Chapter 32

Marlena awoke feeling tense and uncomfortable when the light of dawn hit her in the eyes. She sat up, stiffly. She had pulled a chair over to the bed, intending to stay awake so that they wouldn’t both be asleep while Adam was, but evidently her body hadn’t cooperated. Adam and Randor were still fast asleep on the bed, so she rose and went across the room to close the drapes against the rising sun.

Then she turned and found her son’s eyes upon her. She went back over to the bed and sat down on the edge. “Good morning, Adam,” she said, smiling.

He didn’t return either the smile or the greeting, he just looked away at the ceiling. Reaching out, she took his right hand. “Adam, sweetheart, talk to me.”

He didn’t reply immediately, and she waited as patiently as she could. Finally he took a deep breath and said, “About what?”

“About anything. About what you’re feeling.”

Adam sighed. “I don’t have anything to talk about,” he said. “Nothing is ever going to change. I will always be what I am today, and I don’t want that.”

“Adam, things always change,” she said. “Nothing stays the same.”

He looked at her, his brows coming together. “Mother, I’m a well. Wizards may not have noticed me up till this point, but there are too many people who know now. Secrets don’t stay secrets when this many people know them.” He thumped his head back against his father’s chest. “Every evil wizard on the planet will start realizing, and they’ll all be after me.”

“And we’ll deal with all of them,” Marlena said firmly. “Even if I have to depopulate half the planet to do it.”

Adam sighed. “Mother, don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not being ridiculous,” she said. “I’m much more ruthless than your father. And I absolutely refuse to see you hurt again.”

“She is.” Randor’s eyes still hadn’t opened, but he was clearly awake. “More ruthless, I mean.”

Marlena leaned closer to her son. “I will not allow anyone to hurt you again, Adam.”

“You may not be able to stop it.”

“Then I’ll die trying,” she said.

Adam looked pained. “It would be better for everyone if I was just out of the way. I’m dangerous to have around. I put everyone else in danger, just by being who and what I am.”

Very gently, she took his left hand in hers and, holding both his hands, spoke calmly and confidently. “If you kill yourself, Adam, I will follow right behind you.”

His eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that if I can’t be with you in this world, then I will follow you to the next.”

“That’s silly!” Adam exclaimed. “You wouldn’t die just because I did.”

“I would kill myself,” she said calmly.

“No!” Adam stared at her. “No, you couldn’t do that! You couldn’t leave Dad alone.”

“I’d probably waste away to nothing,” Randor said, shifting so that he was sitting up against the wall at the head of the bed. “I wouldn’t want to go on without you, Adam. You’re my whole reason for being. And if your mother was gone, too, well . . . I might as well do myself in.”

“Well, I think that’s quite enough talk of suicide for one day,” Dorgan said, walking into the room. “I swore to you, Adam, that I would not stop working until you were better, and I mean to keep that promise, do you hear me?” He stood and the foot of the bed, his balled fists on his hips. “Frankly, if you attempt suicide one more time, I will take it as a personal insult to my work!” Marlena bit her lip at Adam’s astonished expression. “Do you understand me?” Her son nodded wordlessly, and Dorgan gave a sharp nod and walked up to the head of the bed. “If you don’t mind, Marlena?”

She moved aside so that the healer could get a good look at Adam. He checked Adam’s vital signs, removed the intravenous tube, then unwound the bandage on his left arm.

Marlena had stood up. Now she sank into the chair, staring at the long cut in her son’s arm. He really was determined, wasn’t he? she thought. No hesitation wounds, even.

Dorgan gently cleaned the skin around the cut, then rebandaged it. “Now, when you take your bath, Adam, you can’t immerse this arm. You’ll have to hold it clear of the tub.”

Adam nodded listlessly.

The healer stood up and squeezed her son’s shoulder. “Death doesn’t solve anything, son. Take it from someone who’s seen it an awful lot.” Adam looked up at him, eyes troubled. Dorgan turned to her. “Marlena, can I talk with you in the other room?”

