Masquerades - Kate Novak [169]
The saurial sighed, realizing how hard it must be for Alias to give up the powerful emotions. They had fastened themselves so strongly to her essence that losing them would feel like losing herself. She could not accept that there was so much more to her being than these poisonous, wounding feelings. He ran his fingertips down the brand on her sword arm, trying to kindle a spark of the link that bound their souls together.
Alias shivered at the paladin's touch. She could sense his great serenity, his compassion, his tenderness and concern. She knew, though, that she was nothing like him, would never be, could never be as good. There were times she wished she were, but wishing did not make it so.
Dragonbait looked up suddenly at the manes massing behind Alias. He could feel their evil darkening, growing more powerful.
Alias struggled, but she remained trapped in the mist shell.
"Alias, please," the paladin begged. "Let it go. I know you can do it."
"I can't," the swordswoman snapped. "I've tried."
"You can!" Dragonbait snapped back.
"No, I can't!"
"She doesn't dare," Mintassan interjected. "It's her only protection."
"Protection?" Dragonbait growled. "It's trapped her in this evil place. How is that protection?"
"If she gives up her anger and hatred, there's nothing left but bitterness and despair," the sage pointed out. "Why would she want to feel them?"
The paladin nodded. Bitterness; the shadow of anger, and despair, the evil without a color. He wasn't very familiar with them, so he'd forgotten them both. Mintassan knew them though, intimately.
"Alias, what Mintassan says is true. You're holding onto the anger and hate because you're afraid of the bitterness and despair. You know they'll hurt you even more. But you can shed them, too. Trust me."
"I am not bitter and despairing!" Alias shouted. "I'm just stuck in a damned rock. Go get Durgar. Maybe he's got some priest prayer that can break this thing open."
Behind Alias the mist was taking on a serpent shape, and the serpent was rising up. "Alias, there isn't time," the paladin insisted. "Your life depends on it. Let them go."
"I have no reason to be bitter or despairing," Alias argued. "Victor was a monster, and I'm well rid of him. He wasn't worthy of my love. I know that."
"It's not the loss of that worthless man that brings you pain," Mintassan said. "It's the loss of the love you felt. Your love was good, and when it died, it left you empty."
The mist serpent began winding around the border of the spell of protection.
Alias glared at Mintassan. "I don't have time for stupid conversations with sages. What do you know about my love? You don't know anything except what you read in your dusty old tomes."
"Oh, don't I?" Mintassan replied, holding her eyes with his own. "Do you think it was easy for me watching someone I cared about fling herself at someone as unworthy as Victor Dhostar."
Alias felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her, as
if she'd run into a wall of understanding. When she'd first arrived, the sage had cared less about Westgate than she had, but for some reason he'd been there to save her life. Then he'd thrown himself into her quest for vengeance. Now he stood in this stinking, gods-forsaken, evil-ridden pit of a planar pocket arguing with her.
The swordswoman flushed with embarrassment. Why did he have to tell her this?
"So the question is," Mintassan said, "if the lowly sage survived his battle against bitterness and despair, why won't the great warrior woman risk battling them, too?"
Alias squeezed her eyes shut, trying to keep tears from falling out of them. Mintassan was right. She missed her love. It had made her feel warm and safe and happy.
But she could feel those things without it. She knew she could. Besides-she might even love again-maybe.
Dragonbait sighed with relief as the shell of mane mist began