Chapter 8 TAAR #2
“Well, get her down from there then.” Tassa holds up both strong hands, and I allow her to pull Ilsevel from the saddle and support her while I dismount.
She gives my wife back to me without protest, and I step toward the darkened dakath.
Diira utters a growl of protest. I turn to Elydark.
Reassure her, I urge him. Let her know I will care for her rider. They will be together again soon.
Yes, Vellar, Elydark replies, then turns his song to Diira. She snorts and stomps a cloven hoof in the turf, fire flaring in her eyes. But Elydark continues to sing, and at last she lowers her head, not quite submissive but no longer aggressive.
She has agreed, Elydark informs me, his eyes deep and knowing. I will remain with her tonight. Go, Vellar. Tend to your bride.
I sing gratitude into his heart, then carry Ilsevel inside.
No fire is lit, and the interior of my home is dark save for Tassa’s licatha lantern.
She lights the way to my bedroom, where I lay Ilsevel upon my bed.
While Tassa hangs the lantern from a chain, I study my wife’s face in its light.
She looks pale. And something in her very essence feels strange.
Not as strange as she’d felt when she first reemerged from the Unformed Lands; it’s almost as though she’s gaining more solidity by the moment.
“Taar,” my sister speaks behind me softly. “Halaema is here. She wishes to speak with you.”
“I’m busy.”
A shuffling footstep and the scrape of a walking stick is my answer.
The next moment Halaema pushes Tassa roughly to one side, her wrinkled face illuminated by the licatha.
“I understand my luinar is much occupied,” she says with feigned deference, “but, by your superlative grace, grant an old woman a moment of your time.”
I glare up at her, unable to fully suppress the anger burning in my breast. She meets my glare unflinchingly, her aged eyes too bright, too quick.
I find myself suddenly remembering all that I owe her—this woman, who gave up her own heart’s connection to Elydark so that I might form a new velra bond.
It is a sacrifice only a true Licornyn rider could understand, and one I can never fully repay.
Still resentful, I rise, casting Ilsevel a regretful glance before I step from the room. “Stay with her,” I murmur to Tassa in the chamber doorway.
She nods and touches my hand as I pass her. “Taar,” she says, catching my gaze. “Taar, I’m . . . I’m glad. For your sake.”
I can’t tell if she means it. Complicated emotion churns in the depths of her black eyes. But I nod, accepting the expressed sentiment for whatever it’s worth.
Then I pass into the main chamber of my dakath where Halaema has settled down before the central fire and even now sketches a quick ruehnar spell. “Light it for me boy, will you?” she says.
I murmur the necessary phrase, summoning a spark of Elydark’s innate magic along our connection. It strikes the ruehnar, and a fire ignites, lighting up the shadows.
“Ah, that is good.” Halaema rubs her fingers, hunched and shriveled and yet somehow radiating innate power which has never left her, not even when she gave up her velarin.
She was once a great warrior, and that truth still echoes in her soul, never to be wholly forgotten.
“Here, boy,” she says to me, waving one hand in an inviting gesture.
“Sit opposite me, where I can look at you.”
I take a seat, cross-legged and upright, and meet her gaze over the dancing flames.
She studies me for some little while, her expression unreadable.
Finally she tsks softly. “All right,” she says, her voice cracking like a whip.
“The bond is real. No drothlar or sorcery could have manufactured such a song. We all heard it. Though some may still refuse to concede, I know when I am beaten.”
Something knotted tight in my gut begins to unravel. “You will accept her then?” I ask. “As one of us?”
“I didn’t say that.” Halaema’s brow tightens. “She may have bound herself to one of our licorneir, but that doesn’t make her a Licornyn. And it certainly doesn’t make her a worthy bride for our luinar.”
That knot in my gut constricts once more. “She is more than worthy. She is worthier than—”
“Oh, gods above, don’t bore me with protestations and declarations of your own worthlessness and so on and so on. I have no time for it.”
I go silent. But my body tenses, sensing imminent battle.
“Regardless of what the ordeal proved,” Halaema continues, “this young woman is not fit to be your wife.”
I grind my teeth hard and hold my breath. Halaema uses the blunt end of her walking stick to stir embers, setting off a little flurry of sparks. They fly upward, swirling with curls of smoke out through the central skylight in the upper peak of the dakath.
“I understand,” the old woman says at last, her voice heavier, darker than it was moments ago.
“I understand you feel a profound draw to her. There was a time, long ago—if you’ll believe it—that I too spoke the vellar vows and bound hands with a brave young warrior.
I remember those heady weeks leading up to our silmael night.
