“Send the Miphates with me,” the Shadow King replies, “and I will give her to you.”
“No!” the king snarls. “You do not make demands of me, boy. You signed that agreement with your own name, sealing yourfate. You’ve taken your bride and had your fun with her. Now you’ll do as you vowed.”
“I signed an agreement forIlsevel,” the Shadow King replies. “She is mine. To do with as I please.”
“You already have Faraine.”
“But the name on the contract was Ilsevel.”
“FaraineisIlsevel!” my father bellows. “By the laws of our land, she took her dead sister’s name. She fulfills the contract.”
“But her sister is yet living. By your own laws, Larongar, this girl is mine.”
Silence follows. My darkened eyes cannot make out my father’s face, though I see him turning in his saddle, as though seeking help from those around him. No help comes, however, and finally he addresses the Shadow King once more. “Send her to Beldroth. Let the witch treat her wounds. She’s no good to you dead.”
“She is no good to me alive either.”
“You may take her home, a healed wife.”
“I have a wife.”
“You’ll have two!”
“I need mages. Not wives.”
Another long silence. My fate hangs in the balance, but somehow I cannot find the strength to care. I only want to stay safe inside this cocoon of dark magic, hidden from the suffering which stalks me. What difference does it make which of these kings carries me away in triumph? My existence will not bematerially altered. Only let me not be in pain.
“I lost her once,” my father speaks again at last, his voice heavy. “I thought it would kill me. But it did not.” He breathes out a long exhale, and the indistinct shadow of his bulk seems to straighten, massive shoulders squaring. “Do what you will with her, King Vor. I do not release you from your vows. Nor will I send my mages to your world.”
So does my father declare the limit of his love for me. His love is real, yes—but a love he is ready and willing to sacrifice for greater goals. It is a truth I have always known, and I feel neither surprise nor sorrow. What have I to sorrow over? Just let me remain numb. Oh gods in heaven, let me remain numb!
One of the Shadow King’s people growls in his ear, urging for violence in a language I do not know. But he looks down at me. Though I cannot see his face clearly through my slitted eyelids, I sense an unexpected wave of compassion mingled with his intense frustration. He answers in the same growling language, and when his warrior tries to protest, he interrupts forcefully and barks a command.
I see the warrior salute, turn, and bellow in the harsh troldish tongue:“Drag-or, ortolarok!”
“Rhozah!” they respond. Commotion fills the air as mounted trolls form up, ready to march away, out of this world. And will they carry me with them? I can summon no more than a mild curiosity even as my head rests against the troll king’s shoulder.
“You can’t do this, Vor,” my father protests. “The alliancestands! I order you to honor it by the power of your written name.”
The Shadow King ignores him. Cradling me with uncharacteristic tenderness, he watches until all his people have passed through the arch of what I guess to be a Between Gate, crossing from this reality into another. It takes time—his fighting force is numerous, all the monsters he brought with him to break the siege on Evisar and destroy the hopes of all the brave Licornyn who followed their king there in a last, desperate attempt to reclaim their decimated world. I think upon it dispassionately; faces flit through my mind without calling to life any emotion. No pain can get through this dark spell, not even the pain of their losses. It is merely something which has happened, far away, to people who might as well be strangers.
At last, when every other troll has passed through the gate, the Shadow King turns to my father once more. He strides toward him where he sits on his tall horse and, with a heave of his powerful arms, all but tosses me into Larongar’s hands. My father catches me, draws me into his lap, draped limp across the saddle.
“Your daughter Ilsevel,” King Vor says. “Returned to you. Untouched. Our contract is now void, Larongar. We shall not see one another again.”
And so the man who was meant to be my husband passes out of my life altogether, leaving me wrapped in dark spells and my father’s arms. My mind, exhausted, slips gratefully back into oblivion.
2
TAAR
“Give me to drink, Taarthalor.”
The voice continues to plague me, no longer a shout but an insidious whisper, like a sear of fire across my soul.
“Pour out blood unto me.”
I long to dive back into that darkness to which the voice beckons. It would be better to drown there, to let it fill up my lungs, my being, to infuse every cell of my body until I am nothing but what horror it makes of me. Devoid of my own memory, devoid of my own selfhood. Better such a fate than to acknowledge what has happened.
