Chapter 15
ILSEVEL
Like the sun breaking through the poisonous clouds of my mind, his face appears before me.
My lips, bruised from his kiss, form his name: “Taar!”
Taar.
My husband.
My love.
Some small part of my mind holds onto memories of hurt, of pain, of betrayal .
. . but in this moment, I simply cannot recall any of it.
I feel nothing save the absolute glory which bursts in my heart at the sight of his face, and the realization that I know him.
Know who he is and everything he means to me.
Taar—my Taar. Not some stranger, some terrifying fae warlord.
My magnificent lover, the keeper of my heart.
For the first time in I don’t know how long, music explodes in my soul. Music such as I have never heard in this cold, mortal-bound world. More profound, more glorious than anything my gods-gift ever hoped to achieve. The song of my love for him, rising to my lips, aching to be sung.
“Taar,” I breathe.
A sword-thrust cuts through the song, the joy of the moment, piercing my abdominal wall.
I choke on the pain . . . and suddenly, I am back on that battlefield.
The face before me isn’t the face of my lover, but a virulium-ravaged monstrosity.
My ears are filled, not with song, but with the sounds of war, the pulse of my own blood, the thud of my spasming heart ramming against my breastbone.
It hits me all at once, an inescapable cataclysm, and I fold up on myself.
Somewhere in the distance, Taar’s voice cries out: “Ilsevel! Ilsevel, no!”
Pain claws at my mind, ripping through my consciousness without remorse.
Though Taar’s strong arms support my mortal frame, I feel myself being dragged down, down into the pit.
Desperately, I claw at consciousness, even though it means enduring agonies.
I know once I succumb there will be no escape.
Then suddenly, I feel his presence: Artoris.
My gaze seems to clarify into a single pinpoint, fixed on that place where he stands at the end of the hall, one hand upraised.
Though my mortal eyes cannot see it, I feel the death magic spooling out from me, returning to his palm.
The profane reverberations of un-song clatter in my head, the voice of the dark power he wields without thought for consequences.
Taar lowers me gently to the floor, then rounds on Artoris. “You’re killing her!” he snarls.
“I?” Artoris tilts his head, the picture of wounded innocence. “I think not. It is you who kill her by daring to embrace my beloved wife.”
“She is not your wife.”
“I would beg to differ.” He smiles, his handsome face a demonic mask of cruelty. “We just made all the solemn vows before the altar of Nornala but a few short hours ago. In the eyes of king and goddess alike, we are one flesh, one soul.”
“Those vows mean nothing,” Taar declares, rising to his full height, his shadow stretched long before him. “She is already sworn to me.”
If I could find the breath to scream at the pair of them, I would. What does it matter whose wife I am, while I lay dying at their feet?
Artoris considers Taar, his eyes widening slowly.
“I know you,” he says, then draws in a sharp gasp of recognition.
“You’re the fae warlord from the temple!
The one who took my talisman. It was you who led the attack on Evisar.
” He takes an aggressive step closer, cursing viciously.
“Do you know what damage your foolishness wrought? All Morthiel’s labors set back, by years potentially.
Years he doesn’t have to waste! All that energy spent just to repel your hopeless siege.
What did you think you’d accomplish? You deserved to be slaughtered like pigs. ”
Taar growls. “Your master has poisoned my world long enough.”
“Poisoned?” Artoris barks a mirthless laugh.
“Is that what you think is happening? No, no, Morthiel has every intention of rejuvenating that little world of yours. Of remaking it into the most powerful realm in all Eledria, a rival even to Aurelis and Noxaur and all the great fae courts. He has the power right at his fingertips, if he can only create for himself a strong enough body with which to wield it.”
“Power?” Taar scoffs. “You mean the power of Ashtari, the power of the Seventh Hell. There is no creative force in that power, only destruction.”
Artoris smiles. “Ah, but there can be no new creation without destruction first. Even a barbarian such as yourself should know that much. No life without death, no glory without loss, no goodness without evil.”
I’ve had just about enough of their posturing.
They’re like a couple of bristling tomcats, yeowling on the rooftop.
Summoning whatever strength I have left, I try to push myself upright, but cannot.
The spell is mostly wound out of me now, and the agony is overwhelming.
A shuddering groan vibrates in my throat.
“Shakh,” Taar curses, hearing my pain. “Enough of this, Artoris. I don’t care what you do to me—reassert that spell. Don’t let her die.”
“Oh, I won’t, have no fear,” Artoris sneers.
“Morthiel has need of her, and I am bound to honor my master’s commands.
He would have kept her at Evisar, did we not require witch-magic to deal with that cursed rune your people gave her.
Now that’s been effectively suppressed, I can bring her back to him, ready for his use.
Yes, barbarian, I’ll keep her alive. But she can suffer a little now, as I need that power back from her. ”
So saying, he begins to murmur something in an arcane language.
It sounds strangely familiar, though I cannot place it.
Even through the haze of pain, however, I recognize the sudden flickering of red light which forms at his fingertips.
I don’t know if Taar sees it, if his ibrildian eyes can perceive what my gods-gift can, but I know what is about to happen.
I’ve seen it before, the night of the temple attack, when Artoris summoned death magic, and ripped the soul straight out of a Licornyn rider.
In another second it’s Taar’s soul he will claim.
“No,” I whisper. Then, pushing myself up onto my elbows, I drag in an agonized lungful of air and scream: “NO!”
A pulse of song goes out from me—bursting against the stone walls of the gallery, echoing and reechoing, doubled, tripled, quadrupled from wall to floor to ceiling. It pulses like a wave, just strong enough to knock Artoris off balance, to momentarily silence the flow of the spell he chants.
It isn’t much. But it’s enough.
Taar lunges, hands outstretched.
Artoris’s eyes widen. His lips move, trying to form words—either a prayer, a curse, or even a vain attempt to finish the death-spell he was weaving.
But it’s already too late for him. Taar’s hands close down around his throat.
A sick crunch of bone fills my ears and, with that sound, the last of the dark magic sustaining my body breaks away, scatters in the ether, leaves me unprotected against the onslaught of mortal pain.
I collapse.
My head strikes stone, and I know no more.