I failed her and lost her.
Lost her heart, lost her love.
It was much easier to lose her love than it was to win it. Almost as though it was inevitable. Was I truly foolish enough to think I’d found something lasting? Some eternal bond that would sustain me through this life and beyond? Perhaps this is the madness that drives most couples to make such solemn vows, the blindness which prevents them from recognizing their own stupidity.
A figure approaches from the shadows. Halamar. I turn slowly, look into hisvelrhoarface, and see the echo of my wife’s suffering in his eyes. How vividly I recall the moments when he too woke from that initial stupor caused by his licorneir’s death. How he rejected Tassa, cast her from him, and plunged his soul into the abyss of solitary self-loathing and pain. Theirs was not a marriage bond, but the heartbreak my sister experienced was profound.
I find I am closer to hating Halamar now, in this moment, than I’ve ever been before. Perhaps he reads that hatred in my gaze, for he takes a step back, his body braced as though for attack. But he says only, “Luinar,” and bows.
I feel sick. I reach for thevelraon impulse, searching for that life-giving connection which has nurtured me these last many weeks, only to be starkly reminded of its absence. It feels as though I’ve had a limb hacked off.
“She will return to her people,” I say in response to a question he has not asked. “As soon as she has recovered enough to make the journey, you and Sylcatha will take her to the Between Gate beyond the Luin Stone and on through Wanfriel, back to her world. See that you leave her safely with her own kind, then return here as soon as you may.”
Halamar’s lips part in a wordless breath of sound. He closes them again, sets his jaw. Then finally says in a low voice, “She will leave you then.”
“Did you think she wouldn’t?” I snarl. “You left Tassa, didn’t you?”
He inclines his head in humble acknowledgement. “I hoped she would be stronger than I was,” he admits. “I hoped the song with which the gods have gifted her—”
“The gods bestow their gifts without reason or thought.” I declare this blasphemy coldly. In that moment I believe it with all my heart. “We cannot count on such gifts nor build our hopes upon them. We have only our own strength on which to depend and whatever means are within our grasp. And make no mistake, Halamar,” I add, drawing a step closer to my warrior and staring him dead in the eye. “I intend to grasp hard. We have come this far—the time is now. We will drag our enemies from that tower, sear the flesh from their bones, and scatter their ashes to the four winds. My purpose is clear, my path set before my feet. I will let no other concerns blind me to the duty which is my birthright.”
Halamar meets my gaze without blinking. He hasno answer to give, nothing to offer other than a short bow. Disgusted, I turn away from him, march through the encampment without a set goal in mind, simply the desire to create distance between myself and the person even now resting inside thatdakath.
“Taar!” Halamar’s voice arrests me. I stop, but do not turn, and his words glance off my iron-set shoulders. “Taar, do not think too harshly of her. Perhaps you hate her now. Perhaps it is the only way. But in time to come, try to offer her whatever grace you can spare.” He is silent for a moment before adding, “To be hearttorn is a terrible fate.”
Spitting out a curse, I march on. There are people all around me, warriors at their campfires, sharpening their blades. Some call out to me, but I cannot understand their words, cannot see their faces. I have but one thought in my head now, and no room to spare for any of their concerns.
At some point Elydark joins me. I become aware of him, walking at my side, and of the song trying to reach through to my heart. I block up my ears, block up my soul, unwilling to receive that melody. I do not want comfort. Not with this witheredvelrahanging from my breast, not with this broken rune burning my skin. Not with my heart hewn nearly in two, nothing but a few strands of straining flesh holding it together. I don’t need comfort. I need action.
I need oblivion.
So I leave behind the Licornyn encampment and, without pausing, progress in among the Noxaurians. I pass between theirfires and through their ranks. Upon seeing my face, not a single fae dares so much as growl at me. I am not accosted until I reach Ruvaen’s pavilion, where two guards move to interfere with my progress. I scarcely register their existence. My arm lashes out, grabbing one by the throat, throwing him into the second, so that they both topple like felled trees. Then I throw open the tent flap and step into the luxurious space within.
Ruvaen looks up from the sword he’s sharpening across his knee. He smiles. “Ah! Taar. So you have allowed yourself to be torn away from your pretty bride’s bedside at last. Is she feeling any better after her little misadventure?”
“Give it to me.”
Ruvaen’s smile falters. “Give what to you? Come, my friend, I can’t go bestowing gifts if I know not what gifts you demand.”
“Give me the virulium.” I hold out my trembling hand. Darkness closes in on the edges of my sight, a black tunnel through which I can see nothing other than Ruvaen’s firelit face. “Now.”
Another voice echoes in my mind, blending in weird harmony with mine:“Give me to drink, Taarthalor. Pour out blood unto me.”
29
ILSEVEL
I don’t know how long I drift in and out of the broken song. Taar leaves thedakath,and I collapse on the bed, only to float away into pain that seems to last many years. And yet I feel as though mere moments have slipped by when I open my eyes again. Mere moments since I lost my Diira, mere moments since I broke my vows and set Taar free.
I am not strong enough to face my own existence. So I close my eyes and drift away again.
Thevardimnarcomes and goes. Without pattern, without reason. Here and gone again, random and devastating. I wonder if it will take me, but there’s always a powerful song-barrier between me and it, strong enough that I can hear it faintly, even through all the broken chords in my mind. For some reason they are determined to keep me alive and protected, regardless of my own will in the matter.
Sometimes when I awaken, Sylcatha is there. Or Halamar. They force ilsevel-purified water down my throat, the only thing I can ingest without vomiting. I’m not grateful. I wish they would stop and just let my physical body fade away. Only I know that death will not deliver me. Nothing will. So I might as well go on living with this pain. Living with this limp, spiritless body upon which Diira’s blood still gleams, a stain that no amount of scrubbing can remove.
Cover yourself, Vellara,she’d said, her last words to me.Cover yourself in my blood.
She meant to protect me. But there was no protection in the end from the pain of her loss. I wish I had been the one the hobgoblins ripped apart instead. That would be better—that pain would be over by now.
