I look down at my shoulder. There’s still the broken end of ashaft sticking out, and the arrow head buried beneath my skin. I’ve got to dig it out and . . . and cauterize the wound. That’s right, isn’t it? I seem to remember hearing something about that.
Tilting my head, I squint up at Elydark again. “I don’t suppose you know how to cauterize wounds with that horn of yours, do you?”
He eyes me silently for a long moment before nodding his heavy head.
“And are you nimble enough to pry arrowheads out of shoulders?”
Another nod. His nostrils flare.
“All right. Let’s get on with it then, shall we?” Using Taar’s knife, I cut away the fabric of my gown, exposing my shoulder. The entry point looks awful. I can only hope Elydark’s healing powers will be effective even without Taar present. My own voice won’t be any use this time.
Lying down flat on my back, I brace myself against the hard-packed soil. “Do it,” I tell Elydark.
The huge licorneir bends his head over me, his powerful neck arched. The dagger-sharp tip of his horn enters my shoulder, and I cannot suppress the scream that rips from my throat. But he’s quick—I’ll give the blessed beast that at least. With a little flick and twist, he pries the arrowhead free. Fire springs to life, flaring along the coils of his horn until it glows red hot. While I’m still reeling from the initial shock, he applies that heat to my wound. The stink of burnt flesh sears my nostrils, and I scream again, hurtling all the worst expletives in my vocabulary and possibly inventing a few more besides.
When it is done, however, he begins to sing: that lovely, low, resonant licorneir voice of his, rippling from his soul to mine. I breathe deeply, accepting the song. It isn’t complete. Not without Taar’s voice. But it is something. The burn, the ache, the stabbing agony fade away, not entirely absent, but no longer overwhelming.
Just as I’m beginning to breathe a little more easily, Elydark breaks off singing. It’s so abrupt, I catch my breath, and my eyes flare open. The licorneir raises his head, staring away from me, back the way we have come, toward the horizon over which we left the Morrona hours ago. Back toward Elanlein and the Hidden City.
“Elydark?” I say uncertainly, pushing up onto my elbows. “Elydark, what is—”
Suddenly I feel it—thestrain, the pull. The snap.
It lashes back at me, hits me hard, like a physical blow. It’s so abrupt, so stunning, I lose my breath entirely. Shocked. Unable to process what has just happened.
Elydark screams.
The sound is like death. Like the absolute shattering end of every dream, every hope, everything that made life worth living. It is the torturous wail of the bereft, the song, not of mourning, but of rage, ruin, and agony unending.
He throws back his head, rearing up on his hind legs. Flame bursts to life across his flanks, not the brilliant soulfire I’ve witnessed so many other times, but a hellish inferno, ravenous and all-consuming. It burns away his flesh in an instant, revealing a skeletal, hideousform beneath that does not die. No, it goes on living, screaming again and again in a lost, broken, devastated horror of a voice.
I know this song. It is one I myself have sung. The song ofvelrhoar.
“Taar,” I whisper.
Then I’m on my feet, though my body is not ready. I stagger, fall, rise again, only to collapse back to my knees. Sobs wrack my body, my very soul.“Taar!”I scream, my voice a fractured harmony for Elydark’s song.“Taar, no! No!”
I press my hands to my heart. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. Not after everything we’ve endured to find each other, to be together. He cannot be dead. Dead and far from me, unwilling in the end even to let me share death with him.
Elydark comes down heavily on all four feet. Shaking his head, tearing at the earth with monstrous cloven hooves, he stares at me through inferno eyes. I struggle to meet his gaze through a film of unshed tears. “Elydark,” I whisper, reaching out to him with my gods-gift. Somehow, wildly, I feel as though, if I can reach him, if I can access his song, I can unmake what is happening. Can fix his torn heart and, in so doing, save Taar too. “Elydark, wait—”
But he cannot hear me.
With a last roar, he turns and, blazing with red flame like a molten star, streaks across the desolate landscape, leaving me behind. Alone in the wilds of Cruor.
26
TASSA
I cannot seem to tear my gaze away from the altar. From that ravaged form that was my brother.
I’ve never seen him under the influence of virulium before. I knew about it, of course—knew what he and Shanaera and others among the warriors were doing together in their efforts to take back our world. Halamar told me in his quiet voice, the depths of his eyes betraying his true concern. That was before the death of his licorneir, back when we were each other’s support, offering mutual shelter against the storms of life. Before he fell intovelrhoarand left me to face those storms alone.
By the time Halamar was lost to me, Taar had already sworn off the virulium and forbidden its use among the tribes. He was so firm in this conviction, even to the point of breaking off his long-standing commitment to Shanaera. That was a sacrifice I never would have expected from him. His love for Shanaera was sucha vital part of his very self, and it was difficult to think of the one without the other. But when she refused to give up the virulium, despite his pleas, he declared their promise to each other null—for he had not made his promise to the Shanaera of the Demon’s Kiss.
She had cursed him to his face, in front of me, in front of Kildorath, in front of everyone, and left the Hidden City that very night. I did not hear of her again until Taar told me what happened in Agandaur. I learned then of how she and her band of rebels joined the battle and seemed, for a little while at least, to turn the tide in favor of the Licornyn. But when the virulium savaged her soul so deeply that she ceased to recognize friend from foe, she began to slaughter even our own people, forcing Taar to kill her. To run her through and hold her gasping body as she died.
It was a dreadful account, one I wished never to have heard. And yet I was spared the worst of it. I was spared any firsthand experience with virulium.
