Khorima had taken her daughter aside after the pyre had burned Ingthr’s body to smoke and ashes. “You must be strong,” she’d told Dahrima. “Nothing that dies is ever lost. Your father’s strength lives on in your bones. You are Uduri, and on the cusp of womanhood. Let us be done with weeping. Let the flames of your father’s pyre burn away your tears. When you run on the Long Hunt, when you face the Udhog or the mountain lion and cast a longspear, every strike will honor your father’s memory.”
Dahrima had cried no more after that. Yet her mother had wept in secret. Ten seasons later a wasting disease claimed Khorima’s life. The Uduri said she died of a broken heart. Ingthr’s wife had lived long enough to see her daughter grown, then departed the world to join her husband.
If you die, I will die as she did, Dahrima whispered now.
Come back to me.
Five days after the great defeat, Vireon lay still at the edge of death. The Uduri spoke in hushed tones about the surviving Udvorg and Uduru, the Legions of Uurz, and the death of Tyro’s Empress. Dahrima cared nothing for any of these things. It was the chattering of ravens roosted about her and waiting for death.
She realized then that she, too, waited for death, although she hoped for life.
Come back, Vodson.
At midday the chamber’s black doors opened and Iardu the Shaper entered. Dahrima had slept very little, and she did not have the strength to rage at him for abandoning Vireon to his enemies. Sharadza Vodsdaughter walked beside Iardu, and a strangely beautiful woman with a horned skull and the skin of a reptile. The fourth person to enter was a girl with unbound hair the color of spun gold and eyes the shade of deep night. A great cloak of white fur hung from her shoulders, and a gown of snow-colored fabric hugged her lean body.
Sharadza rushed to embrace Dahrima. If not for the distraction of this embrace, Dahrima would have recognized the blonde Goddess sooner. As Sharadza caressed her brother’s brow, the Uduri began dropping to their knees.
“The Queen…” Their voices were low and heavy with wonder. “The Queen lives!”
Dahrima wiped her bloodshot eyes and looked into the face of Alua.
You died. I saw your mangled corpse frozen atop the Mountain of Ghosts.
Many of my sisters perished in the quest to avenge your death.
Yet here you stand, watching with dry eyes as Vireon dies.
Dahrima might have screamed at the strangeness of the dead Queen’s presence, but then she remembered something that explained all of it.
She is a sorceress. Like Ianthe, she cannot truly die.
Iardu has brought her back to Vireon.
There was no recognition in Alua’s eyes when she looked at Dahrima. She stared at Vireon in that same blank manner, as if she observed a sick stranger instead of her own husband.
Dahrima moved away from the bed and took up her spear. She joined her sisters standing at attention between the pillars.
Save him. She watched the sorcerer and his three sorceresses gather about Vireon. It had taken far too long for Iardu to gather these powers. Yet the Shaper and his allies had come at last. The Mistress of the White Flame had returned.
Save him, Deathless Queen, and it will be enough.
He is yours, never mine. I will not forget this again.
He is my King, and I am only his servant. Only that forever.
Rekindle his dying fire with your white magic.
Let it burn away these tears.
It pains me to pull Sharadza away from her dying brother, but I must.
I lead her from the bed so that Alua can approach Vireon. Sharadza presses her tear-stained face to my shoulder. Her hands squeeze my arm. I must be the rock she clings to in this storm of grief.
Alua kneels at the bedside. Her fingers run along Vireon’s pallid cheek. Still she does not weep, but I believe she now recognizes him. The strands of her memory are thin and frayed, but not wholly broken.
“Vireon.” She says his name like a holy word. “My husband. My King.” She turns glimmering eyes to me. “I do remember him.”
Do you remember the daughter you had with him? Or the tragedy of that lie?
If she had remembered Ianthe’s posing as Maelthyn, a seven-year deception that ended in betrayal and death, she would have tried to battle Ianthe’s spirit-form in the underworld. I do not think I could have stopped her. If she remembers it now, it will surely shatter her.
“He loves you,” Sharadza tells Alua. “More than anything.” Alua kisses the Giant-King’s lips. The kiss is gentle. “I loved him too.”
Loved. Has her most recent death stolen that love? If so, can it be restored?
I have no answer for these questions. Yet now is not the time to seek them.
I lean close and peel away the stained bandage about Vireon’s midsection. The wound is terrible, a suppurating mass of ruptured flesh. It may go deeper than the flesh.