The hot rush of blood flooding her face was almost too much. She felt him turning, looking her way, but she couldn’t quite raise her gaze to meet his. She rushed on before she could collapse with embarrassment but found that her courage rose and the words came more easily. Soon they spilled out quite beyond her control.
“Because I love you. I love you very dearly and have for . . . I don’t even know how long! Since you taught me that silly alphabet. Since you looked at me and saw more than a bargaining chip, more than an instrument for your use. Since you saw me for who I am, the rebellious, the practical, everything. I love you for seeing me, and I believe you love me too. You’ll tell me, of course, that what I believe has no bearing whatsoever on the truth, and I’m ready to hear it. Still, you needed to know. Before you break your contract with my father, you needed to know.”
The king stared at her. He saw so many things as she stood there before him, things he could not quite understand. He saw that she was strong though vulnerable, courageous in her fear. Every contradiction filled her face, and all he saw was true and real.
“M’lady,” he said, finding his voice at last. “M’lady, I love you.”
Her smile was quick and brilliant as sunlight, filling his whole world.
“In that case,” she said, “if you don’t want me for chronicler, what do you think of queen?”
Epilogue
LET ME TELL YOU A STORY.
Ever flowed the Final Water, through the high lands of the moon’s own garden, along the warm vistas of the sun’s great realm. Into the Boundless it swept, reaching at last to the very banks of the Farthest Shore.
Before the water stood a man, and he watched intently, his eyes shining bright. None could guess how long he had remained in this attitude. A thousand years, a handful of moments—it did not matter. Here he would stand until he found what he sought.
The Final Water swelled with many burdens and sorrows, washing them far and away.
Suddenly the man gave a glad shout and stepped out into the shallows, wading deeper and deeper. The rushing torrents, though mighty beyond all mortal comprehension, could not sweep him away. He put out his hands and caught up something from the water, a figure dressed in rags.
“Etanun!” the man cried. “Etanun, you’ve come at last!”
The ragged figure coughed up water from his lungs and, with the aid of his companion, stood on trembling feet. His face was scarred with terrible burns, and he dared not raise it but whispered with his head bowed:
“Akilun.”
Whole worlds lived and died in his voice. For a moment, he stood in the haggard shreds of his disguise, the scars of death marring every feature, and he could say nothing more.
But Akilun caught him up and held him close. There, with the Final Water flowing about their knees, the two reunited were made whole as they once were. Beneath the watching gazes of Lumé and Hymlumé, they embraced. As they stood thus, Etanun’s frailty melted away, and he was transformed, stronger, more beautiful, more complete than he had ever been.
“Welcome home, my brother,” Akilun said and took Etanun around the shoulders.
Together, without another word spoken between, they waded to the shore. They put their backs to the Final Water and ran together up the green and golden slopes, vanishing into the lights of the sun and the moon and the greater, ringing light of the Song ever singing.
And nevermore were the Brothers Ashiun seen by mortal eyes.
Ever flowed the Final Water, bearing with it all burdens, all sorrows. It poured down into the deepest reaches, cascading into the depths of the Netherworld. At last it came to the Dark Water. There it cast a carcass up upon the shore and left it, sodden and unmoving.
The Black Dogs stood over the body of their mother. First one, then the other nudged and pawed at her still form. She was broken. She was burned.
She was drowned.
As though one animal, her children threw back their heads and howled. It was a sound unlike the baying of the hunt: a sound of mourning, of loss, of devastation. These monsters with their gaping jaws and red eyes howled the cry of the forsaken and rejected, and they could know no comfort.
The Dragon found them thus. He gazed at the broken form of his firstborn, lying wet upon the stones of the Netherworld. Her flame had been more brilliant than tongue could tell. Even at her final death, the Dragon had wondered if her fire would be enough to burn away the waters rushing in.
But no. She was finally dead. As they all must die.
“Enough,” the Dragon snarled, turning to the Black Dogs and cuffing them both with his clawed hand. “Enough of this weeping. She never loved you anyway. Come. I have need of you.”
Acknowledgments
With special thanks to my David Rohan, who not only designed Gaheris Castle and the surrounding countryside so I could have a clear mental picture, but also wrote both versions of the Smallman nursery rhyme.
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