she probably would
have killed herself sooner.” He kissed the top of my head and held
me tighter. “She saved your life by ending hers. Now Hathum can’t
see any proof through her.”

Damn him! Damn that man for using innocent
lives to get to me! As I looked at her I was finding it difficult
to comprehend what she’d just done, yet at the same time I felt a
new sense of pride and responsibility. A new awareness of who I
actually was came over me for a moment. Good people were willing to
do unimaginable things, like a mother stabbing herself in the heart
and leaving her very young son orphaned and abandoned, for the sake
of Goodness; and I was the Warrior of Goodness.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Addredoc suddenly
said as he looked down at her, “that she would have such strength
in her loyalty to you to do this.” He gently closed Nekinda’s eyes
and looked at me. “She was a Galad Kasian and they are
all
loyal to you.”

How odd this new realization felt to me. I
was the White Warrior. I was the essence of everything Good. I had
the earthly power of the Gods of Light hanging at my hip. I
couldn’t hide from it or run from it. It was there, and I had to
deal with it.

Yet another part of me could only recall the
suffering my father and I had been through because of it. I
couldn’t stop resenting my magic and my sword for such hardship and
difficulty. It seemed a cruel joke that my father and I should
suffer so much on the Light Gods’ behalf.

Suddenly I realized what it was going to take
to open that “window” in my mind that Rabryn was talking about,
that window that needed to disappear so my magic and I could be one
whole being again. I had to let my past go—my past and my father’s
past.

Yet again here was another cruel joke being
played on me. How could anything, or anyone, expect me to forget
all of that? I still bore scars physically and mentally from my own
past, and my father’s past still followed me into this age because
people still hated the White Warrior.

How was I supposed to defeat 3,000 years of
the past? How was I supposed to defeat 3,000 years of animosity
towards my father and now towards me? I was rejected throughout
Casdanarus, and however far beyond it the world cared to remember
my father. It was an impossible task to forget the past because the
past hadn’t forgotten about me, the White Warrior.

Ortheldo

Nothing I did seemed to calm him. He kept
crying for his mama. He was too weak to struggle against me because
he’d been so recently ill, but he could still scream bloody murder.
At least the rain had stopped, and at the moment he had quieted
down to a heavy crying. His head rested limply on my shoulder as I
paced and gently bounced him up and down in my arms. I rubbed his
back with my other hand and whispered softly to him. His crying was
right in my ear, but it was a small price to pay for the fact that
he’d just lost his mother.

Finally, I started walking towards the creek.
Water always calmed me down; maybe it would calm him too. When I
got there I started pacing along the bank. Even if it didn’t calm
him, at least I’d be able to think more clearly. I was baffled
about why Nekinda had killed herself. I had some ideas about why,
but didn’t know anything for certain. I thought about her last
words, trying to make sense of them, but I was failing miserably.
Rabryn was so much better at this than I was.

It was officially the second worst day of my
life. The first had been when I lost Azrel to the Ambuel River.
Today nothing had gone well: the Legan’dirs chase, the bastard that
beat Azrel so badly that she… I had to take a deep breath and keep
my mind off that mess. Thank the Light Gods that Addredoc was so
powerful. Then, of course, there had been my “I love you” at
probably the most inappropriate time we might encounter along this
journey. That hadn’t been how I pictured telling her. Not at all.
She didn’t seem to have heard me anyway, but still, I wished I’d
kept my mouth shut.

The only small comfort I had in this was the
memory of her kiss in Narcatertus. I didn’t know what I was
thinking when I kissed her this second time—how stupid! But
Narcatertus—though it may not have been her intention to kiss me
there, it had still been her lips against mine. Nothing I would
ever experience again in this world could compare to that blissful
moment when she’d kissed me. It was branded on my memory and would
be there if I lived to be 1,000 years old.

I froze when I realized Cairikson had gone
quiet. I shifted my eyes to my shoulder, trying to see if he was
asleep without waking him. His eyes were open and he was looking at
the side of my face with those big, unique-colored eyes.

I smiled and rubbed his back. “Did your voice
finally run out?”

The corners of his mouth went up a little in
a weak smile. “I was just listening to your thoughts.”

I suddenly felt self-conscious. “Well, that’s
not very nice. I didn’t give you permission to hear my private
thoughts.”

“I’m sorry. You just looked so sad and then
so happy. I was confused and wanted to see what you were thinking
about.”

“It’s okay. Just ask next time.”

He nodded against my shoulder. I smiled and
continued to pace and rub his back. “Do you love her very much?”
Cairikson asked.

I gave him a gentle smile. “Yes, very
much.”

He nodded again. “I thought so.”

I grinned, then looked at him. “Say, how old
are you? You talk very well for a human of three years.”

“I’m seventy-five. I’ll be seventy-six in two
weeks. That makes me about nine or ten in human years and maturity,
though I look younger because I’m a Salynn.”

I had only asked as a joke, but now I found
it odd that Rabryn, who was also half human, had a human life span
while Cairikson had a Salynn life span. I guessed the mother’s race
decided how long her child lived.

I smiled again at him. “You’re older then I
am and that’s pretty old. Shall I call you ‘geezer’?” Cairikson
giggled. It was very weak and airy, but it was nice to hear. I
laughed with him and rubbed his back a little more vigorously.

“You’ll make a good father someday,” Azrel’s
voice said from the shadows. Both Cairikson and I looked up to see
her approaching with a gentle smile. She looked dreadfully
exhausted, as if it was only her pride keeping her on her feet
right now. It had been, after all, a really long few days.

I smiled. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” she said and stepped up to us.

I only smiled in response. She had bathed and
changed into a red cotton tunic and black pants. Her hair was back
in a tail and she only wore her sword at her hip. The Salynn
holster at her thigh was still empty. She’d probably never be able
to touch that blade again without seeing Nekinda impaling
herself.

Compared to her, I felt filthy. I was still
in the clothes I’d been wearing since Narcatertus, and trying to
catch up with Azrel for two days had left no time for bathing…or
sleeping, or eating. All of us were going to need a deep long rest
before getting back on the road.

“Here,” she said bringing her hands out from
behind her back. She had a small cloth, a large cloth, her three
vials of Salynn cleansing liquid, and a change of clothes.
“Everyone else cleaned up. I thought you’d like to also.”

“Thank you,” I said. She set the items down
on a nearby rock.

“I’ve got Meddyn making some proper traveling
clothes for you, Cairikson. They’ll be done soon.”

“Thank you.”

When Azrel looked at him, a shadow of regret
passed over her face. She was going to have to tell him his mother
was dead. I knew how well she read eyes, so I put a little message
in mine,
Do you want me to tell him?

She studied me for a moment then shook her
head sadly. “It’s my responsibility.”

“Where’s my mama, White Warrior?” Cairikson
asked, still unable to lift his head from my shoulder.

Azrel sighed, pushed the dirt with the toe of
her boot, then looked up at him. “How old did you say you were in
human years, nine or ten?”

I felt my face warm with nervous heat and
quickly tried to remember if I’d told Cairikson I loved Azrel
before or after he’d told me his age. What if she’d heard? I
couldn’t let those words slip out foolishly again! I relaxed when I
recalled he’d told me his age after I’d told him I loved her. Maybe
she hadn’t yet been close enough to hear me.

“That’s right,” Cairikson replied.

Azrel nodded. “That’s old enough to be told
the truth.” She held out her arms and, with me supporting his head
with one hand and his bottom with the other, I gently placed the
weak boy in her arms. She cradled him like a newborn and adjusted
the blanket more snugly around him. My heart ached at seeing her
with that little boy. She looked right at home holding him like
that.