Page 60 of WarBride

I swallow the lump in my throat, then look up at the unicorn once more. “I can’t sing.”

The music in my head becomes irate, if such a glorious sound can be anything of the kind.

I grimace. “All right, fine. Icansing. But Idon’t.”

This isn’t good enough for the unicorn, who stamps his hoof, shaking the ground. I flinch. “Why should I sing?” I growl. “Aurae is dead. The gods gifted me with a useless power, one that I could not use to save her, while they gave her a power she could never hope to control. There is no rightness in this world, no fairness, no goodness. So why should I sing, damn it? Why should I?”

The unicorn’s song presses against my resistance, a tidal force crashing over a wall of stone. Every time it breaks, it reforms and crashes again, wearing me down. Just as a manmade structure cannot hope to withstand the encroachment of the sea, so my bastions crumble under the eternal burning of this being’s soul. Perhaps if it came at me with anger or vengeance or sorrow, I could be stronger. But this is a song of love—deep and abiding. Love for this man who kneels before me. The bond between them is profound and mysterious. I cannot pretend to understand it, but neither can I deny its existence.

I drop my gaze from the burning eyes of the unicorn, looking at Taar once more. I hate him, or at least, I think I do. I’m not sure. While I want to blame him for Aurae’s death, I cannot blame him more than I blame myself. And now he’s dying from a poisoned wound he received while fighting to save my life. Somehow I can’t bear the idea that he should die after all this. Not after everything we’ve been through. Not while I walk away free and clear.

“All right.” I meet the unicorn’s gaze once more. “I’ll sing. But . . . I’m not sure I know how.”

The unicorn shakes its head as though to say,It doesn’t matter, just follow my lead.

Uncertain what to do, I place a hand on the unicorn’s cheek once more and rest the other atop Taar’s wound. It’s hot—the black ooze scalds my palm, and I’m forced to pull away. Bitingmy lip, I stretch out my hand again and let it simply hover over the torn flesh.

Then the unicorn begins to sing: a deep, rolling, beautiful song. It seems to flow from that coiled horn into my skin, into my skeleton, down into the very center of my being. I’m not sure I could resist responding even if I wanted to—an answering song simply bubbles up inside me, pouring from my lips. It’s a song of light and dark, a song of heights and depths. A song of unmade things being made new and whole. A song of unity, far more prayerful than any prayersong I ever uttered while kneeling before an altar.

Something burns in my veins. It takes me a moment to realize what it is: magic. Raw magic, channeled from the unicorn via its voice, mingled with mine. My head whirls, and my vision is full of light, despite the deep gloom of the twilit forest around me. I feel as though the three of us—me, Taar, and the unicorn—are held in a little sphere of gentle, silvery song.

But as I open to the song, other things encroach on my awareness. I feel the discord in this wound. It’s like I can hear it, the wrongness of his marred flesh, the dissonance, the brokenness. All things working against unity and healing. It frightens me, but I lean in to the unicorn’s voice. Slowly, surely, I begin to hear new lines of melody. A harmony to that brokenness that might somehow bring healing.

I glance up at the unicorn. He watches me, his song never ceasing, his power coursing in pulsing waves through his horn. Though part of me fears I’m about to make a muck of the whole thing, I start to sing that new harmony. My voice plays around the unicorn’s song and somehow, slowly, draws a connection between it and the dissonance of Taar’s wound. It’s like my voice was a missing link, the necessary counterpoint to make sense of the whole. It’s strange and eerie, but for the first time in my life,I feel the truepowerof the gods-gift which I’ve carried for so many years.

I’m so caught up in the song, in the harmonies I’m making, in the beauty the unicorn and I are creating from the brokenness, I almost don’t notice when Taar begins to stir. He groans, the sound loud enough to break my intense concentration. I blink. Visions of light and dark and dancing soundwaves retreat from my eyes, and I see the world around me once more. Still singing, I peer into the warlord’s face. His color is much improved. The black bile seems to have evaporated from his face, leaving behind nothing but faint stains. His brow puckers; his mouth moves.

Then, as though fighting against great weights, he slowly turns to me. Though my head is full of music, my ears nonetheless pick up the growl of his husky voice:“Zylnala?”

His eyes drop shut again. With a little moan, he topples to one side, there on the river bank. My song breaks in a little, “Oh!” and I bend over him, frightened, my hands gripping his arm. I lean close, struggling to see in the dimness.

His wound . . . it’s open and raw, but the poison is gone. It’ll need to be restitched, but there’s no more of that festering blackness, no trace of demon’s blood.

I look up at the unicorn, breathing hard suddenly, as though I’ve run a mile at full tilt. “Will he be all right now?”

The great beast looks solemnly back at me. Though I cannot understand his words, the meaning of his song fills my head:He will never be the same again.

24

TAAR

I come to beside a river, propped up on saddlebags, my body covered in the rough cloth of a travel blanket. My face is damp with either sweat or rain. The heavy clouds are gone from overhead, and open, starlit sky arcs in endless splendor before my eyes.

Where am I?The question rings dully in my head. Beneath that clear expanse, I could almost make myself believe I am home once more. But no, these stars are too distant, not the near and clear burning orbs I know, and their constellations, though similar, are not those I remember from childhood.

Then I drag a lungful of air into my chest and taste the bitterness of mortality in the atmosphere. And I know: I’m still in the human world. Gods-damn it.

Memories churn in my mind, confused, dark, and . . . violent. I taste blood on my tongue and some other, bitter coating that makes me gag. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was coming back down from . . . from . . .

My eyes flare open. Twisting, I look at my arm, struggling to see the wound, the dark spread of virulium poison. My swimming vision is met only with a row of neat stitches. Fresh stitches, unless I miss my guess.

Brow knitted in a frown, I slowly turn to take in more of my surroundings. Elydark is close, his form faint and shimmery in the gloom. An image fills my head suddenly: a vision of my licorneir, burning and huge as a star, appearing out of pitch darkness and chaos. Is it a vision exactly? Or is it rather a song,filling my mind with a reality too big for my small perceptions to comprehend? I’m uncertain. All I know is that I was burning, I was lost, and Elydark came to me.

Only . . . he didn’t come alone. There was another with him, a small figure riding on his back, alight with glory.

Angel.The word comes to mind, but it isn’t quite right. I shake my head and try again.Zylnala.

Surely I must have hallucinated all of it—the violence, the bloodlust. Gods, did I rip out the throat of a donkey with my bare teeth? No. No, it must have been a dream brought on by fever. Surely the poison tainting my cut was so little, it could not have driven me to such madness.

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