Riding through the streets of the King’s city, Doncerric, it was as if they entered a different world. One not shadowed by death, by the stink and clamor of battle. Although their expressions were worried, and some were clearly strained, folk went about their business as if a battle hadn’t just been fought and a war won.
Some of them were on the walls, watching the scene below.
In the city itself people eyed them curiously, especially seeing Elves and men in company but most went about their daily business of running errands, of buying and selling. The battle that had just been fought and won, the war there were distant things to them until or unless they arrived on their doorstep.
Those that had fought and died for them so they could were strangers.
Life went on.
And in the end that was what they’d fought for, so that it could.
They went slow for Chai's sake, the cut on his foreleg was deep and he favored it as they climbed the streets of Doncerric to the sound of the clatter of their horses’ hooves.
When they finally reached Jareth’s house it was a relief.
They got the horses unsaddled and unbridled in the stable but no one made it any farther than the garden.
No one wanted to.
The air smelled sweet there, not of blood and death, trolls, goblins or other foul things.
It was peaceful here in this place. Green. Enough like Aerilann to ease the soul.
The breeze was soft and pleasant in this city of perpetual summer.
Elon lay with his head propped on the root of a tree, staring up through the leaves at the brilliant wash of color across the sky. The golden glow of the setting sun bathed everything in warm light. The first stars had appeared, tiny points of light.
The battle had taken all of a day.
Nearby Ailith lay on the side that didn’t hurt. Both Colath and Jalila were stretched out flat, Colath on his back, Jalila on her belly, with her head propped up on her arms. Both uncharacteristic positions for them but it had been a terrible day. One in which none of them had come away unscathed.
Only Jareth still sat up.
Tilting her head, Ailith looked at him.
At that curious glance, Jareth said, “Laying down isn’t bad once you get down there. Getting up again with sore ribs is a problem.”
“Ah,” Ailith said, nodding.
“What happened?” Jalila asked, curiously.
He sighed, “A troll ran me down.”
Colath looked at him. “They are large and hard to miss.”
There was a glint in Colath’s eye.
He was teasing Jareth.
Burying her face in her elbow, Ailith smothered a laugh at the look on Jareth’s face.
She chanced at glance at Elon, who looked back at her and then Colath, a small smile curving his mouth.
“I was looking the other way,” Jareth said, by way of clarification.
“Ah,” Colath said, “that would explain it.”
Looking at him askance, seeing the twinkle in his eye, Jareth said, “More Elven humor?”
“It is subtle.”
Jareth snorted.
Listening to the banter, Elon’s heart lightened.
For now, all he wanted to do was look at them, his four, look at all of them. At Ailith and Colath. Colath, his friend for so long, his features as familiar to him as his own. To look at Ailith’s face, so strong and resolute in battle, it was bright again now, as he looked at the warmth in her blue eyes. Jareth, always dependable. Jalila, as sure and as true as her arrows. At all of them, his four. They’d been through a great deal together these last months. Somehow, they’d survived both the battles and the war.
Somehow they were all still alive.
“Olend?” he asked Ailith, conscious of the stars in her mind.
“He and Itan live.”
That was something, too. He would seek them out soon.
He felt echoes of pain, in Colath’s arm and his leg, Ailith’s ribs and the sharp sting of his own cuts.
As tired as he was, how could he leave them hurt?
With an effort, he pushed himself up and went over to Colath, whose hurts pained the most.
“Elon,” Colath said, shaking his head and giving Elon a look, “It’s nothing, it will heal.”
He could see Elon was too tired for this. It would heal. It would take time but it would heal.
At the echo of his own words at Raven’s Nest, Elon shook his head and smiled a little. It was something and it would be Healed.
As if in answer to a thought he hadn’t completed, there was Ailith beside him.
Settling down on Colath’s other side, she said, gently, “We’ll share it out between us, Elon, you and I, borrowing a little of your strength, Colath, as we go. I think we need to do this.”
Elon nodded.
