Instead there was warmth, a sweet rush of power that traveled up her hand until it filled all of her.
Another bolt hit her, this time in the throat, and it, too, left no mark.
She rose, higher and higher, until she was almost at the peak of the ceiling. There, seconds stretched out into infinity as she raised her face. She was the perfect vessel of an ancient power’s will.
Her arms swung wide and in full circle, crossing over her chest; the gesture was all fluid perfection and cold grace. She said nothing; there was no need of words.
Lernan’s Light had found its focus.
Great-grandchild, forgive me. For you have been my hope, but I am still of the Light.
Her power—His power—flared outward, an undeniable rain of green brilliance and pale death. She felt its surge, and warmth became heat; pleasure and comfort gave way to a slowly building pain. Its like had touched her before, but that memory was no match for reality.
She could not withdraw now, could not move. Light held her captive, by her consent. She heard screams and saw red-fire billow incandescently upward to touch her face. It never reached her.
The Bright Heart was here; the Dark Heart could only watch. He had never been as open to His followers of shadow, had never offered so direct and weakening a power as the Gifting. And only once in His long existence had He ever felt need to regret it.
She took some small pleasure from this knowledge, but it was small indeed. The pain was growing so strong she was not certain that the red-fire did not eat away at her very blood.
She tried to think of Belfas. He would be free, soon. She would be with him. Maybe—maybe they would have much to say to each other at the Bridge.
She opened her mouth to scream, and the scream was a name that lingered in the silence.
“Stefanos!”
And the pain suddenly dwindled.
The Gifting of God let her slowly down, without ever releasing its precious burden.
She looked down at her body and saw it, incongruously whole, and turned to see that her hand still rested within the waters of her God.
Look. Look now, Great-grandchild.
She did, as the waters opened before her. The dead were everywhere. No, not everyone was dead. For among the armor-clad bodies that seemed to lie like a carpet across the cold floor, she could see Darin, standing with his staff in one hand and his mouth agape.
She nodded, and her eyes moved to Gerald and Cospatric. They, too, stared at her, but Gerald blushed and turned away. He cuffed Cospatric on the side of the head, and Cospatric found something interesting to look at near the region of his boots.
She saw two dark shadows, but they were dark to mortal vision only, and once again she smiled. Renar was shaking dust off his jacket and frowning. Tiras was standing quite straight and proud. His eyes alone looked completely beyond her, and she caught her breath, hardly daring to follow the line of the old weapon-master’s vision.
Stefanos.
The First of the Sundered stood in silence upon the ground before her. She could see him fully. He wore no magical guise and did nothing to drive away the shadows and the bloodred mist that even now were his nature.
“H-how?”
My will, Great-grandchild Will you not speak with him? Will you not take this last chance? I understand what he has become to you; I cast no blame.
She started to step forward, but the Light did not release her.
No, child Speak from where you are, as the Sarillorn that you are. I will keep watch.
She wanted to tell Him that He had no need to do so, but arguing with God, after this miracle, was not within her. “S-Stefanos?”
“Sara.” He bowed, formally and with the greatest of dignity. She saw his injuries clearly as he moved, and her heart fell; it was not within her power to heal him.
The red light around him grew stronger, brighter.
“Are you—do you call the Dark Heart’s power?”
His smile was grim and cold, with just a hint of the pain her question invoked. “Can you think so of me, even now? No, Lady. I do not call it, but I cannot deny it fully. I have not the strength.”
“Will He strike—through you?”
“No.” There was no doubt in the word. He looked up at her and tried to smile. Failed. Very carefully he walked toward the Light that he should shun. He held out one clawed hand that fell just short of the hand that she offered in return.
Stefanos met her eyes. “There is always something, Lady, that stands between us.” His voice was so soft she barely heard the catch in it. But around his limbs, the red was growing stronger.
“Darkling.”
“Sara.”
Tears began to gather at the corners of her eyes.
Bright Heart—please ... Your power should have ended all of this ...
No, child. Four of my descendants still await their freedom from the First of the Enemy’s binding.
But—but my death—
Alone will not grant it. Speak. Say what you must.
Her lips opened, trembled, and closed again on a heavy breath. I have come all this way; I have cleansed You and called Your power down upon our—Your—enemies. But this ... Don’t make me ask this. Not of him, please.
God gave her no answer, and that was answer enough. She tried to struggle free of the Light, but it remained a warm and loving prison. She had dreaded a confrontation, had feared that her actions in battle would not prove true to her determination. But this, this was worse.
“Lady, what would you, or your Lord, have of me?”
“S-Stefanos ...” Her fingers trembled as they strained toward his, falling just short of contact. Her eyes were round and wide, glittering palely. And then she drew herself up, swallowed, and accepted the last, and the hardest, of her tasks.
“Darkling.
“I—I loved you. Hated you. Love you still. I’ve seen you in the realm of the Dark Heart; I know what—what you felt there.
“But—” She drew ragged breath again. “But we are still what we are. Look at you. Even now the red and the shadows are growing stronger. Look at me—I am still of the Light. That won’t change. It can’t really, no matter what we do.
