“Give me to drink, Taarthalor—”
“Taar!” Ilsevel’s sharp voice breaks through the throbbing in my skull. I turn my head, a snarl on my lips, and see her standing across the room, naked and small, her dark eyes verylarge in her pale face. Her arms wrap around her body, as though to somehow protect herself. From me?
“Taar,” she says, tremulously. “Is that . . . ? I thought I heard . . .”
Shame once more washes over me, momentarily dousing the fury in my veins. I’d forgotten that her sensitive gods-gift can perceive the virulium, even the small traces which linger deep inside me. I cannot keep this evil secret from her.
“I took two doses,” I say. The admission burns my tongue, but it must be spoken. “One on the night Diira died, trying to save you from the hobgoblins. The other during the siege, when . . .” I cannot finish that sentence. But there is no need; we both remember the evil details of that day. “I don’t know if it will ever be fully purged again.”
I turn away from her, unable to bear the look in her eyes. For some while, we remain silent, and the air of our small shelter feels suddenly cold. Then I hear her soft footsteps behind me. The next moment, her hands rest trembling on my shoulders.
I flinch away, hastily take several paces, putting a little more distance between us again. “I should never have suffered Kildorath to live,” I growl, shaking my head so that black hair falls to veil half of my face. “Not when he threatened you with violence. I should have cut him down like the dog he is, and—”
“No, Taar.” Her voice is soft, but there is a hard edge to it, a firmness that refuses to be ignored. “This isn’t you. This doesn’t sound like your voice. Stop saying these things.”
With difficulty I swallow the vicious words even now seeking release from my tongue. How much of this fury is merely a deflection? A desire to place blame for what happened on someone else’s head? But whatever traitorous acts Kildorath may have committed, he is not the one who drove his sword through Ilsevel’s gut in a fit of virulium-induced madness. That blame is mine alone. And I must carry it.
Closing my eyes, I draw deep breaths, force down the whispering in my blood until I can no longer hear it. For now. Then, finally, I turn to face Ilsevel again. She stands with her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides, her face wreathed in concern, her features, so recently relaxed in ecstasy, now tense with worry, with fear.
“Oh,zylnala,” I say and reach for her.
She comes to me without hesitation, enters the circle of my arms, and we press against each other, our naked bodies drawing strength and warmth from that contact. I slip a hand under her hair, press her head against my shoulder, and kiss the top of it reverently. We stay like so for a long time, allowing our two different heartbeats to merge into one.
At length I whisper, “I will have to deal with Kildorath when we return.”
“Return?” She shivers, and her arms tighten around me. “So . . . we are going back then? To the Hidden City?”
Strange that I’d never even considered that question. Ithad seemed obvious to me that, upon reclaiming my bride, I must then face all the many responsibilities I’d so recklessly abandoned when I set out to find her. Only now does it occur to me that I could simply . . . not go back. I failed Licorna yet again when I led a second, unsuccessful assault on Evisar. We may have progressed further than we did last time, but we were nonetheless repulsed in the end. Our numbers decimated, our allies disbanded and dispersed. The tribes will no longer hail me as king after this debacle. They will now turn on each other and fight to claim Elanlein, the last Holy House, and all the ilsevel blossoms which grow around it—the only source of sustenance for licorneir, without which they will simply fade from being.
What if we did not throw ourselves back into that turmoil? It is a tempting prospect—to avoid the consequences of my failure, the devastation of my people. To take my bride and ride away with her, vanishing into Wanfriel as we search out some pleasant realm where we may live together in peace.
Only there is no such realm. Eledria is not friendly toibrildians,still less so to humans. We would be hunted and hounded everywhere we went. Worse still, I would lose Elydark. Without the ilsevel blossoms to sustain his essence, he would simply fade away to nothing and vanish at last back to the realm of his origin. Leaving me hearttorn behind.
As though sensing something in my soul, Ilsevel’s grip tightens around me once more. “I know,” she murmurs againstmy shoulder. “I know, I know. You cannot leave Elydark. Or Tassa, or Halamar, or Sylcatha. Any of them.”
I cannot. Yes, I may have temporarily abandoned them when I charged off in pursuit of Ilsevel. But I never intended to forsake them utterly. I must return. There is no other choice, not for me. I must face the horror of tribes at each other’s throats, of land slowly fading into the Unformed, and the devastation of thevardimnarstrengthening every day until even the river’s boundary can no longer protect us.
And then there is what Larongar told me . . . about my father . . .
Ilsevel steps back abruptly, pulling from my reluctant arms. She looks up, her brow stern and concentrated, as though trying to read my face. “What was that?” she asks.
“What was what?”
“That . . . discord. In your soul. I heard it, quite distinctly.” She makes a face, as though the sound was unpleasant.
I gaze down at her, silent. I’m not sure I want to tell her what her father said, not when I haven’t had time to turn it over, to decide what I believe. I shake my head, my gaze shifting away from hers.
“Is this to do with what you said before?” she persists. “Is this about what you said you had to tell me?”
A long sigh breathes through my tense lips. There are so many things I must communicate, I hardly know where to start. But one thing she deserves to know. I only hope she is strong enough to bear it.
“Lyria spoke to me, just before we took that tunnel out fromBeldroth,” I say, forcing myself to meet her gaze once more. “She said . . .” I hesitate, wishing there were some gentler way to break this news. “She said she believes Aurae is still alive.”
For a moment, Ilsevel is utterly still, as though turned to stone. Then her eyes slowly widen. Her mouth drops open, and weakness seems to grip her spine. Knees buckling, she turns from me, staggers across the room, and sits back down on the tumbled pile of wedding skirts, one hand pressed to her heart. “Alive?” she whispers. Her voice is stricken and yet limned with a hopeful song. Then she gasps with horror. “Alive.”
I don’t have to read her mind to know what she is thinking. As horrible as it is to contemplate her sister’s death, this new fate might well be worse. Aurae, if she lives, is in the clutches of the fae. Lord Dormaris of Lunulyr is known for his collection of unusual warriors, gathered from across the realms. He offered to buy Ilsevel from me, intrigued by her gods-gift. If Aurae did indeed possess another such gods-gift, he no doubt would have done everything in his power to subdue her and add her to his collection.
Ilsevel turns to me, her eyes suddenly fierce with inner fire. “I must go after her,” she declares.
