"Neither of us asked for this, this feeling, but here it is. It just exists, and why should we fight it? Everything you have to give is mine now, and everything I have to give is yours."
"All you can give me is death and pain, Tirk." My shoulders sagged. "I come to kill you, you know I must." I noticed that picking at my braid had become unwinding it. He reached for my hair, his hands unable to grasp it. I re-braided it tightly as if the braid were my self-control and as if by denying him my loose hair I could as easily deny him myself. If he were flesh, he was near enough to kiss, to touch, to press myself against and feel his heat and the hardness of his body. I gasped, flushing, struggling to slow my breaths. He smiled as if he knew what I were thinking, though I saw his chest moving faster as well.
"Lovely Ada," he said. "Your face is so expressive, it can hide nothing of what you desire from my gaze. You come, but do you think you can kill me, any more than I could kill you?"
"I will end you if it destroys me," I bit out.
His head jerked back as if I had struck him. I saw the pain on his face, and I reached up instinctively to comfort him. He moved away. "How can I love you when all you do is wreck me?" he muttered.
"You don't even know me, Tirk. What we feel isn't love. It can't be."
"I know you soul to skin, Ada. I feel everything about you."
"No -"
"I dream about you every night. No one else will ever know you like I do. Don't tell me what it is I feel."
"I am a field worker. I rarely wear shoes, because I rarely own any! I live alone. I am no one you would ever know." I turned away from him, saw Wyntan and Nefen in the distance watching me, and turned back to Iceblade.
"You were never a mere field worker. You were always meant for something more. Part of you always knew it, too."
I stared at him.
"Let me be that something more," he whispered, coming closer. "Forget everything you ever knew and just let me..." He stroked my face with his intangible hand, and slowly faded away before my eyes.
I fell to my knees, overwhelmed by the thought that if he touched me like that, looked at me like that when I finally saw him in the flesh, I would be lost. Wyntan and Nefen ran across the snow to help me up.
"Are you all right?" they asked in worried tones, and hauled me into the shelter. I couldn't answer, my mind was far from them as they settled me back onto the bedroll. Samar pushed another mug of tea into my hands and I sipped it in silence as the others' voices moved around me.
When I realized the mug was finished, I finally looked up.
"Who was that?" Daltorn asked. "Who was that spirit who drove you out of here?"
"Just a spirit making it obvious that justice must be done," I managed at last.
"Leave the girl alone, don't pester," Selas snapped. "You can see she's worn out. Bed down, Ada. And all you whippets as well." I gave him a grateful glance, seeing in his face he had a good idea who the spirit had been. He held my gaze with his stormy blue eyes, then leaned over to bank the fire.
Though I was tired, it took me a long time to fall asleep. I fought a battle within against some tiny but fierce part of me that longed so dearly to throw everything aside and go to Iceblade. I forced myself to remember his deeds, even his words as the crow soldiers had ambushed us, but nothing made any difference to that part of me but the sound of his voice.
I held in my bile, though I felt nauseous enough to vomit.
We were still about a week away from Reckonwood. Selas told me quietly while the others pulled apart our shelter that he felt Iceblade came in hope of locating me, perhaps by seeing landmarks near the shelter. I knew there would be no more real rest until we were safe in the Wood.
Selas didn't worry about leaving a trail anymore, he pushed us only to make speed. The stouthearted donkey seemed to sense the urgency and pulled harder than ever, and we took turns pushing the sledge from the back.
We slept at night in our bedrolls on top of the snow, no fire. There was hard bread and dried meat and fruit to be eaten cold, but I was so tired by the end of each day when Selas finally decided we could rest that I seemed to fall asleep mid-bite. The old man took to hassling me to eat as we pushed through the snow.
Iceblade may have visited us, if he did, I slept through it. Fighting off his call night and day tired me to my bones. I felt as if I had aged ten years in the last few weeks. Some nights I would feel his presence and be left with an impression of him crouching near me, watching me as I slept, his expression tense and removed. If his hand brushed my face I would turn helplessly towards him, but still be too tired to come fully awake.
