by Dan Avera
“Come back to me, Will,” she said softly, sadly, and he craned his head up to look at her. “That is all I ask. Come back to me. Throw away your anger. It poisons you—makes you into something you are not.”
“How?” he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.
She knelt down next to him and placed her hands on either side of his face. “Love,” she breathed.
When it became apparent that she would say no more, he nodded. Tears welled in his eyes, obscuring his vision behind a blurry veil. “Alright,” he said, and his voice shook. He steadied himself and tried one more time. “Alright.”
“Now look,” she said, apparently accepting his answer, “and see.”
He stood and turned, his gaze drawn to the rolling hills beyond the oak. Clare got to her feet and went to his side, and he felt her fingers slide along his arm and grasp his hand.
The fields were no longer empty—there were now thousands of people before him, nobles and soldiers and commonfolk from every corner of the world. They stood silently, motionlessly, waiting for something. He saw Castor and Katryna, Hook and Serah and Feothon—everyone he had ever met, even the little girl named Priscilla, was there. He tried to call out to them, to say something, but found that once again the dream had other plans.
“These are all the people you have met,” Clare said softly, “and all the people you will meet. Every life you will ever, or may ever change is here, now.”
There were so many of them—so many that he could never have counted them all. They were as grains of sand on a beach, or the stars in a clear night sky. Endless, numberless, an ocean of people more vast than even Borbos' sea. What are you waiting for? he wanted to ask. Why are you staring at me? And then he saw, far off in the horizon, the telltale darkness of an approaching storm. But it was no earthly storm—he sensed malice within its depths, a hatred so powerful that it threatened to send him to his knees, and he knew that it was the same storm he had seen before. But he felt Clare's hand in his own and it lent him strength, strength enough to stand against the dark tide.
He wanted to scream, to cry out to the people who stood before him, oblivious to the horrors approaching from behind, but he could not. With his free hand he reached for his sword—and found that it was not there. When he looked down he saw that he was clothed not in armor but in only a shirt and breeches.
His eyes crept slowly skyward then, his horror mounting with each passing moment. The darkness was closer now, and he could see within its depths jagged flashes of blood-red lightning that whipped and flickered with a life of its own. And still the people did not notice.
Will turned back to Clare as panic seized him, but she would not meet his gaze. Her golden eyes were fixed unblinkingly on the approaching storm, and the grief in them now eclipsed anything he had ever seen before. And then she began to sing, her voice clear and beautiful as it rolled out across the field of people and toward the roiling mass of darkness. Will could not understand the words—if, in fact, there were any words at all—but something about her voice told a tale of sorrow and fear. It laced itself between the sounds of the storm, the thunder and lightning providing a booming tempo that both clashed horribly and blended beautifully with her voice.
The storm seemed to pause then, and Will felt its malicious attention center on Clare. Panic surged up from his gut, and he made to stop her from singing—anything to keep her from the dark mass' notice—but found he was unable to move except to look between Clare and the storm. No, he thought frantically, no, no, no, no!
The cloud charged forward then, rushing toward Clare with breathtaking speed. An unearthly howl crashed through the air, deafening Will and leaving his head reeling and confused. He tried to cry out, to shake Clare back to her senses, to somehow make her stop, but he could not. And the darkness came ever-closer, swallowing everything before it and leaving nothing in its wake. Will saw everyone he knew, everyone he loved, devoured by its insatiable fury, and as it ate them it seemed to grow, its tendrils of red lightning venturing farther and farther from the thing's center.
He saw Castor and Katryna rent to pieces, and the scream that wished so desperately to tear itself from his throat instead tore at his heart. Hook was flung into the abyss, his eyes never leaving Will as he spun and flipped through the air before disappearing forever. Something inside Will snapped and he felt his anger peak, just as it had done in Spaertos. He clawed at the power inside of him, trying in vain to summon Koutoum's wrath, but no matter how he pushed and pulled and raged inside his mind, the power eluded him.