She was right, they did.
It needed to be Healed, the sting and pain of battle. They needed to find the connections between them again and remake them. They Healed each other to remind themselves of who they were and that they were still alive.
Jareth was a little surprised when they turned to him, although he knew he shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t the first time either had Healed him, after all, but they’d never done so in tandem.
The pain eased and for the first time since the troll had taken him down, it didn’t hurt for him to breathe.
Used to the bumps and bruises of life among the Hunters, Jalila was still not sorry to have them Healed. It was something, too, to have Elon and Ailith to do this for her.
For a few moments everyone was quiet.
It had to be said, Elon couldn’t avoid it. Ailith had the right to know and he should be the one to tell her.
“Geric is dead,” he said and waited.
For a moment, Ailith wasn’t certain whether she felt relief or pain. A breath, caught and then slowly released. The pain was more distant.
She looked at Elon and saw something in his eyes, fear or concern, something that shadowed them. She felt it echo through the bond.
“That grieving I did out on the plain,” she said, as she looked out at the distant ocean and remembered the pain, the anger and the terrible sorrow. “My father died, truly died…what, is it only months ago? That man, the one who loved me well and tried so hard to keep me at peace was already dead. To know that the one who stole his face, who broke his will and destroyed him is dead, that was well done. How?’
A moment.
“I did it.” Elon waited.
It shouldn’t have surprised her and it didn’t. For a second, Ailith paused, considering it. Some might have seen it as killing her father. No wonder he’d been worried.
Her eyes came back to his, full of compassion.
“It worried you what I would think of it? You shouldn’t. Thank you, Elon. Perhaps now my father can be at peace. To have forced him to do what he did to my mother was a terrible thing. He loved her well. At least now he’s avenged. And so is she.”
The relief that went through him was enormous. She didn’t and wouldn’t hate him for that. The fear of that had worked on him, as he’d been the one to do it. However necessary it had been for what Geric had done and for what he planned to do.
“He can’t lift your disinheritance now that he’s dead, that’s unchanged.”
“He wouldn’t have, even had he lived,” she said. “The father I loved wanted an independent heir. What you killed didn’t.”
That, though, brought up her own actions on the plain and what she’d done there.
“Elon…”
Now it was her turn to be afraid to speak. Or not speak. She looked at all of them.
“I had to do it. I’m so sorry but I couldn’t let it happen.”
Looking at her, Elon felt a cold chill steal around his heart.
Fear for her.
He hadn’t wanted to think about it.
It was too easy to remember what it had felt like sitting out there on the plain, trapped and helpless. Knowing his
people were about to be slaughtered and unable to find an honorable way out, to escape. Being forced to consider choosing to slaughter innocent people to save his own. Knowing, too, what it would do to those in all the Elven Enclaves to feel so many of their people die.
She’d freed him from that by making a desperate decision of her own.
Elon looked at her, could feel her heart aching through the bond. Her fear.
“I can’t fault you, Ailith. I know what you did and all the reasons you did it.” That hum through the bond. “We’ll find a way, Ailith, somehow.”
There was nothing to do save wait to see how it played out and hope no one realized or guessed who was responsible while they tried to find a way to save her if it did.
Her act had saved the lives of thousands on the battlefield, not only those of their people but the men and Dwarves in the vanguard who’d been trapped in the gaze of the basilisks. It had to count for something that she’d saved so many.
The haunting echo of Talesin’s words played in Elon’s head. They would destroy her not because of what she was but because of what she was not.
He feared Talesin was right.
So he said, “All we can do is wait to see what happens.”
It troubled him, though, as night settled.
That night, as they all went off to their rest, he found Ailith on the balcony outside her room. They didn’t speak, he simply reached out to her and she came into his arms. For a time they stood there in silence.
“I’ll find a way, Ailith,” he said, a promise whispered against her hair.
Then he kissed her gently on the forehead and went into his own room.
