Opal's Wish: Book Four of The Crystal Warriors Series (2 page)

Silver spigots—at least, he presumed them to be spigots—jutted from the wall above the tub. One sported a faded red circle, the other blue. Danbur ground his teeth. He was a crystal warrior—elite among his kind. He would not allow this… this… minor setback to defeat him. He twisted the spigot with the red circle, and grunted with satisfaction when it belched water. A swipe of his fingers beneath the stream confirmed it was warming, and within seconds, the stream was hot enough to waft a curling tendril of steam toward him.

He rubbed the child’s back and chanted his demands for her to breathe in and out, while the small room filled with steam. When it got too hot, he twisted the spigot with the blue circle. As he’d hoped, the stream of cold water cooled the steam somewhat.

Time passed. His world shrank to the negligible weight of the child in his arms and the hair-raising whoops that punctuated her efforts to breathe. He’d thought himself beyond petitioning gods. They’d not deigned to answer his prayers to be mercifully put down, as a man would grant mercy to a mount with a broken leg. But for this innocent he would try one last time. And as he prayed, he rocked the child in his lap and wondered, despairing, what he could offer his gods that they hadn’t already taken from him.

At last it appeared the Mother had chosen to be merciful, for the child’s breathing eased… and slowed until it synchronized with his so perfectly, Danbur could almost believe that he and the child were somehow connected, and that he was breathing for her.

After a while she sighed and her breathy exhalation was echoed with his own hiss of relief that the crisis had past.

She peered up at him through the steam-fogged lenses of her spectacles.

“Can you breathe without effort now?”

His question was answered with a nod.

“Shall I turn off the water?”

Another nod.

He shut off the spigot, marveling anew at the efficiency of such an invention, even as he despised a world where guardians had seen fit to leave this young one alone to cope with such a serious affliction. If he’d appeared in her room a few minutes later….

The child wriggled restlessly in his lap but it was difficult to gauge the extent of her recovery when he couldn’t fully discern her expression. He plucked the spectacles from her pert little nose, intending to wipe the lenses with the square of cloth he’d spied hanging over the tub, but her sharply indrawn breath and the stiffening of her body stilled him mid-stretch. “Forgive me,” he said. “I meant only to clean them and return them to you. I should have asked your permission before removing such precious possessions.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

Poor little chick. Her battle to breathe had exhausted her. “May I?” he asked.

She nodded, and he snagged the nubby cloth… which did not prove the best for wiping such delicate things as spectacles, but was far superior than using his fingers.

He perched the cleaned lenses carefully atop the bridge of her nose, and hid his wince when she cringed. “There is no reason to be afraid, little one. I will not hurt you.” He fisted his spare hand on his breastbone. “My word on it.”

Those rare green eyes peered at him through the thick lenses. She scrambled from his lap to settle cross-legged on the floor with her back against the wall. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and thrusting out her lower lip. But this brave declaration was somewhat ruined by a hiccup and a tear tracking down her cheek.

So courageous. He favored her with a short nod to convey his respect.

Her lower lip wobbled. “When we were back in my room you laughed.” She swiped her cheek with the back of a hand. “Is it ’coz I look funny?”

A fist grabbed his heart and squeezed. And something—perhaps the same intuition that served him so well during battle—told him to be wary how he phrased his answer. A careless word could wound far more efficiently than a finely honed blade.

“I laughed with the relief of finally understanding what I was seeing,” he said, speaking slowly and carefully, infusing his words with truth and willing her to believe. “And I laughed because I realized I had no cause for fear.”

She blinked tear-spiked lashes and a tiny frown pleated her forehead. “You were scared?”

He nodded.

“But you’re so big!”

His lips curved at her awed tone.

“And… and….”

“Black?” he supplied, wondering if dark-skinned people were a rarity here—wherever “here” might conceivably be.

“Duh,” she said, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. “I was gonna say
muscley.”

Apparently black skin did not unnerve this child. Good. A useful piece of information. “I would share a secret with you, young one,” he said, hoping if he gained her trust she would reveal more. “But you mustn’t tell a soul.”

