No More Hope
Her throat was still soar. The withdrawal of the army had been an arduous task. Under the cover of arrows and abysmal spells, the Light had cleared a safe passage towards Hroniden. With the message arriving that Saladin still would not come, at least he had offered to open his fortress next to the border of the Wilds for her men. Just hours after the swords had silenced, that’s where they had set their path.
Eylinn had enough. The Darkness in his eyes, no trace of good intent, none of his old kindness or soul. That hoarse airless breath upon her skin, the sensation so foul and intruding... Jacob’s spell and the Wolfen mages had all but erased the bruises from his grip, but she would still wear the scarf. Another trickle of pain seared through her body, and she had felt helpless, unable to embrace her doom.
“What did Jacob mean?” She thought to herself, his bellowing still fresh in her memory. “I could hardly have left him with such an amicable impression that he’d rush in with risk of life and limb to save me.” It was about someone he held dear, she was sure of that. In the end, Eylinn would never imagine herself be worth such effort. Especially not after today. “A woman? A child? And what did he see in the stone?” The stone never showed the future. Never showed any visions. All of it was a trick of the mind, manipulation in its most sinister form. Cruel, unforgiving, and heartless unadulterated suffering. He must have been in so much pain, just as she had been.
Jacob’s miracles, force of wonders, not even that. Not even that could turn the day in their favour. She remembered the first time she saw him, right before the battle. How a greasy, shrubbed man emerged from the heroic glory that was his Light. She had seen a gallant knight, on a steed of white, glistening in golden armour with brilliance wreathed around him. And ye tit wasn’t enough.
She could have sworn the tactics were right. They were ready for an alarm such as this, and it was executed perfectly. The flank attack had only left minimal casualties, but still. Their cavalry, dead. Their skirmishers, dead. And yet, it was the army of Light that had failed, beaten by Dark magic beyond comprehension. She and her men had cowered under the mist, and the Dwarves under the dragons. And now, even within their own ranks, the injured was cursed with something even more impure. Total defeat, with interest, and no idea why. Another sense of pain.
She looked over at Willhelm, his back bent over his horse in grief. She wanted to sooth him so bad, but she couldn’t. It was strange. Something in her wanted him dead. Dead, and cold, and gone. Her right eye twitched. “Stop it. Enough.” She grew empathic. It was too much. Too sad to see. She wanted to embrace him, but she couldn’t. A mental block, in fear of how she’d react, or he. She let his grief escape into her heart instead, bearing it as a burden upon herself. It stung, and her mind repelled violently to rid her of it. It was uncanny, so unlike her, but there it was. She was angry.
A scout came with reports that the Dark Army had not set course to pursue. She ordered a halt, the building of a camp, and set her own Wailers to carry the task of sentry many miles away to warn of any change in Qylan’s plans. She withdrew to her tent, enraged. Alvon had tried to follow her in, but with a glare of embers she growled at him. “Stay... Away...” Ever so obedient, he withdrew without a word.
She threw her sword away, volleyed her gloves at her mirror bench. Pain again. She was sweating.
“Bathe...” She stared at her own reflection. “No... No bath.” She went closer, inspecting herself. “Blood? Oh...” She brushed at her cheeks, but there was no blood. They were just that red. Was she that mad? On what? She felt hot, hotter than she usually felt. She pulled a hand to her forehead, but it wasn’t anything unusual about it. She grabbed her wrist, nothing unusual there either.
It was the strangest ordeal, to pull off her gored leather patchings to ease the encumbering. It felt like she was pulling off the weight of battle, the weight of command, every time she removed what little cloth that could resemble armour. Speed was her creed. Not a trace of steel beside her sword and armguard. “He was faster, though.” She said to herself, sporting an exhausted expression. More pain.
She slipped down in her dress, the casual one that was her favourite. She always washed it herself to make sure it was just right, every time she needed it. She had spent so much time grovelling in this during the campaign. “Milord this, milord that, milord here, milord there. Fuck you. Fuck you all.” They were bickering, small-minded petty know-it-alls. It wasn’t her fault she was the lesser evil to elect for the army. “They’d rather ruminate over prestige than care for our bloody survival. It’s their entire fault.”
She sent a threatening gaze into the mirror. “It was their fault. I wanted traps in the forest, or even have it burnt down. They claimed we’d lose our only food supply. What food? Hardly any game out here. But of course, they needed to be right. And Kalare committed too early. Anyone could see that. Plenty of stamina in the vanguard left. Fuck him... That fool could commit a charge as little as he could put a slave collar on me. And those Dwarves and their stubborn chauvinism... Axes! It wasn’t like the cavalry was a secret!” She growled again, furious. “And that f... Elf...” His hands tightened around her, no air, that breath on her neck, then...