With a sigh, Ailith wished she could have held him for a little while longer. She remembered the night in Marakis, awakening in his lap, his expression so peaceful.
Sleeping that night, she dreamed of laying her cheek against his chest, feeling his smooth warm skin against hers as she listened to the slow steady beat of his heart.
Elon was waiting in the garden the next morning, with her swords and his own in his hands, Colath beside him.
He offered her swords to her and she smiled. His grave eyes lit.
The forms.
It was so necessary to do them. It was joy. In unison, feeling muscles move, bodies turn, concentrating on the movements. They flowed one with the other, each motion precise and smooth, flowing and graceful. Soothing, as the patterns eased away the horrors and the fears, the moments of tension and the moments of terror.
That terrible moment when Elon had known he was trapped and helpless washed away.
Colath’s resolve, knowing that he and those with him had doom hanging over their shoulders and nowhere to go.
The grieving rage triggered in Ailith by Smoke’s death, that had triggered her terrible sorrow for all the other deaths that had gone before it.
Each of them knew it and felt it, shared it, flowed with it and then let it wash away. Elon stepped out, then Colath and Ailith and the swords began to ring. A slow tolling at first, that reflected and released the grief and the sorrow and the pain. Slowly, as muscles grew more limber, they went faster, passing from relief slowly to joy. And peace. Their swords rang like bells. The music of it filled them, eased them.
The swords slowed and stopped.
Jareth came out. He’d been watching until there was a knock at the door.
“Daran High King wants you, Elon. The messenger said he wants up at the castle you right away.”
It was too soon. Elon sighed. He’d wanted more time. As usual there was none. He looked at them all regretfully but he couldn’t ignore a summons from the High King, Elf, Councilor and Advisor or not. Daran would not take it well, and he was still the First.
Colath started to follow but Elon shook his head, “There’s no need, Colath. At least one of us should be able to rest.”
He touched Ailith’s shoulder as he went by and looked down in her eyes. She looked up at him and laid a hand over his. Taking the time for one more look at both of them, he put aside his swords, took up his more formal robes from where he’d left them and was gone.
“I’ll fetch something to eat,” Colath said, and went inside as Ailith nodded and sheathed her swords.
A voice from above, on the upper veranda, called to her, the deep tones familiar.
“Does he know?”
Startled, Ailith looked up.
A familiar Elven face with ancient eyes greeted her.
“Talesin,” she said, startled and pleased, “when did you get here?”
“Does he know?”
Ailith went still.
“Does he know what?” she asked, but her heart sank. She knew.
“That you are soul-bonded, you two.”
Her breath caught, locked in her chest even as her throat tightened and her heart twisted.
Disaster.
“Talesin.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “He knows and he doesn’t. I think he senses it and far in the back of his mind there is hope. I think in a way he’s afraid it may not be, after he’s waited so long for it. That it may be a true-friend bond, not the match for his heart and soul he’s waited for so long. He steps carefully, afraid to not find it. Or finding it true and knowing what would come of it.”
Ailith opened her eyes to find Colath standing there looking at her in shock. Her heart broke.
His eyes lit as she spoke and then shadowed as she finished.
Soul-bonded, Elon and Ailith? At first Colath’s heart leaped at the thought that Elon had finally found his soul-bond and with Ailith, who they both loved. Knowing, too, how deeply Elon cared for her, how much joy she gave him.
Then, like her, like Talesin, he saw the shadows over it.
Otherling. Feared and hated.
His heart sank.
He’d become so accustomed to her he’d forgotten and in some ways she acted so Elven it was easy to forget she wasn’t, despite the differences.
To all appearances, however much he loved her, she wasn’t of their race.
Much might be forgiven of Elon for who and what he was, but this?
And if they discovered what she truly was?
He looked to her and saw that knowledge there in her eyes.
Ailith knew, she understood. Her breath came short. She bowed her head and swallowed hard against the pain.
Talesin said, “You know.”
“Yes and I know it cannot be,” she said. “Jareth asked me about it on the ride to Marakis, and I knew. Somehow then I knew.”