The cloud had finally reached the Titans, and it killed them one by one. Borbos, Leyra, Serah, Feothon—they were all carried away, silently staring at Will just as Hook had done. And when the Titans were finished, the storm turned its attention completely to Clare. Will felt waves of pure hatred beat down on him from above, and had he been able he would have collapsed to the ground. But Clare's grip on his hand suddenly tightened, and he turned to face her with tears of enraged frustration stinging in his eyes. I'm so sorry, he wanted to say. He wanted to touch her, to hold her, to wipe away the tears that stained her cheeks. But he could not, and the dark mass drew inexorably closer.
I love you, Clare, he thought, and the realization that they were going to die suddenly became a tangible idea in his mind. He felt his anger ebb away to be replaced with a strange sense of peace—nothing seemed to matter anymore, nothing except that he would spend his final moments with Clare. I love you.
And then, to his surprise, she smiled. She finally turned to face him, and when her eyes of liquid gold met his own of flowing crimson, the world literally exploded around them as a towering inferno that dwarfed the dark storm rose up from their bodies in a column of light and heat. It began to beat the darkness back, tearing into the shadow-stuff with unimaginable fury. Tongues of flame lashed out at the forked bolts of lightning, beating them back into the center of the clouds, and the storm shrank before the fire's relentless assault, sounding as though it were howling in pain as it went.
And yet, despite the fire's wrath, Will continued to feel only peace. He did not notice the titanic battle raging about him, nor did he hear the deafening wails of pain and rage. He saw only Clare, heard only the faint sounds of her breathing, smelled only the scent of lavender. “I love you,” he said and, suddenly able to move once more, leaned in to kiss her.
~
“Welcome to Horoth,” Leyra said, though her tone lacked any trace of welcoming inflection. She slid off of her gryphon and landed on the ground with a heavy thud. The impact was dulled somewhat by the thick carpet of snow that covered the ground, and the crunch that followed sounded hollow and suppressed.
Clare had been to the southernmost reaches of the Northlands with the Dahotan army many times over the course of her life, but those ventures had always been at the height of summer when the earth had yet to grow dark and cold. The snow she had seen before had always been pitiful, little more than piles of melting slush that disappeared soon after she found it. So it was with some trepidation that she slid down her gryphon's side and stepped lightly up to her ankles in the snow of the far north. It crunched and squealed beneath her boots, and she felt her toes rapidly growing cold despite the leather protecting her feet. She shivered and wrapped her arms about herself; her breath made misty little clouds in the air that dissipated moments later. The cold seemed to wrap its fingers around her like it had not up high in the sky, and she wondered if Serah had done something to keep them warm during their journey.
Horoth was, Clare found to her surprise, unremarkable. She had seen Northmen forts along the southern arm of the Salt March before, and there seemed to be few differences between Horoth and those unadorned constructs of wood and metal. Like nearly every structure built by the Northmen this one seemed to have been designed for the sole purpose of war; a great wooden wall surrounded the inner fort, which had been built in the same bleak, featureless design. All told, there was very little about Horoth that Clare consid
ered even remotely eye-catching.
“Come,” said a soft voice behind her, and she felt Serah's slender fingers rest lightly on her shoulder. She turned and met the desert woman's dark gaze. “You must be tired, yes?” she continued. “Horoth is much warmer inside.”
Clare nodded but did not say anything. For a moment Serah did not move, but continued to stare at her. She expects me to ask about Will, Clare realized as she looked into Serah's unreadable eyes. She almost did—her mouth opened the slightest bit, and she took a preliminary breath before giving voice to the question.
And then she stopped. The truth was, she did not care. Will was alive—she knew that much. Whether he had awakened, or indeed if he ever would, was inconsequential.
She closed her mouth, nodded, and looked away. After a moment Serah slumped wearily, looking suddenly very frail. “Right,” she said in a small voice. “Then...follow me. Servants will take care of the gryphon.”
