Chapter 48
DRAKE HAD NEVER realized how long it could take to die. His life lately had been full of instantaneous death—comrades blown to pieces, or less than pieces as his father had been. He’d always feared a long, lingering death, had wished to go as his father had, in an instant with perhaps not even enough time to realize what was happening.
But now, the fate he’d feared was here. And as he drifted in and out of awareness, he realized he’d never accepted that he might have no control in the matter. He couldn’t even lift a hand to his blade, to end this agony himself. He doubted he would anyway, not now. If he was still in Jakel’s hands, he would not hesitate, but Kye, his precious Kye had risked her life to free him.
And thanks to her, he would die a free man. He would thank her for that, if he could hang on long enough.
“Hang on, Drake. You just hang on.”
He remembered hearing the words, but he had not responded, not only because it was beyond him at that moment, but because he thought Brander had understood the inevitability, and he had not the strength to convince his stubborn friend if he did not.
The aware times were both heaven and hades. Being awake meant the pain was close, searing, digging, until he felt as if his flesh was peeling off his bones and his organs turning to scalding liquid inside him. But it also meant seeing Eirlys one more time.
Seeing Kye one more time.
A different kind of agony stabbed through him. Their moments together had been far too few, and he wondered if it might not have been better for both of them now had they never given in to the fierce need. But the thought of never having had that brief time, of never knowing what a true connection of mind and body was like, of dying without knowing, was a thousandfold worse. It was too much, and he tried to focus on his sister instead. She understood. He could see it in her face.
He knew that for sure in the next minute, when she brought in the twins. The pair were pale, and quiet as he had never seen them before. He wasn’t sure they should see him, like this, but Eirlys stared him down even now. “They have the right,” she said. “And they’ll not believe it otherwise.”
It took all of what little strength he still had to hold out a hand to them. They each grasped it, the jolt from the broken bones Jakel had left him with barely registering above the constant thrum of pain. He didn’t, couldn’t react. He just looked at the pair that had been the bane—and the bemused joy—of his life for more than a dozen years.
“Watch out . . . for your sister,” he said to Nyx. The boy nodded, but his jaw was set. This was going to be hard on him. But they had each other; he had to believe they would get through.
Drake looked at Lux, whose cheeks were streaked with tears. “Don’t get him into . . . too much trouble doing that.”
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Please don’t.”
He was filled with an ache that somehow arced above the physical pain of his body. An ache that he would not see them grow up, would not see the adults they would become, not see where Lux’s clever mind would take her, and what things Nyx’s ingenious methods would produce.
“Love you . . . both.”
The fog, deeper and darker than anything Ziem had ever produced, began to swirl around him. He wandered, lost, the tiny part of his mind still prodded by the pain, thinking for the first time of what he would leave behind, of the hole he would leave. Better now than when he’d begun this, when his sister had been yet a child and the twins even younger.
He felt the fog descend, and wondered if it was for the last time. And almost hoped not to wake up this time.
“FOR ALL THEIR clashes, they will be lost without him,” Eirlys whispered as she looked at the twins, huddled by the fire. Kye could barely look at them herself; seeing the irrepressible pair brought low at last was too much.
“He is their anchor, their base, the safe place they always knew they had,” Kye said. “He is the reason they are as brave—and reckless—as they are.”
Eirlys shifted her gaze to Kye. “He has ever been that to all of us, hasn’t he?”
Kye met her gaze. She who always hid her emotions did not even try to hide the tears. The pain was so great it was pointless to even try.
“It is so wrong that he, of us all, should have to pay this ultimate price.”
“I never wanted him to—”
Kye hushed her before she could even get the words out, pulling her into a fierce hug. “You think I do not know that? You must not blame yourself, or what he did will be for nothing. You would never have asked him to give himself up for you. But he is the man he is.”
“I would rather have died myself,” Eirlys said, and Kye hugged her tighter.
“As I would die in his place now, were it possible.” And she meant it with everything in her.
“I know.”
“It is he we cannot do without. Despite what he says, he is the soul of Ziem, and . . . and . . .” She simply could not go on.
Eirlys said softly, “I so wanted you and Drake to be pledged, so that you would really be my sister.”
Kye’s breath caught in her throat. “For so long, we’ve not thought of anything beyond the next fight, or the next chance to strike at the Coalition. But I wish we had said to hades with our fears and all the reasons not to.”
“But he would not set aside his duty to take anything for himself.”
“Bedamned noble idiot,” Kye muttered.
Eirlys let out an agonized, sharp laugh. “My brother in three words.”
Kye did not know how long they stood there before Mahko emerged from his quarters. One glance at his face told her nothing had changed.
“I must go back to him,” Kye said. “I cannot bear that he might be alone when . . .”
“Nor can I.” Anger flashed across Eirlys face. “Although the thought clearly causes Brander no pain.”
“I do not understand his reasons,” Kye said gently. “But I do not doubt that he has them.”
Eirlys shook her head. And then went still as the action brought the hearth into view. The pair who had been huddled before the fire were gone.
