7. The Willow Bears the Pain #3
“I found a kindred soul, I believe, but one that has still not seen itself. You yearn for the same thing I do, Eltoar.”
“That is?”
“Change. A world where the strong stand for the weak instead of treading upon them.”
“Your words are bold, Arcarian. You speak to the First Sword of the Draleid. I could have you strung up for high treason.”
“The present belongs to the strong,” Fane said, tilting his gaze to the sky. “But the future belongs to the bold. This has been enlightening, Eltoar. May I ask one more question?”
Eltoar said nothing, only stared up at Fane.
“Would you do it again? Would you stand by and watch the innocent be slaughtered simply because a council of weak minds commanded you so? Would you stain your own soul because they bid you? Think on it. Once is ignorance. Twice is wilfully blind. After that, well… after that it is who you are.”
As Fane Mortem stepped into the night, Eltoar stared after him, a darkness wrapping itself around the heart of the First Sword of the Draleid.
Alvira walked in silence around the outskirts of the camp, the song of birds heralding the dawn.
The sun had not yet crested the mountains, but its warm light touched the horizon.
She had been walking ever since she and Eltoar had exchanged words.
Over and over she relived the conversation in her mind, as she always did.
What could she have done better? What words could she have chosen?
Did she say the right thing? Did Eltoar truly believe in her?
There had once been a time where she would not have doubted that.
“Tell me, what is the difference when you ask us to stand on this hill and watch tens of thousands burn, watch dragons be eaten alive. Tell me where I am to draw the fucking line because I cannot see it.”
The line. That was a thing Alvira was still searching for herself. She wished he understood, though she supposed he never would. Eltoar’s was a soul that did not see how delicate the balance within The Order was, how fragile.
Dragons were creatures that engendered awe and wonder across Epheria, but in equal measure so too did they draw out fear and distrust. Particularly since Vastillion.
And the council knew just how to twist that fear, how to use it to their advantage.
Had she known quite the level of politicking, Alvira didn’t think she would have ever accepted the mantle of Archon.
Or perhaps she would have. It was rare that anything made sense to her anymore, particularly the wants of her own mind.
As she walked, she found herself wandering through the pavilions and hastily erected tents that housed the survivors from the city.
The cries were fewer now, the screams of the dying subdued with the evaporating night.
Another time, that might have been a good thing.
But there at the base of the hill where Arrathín’s corpse still burned, all it signalled was death.
A spare few Healers had made their way from the city.
Three. And even they were so badly wounded themselves that they had been of little use.
Her Draleid had saved those they could, done what they could, but in this endeavour they were sorely inadequate.
There would be many, many cold bodies come the night.
This was her burden. Her weight to carry.
What Eltoar didn’t understand, what he had never understood, was that as Archon there was no correct decision.
Whatever choice Alvira made would always be wrong in the eyes of half of those she sought to protect.
To be the Archon was not to make the choices that would paint her with honour, but to forge her own honour by making the choices that would hold the world together even if it cost her everything.
Even if it meant never spending a night without hearing the screams of the dying in her sleep, without seeing the faces of those she had failed.
To be Archon was to carry the weight so that others did not have to, to bloody her hands so that others might remain clean, to bear the guilt and the shame so that others could think themselves greater.
She stopped at the sound of a soft neigh, a hoof pawing in the grass. A black mare was tethered to a makeshift hitching post beside a row of tents, her breath misting into the rising dawn light.
“To stand alone,” Alvira whispered as she approached the horse. “To stand with the weight of the world. Where all would think you strong and weak, both. None to lift you up, yet shadows aplenty to tear you down.”
She reached out and stroked the horse’s muzzle, receiving a warm nicker in response as she recited the poem.
“The willow that watches, that keeps the storm from the starling’s back.
The rain, the gale, the brutal crack. Of lightning that tears the bark and burns the hearth, yet the willow cannot scream.
For its task is simple, solitary, and true.
The willow bears the pain, bears the pain in place of you. ”
Alvira leaned her head against the mare’s neck, stroking her hand through its soft hair as Vyldrar’s warmth seeped into her mind. Poetry had been her valúr. She was not an elf. It was not required. But it was something she found great solace in. To create before you can destroy.
