Authors: Valerie Douglas
Delae wrenched the door opened, to see her granddaughter’s pale face there.
“Ailith,” Delae said, bewildered and half awake as Ailith darted inside. “What are you doing here?”
“Get dressed, Delae,” Ailith begged. “Hurry, there’s no time. I’ll explain as you dress. Quickly, please.”
The urgency and fear got through as Delae looked at her granddaughter’s frightened face and nodded. She hurried into her bedroom, Ailith at her heels.
In that moment Delae knew that the time they’d feared had come.
Darkness was just settling over the Enclave as Dorovan rode into it, the magic of the Veil a soft familiar brush of warmth over his skin, the trees closing around him welcomingly. A sense of urgency had drawn him from Delae’s homestead. To his astonishment, he found every elf-light in the Enclave lit as if all the stars of the sky had been trapped within the Vale. Although there was no clamor, there was a sense of tension riding the empathy, threaded with alarm and concern.
The relief in the First’s voice as Dorovan reached the center of the Enclave was clear.
“Dorovan, you’ve returned! Can you ride out with the Hunters?”
“Of course. What’s happened?” he demanded.
The First shook his head. “None of us have seen anything like it. Salamanders and ogres have come out of the mountains, the Hunters are hard pressed, and we need every sword we can find. Half the upper mountain is ablaze. And you know how many it takes to take an ogre.”
“Are there supplies already among those in the east?”
The First nodded. “Yes.”
Dorovan turned Charis’s head east and leaned into him.
To his shock, it was far worse than what he’d sensed through the empathy. In all his years, not since his childhood during the wizard wars had he seen anything like it. He’d never seen so many ogres. The Hunters took turns racing past them, firing arrows into the massive creatures, while others dodged the fiery breath and whirling eyes of the lizard-like salamanders.
By the time they’d either killed the creatures or driven them off, he’d been exhausted and tumbled into his bedroll.
The rest he sought eluded him. It was a restless terrible night, fraught with pain. The dream sucked at him, drew him down into darkness. It was terrible, that dream, murky and thick, shot through with nightmare images of terrible creatures such as he’d fought that day.
It wasn’t a dream. He felt Delae call and reached for her, closed his arms around her in the dream as horrific images battered at him, as she fought her fear and terror alone, fought for the ones she loved. And for him.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispered. It was a prayer. She’d been alone for so long.
“No,” he swore, “never.”
If he’d had magic enough he’d have willed himself there to her or willed her to him, to where she would be safe.
Let go
, she thought…
In that last moment he could See it - Delae mounted on her horse at the edge of the precipice, her chin lifting as her brilliant hair, streaked with silver, flagged in the breeze. The first light of dawn touched it, turned it to flame one last time.
There was no chance he could reach her in time. None. His heart cried out.
Let go
…the thought whispered through him.
No, Delae.
I love you, but I must
…
To save them all, to save Ailith, she must. Dorovan knew it, sensed the truth of it run through her.
And so he did.
And so she did, consigning herself to the void. He felt her fall, her hair streaming like a comet around her as she released her terrified horse. It bolted away from the terrible creatures that stood before it and they tumbled into the darkness…
His heart reached for her, sent the words.
I love you, Delae
.
A mental caress.
I love you, too, Dorovan
.
It broke his heart.
He felt the impact. Pain exploded through him, drove him up out of sleep, sent him to his knees in the darkness by his bedroll, his hand clutched to his chest. With the shattering of her body, the bond between them shattered, too. He felt her die, felt her spirit take wing, in search of the Summerlands. He bowed over the pain. Friend-of-my-heart. He lost a piece of his own that night and there was no one he could tell.
Delae.
She was gone. Forever.
And he hadn’t been able to help her. Couldn’t save her.
What had happened?
With the bond between them broken, he feared he might never know.
She’d always been so brave…and she had been still…to the very end.
Time, Dorovan found, didn’t ease the pain of losing a bond, any bond. Delae. Gone she might be - his visits to her and her homestead at an end but he still talked to her, to Delae, feeling her bright spirit alive around him. He knew she’d moved on, passed into the Summerlands but still he talked to her. After so long with her, he didn’t know how to be without her. The bond was broken and there was an emptiness where she once had been.
The loneliness was nearly crushing. Having not felt it for so long and then having it return was nearly more than he could bear.
Especially in these days.
They were beset. Every Enclave faced creatures from the borderland in such numbers as no one could in memory recall ever having faced before.
He rode to exhaustion and fought the same way.
So, he talked to her in his thoughts.
There were those in the Enclave who sensed through the empathy that he was in pain and tried to ease it but he could speak to none of them. There would be too many questions. Some wouldn’t understand - he couldn’t tell them he’d loved her, had loved Delae, one of the race of men. That she’d been a friend-of-his-heart, a true bond and he’d lost her.
