Chapter 25 ILSEVEL
ILSEVEL
I don’t discover the knife until the sun begins to rise.
It’s the twin of the blade Taar gave me when we first met.
I recognize the gold jewel set into the hilt, sparkling in the light of the new sun.
Fury revives me from the stupor into which I’d slumped.
How had I missed it? How had my skewering mortal eyes failed to see it throughout these long hours of headlong flight?
I have no patience for myself, for my fainting body, my bleary head, my numb and stupid fingers.
Elydark crossed the Morrona some while ago.
We are once more deep in the wilds of Cruor, and our pursuers have long since given up their lackluster chase.
Nevertheless, Elydark will not slow his pace.
My voice is too raw from pleading to manage more than an occasional hoarse croak of protest. A sense of desolation grips me, though that may be from exhaustion and pain as much as anything.
I reach for the knife. At first I cannot seem to get a grip on it.
My limbs are cold with shock. Constant pain throbs from my shoulder, and I cannot feel my right hand.
It’s difficult to draw a blade lefthanded, much more so when in a full gallop, even considering the smooth, gliding stride of a licorneir.
When I finally manage to wrap my fingers around the hilt and draw it from its saddle sheath, I nearly drop it right away.
My heart jolts, and I firm my grip. Then, setting my jaw and summoning up whatever strength remains to me, I begin to saw away at the ropes.
This blade is not meant for cutting work, but I keep doggedly at it until the cord finally gives way.
Suddenly I’m free. And yet I cannot do what I’d meant to so many hours ago.
I cannot slip from the saddle, hope I don’t break my neck, shake myself out, and run back.
I look over my shoulder at the expanse of empty landscape behind me.
No chance in the nine hells I’ll find my way, not weak as I am.
And there’s always the vardimnar to contend with out here.
“Elydark,” I plead at last, no trace of musicality in my voice. “If you don’t stop soon, I will faint.”
For the first time since this one-mount race began, he seems to hear me.
His hoofbeats slow. Only now do I notice how labored his breathing has become.
Odd, for licorneir are beings of pure magical essence, and he has recently replenished that essence, feasting on ilsevel blossoms. An overnight gallop should be nothing to him.
It’s the parting from Taar; I’m sure of it.
It’s not unlike the velra was for the two of us at the beginning.
A parting of significant distance causes both of them to be weaker.
I myself am wilting like a plucked wildflower.
When I dismount, both legs give out underneath me the instant my feet touch the ground.
I end up in a pile of limbs, breathing hard and waiting for the world to stop pitching and the pain to stop flaring.
When some semblance of equilibrium returns, I glare up at Elydark.
“How could you do it? How could you listen to him? You know he’s a damnable idiot.
So determined to protect me, whatever the cost! You know I could have helped him.”
That last statement might not be wholly true.
Yes, my song had temporarily influenced the licorneir, and perhaps, if I’d not been shot, I could have maintained my hold on them.
Would it have been enough? Could I have turned them to our side?
It had felt wrong, invasive, to get into their heads like that.
Not a proper connection, more like an invasion.
My song simply overwhelmed the music of their velarin bonds.
Is this truly the purpose of my gods-gift?
Letting out a long, long breath, I close my eyes, try to still my racing heart.
Then, summoning up what courage I can muster, I grab the arrow and break the shaft.
The pain is almost as bad as being shot all over again.
I double over, panting hard, and spit bile from my lips.
Oh gods. I really wasn’t bred for this adventurous life, was I?
Nature intended me for more decorative function.
I look down at my shoulder. There’s still the broken end of a shaft sticking out, and the arrow head buried beneath my skin. I’ve got to dig it out and . . . and cauterize the wound. That’s right, isn’t it? I seem to remember hearing something about that.
Tilting my head, I squint up at Elydark again. “I don’t suppose you know how to cauterize wounds with that horn of yours, do you?”
He eyes me silently for a long moment before nodding his heavy head.
“And are you nimble enough to pry arrowheads out of shoulders?”
Another nod. His nostrils flare.
“All right. Let’s get on with it then, shall we?” Using Taar’s knife, I cut away the fabric of my gown, exposing my shoulder. The entry point looks awful. I can only hope Elydark’s healing powers will be effective even without Taar present. My own voice won’t be any use this time.
Lying down flat on my back, I brace myself against the hard-packed soil. “Do it,” I tell Elydark.
The huge licorneir bends his head over me, his powerful neck arched.
The dagger-sharp tip of his horn enters my shoulder, and I cannot suppress the scream that rips from my throat.
But he’s quick—I’ll give the blessed beast that at least. With a little flick and twist, he pries the arrowhead free.
Fire springs to life, flaring along the coils of his horn until it glows red hot.
While I’m still reeling from the initial shock, he applies that heat to my wound.
The stink of burnt flesh sears my nostrils, and I scream again, hurtling all the worst expletives in my vocabulary and possibly inventing a few more besides.
When it is done, however, he begins to sing: that lovely, low, resonant licorneir voice of his, rippling from his soul to mine.
I breathe deeply, accepting the song. It isn’t complete.
Not without Taar’s voice. But it is something.
The burn, the ache, the stabbing agony fade away, not entirely absent, but no longer overwhelming.
Just as I’m beginning to breathe a little more easily, Elydark breaks off singing.
It’s so abrupt, I catch my breath, and my eyes flare open.
The licorneir raises his head, staring away from me, back the way we have come, toward the horizon over which we left the Morrona hours ago.
Back toward Elanlein and the Hidden City.
“Elydark?” I say uncertainly, pushing up onto my elbows. “Elydark, what is—”
Suddenly I feel it—the strain, the pull. The snap.
It lashes back at me, hits me hard, like a physical blow. It’s so abrupt, so stunning, I lose my breath entirely. Shocked. Unable to process what has just happened.
Elydark screams.
The sound is like death. Like the absolute shattering end of every dream, every hope, everything that made life worth living. It is the torturous wail of the bereft, the song, not of mourning, but of rage, ruin, and agony unending.
He throws back his head, rearing up on his hind legs.
Flame bursts to life across his flanks, not the brilliant soulfire I’ve witnessed so many other times, but a hellish inferno, ravenous and all-consuming.
It burns away his flesh in an instant, revealing a skeletal, hideous form beneath that does not die.
No, it goes on living, screaming again and again in a lost, broken, devastated horror of a voice.
I know this song. It is one I myself have sung. The song of velrhoar.
“Taar,” I whisper.
Then I’m on my feet, though my body is not ready. I stagger, fall, rise again, only to collapse back to my knees. Sobs wrack my body, my very soul. “Taar!” I scream, my voice a fractured harmony for Elydark’s song. “Taar, no! No!”
I press my hands to my heart. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. Not after everything we’ve endured to find each other, to be together. He cannot be dead. Dead and far from me, unwilling in the end even to let me share death with him.
Elydark comes down heavily on all four feet.
Shaking his head, tearing at the earth with monstrous cloven hooves, he stares at me through inferno eyes.
I struggle to meet his gaze through a film of unshed tears.
“Elydark,” I whisper, reaching out to him with my gods-gift.
Somehow, wildly, I feel as though, if I can reach him, if I can access his song, I can unmake what is happening.
Can fix his torn heart and, in so doing, save Taar too. “Elydark, wait—”
But he cannot hear me.
With a last roar, he turns and, blazing with red flame like a molten star, streaks across the desolate landscape, leaving me behind. Alone in the wilds of Cruor.