She nodded and rose, glancing at her husband and son as she went. Dorgan shut the door behind them and then looked in a vaguely upward direction. “Sorceress? Can you hear me?” She must have replied in the affirmative, because he nodded. For a few moments, he just stood there, apparently having a silent conversation with their hostess. Then he looked back at Marlena. “I asked her to partake in the discussion and relay what we’ve got to say to Randor so that everyone involved can have a say.”

“What is it, Dorgan?”

“Adam needs to have more company, more friends come to see him. I know this is a sacred place, and not to be defiled and all, but, not to put too fine a point on it, the boy needs to see people he cares about to give him a reason for living. Right now all he can think about is the wretched things that have happened. We need to remind him that his life has happiness in it as well.”

“Randor says that he doesn’t want to impose,” the Sorceress said. “It would not be an imposition. Adam’s health must come first. And this place isn’t sacred, really, it simply holds too much danger for the unwary and unitiated to be open to casual exploration.”

“I appreciate your help, but how long are we going to keep Adam here?” Marlena asked. “I thought the goal was to protect him so he could be sent home.”

“Frankly,” Dorgan said, “while there’s still a chance of suicide, I’d rather stay here. It’s a much more easily controlled environment. Back at the palace, we have our lives spread out everywhere, which makes it difficult to remember or even notice possible hazards.”

“I agree,” the Sorceress said. “By the way, the windows are no longer passable to human bodies.”

“That’s a relief,” Marlena replied. “And we won’t be leaving him alone, henceforward. I hope you don’t mind my decision to stay.”

“Of course not,” the Sorceress said. “I know how I’d feel if a child of mine was suicidal. I will do everything in my power to help.”

“Thank you,” Marlena said.

“Man-at-Arms is asking for admittance at this very moment. He has Teela with him. They should be with you in a few moments.”

The door opened and Randor stuck his head out. “Dorgan, Adam wants to be away from the needles. Is it all right if I move him?”

“Of course,” the healer said. Randor disappeared. A moment later they could hear a voice from within the bedchamber.

“I can walk!” Adam sounded very irritable and grumpy, but his father didn’t heed his complaint. He came out carrying his son gently in his arms. Adam’s left hand lay in his lap, and Marlena could see that Randor was walking very carefully so as not to jar him. They had gotten him cleaned up in the night after he fell asleep, and the bloody clothes had vanished a short while later.

Dorgan had gone to clean up the blood in the bathing chamber, but came back to report that it had already been dealt with, no doubt by the Sorceress. Marlena was just as glad that she hadn’t had to deal with it herself.

Randor set Adam down on the sofa and sat beside him. For a moment, it looked like their son was going to try and stay aloof from his father, but after a brief moment of apparent vacillation, he leaned against Randor, resting his left arm on his lap. Randor put his hand on Adam’s head. “I love you, Adam, and I’m neither leaving nor letting you go.”

Adam sighed glumly. Marlena restrained herself from going on her knees in front of him and shaking some sense into him. Live, damn you! It wouldn’t help. Instead she walked over and sat down next to him.

A few moments later, the door opened, admitting Duncan and Teela. Adam stiffened, and she could tell he was going to try to flee. Randor put his arm firmly around his shoulders and whispered something softly.

Teela dropped the pack she was carrying and ran across the room, falling to her knees in front of Adam. She threw her arms around him and began to sob, wailing, “You idiot!”

All four of the adults in the room stared at her in astonishment. “How could you do something like that? Don’t you know I’d miss you? Don’t you know . . .” Her words dissolved into a meaningless babble for a few moments as tears poured down her face.

Adam looked frankly stunned and no little alarmed. “Teela?” he said. “Teela, don’t cry.”

Teela drew back and stared at him. “I am not crying!” she growled, tears running down her face.