The anguish in her voice, the joy and the love, nearly broke Colath’s heart.
“Colath, help me, please, help me know what to do?”
She looked at him, helplessly.
Shaking his head just as helplessly, Colath had no answer for her. All he could do was go to her, take her hand and share her pain.
Talesin came down to take her other hand in the way of their people and give comfort.
“But you haven’t…?” he said.
She shook her head, her voice full of longing and despair.
“No. I dream of him, Talesin. I dream of it, but no. I dare not. Dreams only, he moves carefully and I want to respond but I don’t dare. Tell me. What will happen if this goes badly, if they find out who and what I am? What will it do to him?”
Talesin and Colath shared a glance. To hold a soul-bond incomplete, knowing it was there?
The agony of it was incomprehensible.
“They’re already asking,” Jareth said, from the veranda.
Ailith’s blood ran cold.
They all looked up at him.
“I heard,” he said.
Jareth took a breath.
“Avila is questioning every wizard to find out who did it, who conjured up the dragon, although she knows it wasn’t one of us. She hasn’t gotten to me yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”
Talesin shook his head and answered Ailith’s question. “It will destroy him, if the bond is completed. He’ll have
to defend you. Too soon after the sealing of it… As it stands I fear for him if it comes to that.”
She let out a long sigh.
For a moment Jareth stared at her. No. She wasn’t saying what he thought she was saying.
“Ailith,” Jareth exclaimed. “You can’t.”
Both Colath and Talesin looked at him, their eyes bleak.
She looked at him, too, and smiled sadly.
“Jareth, think on it. Among us it’s no problem. Among the rest of our world? Could he take me back to the Enclave he loves so well? To Aerilann? Looking as I do? Even without them knowing what I truly am. Would they accept me? I know what Aerilann means to him, it’s not merely his home, it’s a part of his heart and his place in the world. How can I do that to him? How can I ask him to give it up?”
“I’m Otherling. How long can I hide it? Look what’s happened, Olend and Itan know because I couldn’t let you die. The battlefield? What would happen if someone in Aerilann finds out? What will they do, how would they feel, if he brought me into the Enclave, near their children, so precious, so few, knowing what they would fear. So, he doesn’t? We’re soul-bonded but I must stay here and he comes when he can? I’m mixed blood, Half-Dwarven, that’s known. Will they let me have his child, knowing what I am? Even if they didn’t know I was Otherling, my children will be.”
“If they let it go? He’s First among Equals, would he still be, after? Knowing what I am? Would he still sit on Council? He could lose everything he’s worked for, fought for, all his long life. How can I ask him to give it up? I swore I wouldn’t bring him harm, now I’m bound to it. I’ve lost home, family, all of that. I know what it is to lose that. To ask him to do the same? But to lose him…”
“You won’t,” Talesin said firmly. “You can’t. You’re soul-bonded whether you will it or no. Whether he knows it or not, or accepts it or not, he loves you, Ailith. It’s the nature of the bond, it’s what a soul-bond is, complete or incomplete. He does love you. Forever. Of that you can be sure.”
There was some comfort in that, both joy and pain.
“So, you’re just going to leave him wonder?” Jareth said bitterly.
Ailith flinched and he could have bit back the words and his tongue with it for the look in her eyes.
She couldn’t be so cruel, he knew that.
“No, Jareth, no. Part of him does know, I know it. I know that’s true in a thousand ways. Each time he touches me, the way his eyes light when he sees me. That part of him knows all of this and is trying to find a way through it. I have to leave him do it in his own way. It must be his free choice. If he knows I know, then it becomes a different thing. He’ll be forced to acknowledge it and choose. I know what he’ll do, I know it and I know all he’ll lose for it. I can’t make him do that, can’t force him to it. Even without the bond he’s my heart and my soul and my joy. It’s why the forms mean so much to us, it’s the closest we can come to expressing what we feel.”
The Coming Storm Page 67