They are not feral red. They are clear, intelligent, and warm. They are hazel.
He smiles. A small, gentle smile. I gasp, my heart resumes its beat.
His voice is a deep, gentle, impossible rumble that I remember from my dreams.
"Betty."
29
THREK
Silence.
For the first time in a life I can now remember, my mind is quiet.
The screaming is gone. The constant, boiling, red haze of the elven magic, the unceasing, agonizing demand to kill and break that has been my only companion... it is gone. It did not fade. It was burned away, scoured from my very soul by that white, healing light.
I feel… peace.
But I also feel cold.
A sharp, biting cold is on my skin. I open my eyes.
The world is white and gray. Soft, gentle flakes of snow are falling from a swirling, purple-gray sky. The air smells of ozone and ash.
I am… me.
I am lying in the snow, and I am naked. My body feels… light. It feels wrong.
I lift a hand.
It is not a hand. It is a claw.
No... I blink, and the memory of the claw fades.
I lift my hand again, holding it in the strange, pearlescent light.
It is a hand.
Five fingers. Not three and a thumb. Five. The skin is deep green, not gray. The nails are blunt and short, not black daggers.
My hand.
The memories slam into me, a flood of agony and light. The Wildspont. Larda’s black, killing magic. The searing, final pain as my back exploded.
And Betty.
My heart seizes in my chest. I push myself up, my muscles coiling with a new, unfamiliar grace. My body is not a mountain of rage. It is smaller, taller, leaner. It aches, but the wounds… the Worg-bite, the raider's blades… they are gone.
I am whole.
I see her.
She is curled on the moss and snow a few yards away, a small, broken pile of rags and grief. Her body is racked with sobs, a raw, desperate sound that tears through the new silence in my head. She is clutching something to her chest.
The wooden star.
She is grieving me.