It was only a short trek through the front gates of Horoth, but to Clare it felt much longer. The cold made her tired muscles ache, and the grey skies overhead served only to compound her ill feelings. Stoic Northmen in full battle dress greeted them at the gates with a curt nod, but otherwise made no move to communicate. Their eyes continually scanned the seething mass of people for any threat foolish enough to make itself known, and the cold in the air was nothing compared to the frigid glares they gave the world.
Feothon and Leyra joined Clare and Serah once they passed through the archway; neither said a word, but the Northman soldiers in the Titans' immediate vicinity bent at the waist until they passed. One of them—Vulf, Clare remembered—fell into step beside Leyra and conversed with her in a low voice. Her consort, Clare thought. Her lover. I wonder if he ever regrets the title.
There were more Northmen guarding the front of the fortress itself, each as grim and stone-faced as the first. Leyra made a fist and pounded it once sharply against her breastplate as they drew near, and in response two of the men pushed open the tall, heavy doors that lead into the main hall. A wave of heat rolled out to meet them, washing over Clare with all the welcome of a Dahotan summer breeze. She felt a flicker of nostalgia pass through her, but it was gone soon after as they made their way into the hall proper.
The outside of Horoth had been deceptive in size; what Clare had taken at first to be a somewhat larger-than-average fortress was in fact a much grander thing altogether. The main hall alone had enough room for nearly every one of the survivors to stand, in addition to the Northlanders hurrying madly about as they tried to accommodate the new arrivals. Dozens of firepits roared with life, and their crackling flames burned away the biting cold and lent a sense of subdued cheer to the frigid demeanor of the Northlanders.
“This is your home as much as it is mine,” Leyra said, removing her great fur cloak and handing it to a waiting Northwoman in servant's garb. She gave her axe to one of her men and then turned to Clare. “Undoubtedly you are weary. A servant will show you to your quarters.”
She moved in close to Clare then and, much to Clare's surprise, drew her into a gentle embrace. “We have all lost a great deal,” Leyra said softly, her words for Clare and Clare alone. “Some of us have lost more than others. But there are a few who do not need to lose as much as they believe.” She caught Clare's gaze with her own, and her sky-blue eyes held a stormy sadness in their depths. But there was something else there, too—compassion, and even understanding.
“But...” Clare whispered. “But I have lost so much.”
For a long while they simply stared at each other. When Leyra finally spoke, Clare had to strain to hear her words over the sound of a dozen crackling fires. “You only lose that which you let go of. He is not a monster, Clare.”
And then she turned and left. An entourage of Northwomen followed her as she exited the hall, and Vulf kept pace with her as she went.
Something caught Clare's eye then, and she turned slightly to see Caleeta, miraculously still alive even after the events at Spaertos. Then again, I'm alive too, she thought. I suppose I should not be so surprised. Caleeta was crying—or had been until very recently, if the redness in her eyes was any indication. A small crowd of Westlander sailors walked with her, some whispering words of comfort to her and some simply staring blankly at the ground. She has lost more than I, Clare thought, and suddenly her self-pity was eclipsed by an overwhelming sense of shame. Borbos died to save the rest of us, and now Caleeta has no one. Who am I to wallow in grief?
A thought struck her then, and mentally shaking herself from the fog of depression, she walked over to the Island woman. Caleeta looked up just as she drew near, and then squawked in surprise when Clare drew her into a tight embrace. “If you need anything,” Clare said softly to her, “anything at all, do not hesitate to ask it of me.”
Caleeta looked at her with freshly wet eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered in her thick accent. “That....that mean a great deal to me.” The dark-skinned woman returned the embrace and then pulled away, wiping roughly at her eyes and sniffling. “I'll be going back to the City,” she said softly, her voice shaking. “There was little enough that I could give before. Now, there be nothing. Take care of the Dragon King, Land Lady.” She left without a backward glance, and Clare watched her until Caleeta and her fellow sailors had disappeared down one of the many hallways of Horoth.
