Chapter 34: For the Rest of Our Lives

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"He's gone," Evenfall says, her voice ragged and broken from the hours spent crying in her father's arms, "Gone forever."

Forever. The word sends Auberon down into the deep well of his thoughts. Forever belongs to their kind, fae and dragon alike, immortals who never die. Except, the dragons do die more often than they should, tossing their immortality aside, throwing their lives away for a violent death.

"He was a dragon," Auberon's thoughts become spoken words, "His kind chase after death, and eventually, even if it takes thousands of years, they all find it."

Evenfall's sobs grow more desperate at his words. Auberon turns to kiss her forehead. "When your mother's human mate passed into their spirit realm, I tried to comfort her. But I only made her misery worse," he says.

"Please, just stop talking," Evenfall pleads, "Just, hold me and let me cry."

Silence is the one comfort he can offer her, so he gives it to her.

"I would happily wait for our wedding night," Treveur whispers, but there is a hunger in his voice that says  he would not be as happy to wait as he is willing. 

Gaelle leans close to him as she slips her hands into his, and is surprised for a moment at the smoothness of his skin, soft and unused to labor. "I would not be so happy to wait," she whispers, flirting, trying not to think of Morvyn's hands, their roughness tickling his skin where he'd touch her. It cannot wait, she thinks, if she's to have any chance of him believing the child she carries is his.

She moves her hands to his face, drawing him closer to kiss him, feigning shyness at first, and growing bolder as his tongue finds hers. All through their youth, she has been his only desire, and she must be sure that he believes she has been his alone. She does not, at least, have to feign attraction or affection, for she's always been fond of Treveur, and even loved him. That love was not enough to keep her from straying, but it is enough to allow herself to take real pleasure in his caresses, to feel real desire as they remove each other's garments and fall into the bed together. She could even forget to think about Morvyn at all, if it were not for the sting of guilt of knowing that while spends this night in the arms of the man she will marry, Morvyn spends his imprisoned, possibly tortured, all because she gave him up to the dragon slayer, just to save herself. And the child, she reminds herself, trying to brush the guilt away, everything she's does now, is for the good of her child.

"Did I hurt you, my love?" Treveur whispers, seeing the single tear that rolls down Gaelle's cheek.

"No. Well, just a little," Gaelle lies, remembering to pretend that this was her first time, "But my tears are for joy, knowing that we will be together forever." It is the last tear she will shed for Morvyn, she decides, the last thought she will spare for him. Even indulging in pleasant memories would be too much of a risk now. From this night forward, she must think if herself, and her child, as Treveur's, and forget anything else.

"I will go ahead and tell Aymeri and the others you are free. Shayeleigh and Moth will accompany you the rest of the way back to the nest," Ico tells Morvyn once they've gotten a good distance from the dragon slayer's prison tower. They've come to  a stream by the side of the road, not far from the forest protected by the dragons' wards, and Ico can travel much faster through water than she can over land.

"Shayeleigh can go with you," Morvyn says, "I can make it back alone."

Ico bites her lip; if they were to loose Morvyn again, all we be for naught. But it's also clear that Shayeleigh herself longs to be off the road and back to the safety of home, back to Riain, who will be worried about her. "Moth will stay with you," she decides, "He can alert us if anything happens."

"Nothing will happen," Morvyn promises, "The dragon slayer won't be out looking for me so soon. And once I get to our forest, he'll never find me at all."

Assured if his safety, Ico enters the stream, and disappears into the waters, while Shayeleigh trades her horse form for a swift flying bird. She won't travel as fast as Ico can, but she'll be home quicker through the air than she could be at her fastest gallop as a horse.

As soon as they're gone, Morvyn takes off his clothes and enters the water. He can't travel very far this way, but he can wash the grime of the prison off him, something he could not wait to do for abnother moment.

Ceyrth lowers himself into a stealthy crouch when he spots the lone figure bathing in the stream, and gestures for Kelyn to do the same.

"That's one of mine," Kelyn says, keeping her voice low even though she doesn't bother to hide as Ceyrth has.

Since his escape, Morvyn's heightened senses have been slowly returning to him, and he turns at the sound of Kelyn's low whisper, preparing to fight if he has to, or flee if it's the dragon slayer.

But what Morvyn sees is definitely no human. The voce he heard was a female dragon, unfamiliar to him, and her silent companion must be a fae, though unlike any of the fairies he'd known in his life.

Thousands of years have passed since dragon fought fought dragon, but that is no guarantee that this unfamiliar dragon's intentions are peaceful. "Who are you, sister?" Morvyn calls up to her, "What brings you to Aymeri's territory?"

