by Inez Kelley
It grew brighter and harsher until he had to squint to make out her form in the center. Her shrieking never stopped but her feline eyes began to battle the brilliance, shimmering an unearthly green. Her clenched fists quaked, challenging the light.
“Ancient magic, receive my breath, come now in this hour of death.
Return my love from death’s cold hand, he who is marked by my brand.
Return him sound and free of pain, trade our paths on this plane.
Each drop of life I freely give, be it so my love can live.”
A massive clap of thunder shook the castle. A mushroom cloud of power descended with a rushing wave of heat. Every splatter and puddle vanished, consumed in the burnless blaze, and the rain ceased. Balic’s hair blew back and the breath was sucked from his lungs. The scorch billowed visibly around him. Bryton ducked his head against the mystic wind’s muscle.
In the heart of the blast, Myla’s chant faded away. Her white shift bled a wide red circle on her breast and back.
In Balic’s arms, Taric arched his back, gasped and his eyes snapped open. Disbelief shuddered Balic’s heart. His son’s eyes went from flat, dead brown to sparkling-life bronze. Taric’s chest became clean, the flesh knitting to smoothness. Along his tensed arms and torso, each nick and scratch healed as if they never were. Life began flowing in Taric’s veins. Taut skin warmed beneath Balic’s hand and flushed.
The wind whooshed in a loud howl, dragging Balic’s sight to Myla. She exhaled and Taric drew in more air. She breathed life into him, her life, given in love.
In a blink, the light was gone and Myla crumpled to the stone. Taric exhaled a loud breath and drew another of his own. Bryton’s wide blue eyes caught Balic’s but neither could speak. Wonderment and hope coursed through him and he wiped tears away, daring to believe. He glanced up into the now-clear sky to find a half-moon shining down on his grown child’s rebirth, a million stars as witness.
Taric’s lungs filled and heaved, and Bryton leapt to Myla. Katina crouched beside him and they ran frantic hands over the crumpled body, searching for a trace of hope. The charmist sank to her behind with a shuddering sob and Bryton hung his head low between his shoulders. Raising his face to Balic’s gaze, his expression slowly confirmed it. Her life was forfeited. Balic’s throat choked at the sacrifice she’d given.
Under his hands, Taric stirred, his eyes darting around before settling on his face. “Papa?”
A sniffling inhale in place of words, Balic gripped his son’s hair tight and brought his forehead down to his alive-and-breathing son’s brow.
Taric pushed forward, sitting upright, and palmed his temple. Balic watched his memory return. Taric’s hand and eyes jerked to his chest and found no sword wound. Bewilderment blanked his expression and his chin lifted.
Then he saw Myla.
“No!”
Taric’s cry beat against the rough-hewn walls. He was still dead and in the lowest pit of hell. He had to be. Only there could the torment in his soul be explained. But his heart banged beneath his hand and he knew this was real hell, here on the rooftop. Ripping from Balic’s arms, he surged forward on his knees, knowing he was wrong. He had to be. Bryton and Katina scrambled away.
Kneeling above her, Taric lifted a trembling hand to Myla’s pale face. Cold.
“Myla? Please, Myla…return to me, my guardian…please, Myla…return to me…” Where is the pomegranate of her mouth? Why is it so white? Dark lashes rested against her cheek, sooty arcs that didn’t open.
“Open your eyes, my love…open them… Look at me, Myla…” A tiny blue vein ran down her temple. I never noticed. How did I miss that?
“Wake up, Myla…please…Myla…wake up…” She sleeps so soundly. Maybe she’s dreaming of the meadow again and doesn’t want to leave.
He pressed his hand to her chest to gently nudge her awake. “We’ll go back, Myla…soon as we’re home… Wake up…” She battled so hard with Marchen and with shifting into…
His palm was wet. He wouldn’t look. If he didn’t look then he wouldn’t see. It was water. It had rained. His hair was still damp. But water wasn’t sticky. Nose burning, he forced his eyes down past her face. Past the hollow he loved to kiss above her collarbone, down to his hand. His skin was dark against the white cotton of her shift, but a darker stain lay beneath his fingers. Red. Like her chiton. Wet. Red. Blood.
“Myla!”
