Page 25 of HeartTorn

I begin to sing my own broken song. Halting at first, a sad little whimper in the back of my throat, hardly melodic. Something about it feels truthful, though. Real. I sing it again, louder this time. The world around me fades until there is nothing here but me and that skeletal unicorn. My song and hers.

I take a step nearer, allowing the music to trill across my tongue, through my lips. Wordless pain. Sorrow, and deeper than sorrow. Guilt.

I could not save her.

I should have saved her.

If only I had saved her.

My fault.

My fault.

My fault.

The song reaches out from inside me, touching the explosive bursts of song from the unicorn, mingling with that terrible sound. Becoming something like, but not quite, harmony.

She watches me. Those eyes of hers are endless pits of hellfire, red and raw. Her mane is tongues of black flame, whipping in the wind of her own pulsing energy. The flesh on her bonesburns to ash, reforms, and burns again, casting endless red sparks into the ether.

I draw nearer. It’s almost unbearable. My mind tries to insist that my skin is blackening, peeling back from my bones. But this pain is not physical. It’s that song of hers, ringing in my head. I know the difference. That doesn’t mean it won’t kill me. But if I can find just the right counter song, maybe I can douse this fire. Maybe I can bring her back.

“Nyathri,”I whisper, sending the name out with my song. The instant I do so, I realize how wrong it is. Nyathri, whoever she once was, is gone. Burned away in despair. This creature is new. And she must be discovered.

I’m close to her now, closer than I would have believed possible. In the physical world, my feet stand just beside the fallen corpse of her rider. But I see none of that. There is no room for such things in this space of song we share.

The unicorn dips her head, her horn pointed straight at my heart. Fire licks up its coils, bursts in black tongues of flame from the tip. I do not back down. I sing, and my song breaks the flames and sends them off to either side. And there I am, staring into her burning eyes. Her name, her real name, is just on the tip of my tongue. I don’t know if I dare speak it. It feels heavy, like a hot coal. I fear it will burn me up from the inside to give voice to it. My lips part, move to shape the new sound.

A roar erupts the atmosphere. A blinding flash, sudden and hot, bursts from the unicorn as she throws up her head. I stagger back, arms outflung in hopeless self-protection as I fall to the ground. Between my hands, I see the unicorn angle her head, and I know she means to skewer me on the spot.

I love her. It’s such a strange, upswelling of emotion, I can’t explain it. But I know it’s true. I love her and her burning song, so horrible and so beautiful. So far beyond my control. I love her because something in me recognizes her. In that moment, as shelunges to kill me, I am glad that she is the one who will deal my death.

“Ilsevel!”

That voice. It’s been calling my name for some while now. A voice of earth and air and physical existence, like a bedrock on which my stumbling feet may stand.

The next moment, Taar’s arm is around me, and his sword is swinging. It connects with the unicorn’s horn even as it plunges. There’s a moment of contact, followed by a shockwave. I’m jolted back into my physical body as we are flung through the air, me still gripped in Taar’s firm embrace. I have just enough awareness to feel thevelraon my wrist suddenly burning.

We hit the ground hard, rolling. Darkness enfolds me.

12

TAAR

I crouch over Ilsevel as the blast of soulfire rolls toward us, a wave so hot, I fear it will rip the flesh from our bones.

At the last second Elydark’s song surrounds us in a glowing shield of protection. The fire breaks against it and does not touch us where we lie. My arms around Ilsevel, I open my eye partway to see my licorneir standing between us and thevelrhoarone. That skeletal being throws back her head, screaming to the heavens above.

Then, without a last look at the broken rider lying on the ground at her feet, she turns and races off into the wild, trailing the flame of her torment behind her like a streaking comet.

I remain where I am, my arms around Ilsevel, covering her with my body until the last of that flame fades into the distance. Dropping my head, I breathe out hard. The weakness which took me at our parting was so great, I feared I would not find the strength to gather myself and follow after Elydark and Ilsevel. If thevardimnarhad struck, I would have been lost for sure. As it was, I felt the broken, evil magics of the battlefield trying to work their way through my compromised defenses.

But thevelradrew me straight to her. The more I staggered after it, the more viciously it pulled, until I could hardly say if I propelled myself or was carried by the strength of that spell-cord.

And when I saw her—standing there before the flaming unicorn, about to be impaled through the heart—it was as though some new spirit was born inside me. A spirit of powerand rage which took control, body and soul, and hurtled me headlong to her defense, heedless of all danger or consequence.

Her name ripped from my lips, again and again, as though I could pull her back to me, but she did not seem to hear. The hearttorn licorneir held her enthralled in some hypnotic spell. At the last possible second, my sword arm fell in a desperate swing. The ringing contact with that horn was just enough to break whatever hold the licorneir had over Ilsevel, but the blast sent us flying. Did that rough impact shatter every bone in her body? I tried to take the brunt of it, holding her close and angling my body so that my shoulder struck the ground first. But I had little control as we rolled.

“Ilsevel,” I say, my voice rough as I brush dirt from her pale face. There are a few scrapes and bruises, but a quick exploration with my hands reveals no broken bones. Her neck and spine seem to be intact, her skull spared any fractures. But she is so still, so cold. “Ilsevel,” I say again, patting her cheek. “Can you hear me?”

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