“Where did they get off to?” Kye asked, noticing now as well.
“I don’t know,” Eirlys said. “I’m—” She broke off suddenly. And Kye knew she’d been about to say as she had so often, that she was glad they were Drake’s problem, and not hers. “I guess they are my problem from now on, aren’t they?”
Kye thought her heart had been utterly shattered the moment she’d seen the truth in Drake’s sky-blue eyes, but there had apparently been one last piece clinging together, for it fractured now. She was crying before she even got to the door of his quarters.
HE FELT THE PAIN sharpen now, knew he was headed for the surface again. Mahko was there, trying to tend him. He wondered if the healer could, or would, ease his way, but asking him to go against his nature and training and end a life instead of trying to save it seemed very wrong. As wrong as it had seemed to ask Kye or Brander and give them that to carry.
But he didn’t know how long he could go on. And he apparently couldn’t will his stubborn body to simply surrender.
“Hang on, Drake. You just hang on.”
He groaned, helplessly, as a wave of fresh agony swept through him. I can’t. I can’t.
And yet he did.
Much later, deep in the swirling darkness of that fog, he became aware the pain had lessened. And then it lessened even more. He heard voices, or perhaps just one, gentle, soothing, assuring. This touch did not hurt, it eased. And when he was able to open his eyes slightly, he saw only a blurry figure in a flowing robe, gleaming unlike anything he’d ever seen.
At last, his pain-battered brain thought. At last it was here. The end. Of the pain, the regrets, everything. He’d done all he could to see to his family, and must trust Brander to see to the future of Ziem. He knew it was not what his friend would have wished, but he also knew his word once given was sacrosanct; he had promised and so would he do.
Drake had never expected to welcome death when it came, had doubted stories of those who did, but he understood now. The simple fact of the end of the torture of his injuries, of the cessation of the fierce, consuming pain, was enough to make him grateful it was finally going to be over.
And, in the moments before, his mind cleared enough for him to think of that odd, swirling figure and wonder if perhaps the old tales about the guardians that came for everyone at the end were true after all.
He opened his eyes, surprised that he still could. But more surprised by what he saw.
Another kind of guardian had come for him. Or perhaps his weary brain had simply conjured up this familiar form in its last, dying moments. It did not matter, not now. He was grateful, if a little puzzled by how real his now painless body still felt. Perhaps the actual process of dying took longer than they knew.
He looked at his mother. “It’s over now?” he asked.
She smiled. It warmed him, and brought back to him the days before his father had died, when she had looked like this all the time. She appeared weary, but herself, beautiful as she had always been. And yet, she was different. Which of course she would be, in whatever otherworldly place she existed, even if it was just his mind.
“Yes, it is over,” she assured him, her voice gentle.
Her voice was the same. “Thank you,” he said, even as he wondered why they were still in his quarters, why everything looked as it had.
“I am so very proud of you, my son. You have done what we could not.”
“I didn’t do enough. Father would have driven them out by now.”
“Your father was an orator, an inspirer, not a fighter. You have become both.”
He didn’t question that she knew of the Raider. Or of his double life. Whether she was ethereal guardian of an afterlife he hadn’t really believed in, or a fragment of his mind still functioning, she would of course know.
“I understand, now,” he said. “Why you could not go on without him.”
A memory of Kye’s face, twisted with an inner pain of her own, stabbed at him, startling him with the fact that he was still able to feel that kind of ache. I hope she is strong enough to go on. Were it reversed, I am not sure I would be.
“She is a good, strong, courageous woman, Drake,” his mother said, somehow knowing of his thoughts. “I could not have chosen one better to stand by you. And to stand for Ziem.”
“I wish we had had more time.”
Still pondering how she’d known his thoughts, he wondered if perhaps it was some power that came after death. Or again, perhaps she knew because she was merely a projection of his dying mind.
But if that were the case, why was she alone? Wouldn’t he have projected his father as well, since he never thought of one without the other? Odd, how much easier it was to think without the pain. And as nonsensical as it seemed, he asked the question. “He did not come with you?”
She frowned then, clearly puzzled.
“Father,” he said.
Understanding dawned across her face like the sun rising on those rare days free of mist.
“Oh, my sweet boy, I am so sorry. I did not realize where your mind had gone.” She reached out, took his hand, squeezed it. He felt a faint echo of the pain from the fingers Jakel had broken, one by one, joint by joint. But more, he felt her touch, felt the grip of her fingers, as real as if it were . . . real.
He stared at her. “Mother?”
“I am here, Drake. Alive, breathing. As are you.”
“But—”
“And you must believe how incredibly proud I am of you, and of what you have done, my brave, brave boy.”
He grimaced. “I’m not brave. You don’t know how many times I was afraid. How many times I wanted to quit.”
“And yet you did not. My dear, beloved son, what else do you think bravery is?”
He did not understand any of this. It seemed real, and yet that was impossible. It had to be some trick of the mind, perhaps to ease his passing. Didn’t it?
She laid a gentle hand on his cheek. It did not hurt. “Do not doubt, Drake. You are alive. And soon you will be yourself again.”