His shout echoed with misery. Horror thrust the shock from his mind. She isn’t sleeping. A furious flame hit his chest. Blackened scabs covered his bondmark, the tingle of changing flesh like tiny pricks of glass. She wasn’t asleep. She was—
“No!” Tightened cords in his neck strangled the screech and a sob erupted from his belly. She couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible. She wasn’t real. You can’t kill what isn’t real. He hadn’t found a way yet. Drops of liquid landed on her chin and he realized they came from his cheeks, tears that coursed to her like bees to yellow blooms in an untamed meadow.
Everything, every memory assaulted his mind and insanity swooped like a vulture. The crunch of bone, Bryton’s thrown sword, the keen of misery, her fists raging at the sky. She’d swallowed a star and then he’d flown. Somewhere, somehow, he’d felt her touch, her caress sailing by him and then he’d seen his father’s face. She’d brought him back…and took his place.
Myla, always his guardian, forever his love, had given her life for his.
It is freely given. Everything that I am, I give to you.
The answer he’d craved had been before him from the beginning. Only Myla could choose, freely, to become human. She had the right and the power to choose her own path. Only she could choose life. She’d chosen to give him that life. He’d found his answer but it was too late.
Bitter anguish traced his heart before plunging a dagger deep inside, twisting with a vicious curl. Unaware that cries and yells of torment were pouring from him, Taric clutched her to his aching chest.
Her head fell back limply, exposing the cream of her neck marred by a smear of brick and a trickle of crimson. His blood had touched her skin before Marchen had cut her and she’d winked at him with golden-green eyes he’d never see again.
Her hair had no combs. She’d left them in the bedchamber. The rich chestnut spread wide and soft on his arm. Cradling her face to his shoulder, he slid his fingers through the tangled silk. He loved her hair. He’d already commissioned a jeweled ivory brush with her name engraved. He’d been going to buy her combs in silver and tortoise and amber.
Bryton squatted before him, his blue eyes rimmed pink. His throat bobbed and he reached for Myla. “Tar, let me take her.”
“Get away!” Taric shoved him with an infuriated swipe. Like a wounded animal, he scrambled backward, taking her with him until his shoulders hit the stone wall. No one was taking Myla from him. No one. She was his. He was hers.
Taric threaded his hand through her hair over and over. Her arm fell to the floor. He tucked it close to her stomach and rocked her. She was his.
“Come away, Bryton.” His father’s tone was damp and deep, coming from far away.
“He’s not thinking.”
“He won’t. Not for a while…until his mind can accept what his heart already knows. If it can.”
Beneath his feathering kisses, her skin was cool, too cool. He wrapped his arms tighter to give her his body heat. Give her… She’d given everything. There was nothing more. His rocking stopped. He knew why she’d howled in livid agony and cursed the night.
Fury scored his veins like a poison, stinging with venom. This was wrong. Unfair. Cruel. Head thrown back, he seethed at the star-speckled darkness. The muscles along his body quaked to the bone with the force of his wrath. He despised everything that took her from him—Marchen, Elora, magic, death, blood. He hated them all. Pain shot through his clenched jaw and he spat his abhorrence into the air, unaware who he truly railed at.
“God damn you! You swore you’d never leave me alone! You lied! Y
ou promised I’d never be alone!”
The hushed wind carried his curse away but he received no reply. There was none to be found. What was freely given in love was permanent. She was gone.
A fissure formed in his soul, a hollow ache once filled by a battle-ready beauty. The crack wept with loss and blessed numbness descended on his muddled thoughts.
Taric searched for a dark spot in the night, for the star she’d swallowed. The half-moon spilled diamonds across the ink of the skies. There, above that cluster, that tiny hole. That’s where she is. Myla. His lids drifted closed, the memory kissing his mind. He conjured her smile, the tilt of her head. His heart yawned as empty as the void between the stars, his bondmark the same inky jet.
A star fell, streaking the night with streaming beauty. Then another joined it. Then more. The scent of jasmine wafted heavily in the breeze and a melodic sizzle breathed across his skin. Through tear-swollen eyes half-opened in pain, he saw a drop of lilac light hit the roof. Then another. And another. A rainfall of shimmering lavender bubbles cascaded downward until a glow separated him from the others on the roof.
