Banewreaker(146)

Cerelinde straightened and took a step forward. "What have you done?"

"Have no fear." A hint of contempt edged his voice. "The Son of Altorus is safe enough. It was no one you knew, Lady. Victims of Haomane's Wrath, once. Now victims of mine. This time, they brought it upon themselves."

"The Charred Folk." The knowledge brought relief, and a different sorrow. "Ah, my Lord. Why?"

"Will you tell me you do not know?" the Shaper asked.

"My Lord." Cerelinde spread her hands. "I do not."

"Senseless." Reaching down, Lord Satoris wrenched a handful of sorrow-bells from the earth. Throttling them in his grip, he regarded the thin, trailing roots twitching below. The fragile petals drooped against his dark flesh, still emitting a faint peal. "How so?" he asked the shuddering blossoms. "I Shaped you and gave you existence. Why do you sound for their deaths? Senseless? How so, when they seek to use the Water of Life to extinguish the marrow-fire? How so, when they seek to destroy me?"

Hope leapt in Cerelinde's breast, warring with unease. "Haomane's Prophecy," she breathed.

"Haomane's Prophecy." He echoed the words with derision, tossing the wilting plants at her feet. "My Elder Brother's Prophecy is the framework of his will, nothing more, and you are the tools with which he builds it. Do not be so quick to hope, Lady. I have a will of my own, and tools at my disposal."

Root tendrils writhed over the toes of her slippers and the dying bells' ringing faded to a whimper, while those left in the bed keened anew in mourning. The Sunderer was in a strange mood, untrustworthy and fey. The copper-sweet tang of his blood mingled with the lingering odor of sulfur. If he were willing to turn upon Darkhaven itself, what hope was there for her? Cerelinde repressed a shudder, mortally tired of living on the knife-edge of fear.

"Why not end it?" she asked, feeling weary and defeated. "If it's the Prophecy you fear, why not simply take my life? Your Vorax would be glad enough to do it."

"No," he said simply. "I will not."

"Why? Is it because there is another?" Her pulse beat faster, remembering what he had told her before, the words she had been certain were lies. It would be easier to accept death if they were not. "Is it true? That Elterrion's line continues elsewhere?"

"No, Lady." The Shaper gave a bitter laugh. "Oh yes, that part was true. There are others. There will be others. Other heroes, other heroines. Other prophecies to fulfill, other adversaries to despise. There will be stories told and forgotten, and reinvented anew until one day, perhaps, the oldest are remembered, and the beginning may end, and the ending begin. Ah, Uru-Alat!" He sighed. "Until the sorrow-bells fall silent forever, there will be others."

"I do not understand," she said, confused.

"What if I asked you to stay?" His mood shifted, and the red light of malice glinted in his eyes. "You might temper this madness that comes too soon upon me, this anger. There would be no need for war were you to choose it willingly. You have seen, Daughter of Erilonde; there is beauty in this place. There would be more, did you choose to dwell here." He extended a hand to her. "What would you say if I asked it?"

What if they were not lies?

Moonlight cast the shadow of his mighty hand stark on the dead and dying grass. Cerelinde thought of the years of uneasy truce her acquiescence might bring, and measured it against the hope, the eternal hope, of the Rivenlost. Of Urulat, of all the world; but most of all, of her people. It was the ancient dream, the hope bred into their ageless flesh ever since the world was Sundered, of the Souma restored, the land made whole. It was nearer now than ever it had been, and she was willing to die to make it so. She could not allow herself to believe otherwise.

"I would say no," she said softly.

"So." He let his reaching hand fall back to his side. "It is no less than I expected, Lady. No less, and no more."

"Why did you refuse?" The words sprang impulsively from her lips, and Cerelinde wished them unsaid the moment she uttered them. But having been uttered, they could not be taken back. She forged onward. "This… rift, the Shapers' War. Haomane First-Born asked you three times to withdraw your Gift from Arahila's Children. Why did you refuse?"

"Why?" Thunder rumbled in the distance and clouds began to gather above the Vale of Gorgantum, obscuring the stars. Lifting his head, the Shaper watched as scudding wisps occluded the sundered disk of the silvery moon. In the dim light that remained his throat was an obsidian column, his breast a shield of night and the slow tide of seeping blood that glimmered on his thigh and trickled down one leg was oily and black. Something in his stance, in his presence, reminded her that he was one of the Seven Shapers; reminded her of the unbearable torment glimpsed when he had donned the Helm of Shadows. "Ask my Elder Brother, Lady. It is him you worship."