ETANUN VISITED MANY TIMES over the long course of my reign. Every time I saw his face, it was like the first shining of the sun. And every time he left, it was like the setting of the moon and the fall of deepest night. But when I asked if he would come again, he said that he would. So I had hope.
The last time Etanun visited, I could scarcely enjoy our day together for the knowledge of its brevity. As the hour of his departure drew near, I reached out and took his hand in both of mine.
“Everyone I love leaves,” I told him. “My father, my mother, my brother, all have gone down to the Final Water, while I remain behind.”
“Your love for them keeps them close in your heart,” he replied, and once again I marveled at how tender a warrior’s voice might be. That tenderness gave me courage.
“But is my love enough to keep you close?” I cried, drawing his hand to my heart. “Is it enough, Etanun, for I cannot bear your departure again!”
For a breath I waited.
Then he withdrew his hand from mine, and his face was grave and sad. “Dear queen,” he began, and I felt as though a knife had been driven into my gut, for I knew what he would say. “Dear queen, I am a Knight of the Farthest Shore, servant of the Lumil Eliasul and the King Across the Final Water. My duty is always first in my heart, and it allows me to remain close to no woman.”
I could not speak for fear of my voice shattering the stillness. But I managed to whisper: “Then tell me at least, my love, that you would stay with me if you could. That if you were free, you would be mine. I can live on that.”
His eyes spoke his answer more eloquently than words. I stared at him, and I feared suddenly that he would feel the need to speak, to say aloud what I had already read upon his face.
I took to the air, flying from his presence as fast as I could drive my wings. My stomach burned, my heart broke, and I believed that all love was turned to hate inside me. There was no room to pretend anymore. No room to tell myself pretty lies. The truth was spoken with the merciless clarity of Halisa’s own blade.
Etanun did not love me.
“What in the name of Lord Lumé—” the Chronicler began.
“Hush!” The cat appeared at his feet and stood up into the tall form of Bard Eanrin. The Chronicler’s stomach turned at the sight, and his knees buckled so that he sat down hard on the marble floor beneath him. The legend stepped around the Chronicler to draw back a green-velvet curtain emblazoned with small white blossoms, and peered out.
Except—and the Chronicler knew he must be mad when he saw this—there was no curtain. There was only the branch of a hawthorn tree heavily laden with clustering blooms. But when the cat-man dropped it and stepped back, it was again rich fabric falling in folds.
“We’ve lost them,” Eanrin said, crossing his arms as he addressed the three mortals. “They’ll not find us here.”
Alistair still lay on the floor, though he’d rolled onto his back and stared, openmouthed, at the vaulted ceiling above him. Mouse stood nearby, trying to disguise her own surprise at the sudden change in their surroundings. She looked more bedraggled and waif-like than ever in this setting.
She looked more familiar here too.
Eanrin gnashed his teeth at this thought. What a fool he’d been! But how could he have known? In all the time—such as Time could be measured here in the Between—they had worked together, Imraldera had never behaved so irrationally! She had never abandoned the Haven and left the gate unguarded, especially not when Eanrin was away.
He shouldn’t have gone. That was the truth of the matter, though he could justify himself to the grave. Yes, he was Iubdan’s Chief Poet. Yes, he had obligations to the King and Queen of Rudiobus. But he should never have left Imraldera alone.
“She shouldn’t have done it,” Eanrin muttered, blame shifting by force of ancient habit. “She should never have trusted the Murderer’s word!”
How frail and foolish these mortals looked here in First Hall! By the standards of Faerie, the Haven’s proportions were humble and reserved. But this was an immortal’s abode, built by immortal hands at the direction of the Lumil Eliasul, who was neither mortal nor immortal but who stood in a place beyond either. Here, the little humans looked so imperfect in their Time-bound clay bodies.
Yet the frailest, most faulty of this lot was the heir to Halisa?
Goblin voices rang beyond the Haven walls, and the three humans looked sick with fear. Did they not realize they were safe here? No one and nothing could breach the Haven, for it belonged to the Lumil Eliasul.
“I tell you,” one goblin said, “they took a turn back there. I swear, I saw the trail.”