Page 14 of Dark Shaman: The Lost Treasure (The Children Of The Gods #98)

ESAG

T he small closet that served as Esag's workshop held the lingering scent of cedar shavings and the faint sweetness of the oils he used to finish his carvings.

The final product would be made with stone, but wood was easier to work with, and he could create many more figurines until he was satisfied with the result.

Only then would he switch to stone and create the masterpiece that would induce a prophetic dream.

In theory.

There were no guarantees of that happening even if he got the figurine just right.

Sitting hunched over his workbench, he was looking at Khiann's portrait as the figurine was taking shape beneath his hands. The mischievous eyes of his childhood friend seemed to taunt him, egging him on like he used to when they were both young lads.

"You'd find this funny, wouldn't you?" Esag murmured to the portrait. "Watching me sweat to produce an image of you in wood. I can just hear your stupid jokes."

Esag sighed, the knife moving with the muscle memory of five thousand years. He didn't need to look down anymore—his fingers knew the wood's grain, could feel where to coax out the curve of a cheekbone or the angle of a jaw.

A shadow fell over him, but he didn't lift his head.

"Roven and I are heading to the Hobbit Bar," Davuh said from the doorway. "It's time to call it a day and have some fun. Put the wood aside and come with us."

Esag didn't look up from his work. "I can't. I need to finish this one."

Roven joined Davuh in the doorway, both of them crowding the narrow space. "You haven't left this damn closet for anything other than food and sleep."

"I also left it to take showers and attend dinners." He kept working even though his friends had a point.

"The clan ladies, Esag," Davuh said with a grin. "They've been asking about you. This village is like a free candy store for immortals, and you are behaving like a monk."

Esag's knife paused for just a moment before resuming its steady rhythm. "I can't think of anything else until I fulfill my duty to the princess."

Roven laughed. "In all the years I've known you, you could never resist female companionship. But when you could finally find a proper mate among your own kind, you're spending all of your time in a closet like a hermit."

The words stung. Esag set down his knife and finally looked up at his friends—brothers, really, after all they'd been through together.

"Go," he said, forcing a smile. "Have fun. Drink some of that excellent whiskey Atzil keeps behind the bar and look for your truelove mates. Maybe you'll get lucky tonight."

Davuh shook his head. "Don't you want that too?"

"What I want is to finish this figurine so we can find Khiann. Nothing is more important than that."

The two knew better than to argue with him when he got into one of his moods. They'd learned over the millennia when to let him be.

"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 at all. 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.

He held the carving up to the light, comparing it to the portrait. It was good work, maybe some of his best. But was it good enough? Would it capture whatever essence was needed to trigger a vision, even though it was made from wood and not stone?

"Only one way to find out," he murmured.

He set the figurine down and reached for his finishing oils.

This was the final step, the one that would bring out the wood's natural beauty and preserve the carving for years to come.

As he worked the oil into the grain, he thought about permanence, about the things that lasted and the things that didn't.

Even now, after all this time, he could close his eyes and see Gulan in that garden, sunlight catching the lighter tones in her dark hair, her green eyes wide with wonder as he'd told her she was beautiful.

She'd been so surprised by the compliment as if no one had ever told her that before. As if she didn't know that her strength was magnificent, her loyalty precious, her heart pure gold.

"I should have broken that engagement and married you properly, given you the life you deserved."

But the truth was that he hadn't been her truelove mate. He'd been merely an infatuation, an object of desire for a young girl who was growing into a woman.

What she had with Anandur was the real thing, and that was what the Fates had planned for her all along. Esag hadn't been meant to be hers, and apparently, he hadn't been meant to be Ashegan's either.

Was his truelove mate waiting for him somewhere out there? Had he earned the right to such a boon?

He'd suffered, but he hadn't sacrificed. Not when a sacrifice had been required of him.