The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [262]
Grace understood. Leothan. Aryn had slain the young lord with a spell. But he had been an ironheart.
“Then a shadow was there. It wanted me to leap from the highest turret of the castle. But I didn’t.” She looked up, blue eyes shining. “You see, I knew that wasn’t the answer, that dying wouldn’t undo what was done. I think the shadow was furious. It screamed at me, but I ran.”
Grace didn’t know what to say. She took Aryn’s hand—the right, not the left—and held the pale, folded appendage between her own two hands.
“Your dream is not so different from mine,” Beltan said, the knight’s face uncharacteristically sober. “Like you, I saw again a dark deed that I once committed. It was … a man that I killed. Then the shadow came to me, and it bade me to turn the knife upon myself. I started to push the blade into my own heart. And then …”
Grace gazed at him. “Then what, Beltan?”
The big knight shrugged broad shoulders. “Then I realized that, whatever I had done in the past, there was something in my present that made me want to live.”
Grace smiled at him; she didn’t need to speak the name aloud. Travis. But what dark deed could Beltan have possibly done? He said he had killed a man, but he was a warrior. Had he not been forced to slay many men in battle?
Melia touched the blossoms of a lindara vine that climbed up the white wall of the lane. “The shadow in your dreams was the demon, I think. That was part of its magic. Had you done the things in your dreams that it wished you to do, then it would have won, and it would have consumed you.” She looked up, her amber eyes bright. “But you didn’t surrender yourself to the shadow. The ghosts of the past will haunt you no longer.”
Grace knew that wasn’t entirely true. The shadows of the past were still there. If she shut her eyes and reached out with the Touch, she could still see them as she had once before, attached to the gleaming life thread of each of them.
And yet …
The shadows were smaller now, and more distant. Even Grace’s own. She thought that, just maybe, she understood the reason. They could never leave their past behind, not completely; like a shadow, it would always trail after them. But also like a shadow, it had no real power, no true form. The dark would always remain, but that did not mean they could not face forward, into the light.
Grace drew in a breath, then she shut her eyes, reached out, and Touched the shimmering web of the Weirding. She did it with abandon, without holding back any fraction of herself, and for the very first time, Grace embraced the glittering threads—embraced the fabric of life—without fear.
It was glorious.
Grace?
It was Aryn’s voice, speaking in her mind.
Grace, are you all right?
How could she explain?
I am, Aryn, she spun back. For the first time in my life, I really am all right.
Doctor, heal thyself.
Grace opened her eyes. The others were looking at her with curious expressions. She grimaced, then laughed.
“Sorry,” she said, and left it at that. As Lirith had once taught her, it was all right for a girl to maintain a little mystery.
Her laughter faded then, and she found herself gazing at Vani, and at Melia and Falken. What had each of them dreamed about while caught in the thrall of the demon? Whatever it was, they seemed unwilling to say. Yet Falken’s weathered visage was haggard, and Grace thought she could guess what moment the shadow had made him live again: the death of a kingdom.
But Malachor isn’t dead, is it, Grace? Not completely, not if you’re here.
It was absurd of course. But then, so were the hundred other things that had happened to her since that October night just under a year ago when she journeyed to Eldh. Back to Eldh.
She touched the steel pendant at her throat. You’re a queen, Grace, whether you like it or not. But lucky for you, you’re the ruler of a kingdom that doesn’t exist anymore. You have to admit, that makes it rather convenient. All of the majesty, none of the burden.
“What