در شکوفه های باغ گل رز
</font size></span>
They had settled for a night in each of the various little vales and woodlands, but had not yet settled. Xerxes, though he spent dawnlight in talks with Ahura, had not yet received instruction from the fierce god, and while he knew it would come, the fact that it had not gnawed at him. The day went unnoticed by Xerxes as he ventured farther into the wood, on the traced, narrow trail used often by deer. But their scent was faint, and his belly snarled with hunger. And so he pushed deeper, ears cupped for each tiny sound, for he was still a stranger in a land that did not know him. Not far off, the thick bole of an oak tree loomed, and though Xerxes could not yet see what was at its base, a pervading sense of impending emotion swept through him suddenly. He froze in his steps, rocked to his very core by the sensation, and then pink tongue swept out to limn his dried lips, and the thought of food was all but forgotten as he caught the thin tendril of scent beckoning just beyond the thick foliage. Bracing himself, his mind, the Shah stepped into the small clearing, and looked into a face that was at once his own, and was not. It was a young face, with jeweled eyes and a desertine bearing, but it was also hardened. By abandonment? hopelessness? Xerxes had loved his sons, but there could only be but a single princeling, and that had been his firstborn. Alduin. But — "You are alive," he murmured, in vague shock and a mounting sense of mingled relief and apprehension. For now, when years had separated them, and Altair surely had thought on all that had happened, with ample time to harden himself against his father, he would be hateful. "Ahura has blessed your life, and I give thanks." But he was tense, awaiting his son's response; could he even call Altair son any longer? and would the boy know him as father? |