Yarel felt a sudden chill, like something cold and wet crawling across his soul, and his eyes snapped open. There was a prick of pain, tiny needles in his throat, then a horrible jolt.
He tried to scream, but only managed a gurgle of frothy blood, his voice lost in a crimson torrent. His hands grappled with her, his fingers trying to tear her away, but her grip was iron. First his strength fled, and then his sight.
In the end, she had been right. He sank like a stone.
≈
Fire…
It surged in his flesh, through his veins, in his mind, in their mind.
Confusion. Fear. Anger. Love. Some of the emotions were his, some were not, but all were theirs together, and through it all there was fire. He tried to open his eyes, but found that he could already see. All around him there was the sea, and all through him surged light, fire and steaming water.
Confusion…Fear…
Instinctively, he shut himself off from the sea around him. He pulled his great gates closed, breaking through the blockage of coral rock, and sent forth the fire until the water in his lower reaches began to boil away. It felt good—this purging, cleansing fire that coursed through him, burning away the offal of a thousand years of neglect. He brought the winds in from above to howl throughout his passages, carrying away the ashes, steam and smoke like a deep, cleansing breath.
Anger…
This was not as familiar, not to him, but he felt it nonetheless. Their thoughts were inseparable. They were one. All the betrayal, the rage, the self-loathing and the madness rose in him like a burning tide. Memories that were not his rushed in: the anguish of loss, the pain of wounds, the taste of blood, and the curious, warm fullness of being with a man, the building pleasure of being two creatures as one, joined in rapture. His own memories meshed with these, and one moment, one encounter, came to crystal clarity in their mind from both perspectives; the moment of their lovemaking.
Love…
It felt strange to him, like nothing he had experienced before. It was akin to his longing for Camilla, but different; a thirst for protection and comfort. Another shared thought: neither mind had a single memory of ever being told they were loved. His parents’ fear of him, her father’s stoic attention to duty, and her mother’s coldness. The discipline of a lightkeeper, the heavy hand of a nanny…
Abandonment…
The crack of a whip…
Fire erupting from Clairissa…
Screams…
Blood…
Rage…
Fire…
Burn them all!
The conjoined thought centered him, took hold and became him…a thirst for revenge against all those who had wronged them. Vengeance against those who had lied, manipulated and tried to kill them. Cynthia Flaxal, Feldrin Brelak, Emil Norris…
Yes…especially the seamage…
She lived, had somehow escaped the flooding chamber and survived the sword wound. He felt her nearby, the distinctive smothering chill of her power. Where… He looked outward with his new sight and saw a ship sailing away to the north. Yes…he could feel her there, her power fading with distance.
The winds sprang to his call, howling from the south, pushing him, pushing them, slowly, ever so slowly northward. The ship was faster, but they would follow. And when they found the seamage, she would burn.
They would all burn.
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