“But—but the Bridge?”
It is not for you yet. A whisper now.
“What of Belfas? What of the others?”
A laughter so full of affection that it could not be hurtful echoed in her ears.
All that you were was not blood alone, great-grandchild. He waits for you. He is free. And you—you, too, are merely mortal. Arrive at his side in your time; he will understand. He tells me to tell you he’ll understand if you are late; you always were. And now, hush, child. I have a world to touch, and I see all the possibilities of life, of choice.
I cannot contain myself longer here.
And the Hand of God, of the One Heart, withdrew from the temple. Sunlight shone down through the hole in the ceiling, and filtered through the cracks and missing panes of the stained glass windows. The Gifting of the Bright Heart was empty, a deep, long tunnel through rock beneath the floor.
At its side stood two people, one tall and one—although she would have hated to acknowledge it—quite a bit shorter. One wore dark clothing that was tattered and torn as if from great battle; the other wore nothing at all.
She felt the breeze skirt along her upturned face as she closed her eyes and smiled.
“Sara.”
“Mmmm?”
“Take this.”
She looked up at Stefanos—at the face that had once been magical guise, but would now know the passage of time—and blushed. Her fingers caught the edge of his cloak as she wrapped it around her shoulders.
“I am human.” His voice held a wonder. “But you are still mine.”
“And we’re very happy to hear it, but do you think we could hear it somewhere else? Look at this!”
Renar was shaking his jacket as if it were a dead rat. “Completely destroyed.”
“Erin?”
“Darin!” She threw her arms open, realized that she’d dropped her cape, fumbled with it a second, and then laughed.
He laughed as well and came running as quickly as he could, only to stop a few feet away.
She looked down, sensitive to his expression, although his pain called nothing, nothing at all.
At his feet, nearly lost among the bodies of what had once been Swords, was a guard clad in the gray and burgundy. His fingers, or what remained of them, were locked in a tight grip around the handle of a short sword.
“Corfaire.” She knelt and placed her fingers at his throat. She started to push and realized that it was useless. Nothing happened. So had the Bright Heart—the One Heart—warned her. She had been taught to doctor in the regular ways, but even had she not had that skill, she would have known he was dead.
Her eyes filled, and Darin shook his head fiercely.
“It wasn’t—it wasn’t the Light that killed him, not when you called on the Gifting.”
Gerald walked quietly up. It still surprised her that so large a man could make so little noise. He bent down, shoving bodies aside, and carefully picked up Corfaire. “He fought for you, Lady. I think this was the death he would have wanted.”
Renar had slid into his jacket and was now looking at the doors. “Uh, do either of the two of you know if we’re going to have trouble getting out of here?”
Stefanos raised an eyebrow. “No,” he said tersely. “But shall we not find out?”
He gestured, and his eyes flashed silver.
Silver.
Not all of the magic had been lost, then.
With an accusing creak, the doors opened. There was no one in the hall. “Lady?” he said, bowing formally.
She smiled tremulously and took his arm. Beginning together, as they meant to stay, and followed by their companions, they began their walk into a new life.
epilogue
“Isn’t this a little selfish?”
Stefanos, in the common clothing of a merchant traveler, grunted as he pulled tight the strings of a bedroll. His hands, once immune to everything, were callused. Scars he’d received on his first day as a mortal had barely faded. It had taken time to realize that the strength blood had granted him was not the only thing he had lost.
“Selfish, Sara?”
Crossing her arms, she looked out the window. There were royal guards in the courtyard below, practicing their drill. She never understood what such drill was supposed to accomplish, but had to admit that it was an impressive sight.
“Yes, selfish.”
He finished shoving things into a pack and then began his search for boots.
“Quite probably.”
She shook her head and looked up, seeing the castle walls on the horizon. Beyond them, the city of Dagothrin was flourishing. It was far from the heart of the kingdom, if indeed kingdom it was, but many, many people had made their trek to the northern capital.
It had not been easy for the last several years. There were any number of times when she wondered if she—or her bondmate—might not have been better off in the Beyond. She remembered his first combat—were it not for the silver of his eyes and the speed of his magic, he would be dead. He had reacted so automatically, and so arrogantly, that he had forgotten for an extremely dangerous moment that weapons, mere steel and wood, could now kill him.