She smashed the mirror with a roar, her knuckles burst. Where was this anger coming from? She didn’t mean it, yet she was acting out for reasons she couldn’t understand. She looked at her trembling hand, and saw the wounds close before her eyes. “Jacob’s spell... It must have healed it.” She frowned. “It must have.” The pain yet again. It was there. It had not left. “No...” She sat down on the bed. “No... Not now.” She pulled out his knot which she kept hidden in her hair. She squeezed it and sulked. “I don’t think you’re good anymore, Qylan. I will never forgive you.” She danced her finger around Freyr’s gift in her hand. It wasn’t technically a gift to her, more of a principle thing. She had just grown too fond of it to let it be claimed as someone else’s. She aimed her speech toward the seeing stone on the other side of the room; still as dark as the last time she had used it.
“You once gave me advice, now humour me. Was it good? Was it sweet? Or just foul?” She sent the stone a spiteful smile. “You were just jealous. You couldn’t stand it, could you? I followed you to whatever desperate mission, whatever desperate choice you made me take. But in the end, I just never turned out like you. It made you mad, didn’t it? Zephfer was no trouble, Ra’Gru was at least sincere, but me? I came to fight you instead. It angered you, that failure, so now you resort to this? Stealing everything from me?” She could have sworn something was starting to turn in that empty, colourless sphere, but she didn’t care. She was deep in her thoughts, a frightful place, when Freyr stepped in through the entrance.
"Is everything all right, Therain?" She couldn’t even linger her eyes in his. The shame, and the rage, it was building up to the boiling point. He’d be a faint memory, too soon. He walked closer. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"
"Stop... Don't come closer." She didn’t know herself anymore. At any moment, she could go feral for all she knew. The taint overtaking her, controlling her. But she couldn’t bear to threaten him like she should have, instead, she pleaded at him. He responds by kneeling down in front of her, trying to look up at her face. She started shaking. "Don't..." He was still too close.
"What is it? You can tell me." He sounded worried. He usually never was, and she couldn’t understand why. He was so sweet. She wished she was as good an actor as him. She didn’t want to tell him... She was not ready to lose him yet.
"We lost. Again." Freyr fell back in a relaxed exhale.
"Oh, you scared me, Eylinn. Yes we have lost, but we knew this wasn't going to be easy." His face was trying to be reassuring, but it was as if she had heard the witness of another battle.
"Easy? We had a third more in our army at least, yet... He won..." She didn’t know where it had broken, but the break had been brutal. Magic aside, it was a devastating defeat on all fronts. Her mind started to work on other things, and she was successfully distracted for a moment. Freyr, who still had dirt and blood on him from the gruesome day, tried his best to brush it off from his cheek but only succeeded in painting his face with black gore.
"This war won't be won by numbers. How could it? We are facing demons. What numbers we have won't matter. It will be our will to live that will give us victory. My will to live on so we can start our new life together." And her mind was set back on track. Her eyes tearing up, sending a clear orange reflection of the oil lamp on the table his way.
"We'll live?"
"We will live. That is what we are fighting for, isn't it?" She could barely hold up her facade anymore. Just as she was about to spill it all out, she instead asked for another faint moment to lose.
"Tell me of the Pale, Freyr. Tell me of the flowers in the snow, the ice in your trees, that disgusting fish..." She couldn’t help but let out a short lived chuckle. "That weird, strange land from where you come that you swore I'd love so much." And then, Freyr sat with her for a good hour, telling her of the frozen land and the nature in harmony with the snow. He also spoke of Dödr, the grove that was the most beautiful place in Agorath for the Palemen, a place where the dead would once rest. She didn’t like the idea of obsessing so hard over death, but she would enjoy his story nonetheless. Spoken with such passion. He spoke of the people, and how their women were often more fearsome than the men. She grinned.
"I wish I was born in the Pale then. Because I would have wanted to see it so badly." She turned down her eyes. "Would I meet my father? In the afterlife?"
"Depends" Freyr raised his hand and it turned azure. The air grew cold and mist escaped with his breath. "The Unnamed one decides that, my father decides that. And maybe even I can decide that..." He held out his hand, and what looked like frozen droplets in the air merged into an ice clad sparrow. It crooked its head, looked at Eylinn, and flew away out through the tent and into the night sky. "I'm learning." His gaze focused forward, he smiled.