Three days out from Reckonwood, my exhaustion led to delirium. I don't remember much about it, only that I felt caught between the physical world and the spirit world. Frequently I saw Iceblade or went to him, only to leave immediately as if I was a wisp of smoke, or as if he was. I couldn't tell how much was real and how much was a product of my exhausted mind. I also saw some of the dead of Berowalt, whole fields of blood, and glimpses of Cur slipping around in shadows nearby.
The travois materialized beneath me and I wondered how long I'd been riding on it. I didn't remember falling or having stopped walking. Tired, I pulled a blanket up over my head.
I could not sleep. Pushing the blanket off me, I watched it fall from the travois like a puddle of blood and lay in the trail we were leaving.
Cur sidled up to the travois and whispered to me in its growling voice. "You think you belong to the Goddess," it said. "But you belong to whomever among the God's favored can take you. You could as well belong to me." The creature grinned, baring its teeth. "Your fear would be like cream to me. Your flesh would be sweet and fresh, however I tried you."
I cried out, begging for my friends to chase Cur away. They passed through the beast without seeing it, and it chuckled gleefully.
"Your revulsion only pleases me more," it said. It leaned toward me and licked my hand with its tongue.
I screamed in abhorrence and fear, and the travois halted. I heard Selas order Daltorn to get moving again, we had no time to spare.
"The sooner we reach our destination, the sooner she can rest. It's the only help we can give her," the old man said, his voice strained and tight.
Cur chuckled again, and faded into the snow. "They can offer you no help that will make a difference," it said menacingly, its voice lingering where its image didn't.
Day and night blurred together, sometimes it was light when I was sure it was nighttime. Darkness fell in the middle of the day, though it lasted only moments.
I saw Samar walk behind the travois. She was signing to me, words meant to comfort. Right behind her walked a second Samar, the same as the first, but the second Samar was not signing. She opened her chest to show me a heart that didn't beat. There was no blood, just the smoothness of her ribcage pulled out to the side and the organs and flesh within her. She closed her chest and smiled at me, then fell gracefully onto the ground, becoming the shadow cast by the first Samar.
I heard my companions speaking to me, trying to bring me out of it or calm me down, and I tried to answer them, but just as often it was Iceblade who answered me.
"You are losing your mind," he said to me, dispassionately. "Why are you doing this to yourself? Just tell me where you are, and I will come for you." He held out his hand. His face was bloodless and drawn. He added tautly, "I will come for you myself."
"Do not fear for me, I can't bear to see it," I whispered, and laughed. And he faded from view to be replaced by Wyntan's worried face.
"We're almost there, Ada," he said. "Just one more day." He walked behind the travois, talking to me, hoping to soothe me with his voice.
"I'll survive that long," I said, then laughed again and heard my own madness.
I was with Vankyar, she smiled at me. Her hands pinched at her skin, I saw thin knife scars up and down her arms. I knew she had carved these marks into herself. She noticed my attention to her old wounds and her smile faltere
d. With a quick movement, she jerked her sleeves down to cover her arms, then pushed them back up almost defiantly. Absently, she stroked a finger across the narrow scars on the opposite arm.
"There's so much in me," she whispered. "Sometimes I have to let it out. Sometimes I am dead, and I need to bleed to know I'm alive. And sometimes I just want to tear up the thing I hate the most!" Her mouth drew back in a grimace of pain.
She blinked back tears and stood up, smiling brightly with small perfect teeth, her eyes anguished. I saw that we were in a dark tent much like Iceblade's, but smaller. A brazier sat in the middle of the room, bringing low light and emanating heat. She had a single dark wood chair, a narrow soft bed, a trunk and a table with papers spread across it. All of the papers were blank, and when she saw me looking at them, she hurriedly gathered them up and stashed them away in her trunk.
