Chapter 21 ILSEVEL #2
Their song is strange—something about it doesn’t feel right.
But I know I cannot join in. This isn’t like when they sang for my healing; in that instance, I could hear where my harmony belonged and would bring wholeness.
Now, if a third voice were to be added, it would throw off the delicate balance which exists between Taar and his licorneir.
Their bond is so unlike anything else in all the worlds.
A bond I once knew, for however brief a time.
Something in my chest tightens, a firm resolve.
I’ve never felt it before, this certainty of purpose.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to move through life knowing what one was called to do and accomplish.
My existence has always been prey to the whims of others and their plans for me. But now . . .
Now I know. I know suddenly, as though the gods themselves reached down and smacked me up the back of the head with the understanding.
I am meant to protect the people of Licorna.
I am meant to prevent the vanishing of this unique Licornyn culture, this harmony of souls.
That is what I will do, though they hate and despise my very existence, I will plant myself between them and utter extinction if I must. I don’t know how—but I know the gods gave me my gift for a reason. For this reason.
Whether or not I’m up to the task remains to be seen.
A channel of fire moves from Taar’s soul into Elydark.
I cannot see it with my mortal eyes, but my gods-gifted perception is clearer than sight.
Elydark receives what Taar gives, bows his head, and that fire pours out from his horn, striking that thin place in the air.
I watch as reality parts, strand upon strand, slowly at first, as though reluctant, then more swiftly.
I feel the enormity of many worlds and many ways, but Elydark’s fire cuts through them all, carving a path to his desired destination.
It is treacherous—even I can feel the instability. But the gate is open.
“Ilsevel!” Taar shouts. “Now!”
No hesitation.
Gods spare me.
I throw myself forward, all the pent-up energy in my legs propelling me straight at that narrow gap.
The next instant I’m plunging through, my being pulled apart into a million-billion particles of dust, strung together by the thinnest threads of selfhood, spread across a thousand galaxies.
It's over before my consciousness is fully aware it’s begun, however, and I tumble, embodied once more, out into the green-shaded stillness of Wanfriel.
For a moment, I am alone. Lying on my back, staring up at interlacing leaves, like a delicate veil overhead.
With a gasp and a stab of pain, my lungs remember to breathe, and I sit upright, choking on the magic-dense air.
It takes a few breaths for my lungs to adapt.
Then I vomit, emptying my poor, stupid, mortal stomach of all its contents.
Shuddering and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I turn at last to the shimmering gate of fire behind me. Still no sign of my husband or his beast. “Come on,” I whisper. “Come on . . .” The last thing I need is to be left alone in this terrifying Wood Between Worlds.
Just as the edges of the gate begin to break down, Elydark prances through, as shining and confident as though world-traveling were an everyday occurrence for him.
Taar, clinging to his back, looks a little worse for wear, though he does not disgrace himself with heaving like his sorry excuse for a wife.
The instant they step into the wood, the gate snaps shut behind them, so violently, I can’t help but wonder if it would have severed them in half were they even an instant slower.
Taar looks wildly about for me. When his eyes land on my shuddering frame, he springs from the saddle and hastens over to drop to the ground at my side. “Are you all right, Ilsevel?”
“Watch where you put your knees,” I answer glumly. “Don’t want you kneeling in my sick.”
He grimaces, but helps me to my unsteady feet.
I am, as it turns out, all in one functional piece.
Winded, empty, and frightfully embarrassed at the disgusting evidence of my mortality.
But whole. Taar already looks much better for breathing magic-infused air once more, and Elydark positively shines with renewed inner light.
The influence is not wholly lost on me either.
Perhaps due to the strengthening of my gods-gift, I find the atmosphere unexpectedly reviving.
Taar leaves me to wrap an arm affectionately around Elydark’s neck. “Thank you, my friend,” he says, leaning his forehead into the beast’s cheek. “That was well done!”
I try to suppress the dart of pain I feel, witnessing their bond.
That hollow ache for Diira threatens to open wide and pull me down into it.
Instead I focus on that sense of purpose I’d experienced on the other side of the Between Gate, that belief that I am meant to protect what Taar and Elydark have, what all the Licornyn riders share with their mounts.
Even if I myself no longer possess such a bond.
Turning away from the two of them, I look out into Wanfriel. The forest extends around me on all sides, leading into reaches unimaginable, gateways to other worlds. Aurae is out there. Somewhere. Beyond my reach. But alive. Gods be praised, she’s alive.
“Forgive me,” I whisper, sending my voice out like a prayer into that vastness. “Forgive whatever impulse that made me write that letter. Forgive my stubbornness and stupidity. And forgive me for not being the one who can make it right for you, sweet sister.”
Is it possible to atone for sins such as these? Can any small action on my part make a difference against the evil I myself brought about? Not just Aurae’s capture, but the deaths of all those priests. I feel weighted down by the enormity of it all.
“It is dangerous for mortals to stare too long into the deeps of Wanfriel.” Taar’s voice speaks close to my ear, starling me. I turn to him, blinking hard to drive back tears. He sees them, however, and his brow knots with concern. “Ilsevel?”
I shake my head quickly, unable to grapple with guilt just now. Not when there is so much that needs doing. I won’t let others suffer while I wallow in what I cannot change. I will take action: purposeful, considered action, with an eye to the consequences for once.
