“Yes. But not one I wish to tell. Not tonight.” I grin then and twist to look at him. “Your turn, warlord. What is your favorite childhood memory?”
His face looks sad. Remembering how abbreviated his childhood was, I wish suddenly that I could take back that lightly-spoken question. I rest my hand on his chest and say quickly, “You don’t have to, of course. Only . . . only what you want to share.”
“I want to share everything with you, myzylnala.All the good, all the bad. Everything in between.” He breathes out a great sigh. “I feel there will never be enough time for all I want to do with you.”
A sudden electricity sparks in the atmosphere. I realize that he’s going to kiss me. He was always going to kiss me, whatever the two of us may have pretended to the contrary. There was simply no way we could come out here, alone, in the dark, far from watching eyes and not kiss.And more than kiss,I think, with a sudden pooling of heat. Oh yes. Yes, much more. Vows be hanged.
My hand, resting on his chest, slides slowly up to his throat and onto his cheek. He gazes at me so intently, and I see how he wars with himself, fighting to remember that vow. Then he starts to lean toward me, shifting me in his arms until I am underneath him, and his huge bulk blocks out the expanse of starry sky. “Oh,zylnala,” he rumbles, bowing his head and tucking his face into the crook of my neck and shoulder. “My songbird, my love.” His head turns. His lips find my neck, a chaste brush of contact. But it lights me on fire.
“Seven days,” I whisper, in case he needs a reminder.
“So long,” he groans. “So very long.” His hand glides down my thigh, grips my skirts, hiking them up and up until his fingers brush bare skin. I drag in a shuddering gasp as little sparks of light and sensation dance up my leg, swirl in my gut. He kisses my neck again, slower this time, more lingering. I close my eyes, pull him closer. I can feel thevelrawinding around us, pulsing gently in thenight. Drawing us closer, closer.
This is right,I think, the words dancing through my mind like a wild song.This is right, so right, and the vows he made to Halaema so wrong. And if those vows are wrong, would it not be right to break them?
His fingers trail up the flesh of my leg, under the mounds of my skirt. He finds my hip bone and smooths the pad of his thumb down, slowly, slowly, until it reaches my small clothes. There he runs an exploratory touch along my seam, just a little pressure, but enough to make me utter a shuddering cry. “Taar!” I gasp, turning and taking the lobe of his ear between my teeth. He rubs me again, and I moan. “Taar, please . . . please . . .”
His mouth slots over mine. And I am lost in the dizzying plunge of pure delight. My senses fill to the brim with him, him, only him. The size of him, the scent of him, the wild heat of his soul. I want to burn in that blaze. My leg wraps around his waist, and my arms twine around his neck, as I open my mouth wider, wider.
A sudden shrieking cry pierces the night.
I pull back from Taar, turning my face to one side. “What was that?”
Taar does not answer. His mouth catches mine again, pulling me back into his embrace, and his hand moves under my skirts. My heart throbs, torn between desire and fear. But when the shriek comes again, I push against his chest. “Don’t you hear that?” I gasp.
“Hear what?” he asks, his voice husky. His mouth movesalong my jaw, to my throat. “There is nothing out here,zylnala.Just the two of us.”
As though to mock him, the sound comes again, a painful squeal like twisted metal, burning across my mind. I scream in response, and push Taar away. He backs off, kneeling before me. “What is it?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”
I press my hands to the sides of my head, shaking all over. I know that sound. I’ve heard it before. Oh gods, no, no, no, let it not be happening again! Desperately I scramble to my feet, yanking my skirts back down into place. I turn to the dark landscape, away from the encampment. To that swath of unpopulated land, lost under night’s shadow. Another scream echoes through the air, striking me like a blow to the heart.
I start to run. “Ilsevel!” Taar shouts behind me, but I don’t heed him. I’ve heard this song before, and I know the source. Diira and Elydark respond to it as well—I see them a little ways to my right, galloping in the same direction. They outpace me, but I run on, Taar following at my heels. The ground rises under my feet, and I scramble up the incline and look into a shallow bowl below me.
“No,” I whimper.
Vellara,Diira sings into my head.Vellara, we are too late.
I know she’s right. But when I see the shining form of a licorneir pinned down under the black fibers of a chaeora net, I cannot help myself. Slipping and sliding uncertainly in the dark, I make my way down the hillock, deaf to Taar’s rumbling voice behind me. My ears,my head, my heart, is full of nothing but that agonized, broken song which shrieks and wails with pain, with loss. With death.
The licorneir’s throat has been cut. It can make no sound with its physical body anymore, not with such a gush of blood flowing out into the ground. This song I hear is pure spirit, the death throes of an ancient being who belongs among the stars. It is an unholy sound, a song never meant to be sung in this world.
I cannot leave it alone. Diira is right—there’s nothing we can do for the beast now. But I won’t leave it to gasp out these last, agonized breaths. I draw near and collapse to my knees beside the dying creature. It’s a wild licorneir, avelrhoarbeast. Though the body is skeletal, covered only in scraps of burnt flesh, I think perhaps I recognize it. It’s one of the Rocaryn licorneir, hearttorn from the recent loss of its rider to thevardimnar. I remember seeing it burst into flame and gallop away on the first day after we crossed the Morrona. He must have been following us from a little distance, lost and afraid.
Until someone captured him in this net and sliced open his throat with a cursed knife.
Taar stands behind me, tall and silent. His hand comes down upon my shoulder, gripping me in quiet support. When he speaks at last, however, it is no word of comfort he offers. Instead he gives voice to the dread we both feel, but which I haven’t the courage to name: “Shanaera.”
I close my eyes. I know he’s right; she’s the one who did this.This beast’s suffering is a message from her to us. She wants us to know she’s out there. Close by. Watching us even now perhaps.
“Come.” Taar’s grip on my shoulder tightens. “We need to get back. It’s not safe here.”
I shake my head. “Let me stay with him. Let me sing him on to the end.”
He wants to protest but swallows it back. Instead he stands with his hand on the hilt of his sword, even as I bow over the licorneir’s proud, broken, hideous face. Somehow my trembling voice begins to sing, desperate to find a comforting harmony to blend into this death-song, which spills out in ragged spirals from its soul. Blood from that open gash pulses onto the ground, soaking my skirts, and my tears fall unchecked to spatter across the burnt bone skull. But I sing on, nonetheless. Diira joins me and, after a little while, Elydark sings as well. At the very least this poor being is not alone in his final suffering.
And when at last my song trails away into silence, I kneel over the carcass of a dead unicorn in the land of Cruor and weep until no more tears will come, while my husband stands guard over me in this hell-stricken world.
20