“You rule, and are ruled. I serve, and I am also ruled. Maybe—no, don’t say it.” Her hand came up in a soft gesture of denial. “You loved me as much as you could; I loved you as much as I was able. And it—it was almost enough.”
“Sara.” He shook his head softly, and even through the harsh red light that had grown like a mask over his face, he was beautiful to her. “Don’t. I have changed. I do not need this.” His arm took in the grandeur of the damaged temple. “I do not need my Empire any longer. Only stay with me, and I will change it for you, as you require.”
Her laugh was soft and brief. “You will change it? Can’t you hear what you say? It is still yours.
“And even if what you say is true, I cannot do as you ask. Stefanos, Darkling, I have walked in the hand of the Dark Heart, and I know why I haven’t succumbed to age and death. Carla, Rein, Teya, and—and Belfas are trapped there and will remain so for as long as I live. Don’t make me, don’t ask me, to live with that burden. I—I want to, but I know it would—” She wiped the tears from her eyes without closing them or looking away from his still, pale face.
“This world is gray now, and I think it has no place for the black and the white. We two can rise above what we are at the best of times, but not always—and always is what we would need. We have too much power, and there is too much conflict between our different blood. You’ve said that you love me. Show me. Don’t ask me to bear this. Release me now.”
He stepped forward and winced, drawing back.
And as he did, he heard the voice of his Lord.
So. In the end, I win, Stefanos. What the Second of my Sundered could not manipulate in his shadow, this half blood of my Enemy has succeeded in bringing about.
I hear you very well, First of my Sundered. And your voice serves on
ly me. Do you know how much power you send?
The Dark Heart was very close. His voice was no longer an attenuated whisper. It was strong and full.
Stefanos was angry, and his anger almost served her as answer enough—but he saw her face as she waited and knew every word she had spoken for truth.
“Sara, I cannot do this.”
“Then no one can.” She closed her eyes, shrinking from him. Her voice was quiet and distant as she spoke. “They hate it there; it has almost destroyed them.”
And he knew, then, that her love for him—the light that she alone could bring with no cost—had survived the memory of the sacrifice of her line-mates, but it would not survive indefinitely. Once, once only, had he seen that light guttered. To lose it, even if she remained alive, would be too great a price.
But to lose it to her death ...
His memory was sharp and cold and empty. Images flickered past, disregarded as he found what he sought for and examined it closely. There. And there. Beginning and end of the spell that had robbed him of the decades she might have remained at his side. Seventy years? Eighty? One hundred? They seemed, for the first time, significant.
And the long wait, while he solidified his world, meant that he would never have even those. Nor would she.
“Lady. If I—If I do as you have asked, you will die.”
She nodded.
“Those years—they will take you at once, and I cannot prevent them.”
She nodded again, not bothering to restrain the tears.
“If I ask you not to ... No. I am sorry.”
He brought his arms up and delved into the red mist that pulsed all around him. God granted the power he asked for willingly. He saw what he had to do to release her; it was simple, really. It would not even give him many more minutes of her time. His mouth moved over the words as his hands clawed at the air in the deliberate turmoil of her request. He could not wait another minute longer; he would lose the strength to grant it.
But as the last of these bindings began to fall, he leaped suddenly toward her, unmindful of Light and the total destruction it would bring.
An immortal never saw the Bridge; there was no Beyond that they would ever share or know. But this last minute, this last gesture, would be his, no matter the cost.
Light, red and white, crackled and thundered as he both sought and offered her the comfort of one final embrace.
And his Lady Sara, his Sarillorn, knew at that instant what he had decided. She pulled open her arms and caught him, holding tightly through the pain of red and the heat of white and the fear of the death that would take her.
And the Hope of the Bright Heart at last reached the end of her road.
Lost in the crackle of twin fires, the beat of Twin Hearts, and the cacophony of voices bright and dark, she freed both her hands and caught him, injured, between them.
She felt the change take her, over the roar of odd voices, heard something rumble in her ears, and something crawl along her body like a wave of harsh sand, digging and twisting at flesh that withered and buckled at its touch.
She heard his whisper, his plea, his pain—and heard something strange: the voice of the Bright Heart, that she would never hear again.
Come, brother!
Brother? What—
Come! We two who have never truly met may yet know each other. Come!
Light surged around her—through her—but it was a Light of a type that she had never felt. It hurt, and yet it carried with it some hidden triumph that eased the pain it caused.
She felt the Darkness, and for the first time, heard its voice. And the sound of it, in the end, was not so different from what the Light had been: ancient, powerful, and inhuman.
What is this? What do you do? No!
But Stefanos would not pull back, and the Dark Heart did not have the time. The Light, strange and shimmering, passed from its Sarillorn into the Servant of the Darkness. He thought it would be his death—but he, too, felt its strangeness and the thing beyond the pain it caused.
He felt his skin tingling and felt a change take him. His grip grew tight, with wonder and with hope.
