Page 101 of Heart of the Shadow King

“Destruction only begets more destruction.” I close my eyes. The song of my existence strains but holds, giving me just enough life and form. “But the legacy of your love islife.”

She weeps. She moans. A terrible cacophony, the roar of planets colliding, of civilizations falling. We are outside of time, outside of space, just the two of us together. The two of us and her pain. It is heavy. It will break me.

But I stay with her. I hold her.

Then I feel it—a sudden openness that wasn’t there before, straight through to the center of her, to the core of her heart, her existence. With a single, swift bolt, I might send theva-jorthrough. It would wrap her in stone at once, and she would be beyond pain, beyond flame, beyond world-ending. It is a tempting prospect.

But that is not my gift.

I reach out into that space of vulnerability. Instead of stone, I offer . . .calm.

It sings from everyurzulstone, even from the microscopic fragments of shattered crystal dust. Millions upon millions of voices singing, vibrating, carrying my gift in a pure bolt of power. It strikes true, whorls in her molten core, and becomes one with her flame. The red-hot heat transforms into brilliant, shining white.

Arraog drags in a breath.

I feel it. All myurzulparts shiver at her inhale, which sucks air from every cavern and cave of the Under Realm. I feel the poison of her breath returning to its source. Then she exhales. But rather than poison, this time she sends out a breath of calm. My calm, my power. Rushing through the world, surrounding every living being.

Again and again, Arraog breathes, inhaling poison, exhaling calm. It hurts. It hurts us both. The pain is excruciating, but I hold on and hold on, until the vibrations of theurzulthreaten to undo my very being. Then I hold on a little longer.

Arraog looks up at me. She is smaller now to my gaze. Great and mighty and terrible but cupped in the palms of my hands. She looks tired but peaceful.

I will sleep now, dust-being.

Her voice echoes through every chamber, cavern, and hole of the Under Realm, the words an incomprehensible roar to all perception but my own.

I will sleep.

And for once, I will not dream.

She lays down her head, closes her eyes.

So, the fire in the center of the world burns on, a warming heat of life, love, and endurance.

44

VOR

She slips from my arms, vanishing into the mist.

“Faraine!” I cry and lunge to follow her. But I’ve lost all form in this place and fall. Fall back through mist, through layers of reality. Back into the physical realm and my heavy, stone-carved body, still wrapped around the crystal formation that obscures my wife. “No,” I growl and bow over her, holding tighter despite all the many sharp protrusions cutting into my flesh. I won’t let her go. She must know I am here with her, now and into eternity.

The world shakes from its core. Heat and poison and dust fill the air, fill my lungs. I’m choking, dying. And still I hold on. Will Faraine survive, deep inva-joras she is? Will she live on in this inanimate state to be reborn in some distant millennium? A terrible fate, one I know she would not choose. But there is nothing I can do for her now. If the force of my love could not call her back to life, she is truly gone.

I will die here then. Cradling all that remains of her physical vessel. And I will beg the gods to reunite our souls in some far realm of existence.

A gust of searing wind roars through the Garden of Org. It blasts my body, steals the air from my lungs. I heave, spasm. All the dust, grit, and poison I had inhaled rips from inside me. My chest constricts. I wrap myself around Faraine, determined not to be wrenched free. All around me the great crystals crack, groan. Break.

But as they break, something changes.

The red pulsing light shifts to white—blazing and powerful, stronger than ever. It fills my head with radiance, and when I squeeze my eyes tight, it penetrates my lids and bursts in my head. I scream, pain and fear overwhelming everything else.

Then I see her.

Faraine.

Standing in the center of that light.

Her hands are outstretched as though to cup the face of . . . of what? What words are there to describe this being, this entity so vast and beautiful and horrible? It is too enormous to be contained within a single mind.

---