She sat on her bed, tucking her feet up under her velvet dress. "You come for him," she said abruptly. Her gaunt fingers plucked at her bodice like manic white spiders.
"Yes," I said. There was no need to explain it, she knew as well as anyone could what went on inside me, what I was bound to do.
"I'm holding you here because your spirit lacks the stability to stay and hear me, and I can do it without fear because you are so weakened. Last time, I hoped you would kill me, but you showed me your mercy. I called you here to warn you," she said. "Part of you wonders if you can set things right with him, if you come to him the way he asks, if it will change him. Gentle him."
"Yes," I whispered. My throat ached with unwanted tears. I scrubbed at my face as if I could clean them out of myself. Everything I felt for him was tangled up. Hatred and longing, abhorrence and desire, all twisting together and leaving me inside out.
"There are only two things inside him. Everything else was beaten out, burned out, starved out and manipulated out by my half sister, Lord Deirdre. She gave him his ruined voice by forcing him to drink a caustic potion after he defied her, stood up to her, talked back. All he had in him by the time he was old enough to ignore her was a cold and abiding hate, a need to destroy, to punish.
"And now there's you, like no one he's known. He's known more about you every day since you shared the forest dream. You are true and gentle of heart, you give generously of yourself with no thought of what you might gain in return. At first he wanted you only because of the God's hand upon him, but he loves you as I never thought he'd love anything." Tears slipped down Vankyar's face. "But it's too late. This love will not stop him. He doesn't even know how. If you don't stop him, the world will burn."
I wept without words, seeing a small boy having his jaws forced open by armed guardsmen, seeing his cruel mother pouring down his throat something that burned and stole away his voice for long weeks.
"All that is in him is his love for you, and his hatred for everything else. Neither one can overcome the other. You can not repair him. You must let him go." Vankyar lay back on her bed, snarled black hair falling over the edge to the ground. "I was only four years old when he was born. I loved him, the soft haired, smiling boy. But I could not save him, I couldn't even save myself. Deirdre has destroyed her children and all her family, I hope when this is over she dies in great pain." The thin woman's eyes drifted shut. "I am so tired, Chosen. I will not survive much longer. And that is a blessing."
"May you rest, Vankyar," I whispered. "May you rest in the safety of the Goddess' arms."
"God or Goddess, it makes no difference to me," she sang softly. "As long as it's not here. Iceblade keeps Tirith from me, but it's not enough. Tirith the coward. He takes out his rage and fear of his mother on all women, may he too die a painful death." She covered her mouth with her hand, then let her hand fall again. "I have never known and will never know a man's love as you do. Though you are cursed by it, I am envious. If you go to him and become his bride... ah, what a sweet and devastating passion you will share, known only to the Dark God and his Bright Goddess. But of course, you cannot, you must not."
I shivered, pressed my hand against my belly to stop its twisting. "Why did you protect me?" I asked. "Why did you hide my face from him, in the picture you drew?"
She laughed softly. "It was not time, you were not ready to be seen. I kept nothing from him that was yet his to know. You must go now. My nephew the son of Guin senses your presence and comes to find you. Now that he's gone to you, he'll see you every time you come, with no help from me. I can not hide you from his eyes now."
I opened my eyes to see Nefen, kind and clean of spirit, walking behind the travois, watching over me.
"Hello," he said. He gave me a gentle smile, as if he feared my reaction if he smiled more strongly. "Are you here with us again? We're but hours from the Wood. If you were looking ahead of us, you'd see it there." I saw blood spill from his mouth with every word he spoke, splashing onto his armor and dripping onto his jerkin, staining it bright red. I held in my scream, knowing the blood was not real, knowing how upsetting it would be to my friends if I screamed again. I closed my eyes, trying desperately to hold in my sobs.
When I opened them again, Fat Olif was walking behind the travois. His skin was blackened from being frozen on the ground, one of his arms hung from his shoulder by only a thread of flesh. There were no eyes in his sockets, probably long picked out by crows. "Do not let it burn," he moaned. "Do not let the blood of my children rot on the skin of the world unhonored."