Her eyes rounded. “I won’t tell anyone,” she said, her voice squeaky with excitement. “I promise!”

He leaned forward to impart a bit of the wisdom his mother had once gifted a small, skinny boy who’d suffered what his disappointed father had termed an
irrational
fear of horses. “Even grown men as big as I are oftentimes afraid.”

“Really?”

“My word on it.”

The tiny frown creased to a scowl that was impressive for one so young. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” she said.

Damned if he didn’t feel like smiling again when he had no cause to smile—not given the precariousness of his current situation, not after enduring an emptiness so profound it was a miracle he’d not lost his mind. Or perhaps he finally had. Perhaps this “reality” was nothing more than the product of a fractured psyche. Perhaps in truth he was still entombed in darkness. If so, he would embrace this fantasy for however long it lasted.

“I was fearful of your spectacles,” he said. “And then I recalled where I’d seen such a wondrous invention before.”

Her jaw sagged. “Huh?”

“Spectacles.”

A screwed up nose conveyed her confusion. Perhaps he had mispronounced the word. “This clever contraption that makes things appear larger.” He gently tapped a forefinger on the metal frame bridging her nose.

She crossed her eyes, the expression made more comical magnified through the thick lenses. “My
glasses
?”

Danbur fought the grin that threatened to bloom across his face. Doubtless she would take it the wrong way and be offended. “If that is what
you
call them, then yes.”

“You were scared of my glasses?”

He nodded, keeping his expression grave. “Indeed I was.”

“Wow.”

Whatever that strange word might signify, she was no longer breaking his heart with her efforts to suppress her sobs. All in all an excellent outcome—even if she now regarded him as one might regard some alien beast from a traveling menagerie.

“My name is Danbur,” he said.

She gave a little burbling giggle that dared him to throw caution to the sands and laugh alongside her. “Danbur? That’s a funny name. I’ve never heard of anyone called
that
before. Can I call you Dan, instead? Dan’s a proper boys’ name.”

He cocked his head to one side, gauging her expression, her body language. When he detected neither mean intent nor slyness in her tone he nodded. “Very well.”

She stuck out her hand, gazing expectantly at him.

Ah. A greeting was in order. He leaned forward to engulf her small hand in his, and relaxed his arm muscles when she enthusiastically pumped his hand up and down.

“I’m Seraphine,” she said.

Interesting.
Seraphinite
was a crystal so rare his fief’s priests possessed but one example of it and—

A tremor coursed through him and he was struck by a sense of… of… teetering on the verge of discovering something vital. And then it faded, leaving him pondering the startling coincidence that this girl-child would be so closely named for a seraphinite crystal.

He didn’t believe in coincidences.

He mentally shook himself, sloughing off the disquiet still scuttling over his skin. “’Tis a pleasure to meet you, Seraphine.”

As the last syllable of her name slid from his lips a sharp pain lanced the base of his skull. He grit his teeth, breathing slow and deep, waiting for the next one….

It never came. Apparently a dull throbbing, akin to the aftermath of a night spent carousing, was to be his only punishment for escaping his crystal prison. For now, at least.

“You can call me Sera if you want.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s heaps better than
Seraphine
.”

“Very well, Sera. Shall I take you back to your room now?” And tuck you up in your pretty pink bed and wait until you fall asleep so I may explore this place more thoroughly.

She nodded and when he scooped her from the floor she wound her arms about his neck. He inhaled the scent of her hair—sweet and delicately fruity. And something inside him softened still more.

He entered her very pink room and strode to the bed. Thankfully the music had changed to a slower tune—one he could tolerate, even though he wasn’t at all certain a song about being
taken
, and wanting to be someone’s
victim
, was suitable for a young child. Sera didn’t seem perturbed, however. Perhaps the device was this world’s equivalent of a mother singing her child a lullaby? If so ’twas a poor substitute.

When he lowered her to the mattress she clung to him like a sand-burr to a trouser leg. “Please don’t go,” she said. “I don’t want you to go.”

