Risen (10 page)

He let the fire scorch his skin as
he strung his jacket up on several branches behind himself to
create a small canopy of sorts, to trap the warmth from the fire
and feed it back onto him as well as break the soft breeze. Next,
he trussed his clothes, socks, and boots up close enough to the
fire to dry without burning.

Fueling the flames to an angry roar,
Risen started to get feeling back in his lips and hands first.
Careful not to burn his feet, he rubbed them further until the
prickly, tingling feeling showed up. At last, the sensation of
warmth returned.

* * *

“Good,” Ravan said, and the
mercenary sat down next to his naked and thawing son. Draping a
blanket around the shoulders of the boy, he asked, “What did you
feel first?”

“Panic. I couldn’t breathe. It
closed my throat when I hit the water. I thought I was going to
suffocate.”

Risen pulled the blanket beneath his
buttocks and tucked his legs up so that he was enshrouded in it,
holding the edges of it up at the sides so the front of him was
exposed to the warmth of the blaze. The firelight danced across his
young features in a beautiful way, and his pale skin turned from an
ashen pink back to the amber that it normally was.

Ravan was taken by how much his son
resembled someone he once knew, someone who visited him on a lonely
night, sat with him in his darkest hour. He tried to focus on the
lesson. “That is the greatest risk, my son. You must not panic,
must not try to breathe in when this happens.” He gestured with a
rolling motion of his hand.” Blow the air out. If you suck your
breath in too hard when you cannot breathe, when your throat is
closed, it will hurt your chest, and your lungs will suffer. I have
seen this happen. Then, it is like drowning all over again, only
this time you would not survive.”

“I tried to think about
that—breathe out first—tried to remember, and it helped. My throat
finally opened, and then I could take the air in. But it hurt. I
had to really concentrate. I just wanted to draw the air in so
badly!”

“Yes, and then?”

“Pain. It was so painful in the
cold! How fast that passed, though, and then I couldn’t feel
anything. It made my thoughts…slow, almost sleepy. I was worried,
crawling out, that when I stood my feet would just break off. I
couldn’t tell if my ankles were working.”

“So you were careful getting
out.”

“Yes, very.”

“And if it’d been an ice shelf? If
you’d fallen through a lake and had a ways to go before you reached
the shore?”

“I would have belly crawled, kept
my weight spread across the surface so I wouldn’t break through.
Then I would crawl back the direction from which I’d come because I
would know that it had already held me once.”

“Excellent.” Ravan stoked the fire
for his son. “What did you do next?”

“I tried to get my heart working
more, get the blood coursing better, but it was so cold I thought I
would fail with the fire.” He met his father’s glance. “I was
afraid, Father. I thought I would die.”

“How did you succeed?” Ravan urged
his son to recount every step of the harrowing
experience.

“I wanted to just give up…thought I
would cry,” the boy admitted, glancing at his thawing feet as he
rubbed at them again. Then he looked straight at his father. “But
then I thought I could…knew I could. I’ve built fire before. I just
needed to believe that I could succeed; then just focus and do
it.”

“Yes! That is it. You have already
overcome in your mind, just make it happen, make it come from your
hands.”

Risen beamed. “That is exactly it!
I’ve done this so many times before—the fire, I mean—so there was
no reason I could not make it real this time!”

“Yes! And the risk is that you are
distracted by other things—pain, cold, fear—things that try to
thwart your success. Good. Very good.” Ravan pulled from his stores
some dried meat and fruits and passed them to his son. “Here, to
replace what you’ve spent. Are you warmer now?”

“Oh, very much so. I feel safe now.
Even without the blanket, I would be all right until my clothes
dried. I know I would. I would just keep my feet out of the snow
and turn round and around to stay warm.” Risen reached for the food
and grinned, settling in for dinner.

“Yes, and you would be safe from
predators. Then you could eventually sleep, build your bed upon the
coals and recover, then concentrate on food in the
morning.”

There was a quiet span of time when
they both just studied the fire, watched the leaping life of warmth
and light. It was mesmerizing to the boy. In a while, he asked,
“Father?”

“Yes?”

“What if I failed? What if I
couldn’t breathe, or couldn’t get out of the pool or start the fire
in time?”

“I would have breathed life into
you, carried you from the pool, and started the fire.”

“And if you were not here?” Risen
wondered aloud what they were both thinking.

“If I were not here, you would have
done just as you did today…or not. You might have died.” Ravan
could not, would not, lie to his son.

Risen recalled his father saying
once, “An ugly truth was always better than a beautiful
lie.”

Ravan’s face was lit with a rare
smile. “But that is why we do this, so that you will know what to
do, how to survive. And you did!”

“Thank you, Father. I am so
fortunate to have you as my teacher!”

“A good lesson and an apt student.”
Ravan tousled the damp hair of his son, and together they enjoyed
the blaze and a good camp before returning home in the morning with
grand tales of success for Risen’s mother.

CHAPTER SEVEN

†

It was scarcely light when Risen’s
eyes flitted open. It was cold, and the near sleeping boy pulled
the blanket more over his ankles. He’d kicked it off in his sleep
as he battled St. George’s great dragon again. Moira had warned him
that reading the stories would give him dreams such as
these.

“Good,” he replied. “Much better
than just reading about it!”

Sleep tugged at the boy, coaxing
him, begging he turn from the cold of the morning and step back
into the sweet warmth of dreams. However, it was not to be. Risen’s
eyes shot open, and he bolted upright in bed. It was early, still
mostly dark, and the servants had yet to attend the fires. The
coals were long dead in the fireplace, and a chill was in his room,
but this didn’t matter at all. Nothing could chill the excitement
that would burn through his mind this early spring
morning.

