Sara Douglass - Sinner

He’d stared at her, but this time there had been nothing but the stare, nothing but the roiling and yet unreadable emotion in his eyes.

Once Drago had gone, the rest of the group had been fairly quick to break up. There was much to be discussed and debated in the privacy of individual chambers, and even breakfasts to be had, for the initial shock of WolfStar’s appearance, and then his news, had long gone, and stomachs were now complaining.

Most of the servants within Sigholt, as well as the heads of the Five and their advisers, were busy with preparations for Council, which was to commence the next morning, so Zenith spent most of the day with Leagh. She felt restless, and useless in the current hive of activity, and Leagh was always comfortable company. Zenith told Leagh all that had happened in Caelum’s chambers, for she thought the woman had as much right to know as Askam or Zared, and then she asked what had transpired between her and Zared the night previously.

“Oh, Zenith! I saw more of him last night than I swear I have in the past four years. Thank you, thank you!”

Leagh’s eyes had glimmered with emotion, and Zenith had to fight back the tears herself.

Having passed the evening meal with Leagh, Zenith wandered back to her own chamber, but could not settle. Every time a drape moved in a draft, or a shadow flickered, Zenith jumped, thinking it was WolfStar.

She was sure he would come after her –

Why use that phraseology?

– why, she could not tell. But something in his touch, something in his eyes … he wanted something from her. But what? Surely it was not lust, for what WolfStar had shown her was not the wantonness he’d displayed with RiverStar.

But something else.

Something … deeper.

But that was ridiculous. She’d never met him, she was sure. WolfStar had disappeared long years before she’d even been born. Why should he spare her even a passing thought? She was nothing in the power games and mysteries currently being played out in Tencendor.

The images – memories? – that had flooded Zenith’s mind when WolfStar touched her cheek now came back and assailed her again, though with less force this time. She’d seen the inside of the Dome of Stars – but that was the province only of the First Priestess of the Temple, and Zenith had never been there. She’d seen inside that peasant hut, seen the angry, nameless man advance on her, murder in his eyes – but neither had she seen hut nor man previously. And the child … the child. Who?

Ah! Zenith shook herself. She would go mad left alone in this room to think!

She wondered again about Drago, how he felt after enduring his own personal trauma that morning, and determined to find him.

She found him, as she thought she would, in the kitchens.

RiverStar goaded Drago about affairs with the kitchen girls, but Zenith knew the real reason Drago spent so much time in the kitchens of Sigholt.

She’d discovered his secret one night seven years ago when she could not sleep and had thought to heat herself a glass of warm milk. She’d come in the kitchen doors, and then halted, astounded.

Drago had been standing at one of the work tables, dicing a huge mound of vegetables.

For some obscure reason, Drago loved to cook. He spent an hour or two down here most days, and longer if he was particularly upset over something. It was no mystery to Zenith that he would be here now.

This late at night the fires were damped down, and the staff had long gone to bed. Even so, the air was still warm, and the great metal ranges against the far wall radiated a comforting glow.

Drago was standing at a table before one of the ranges, several bowls before him, the tabletop strewn with flour and pieces of discarded meat.

“Drago?”

His head whipped up and a bowl rattled as he jumped. “What is it?”

Zenith walked further into the room. “I thought you might like to talk about this morning.”

Her brother dropped his eyes and kneaded some dough in a bowl, unspeaking.

Zenith walked over to the range, keeping her wings carefully tucked away but rubbing her hands before its warmth. “What did you think about WolfStar?”

Drago did not answer.

Now Zenith hugged her arms to herself, her eyes unfocused. “He scares me, Drago. I did not like the way he looked at me. The way he touched me.”

“I am sure there are some dozen or more people within Sigholt today who could say they do not like the way WolfStar looks at them.” He still had not raised his eyes from the bowl.

Zenith studied Drago carefully. He was kneading dough as if he wanted to bruise it.

“Drago …” She hesitated, but thought it needed to be discussed. “How did it make you feel to learn the name of WolfStar’s son?”

Drago lifted the mass of dough out of the bowl and slammed it down on the table, sending flour drifting in a cloud about him. He lifted his eyes and stared at Zenith.

“If he did not lie – and from the tales we’ve heard we know how WolfStar can lie – then all I can say is that DragonStar is a cursed name. Both of us condemned to our different deaths.”

“Drago –”

“Except that I think WolfStar’s son died far more gently than I!” He started to roll the dough back and forth, back and forth.

“Drago –”

“I do not want to talk about it!” He chopped the dough in two with the side of his hand, played at shaping one of the pieces into a pie crust, then suddenly threw it into a corner of the kitchen with all the strength he could.

“I do not want to talk about it!”

“Damn you, Drago! You must talk sometime!”

Drago rounded on her. “Look at you, Zenith! You are beautiful, vital, and you revel in your Enchanter powers. You have an aeon to live. Look at me!”

His fingers pinched at his body, then his face. “Look at me! I am wrinkling and ageing. I get out of breath climbing the stairs to the roof. All the magic I can perform is getting this … this … this arse-blasted lump of pastry to rise in the oven! And all I ever hear about this cursed Keep is how vile I am, how much air is wasted on my breath, and how I can never be trusted or loved or relied upon!”

Unable to bear her brother’s pain, Zenith lowered her eyes and toyed with the handle of a pot on the range hotplate. She could not blame Drago for feeling angry or resentful. No-one in their family seemed willing to harbour a single positive thought for the man or to consider that perhaps he had been punished enough. No-one seemed to entertain the idea that Drago might be so consumed by bitterness that his very punishment might drive him to ill-considered action.

And no-one save she had ever seemed to think through the implications of what Azhure had done to him. Icarii babies were very different from human babies in that they were completely aware from the moment of their birth and, indeed, many months before it. All Icarii memories stretched back to events pre-birth. But when Drago was only a few months old, Azhure had stripped him of his Icarii heritage, and had plunged his mind into the dim murkiness of human infancy. Drago’s memories could not date from anything earlier than his second or third year of life.

Drago would have no memory of the events that had seen him so cruelly punished. He was largely reviled, mistrusted, unloved and, above all, condemned to a life of only some three or four score of years, when he could have expected hundreds at least, for a crime he could not remember!

No-one cared about how Drago might be feeling or what kind of man lay buried beneath all the years of built-up bitterness. Zenith alone of the immediate family rather liked Drago; perhaps because she’d not yet been conceived when he had arranged Caelum’s kidnapping. Drago had a sharp wit and was, in odd, unexpected moments, kind and thoughtful.