He reached out and brushed her cheek. “Then what’s this on your face?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she exclaimed. “I’m not crying. I’m angry! At you!”

His eyes widened, and he took on a stricken look. “You’re angry at me?” he asked in a very small voice.

Teela’s expression softened, and her tears, if anything, increased. She threw herself on him, and he gingerly put his arms around her. “You can’t die! You can’t! I love you! How could I go on without you?”

“You love me?” he asked, his voice squeaking, and Marlena could see real fear in his eyes.

Sniffling on his shoulder, she said, “Of course, I do, you’re my friend.”

Adam’s whole posture relaxed, and he patted her hair timidly. Then he looked up at his father with an expression of suppressed adolescent panic. The look of a young man who has a crying girl in his arms and doesn’t know what to do with her. She watched Randor consider his options and decide to leave his son to his own devices. She approved wholeheartedly. Teela was proving an enormous distraction, and that was exactly what Adam needed right now.

Daviona glowered at herself in the mirror. As much as she wanted to blame Randor, she knew that this setback was all her own doing. Right when she’d started plotting how to retrieve Adam, she’d thought that she needed to be subtle, and she’d been anything but.

Now she was considerably reduced in both power and circumstances. It was going to take some time to rebuild, but after her bitter failure, she was going to take the time she needed.

Jeclarren and Sanviro were providing her with a tidy amount of energy. Assimilation would have to wait. They were already taking care of each other, which was a start at any rate. The full scale effort to bring them into her service would take more energy than she had to spare right now, and they provided roughly the same power whether they’d been bound to her or not. She had supplies here, stored in stasis, and it would be wiser not to reach out past her little enclave for the moment. The magus would likely still be looking for her.

Absently, she wondered why the magus hadn’t attached the boy to herself. Shaking her head, she chuckled malevolently. When she had the prince, it wouldn’t matter. She would be able to take on the magus and defeat her with no trouble at all.

Jeclarren sat up sharply when he heard the rattling of the door. “One of you come here.”

He stood, resting a hand on Sanviro’s shoulder for a moment, then crossing to the door. The younger man had hunched unhappily upon waking, and Jeclarren hoped he’d offered him some comfort. It was odd, this worrying about someone else, but it gave him something to think about.

She held up two objects that looked like meat pies and handed them to him through the bars, followed by two brown glass bottles.

Jeclarren took them, but as she turned away, he said, “Wait!” She turned slowly back, lifting one eyebrow inquiringly. In that short time he considered and rejected two versions of his request, finally settling on, “Would you please tell me your name?”

She smiled, her eyes alight with a hint of mockery. “My name is Daviona.” She started to go again, but he had so much more to ask.

“Please!” he said, and she paused, the mockery in her eyes more blatant now. “What use do you intend to make of us?”

“I thought that was fairly evident,” she said, gazing at him salaciously.

“Beyond that,” he asked. “I don’t believe you just want your own private bordello. What purpose do you intend to use us for?”

She stared at him for a long moment, then she said, “Eat your breakfast, sweet thing.” Her smile turned wicked as he grit his teeth. “Build your strength. I’ll be coming for you again later.” She left then, and he didn’t try to call her back.

He went back to the pair of cots and sat down opposite Sanviro, holding out one of the meat pies and a bottle. The other captive took them, and they ate in silence. The bottle contained cider and not ale, a fact that both relieved and disappointed him. Alcohol might make the days go faster, but he wanted to be alert to any opportunities.

The food was gone all too soon. Not that it wasn’t enough, but it was the only thing to do. The day stretched out before them with only the sure knowledge that Daviona would come for them.

Jeclarren scratched absently. He wasn’t sure if it was the clothes she had given him or some other factor, but he seemed to itch all the time lately. Come to think of it, the itching started before she gave me the clothes. He shrugged and turned, leaning back against the wall, legs stretched out on the cot in front of him. “It’s too bad we don’t have any cards or dice,” he said, resting his head against the wall.

