Chapter 38
ILSEVEL
My gods-gift is gone.
I felt the last of it go out from me when I gave it to Taar.
I suppose Morthiel was right in the end.
My gift was divine indeed. The gift of life, which is the reality of all true music, though human ears are too weak and limited by their own mortality to understand the full capacity of what they hear.
Even I, gods-gifted though I was, could never fully comprehend it. Not until the very end.
Linked to Mahra as I was, I experienced such an expanding of perception, I feel as though I just grasped the beginnings of revelation. But mortals like me aren’t meant to possess the power of life, death, and creation. To use my gift to its fullest capacity was a one-time experience.
Thank the gods, I used it on Taar and not Morthiel!
I cling to my husband, reveling in the sound of his heartbeat against my cheek.
He smells so fresh, so new—not the decayed thing I’d found crouched in this hell-filled chamber.
A living man, remade. This is not the immortality Morthiel sought.
No, for even augmented with Mahra’s licorneir song, I was not strong enough to bestow eternal life.
But he will live. And when he dies at last, it will not be under the influence of virulium. His soul will go to rest where Nornala waits to receive him, singing, with the licorneir, among the stars.
Drawing back a little, I tilt my head to peer up into Taar’s face. He gazes down at me. One trembling hand tenderly wipes a lock of hair from my forehead. “You, my zylnala,” he says, his voice rough, “are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever known.”
“Why?” I tip my chin slightly. “Because I wouldn’t let you stay dead? You aren’t getting out of this marriage so easily, warlord.”
His thumb brushes tears from my cheeks. Softly, gently, he bends to kiss my cheekbone.
First one, then the other. “I knew,” he whispers, his breath warm against my skin.
“From the moment you first told me your name, I knew. You were sent by the gods themselves. Not just to me, but to all Licorna. I knew—though I could not have articulated it at the time—that you were destined to save us all.”
“But I didn’t save Licorna. You did. You closed the Rift.”
He shakes his head. “I could never have done it if I was . . . dead.”
A shudder ripples down my spine. I lean forward, resting my forehead against his, and draw a slow breath. “Fair enough,” I concede. “I suppose it was a joint effort in the end.”
Mahra stands in the center of the chamber.
I become slowly aware of her, poised above the very place where the stone floor twisted shut.
Her head is bowed low. Even without my gods-gift, I feel the sorrow of her song.
My heart twists at the sight. Though Taar is reluctant to let me go, I push away from him, rise, and slowly cross the chamber to my licorneir.
She has lost her mate—that is something I can understand.
She turns to me as I draw near, allows me to take her large head between my hands and rest my forehead against hers, just beneath her horn.
I’m relieved to find that, though my gods-gift may be gone, my bond to Mahra remains as strong as ever.
I doubt I shall ever again be able to connect to all the licorneir at once .
. . but that’s all right. I was able to do so when it mattered.
My gift served its divinely-ordained purpose.
I am here, Mahra, I sing now, letting my song join with hers. I am here with you. In the pain, in the loss, in the sorrow. I will sing your sorrow with you.
And Mahra replies, meaning without words: My Onoril’s glory was restored in the end. There is sorrow and there is joy.
She must have suffered, I realize now. All those years, it wasn’t only the hearttorn loss of her rider that pained her, but the loss of Onoril, and the knowledge that he was responsible for the horror which plagued their beloved world.
I sing with her now in the gladness of restoration, a complicated song, one I couldn’t begin to voice with lips or tongue.
But my spirit rises in harmony with my licorneir, my melody finding the broken places in hers.
All shall be well, we sing together. All manner of things shall be well.
It is a grim business, descending the stairway of the citadel.
As we go, we discover the bodies of dead Miphates .
. . all with their eyes gouged out, their faces masks of horror.
The final fall of the vardimnar was too prolonged, too unrestrained.
Whatever means of protection they had proved insufficient.
My heart beats faster as we come to the end of the stairway. What will we find out on the battlefield? I left everyone behind in such a rush, desperate to close the Rift. Did the removal of Mahra’s song leave them vulnerable as well?
Taar and I step from the stairwell out into brilliant sunlight. This I did not expect—for the sun to have risen, for light to fall across this courtyard. After such profound darkness, it hardly seems possible.
There are more corpses out here as well, eye-gouged, succumbed to the vardimnar.