In the darkest hours, sometimes though - there is occasionally a light. Her name was Marantha, a Hunter from Alatheriann come to aid them. Something about her lightened him and eased his heart, something that called to him, although he resisted it until one night he dreamed.
Delae looked at him with exasperation and love. “Isn’t this what you waited for so long? Would you deny yourself what you gave me, all those years? This is what I wished for you. I love you, I will always love you. But she will love you, Dorovan, always, as I could not and cannot. Go to her, Dorovan. Go on…”
Pain, grief and sorrow pierced him sharply, the loneliness nearly unbearable. The dream shook him out of sleep, drew him to his feet and sent him questing.
He found Marantha by one of the pools, clearly as unable to sleep as he. She turned to look at him.
In the way of their people she was beautiful to him, her spirit warm. Her hair, as dark and as glossy as a raven’s wing, ran as straight as a waterfall down her back and shoulders. Her eyes were large and beautiful, as green as new leaves, her skin tawny. She was tall, nearly of a height with him. She could lay her head on his shoulder.
“There is no one else I have spoken to of this but I had a friend-of-my-heart,” Dorovan said abruptly, without preamble. “She was a woman of men. I have never known anyone with so much courage. I lost her.”
If Marantha was his soul-bond, she would understand.
“How long?” Marantha asked, feeling the open wound within him, holding out her hand.
The grief in his eyes tore at her, the pain in him so deep. His words surprised her and the content more, but that loss explained so much.
“Months,” he said, “as men measure it.”
Shocked, pained, she whispered, “Oh, Dorovan.”
That was too long for any to bear such pain alone.
He looked into her emerald eyes as their hands touched, heard the words Marantha offered him and knew this time he could say them. He could speak the truth.
“Tell me,” Marantha said.
And so he did. He told her of Delae, of her fierce courage, of her bright spirit, of her deep and abiding love, of sweet Selah and of Ailith.
When he was finished he looked at her, emptied, and felt his heart at ease for the first time in what seemed an age.
“I hadn’t magic enough to save her,” he said, “there should have been some way.”
Marantha’s fingers slipped between his, in the way of their people, to share his grief and sorrow, to give ease - as Delae had done once long ago, all unknowing. Marantha’s eyes were luminous in the darkness.
In wonder, he reached out to touch her face, seeing strength in her eyes, purpose, joy and more than a touch of courage - to have not fled in the face of what he’d said. He’d loved a woman of man…in the face of all the proscriptions against it. Somewhere in the Summerlands, he knew Delae watched. Her courage had carried to her granddaughter…and that child was the stuff of which legends would be made.
Marantha looked at him. “Come,” she said, gently.
He went.
Drawing him into the shadows, she looked up at him and in that moment, he knew. Delae had told him true. This was the one he’d been waiting for, his soul-bond, the one who would love him in the face of everything.
Slowly, he lowered his mouth to Marantha’s. This time the joining wasn’t smooth and gentle, it was fierce, wild. It lifted him up and filled all the spaces that had been empty until he was no longer alone, nor was Marantha, but they were joined as one. His heart opened and his spirit found the mirror to it… A true soul-bond. He discovered a joy to match what Delae had given him, soothing his spirit.
Delae, who had loved him as long as she could. Her warmth surrounded him and then released him, her joy at his bond clear.
Dorovan let her go and he heard her laughter ring as he took Marantha to him.
Marantha, the other part of his soul, who would love him, always, throughout all the long years.
There was magic enough for this.
#####
As an old favorite author used to say “I’m five foot two, blonde-haired and blue eyed, the rest is subject to change without notice.” Currently Valerie is happily ensconced in the wilds of central Ohio farm country with two dogs, two cats and an African clawed frog for company as she writes. The frog doesn’t say much. You can contact her through her webpages:
www.valeriedouglasbooks.com
www.vjdevereauxbooks.com
Other Novels by Valerie Douglas
Fantasy
The Otherling series:
The Coming Storm
– A Epic Fantasy – in the tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s the Lord of the Rings trilogy, comes the epic tale of Elon of Aerilann, Elven swordmaster, his true-friend Colath, the archer Jalila and the wizard Jareth, as they, with the aid of Ailith Heir of Riverford, try to discover why the creatures of the borderlands do battle with them, and why?
A Convocation of Kings
– sequel to The Coming Storm. A shadow has fallen over the Kingdoms and once again Elon, Colath, Jareth and Jalila are called to answer it. One ally is lost but another returns while a terrible tragedy nearly costs them a third. Now a member of the ruling Council, Elon of Aerilann and his companions, Colath, Jareth and Jalila are forced to fight for the Alliance they've given everything to preserve, even as a breath of hope is offered...
Heart of the Gods
– In search of the ancient Tomb of the Djinn, archaeologist Ky Farrar awakens its lethal, and lovely, guardian. Unfortunately, Ky isn’t the only one in search of the tomb and the danger to the world that lies within it.