Katina gaped at the mysterious sight while Bryton and Balic watched with grooved brows. The shimmer became more dense, not solid but close. Taric could still see through it but it was like looking through pale purple cheesecloth. The scent increased, the floral incense pushing the smell of blood away. Wind chimes tinkled somewhere and a face appeared in the glow.
Even if he hadn’t stared at the painting in the library for hours, he’d have known her. Her gown was simple, pale, of a color he couldn’t quite make out, but it fluttered in a nonexistent wind. Hair like sunshine tinged with violet danced about her head and evergreen eyes gazed at him above uptilted pink lips.
“Tarsha.” Balic’s breathless exhale floated to him but Taric didn’t look away from the luminescent figure of his mother.
A halo of magic pushed back the blackness and embraced her. Sadness softened her transparent face.
Taric felt his lips move, form the word, but nothing crept out. Awed by her ethereal shine, he tried again and a cracked whisper eked out. “Mother?”
How her face changed when she smiled at him! Her rounded cheeks rising in joy, she nodded. She didn’t move and yet suddenly she knelt before him, her eyes locked in love with his. He could look through her, but got caught in her gaze and didn’t see her hand lift to his face until she touched him. Along his temple, down his wet cheek to skim his jaw, her thumb tickled his skin like a feather. Full and rose-touched, her lips moved silently and the words seeped into his heart. “I love you.”
“Mama?” The name left him without thought and his chest shuddered. A sorrowful frown lined her mouth and she glanced at the woman cradled in his arms. Hugging Myla’s limp body closer, he pleaded with the spectral image. “You gave her to me. Give her back. I want my guardian back.”
Dark green eyes closed in regret and her head shook slightly. Hope he didn’t know he’d held broke and a sob burst out. Her hand left his jaw, reaching down to caress first his tainted bondmark then Myla’s hair. She motioned for Taric to give Myla to her.
His body shook with the force of his denial. “No, she’s mine. She’s mine.” She couldn’t have her. He at least wanted a grave to visit.
Intense warmth pushed at him, a fire without flame. Tarsha held out her arms, asking for his guardian with raised brows. Myla was so cold. He couldn’t warm her anymore. But if she was with his mother on the other side of life maybe the heat of remembered love would fill her. The thumb that caressed him hadn’t been cold.
Sucking back tears, he looked down into Myla’s slack face. Maybe one day she could come to him as his mother did now. Even one minute of her silent presence would be enough. Pressing a soft kiss to her cheek, he looked up into the caring, gentle smile of a mother he’d never known and nodded.
A slow motion of her hands and Myla floated. Letting go was the hardest thing he’d ever done but he forced his arms away and she drifted toward the first woman who’d given him life.
Tarsha stepped back, beckoning, and Myla rose with her, carried in magic’s invisible arms, hair streaming from her head and arms hanging limply. The circle of lavender orbs blazed to brilliance. Tarsha held her arms wide and Myla righted in the air, chin to her chest. Taric soaked in every detail. There was a curl of dark hair snagged on her shoulder like a spider’s web clinging to a doorway. Her tiny toes pointed downward just off the stone floor, a dancer frozen in pose. The blood on her shift clung to her skin and molded to the curve of one breast.
Shaky with expended emotion, Taric pushed to a stand to see Myla better, wishing her head would tip to the side as it so often had. He wanted to see her face one more time. It didn’t happen. Dragging the back of his hand across his mouth, he breathed in a whiff of summer sunshine, the fragrance of her hair, and his chest lurched.
One ghostly finger circled and Myla slowly turned in the air. Held by unseen hands beneath her arms, her shoulders hunched. She rose higher until her knees were even with his sight. The slow spin billowed her shift and lifted her hair. Like the river current had spread the locks around him, the magical breeze wrapped the mahogany across her body with tiny flicks and whips. Pale violet light grew and pulsed outward until she shone with the same limned light as his mother.
A crackle of pink lightning from a calm sky jolted through her, her body jerking and shuddering. Her head thrust back and her arms flailed and Taric flinched. A lilac glimmer so close to the color of her mist swirled around her, streaks of magic licking every inch of her. She was returning to wherever she’d come from.
