Page 74 of HeartTorn

A rushing torrent fills my body. I feel a thrill, like the moment just before a plunge, and let myself go, releasing restraint and letting the sensation take me. I’m tossed upon a wave of sound and exaltation, and I know then, in a way I have never fullyknown before, the power of celestial song, ancient and ageless, which resides inside this being. This otherworldly creature, who chooses to wear physical form and dwell in this world with me. In that knowledge, my love for Elydark deepens. I channel that love into my song, pouring it and everything else I’ve got through my hand and into Ilsevel’s broken body.

O gods.

O Nornala, Gracious Lady.

O Lamruil of the Dark, and great wonder-working Aenerin.

O Divine Ones, in all your power and wisdom, you saw fit to link my life with that of this woman. Save her now. If I am worthy of any mercy, any grace, let it pass to her.

A sense of timelessness surrounds me. I may dwell in this space of song and prayer and hope and fear for ages or mere moments. But eventually my physical body can take no more of this power. I feel myself weakening, feel my voice faltering. It’s simply too much, and I am too frail a vessel.

My voice cracks. The song staggers, begins to disintegrate. Elydark leans in, trying to pull it back into proper shape. I reach as well, but it’s like grasping at wind. The harmonies break apart in my head, scattered back to the heavenly realms where they belong. The soulfire which surrounded me begins to dim, and the physical world reasserts itself.

Blinking hard against the dazzlement still dancing on the edges of my vision, I look down at my wife, eager to see what our song has wrought. “Ilsevel?” I whisper.

Her face comes slowly back into focus. Her ravaged, burnt, agony-twisted face.

I shake my head and look again. No. No, this cannot be! Not after such a song, not after such an outpouring of magic.

I look up at Elydark.Sing again!I demand.

He backs away, sides heaving with exertion.I cannot, Vellar,he gasps. His fire is dim, his spirit-light burnt down like an ember.I gave everything. There’s nothing left.

It isn’t true. He can’t have given everything, because it wasn’t enough. Damn him, it wasn’t enough.

Sing again!I cry, sending my voice searing across our soul-tether.I command you! Sing, sing! Sing for me, sing for her!

But my licorneir shudders. Even in the face of all we stand to lose, he cannot summon more fire. He poured his very essence into that song, but it was insufficient.Iwas insufficient. I wasn’t strong enough, I could not channel it properly. It was too much power, and I could not control it, not with all the desperate prayers in the world.

A wordless cry rips from my throat. I bow over Ilsevel where she lies on that unforgiving ground. My tears fall on her scorched skin as I cradle her head between my hands. Where is she? Where is the valiant young woman I know in that ruinous face? She’s still there, still present, but only just. And the pain! She must be in so much pain. If only I could take it from her, if only I could endure it for her.

Shanaera’s boots step into my line of sight, just beyond Ilsevel’s head. Her voice hits me like a series of blows. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when the last king of Licorna would make a fool of himself over a human.” Then she chuckles darkly. “I suppose I didn’t in the end.”

Then she reaches out. Her fingers latch hold of my head, twine in my hair. She yanks my face upright, forcing me to meet her eyes. “You failed. She’s as good as dead.” Her lips ripple back, revealing a rotten grimace. “You’re mine, Taarthalor. And I will do what I must. I will make of you the king Licorna needs, from now to the end of all ages.”

35

ILSEVEL

There is nothing in my existence but pain.

So much pain over every inch of me, every atom. The physical suffering isn’t the worst of it, however. Though it is far more extreme than anything I have ever imagined, it is as nothing to the searing in my soul.

This,I think, with whatever is left of me capable of conscious thought,is hell. This is what the priests meant, when they spoke of eternal damnation.

I’m lost in a blazing world in which ongoing, broken dissonance clamors through every perception. This song—so broken, so burning—lashes my flesh and mind by turns. There’s nowhere I can hide, nowhere I can turn for escape. There’s nothing but a single pinpoint of light, which pierces my blindness, shining as though from a great distance.

Taar.

I don’t know how I know, but thatlightfeels like his soul, his song. I can’t hear it, but if I could only get closer to it, perhaps I could catch hold of that melody and wrap it around me as a protection. With whatever strength I possess, I push my spirit toward that light, that infinitesimal glimmer in the vast expanse. It calls to me, desperate and so terribly distant. I try to reach out, but I have no hands here, no arms, no form. There’s nothing but my pain. I strive to aim my consciousness, to propel myself, but the harder I push, the farther away that point of light seems.

Then it vanishes altogether. The pain, the heat, and the dissonance compound, flattening me under their weight. If I hadthe strength, I would curse that light for offering me even the momentary lure of hope. What hope is there for someone like me?

I am caged. Trapped in the same prison to which I was born, the prison I have spent my entire life fighting to escape. Since the moment I became aware of selfhood, of personal identity, I have fought like a wildcat to find some concept of liberty I could claim as my own. Now? The caging is complete. My own body has become a torture chamber from which only death can liberate me. But death simply will not come.

A sense of abandonment plucks at my awareness. Some part of me knows that my body lies discarded on charred ground in a valley of blood-drained unicorns and decapitated warriors. That Taar has left me, ridden away with a dead woman into some unknown future. That my seared lungs struggle even now to gasp agonized breaths, while wind flakes my flesh away in clouds of ash.

I struggle to remember my last few moments. An image of Nyathri appears in my head. This burning in my soul . . . is this what Nyathri suffers all the time? Is this the hearttornstate which drives her and the other wild unicorns mad? If so, I don’t know how she bears it. Who could survive such an existence?

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