“Ilsevel!” I cry.
In that moment, my voice transforms into a symphony of joy, grief, wonder, and—more than anything—love. I pull her into my arms and press her to my heart. A heart which beats with life and pure, pulsing song.
38
ILSEVEL
My gods-gift is gone.
I felt the last of it go out from me when I gave it to Taar.
I suppose Morthiel was right in the end. My gift was divine indeed. The gift of life, which is the reality of all true music, though human ears are too weak and limited by their own mortality to understand the full capacity of what they hear. Even I, gods-gifted though I was, could never fully comprehend it. Not until the very end.
Linked to Mahra as I was, I experienced such an expanding of perception, I feel as though I just grasped the beginnings of revelation. But mortals like me aren’t meant to possess the power of life, death, and creation. To use my gift to its fullest capacity was a one-time experience.
Thank the gods, I used it on Taar and not Morthiel!
I cling to my husband, reveling in the sound of his heartbeat against my cheek. He smells so fresh, so new—not the decayed thing I’d found crouched in this hell-filled chamber. A living man, remade. This is not the immortality Morthiel sought. No, for even augmented with Mahra’s licorneir song, I was not strong enough to bestow eternal life.
But he will live. And when he dies at last, it will not be under the influence of virulium. His soul will go to rest where Nornala waits to receive him, singing, with the licorneir, among the stars.
Drawing back a little, I tilt my head to peer up into Taar’s face. He gazes down at me. One trembling hand tenderly wipes a lock of hair from my forehead. “You, myzylnala,” he says, his voice rough, “are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever known.”
“Why?” I tip my chin slightly. “Because I wouldn’t let you stay dead? You aren’t getting out of this marriage so easily, warlord.”
His thumb brushes tears from my cheeks. Softly, gently, he bends to kiss my cheekbone. First one, then the other. “I knew,” he whispers, his breath warm against my skin. “From the moment you first told me your name, I knew. You were sent by the gods themselves. Not just to me, but to all Licorna. I knew—though I could not have articulated it at the time—that you were destined to save us all.”
“But I didn’t save Licorna. You did. You closed the Rift.”
He shakes his head. “I could never have done it if I was . . .dead.”
A shudder ripples down my spine. I lean forward, resting my forehead against his, and draw a slow breath. “Fair enough,” I concede. “I suppose it was a joint effort in the end.”
Mahra stands in the center of the chamber. I become slowly aware of her, poised above the very place where the stone floor twisted shut. Her head is bowed low. Even without my gods-gift, I feel the sorrow of her song. My heart twists at the sight. Though Taar is reluctant to let me go, I push away from him, rise, and slowly cross the chamber to my licorneir. She has lost her mate—that is something I can understand.
She turns to me as I draw near, allows me to take her large head between my hands and rest my forehead against hers, just beneath her horn. I’m relieved to find that, though my gods-gift may be gone, my bond to Mahra remains as strong as ever. I doubt I shall ever again be able to connect to all the licorneir at once . . . but that’s all right. I was able to do so when it mattered. My gift served its divinely-ordained purpose.
I am here, Mahra,I sing now, letting my song join with hers.I am here with you. In the pain, in the loss, in the sorrow. I will sing your sorrow with you.
And Mahra replies, meaning without words:My Onoril’s glory was restored in the end. There is sorrow and there is joy.
She must have suffered, I realize now. All those years, it wasn’t only the hearttorn loss of her rider that pained her, but the loss of Onoril, and the knowledge that he was responsible for the horrorwhich plagued their beloved world. I sing with her now in the gladness of restoration, a complicated song, one I couldn’t begin to voice with lips or tongue. But my spirit rises in harmony with my licorneir, my melody finding the broken places in hers.
All shall be well,we sing together.All manner of things shall be well.
It is a grim business, descending the stairway of the citadel. As we go, we discover the bodies of dead Miphates . . . all with their eyes gouged out, their faces masks of horror. The final fall of thevardimnarwas too prolonged, too unrestrained. Whatever means of protection they had proved insufficient.
My heart beats faster as we come to the end of the stairway. What will we find out on the battlefield? I left everyone behind in such a rush, desperate to close the Rift. Did the removal of Mahra’s song leave them vulnerable as well?
Taar and I step from the stairwell out into brilliant sunlight. This I did not expect—for the sun to have risen, for light to fall across this courtyard. After such profound darkness, it hardly seems possible.
There are more corpses out here as well, eye-gouged, succumbed to thevardimnar.I do not like to look at them too closely. Though they were allnecroliphondeath mages, who dabbled too deeply into horrors not meant for human minds to probe, they werestill my people. Artoris’s face swims before my mind’s eye. So handsome, so determined, so twisted by cruelty and ambition. Was it an inclination to evil which drove him to pursue this path? Or did he start out innocently enough, a mere wonder-filled young man, eager to explore new depths of knowledge?
I suppose it doesn’t matter. But I regret the un-song that so viciously warped his soul, and all these others, in the end.
Taar holds my hand firmly, lending me his strength. Mahra walks on my other side, our song connection passing naturally back and forth between us. Emboldened, I step forth through the open gates and into the field between the citadel walls and the city.
My breath escapes my lungs in a gasp of sheer wonder.