“Goodbye, my guardian,” he whispered. A fresh lash of pain struck, a whip of agony.
Tarsha slowed her hand, holding his protector still, then puckered her lips and blew. The wispy trails of mist faded away, enchanted pollen feathering in the blackness.
His teardrop scar itched and a quick glance showed the blackened skin fading to pale pink. It no longer housed magic. It was just a burn, a scar, a mark to remind him of what once had been. She was gone forever.
Myla’s feet touched the stone before Tarsha’s supernatural hands laid her to rest inside the sparkling circle. Taric raised his eyes to his mother. A tiny tear trickled down her cheek. Kissing her fingertips, she blew on her hand and a soft, warm circle landed on his forehead.
“Goodbye, Mother.”
Balic stepped between the spotlighted circle and Taric’s gaze. Emotion had darkened his father’s eyes to chicory and he gripped Taric’s shoulder with his left hand. The right hung limp.
Taric’s lower lip quivered and he fought the nearly overwhelming urge to bury his face in his father’s chest and weep with loss. How had Balic endured this torment? It was too much. He couldn’t face it. Life without Myla was too dark, too empty. He’d rather she’d left him dead than alone.
“She chose this.” The soft command in his father’s voice blended with the enchanted night. “Myla loved you enough to freely give her life for yours. It’s the most precious gift a soul can bestow. Gold can’t buy it, might can’t force it and lies can’t coerce it. Only love can give life, Taric. Remember that.”
He stared hard until Taric nodded and then released the clutch on his shoulder. Balic drew a deep breath and turned to face his spectral wife, who was weeping over the still form lying on the cold stone.
Taric swallowed and tried to press every detail into his mind. Myla’s fingers were half-curled. The shift folded up and left one knee bare. Her lips were almost puckered for a kiss. Desperation filled his aching soul and he grew terrified that over time he’d forget the curve of her brow, the slight upturn at the corners of her eyes, some small detail. He didn’t want to forget a single thing, not the softness of her hair or the scent of her skin or the taste of her lips. He wanted to keep it all.
A sparkle shimmered and his eyes widened at a sight he never thought to see. Before him, bathed in lilac radiance, his parents stood together within the cascading light.
Balic cupped Tarsha’s cheek and his mother tilted her face to his gentle touch. Her thumb caressed his face with a slow, tender motion. Silver blended with soft violet, haloing them both in an aura of beauty. Long sunshine hair fluttered in the unfelt breeze and draped around the king’s shoulder. They smiled at each other, tenderly, reverently, longingly.
Taric’s shattered heart tightened. How much in love they looked. He now understood his father’s sad expressions and his silences growing up. To be parted from such devotion…was his future. Would Myla be in the otherworld waiting for him when he passed on? Did a non-real woman go to the other side or would he be alone through all eternity?
His parents’ lips touched, the barest of meetings, before Balic pulled back. He nodded silently to his long-ago bride and she smiled sadly at him. Turning to Taric, the king straightened his shoulders. He looked straight into Taric’s eyes.
“This is your time. I’ve taught you all I can. There’s but one thing I have left to give you.” He looked to his first queen and grinned sweetly. “Take me, my heart. I freely give this.”
“No,” Taric gasped in horror, realizing what his father proposed. He couldn’t lose any more tonight. Please no more. He rushed the circle of light but was caught by the brawny bare arms of his captain.
“Stop, Tar. This is his choice. Listen to what he gives you.” Bryton hugged him harder, preventing an interruption to the magic unfolding. No matter how Taric struggled, Bryton held firm.
“Papa, don’t go,” Taric pleaded. “I’m not ready for this.”
Balic faced his son once more. “You are. You’re more ready than I ever was. A king understands each decision is not just his will, but what is best for his people. Sometimes the best decision is a sacrifice. Only a king willing to die for his people is truly worthy to rule them. He must want what is best for them, not himself. A father is much the same way.” Tarsha stepped beside her husband and slid her hand into his but Balic did not drop his son’s gaze. “You’re ready, Taric. So am I. Be with your bondmate as I will finally be with mine. Love her with your every breath as I have mine. Delight in your children, cherish them…love them as I always have mine.”
