Mahra. Pulsing with black fire which, now that I see it up close, is not black after all, but a color my eyes were unable to perceive before, shining and vivid and new. Her children are with her, surrounding me, a thousand licorneir and more, all alight with this same glorious flame. Sorrow limns their souls, but it is a sorrow made beautiful in song. And Mahra herself holds their song within her, gives it shape, gives it space, and then gifts it back to them.
She looks at me—and I wish suddenly that I could ever be worthy of such a gaze. The licorneir are overwhelming, but I have become somewhat immune to the true greatness of their souls. In Mahra, it is all recalled anew. She is ancient and ageless, a star born long before the beginning of this world.
Her voice burns into my skull, words I could never have hoped to understand before, but which now take a shape of meaning:I have been waiting for you,Maelar.
I draw a shivering breath.Waiting . . . for me?
Waiting for your song. Waiting for your voice to sing with mine.
My . . . my song is frail,I admit.Broken.
As is mine,Mahra replies.And so we sing the brokenness. Together.
I nod, though I still do not fully comprehend. But I know now that the gods did not give me their gift so that I might heal the broken licorneir. Rather, the broken licorneir have given me space for my own brokenness, and my gift has enabled me to enter into it. Only there may we be made whole. Not healed, but new. Joined in this holy fire.
Come,Maelar,Mahra says, and kneels on the ground before me. She is so huge, her head still towers above mine, though I am standing.It was appointed for me, by Nornala’s grace, to bond with the queen of Licorna.
But I shake my head sadly.I am not queen of Licorna. I never was.
Fire flashes in her eyes.You are the chosen bride of Licorna’s king. You aremaelar,now and forever.
Again I hear the echoes of eternity in her song. The timeless certainty, beyond my understanding. I wouldn’t dare to argue with such a being.
If you are willing,I sing,I will bond with you, Mahra. Though I do not believe I am worthy.
At this she seems to laugh, as though my worthiness or unworthiness never entered into her consideration. The voice which burns into my head says only:Join with me then. Enter deeper into my song.
I don’t know how I ever summoned the courage. Somehow I grip a handful of her flaming mane, and it does not burn me. I pull myself up onto her back, my head whirling with dizziness when she rises up to her full, towering height. Her song and the songs of her children flow through me now, channeled through her fire into my soul. I sing with them—a harmony of loss, of sorrow, of love everlasting.
Suddenly I am grateful. The gratitude is so great, it nearly breaks me, and only my grip on Mahra’s mane keeps me from falling to the dirt. I throw back my head and keen my sorrow once more, but there is gratitude in the keening. I cry out to Nornala, to all the seven gods, in thanks for the love they gave me, however briefly it may have lasted in this lifetime. Because I know now, in a way I never could have known before, that it will never end.
The licorneir sing with me, sing of their own lost loves. And the beauty of their song, the beauty of their pain, is a balm to me in my suffering. There is the harmony I needed—theirs was the song my own melody required to transform it from brokenness to beauty. It was I who needed them all along. And here, in themidst of them, I am finally where I belong.
Mahra bursts into a gallop, carrying me with her, and the licorneir follow, singing through the night. Our voices join with the stars overhead, and I know without a doubt that I hear Diira singing with us high above. When at last the sun rises, I look around me at a living sea of licorneir, and feel my heart bonded to each of them in a way I never would have imagined possible. It is like I have become the expanded, timeless, stardust version of selfhood, beyond the capacity of my physical frame.
I spy Elydark among them, the pain of hisvelrhoarheart palpable, the beauty of his love undeniable. He looks at me, draws strength from the bond we now share.
In his eyes, I see at last what I must now do.
Mahra,I sing,we must save them. We must save the Licornyn, give them back to the licorneir. We must rescue this world from what it has become.
I am with you,Maelar,Mahra sings back to me, her strange fire rippling through my heart.I and my children. Say only where you would go, and we will carry you there.
I turn my head, my gaze searching out across the miles, beyond the horizon, to the place where I know the Morrona flows, andbeyond. To that place where Taar lost his life, and where his frightened people await their ultimate doom.
He did not abandon them; though they killed him in the end, he never forsook them.
Neither will I.
To Elanlein,I sing.To the Hidden City.
With a toss of her head and a flash of fire in her eyes, Mahra utters an explosive burst of song. Then she leads the way, her feet scarcely touching the ground as she flies over the lonely landscape. The thundering hooves of a thousand licorneir echo to the heavens above as they follow at her heels.
28
TASSA
My knees drawn up to my chest, I bury my head in my arms and try to will myself away from this moment. Away from this cold, damp cell. Away from these too-close stone walls. Away from this sudden overwhelming sense of unsafety here in what has been, until now, my home.