Sanviro sighed. “True. Not that I have much energy. I feel almost as tired now as when I went to sleep.”

Yawning, Jeclarren said, “Me too. Beats me how she stays so energetic. She’s doing everything, but we’re exhausted and she’s practically bouncy.”

“There are tales of creatures who suck men dry of their life force, causing them to age prematurely,” Sanviro said.

Jeclarren sat forward and stared at him. “Really?” Then he shook his head and shrugged. “But that’s not like what’s happening here.”

“You don’t think so?” Sanviro asked. “But it has the right signs. We are weary and drained when she has done with us, and she is made strong.”

Leaning back again, Jeclarren said, “You don’t look a day older, Sanviro. I mean, how long is this draining supposed to take?”

“Well, in the stories it only takes a few days,” the boy replied, pursing his lips thoughtfully. “And the aging process starts immediately.”

“There you have it, then, we’d both be dead or very elderly, with as much time as she’s spent with each of us.” He glanced toward the door. “Besides, she’s human, even if she is a witch.”

“She told me she’s been doing this for more than four hundred and fifty years, so she can’t be a normal human,” Sanviro exclaimed.

Jeclarren nodded. “She told me the same thing,” he said, grimacing. “But she wasn’t necessarily telling the truth.”

“What purpose would lying serve?”

“Intimidation.” He thumped his head against the wall. “And if she can hear us she’s going to be furious.”

Sanviro gulped and Jeclarren got up and went to the door. “Hey!” he called. “Daviona!” There was no immediate response, and he found himself getting irritated. He started calling her name loudly and repeatedly until she came into the room beyond the door.

Her eyes were flashing angrily. “What do you mean by making all this racket?” she demanded.

“We have nothing to do in here. It’s going to drive us crazier than you!”

Narrowing her eyes, she glared at him, then heaved a sigh. “You do make a good point, however,” she said. Then she pointed at him through the window and he felt a spell take control of him. She shifted her attention to the door, and he could hear the lock opening and the bar sliding off its supports. The door opened and she said, “Come with me, Jeclarren.”

Well, I can’t say I didn’t ask for this, he thought as his body obeyed her command. She led him a different route than he expected, though, and he began to grow nervous as she took him down a wide corridor that led away from her bedchamber. Where is she taking me?

There were several doors leading off this corridor, but she only opened the third one on the right. He followed her into a room that contained an astonishing array of objects. Several tables of various sizes stood around the room, and comfortable chairs lined the walls. There were books and board games and the materials for a number of various tasks. Leather working tools, sewing baskets, all looking as if they had been left the day before. She had him pick up a small table and carry it back to their room, then a pair of chairs to go with it. He ferried games and books and cushions to their prison, all the while wondering what the arrangement was for. Did she put it all together? he wondered. Or is this left over from some past time, and she just found it?

Finally, he was done. She closed the door behind him, released the control spell on him and the paralysis on Sanviro. “I have been most remiss in my duties to you, my boys,” she said in a serious voice. “I will be more attentive to them henceforward.” Jeclarren just stared at her. “You will be spending the rest of very long lives with me, and I have started things off badly.” She smiled. “And do not worry, you will not be just two for very much longer.”

With that, she turned away, leaving Jeclarren wondering precisely what that meant. Was she going to snatch some other poor unsuspecting sod? Or did this have something to do with her comment about getting back what was hers?

Sanviro had a different question. “What does she mean, ‘very long lives’?” With no answer for him, Jeclarren just shook his head.

Adam held Teela close as she wept on him, and no one came to his rescue. His father just sat beside him with an odd look on his face, and Duncan stood by the door looking utterly poleaxed. Then she shifted and part of her armor hit the stitched cut on his arm. He’d had enough pain killers to keep it largely quiescent, but struck directly like that, it woke with a vengeance.

