The Coming Storm (91 page)

He touched Ailith’s shoulder as he went by and looked down in her eyes. She looked up at him and laid a hand over his. Taking the time for one more look at both of them, he put aside his swords, took up his more formal robes from where he’d left them and was gone.

“I’ll fetch something to eat,” Colath said, and went inside as Ailith nodded and sheathed her swords.

A voice from above, on the upper veranda, called to her, the deep tones familiar.

“Does he know?”

Startled, Ailith looked up.

A familiar Elven face with ancient eyes greeted her.

“Talesin,” she said, startled and pleased, “when did you get here?”

“Does he know?”

Ailith went still.

“Does he know what?” she asked, but her heart sank. She knew.

“That you are soul-bonded, you two.”

Her breath caught, locked in her chest even as her throat tightened and her heart twisted. 

Disaster
.

“Talesin.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “He knows and he doesn’t. I think he senses it and far in the back of his mind there is hope. I think in a way he’s afraid it may not be, after he’s waited so long for it. That it may be a true-friend bond, not the match for his heart and soul he’s waited for so long. He steps carefully, afraid to not find it. Or finding it true and knowing what would come of it.”

Ailith opened her eyes to find Colath standing there looking at her in shock. Her heart broke.

His eyes lit as she spoke and then shadowed as she finished.

Soul-bonded, Elon and Ailith? At first Colath’s heart leaped at the thought that Elon had finally found his soul-bond and with Ailith, who they both loved. Knowing, too, how deeply Elon cared for her, how much joy she gave him.

Then, like her, like Talesin, he saw the shadows over it.

Otherling
. Feared and hated.

His heart sank.

He’d become so accustomed to her he’d forgotten and in some ways she acted so Elven it was easy to forget she wasn’t, despite the differences.

To all appearances, however much he loved her, she wasn’t of their race.

Much might be forgiven of Elon for who and what he was, but this?

And if they discovered what she truly was?

He looked to her and saw that knowledge there in her eyes.

Ailith knew, she understood. Her breath came short. She bowed her head and swallowed hard against the pain.

Talesin said, “You know.”

“Yes and I know it cannot be,” she said. “Jareth asked me about it on the ride to Marakis, and I knew. Somehow then I knew.”

The anguish in her voice, the joy and the love, nearly broke Colath’s heart.

“Colath, help me, please, help me know what to do?”

She looked at him, helplessly.

Shaking his head just as helplessly, Colath had no answer for her. All he could do was go to her, take her hand and share her pain.

Talesin came down to take her other hand in the way of their people and give comfort.

“But you haven’t…?” he said.

She shook her head, her voice full of longing and despair.

“No. I dream of him, Talesin. I dream of it, but no. I dare not. Dreams only, he moves carefully and I want to respond but I don’t dare. Tell me. What will happen if this goes badly, if they find out who and what I am? What will it do to him?”

Talesin and Colath shared a glance. To hold a soul-bond incomplete, knowing it was there?

The agony of it was incomprehensible.

“They’re already asking,” Jareth said, from the veranda.

Ailith’s blood ran cold.

They all looked up at him.

“I heard,” he said.

Jareth took a breath.

“Avila is questioning every wizard to find out who did it, who conjured up the dragon, although she knows  it wasn’t one of us. She hasn’t gotten to me yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”

Talesin shook his head and answered Ailith’s question. “It will destroy him, if the bond is completed. He’ll have to defend you. Too soon after the sealing of it… As it stands I fear for him if it comes to that.”

She let out a long sigh.

For a moment Jareth stared at her.
No
. She wasn’t saying what he thought she was saying.

“Ailith,” Jareth exclaimed. “You can’t.”

Both Colath and Talesin looked at him, their eyes bleak.

She looked at him, too, and smiled sadly.

“Jareth, think on it. Among us it’s no problem. Among the rest of our world? Could he take me back to the Enclave he loves so well? To Aerilann? Looking as I do? Even without them knowing what I truly am. Would they accept me? I know what Aerilann means to him, it’s not merely his home, it’s a part of his heart and his place in the world. How can I do that to him? How can I ask him to give it up?”

“I’m Otherling. How long can I hide it? Look what’s happened, Olend and Itan know because I couldn’t let you die. The battlefield? What would happen if someone in Aerilann finds out? What will they do, how would they feel, if he brought me into the Enclave, near their children, so precious, so few, knowing what they would fear. So, he doesn’t? We’re soul-bonded but I must stay here and he comes when he can? I’m mixed blood, Half-Dwarven, that’s known. Will they let me have his child, knowing what I am? Even if they didn’t know I was Otherling, my children will be.”

“If they let it go? He’s First among Equals, would he still be, after? Knowing what I am? Would he still sit on Council? He could lose everything he’s worked for, fought for, all his long life. How can I ask him to give it up? I swore I wouldn’t bring him harm, now I’m bound to it. I’ve lost home, family, all of that. I know what it is to lose that. To ask him to do the same? But to lose him…”

“You won’t,” Talesin said firmly. “You can’t. You’re soul-bonded whether you will it or no. Whether he knows it or not, or accepts it or not, he loves you, Ailith. It’s the nature of the bond, it’s what a soul-bond is, complete or incomplete. He does love you. Forever. Of that you can be sure.”

