Page 59 of WarBride

A bolt shoots through my heart, a silver lance of song.

Brother-soul.

I shake my head. This is not what I wanted. Elydark . . . he should not be here with me. If he is, it can only mean that my licorneir is likewise succumbing to the poison.

Go!I cry, my voice desperate in my head, all but drowned out by the clamoring roar of the burning dark.Go, Elydark, get out of here! Don’t follow me in this death!He cannot survive our soul’s sundering. But he can still hope to ascend to the goddess. He need not join me on this path.

I feel him, feel the pain of his song striving even now to break through the dissonance.Where you go, I go, brother-soul.

Then he begins to scream.

23

ILSEVEL

Stumbling and exhausted, I follow that glimmer of nothing through the lengthening shadows of the forest. With every step I take, I feel time slipping away from me. How many seconds remain to Taar’s hour? Is he even now gasping out his last, agonized breaths as the demon’s blood tears him apart? Will there be anything left of the man to recognize when I find him? Perhaps I never will find him . . . perhaps this cord of connection will simply vanish when his life ends, and I’ll be left alone out here, in the middle of the woods, in the dead of winter. A widow.

That word, so strange and ridiculous, brings a huff of semi-laughter to my lips. I forge on, redoubling my speed. At least this cloak Taar gave me seems to slip through underbrush easily, the clinging branches finding no purchase on its glossy folds. Otherwise I’d be making poor time indeed. My breath pants in little icy clouds before my face, and my ribs ache with the effort to draw air into my lungs.

What exactly will I do if I manage to find my warlord husband? I still don’t have a plan. That singular burst of song seemed to have some effect on him, enough to convince him not to shatter my skull with his bare hands. But I can’t very well just go . . . sing at him. Can I? Gods-gift notwithstanding, I can’t imagine how it will help.

Oh, why didn’t the gods grant me the War Gift instead of my sister? I would not have misunderstood the sudden outpouring of magic like she did. I would have recognized the true power inside me and used it. I would have saved Aurae. I would havesaved myself. I would have prevented all of this from happening in the first place.

Instead the gods made a mistake. That, or they maliciously chose to do exactly as they did. I’m not sure which idea gives me less comfort.

When I was a child, before my gift manifested, I used to dream that I was meant for some great and glorious purpose. People used to speak of my impending gift with reverence. I was meant to be an instrument of the gods in this world, a savior of kingdoms and shaper of destinies. What a joke. It was all nothing but vanity and foolishness in the end . . . and now the gods laugh at us all from their high heavens, while we muddle along in the mess they themselves orchestrated below.

Furious blasphemy roils in my chest, heating my blood and driving me faster and faster in my hopeless race against time. I’m just working up to a series of good teeth-grinding curses, when I burst suddenly through a thicket and into an open space before a rushing river. I stop short.

Taar is there. Kneeling with his back to me. His attitude reminds me so starkly of when I saw him on the road, it makes my stomach drop. Only this time I know what to expect when I look at his face. I know the blackness of corruption that will pour from his mouth and eyes. I brace myself, uncertain what to do. Approaching him seems foolish, but now that I’ve come all this way, am I simply going to stand here and . . . watch whatever horrible end comes over him?

That’s when I see the unicorn. I nearly missed him entirely, for his spirit has gone completely dark, and his song is utterly suppressed. He stands beside his kneeling rider, a shadow among shadows, only just visible to my naked eye. His muscular neck is bent, his long horn resting across Taar’s bowed shoulders. The two of them are so still, one could almost believe they’d been turned to stone.

I rub unconsciously at my right forearm, feeling again the tightness of the invisible cord. What am I to do now? I have no better idea than I had when I first set out. But I can’t very well turn around and go back. I’m here. I must do something.

“Taar?” I call softly.

He doesn’t move or offer any indication of hearing me. The unicorn, however, shifts ever so slightly. A single eyelid lifts. A faint gleam of light peers out at me, the last glimmer of a soul nearly snuffed from existence.

I hesitate a moment. Then, with a fatalistic shrug, I glide closer to the two of them, man and beast. Reaching out a trembling hand, I touch the unicorn’s broad cheek. His eye closes once more, but I feel something down in him—a thrum, a pulse. A song? It sounds strangely familiar. Just a few simple lines of melody, not heard so much as felt.

I withdraw my hand again, turning from the unicorn to Taar. My stomach knots. He is so horrible, so gross with that black ooze pouring from his eyes. I cannot see the man who made love to me only last night. He’s gone.

Tears spring to my eyes, trickle down my cheeks. I dash them away, frustrated, furious. Why should I weep for this stranger? This enemy, my captor. He doesn’t deserve my tears, and yet . . . and yet here I am, mourning his death before it’s fully claimed him. Unable to lift a finger to prevent it.

The unicorn shifts again. The movement startles me, and I draw back a pace, but he only adjusts the angle of his horn. It no longer rests on Taar’s shoulder but instead seems to point to his bicep. I find myself looking at that cut which I’d sewn up only a few short hours ago. My eyes widen. It’spulsing. All the stitches are blown, and black ooze dribbles from the cut. Though I can’t explain it, darkness seems somehow to pulse from that point, radiating through the rest of Taar’s body.

Realization dawns:thisis the source of his poisoning. That dagger he stuck into Lurodos was tainted with demon’s blood. When Lurodos pulled it from his side and slashed back at Taar, he infected him. It took time to react, being but a taint of poison rather than a full dose, but the effects were, in the end, the same.

The unicorn’s eye fixes on me again, a last, flickering gleam. I know that light will go out any moment, but . . . “What am I to do?” I ask softly. “I can’t stop the poison. I’m sorry, but I’m useless here!”

Another faint trill of music in my head, familiar and gentle. I’ve heard it before. Somehow I feel that if I can just remember where and when, it will make all the difference.

“Please,” I say, reaching out and touching the unicorn’s dark cheek once more. “Please, what is this song? Can you tell me?”

The song intensifies, sinking deeper and deeper into my head. Not music I can hear, but fuller, clearer, stranger. The sensation transcends mere physical perception to become a truer form of music than any I’ve yet experienced. My gods-gift responds, leaping in eagerness to embrace this new sound that is no sound. There’s so much greatness in it, so much potential, and it beckons to me.

Suddenly I draw a sharp breath. I recognize that song: it’s the wordless melody Taar sang over me last night when he healed the cut in my hand. I look down at my palm, at that delicate white scar.“The Goddess of Unity is alive in the song of the licorneir,”he’d said.“That song, when channeled correctly, may remind split flesh what it means to be whole.”

---