” Her voice trails away, her mind momentarily lost down a path of long-ago memories.
“But”—her eyes sharpen, catching mine again—“the fact remains: your warbride is human. Your people will never accept her as maelar, regardless of any bonds she’s formed with you or the licorneir. ”
“She is my wife, Halaema. I chose her, swore the vows before Nornala, and consummated them that night—”
“Spare me the details.” She holds up a forbidding palm, then narrows her eyes. “You have not, I trust, shared your seed with the girl.”
I thin my lips.
“I thought not,” she continues. “Even infatuated as you are, you would not go so far without the consent of your elders. Good boy.”
Bristling, I open my mouth to speak, but she hastens on.
“I’m not trying to call into question the truth of your love for her or, at the very least, what you believe you feel for her.
I may have my own opinions as to the lasting strength of a passion bloomed so suddenly over the course of two weeks .
. . but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve lived long enough to have seen similarly quick-formed bonds last over lifetimes.
It happens. But in your case, Taar, you must understand how difficult it is to believe. ”
Though I hate to give any ground, I incline my head in brief acknowledgment. After all, I myself doubted everything I felt and fought against it tooth and nail. But when Halaema asks, “Do you harbor any doubts now, my boy?” my answer is firm.
“None.”
She tilts her head to one side. “Perhaps you speak too hastily for truth.”
A grin pulls at the corner of my mouth. “And if I had hesitated, you would interpret that as you wished as well.”
She shrugs, allowing me a small concession. Then she leans forward slightly, resting her elbows on her bony knees. “The elders are in agreement, Taarthalor. Your warbride shall be permitted to live among us until the night of silmael. In that time we require your mutual abstinence.”
A cold stone drops in my chest.
“Complete abstinence,” she continues, holding up a warning finger. “No delightful little gray areas, no confusing the definitions of purity. You shall not touch her, kiss her, pleasure her, nor receive such pleasures from her in return. Do I make myself clear?”
I swallow hard. “And on silmael?”
“If by silmael you still feel for her as you do now, the elders have agreed that you may take her as a wife. But,” she adds severely, “not as your queen. Any offspring born of her womb will inherit no throne, no crown, nor any such kingdom as you may still possess at the end of your life. Should you wish your line to continue, you will choose a second wife. Someone of your own kind to bear your heirs.”
A roar of protest mounts in my throat. I begin to rise, but Halaema cuts me off sharply.
“None of this brutish blustering, boy! Consider: but a few short hours ago, it was the unanimous wish of the entire council that your wife’s throat be slit and her blood poured out in the dirt to cleanse the very soil on which she stood.
You should be grateful for the lenience we offer you and her, but mistake not that lenience for weakness.
Our concern is for the future of Licorna, a concern I believe you and I still share. ”
I cannot speak. If I speak, I will say something I regret. I force myself to nod shortly.
Halaema settles back in her hunched attitude. “I would urge you to think very carefully on this choice, Taarthalor. Is such a future what either of you wish? A shadow existence for her, always one step behind your chosen queen. Children who will be viewed as bastards, half-breeds.”
“We are all half-breeds, Halaema. We are all ibrildian.”
Her eyes flash. “We are Licornyn. Set apart by Nornala herself, a holy people blessed with holy purpose. Forget this truth at your peril.”
I grit my teeth. “I will choose no other wife, no other queen.”
“That’s up to you, of course.” She shrugs again. “But if such is your choice, the crown will pass to whichever chieftain’s son or daughter is powerful enough to wrest control of it. And I make no guarantee this struggle won’t come sooner rather than later.”
With those words, she begins to unfold her old limbs, groaning and creaking painfully as she rises.
When she has drawn herself up as far as her bent body will allow, she leans heavily on her stick and points a long finger at me.
“Think on it, boy. Closely. Talk it over with your little bride as well. She seems to have a mind of her own. Who knows? If she truly cares for you, she might make you see reason.”
“There is nothing you or the elders can do to break what exists between me and Ilsevel.”
“Perhaps not.” Halaema sighs. “But I hope you will not be so blinded by infatuation as to destroy all the hopes of Licorna.” She reaches under the folds of her heavy robes and produces a small knife.
She props her walking stick under one arm, holds out a trembling palm and, without hesitation, cuts a long streak.
Blood oozes in a thick line. She turns to me, offering the blade.
“Remember,” she says. “Until silmael. I want your word. Break it, and her life is forfeit, velra bonds notwithstanding.”
I draw a long, slow breath. Then, taking the knife, I cut my own palm and clasp her hand tight, sealing my unspoken promise.