There was some comfort in that, both joy and pain.

“So, you’re just going to leave him wonder?” Jareth said bitterly.

Ailith flinched and he could have bit back the words and his tongue with it for the look in her eyes.

She couldn’t be so cruel, he knew that.

“No, Jareth, no. Part of him does know, I know it. I know that’s true in a thousand ways. Each time he touches me, the way his eyes light when he sees me. That part of him knows all of this and is trying to find a way through it. I have to leave him do it in his own way. It must be his free choice. If he knows I know, then it becomes a different thing. He’ll be forced to acknowledge it and choose. I know what he’ll do, I know it and I know all he’ll lose for it. I can’t make him do that, can’t force him to it. Even without the bond he’s my heart and my soul and my joy. It’s why the forms mean so much to us, it’s the closest we can come to expressing what we feel.”

It hurt so much.

She looked at Colath, who knew and understood.

“That’s what it is with us,” Colath said. “Elon and I are true-friends who can share all things, as are Ailith and I. I’d thought maybe she was true-friend with Elon as well, one who could ease his sorrow at not finding his soul-bond. That would be rare enough given her blood. I think, though, a part of me has always known they share a soul-bond but couldn’t recognize it either knowing what it would mean for them. Soul-bonding should be joyous and it would be but there would be pain and sacrifice, too, that shouldn’t be.”

“Some part of Elon knows and some part of him hopes, too, but he fears what will come if it is,” Ailith said. “At least he has hope. He’ll have that. Still and always.”

Talesin added, “To hand him the truth and then take it away? It will kill him, Jareth.”

“You’ve never soul-bonded,” Jareth said.

As far as he knew the old Elven wizard had always been alone. There’d never even been the rumor of a mate.

The Elf’s old eyes looked at him with an even more ancient sorrow.

“My soul-bonded mate waits for me in the Summerlands. She was too wounded by the wizard wars to stay or she would have died, truly and for all. I couldn’t join her. I’m the only Elf and wizard, as such my honor won’t let me go until there is another with such power, someone to take up my knowledge after me. I wait, longing to see her, to touch her beloved face. If I should die before I reach her, she’ll die, too, for all time. But like Elon I have hope that someday we can be together.”

There was silence at that.

Finally, Jareth said, “What about you, Ailith? Can you live with this?”

“For him, yes,” she said resolutely, and then she smiled so sweetly it broke his heart, “and bring him as much pleasure as I can until he decides or it’s decided for us. In the way of the race of men I love him, in the way of the Elves and Dwarves I love him as well. I’m soul-bonded to him, I love him and I’ll endure.”

There was no other choice, nor did she want one.

Colath added, tightening his fingers around Ailith’s, “And I’ll help all I can.”

For the sake of both of these people  he loved.

Waving impatiently, Daran High King shooed the usual flutter of secretaries and ministers away. There was a cut across the bridge of his nose. It was healing but it would leave a scar. So, he had at least gotten out of that tent and among his army for at least one sortie.

“Elon,” Daran said, impatiently. “You know Olend, talk to him, he’s asking for reparations.”

The Treasury, the precious Treasury
, Elon thought and restrained a sigh. You would think it was his own gold and Daran Dwarven, he hoarded it so well.

“Daran High King,” Elon said, with a nod of his head. “How much? How much for allowing his Kingdom to be laid waste?”

A narrow-eyed look from Daran.

“It’s only truth, Daran. As you well know. If the army had moved sooner and faster, the invasion might have been stopped on his doorstep, rather than on yours.”

The truth wasn’t the answer Daran wanted to hear.

That was the thing with Elon, that he told him these things. It was irritating in more than one way.

Unfortunately, Elon did know Olend and what he would accept.

Elon looked at him. “It’s reasonable, Daran, as well you know. Why do you do this? He and his people took the brunt of this war or else you would have someone else sitting on your throne. Give him what you will but you should give him
something
.”

It wasn’t reasonable
, Daran thought querulously,
none of this was reasonable, not this war, none of it.

They still didn't know why it had been fought, why they’d been attacked.

It didn't matter. At this rate the Treasury would be drained.

“What about the northern Lords, if they ask as well? If I give to him I’ll have to give to them as well. I’m considering consolidating those that remain, then sharing out the lands to those around them who survived. Of those who fell, only a few left with surviving heirs and one claims to be a bastard.”

This was a term with which Elon wasn’t familiar. He gave Daran a questioning look.

“Born out of wedlock, Elon,” Daran said, seeing his look, “not recognized officially by whoever fathered him.”

Not recognized? A child of an Alliance. Elon shook his head. There were times when he couldn’t comprehend the race of men.

What honor was there in producing a child and then spurning it? What man would sire a child and then not care of its fate? He couldn’t comprehend this.

“Is there justice to his claim? Would he serve well? If so, give it to him.”

There was that, Daran thought. The man in question looked enough like his sire to leave little doubt. For all that, he seemed as capable if not more capable than some of the heirs of the current Kings. The ones that survived.