He gasped, bringing his arm stiffly to his side. Teela drew back looking worried. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he grunted.

“I hurt you, didn’t I?” she said.

“No more than I hurt myself,” he muttered.

Her eyes snapped. “Promise me you won’t do anything like that again,” she demanded.

He looked at her in weary resignation. “Teela . . .”

“Promise me!”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” he said. “Why don’t we –”

She leaned forward and put her hand on his cheek, gazing deeply into his eyes. “Adam, promise me, please.”

He tore his eyes away from hers and met the worried gaze of his father. Dropping his eyes, he looked down at his hands. “I –”

“If you won’t promise, it means you want to do it again,” she said, grabbing his chin with her hand. “Adam, please!” she begged. Her forehead was wrinkled; she looked woebegone and weepy, neither of which was a state he was used to seeing Teela in. “Please promise me you won’t try to kill yourself.” Her voice broke on the word kill, and he winced.

He bit his lip. “I . . . I promise,” he said in a very quiet voice. To his surprise, her tears began to flow again, but they were silent now. He shifted so that she could sit next to him, and wound up with his back against his father’s side with Teela draped on his chest, crying into his shoulder.

He sat uneasily, not certain what to do next. His mother had risen and gone across to speak quietly with Duncan and Dorgan, and his father was sitting unobtrusively behind him, almost as if he were pretending to be part of the furniture. After awhile, when it became obvious that all of the others were ignoring them so as to avoid embarrassing them, he tugged lightly on Teela’s hair.

Her head came up with a mixture of outrage and shock, but she stopped whatever she’d been about to say when she saw the look on his face. He glanced sideways first at his father and then at the others talking a few feet away. She blushed scarlet and pulled away slightly, but she kept an arm around him. He found he didn’t object.

He cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention back to them. When he had it, he wasn’t sure he actually wanted it, but he shifted a bit again so that he could look at his father as well as his mother, the healer and Duncan. The three of them sat down, Duncan pulling one of the chairs from beside the window up to join them. “I would guess that you didn’t find her,” he said, surprised by how steady his voice sounded.

Duncan’s eyes fell, and he looked extremely unhappy. “We were too late, Adam. She got away with both her captives before we found her.”

“We were so close!” Teela exclaimed. “If I’d gotten that stupid vision just a little earlier, we would have found her.”

Adam blinked and looked sidelong at Teela. “Vision?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. From the looks on his mother’s and Dorgan’s faces, this was coming as a surprise to them as well. His father seemed less surprised, but he might just be hiding it better.

Unaccountably, Teela looked embarrassed. “I have the Sight,” she said, looking down at her lap. Adam opened his mouth but found he had nothing to say. “It started, I think, the first time Daviona drained you when you were in the infirmary. I had nightmares and then I went down to the infirmary and you seemed perfectly fine.” Adam’s mother nodded, and he realized that she must remember that incident. He didn’t, he just remembered waking the next day, cold as ice.

“So what happened last night?” Duncan asked. “You never told me anything, you simply told us you knew where to go.”

Teela shrugged. “I was asleep, and I had a dream. I saw . . . her . . . sitting on the floor in one of the rooms in that place. She was glowing, and I could see something, like a tendril of incandescent energy, snaking out from her, and I knew, the way you know things in dreams, that it was heading toward Adam. Then it was like I was raised up, out of the room, through the earth, and I saw the spot, but I just kept rising till I could see it almost like I was in a windraider, and I could plot it on a map.” Teela’s eyes were distant, yet she seemed to be looking inside herself in an odd way. “Then I woke up with an incredible sense of urgency.”

“You probably couldn’t have Seen it before you did,” Duncan said. “You undoubtedly Saw it at the same time as it was happening.”

Teela shrugged. “I just wish we’d gotten there five minutes sooner.”

“What happened to Orko?” Adam asked. “He . . .” He paused, realizing that he had no idea where the jester was. The last time he’d seen Orko, he’d been unconscious. Anxiously, he leaned toward his father. “Is he okay?”

