Chapter 18 TAAR #2
Then we steal like phantoms back out into the darkness where Elydark waits. I assist Ilsevel back into the saddle, mount up behind her, and we continue on our way.
Many days of hard riding stretch before us until we will reach the nearest Between Gate.
Now and then I ask Elydark if he senses any pursuit at our heels, but he doesn’t.
The licorneir leaves no trail that mortal trackers may follow, but a mage might be able to discern his unusual magic presence.
Lyria could, I’m almost certain. Will Larongar force his bastard daughter into the role of hound? I hope not.
Dawn begins to paint the eastern horizon, and I urge Elydark to find us shelter. While the two of us could continue through the day without rest, Ilsevel wilts in my arms. She needs a soft bed and a place to sleep, to recover her energy.
Elydark changes course, passing down a narrow dirt track which emerges through trees into a sudden valley.
Before us lie the ruins of an abandoned village.
It’s a desolate spot, haunting in that predawn light.
Though whatever tragedy took place here happened long ago, I can still smell the stench of destructive fires mingled with terror.
Is this one of the many towns ravaged by fae raiders over the last several years?
Ruvaen has sent various parties into the mortal world, searching for something he’s never yet revealed to me.
I doubt very much he gave orders for his troops to destroy peaceful villages such as this one, but Ruvaen wields little control over the savage Noxaurian warriors.
“Do we have to go in there?” Ilsevel asks quietly, breaking the long silence between us.
I exhale a cold breath. “Some of those structures took less damage than others. One or two might be habitable.” I look down at the top of her head as she shrinks back against me. “We need shelter, my love. You need rest.”
“It feels . . . invasive,” she answers softly. “Like we’re walking into someone else’s life and memories.”
She’s not wrong. But our options are few. “Just a few hours,” I assure her. “You must sleep. You’ve just survived a terrible ordeal.”
She holds her tongue and nods. I urge Elydark forward.
We enter the village ruins, sizing up several of the more likely buildings.
Elydark stops before the most stable-looking structure which, though stained black with smoke, still sports a roof and all four walls.
It takes a bit of effort to break the door in, but I manage it in the end.
A quick inspection of the premises reveals a very cold, dusty, and smoke-stained abode, with bits and pieces of the previous inhabitants’ lives strewn hither and yon.
A set of leatherworking tools here, a stack of wooden bowls there.
A pair of very small shoes. Heartbreaking—but safe.
Ilsevel flatly refuses to make use of the bedroom, declaring it a sacrilege against the dead.
I don’t try to argue, but make a bed of sorts for her in the main room, close to the stone fireplace.
The primary cushioning is the remnants of her wedding gown, brought with us in our flight rather than left behind to mark our trail.
I add to this my own stolen cloak and a travel blanket from Elydark’s saddle bags.
It’s certainly makeshift, but better than nothing.
“Lie down now,” I tell Ilsevel, patting the pile of cloth.
She eyes it uncertainly. Then, with a little shrug, she curls up with her head on her arm. “Will you lie with me?” she asks, tilting her face toward me.
“No,” I answer, despite the ache gnawing at my gut. “I will find you food and water for when you wake. And I will stand guard.”
She makes a face. “You’re not fae, remember? You cannot run for days on end without sleep.”
“I will sleep,” I promise with a smile. “But for now, all I need is to know that you are safe and resting.”
She is too tired to protest. Her eyelids already begin to droop.
I lean forward, kiss her forehead softly, and think I hear her catch her breath.
I half-hope she’ll reach out and grab me, pull me down with her, but instead, I hear a small snore.
I grin, disappointed and relieved in equal measure.
I remain kneeling beside her for some moments, watching her still face, reminding myself again and again that she is alive and only sleeping, resisting the urge to wake her, just to see the flash of her eyes once more.
Finally I rise and leave the house.
Leaving Elydark to stand watch, I spend a successful morning hunting down a pheasant, which I pluck and butcher before bringing it back to the abandoned town.
Gathering a few supplies from my saddle bags, I return to the house in which my wife sleeps, and go about quietly building up a fire on the hearth, spitting the bird, and setting it to slowly roast. Ilsevel sleeps on soundly, and doesn’t awaken until savory aromas fill the room, banishing even the stench of old smoke.
I look over just in time to see her eyelids blink open.
She looks directly at me. Panic flashes across her face. Then she seems to remember . . . and a flood of emotion passes through her eyes.
“Zylnala,” I say quietly.
“Warlord,” she answers with a faint smile.