His spell—the spell he had cast to bind his Sara—she had interrupted it. A smile took his lips, transforming it in the mottled splash of color that was the boundary of Light and Dark. She had been bound by his life, yes. He had not realized, until this moment, that he had been bound by hers. It was fitting, in the end, that he die as she did.
And this, this was the end.
Sara held Stefanos tightly, or at least she thought she did. As the magic swirled around her, inside of her, through her, she lost the sensation of hands. She was lost in the feeling of his desperate words as he tried to tell her everything in the rush of seconds that remained. All sound was washed away beneath the roar that was emerging from where the Dark Heart and the Bright Heart finally saw and knew the essence of each other: Sara and Stefanos.
She cried out, denial, acceptance, and loss mingling in a way that words alone could never convey. Pain grew; she felt herself curling inward, ever inward, as the age he had promised transformed her strength into the weakness of the very end of life. At the last, she surrendered to it.
The Light became dim, the Dark brighter. The red and the white were lost to a shade of gray mist that she felt she knew well.
She could not see her feet for its thickness, but the pain of transformation was gone. Her hands found her face; they were slim and smooth. She sighed and knew that the Light had left her. She was now near her Bridge, and all of her dead awaited the final reconciliation. No one would call her back, yet she waited a moment to see if the whisper of God could be heard.
Silence.
I am finished. At last. She turned, but her steps were heavy, almost wooden. The mist, so gray and all-encompassing, had not yet cleared to show her the path.
“Sara?”
She stopped, raising her head. That voice ... “Stefanos?”
“I hear you, Lady. Where is this place?”
“Stefanos!” She leaped forward, stumbled into him, and bounced back. “Darkling ...”
He caught her, held her, and they stood as one in the eddying gray that cast no light and no shadow. Her fingers trembled against his back, his arms, his chest—and then stopped suddenly as they reached his cheeks.
He heard her gasp and wondered at it, but let her pull away enough to look up.
“Stefanos—you’re crying.”
“As are you, Sara.” His voice was gentle, soft. He drew her back into the circle of his arms and buried his chin in her hair. There was nothing that separated them, nothing.
Death didn’t matter, and the Bridge—it could wait. Or maybe not. Erin, Sara, the Hope of the Bright Heart, tilted her head back and laughed.
“Why do you laugh, little one?” Stefanos’ voice was quiet, almost with awe.
“I just thought—when we cross the Bridge, you—I’ll—we’ll have to meet my parents.” Her smile was giddy, radiant—young. “What am I going to say? Mother, Father, this is my bond-mate. You might remember him, he was the First Servant of the Enemy?”
“Meet your parents?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” She caught his arm tightly in hers. “No, I guess I didn’t. When we performed the ceremony, it wasn’t important. I certainly didn’t want your parent there.” She laughed again, swung around, and hugged him tightly. Then she pulled back. “Darkling, what is it? What’s wrong? Nothing can hurt us here.”
“Sara—I can’t see your light.”
“My—” Her smile gentled, and for a moment, she was the older of the two. “There is no Light here, no Darkness.”
“Not Light. Light. Yours. I—I saw it often when we were together. It was—it was your love.”
“Maybe you don’t have the sight to see it with anymore. But can’t you feel it? Don’t you know it’s there?” She caught his cheeks in her hands and marveled at the feel of the warmth beneath her fingers. “This is—this is what normal
people must do.”
Yes.
They both froze then and looked around, trying to pierce the veil of gray fog. Mist swirled in circles around their twined bodies, moving sluggishly at first, but gathering speed.
My son.
My great-granddaughter.
You were both my hope.
The words tingled along Erin’s spine, passing through her body.
L-Lernan?
No. But have no fear, child. Part of what I once was remembers you and what you have suffered Yet there is no real peace for you yet; no Bridge, no Beyond.
The world has changed; the body houses not two Hearts, but One. You and he were the only door that would ever open for the two that we were. I needed you both because you were of Light and Darkness, and only you two could ever reach this point: containing the essences of the Twin Hearts and binding it awhile by a love that should never have been possible. Only at this moment, caught in death and dying, could you be the ... bridge that we could cross. And as you are now together, so it is with me.
The half of me that was once Light understands now the anger, the loneliness, the hatred, of the Darkness. I understand when pain is beautiful; I understand that suffering will always exist. And I understand that hope and love will also prevail, in their time. Just as you two did.
I grieve for your suffering, and I revel in it—both. But you followed what the Lady of Elliath saw; you were true to things that you could not understand.
And my son.
Stefanos did not speak.
I have taken from you all that once made you great. You betrayed a part of me, and I will not forget it—but I forgive it as I can. You forsook the Darkness for the gray—and gray indeed have you become.
My children, leave me now, and when you do, tell them: There is no Bright Heart and no Dark Heart; there is the gray alone—the Heart of Man.
Already I hear voices, smaller and more insignificant than yours once were—but with their own odd powers, their own unpredictabilities.
Go in peace; remember this day.
The voice began to dwindle, and the mist to thin. Erin stared in bewilderment as marble appeared beneath her bare feet.
Chains of Darkness, Chains of Light (The Sundered, Book 4) Page 41