"It's perfect." She felt so peaceful, but it didn’t last long. Her face turned sombre, she moved herself away on the bedside and looked at Freyr with utmost gravity. "I need to tell you something, and don’t come closer. Qylan..." She looked over his shoulder, frowning at the seeing stone in her backpack. “He lifted me up in his grip, and I saw nothing in his eyes. Nothing left of hope, and no soul. All I heard was the fighting around me, and his voice inside my mind."
She swallowed, and composed herself before continuing, trying to find the just and correct way to say this. Remaining with her usual, high soaring language so common with her kin, she hoped it would dampen the effect.” I... Didn't get away in time." She removed her scarf, revealing two puncture marks on her neck, as good as healed from Jacob's spell. Barely even scars, they were slowly disappearing even now. However, the otherwise shallow blue vein had darkened to a blackish green. Freyr stared. "I felt every huff, and those... Like knives, they delved into me. My sight turned red, and I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think..."
Her respiration picked up speed. "Even his tongue lapping at my skin to savour every drop. I felt it... What was only the fragment of a second, felt like hours passed..." She had said it, and whatever restraints she had left abandoned her. She wept. "I'm dying Freyr. And what's left will be so..." He looked at her, stunned, tears falling down his dirty cheeks, leaving trails down his face. She lost all control at the sight, barely breathing between the syllables, crying for what would seem forever between her heavy sobs. ”What the fuck have I done to deserve this?! I’m trying so hard to be nice, I’m trying so hard to do what I feel is right, I-I-I…”
She hid her face in her hands. “And now all those people died, and I couldn’t stop him, and he didn’t care! I couldn’t do anything!” She looked up at him, twisted with sadness with her flushed skin, her tears rushing down to mix with her running nose, her gaze flickering between Freyr’s eyes and the ground. “I’m so sorry! I’m not strong! I’ve never been! I’m weak! I’m scared! I fail, I fail, I fail! I just don’t know what I’ve done wrong!” Her body was shaking as her sorrow mounted. “I just cry all the time! I never fucking stop! I’m so tired of it! Always, always, always just never… It never…”
What had she done? All he loved about her, she revealed to him how wrong he’d been. They were all lies, told by her, or by himself. She had hope, hope that he would stay, but now, that hope was gone. “And now I will lose you! Because now you know all this, and I can’t take it back!” She was petrified, barely recognizable. ”I’m so dumb! But I can’t help it! I fail everyone I love, everyone I know, everyone who depends on me, and you don’t deserve this! I don’t deserve you…” She grabs the side of her neck, and covers her mouth. “I couldn’t even comfort my father... I’m just broken. So fucking weak and useless... I-I-I-I-I...”
She squealed, whimpered, shaming herself to no end. She had no pride left to show, and uttered the words barely audible in a hoarse, high pitched whisper. “I release you. You’re not bound to our betrothal anymore. I just don’t want to hurt you... I don’t... I can’t... I’m sorry... It’s your choice... You can leave me, and I will understand. Kill me if you need. Just... Please... If you do, please do it quick...” She had to. She closed her eyes, pulled away her hair over her left shoulder, and lowered her head, clenching Freyr’s knot tight in her hands in a motion of prayer. “The head... Then... Just... Burn all of me...” From nowhere, Freyr slaps her, breathing heavily.
"Never tell me to leave you again!" He was crying as much as Eylinn, and grabbed her. He pressed his hands around hers, harder to make sure she wouldn’t drop the promise he had given her. His skin was cold, as she felt it against her own warmth. "You hold my oath, I will never betray you. My soul will always belong to you no matter what form you take." Eylinn was speechless. Her cheek burning, but she paid it no heed. She panicked.
"I don't want to die! Not now! I don't want to... I'm so scared!" He hugged her, drawing her close, and put her head on his chest, saying nothing. She gasped for air.
"I will drag your soul back from the afterlife if I have to. I won't let you die until our union, until you know peace and happiness."
"And then what? We're happy and it’s still stolen. And then we get happy again and lose even more? I don't know what this is! What if I hurt you?! I can't!" She wrapped her arms around him.
"I don't mind. A moment of you smiling is worth a lifetime of pain." He spoke in a confident tone; it was too good to be true. She rose up and kissed him.
"I want to see the Pale before I die. I want to see it with my living eyes. Please, will you take me there?" He nodded, and wrapped her in another kiss. He was the best man that ever lived. She would fight for that, or indulge herself, for as long as she could.
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