She sits up, and I proceed to feed her pheasant and ply her with water. Ilsevel eats and drinks in silence, and I believe both of us feel the weight of words that must be spoken between us sooner rather than later. But just now, that is a colossus neither of us can face.
So she eats and, when she has had her fill, I eat as well. The sun sinks, and the room darkens, and cold creeps in through chinks in the walls and windows. Ilsevel, shivering, lies down on her pile of cloths once more.
“Will you lie with me now?” she asks, plaintively.
My throat thickens. “You need rest, zylnala.”
She wrinkles her nose at me. “That is what I had in mind. I don’t know what you were thinking, but a long sleep would suit us both, I should imagine.”
I breathe out a short, self-deprecatory sigh. “Very well,” I say, and ease myself down beside her. She tucks in close, nestled in the crook of my arm, and promptly falls to sleep once more, exhausted as she is.
I do not sleep. Not for a long while. I simply lie there, contemplating her face by firelight, marveling at the mere presence of her. Temptation is strong to let my hands wander, but I resist. She deserves her rest, and I will give it to her. I will give her everything she needs by and by.
But I let her sleep for now.
I must have dozed off at some point in the night, for I wake in the darkness before dawn, my body very stiff, my arm numb from the weight of my wife’s head. Not that I care. The pure bliss of waking with her beside me, to the sound of her soft breathing, is true heavenly grace.
I angle my head to look at her, my ibrildian eyes able to discern her features well enough in the gloom.
As the sun slowly rises, and light slips in through the smoke-filmed windows, it is like a divine revelation to watch the color mount in her cheeks.
She looks fresher this morning: not so pale and pinched.
Rest and food have revived her strength admirably, and the pain she suffered is slowly slipping into memory.
I hope someday it will not be remembered at all, though I suspect that day will be long in coming.
At last she stirs, groans. Her eyelids move several times before finally managing to open. She stares mutely at nothing for a long moment before finally tilting back her head to look at me. “Good morning,” she murmurs, then frowns and tucks her head against my chest. “Oh gods, I must look a sight!”
“You are a sight, indeed.” I rest my mouth atop her head—not a kiss, just a point of contact between us. I linger there, smelling her hair, which is still prettily scented in anticipation of a wedding night which never came.
“Have you been awake long?” she asks at last, daring another peek at me.
“Not long. And I have been much occupied.”
“Occupied? With what?”
“I have been contemplating my answer to a question you asked me once.”
Her brows knot. “I seem to remember asking you a great many questions, warlord.”
I smile and press my cheek against the top of her head again, my arm tightening around her. “You asked, if we had met under other circumstances—if I had met you as Princess Ilsevel Cyhorn, in your father’s house—would I still have loved you?”
Her body tenses. She is silent for the space of several breaths, but finally nods. “Yes,” she says. “I remember.”
“I told you no. I said that if I had met you under other circumstances, you wouldn’t have been the same woman—the wild, spirited creature I’ve come to know. I believed I could only love the version of you I had met, that the conditions of our meeting were vital to my understanding of you.”
Another mute nod.
“But I was wrong.”
“What?” She turns her head sharply, her eyes very dark despite the dawnlight bathing her face.
I look down at her, the edges of my vision blurred with tears, and speak the truth which I should have spoken long ago.
“I would have loved you,” I said. “I will always love you. When I met you in that garden, when I spoke to you, and you looked upon me with such disdain—I had a glimpse then of the Princess Ilsevel you were before I ever met you. And I loved you. I loved you so much, so desperately, and wanted nothing more in that moment than to convince you to love me too. Because, in my eyes, you are perfect. I want now nothing more than to be given permission to worship and adore you. I would love you in any world, in any time, whatever the circumstances of our meeting. Were I your slave, and you the cruel queen who gripped the end of my chains, I would long only to serve you better. Were you simply the girl born in the next tribe over, I would take one look at your face and never desire to look upon any other. If you were my mortal enemy, and we met, swords-crossed, on a battlefield, I would lay down my life at your feet. In every version of every lifetime, I would know you. I would love you. And I will go on loving you, forever.”
Her eyes are like two dark moons, so round and full of luminous fire. I gaze into them, knowing the danger I am in of being lost in their depths, but little caring.
“Vel-sa almar. E luralma idor-hath.” I say softly, the words a song on my lips.
She lets out a short puff of breath. Then her hand, resting softly against my chest, slides up to my neck, to the back of my head, her fingers tangling in my hair. “Please,” she whispers. “Kiss me now, Taar.”
I roll over, caging her in my arms, and cover her lips with mine.