Chapter 7

Grief

'But…he is dead' he said in total disbelief. 'He perished with his mother's clan during the wars with the humans.'

His mind was reeling now. How could this be?

'Indeed, Sire, that is the conclusion your father and all who witnessed the aftermath had come to. The scene was terrible. The humans had cut them down with such brutality that it was impossible to identify many who had been killed. No sign was ever found to contradict this belief and so your father proclaimed him dead with the rest. He believed it so…until Naeva came to us.'

Nuada turned again to the bearer of this unforeseen and shocking information. The Mage had finished with his preparations and was now kneeling beside Sciana. He parted the woman's lips a little and tilted her head up, so that he could gently drip a golden liquid into her mouth from a cup he was holding. At first, the liquid spilled from her mouth and Sciana dabbed it up, looking very upset. 'Come now, Naeva,' said the Mage in a gentle voice. 'You must swallow this. It will help you.' Again he tried, and again it dribbled out of her mouth. 'Naeva, you must try,' he almost pleaded. 'The darkness has not yet claimed you, do not give in to it. Drink.' He tried again. The liquid spilled slightly, and his face fell. He looked beaten and tired. But, after a moment, the muscles of her throat moved a little – and she swallowed the potion. The Mage's eyes lit up at once, hopeful at last. Another small sip was taken. And another.

He looked up at Nuada with hope in his eyes. 'It is still too close to say, Sire – but she may yet pull through. We should know within the next twenty-four hours.' Nuada was more eager than ever to speak to her, to question her. He actually wanted this human to live.

He suddenly felt very weary. Too much had happened to him in the last few days and it seemed it may have caught up with him at last. 'I shall retire to the next room. There is much for me to consider.' He looked at the woman curiously. 'Ecris, I want to be informed of any change in her condition,' he said to the Mage, who nodded in acknowledgement. 'Or that of my sister,' he added quietly. The Mage bowed slightly. There was nothing he could say to help the Prince at this moment.

Nuada gathered his few belongings together, along with the cloak his sister had left there, and departed.

The room he had chosen was dark. He lit a torch in a sconce on the wall and looked around. Very like the one he had just left. The bed here was as dusty as the previous one, but he was too tired to care that much. He put his pack down and threw the cloak over the bed. Placing his spear on the bed too, he wearily lay down beside it. For some time he just lay there listening.

Silence.

For something so empty, silence had a weight of its own that could crush a person's spirit to the point of despair. True silence, true loneliness. He had never experience either before. In the quietest moments there had always been that tiny whisper, distant, indistinct, but there, the delicate movement of her mind in the depths of his own. Nuala. His twin sister. Bound to each other in a way no other two living in their world had ever been.

Now there was nothing but his own thoughts chasing round in his mind, like a never-ending game of hide-and-seek, searching every deep recess for a trace of her. But there was none. Her body was here, living, breathing. But the part of her that he knew best was gone. All he had left were the ghostly echoes of memory. And these he did not seek out purposely, they came unbidden, harsh and sharp and brittle…

His father sat on his make-shift throne, turning away from his only son. 'Death,' he had ordered. Death for his son, after so long apart. No time to listen to him, to open his heart to the truth of Nuada's words. Just his own impatient words and a slight wave of his hand, to dismiss all that his son had tried to say and do for his people. One word to silence the voice that pounded at the door to his conscience, demanding entry.

But this door was firmly bolted, and in front of it stood Nuala, serene in her desire for peace, in her decision to allow them all to fade into nothingness in favour of the brutish, hollow beings who had moved across the Earth, destroying all that was pure and natural, nothing more than a plague. She would accept death with her brother so that this infestation could grow unchecked until everything was gone.

The rage and frustration of that moment burned again within him.

Another memory crashed in like a storm wave smashing on rocks.

The immense chamber, the Golden Army awoken, and the crown taken from him. The dagger was in his hand and he waited for the demon to turn, he would not stab him in the back like a coward. The demon turns and he is ready to strike, to take the crown back and finish the task he had set himself, to save his people.

But instead there is searing pain, blood spurting from the wound that had torn his heart asunder. Nuala stood for a moment, as she pulled the dagger from her own heart. She looked straight at him for just that moment, then fell. He saw the stranger Abraham go to her. He saw her speak to him. And he felt it when she severed their link to each other.

He was left alone to sink into the darkness, weighed down with the knowledge that all he had tried to do for his people, all those centuries of searching for the crownpiece in the hopes of saving them all had come to nothing because of her.

Oh, how he wanted to sink into that darkness once more, to be unseeing, unhearing and unfeeling again.

The sorrow he had tried to evade finally found him, took his mind and body and demanded release. His sister's scent which lingered on the cloak across his bed provided the key. He breathed it in, and held it until his lungs burned for lack of oxygen. When he could hold it no longer, he let it out, a rasping gasp of despair. He tried to inhale again, but he couldn't breathe. His head swam, the blood pumped in his ears – and he was lost to his emotions.

In the next room, the party of Elves heard the roar of anguish that broke the Princes' silence. They exchanged glances, but nothing more. They knew better than to go to him now.

Nuada ripped the cloak from the bed and tore it in half, flinging the tattered cloth across the room. His legs decided they couldn't hold him up any longer and he sank to his knees, his face in his hands. He leaned forward and rested his head on the bed before him. His shoulders moved as the first silent sobs took a hold of him, silver tears welling unstoppable. He hadn't cried since he left Bethmoora. It seemed there was a lot of catching up to do.

The Mage was the only one to hear, as Nuada pushed his face hard into his hands, trying hard to muffle the sound. He had quietly moved to the Prince's door, wanting to check on him after checking his sister. He said nothing and made no sound, but crept away to leave Nuada alone in his grief. This would be better for him than any herbal draught he could muster. Nuada would never know he had been there.