Beside the limping prince, Pan’assár walked tall. He had atoned, his brother avenged. His last memory of him was no longer the agonised screams but that strong, noble face that had colonised a land and been loved for it.
Gor’sadén’s hand remained at the small of Fel’annár’s back, lending what strength he could as they made their way inside the palace. There, Thargodén’s eyes swept the still smoky halls. His people moved with purpose. Some led struggling elves away, whilst others carried bundles destined for the kitchens, or up the grand stairways. And then he saw Handir, shouting orders. They crossed gazes.
Handir’s eyes landed on Fel’annár, knew he could not see him, see the shock in his own eyes. He turned his questioning gaze on the king, who gestured with his head that he should follow.
Joining the tattered, haggard warriors, Rinon clapped him on the shoulder, pride in his eyes. “He’s gone, brother.”
Handir’s eyes widened, his lips dared a tentative smile. Taking the fore, he led the party to the grand stairway. They passed Lord Erthoron, Lord Lorthil and Lord Aradan. Narosén stared at the blinded Warlord. They bowed, watching as the party continued upwards, towards the very top of the palace, to the royal suite itself.
Every room had been prepared, every fire lit, every bath filled. Handir opened the door to a room close to his own. Inside, it was warm.
Gor’sadén relinquished his hold on Fel’annár, watched as he walked towards the window, wondering how he knew it was there, how he could see blindfolded. He tried to quell his outrage at Band’orán’s ultimate act of dishonour, told himself he was dead, that he had suffered, and then he remembered Sontúr’s words.
‘You’re not blind …’
Running feet, a startled servant, steadying the pile of towels in her arms. Llyniel stood in the doorway in soiled and crumpled robes, horror and denial on her face. Her eyes filled, hand shaking. Idernon reached out, squeezed her shoulder tight. She straightened, breathed and wiped at her eyes. She closed them, and when she opened them again, they were not the despairing eyes of a distraught lover but the steady eyes of a Master Healer.
Thargodén, Rinon and Handir bowed, but Fel’annár didn’t see it. His mind was on the Evergreen Wood beyond the window. As the door clicked shut, his royal family gone, Gor’sadén approached him, The Company and Llyniel watching.
“Well? Has your duty to Aria been fulfilled?”
Fel’annár had become the Warlord and united the Silvan warriors. He had vanquished Band’orán. But trust had been deeply wounded, the army all but ruined. What would it take to rebuild loyalty? To unite the Silvan and Alpine people? What would it take to reforge a kingdom, make it a better one? He turned to where he knew Gor’sadén stood, to his real father.
“It has only just begun.”
He turned back to the window, the hail to the Warlord still echoing in his mind. It had been a scream to the heavens, to the Gods themselves. It had surely reached the farthest stars upon the firmament, perhaps even across the Veil.
Had Or’Talán heard it? Had Lássira heard it? They had fallen along Band’orán’s road to power, to revenge, for things Fel’annár still did not fully understand. They said Or’Talán had tried to help Lássira, and he wondered if he would ever know their story. And then he thought that perhaps they would tell him themselves, one day, when he, too, crossed the Veil and met them at last.
One day.
Epilogue
A pale hand reached up. Long, elegant fingers on a strong hand, a warrior’s hand, dry from weeks of travel through the harshest of territories. Unfiltered sunlight beat down on black robes, glinting off overheated steel, leeching the liquid from his flesh.
So thirsty.
He reached out, reached down, drove his hand into the shallow well until he felt the hot water. He dug deeper, felt it cooler. He immersed both hands, up to his forearms, then stayed there for a while. Bright eyes, immortal eyes, stared at the murky surface, at his own reflection. This was what he had come for.
Water.
It was what his people needed and did not have. It was his gift to them, in exchange for what he needed most.
A home.
And he would take it, when the time was right. He would not make the same mistake that his brother had. When everything was in place. When every plan had been executed, every order fulfilled; only then would they converge on their new lands.
He sat up, bare forearms wetting his clothes, and his lovely eyes turned south to the distant haze of green. It was not yet the end of this vast sea of sand, land of his mortal forefathers. But he would leave it, soon enough, and enter the forests of his mother’s land. Eternal lands, fat with water, ripe with meat.
Beautiful, just like him.
He smiled and stuck his hands back into the water, water that flowed beneath the arid land and away. Southwards, to the still distant wood, infusing roots, feeding Sentinels.
And the Sentinels awoke.
Far away, on the last floor of the royal palace, the Warlord, too, stirred from his long, healing slumber.
He sat up, reached for his eyes, felt the cloth across them. He pushed the bedclothes away from him. A rustle came from nearby. He felt his bond with his Connate stir in his mind. He stood, reaching out to steady himself on the back of a chair. The fire was back in his eyes, pulsing, flaring, and he listened.
Something was coming, travelling on the wind—or was it the water? It rushed under the ground, pooled between rocks, oozed from crevices and soaked the land; the arid lands of the Xeric Wood.
And then the Sentinels called. A deep rumble from the north, the brush of tainted flesh, unnatural blood. Something beautiful and something horrific. He knew that canticle, the meaning of its lyrics.
Beautiful. Monster.
THE END