Dragons of Winter Night - Margaret Weis [191]
Laurana, Flint, and Tasslehoff stood alone beside their friend, their arms around each other, their hearts full. A chill wind whistled through the open door of the sepulcher where the Honor Guard stood, ready to seal the chamber.
“Kharan bea Reorx,” said Flint in dwarven, wiping his gnarled and shaking hand across his eyes. “Friends meet in Reorx.” Fumbling in his pouch, he took out a bit of wood, beautifully carved into the shape of a rose. Gently he laid it upon Sturm’s breast, beside Alhana’s Starjewel.
“Good-bye, Sturm,” Tas said awkwardly. “I only have one gift that, that you would approve of. I—I don’t think you’ll understand. But then again, maybe you do now. Maybe you understand better than I do.” Tasslehoff placed a small white feather in the knight’s cold hand.
“Quisalan elevas,” Laurana whispered in elven. “Our loves-bond eternal.” She paused, unable to leave him in this darkness.
“Come, Laurana,” Flint said gently. “We’ve said our goodbyes. We must let him go. Reorx waits for him.”
Laurana drew back. Silently, without looking back, the three friends climbed the narrow stairs leading from the sepulcher and walked steadfastly into the chill, stinging sleet of the bitter winter’s night.
Far away from the frozen land of Solamnia, one other person said good-bye to Sturm Bright-blade.
Silvanesti had not changed with the passing months. Though Lorac’s nightmare was ended, and his body lay beneath the soil of his beloved country, the land still remembered Lorac’s terrible dreams. The air smelled of death and decay. The trees bent and twisted in unending agony. Misshapen beasts roamed the woods, seeking an end to their tortured existence.
In vain Alhana watched from her room in the Tower of the Stars for some sign of change.
The griffons had come back—as she had known they would once the dragon was gone. She had fully intended to leave Silvanesti and return to her people on Ergoth. But the griffons carried disturbing news: war between the elves and humans.
It was a mark of the change in Alhana, a mark of her suffering these past months, that she found this news distressing. Before she met Tanis and the others, she would have accepted war between elves and humans, perhaps even welcomed it. But now she saw that this was only the work of the evil forces in the world.
She should return to her people, she knew. Perhaps she could end this insanity. But she told herself the weather was unsafe for traveling. In reality, she shrank from facing the shock and the disbelief of her people when she told them of the destruction of their land and her promise to her dying father that the elves would return and rebuild—after they had helped the humans fight the Dark Queen and her minions.
Oh, she would win. She had no doubt. But she dreaded leaving the solitude of her self-imposed exile to face the tumult of the world beyond Silvanesti.
And she dreaded—even as she longed—to see the human she loved. The knight, whose proud and noble face came to her in her dreams, whose very soul she shared through the Starjewel. Unknown to him, she stood beside him in his fight to save his honor. Unknown to him, she shared his agony and came to learn the depths of his noble spirit. Her love for him grew daily, as did her fear of loving him.
And so Alhana continually put off her departure. I will leave, she told herself, when I see some sign I may give my people, a sign of hope. Otherwise they will not come back. They will give up in despair. Day after day, she looked from her window.
But no sign came.
The winter nights grew longer. The darkness deepened. One evening Alhana walked upon the battlements of the Tower of the Stars. It was afternoon in Solamnia then, and—on another Tower—Sturm Brightblade faced a sky-blue dragon and a Dragon Highlord called the Dark Lady. Suddenly Alhana felt a strange and terrifying sensation—as though the world had ceased to turn. A shattering pain