I do not like to look at them too closely.
Though they were all necroliphon death mages, who dabbled too deeply into horrors not meant for human minds to probe, they were still my people.
Artoris’s face swims before my mind’s eye.
So handsome, so determined, so twisted by cruelty and ambition.
Was it an inclination to evil which drove him to pursue this path?
Or did he start out innocently enough, a mere wonder-filled young man, eager to explore new depths of knowledge?
I suppose it doesn’t matter. But I regret the un-song that so viciously warped his soul, and all these others, in the end.
Taar holds my hand firmly, lending me his strength. Mahra walks on my other side, our song connection passing naturally back and forth between us. Emboldened, I step forth through the open gates and into the field between the citadel walls and the city.
My breath escapes my lungs in a gasp of sheer wonder.
The grass . . . the grass of this field, which ought to be trampled down by the battle which took place here .
. . is covered, every inch of it, with blooming ilsevel blossoms. I can no longer hear their song, not without my gods-gift.
But I see their fiery hearts burning bright, and I know they sing, whether or not I hear it.
Taar catches his breath. “Heileth Nornala!” he murmurs, and it sounds like a prayersong.
A shout breaks the stillness in the air.
We both turn just in time to glimpse Tassa before she throws herself into her brother’s arms, pounding his back with her fist, speaking in a rapid stream of Licornyn, her voice broken with weeping.
Halamar follows close at her heels and, after a moment of shyness, embraces me as well.
“Maelar,” he whispers into my ear, “my eternal thanks to you.”
I look over his broad shoulder and see Sylcatha, along with the surviving warriors of the Rocaryn and Tarhyn Tribes.
Close at hand, sadly, lie some of our dead .
. . but I notice, through my tears, that their eyes are not gouged out.
They died in battle, but they were not claimed by the vardimnar.
Ilsevel blossoms bloom thickly all around them.
Somehow I know their souls are at peace.
Minutes later, more licorneir appear, coming through the ruined city, many of them carrying riders on their backs—the Rocaryn children and the elderly, who did not fight with us.
The hobgoblins must have perished, I suspect, in the final fall of the vardimnar, for I see no sign of them, only the children, slipping from their licorneir and rushing to the arms of their parents.
The wild licorneir are there too. They gambol out into the field of ilsevels, their voices ringing with delight.
But one voice trumpets far louder than all the others. A song so brilliant, it shocks me to the core. I whirl and see a mighty red licorneir galloping at top speed, his hooves tearing up ilsevel petals in his wake. Elydark—his soulfire burns so bright, I have to shield my eyes.
Taar, slipping free of his sister’s embrace, runs to meet his licorneir. He throws his arms around the great beast’s neck, and they stand together, apart from the rest of us, sharing a song meant just for the two of them.
Tears course down my cheeks at the sight. Diira, I think, and tilt my head back, gazing up into the blue, blue sky. Then I gaze deeper still, beyond the veil, to where the stars shine bright. And I could swear I hear the triumphant song of a million licorneir, raining down on us from above.
Mahra rests her muzzle against my shoulder. My children are glad, she sings into my heart. All heaven rejoices at what has taken place here this day.
I close my eyes. Then, parting my lips, I let a little trill of song escape my tongue.
Just a weak little thing, sung with my true voice and without the augmentation of a gods-gift.
Hardly impressive: thin, and a little off-key.
But the emotion is there, true and vibrant, resounding from the depths of my head.
“Diira,” I sing softly. “I am here. And I love you . . . always.”
A moment later Taar returns to me, takes my hand. I stand with him, blinking in the light of the sun and the soulfire of the liberated licorneir. Somewhere beyond him, the deep voice of Sylcatha bellows in Licornyn, a word I do not know: “Eltavel! Eltavel!”
The cry is taken up by other voices—men, women, and children alike.
Sylcatha drops to her knees, and the others do the same, all the Rocaryn and Tarhyn Tribes.
They hold out their hands in a gesture of reverence, and their voices are like a song: “Eltavel luinar i-Licorna! Eltavel maelar i-Licorna!”
I turn to Taar, squeezing his hand. “What do they say, warlord?” I ask.
The lines around his eyes crinkle gently, even as a single tear escapes. “They say, ‘Long live the king and queen of Licorna,’” he replies.