The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [151]
“Then know the measure of . . . my love . . . for you.” Love is . . . pain . . . sorrow . . .
He takes another two steps before he feels the gathering of whiteness that precedes the flames. If he must walk the fires of damnation—
RHHHHHSSSssttt!
. . . never . . . not ever . . . love like that. “Such a lovely . . . thought . . .” Megaera’s voice is ragged.
Creslin can feel her unsteadiness, can sense the feeling of loss. He forces himself to take another step.
RRRhhhsstt!
Fires course through his arteries, through his arms and legs, and his eyes see only flares of energy. His arm breaks his fall against the boulder, and the sheer physical pain is almost a relief. A hissing escapes his lips. But he steps to within an arm’s length of where she sits.
Her legs are pressed against the pale gray stone, the once-black stone now bleached by sun and sea until it no longer matches the black of the cliff from which time and the sea have riven it.
“Look . . . at your . . . arms.”
Creslin does not look, knowing that they must be as red as though he had thrust them into a hearth. Instead, he lurches forward and grasps her elbows, fumbling but dragging her arms down until his fingers twine around her wrists.
RHHHsstt!
. . . save me . . .
Someone moans, but Creslin cannot tell which of them it is. He wraps his arms around Megaera. She slides off the boulder, and he staggers backward in the sand that captures his boots. His heels dig in with the force of his and her weight.
“Sssss. . .”
A different kind of pain lances through his shoulder where her teeth bite into the muscle. He twists his body to escape.
“You . . . bound me . . . like no one . . . ever bound . . .” Her knee jabs into his thigh, seeking his groin and barely missing as he moves.
. . . not be a slave . . . not even to you. . .
“I bound . . . myself . . . same way.” His gasping words match hers.
“Different. You chose . . . I didn’t.” That was different. You chose to bind yourself to me. I didn’t choose to be bound to you.
Ice runs through his veins as the words chill him, words both spoken and echoing through his brain, and he drops away from her. He steps back, staggering, then stands beside the sea-smoothed gray boulder.
“You chose to bind yourself to me. I didn’t choose to be bound to you.” The words spin through his thoughts. You chose . . . I didn’t. You chose . . . I didn’t. . .
The waves ebb and flow. White birds wheel on wing tip as they cut the air above Creslin, and the sea pours across the sands, slipping around his boots.
He cannot see for the burning in his eyes, for the tears that streak his face. He cannot speak, for there are no words left to say. For Megaera is right. Megaera is right.
. . . right, right, right. . .
Binding himself to her was yet another act of violence, another kind of rape, an invasion of her innermost feelings.
His feet drag as he stumbles to the other end of the rock. He cannot see, but he does not need to. He has nowhere to go. Seabirds dive into the foam down the beach from where he stands frozen, and the sea whispers onto the sands.
Megaera is right, and he has no words, and no answers.
Go. . . don’t know what I want. Don’t want you to stay . . . don’t want you to go . . . damn you . . . damn you!
Creslin cannot speak, nor can he leave. Nor can he see beyond the blurriness that clouds his eyes.
Even as she has fought him, she has never struck at him other than to escape, as might a caged animal or a prisoner lash out. The flames were thrown to punish herself, and the physical struggle was but to escape, not to attack.
He swallows, looking out at the sullen swells, knowing that he will never again see the ice spire that is Freyja, save in his mind, nor touch the woman he has loved too well and never touched, yet assaulted all too familiarly.
White water foams in, flowing toward his boots, not quite reaching him, just as he has never quite reached understanding—or Megaera. Above, the gold-shrouded sun seems to retreat into