Perhaps I am growing up at last.
Reaching out, I take Taar’s hand and squeeze it firmly. “Shall we continue, warlord?”
The Between Gate to Cruor continues to be a sight of terror to my eyes.
At least this time I know what to expect .
. . and there are no animate corpses appearing from behind trees to accost us.
Nevertheless, when Elydark steps out onto that swaying, narrow bridge, I turn, bury my head in Taar’s shoulder, and pretend as hard as I can that I am anywhere else.
In the end, the crossing is simple enough. This gate is far more stable than the one we just used, and while there is still a sense of lengthening and flattening as we progress from one world to another, I do not embarrass myself with further vomiting when we emerge through mist on the far side.
Cruor stretches out before me beneath a mid-afternoon sun and a cloud-swept sky.
I see once more the same valley which, the last time I passed this way, struck me with its wild and untamed beauty.
It is still beautiful . . . only this time, I know the corruption that slowly poisons it, and I can see the evidence more clearly.
All the subtle ways the darkness of the vardimnar has chipped away at the once-glorious land of Licorna.
It may yet be restored, I tell myself even now, uncertain if I believe my own conviction. It may yet be made right. Somehow.
Though I cannot for the life of me comprehend how.
We travel on in near-silence, across the valley and over the river.
Elydark’s horn points us toward the Luin Stone on its rise.
We reach the ruins of the old statue by nightfall, unimpeded by the vardimnar.
For this I am grateful. While I know what to expect now, I don’t relish the prospect of experiencing that horror again. Not without Diira’s song to shield me.
Taar chooses to make camp at the Luin Stone, despite my protests that I am fresh enough should he want to continue into the night.
He is strangely withdrawn, wordless and remote as he goes about making camp.
He builds a fire, puts on his travel kettle to brew tea, hands me an ume cake, all without speaking.
And, rather to my disappointment, he makes no move to grab and ravish my body into ecstatic oblivion.
I chew on ume cake, watching him over dancing campfire flames. Something burdens his heart, something he’s not yet dared to share, even after all these days of travel together. I swallow a dry mouthful and toy with the remaining ume in my fingers.
“Are you going to tell me?” I say at last.
He looks up from his contemplation of the fire. “Tell you what, zylnala?”
“Whatever it is that weighs so heavily on your soul?”
His mouth tilts in a half-smile without mirth. “Is it not enough that my people are on the brink of civil war, and my world faces the prospect of ultimate destruction?”
“Hardly.” I shrug. “Civil war and ultimate destruction have loomed on your horizon for as long as I’ve known you. There’s something else. Something you’re not saying.”
He sighs heavily. Then he gets up, leaving his ume cake in the dust, and comes around to my side of the fire.
When he offers his hand, I take it, and he draws me to my feet, staring down into my eyes.
“You’re right, zylnala,” he says in a voice full of depths and sorrows.
“There is something I am not telling you. But I don’t want to speak of it. Not now. I want to forget.”
Part of me wants to demand answers. But when he bows his head, and his lips find mine, my body and soul light up.
I can’t seem to help it—everything about his kiss, his touch, is intoxicating.
He kisses me long, hard, lingering. When those kisses deepen, and a groan rumbles in his throat, I know he will take me here and now, on this promontory, overlooking the wilds of Cruor and a distant, ruined city.
What’s more, I want him to take me, more than I can possibly describe.
My hands slide up his broad chest, hungry to touch him, to drink in his shape and his strength. His hands begin to rove as well, and I whimper with pleasure at the heat of his touch.
Suddenly I break away, pulling free of his mouth with a gasp. “What is that?”
“What is what, zylnala?” he pants, trying to recapture my lips with his.
I turn my face, gazing out into the deepening gloom of nightfall. “Can’t you hear it?”
He frowns. “I hear nothing.”
I shake my head and push against his chest, stepping out from the circle of his arms as I move to stand on the edge of the rise, in the shadow of the Luin Stone. I look out over Cruor—wild, lonely, decimated Cruor. And I hear the song galloping on the wind.
“Mahra,” I whisper.
It is she—the mother of all licorneir. Giving voice to the sorrow which beats in the very heart of this world. The song of loss unending. I cannot see her, not at this distance, not with these mortal eyes.
But her voice is like a bolt of lightning straight through my heart.
I breathe out slowly. My soul longs to pulse in time with her song. It calls to me, to the hearttorn pain at my core where Diira’s loss runs deep. Other voices sing with hers as well, the voices of all her velrhoar children. A dark and inescapable chorus.
I have heard it before. Heard it and feared it. I have never before so deeply felt it. Right down to my bones and being.
“Mahra,” I say again, this time with longing. Longing to run with her, to sing with her. To throw myself into that song as though it is the final resting place for my wayward soul.
But before my lips give voice to the song even now bubbling up inside me, Taar’s hands slip suddenly around my waist, wrapping me tight, pulling me against his chest.
“Zylnala,” he breathes into my hair. “Where did you go? Come back to me.”
I breathe out slowly and place my hands atop his. My anchor to this world. And I close my eyes, listen as Mahra’s song fades, knowing even then that sometime, soon, I will have to join her.
It is my doom.