“Who left you here alone?” she whispered, something in her heart weeping. Not for the mare, nor for the dead and dying, but for herself.
Vyldrar rumbled in her mind.
“Never alone,” Alvira whispered. “My light. Draleid n’aldryr.”
“Help.”
Alvira lifted her head from the mare’s neck at the sound of the call. She looked around at the tents and the flickering torches, not a soul in sight.
She moved to the nearest tent and opened the flap, a wave of heat, burnt flesh, and brimlock sap punching her. Within, bodies lay splayed out on cots and blankets, bandages and buckets of bloody water filling every open space.
One of the Healers who had made it from the city stood amidst the sea of death, a bandage wrapped around the left side of his head, covering an ear and eye.
“Archon? Is all well?”
Alvira nodded and stepped back out into the twilight air. She ran her hand through her hair and tilted her head towards the sky, then gave a short, painful laugh. Hearing voices in her dreams was one thing, hearing them in the waking world was a whole other.
“I need to sleep,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I need to sleep.”
“Help.”
The voice sent a shiver through her. That had not been a figment of her imagination or a ghost of past choices.
“Hello?” She called out in a hushed voice, still unsure as to whether or not she was simply going mad. She opened herself to the Spark and pushed out thin threads of Air, feeling for vibrations.
“Please…” The voice called again, weak and faint. “Help.”
The sound of the voice rippled up through the threads, and Alvira looked towards a copse of trees slightly downhill from where she stood. She held onto the Spark and broke into a sprint. “Where are you?”
“Here!” The voice held a little more strength. “Please. Please help!”
Alvira bolted down the hillside and into the copse, brittle branches and leaves snapping beneath her.
Another call rang out, and she found the source near a rise in the land.
An elf sat with his back to the trunk of a tree, his face and clothes coated in enough blood to swim in. His right hand was wrapped in layers of cloth, and the left side of his face looked as though he’d been attacked by a rabid hound.
“I’m here. I’m here.” Alvira dropped to her knees beside the elf, fully opening herself to the Spark and pulling on threads of all the elemental strands. She knew little of healing, but she would do what she could.
“No,” the elf said, slapping away Alvira’s hand.
“You’re badly wounded,” Alvira said, keeping her tone calm. “If I do nothing, you won’t make it. Speak to me. My name is Alvira, what is yours?”
The elf shook his head, eyelids heavy.
Alvira reached down and pulled back some of the layers of cloth around the elf’s arm, earning a shriek of pain as the elf’s eyes snapped open wide. Beneath the cloth, his arm was little more than bone and chunks of raw, discoloured flesh.
“Not me,” the elf’s voice shivered, his skin suddenly pale as ice. “My… my son… my son.”
“Where is he?”
The elf looked to his left, deeper into the copse, the trees still blocking out most of the emerging morning light.
“I… I tried…” he whispered. “I couldn’t. I tried, but I couldn’t. Please, give him peace. He’s in so much pain.” He shook his head, delirious now, tears streaming from his eyes and mingling with the blood on his cheeks. “Please just help him. Don’t leave him. I tried… I tried, but I…”
Alvira cupped her hands to the elf’s cheeks and stared into his eyes. “Let me see to you first. You’re so close, the camp is only just up the hill. If we—”
“No,” he said, shaking his head again. “Please, he’s in pain.”
Alvira nodded, rubbing her thumb through the bloody tears on the elf’s face. “I’ll be back for you. Just hold on.”
Alvira pulled herself to her feet and sprinted downhill in the direction the elf had looked, laboured breathing and choking sounds soon reaching her ears. The boy lay flat, half wrapped in a sheet that was knotted above his head. The father had clearly used it to drag him.
She slowed her steps as she approached, her gut churning, her lip trembling. The young elf was so bloodied and disfigured she had no idea how many summers had passed his gaze.
The Veyak venom had melted the flesh away from both his hands and arms up to the elbows, the bones looking as though they’d been chipped with tiny hammers. She couldn’t see his legs beneath the sheet, but his body seemed abruptly short.
As the leaves cracked beneath her, she drew closer, and saw his face was scarred as though he’d been burned, his eyes a mottled mess of skin and glassy white. His stomach had been opened, torn clean by a claw, his intestines spilled.
The boy just lay there shivering, his breathing heavy and short, blood rising with every breath.