Alvere set me down at my request as I sought my friends. Silence was still and looking healthy, but hadn’t returned to consciousness after Ant had healed him. Princess was sleeping, her hands and head were bandaged. Fin looked rough, covered in a lot of bandages, many of which were soaked with blood.
“Will he live?” I asked Alvere, knowing the prince had no more information than I did. But a nearby woman, small and dark — a Fey — replied to me.
“He will live, though he may be some time in recovering.” The small woman seemed to be tending the many wounded in here.
Finally, Sparrow, who sat up on her cot when we came by. She looked rough, a bandage on her head and many others covering parts of her. Yet she smiled when she saw me. “I… didn’t know what happened to you. I lost consciousness and woke to the Fey tending to me.” Her smile grew. “I’m so happy you’re alive.” A tear traced her cheek.
I couldn’t share her joy. I was happy she was alive, but I was consumed by sorrow over the others who weren’t. “Too many died,” was my reply to her. And saying that, the words flooded out of me and I broke down again, falling to my knees and sobbing through my tirade. “They died because of me, died for me. I got them all killed. I’m a curse upon this House. I killed Maverick! He died… I… saw the life go out of him. He was so full of life and now it’s gone. How can I ever…?” I babbled some more, incoherent words through my tears. I was lifted to sit up on Sparrow’s bed and felt her and Alvere both embracing me, holding me as I blubbered and wept. Yet the pain wouldn’t leave me. It was a thorn in my soul, no a thorn was too small, it was a mountain of agony, made of razor-sharp stone, tearing through me.
At some point, I lost consciousness.
I woke in Alvere’s bed, but he wasn’t with me.
I could tell it was light outside.
I rose, still feeling weak.
You should rest, Auwei said.
I ignored her and stumbled out into the common area. Alvere was there, looking tired, speaking to the small Fey woman from the night before. It was she who noticed me first and hushed their conversation, ending it. Alvere came to me.
“You shouldn’t be up. Rest.”
“I’ll rest when I’m dead,” I said, voice bitter and harsh.
“There is nothing more to do now,” he said.
“There is something to do,” I spat back. “I’m going to go to the Elistan camp and kill them all. You and your army can come with me, or not, I don’t care.”
Alvere sighed. “My army is in no shape to fight. I have all able-bodied men digging in, building fortifications. We cannot advance and cannot allow them to advance. We must hold here, but we have far too few men.” He sighed. “Their attack was a success. Nearly twelve hundred of my men died last night and almost two thousand others are wounded.” He sat me on a nearby cot, an empty one. I wondered if the person who had been on it had healed or died. In my current mood, and given what Alvere had just said, I presumed they were dead. “The enemy lost roughly six hundred by our count, perhaps more if they took some of their dead with them. And we don’t know their wounded. Your Midnight is trying to do some scouting for us to find out more.” He looked down at the thick rug over the earthen floor. Our numbers are roughly even now, and they’ll end up with more once all reinforcements arrive. We need to be fortified by then.” His voice broke a little. “I don’t know what to do, Legs, I…”
I had an answer. “Let me go and kill them all.”
“You can’t!” he shouted at me. He was at his wits’ end too. I knew it, but I had no sympathy for him. I had no feelings at all, only the hollow need for revenge. I needed to hurt something, kill something. “You can’t,” he said again softly, the bluster having left him. “Please, I can’t lose you.”
Too late, I was already lost.
No, Legs, you have so much to live for! Yes, there is revenge, but later, when you are healthier and have friends and allies to help you. There is love, for Silence and Sparrow and Alvere, and all the others still living of your House! There is the future. You are the one who is going to tear down the corruption within Elista. It won’t be today, but you will. It’s already been seen. Believe in that. Believe in something. Spirits, you feel so empty. This isn’t you!
Yet all I heard of that was:you feel so empty.
I am empty, I said to Auwei.
No, you’re not,her voice was stern.You have me inside you at the very least, and I won’t let you give up and die!
I don’t want to die. I want to kill. Kill them all. Kill everyone who did this!
No, Legs.Auwei was stern.I can feel your true emotions. You say you want to kill, but in truth, you want to go into the enemy and thrash about taking some of them with you as you die. You think dying will ease the pain, but all it does is move your pain onto others. And you don’t want that, do you? Do you want Silence and Sparrow and the prince to feel what you’re feeling now?
I felt something go hard inside me as I realized the truth of Auwei’s words. I did want to die. I wanted my death to have meaning, because then my life would have meaning, and those who had died would have died for something. And no, I wouldn’t wish my current state upon anyone.
But… just because I saw that truth, didn’t mean I liked it. If I couldn’t die, then what could I do? All of what Auwei said earlier was true, there were things that could be done, but not now, perhaps not for some time. And that gaping chasm of time between now and then was the emptiness in my soul; an unending abyss into which I fell and fell and fell.
I rose stiffly. “I’ll go back to bed then,” I said to Alvere, and he smiled. Perhaps he’d thought his words — his love — had swayed me, but they hadn’t. I felt hollower than ever. I returned to his room and fell into the bed and lay there, unsleeping, unable to rest, staring into the dark void that was my soul.
Days passed.
Weeks?