And she, too, had forgotten that with no Light behind her hands, she could not save the injured or the dying. The first time it had happened—
She shook her head. Why these dark musings? It had been difficult, but the One Heart had promised as much.
There was a new religious order that had swept the land, but she had shied away from it, although she was central to its legend and genesis. Twice she had tried to change her name, and three times had tried to abdicate her responsibility to the people.
Cospatric’s stinging words shadowed her face, but they brought a weary, affectionate smile as well.
Oh, poor child. The great Lady Erin can’t rely on her blood-magic anymore, and now she’s just useless. It doesn’t matter that everyone trusts her. It doesn’t make a difference that she still knows how to doctor and how to fight—’cause she doesn’t have her magic.
Well, don’t bother feeling sorry for yourself in my bar, Lady. Either get off your duff and start living a life, or get out.
How his words had hurt, then! And how they had helped. She still drew them out of memory and kept them as a reminder of the renewed responsibility she had earned. He’d even apologized for them later, but far too late; they’d done their work.
And she thanked him for it silently, almost every evening.
“Are you sure about this?”
“Sara, why is it that when you have doubts, it is my certainty that you question?” He walked up to her and encircled her waist with his arms. She tilted her head back against his chest, and he saw the lines that had deepened around her eyes and had etched themselves into the corners of her mouth.
He loved those lines. They were the engraving that years of laughter and smiling had placed there, and she did not wear them heavily or with regrets.
“Renar of Marantine has been a good king, no matter how he railed against it. The crown for now is not under any threat; the two-year war saw to that quite effectively.”
“I know that, but—”
“But? When we reach your Bridge, I shall have to have words with the person who taught you to say that!” He tightened his grip and kissed her gently on the neck. “Tiras, even old, will never be doddering, and he’s just the adviser Renar needs. Darin is up and coming; he’s grown into someone that you can justly be proud of, and he’s here to aid.”
“But—”
“There are no buts, Sara. We were given a life of our own, free of the constraints that almost destroyed us both. What is the point of that, if we can take no time for ourselves? You are important, love, as am I, in the king’s council. But we are both only human now. Come, let us go. Hildy will be waiting.”
She sighed and pressed her back against him.
“Darkling?”
“Yes. I’m here.” He lifted her gently then and turned her around. “Have you really ch
anged your mind?”
“No.” She shook her shoulders, straightened herself out, and smiled. “But I’m almost afraid to go there.”
“Don’t be. Hildy says it hasn’t changed much.”
“Hildy was never in Mordantari before the Cataclysm. She wouldn’t know.”
“I would. Not as well as I once did, alas, but more than the mind remembers. I wish to see Rennath. I wish to see Mordantari and the castle that I once built for you. There are ... old friends there that I once promised to pay my respects to. If we do not go now, when shall we?”
Leaning down, he kissed her lips.
“Come, Sara.”
She rolled up the sleeves of her simple tunic and smiled wistfully. With deliberate care, she shed the burden of her office and became, for an instant, the private woman that he loved so much.
Hildy was waiting, after all. And this time, the journey was theirs to choose. No fate shadowed it, no war undermined it, and no blood set them against each other.
Yes, perhaps he was right. They had helped to build this new world, from the ashes of the old, and there were many shoulders who could now carry its burden. It wasn’t perfect, and some part of her naively regretted that—but it was full of choice and promise.
She caught his arm, beginning to tingle with expectation and the foreign sense of complete freedom.
“All right,” she whispered. “But we’d better hurry. Tiras may have gotten older, but if he breaks our legs, I won’t be able to heal them.”
He chuckled, put on his pack, and then suddenly swept her off her feet.
And if they didn’t live happily ever after, they had enough happiness to make that living worthwhile—which is all, in the end, that they had ever dreamed of on the long road of which the Sundered were the beginning, and their children the end.
1
As Michelle Sagara
2
As Michelle West
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 1994 by Michelle Sagara West
First BenBella Books Edition April 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
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Chains of Darkness, Chains of Light (The Sundered, Book 4) Page 42