“He is fine, Prince Adam,” the Sorceress said, and he looked up, startled by her suddenly taking part in the conversation. “He and I are working together to seek out Daviona’s new hiding place.”

“Any luck?” he asked, and the others looked at him peculiarly. “Oh, sorry, the Sorceress just told me that Orko’s fine.”

“I’m afraid not, so far, but we will keep working on it for awhile longer.” With that she was gone and he passed her words on to the others.

There was a silence when he had finished, as if no one knew what to say. Adam thought about those two men . . . boys . . . the two captives she still had, Sanviro and Jeclarren, and he felt himself start to shake. They were trapped with a woman who cared for nothing beyond her own comfort, her own next needs and desires, and they had no way out. He knew all too well what they were going through, and, counting the days, he realized that they had been with her longer than he had.

“Has she remade her drugs? Or did she have some stored at this other facility?”

“We found lab equipment, and a potion in progress,” Duncan said. “I haven’t had a chance to get Orko to look at the thing, so we’re not entirely sure what it was.”

“How did Orko get hurt in the first place?” Adam asked.

“He meddled,” Teela said grouchily.

“Not exactly,” her father said reprovingly. “Daviona used a magical portal to escape, and evidently that can leave clues as to the destination. Orko knew that, but so did Daviona, and she left a trap that knocked Orko out and scrambled the remnants of the spell.”

“But if someone like the Sorceress had –” Teela started, but her father shook his head.

“According to the Sorceress, once the trap spell was laid, it was already too late.”

Teela deflated, looking, of all things, scared. That worried him. He hadn’t seen Teela look scared since they were little, and he’d gotten to thinking that she never got scared anymore.

“What’s wrong, Teela?” he asked softly.

She shook her head and looked down at her hands again. He noticed that she didn’t have her staff hanging from her belt as usual, she had one of her father’s maces, and he wondered why.

Before he could ask, Duncan said, “So we’re back to square one, I’m afraid. I’ve no more idea than a blind dog where to start looking for her now.”

Sighing deeply, Teela grimaced. “And the only times this Sight of mine has been active is when Adam’s been in direct danger,” she said. “So if she’s got any brains at all, she’ll just stop attacking him until she’s better prepared.”

Without thinking, without doing anything but reacting, Adam found himself curled into a ball against his father’s side. His knees were pulled up to his chest, his arms clutched around them, and he leaned against the king with his face hidden in his arms. His left arm ached with the way he was stretching the muscles against his legs, but he didn’t have any ability to move out of the position. His father wrapped his arms around him, holding him close.

Teela started babbling apologies, but she stopped after a few moments. Adam was terribly focused on not freaking out, not panicking any further than he already had. He knew he had to look a right fool, trying to crawl onto his father’s lap, but . .. . why couldn’t they see? This wasn’t going to stop. He was afraid that even after Daviona was gone, if they managed to catch her, he would still turn into a ball of quivering terror at the mere mention of her name. What good could he do anyone in that state?

Gradually, he forced himself to calm down while his father murmured words of reassurance. He unwound slowly, cradling his aching arm to his chest, still leaning against his father.

When he looked up, he saw that Duncan, Teela and Dorgan were gone, and his mother was over by the window. He dropped his gaze to a random point on the floor where it met the wall and tried not to think too hard. “Adam?” his father said softly. “Are you –”

“No, I’m not all right,” Adam growled. “I’m not going to be all right. I’m a jittery fool who can’t keep himself together for ten minutes at a time.”

“You’re not a fool, Adam,” his father said firmly and Adam closed his eyes. “You’re not!” he repeated when that was the boy’s only response. “You have been tortured, son. That leaves lasting marks. And you’ve been tortured in a way that comes very close to the core of you. It would be startling if you weren’t jittery.”

