Half asleep, Danilo made the safeguarding sign of cristo-foro prayers. It must be comforting to have their faith, Regis thought. Danilo’s smothered sobbing tore at Regis like claws. He had no way of knowing that far away in the castle Lew Alton had also started out of nightmare, shaking with the guilt of the most dreadful crime he could imagine, but Regis did find himself wondering what form Danilo’s nightmare had taken. He dared not ask, dared not risk the intimacy of midnight confidences.
Danilo had his crying under control now. He asked, “It’s not… not threshold sickness again?”
“No. No, only a nightmare. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“This damned place is full of nightmares . ..” Danilo muttered. Regis felt him reach out for reassurance, for contact. He held himself aloof from the touch. After a long time he knew Danilo slept again. He lay awake, watching the dying remnants of the fire on the hearth. The fire that had been a raging forest fire from his troubled childhood, that had become the great form of fire. Sharra, of the legends. What, in the name of all the Gods, were they doing here at Aldaran? Something here was out of control, dangerous.
Fire was the key, he knew, not only because the memory of a forest fire had brought back the memory he’d buried, but it was worse than that. Lew looked as if he’d been doing something dangerous. And all this … this dislocation of memory, these nightmares of cruelty and lust … something terrible was going on here.
And Regis had Danilo to protect. He came here for that, and he vowed again to fulfill it
Weighed down under the unendurable burden of laran, knowing guilt even for his dreams, shouldering the heavy knowledge of what he had forgotten, Regis dared not sleep again. He thought instead. The mistake was in sending him to Nevarsin, he knew. Anywhere else he could have come to terms with it He knew, rationally, that what had happened to him, what was happening to him now, was nothing to bring such catastrophic guilt and self-hatred. He had even minded when the cadets thought him Dyan’s minion.
But that was before he knew what Dyan had done….
Dyan’s shadow lay heavy on Regis. And heavier on Danilo. Regis knew he could not bear it if Dani were to think of him as he thought of Dyan … even if Regis thought of him that way….
His mind reeling under it, Regis knew suddenly that he had a choice. Faced by this unendurable self-knowledge, he could do again what he had done when he was twelve years old, and this time there would be no lifting of the barrier. He could forget again. He could cut off the unwelcome, unwanted self-knowledge, cut off, with it, the undesired, unendurable laran.
He could be free of it all, and this time no one would ever be able to break through it again. Be free of it all: heritage, and responsibility. If he had no laran, it would not matter if he left the Comyn, went out into the Empire never to return. He even left an heir to take his place. He had done it once. He could do it again. He could meet Danilo in the morning with no guilty knowledge and no fear, meet him innocently, as a friend. He need never again fear that Danilo could reach his mind and learn what Regis now felt he would rather die than reveal.
He had done it once. Even Lew could not break that barrier.
The temptation was almost unendurable. Dry-mouthed, Regis looked at the sleeping boy lying heavily across his feet. To be free again, he thought, free of it all.
He had accepted Dani’s oath, though, as a Hastur. Had accepted his service, and his love.
He was no longer free. He’d said it to Danilo, and it was true for him, too. They had no choice, it had come to them, and they had only the choice to misuse it or meet it with honor.
Regis did not know if he could meet it with honor, but he knew he’d have to try. Chickens couldn’t go back into eggs.