Thrall - Christie Golden [94]
“The Spirit of Life is telling you things it cannot show,” Thrall said quietly. “This was why I had to come. Korialstrasz was not a traitor. He was a hero. And he died well and willingly, saving not just his own flight but all the flights, with you in his heart.”
“He was the best of us,” she whispered. “He never failed me, nor anyone else. I—I have failed, and faltered, but not him. Not my Korialstrasz.” She lifted her face to Thrall’s. “I am glad I know how brave he was. I am so proud of him. But now… knowing that, how can I possibly endure without him? Can you, so short-lived, possibly understand what it is I have lost?”
Thrall thought of Aggra. “I may have only a short life span, but yes. I know of love. And I know how I would feel if I had lost my beloved as you have lost yours.”
“Then how could you continue on without this love? What is there to go on for?”
He stared at her, his mind suddenly blank. All the images, the ideas, the pat words and clichés that rose to his lips, seemed so empty and devoid of meaning. What reason, indeed, would there be for a sole survivor to continue, when one had had such a love?
And then he thought of it.
He continued to hold the Life-Binder’s hand in his right one. With the left, he reached into his pouch and brought forth a small, seemingly humble object.
It was the acorn that the ancient had gifted him with. Desharin’s words came back to him: Take good care of it. That acorn holds all the knowledge of its parent tree, and all the knowledge of that parent’s parent tree… and on and on, back toward the beginning of all things. You are to plant it where it seems right for it to grow.
Krasus had known it was not for him, though he had longed for it. Thrall wondered if the red dragon had guessed that, perhaps, such a thing was meant for his mate. Thrall hoped so.
The orc turned over Alexstrasza’s hand, placed the acorn in her palm, and gently closed her fingers over it.
“I told you of Dreamer’s Rest, in Feralas,” Thrall said softly. “Of the ancients who were in peril there. What I did not tell you was how truly magnificent they are. I did not tell you of their… presence. The simple power of age and wisdom pouring from them. How small and awestruck I felt surrounded by them.”
“I… have known ancients,” Alexstrasza said, her voice small. She kept her fist tightly closed over the acorn for an instant, then opened it.
It shifted in her hand, so subtly that Thrall thought it was simply rolling over the hills and valleys of her palm. Then a small crack appeared at its light brown base. The crack spread, and then a tiny green shoot, only a fraction of an inch long, extended from the tip.
Alexstrasza let out a sobbing gasp. Her other hand flew to her heart, pressing down hard on a slender chest that suddenly heaved once, twice, three times with racking, gulping sobs. She kept pressing on her heart as though it hurt her. For an instant Thrall was worried that all this was too much—that it was killing her.
And then he understood. The heart of the Life-Binder had been closed—closed against the pain that caring brought. Against the torment of losing someone dearly loved. Against the agony of compassion.
And now, like the shell of the acorn, like ice during the spring thaw, her heart was cracking open.
“I am who I am,” she whispered, still staring at the germinating acorn. “Whether in joy or in pain. I am who I am.”
Another sob racked her, and then another. Tears welled in her eyes as she grieved for her lost love, finally weeping the healing tears that had been locked inside her shuttered heart. Thrall put an arm around her shoulders, and she turned into his broad chest; she, who had once been tortured and enslaved by orcs to serve them, wept freely against him.
Her tears seemed endless, as the tears of the Life-Binder ought to be. It was more than the loss of Krasus, Thrall suspected. He sensed she wept