"No, sweet one. He and I were evenly matched. I was weakened from the energy distortion in your world, he from the molecular difference in mine. He had to go home, as we subsist on only energy here. There is no food or water to replenish him... or blood. Which is why, as much as I would enjoy your enduring company, you cannot stay for an extended visit, either."
"That is so deep," she murmured, looking at the room again with new eyes, her gaze fastened to the pool.
Cain cocked his head to the side and motioned toward the scepter with his chin. "You must have really thought we had done bodily injury to each other to come with the healing rod of Imhotep."
"I did," Damali said quietly, so glad that she'd found Cain this way. "So did your mother. We were both worried about you guys." "My mother?" he said, his tone so tender that Damali could barely breathe. "You went to her on my behalf?"
Damali nodded. "She told me to tell you that she loves you and always has... always will."
Cain stood and walked down the long edge of the pool, his back to Damali. She could tell that deep emotions had propelled him from his seat, and that he was battling his composure. She hadn't meant to upset him, but had promised his mother that a message would be delivered.
His regal waist-length locks swayed gently side to side as his long, calm strides moved his body like living fluid along the reflective water's edge. "Please tell her that a thousand lifetimes can never blot the stain on my soul for breaking her heart," he said through a shaky inhale. His voice dropped an octave to soft whisper. "Tell that queen of all that is human, I love her, too."
Damali almost burst out crying, but took a deep breath instead. "I'm so sorry that I picked at an old wound, I just promised her, though, for the key into Nod, that I'd--"
Cain held up his hand, closed his eyes, as he turned to face Damali. "No apology for giving me a gift beyond compare. That you found out my name, went to such lengths to visit me with no harsh judgment in your eyes, and came to me with my mother's message on your beautiful lips . . ." He looked at the scepter in her hand. "My mother is always trying to fix what she never broke. She has sent you the spiritual teacher's rod, the healer's rod with kundalini energy tapped into the microcosm." He closed his eyes again. "Ever hopeful that I would not turn out like my father again, she sends this as a message of her hope. You did not need the staff to enter. As an in-flesh Neteru, you can enter at your focused will."
Damali looked at the staff and at Cain as he opened his eyes and pure tenderness reflected back from them. "She--"
"Is worried, by all rights," he said, lifting his chin and raking his hair. He stopped moving and stared at Damali. "Do you know how long it has been since I laid eyes on my beloved mother?"
Damali could only shake her head. His pain was so profound that it entered her pores. All she wanted to do at that moment was hug him and take it from him. How could this man be the harbinger of evil?
"I served my earth sentence as a banished man," he said quietly, no bitterness in his voice, just weary acceptance. "I lived a long time, tried to make things right by marrying many wives, living a respectable life, and caring for and loving all my earthly children. But when I died, the realms could not decide where I should go. Both had reasonable claim, so I was reincarnated here, with full memory. The boredom was nearly maddening, at first. However, I tethered my mind to learning all from every papyrus scroll in the great libraries."
"But you still have the blade of Ausar," Damali said, standing, collecting the staff, and going to him.
"Indeed," Cain replied, motioning toward it on a faraway bench. "The Roundtable of Kings wanted to see if I would bring order from chaos, would be able to even hold it--a sign that I had not gone dark."
She came close enough to him to place her hand on the center of his chest. The staff touched the floor as her palm connected with his skin.
His eyes slid closed and a slight shudder passed through him. Now she knew why Eve had sent the rod with her.
"Enough pain for a lifetime, the last one or this," Damali whispered. "I feel you are a good soul."
He covered her hand as he drew a ragged breath. "The balm... you would offer me a Neteru heart balm?"
"You deserve it," Damali whispered, fully embracing him in a hug. "You are a good man, son of my queen mother, of Neteru brethren, with silver in your soul. What happened before was tragic, should have never happened. But I also believe in redemption."
He held her tightly with a sob trapped in his chest, just rocking her and kissing the crown of her head. She could hear him about to speak several times, but then heard his words get choked back down his throat on a thick, mucous swallow. Yet she also knew he was too proud to allow his tears to fall. So she didn't require that he speak, or look at her, and simply allowed her balm to penetrate his heart through the patient strokes down his back.
After his inner storm passed, he held her away from him, brushed her mouth, and let go of her to walk across the room.
"You should see what I guard," he said with regal authority.
Damali watched wide-eyed as he stripped the sheath of fabric away from his body at the door of his closet, and began searching for his armor. Totally mesmerized, she had to find a bench to sit down on before she fell down.
"While here, and should you ever come due to a barrier break in the energy seals between our kingdoms, you cannot judge by parental lineage."
She wasn't sure what he was talking about. His baritone voice was running all through her, the military battle, no-nonsense tone in it making the hair on her arms rise. She almost wanted to just start some mess to see the brother pull a blade, but tucked that insane thought away and tried to listen as he mounted his golden breastplate, and put his helmet under his arm. Have mercy . . .
"Half-human, half-angel does not mean that entity is good. It may have made a choice to use the preternatural power in a negative way-- just as my grandfather fell from grace. Conversely, I have a best friend, her father was a dragon... but she has a heart of gold. This is what makes this realm so challenging. It is a mirror image of earth, a gray zone, where choice is based upon an individual soul, not a broad category or fila. Any entity with a soul can make a choice, hence be redeemed, unlike original demons created in the nether realms."
"Then how do you know?" Damali whispered. Cain was blowing her mind with new knowledge.
"You must sense the vibrations off the entity in question. Hence, I, no more than you, am interested in having the earth prematurely flooded. There must be a very strict scrutiny for passage out to assist in the final war."
Damali nodded. This brother was pushing so many right buttons she was sure she was glowing. "Like a celestial or interdimensional passport system."