The female crouches by the stream's edge, looking him over closely, while her companion keeps a safe distance between them. "You must be Morvyn," she says, surprising him, "Fearghus and Inira speak fondly of you. You bear a close resemblance to your sister."

Morvyn relaxes; if she knows Inira and Fearghus, she must have born in the northern lands where his sister had moved her nest some hundreds of years ago, after she and Fearghus had their first child. 

"You know my name," Morvyn says, "Will you give me yours?"

"I am Kelyn, daughter of Dechtire," she ays. It's a formal introduction, Morvyn notes, and she names her status as a daughter, indicating that she has no nest of her own, though she's obviously not a juvenile. Dragon's have changed over the years since the great war. Once, a male like himself living without a mate in his mother's nest would be treated as a juvenile, but now Morvyn is free to be both single and an adult. But never in his thousands of years of living has he heard of a female who hadn't taken at least one mate. 

Curious as he is about her situation, such a personal question to someone he just met would be unforgivably rude, so instead he asks about Inira and Fearghus, as he is equally curious about how they have fared.

"My companion and I are traveling with them," Kelyn tells him, "We were a ways north of here when we heard Talfryn," she says, her voice dropping into a solemn tone, "Inira and Fearghus lost their eldest son to the dragon slayer not five years past. And just this last year, their second fell to his sword. They were coming back to the south to get away from that, only to hear the death cry of Inira's brother."

"How many of us has killed?" Morvyn asks, shocked by her tale.

"Too many," she says, "He wasn't the first of his kind, nor will he be the last, as the mortals idolize the ones who can call themselves dragon slayers. But this one at least is dead," she finishes proudly, "I'm just coming back from killing now."

"How?" Morvyn asks, "That metal he wears...when he took me prisoner, I scarcely had the strength of a human, and I couldn't fight him and his men off."

"He was not in his armor, or carrying more than a simple dagger when I took him," Kelyn explains, something about that fact suddenly not sitting right with her. The dragon slayer never went about without his men or his sword at the very least, "But, even if he had the metal on him, it can weaken only our magic and our senses, it cannot dull our blades."

"You use human weapons," Morvyn says, noticing for the first time the sword and dagger she wears around her waist.

A disdainful snort coms from her otherwise silent friend. "Those weapons are of alfar make," he says, "And far superior to anything the mortals can forge."

"Except that the human weapons have magic," Morvyn points out. "What is an 'alfar'?"

"That's Ceyrth," Kelyn makes a belated introduction, "He's an alfar. If you have ten or so evenings free, he can recite his whole people's history in poetry," she laughs, "There are even a few interesting parts."

"Maybe when I'm not standing up to my waist in water," Morvyn says, "We should meet up with Inira and Fearghus, and get back to the nest."

Barely an hour after leaving Morvyn, Ico rises from the well by their nest.

Though the hour is late, she's not surprised to find Seirian and Arienh in the common room waiting for any news of their captured son, and Riain pacing around worried about Shayeleigh.

"Morvyn is free," Ico tells them, "I left him with Moth just outside the forest. He should be home by morning."

Seirian and his mate turn to each other in relief.

"And Shayeleigh?" Riain asks.

"She's right behind me," she assures him, "We couldn't have done this without her help."

Aymeri was not waiting with the others; Ico finds him alone in the darkness of their bedroom.

"Morvyn is free," she tells him.

His head lifts slightly in a nod, but he says nothing, and does not even glance in her direction.

Ico kneels on the bed beside him, taking his face in her hands and making him look at her. "My love," she whispers

"I should be happy that Morvyn is free." Aymeri says, his voice too hoarse to rise above a strained whisper, "But it doesn't bring Talfryn back."

"I left you to mourn alone," Ico says sadly, understanding how much he needed her to be with him, "I was not here when you needed me."

"You did what had to be done," Aymeri murmurs, pulling her close into his arms, finally able to let his tears flow now that she's with him.

He spends his grief in a torrent of tears, and when he's done he rises to his knees, pulling her up with him, pressed against his chest, his lips locked to hers in a deep kiss.

Instinct drives him now like it did on the day he met her, a need for her that he cannot deny, a compulsion he cannot refuse. Her clothing tears away without him realizing he was undressing her, and she slides beneath him, taking him inside her. Like a river meeting the ocean, his consciousness flows into hers, water meeting water, merging into one body. As one, they remember, they remember that moment, when their eyes first met, and they knew each other. For a moment, that memory shines bright, and then fades back behind the thousands of years they've spent together, joined now as they were then.

