A/N : More old Pellinor stuff. I haven't quite got the hang of the formatting here yet.
Cadvan ached ; his body was on fire. He was sure that the pain would simply consume him, for he had not the strength to keep fighting it, not when he was filled with these memories that haunted him, that made him almost grateful for the pain if it could distract him from the moment when he had seen Maerad vanish from his sight, borne away by that avalanche of dust and rock and snow. He saw her now, in his mind's eye, alone on the mountainside. And he had left her there ; he had abandoned her and galloped away on Darsor. He knew he could never forgive himself for that.
He rued inconsolably those things he had said to her, and that he could never take back. He remembered the long days they had ridden in silence, tension and anger between them. How he wished now he could have those days back, a few more moments with Maerad… but he had lost her forever, he knew that now, and through his own fault.
The pain was an easy emotion, an escape from these regrets and sorrows ; if only he could let himself sombre into it, and forget the hurt and death he had caused so many times in his life. He didn't want to live with himself after this, didn't want to have to relive these moments one day, many years from now. It would be easier to let himself die here, in this cave, for with death would come a welcome ending.
He did not know how long he lay there, his mind black and his thoughts numbed by pain and cold, when he heard a feeling, a dream, borne of the open air, that reached into his sadness and pulled him back into the present. He strained to know what this sound could be, and little by little, it came, clearer every moment, and more wild. It was the most beautiful yet sorrowful music, if that was indeed what it was, that he had ever heard. It spoke of pain and loss and separation and perhaps guilt, in a wild medley of anguish that tore Cadvan's heart into bits, as he felt anew that hole in his heart that had been Maerad. He thought he saw horses, strangely, abstractly disconnected from this deserted place, but then the image was gone and the music had stopped, and he almost let himself go to despair once more.
And then the music started again, and he had the strange impression that this time, the music was for him, all that deep sorrow was for his loss and his mistakes, even as he had known that the other music had belonged to someone else. The wild lament swept through the cave in which he had found shelter, swept through his heart and somehow healed him even as it filled him with more misery than he had known possible to bear.
The music swirled onwards, and then as mysteriously as it had come, it disappeared, fading on the howling wind, leaving him alone.