Damned if he could ignore the plea in her voice. Or the threat of more tears. He knew it would be prudent to remain aloof until he had the measure of this world, but couldn’t bring himself to choose prudence over this little girl’s tears. He sat on the edge of the mattress, holding her in his lap, and surrendered to the compulsion to discover the root cause of her misery. And end it if he could.

“Is there something you would like to tell me, Sera? Are you hurt?” He hadn’t noticed any bruises to indicate she’d been hit or abused in any way. But who knew what that soft pink shirt and pants might hide?

Her sweet little face crumpled, and the lenses of her glasses magnified the fat tears glistening in her eyes. “My special crystal broke,” she whispered, and buried her face against his chest.

A chill lanced through him, lifting the fine hairs on his nape, but he kept his voice gentle, matter-of-fact. “It must be a very special crystal indeed for you to be so upset about it.”

“It w-was,” came the muffled reply. “Mr. S-Stone g-gave it to me. He lives next door. He s-said it was a w-wishing crystal.”

He tipped her chin with careful fingers to better examine her expression. “A wishing crystal?”

Tears fell in earnest now. “I dropped it—only on the carpet. B-but it broke!”

“Would you show me this special crystal, Sera?”

She knuckled tears from her eyes and caught her quivering lower lip between her teeth. When she hesitated, the “Please!” exploded from his throat in a hoarse whisper.

She scrambled from his lap to extract something from beneath her bed. And then, rising onto her knees, she held out both hands, palms upward like a supplicant bearing a gift.

Danbur’s world tilted yet again.

Cradled in each small palm was a chunk of a crystal he recognized instantly and intimately. The breaks were clean—as though the crystal had been deliberately cut. If it had been whole, the bottom half of the crystal would have been a rich amber, graduating to lighter, paler shades, with the top almost translucent.

It was danburite.
Golden
danburite to be precise. The stone he’d been named for. The stone he’d been bonded to, mind, body and soul, in a sacred ceremony witnessed only by the priests of the Shifting Sands fief and his warrior brothers.

“Dan? Dan?”

The childish voice jolted him from the past. Danbur blinked at the small fingers kneading his forearm. Against his dark skin that little hand looked too pale and fragile to be real. It took him a few moments to register that Sera had crawled onto the mattress and was kneeling beside him.

“You okay?” she asked, all huge worried eyes and quivering lips.

“A memory,” he said. “’Tis of no import.”

“Mommy’s memories make her sad, too.” Sera leaned forward, reaching for the crystal pieces she’d abandoned atop the bed.

“Do not touch them, Seraphine.” His voice lashed out, whip-like, and he bracketed her wrists, preventing her from grasping the evil things. His skull felt as though someone had smacked him with the flat of a sword. It gave one last throb and then, thank all merciful gods, the pain eased.

Sera whimpered and he released her immediately, his heart twisting as she scrambled backward on her bottom until she encountered the wall. And she huddled there, arms wrapped around her middle, the broken halves of the danburite crystal—his prison—lying on the coverlet between them like some malevolent omen.

The bared skin of Danbur’s forearm prickled as if protesting the loss of the warmth—and yes, the
comfort
—of Sera’s soft little hands. He regretted his sharpness. The crystal had broken, and gods knew it was not this child’s doing that he, a warrior, had been reduced to a superstitious, fear-filled coward.

His breath eked out in a sigh. “Forgive me, Sera. I am—” He searched for an appropriate word. “I am confused by what has happened to me.”

“And scared,” she whispered. “Of
that
, right?” She pointed to the pieces of danburite.

“Indeed.”

“It’s okay.” And then, with the ghost of smile, “I’d be confused and scared, too, if I’d just come out of a crystal. But you shouldn’t be scared of it. Mr. Stone’s my friend. He wouldn’t have given me something scary or nasty or anything.”

It took a moment for her words to register through the buzzing in his skull. “You
know
I emerged from that crystal?”

She bobbed her head. “Uh huh.”

He guessed that was an affirmative. “Did you see me emerge?”

“Nope. I was crying ’coz it broke, remember?”

He nodded, but must have appeared doubtful for she said, “Where else could you’ve come from?”