She was dying.
Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) Talon had picked Nynia up and cradled her against him. He was covered in her blood, but he didn't even notice. All he could think of was keeping her with him, making her well.
Live for me!
He willed his own life force into her body, but it wasn't enough; Silently, he bargained with the gods to take anything else—his life, his lands, his people. Anything. Just leave him his heart. He needed it too much to lose it like this.
"I love you, Speirr," she whispered softly.
He choked.
"You can't leave me, Nyn," he whispered as she shivered in his arms. "I don't know what to do without you."
"You will take care of Ceara as you promised your mother." She swallowed as she traced his lips with her cold hand. "My brave Speirr. Always strong and giving. I shall wait for you on the other side until Bran brings us together again."
He closed his eyes as tears seeped past his control. "I can't live without you, Nyn. I can't."
"You must, Speirr. Our people need you. Ceara needs you."
"And I needyou ."
She swallowed and looked up at him, her eyes full of fear. "I'm scared, Speirr. I don't want to die. I feel so cold. I've never gone anywhere without you before."
"I'll keep you warm." He pulled more furs over her and rubbed her arms. If he could just keep her warm, she would stay with him. He knew she would…
If he could just keep her warm.
"Why is it getting dark?" she asked, her voice trembling. "I don't want it to be dark yet. I just want to hold you for a little while longer."
"I'll hold you, Nyn. Don't worry, love. I have you."
She placed her hand against his cheek as a single tear fell. "I wish I had been the wife you deserved, Speirr. I wish I could have given you all the children you wanted."
Before he could speak, he felt it. The last expulsion of breath from her body before she went limp in his arms.
Enraged and heartsick, Talon threw his head back and gave his battle cry as pain tore through him.
Tears fell down his face.
"Why!" he roared at the gods. "Damn you, Camulus. Why! Why couldn't you just killme and have left her in peace?"
As expected, no one answered. The Morrigán had abandoned him, left him alone to face this pain.
"Why would the gods ever help a whoreson like you, boy? You're not fit for anything except licking the boots of your betters."
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"Look at him, Idiag, he's pitiful and weak like his father before him. He'll never be anything. You might as well let us kill him now and spare the food to nurture a better child."
The voices of the past whipped through him, lacerating his aching heart.
"Are you a prince?" He heard Nynia's childhood voice from the day he had saved her from the rooster.
"I am nothing," he had answered.
"Nae,my lord, you are a prince. Only one so noble would brave the fearsome rooster to save a
peasant ."
She alone had ever made him feel noble or good.
She alone had made him want to live.
How could his precious Nynia be gone?
Sobbing, he held her and the baby for hours. Held them until the sun was shining bright outside on the snow and her family begged him to let them make preparations for the burials. But he didn't want to prepare them.
He didn't want to let them go.
Since the day they'd met, they'd never been apart for more than a few hours.
Her love and friendship had seen him through so much. Over the years, she had been his strength.
She was the best part of him.
"What am I to do, Nyn?" he whispered against her cold cheek as he rocked her. "What am I to do…"
Alone, he had sat there with her, lost. Cold. Aching.
The next day, he'd buried her out by the loch where the two of them had first started their childhood meetings. He could still see her waiting for him, her face bright with expectation. He could imagine her running across the snow, gathering up a handful to make a ball so that she could sneak up on him and drop it down his tunic.
He would have chased her then, and she would have run away, laughing.
She had adored the snow so much. Had always loved to tilt her head back and let the white, pure flakes fall onto her beautiful face and into her golden fair hair.
It seemed somehow wrong that she would have died on a day like this. A day that would have filled her with such happiness.
Wincing in pain, he wished that he lived somewhere where it never snowed. Someplace warm so that he would never again have to see this and be reminded of all he'd lost.
Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) Oh gods, how could she be gone?
Talon growled from grief. He was on his hands and knees in the freezing snow, his heart bereft of anything except painful misery.