Page 78 of HeartTorn

With that she’d mounted her vile creature, spurred it into motion. We left the valley and the bodies of the netted licorneirand the headless corpses of the undead I’d decapitated in our struggle. And my wife. My burnt, suffering wife.

The other three undead licorneir carry Nuviar, Minuvae, and Corymar, who laugh in lunatic glee at their triumph, little caring for the companions they lost to my blade. The others—Kydroth, Varoris, Sairdara and the rest, at least nineteen in total—shamble in silent formation behind them, their faces blank, their spirits absent.

Last of all comes Jomaer, leading Elydark, who is hobbled with chaeoraropes. I feel the effect of those evil bindings on his spirit. Gods damn it! What possessed me to ask him to give up his freedom like that? And how could I let him agree? My only selfish thought had been for Ilsevel. I’d believed I could save her, that my will alone would be enough to draw the healing power of heaven to my aid.

Now she lies dying an excruciating death, while Elydark and I are led like lambs to our own slaughter.

“You know,” Shanaera says after what feels like many hours of silence, “when I first heard of your foolish marriage, I didn’t believe it. That you of all people would form avelrabond with a human? It’s laughable! And now look at you. Weak as a sightlesszhorpup.” She chuckles mirthlessly, glancing down at my bound body, slung like a sack of bones over her saddle. “Pathetic.”

Some warning instinct still functioning in the depths of my numbed brain perks up its ears at this statement. Who told Shanaera? Several times now she’s intimated that she knew about my marriage to Ilsevel. But where would she have come by that information? So few people know and none of them are connected to her.

An answer scratches on the edge of my understanding. In this moment, however, with the weight of sorrow, shame, and despair pulling me into ever-yawning depths, I cannot face it. Perhaps if there was some hope of surviving the next few hoursit would be worth exploring, but now? The mystery might as well die with me.

I turn my head dully, looking back the way we’ve come, as though I could somehow send my clouded gaze all the way back to that valley and the wife I left there. Instead I see only the shamblers—the spiritless undead. Those faces I know, those comrades with whom I once fought for the cause of Licorna. How many more of my people have the Miphates taken into their cursed citadel? When the last of my living Licornyn riders join with Ruvaen to assault Evisar, will they be faced with an army of our dead friends?

As though in response to this dire thought, black lightning rips suddenly across the sky. My heart drops. I feel the pull of thevelra, even now trying to draw me back to Ilsevel, to protect her from this evil. But it’s useless. I am many miles from her now. There is no help for her, no hope.

“Halt,” Shanaera says, holding up one hand.

The shamblers stop and sway weirdly on their feet, their empty eyes staring straight ahead. The other three urge their mounts closer to Shanaera’s, and Nuviar shades his single eye as he peers up at the sky. “Should we bring his licorneir up?” he asks, casting me a swift glance. “He’s not turned; he’s still susceptible.”

Shanaera considers, rotten lips pressed in a line. Then: “No, keep them separate. I’ll draw the sigil.”

She dismounts and, to my rising horror, pulls a vial of shining liquid from one of her travel bags. I recognize the contents immediately: licorneir blood. Harvested just last night, unless I miss my guess. My stomach knots as she proceeds to pour a thin line of the star-bright blood into the ground, drawing careful shapes. Though I do not understand it, I know it is Miphates spellwork. No Licornyn would ever willingly learn such craft, nor can I imagine brutal Shanaera perfecting it to such a degree thatshe could render a proper sigil in blood on dirt. It must be part of the Miphates’ control over her, instilling skills where there should be none.

She finishes the work just as the darkness hits. One moment I am surrounded by hell—the next, strong hands grab me, pull me down from the saddle, and shove me into a circle of shining starlight, simmering with the memory of song. It’s not as powerful as Elydark’s sphere of protection. But it’s certainly better than nothing.

I kneel in the center of that sigil, my body bowed and broken. Thevelrapulses. I concentrate with all my being on that pain, waiting for the moment I know must come—the moment when thevardimnarswallows up Ilsevel’s soul, and I lose her. Forever.

But though the darkness continues to churn and roil, though the hunger pushes against the boundaries of my feeble protection, still the break does not come. Somehow she lives on. Is it possible I missed it? That the horror of thevardimnarsimply dulled the moment of sundering? No. Thevelraremains alive. Throbbing, burning, draining me of strength with every passing moment. But alive.

A figure appears in the darkness before me, silhouetted by the sigil’s glow. For a moment I think it’s Ashtarath herself, appearing from the depths of her hell to claim my soul. The next moment, however, my vision clarifies. Shanaera stands before me, studying me with her dead eyes. I force myself to meet her gaze steadily, though another jolt of pain brings a grimace to my lips. Strange—I dreamt so many times over the years of a chance like this. Of seeing her again. Had the gods permitted it, I would have leapt at the opportunity for one last conversation, to beg her forgiveness, to reassure her of my ongoing love despite all that happened between us.

Now that the longed-for miracle is here, I want nothing more than to take up my sword and put an end to this grotesque half-life of hers once and for all.

She smiles a little, as though reading my thoughts. “Did you know,” she says in a hauntingly conversational tone, “that Morthiel found his reanimation spell worked more effectively on subjects saturated in virulium?”

I don’t answer. I merely look at her, refuse to break her awful stare.

“They’ve been trying for years to reanimate humans, of course.” She steps into the sigil and crouches before me. Reaching out, she pushes a stray lock of hair out of my eyes. It’s such a familiar gesture, half-forgotten in the three years since her death. My skin crawls in response. She draws her hand back and rests her elbow on her knee. “But humans are such frail creatures. Licornyn, they’ve found, are better, due to our fae blood ancestry. We’re built stronger, better suited to such strong magics, which tend to burst the corpses of human subjects just as they begin to move about.” Her lip curls. “It’s a bit grim to watch.”

I draw a long breath through my teeth. “I didn’t know you’d become a student ofnecrolipha.”

“Oh gods.” She rolls her eyes. “I don’t give twoshakhsabout any of the Miphates’ little games.”

“What do you care about then?”

She tips her head to one side. “The same things as ever, my love. Restoring Licorna to the Licornyn. Driving humans from our realm.”

“You’ve got a strange way of showing it.”

She laughs at this. It’s eerily like the laugh I used to know, with that little hitch at the beginning before giving way to a loud bellow. But it’s not the same. The Shanaera I knew laughedrarely, but when she did, it was with real mirth. This creature laughs too often, and there’s always a coldness to the sound.

Thevardimnarbreaks. Suddenly, completely. Where there was darkness, there is now late afternoon sunlight, so bright it nearly drowns out the glimmer of the fading sigil. I gasp at the abruptness of it. Tension I’d not realized was bracing my frame goes out from me in a rush, and I nearly slump to the ground. Frantic, I reach out along thevelra,searching for the break I know I will find.

But I don’t find it. Thevelraremains intact, stretched and searing, but unbroken. Which means Ilsevel is not dead. Impossibly and yet undeniably, she is still alive out there. My heart lurches, whether with relief or horror, I cannot say. Did thevardimnarpass over her because of her suffering state? It seems unimaginable, for the darkness of hell claims everyone within its grasp, and yet . . .

“Get up.” Shanaera grabs me by the shoulder, hauls me to my feet. She kicks the lines of fading unicorn blood, blotting out the sigil, before dragging me back to her undead unicorn. I cast a glance back to where Elydark stands, head low and still hobbled in those awful ropes. I want to cry out to him but cannot summon the will.

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