She was at peace, and completely unprepared, on the day that Vireon found her. She was bathing in the falls when he emerged from between the twisted Uyga roots, his long black hair tangled with leaf and thistle. He wore no crown, but he carried a hunting spear in his fist and a greatsword across his back. He wore his Giant aspect that day, and at first she thought him some lone Uduru huntsman wandered south from the Icelands. She walked from the misty torrent, one arm covering her exposed breasts, the other wringing water from her hair, and saw his face clearly.
“Forgive me,” said the Giant-King. He turned away from her like a shy boy who had stumbled upon his first naked girl. “I will wait for you to dress.”
Dahrima waded to the lip of her cave and pulled on her tunic and belt. She walked about the rim of the lake to where Vireon sat perched atop a mossy slab. He stared into the evening gloom of the woods. She wondered if he was alone. There was no sign of other Men or Giants. No sign of his fiery Queen either.
Did he track me to this place, or discover it by chance during one of his hunts?
The latter seemed unlikely.
She sank to one knee before him as he turned to face her. He pulled a leather bottle from his belt. “How long has it been since you’ve had good Uduru ale?” he asked. He offered her the flask. She stood up and drank from it long and deep. It was cold and refreshing, bright on the tongue. She sat on the boulder next to him.
“I am sorry, my lord,” she said, her eyes on the purple moss at her feet.
“For what?” asked Vireon. “Drink as much as you want.”
“No,” she said. “For leaving you. For not returning to Udurum with my sisters. I only wished to… spare you a difficult decision. Yet I know that I must answer for my crime.”
Vireon sighed. He shed his purple cloak and unlaced the front of his black tunic. “I need a swim,” he said. His bare chest and shoulders were unscarred, solid as sculpted bronze. He kept his leggings on but kicked off his boots, then dove into the lake.
Dahrima nursed the ale, finishing half the flask while Vireon swam to the falls and let its chill wash over him. The dirt and bits of foliage were gone from his wet mane when he returned. His hair glittered black as onyx in the sunlight, his eyes blue as midday. He rejoined her on the rock and finished the rest of the ale in a single gulp.
“I love this place,” he told her. “I used to stop here on the Long Hunt with my uncle Fangodrim. The sunfish in this lake are fat and tasty.”
“I came here with Chygara,” she said. “Long, long ago.”
She made the sign that honors the remembered dead, and Vireon did the same.
“There are many places like this in the forest,” he said. “I’ll wager you know more of them than I do, since you hunted here well before I was born. Perhaps you’ll show me a few?”
Dahrima forced herself to meet his gaze. “Where is your reborn Queen?” she asked.
Vireon looked toward the falls. Fragments of rainbow glittered there as sunbeams intersected the white flow. “Alua has gone north,” he said. “Beyond the Icelands, into the Frozen North. That cold land is her true love.”
Dahrima blinked. “But I thought…”
“You thought that what I had lost was returned to me,” said Vireon. “Or at least part of it. So I thought, too, at first. Yet it was not so.”
Dahrima did not quite understand. “You love her. She loves you.”
“At one time, yes,” said Vireon. “That was true. But our love died with Maelthyn. Or, like our daughter, it was never real. I am no longer certain. Yet together we brought the Claw and the Kinslayer to justice. They will trouble us no more.”
“I am sad to hear that you are… alone,” said Dahrima.
Vireon looked directly at her face. “Do not be,” he said. “Alua died and was reborn. I also experienced death of a sort and returned from it. Yet neither of us is the same.”
They sat for a while listening to the steady voice of the falls. A fish leaped from the silver lake and splashed back into its depths.
“What of the Udvorg?” Dahrima asked. “Do they demand justice for Varda?”
Vireon shook his head. “Varda should have known better than to take up a sword against a spearmaiden of the Uduri. The Udvorg have mostly returned to their high plateau. All but a hundred or so, who chose to remain in Udurum. I have welcomed them, as I welcome all Men and Giants into the city.”
“Why have you followed me here?” Dahrima asked. She held her breath a moment.
Vireon laughed a little and stood up to face her. “You have awaited my judgment for a long time now, Dahrima the Axe. So I have followed you all the way to the Falls of Torrung to deliver it. Are you prepared at last to hear it?”