“I want to stop feeling this way!” Adam moaned wretchedly. “I want . . .” He shook his head and hunched himself down.

“You will, Adam, but it takes time,” his mother said, coming up to sit beside them. She took his hand in hers. “Physical healing takes time, we all know that, but it’s difficult to acknowledge and accept that emotional healing does, too.”

“It’s the truth,” his father said, squeezing his shoulders. “I’ve known both men and women who were tortured during the wars, and it takes time to get past what that does to you.”

Adam took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to let their words sink in past the self-doubts and misery he had filling his spirit. “I think the worst of it was that she paid so little attention to me.” He shook his head, knowing how stupid that sounded. She’d done nothing but . . . He shook his head again, more firmly. “What I mean is, I wasn’t a person to her. First I was a tool to get back at you,” his father grimaced and nodded, “then I was a prized possession, but I was never Adam. All the horrible things she did, all the things she made me do and feel, it was all so intimate, yet impersonal.” He shuddered. “And I don’t genuinely think she was trying to cause me pain or unhappiness, most of the time. She just didn’t see anything past what she wanted.” He was caught in the stream of thought now, and he could stop. “That’s part of what made it so horrible. She was hurting me, raping me, and she genuinely didn’t care that it bothered me, plainly didn’t pay attention. When she had utterly exhausted me, she left without a backward glance.” He shook his head. “The only time she seemed to be interested in how I felt was when she branded me.”

“What do you mean?” his mother asked.

Adam felt a sick nausea churning in his gut at the recollection. “Those drugs, they make the skin very sensitive. The least little touch is . . . well the skin is extraordinarily sensitive.” They nodded. “She got me on one of them, the blue, I think, and then she branded me. It was . . . agonizing.” He clenched his fists, biting his lip. Cringer butted against his knee and he tried to smile down at the tiger. Relaxing his hands, he reached out and scratched Cringer’s head. “Then she told Trevor to give me a local anesthetic.”

His mother let out a muffled curse and his father’s arm tightened around him then. “Why did she bother?” Randor wondered aloud.

“Well, she wanted sex,” Adam said. “Other than that, I don’t have any idea.”

Both his parents hugged him then, and he felt very warm and loved. But there was still a deeply hidden part of him that wanted nothing more than surcease . . . from sorrow, from pain, from constant fear . . . from life.

Randor was worried. Marlena had started talking to Adam, telling him stories about what was going on at court currently. Their son listened to her somewhat apathetically, occasionally nodding or posing a question that he didn’t really seem very interested in. Adam still leaned against him, seeming to draw strength from his presence, but it clearly wasn’t enough.

The king was very much relieved by the promise that Teela had dragged out of Adam, but how long would he remember such a promise if he took another dive into black despair that saw no way out of his misery but death?

That despair still hovered about him, almost a tangible thing. Duncan had taken Teela away, saying that he needed to consult the Sorceress about her Sight, but they would be back, and he knew that Duncan would see what he did. He wanted to talk to his friend, to get his advice on how to handle Adam now that he was in this precarious state, but it was difficult. Leaving Adam for even a few minutes didn’t seem practical. Marlena wouldn’t be able to knock him down and sit on him, and Dorgan was getting old. Adam wouldn’t willingly hurt either of them, but in a panic . . . he might not know what he was doing.

Of course, if he left him with Marlena, Dorgan and Teela, that would surely be enough. It was clear, though, that he didn’t dare talk frankly within the suite, since it was his own words that had sent Adam off to cut his wrists. Misinterpreted, surely, but nevertheless, that had clearly hit Adam at an extremely vulnerable point, and the boy had managed to sneak past both him and Duncan. He really didn’t know what to do.

Duncan, though, Duncan had been the prince’s confidant for the last year and more. Randor knew that his friend knew Adam better than he did. Perhaps Duncan would have a suggestion that would help him to anchor Adam in the world, that would help him find Adam something to live for.