“And you?”
“I am here. I have ever been with you.”
He scowled at that.
“Yes,” she said, with a sad expression that seemed to say she knew she deserved his anger. “That is a lengthy tale best saved for another time. For now, I will only say that I am sorry it had to be this way. But the vision was so strong, so clear and specific, I knew there was no other road.”
He stared at her. Silently tested her words by drawing in a deep breath, and flexing the parts of him that had been damaged the worst. She saw, and understood.
“You are alive, my son,” she repeated. “Although you came as close as it is possible to come and not cross over,” she said. “Had Brander not come for me when he did . . .”
“Hang on, Drake. You just hang on.”
Astonishment flooded him. “Brander . . . knew? He knew you were alive, and where to find you?”
“Yes and no.”
At the expression that apparently crossed his face, she laughed. It was a sound he’d not heard since well before his father’s death.
“He came for the Spirit,” she said. “He did not know it was me.”
Shock rippled through him, so many things coming clear at once it took his breath in a way hovering on the brink of death had not. “You. You’re the Spirit.”
She merely nodded. A lock of that red hair fell forward, and he was blasted with a memory of playing with it as a child, tugging on the thick strands and winding them around his tiny fingers.
“You . . . the notes . . .”
“I could not resist,” she admitted with a smile. “You did not truly need my advice, but it is the curse of motherhood to need to offer it anyway.”
“No. I did need it.” His innate sense of fairness made him add, “You were right. You were always right.”
“I not only saw things, I sometimes learned things. People bring the strangest offerings to the altar of the Spirit.”
Another realization hit. “That’s how you knew about the fuel cells, the food, the air rovers, and the rest.”
“Yes.”
And yet another. “The feather. In the notes.”
“A tribute. Do you remember what he called me?”
“His little hawk, as your name means.”
“Yes.”
It was all coming at him so fast it made him feel sluggish. But it was better, so very much better than the pain. . . .
“It really was you, here. You . . . healed me?”
Her expression changed, went solemn, and sad. “I could not save your father. They left me nothing to save. But since then, I have learned much, absorbed much from the magic of our mountain, in preparation for the battle to come. You were alive, and I was determined they would not steal my son from me.”
A spark of the old anger flickered. “They did not steal me. You left.”
She laid a gentle hand on his brow. “I know, my son. And I know how it must have felt to you, that I chose death over you and your brother and sisters. And I will not lie; in that moment, I did make that choice. It was too much to ask; I could not stand what I saw you would have to do, not on top of your father. The pain was already so great, and you know my connection to the pain of our people. I feel what they feel. On the death of your father, I felt their fear, their pain, their grief. All of them. On top of my own, it was unbearable.”
She stood suddenly. He raised himself up on one elbow, still surprised he could do it. It did not hurt, but it wearied him as if he’d run from his quarters to the flats and back again.
“You must rest. It will take some time for you to regain your strength. But Ziem must see the Raider again, soon. So do as you’re told,” she added, much as she had when he’d been a child.
He dropped back down onto the bed, both because he needed to, and because she was, after all, his mother. Only then did he notice the odd way she was holding her left arm, twisted to the outside so that the palm of her hand faced forward. Seeing the direction of his gaze, she spoke.
“Later. There will be time for stories. And I must rest as well. A healing of this magnitude is a costly task.” She smiled at him. “In the morning, when you are stronger, your sister and the twins. But now, there is a young woman who needs desperately to see you. I do not think she had much hope that I could restore you.”
“She has little. She has seen too much.”
“And that is what you are to all of us, Drake. Hope. And hope can take us a great distance, when it is coupled with courage and skill, as it is in you, my son.”
He did not know what else to say, so he repeated what he’d first said to her, only this time with full understanding, even if he did not know the whole of her story. He’d never really thought about what it must have been like for her, seeing the future and being unable to change it, only to prepare.
“Thank you.” He decided that was too sweeping—he did not want her to think all was forgiven. So he added, “The pain was . . . immense.”
And echoing pain flashed in her eyes. But when she spoke, it was not of her abandonment, his pain, or even the Raider. “You wish to thank me? Continue the fight. Make Ziem once more a place of peace and wonder and mystery, that children are free and safe to explore. And then,” she added with a smile he could only describe as mischievous, “give me a grandchild to explore it with.”
She was gone with a flourish of that flowing robe.
And a moment later, there was Kye. Their gazes locked, as if neither of them dared to believe that they had truly been given another chance. His mother’s words echoed in his head.
A grandchild.
Perhaps with Kye’s incredible turquoise eyes.
Or his mother’s flame-touched hair.
She ran to him. Strength flooded into him at her first touch, as if she was willing her own to him. And he realized what his father had meant, one long-ago day when he had said that he and his mate were stronger together than the sum of their strength apart.
Neither of them spoke. They did not need to. Tacitly they agreed to steal this time, to take it for themselves, they who had taken so little and given so much, nearly including their lives.
Eventually they would rise, and fight again.
But for now, they simply held each other.