He blinked again as the fancy of
dreams was replaced with the reality of life. The dragon faded, and
recollection of what could be filtered into his head. He glanced
about his room, allowing his eyes to adjust. Dark shadows danced
around him as he flung himself from beneath his blankets. In
seconds, the boy was out the room and running half naked down the
hall.

Risen barely paused at his sister’s
door, squinting to glimpse Niveus as she slept soundly, likely
wrapped in dreams of quite another sort. He wondered if he should
awaken her, take her with him this morning, and then decided he
would not. Instead, he sprinted for the stairs. Down he went,
running carelessly, spiraling toward the ground floor of the north
tower of the castle. He dressed as he ran and almost toppled from
the edge of one stone step, miscalculating it in the near
darkness.

The close call slowed him down not
one bit. Neither would there be any stopping for morning prayer.
Truthfully, he didn’t ascribe completely to the notion of such a
thing. His mother had encouraged him to find prayer in the tide of
the universe, and so he breathed a thank you to the first glimpse
of light as it peaked invitingly, a purple-gold sliver on the
horizon through the window slits of the castle tower. Then he
crossed himself and thanked a Christian God as he ran
on.

Stepping onto the landing and
through the heavy door of the tower that would lead to the
outdoors, he pulled the icy chill across his teeth, tasting the
newness of the morning. It was a magnificent feeling, and he
believed it would be an equally magnificent day.

Squinting, he could make out the
stables that lay far across the way and on a small rise. The stars
were fading against the outline of the peaks of the buildings and
castle walls. Pulling his overcoat on as he ran, he headed straight
for the barn, running fearlessly across what remained of the
winter’s slick, dead grass.

Trees stood here and there in
clusters around the castle grounds, their blackened images stark
against the bare dawn, fingers yet without spring foliage. The dark
haired boy stabbed toward them with his imaginary sword as he
ran.

“Get back!” he warned as he bolted
beneath their beckoning arms.

The stables were a good stretch
across the courtyard; onward he ran. Snow clung desperately to the
shadowy recesses beneath shrubs, against walls, and around tree
thickets, refusing to give up its final grasp on winter. Risen
snatched for a handful of it from a barberry hedge as he ran and
swore at the insult the thorns returned him, slapping his hand
against his coat to ease the sting after he tossed the snow into
his mouth.

The boy could not know for sure but
strongly suspected it had happened last night. The stable-master,
Leon, told him it likely would. And he was right—it had! A brand
new foal had dropped this morning. It was from the mare—one of her
last breedings as she was now sixteen years old—and he would soon
discover that it was a beauty, a colt as black as the stallion that
had sired it but with the mare’s kind eye. And, it was his! Father
had promised him!

Yes, Ravan had promised him the
foal. It would be his to start and bring along, and his mind
already raced with the battles the steed would carry him through.
It was almost too much for him to bear, and he slipped on the
frosty paving stone as he slid unceremoniously into the mouth of
the stables entryway in grand style.

“Leon! Leon, where is she?” he
called, meaning the mare.

“Whoa! Hold up there, boy!” the
stable-master laughed, grasping Risen by the collar as the boy flew
by. “It will be of no good to stir up the mare with your antics.”
The strong man slowed the boy and swept him up by the waist,
carrying him on his hip to the foaling stall.

“It happened! Didn’t it? It’s here!
Isn’t it?” Risen could barely contain himself, for he had great
plans for this particular horse. No one knew yet—knew what his true
intentions were. It was the greatest of secrets, for after he
trained it, after it matured and became the most perfect horse
ever, he planned on giving it as a gift…to her.

* * *

Ravan looked up from where he’d been
leaning, dark head resting on his crossed arms as he watched the
newborn foal. A smile creased his lips as he watched Leon release
his son. Risen slid in on the light of barely breaking day right up
to him—come to see the foal for himself. The boy was so full of
life, exuding excitement at every turn. His father nearly laughed
outright.

The mercenary’s childhood had not
been so kind, had not had the luxury of such a thing as unopposed
optimism. His was marred with cruelty and solitude, without the
resources Risen had. Bleak survival and death had been familiar to
Ravan for as long as he could remember. The only time he’d
experienced such freedom as Risen displayed was when he took to the
woods, discovered beauty and joy in those rare moments by himself.
Even now, he required those short quests to the forest to reset the
balance of his soul. It was still a part of who he was. But
Nicolette had been a beautiful salve for him, had quieted his
tortured heart in a wondrous way.

These thoughts didn’t create sorrow
for the war hardened mercenary. Instead he was eternally grateful
for every new day. His brother had given him this gift, and he was
happy that good fortune had been with his son and daughter from the
day they were born. That could change at any moment; no one knew
this better than Ravan did.

No, he was happier than he’d ever
been. And with each passing day, he witnessed in his son the
beloved characteristics he’d seen in his brother—the kind heart and
compassionate approach to all things. And yet the boy also had a
fierce determination all his own, perhaps the inarguable fire of
his mother blended with his father’s undying courage. Whatever the
cause, it was eternally endearing. Ravan thought it was as close to
perfection as anything he’d ever seen.

As most parents do, he saw all the
potential in the universe in the eyes of his son, the greatest
reason why he believed life should go on. Risen and Niveus were the
kind of joy he’d never imagined possible. So why had Nicolette been
so brooding as of late? True, she was ordinarily prone to deep
contemplation, something he loved about her, but recently, she
almost seemed…worried.

He frowned. Nicolette had been
disquieted as though at odds with herself, and this was not at all
like her. Nothing was more unusual than that, for she was, more
than any other, capable of great control. There should be no reason
for her to be so unnerved, for everything was better than it had
ever been!