20
TAAR
It is tempting to simply go on like this. Loving her, calling her song to life, singing in tandem with her. Filling the air of that abandoned house with our unique and beautiful music. Pausing only just long enough to eat leftover pheasant meat or ume cakes, to drink a few mouthfuls of spring water. Then to fall into each other’s arms once more, tangled up together on that pile of gold cloth.
But as the day lengthens, and Ilsevel rests, momentarily sated, on my chest, and I twirl a strand of her hair between my fingers, I know the time has come. While I hate to interrupt this moment, we’ve been foolish to remain here this long. Gloriously foolish, perhaps, but nonetheless . . .
“Ilsevel,” I say softly, “I have something I must tell you.”
“Oh?” She sounds pleased as a purring cat,but when she lifts up her head to catch my eye and sees the seriousness in my face, her own expression tightens. “Please, Taar. Can we not? Can we not spoil any of this with . . . with talk? For a little while yet?”
How much I would like to give in to her! Everything about this moment is so sweet, so sacred. But with great reluctance, I shake my head. “Unfortunately, my love, we cannot stay here. Elydark has done his best to disguise our route, but if your father has a mage of any skill at his court, our trail will soon be picked up. The last thing we need is to be set upon by your father’s men while lying here in . . .” I run my eyes briefly along our two naked bodies “. . . this state.”
She bites her lip. It’s such a tempting gesture, I nearly give up my resolve then and there and grab her for a kiss. But she rolls off me and lies stretched out beside me, her hair fanned across my shoulder, and lets out a blustering sigh. “All right,” she says at last. “I suppose when you put it like that. But . . . where are we going exactly?”
It is the very question which has haunted me all this while. When I set out on this mission, my sole focus was to find Ilsevel, to know if she lived, to reclaim her if I could. Now that’s accomplished, the enormity of everything I left behind hits like a trolde club.
I’m silent for so long, Ilsevel sits up. Late afternoon sunlight filters through smoke-filmed window-cloths, illuminating her dark hair with streaks of fire. Glossy locks fall over her bare bosom, a stark contrast with her pale, smooth skin. She is allthings delicious and desirable, but her brow knots in a frown.
“What happened, Taar?” she asks softly. “What happened after . . . ?” She cannot finish, but her hand rests momentarily on her abdomen, covering her scar.
“We were routed,” I say, the words heavy on my tongue. “By the Shadow King.”
She swallows, takes a long breath. Nods.
I push up onto my elbows. The need for confession burns in my breast, an agony which I fear will never know true relief. “Ilsevel, I should never have done it. I should never have taken the virulium again. I . . . I . . .”
Everything I want to say sounds too much like an excuse. I’d thought she was gone forever. I’d thought the trolde would slaughter Elydark. I’d held off for as long as I could, until I was so desperate, I was willing to risk even damnation.
But the truth is, none of that matters. What I did was evil. Better for me and Elydark both to have died than for me to take the Demon’s Kiss. I know it. She knows it.
Unable to hold her gaze, I drop my head. “I am ashamed. I dare not ask your forgiveness for what I did; I do not deserve it. But if you can find it in your heart to let me prove myself anew, I swear I’ll—”
She stretches out her arm, plants two fingers against my lips. I lift my eyes to hers. There is so much pain in her gaze. The pain of the wound I dealt her, yes—but more as well. The pain of my betrayal of her trust. The pain of my failure to protect her andDiira when they were vulnerable. The pain of the brokenvelra, ripped from both our hearts.
Only now there is more than pain: a deeper, stronger foundation which grounds her perspective of me. There is understanding. There is hope. And, against all odds, there is—
“I forgive you,” she whispers. Her fingers shift from my mouth to gently cup my cheek. “Oh, Taar, I forgive you, but only for those faults which are yours. I do not forgive you for Diira’s loss, because . . . because . . .” Her voice chokes. With an effort she recovers herself and manages to force the words out. “Because it wasn’t your doing. I know that now. I couldn’t see it then, couldn’t see anything clearly. But I know the truth.”
“I should have protected you—”
“And I shouldn’t have trusted Kildorath.” She shakes her head, a bitter twist to her lips. “It was my mistake. And Diira suffered for it.”
Something inside me goes cold at her words. “Kildorath?” I repeat in a low voice. Then I sit up fully, my brow tight. “What do you mean? Kildorath told me he saw you riding out into the no man’s land between the encampment and the city ruins.”
“Did he?” Ilsevel sneers. “I suppose he neglected to mention that it was he himself who led me there?”
My throat thickens, tension knotting my veins. “Tell me what happened.”
She explains, quickly and with only the barest details. It is hard for her to recall that night, when she becamevelrhoar.But I pick up enough to understand that, when Lurodos’s men attacked me, and Diira carried her out from the Noxaurian camp, they met Kildorath riding the perimeter.
“He bade us follow him. Diira”—she chokes a little over the name, a sob seeking to rise, but manages to continue—“Diira trusted him, trusted his licorneir. And I trusted her. But I should have protested. I knew how deeply Kildorath hated me. I should have refused to follow him and then . . .”
She cannot finish, but the unspoken words ring loudly in the silence between us:Then Diira would still be alive.
I rise abruptly to my feet, naked and chilled, but shivering with raw heat inside. I pace across the small room, rage mounting more swiftly than I can suppress. Kildorath.Kildorath. I’d had him in my grasp. Somehow, I’d known it was his doing, and I’d caught him in a chokehold. They’d pulled me off him—Halamar, Sylcatha, Lathaira. He’d protested his innocence, and they’d believed him, and they’d convinced me to believe him as well.
I should have killed him. My friend, my companion of long-ago days, brother of my first love. I should have killed him when I had the chance, squeezed the life from his lungs, watched his eyes bulge, watched his tongue swell and protrude from his lying lips.