"I was so young, and foolish enough to believe I understood love," he says, not having to explain to her what he means, "But I had barely touched the surface of love."

Sterren wakes with the sun, wrapped in Reinier's embrace. "It will be like this for us every morning," he whispers.

"We will wake up, and I will make love you, every day for the rest of our lives," he continues, kissing her hungrily as he rolls her onto her back.

Sterren pulls him down toward her as she lifts herself up, holding him close as he enters her gently, slowly, clinging to him with a sad kind of desperation. She wants to believe that his promise will be real, and she does believe he means what he says. But she knows she betrayed him by releasing his prisoner, and even if he never learns of her involvement, she will always know, and it will always be a wall between them, a lie she will always have to live so long as she is with him, and nothing will ever be the same with him again.

The shouting starts shortly after they've dressed. At first it's distant, coming from the lower floors of the keep, but eventually rises to this floor, to the hall outside her door, and then enters. Sterren braces herself, preparing to act surprised when the news of the prisoner's escape is revealed.

"My husband!" Edelina both shrieks and sobs in the same breath, running up to Reinier, "He is dead! Murdered!"

Sterren can only stand in wooden silence. This is surprising news, and not at all what she was preparing for. Did the wilder take revenge before getting away, did the fairies have this planned all along? she wonders.

"They came out of the shadows," Anselm reports what he remembers of the attack to Reinier, "The man had me down before I knew he was there. He was man, though. His ears were large and pointed, his skin an odd, pale color and his face covered with evil markings. Before he knocked me out, I just caught a glimpse of the woman who murdered Diedericx. She was a wilder, no mistake. As she stuck the knife in, she said 'You'll never kill another dragon'. And that was the last I saw or heard until I was awakened this morning."

"Never kill another dragon?" Reinier muses. His brother had never killed any dragons in his life. The only other living Landgraab who could name himself Dragon Slayer was their uncle Osbrand, who was now too weakened by age to so much as hunt rabbit. The last dragon he'd felled was back when Reinier was just learning to walk. "I was their target," he says, his lips hardening into a frown. "And I was right, there is a connection between the dragons and these wilders. It's time I had a word with my prisoner."

Sterren's heart drops down into her stomach, and she has to use all her strength just to keep her knees from giving way beneath her. 

Reinier turns to head toward the tower prison, only to find the tower's night guard approaching.

"My lord," the guard says, bowing before he launches into his own carefully crafted spiel, "Wilders have attacked the tower, and released the prisoner."

"Attacked? How is it we heard nothing of this?" Reinier demands.

"They came in through the windows, my lord, all quiet like. I tried to call out, but they were on me before I could say a word. Threw me so hard against the wall that I knew nothing for the rest of the night. When the day came on me this morning, we found the prisoner's cell empty, and a length of rope hanging out the window."

Any worry Sterren harbored that the guard might recognize her and identify her to Reinier dissipates in the face of his self-serving lies. Of course, he'd come up with such a tale rather than admit to his lord that he took a drink from a strange servant girl in the middle of his watch.

But the lie compounds Reinier's belief that he wilders orchestrated this attack, intending to both free his prisoner and assassinate him at the same time. For all Sterren knows, they did, and they and their allies among the fair folk used her to help them carry out their plan.

Reinier immediately calls for a curfew for the whole town, and doubles both his personal guard as well as the night watch for all of Odet. "Send for the scribe," he orders, planning to write to his master smith back in the Landgraab's home country, to demand more of the blue iron that weakens his magic wielding enemies.

"Reinier," Sterren says, claiming his attention while he waits for the scribe, "Perhaps it would be best if I returned to Avendale until you've settled your brother's affairs."

"Leave me? No, Sterren, you cannot leave me now," Reinier says, turning to face her, "I need you with me now. To stand by me as a wife."

"I'm just a guest here," she protests, "No matter how you feel about me, the people won't se me as your wife, or even as nobility. I should get out of your way until you are free again to join me," she says, knowing even as she speaks the words that he will not be joining her. Whatever he believed he was capable of, giving up his name and title was not something he would do even for love, and it's better that they part now rather than continue pretending that they have a future together.

"You will not leave my side, Sterren," he says, gripping her arms tightly, "The time for games is done. There are assassins out for my blood, and there will be no time ever again when I am free of that. I'm taking Odet and fortifying it to protect me. To protect us, Sterren, for you will be my wife. We will marry as soon as I can arrange it. I need you. You cannot leave me now. I will not allow it."