Page 32 of Dark Shaman: The Lost Treasure
"Well, good luck," Roven said. "I hope you finally get what you are after tonight."
"Thank you." He got the knife going again.
Esag heard their footsteps fade down the hallway, heard the front door close, and then he was alone again with his thoughts and the half-formed face of a god who'd been gone for five thousand years, but possibly not dead.
That was the whole point of this exercise, wasn't it? To create something that might trigger a vision, that might lead them to where Khiann was sleeping beneath the sand.
The portrait showed Khiann young and laughing, full of life and mischief. It was nothing like the formal painting Annani had, where he looked regal, the epitome of the romantic hero.
This was Khiann as Esag had known him—friend, brother, and co-conspirator in countless adventures.
Khiann was the better male, though, and not just because he was a god and Esag was only an immortal, his servant.
His mind drifted, as it often did during these long hours of carving, back to those days in Sumer when the world had been younger and full of possibility, when he'd been engaged to Ashegan and desperate for a way out.
When Gulan had been in love with him.
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push away the memory, but it came anyway. Gulan in the garden, tall and strong and beautiful in her own unique manner. The way she'd blushed when he'd complimented her. The way she'd thrown him over her shoulder with such ease. The way she'd kissed him back with innocent passion before running away.
And then his spectacular failure. His insulting offer. The hurt in her eyes when he'd suggested she become his concubine.
"Stupid," he muttered, not sure if he was talking to his younger self or the wooden figure taking shape in his hands. "Stupid and selfish."
He'd thought he was being practical. Ashegan had the connections his family needed. Gulan had his heart. Why not have both? It had seemed so simple, so reasonable. Many immortals had similar arrangements.
But Gulan wasn't like other immortals. She was honest to her core and incapable of duplicity or compromise when it came to matters of the heart. She'd loved him, and he'd thrown that love back in her face as if it were worthless.
The knife bit too deep, and Esag cursed as he nearly ruined the curve he'd been working on. He set down the blade and rubbed his tired eyes.
Wonder had never brought it up. Not once since he had arrived in the village had she mentioned the pain he'd caused her. She was gracious and kind in a way that made his guilt worse. He'd rather she turn her back on him or demand an apology, something. But she simply treated him as an old friend, as if those painful memories belonged to different people.
Maybe they did.
Thousands of years changed a person. The young male who'd been too weak to stand up to social pressures and his family's demands was long gone. The girl who'd run away rather than watch him marry another had become a confident woman who'd survived for millennia and found her truelove mate.
The Fates had a sense of humor about these things.
Esag picked up a piece of sandpaper and began smoothing the rough edges of the carving. This was his favorite part—when the raw wood began to transform into something refined, something that captured not just the physical appearance but the essence of the subject.
He thought about what Roven had said. The clan ladies were asking about him. The possibility of finding a mate among his own kind. It should have excited him. After five thousand years of loneliness, the chance of companionship, maybe even love, should have had him racing to that bar.
But every time he thought about it, he saw Gulan's face. Not Wonder's—Gulan's. The girl who'd loved him with so much passion and whom he'd failed so spectacularly.
Some mistakes couldn't be undone, though, and some hurts couldn't be healed. He'd had his chance at love and had thrown it away for family obligations that, in the end, hadn't mattered atall. The cataclysm had come, and Ashegan, his parents, and his sisters were all gone in an instant.
He'd sacrificed Gulan's love for nothing.
Khiann's eyes emerged from the wood, that knowing look that suggested he saw more than he let on. He'd warned him not to lead Gulan on. Had he known about his feelings for her? Probably. He'd ordered Esag to find her and not to return without her because he had known that Esag was the reason she'd escaped, and that any harm that overtook her would be Esag's fault.
He'd searched for her, and once he'd realized the scope of the destruction that had befallen their lands, once he'd understood that the world they'd known was gone forever, he'd searched some more. But Gulan had vanished without a trace.
For centuries, he'd wondered. Had she made it to Kemet? Had she found happiness there? Had she thought of him at all, or had she forgotten the stupid squire who'd broken her heart?
Finding out she'd survived, that she'd been asleep in stasis all this time, that she'd woken to find love with Anandur, was a tremendous relief. She was happy. She'd found someone who valued her properly, who saw her worth and cherished it.
Everything Esag should have done but hadn't.
The figurine was nearly complete now. Just a few more details—the slight upturn of the lips that suggested Khiann was about to say something clever, the way his hair fell across his forehead. These were the things that would make it real, that might spark the vision Esag needed.