I cried, my tears freezing on my cold face.
"I had three children, Ada the witch's daughter, Ada born of my own home village," Olif lamented. "They sat on your knee. He must die for his wicked wrath."
"I will kill him, I will," I wept. "He will pay." I shut my eyes, held them tightly closed. "I am not worthy of this task! I cannot bear it."
Fingers pried my mouth open and a cool, soothing liquid eased into my mouth.
"Drink it, girl," Selas' voice said. "Drink it. It will help."
I obeyed. The drink gave me a strange, fuzzy, sleepy feeling. "Give some to Fat Olif as well," I whispered. "Let him have his peace." Then I slipped away from time and place.
I found myself in a temple. Columns the color of warm sand held up a roof high above me, the temple was open on three sides. The wall in the back was covered with a faded and cracked fresco, depicting the Goddess in a simple red gown, like a loose tube tied at one shoulder and gathered at the waist with gold cord. Her copper hair hung in soft waves to Her feet. One hand held a basket of spring flowers and fruits, the other was empty, outstretched palm up. On Her beautiful face was a welcoming smile. There was a long low altar in front of the mosaic, and I stepped forward to place some offering upon it, only to find I held nothing. Looking down at myself, I saw I wore a gown of deep burgundy styled much the same as the one the Goddess wore, and that my hair hung loose around my shoulders, down past my hips. There was no backpack, no waist pouch, I carried no belongings of any kind aside from the clothing I wore. I looked back up to the fresco.
"I have nothing to offer you, Good Queen," I said. "I may give only myself; my flesh and my pain."
"It is enough," She whispered into my heart. A feeling of peace and contentment like none I've ever known or hope to ever again flooded my soul. I turned to leave the temple.
Tirk was standing at the entrance. He wasn't wearing black, but palest blue, and he didn't look the same to me. There was no coldness, no vengeance on his face or in his soul.
"Come," I said.
"I may not," he replied, holding his arms out to his sides with the palms of his hands facing me. His voice was smooth, full, the rasping gone. I went to him, onto the stairs of the temple. He reached out and took my hand. I sucked my breath in, surprised, as our flesh touched. His hand was warm, calloused, and held mine tenderly.
"I wish..." I said. I lifted his hand to my face, pressed my mouth to his palm.
"Don't cry," he murmured. "Your tears strike me to the heart." His thumb stroked my face, drying my tears.
"If only we could stay r
ight here," I said.
"This is no place," he answered. "This is no time. We cannot stay for long."
"You're right. I must go now," I said, sighing with soft pain, feeling a distant change.
"Please, not yet." He bent his head to kiss me, but everything faded before he could.
The temple was gone, Tirk was gone, all that was left was a deep and restful true sleep.
Though I didn't know it yet, we had entered Reckonwood.
Chapter 8
Reckonwood
It took me three days to awaken this time, as I was told later. When I did, I lay quietly for some moments, making sure I was coherent and in a safe place. I was in the small canvas tent we had brought from Berowalt, no Iceblade, no Cur, no Vankyar. Outside the tent, I could hear the sounds of Selas and the others training, and I could smell food cooking. It was the smell of food that brought me up unsteadily to my feet and out of the tent.
My armor was clean and sitting against a tree trunk, on top of my pack. The other packs were set neatly nearby. A kettle of stew was bubbling over the fire and there was a pan of cold biscuits sitting on top of a stump handily close. Some fallen logs had been pulled up around the fire to serve as seating. I took one up on its offer.
I heard a voice call, "She's up!", then I was surrounded.
"Good morning!" Selas said, with only mild sarcasm.
"Or early afternoon," Wyntan added. "Either way it's good to see you awake, and looking lucid."
"I'll be lucid shortly," I said dryly. "It takes a few minutes to recover from losing my mind, once I'm awake."
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