Guilt twisted Clare's stomach as she turned back to Serah and Feothon and made to rejoin them, but she pushed the emotion roughly away. She did not wish to think about Will. Not in the slightest. She stopped a moment later, however, when she noticed that the Titans were not looking at her, but at the main doorway. She followed their gaze and felt her heart sink.
Will, it seemed, had yet to awaken. Four burly Northmen bore him into the hall on a stretcher with unusual grace and tenderness, their faces masks of grim resolution. And as they passed, though none of them had met him, each Northlander who saw the body bowed their head and fell to one knee. A true god, Clare thought. A being who can command devotion from his subjects without ever having seen them.
She cast one last long, lingering look at Will's face—he looked so serene, so different from how he had in Spaertos—and then turned on her heel and left.
She had no idea where she was going; she was sure a servant would stop her and direct her to a room, but until then she simply wanted to leave the great hall with its ever-present fires. She had seen enough flame to last her ten lifetimes. She was stopped a moment later, but by Serah rather than a servant.
“Follow me,” the Titan said. “There is someone waiting for you.”
Her curiosity piqued, Clare silently allowed Serah to lead her away. They left the main hall through a small side door, the surface of which was carved with images very much akin to those on Leyra's axe, and then moved down a wide, dimly-lit corridor. Clare had not realized how loud the great hall had been, but she suddenly found herself enjoying the newfound silence very much. The din of many voices and tramping feet receded to a low drone that she was easily able to forget about, and the comforting crackle of the torches lining the wall eclipsed what noise remained.
For the first time in what felt like years, Clare breathed a muted sigh and felt her body lose some of its tension.
“That door,” Serah said softly, indicating one on their left, and then rapped her knuckles lightly on its surface. A curious scuffling sound emanated from within, and it was accompanied by a woman's low voice.
The door opened wide, exposing a a pale, pretty face framed by a curtain of red hair—Asper? Clare thought with surprise—but before any of the three women could speak a massive shadow barreled through the doorway and slammed into Clare, throwing her to the floor with a heavy, painful thud. She reached up to ward off her attacker, but her hands found only fur—thick, stormy grey fur.
And then the shadow whined and licked her face, and Clare threw her arms around its neck. “Oh, Grim,” she cried, and then, finally, with her face buried against his warm neck and
her eyes streaming with fresh tears of joy and relief, she felt safe once more.
~
Will awoke in a strange room, to the sight of a woman he had never seen before leaning over him and dabbing at his brow with a damp cloth. She was old and weathered, her skin wrinkled and leathery and her hair near the end of its transition from gold to silver. When she saw that his eyes had opened she inclined her head respectfully, stood, and left without a word. For a moment after the door clicked softly closed Will simply lay where she had left him, attempting unsuccessfully to remember his dream. Soon he gave up, instead using the opportunity to take stock of his surroundings.
The room was sparsely furnished, with only a cheerfully crackling fireplace to lend it any semblance of personality. A small window afforded a view of the outside world, but from his position he could see only cloudy grey skies. He sat up, the rush mat beneath him rustling softly as his weight shifted, and brought one hand to his forehead.
The headaches, he decided, are becoming tiresome. He knuckled his brow in a fruitless attempt to banish the throbbing pain that seemed to manifest each time he used his power. I wonder if Davin had the same problem. Someone had undressed him while he slept, and his shirt, boots, and traveling cloak had been laid on the ground by the hearth. He briefly debated retrieving them, but reasoned that there was little point in dressing if he was in a room with only himself.
He looked down at his body then, half-expecting to see the wounds he had accumulated over the last few days but finding only smooth, flawless skin. He sighed. Smooth as the day I was born, he thought, absently running his fingertips across his left ribs. There had been a scar there once, up until his awakening in Prado. An Eastlander had given it to him with a curved sha'shim sword, flaying his skin open with a long draw-cut that had nearly killed him. He had worn it as a prize from his early days of mercenary life, and it was one that he had gazed at often when in search of humility. But it was gone now, as were the rest of his body's memories. He would never again grow sick or tired, nor would his skin hold a scar. He wondered whether that was a good thing.