Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Hellboy characters, settings, etc. The original characters and plot of this story are mine though. No copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from this work.

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Chapter 49

Elfraine had called him an idealist. She was wrong; Nuada was suddenly certain of it. Had she been right, he would not be putting duty ahead of love. And too, he realised, it was not as if the lesson was new to him; it was one he'd learnt a long time ago. He couldn't help but think of his father and sister. His love for them had carried no weight in the end though the Gods only knew it weighed heavily enough on him now. No, he was a clear-headed realist and she was entirely mistaken to think him otherwise.

A small frown creased Elfraine's brow as she stared up at him. He'd seemed happy enough as he spoke and then he'd gone silent and still. The subject of love had been dealt with as best it could be – a fleeting ache twisted her heart at the thought – and she wondered what troubled him now. She could only put his bleak expression down to her mention of his people and their plight. She reached up and touched him.

The feel of her hand on his face roused Nuada from his dark musings, and her look of concern gave him pause. Though he'd lost all chance of ever making his peace with Athair, his hopes of setting things right with Nuala had been given new life. And as for Elfraine, if he couldn't tell her what was in his heart then the least he could do was spare her such worry as he saw in her eyes now. She was right about one thing; they only had a month together, and he wanted her to be happy in that time. He didn't want to see her face wreathed with concern, least of all for him.

"There – there's room on the list for you to pick somewhere… if you'd like," she said hesitantly. "Of course, if you'd rather not, I'm sure I can think of something."

Nuada seized on the opportunity to start out as he meant to go on. He caught her hand and carried it to his lips. "No, Lady," he murmured against the warmth of her skin. "I - I will think of somewhere." He stared at their joined hands, frowning slightly as he turned his mind to the matter. Like his stories, his choices of destination were limited; he doubted she'd think much of the dark, hidden places he'd haunted over the years and as for the ones out in nature, though the sun might shine brightly they were invariably overhung by the cloud of grim memory.

He was beginning to suspect he might have to cede the decision to Elfraine after all when one place sprang to mind. He'd not spent long there but it was a place of stark grandeur and sublime beauty and, like a beacon in the night, it stood out from all the others because it had been a place where he'd found a brief respite from the bleakness of reality. He thought she might like it too and he wanted to share it with her. Lifting his head, he met her eyes and gave her a slow smile.

Elfraine's heart skipped a beat. "You – you've settled on somewhere," she said, correctly interpreting the satisfied curve of his lips and the gleam in his eyes. "Where – where is it?" She glanced away; if he kept looking at her like that, she thought she might melt into a puddle right there in his arms.

"You will have to wait and see," he replied. "I would like to surprise you, Lady." He pressed his lips to her hand once more.

"Oh!" The feel of his warm breath on her skin sent a frisson through her body; she was certain she was about to melt. Looking up at him from under her lashes, she spoke before her wits could desert her entirely. "Is - is it here, um, in northern parts or does it lie to the south?"

His smile became a grin almost and for a moment Elfraine could image him as he might have been when he was younger… before he'd become the hard, foreboding man who carried the weight of his people's future on his shoulders.

"You think to wheedle it out of me by degrees, Lady. All your questions will be answered when I take you there." He tilted her chin and dropped a quick kiss on her lips. "Now, are there any other places on your list?"

For the space of a heartbeat Elfraine was captivated by the warmth of his smile, and then his question registered and her face fell. There was one other place on her list and it grieved her to have to mention it; he would no longer look so carefree once she had but then there was never going to be a good time to tell him of the last place she wanted – needed – to take him.

Her look told Nuada everything, however, and he spared her the words. His own smile disappeared. "Of course. Constantinople," he said quietly.

"I – I thought you might like to see Azenzêr's final..."

"Azenzêr?" he broke in sharply.

"Yes, that – that was your son's name." Elfraine's heart ached for Nuada. His expression was impassive but there was a tightness about his mouth and a certain look in his eyes which told her just how difficult this had suddenly become for him.

"Sunshine," he murmured at last.

Elfraine felt the tremor that ran through him. "Azenzêr was well-named," she said softly. "He was indeed a little ray of sunshine, laughing and smiling all the time, and charming everyone who came near him."

"Not everyone, Lady," Nuada corrected harshly. "You – you said Dihyā was killed… avenging his death. That – that means…" He couldn't finish the sentence.

"You're right, of course," she admitted sadly. "Not everyone. Azenzêr was – he was murdered. I'm so sorry, love." She hugged him hard.

Nuada held her tightly as he buried his face in her hair. She was warm and solid - something to hold onto as he grappled with the knowledge that his – his son had met such an end. After a moment he lifted his head and spoke, abruptly. "I want to go there - now." His earlier reluctance to confront the truth had disappeared and in its place was a burning need to find out what had happened… and to see for himself where his son had lived and died.

"N – now?" Elfraine stammered.

"Yes, now," he affirmed. "I know it is the middle of the night, and you needn't come with me if you don't wish to but if you would – if you would tell me where my son lies..."

"Of course, I'll tell you sweetheart." She paused. "And – and I'll come with you too, Nuada… if you've no objection."

He held her gaze and replied without hesitation. "I would like that, thank you, Elfraine."

… …

Twenty minutes later they were standing in the early-morning sunlight on top of a mountain in Turkey, some five thousand miles distant from New Jersey and BPRD Headquarters.

Elfraine was glad of Nuada's arm around her waist. She felt slightly disoriented and squinted as her eyes adjusted to the brightness. She looked up; he was scanning the immediate vicinity, his sword in hand.

"There is no one else about. It's safe enough." He released her and stood down. Sheathing his weapon, he walked over to the edge of the escarpment and looked out on the landscape, trying to find the outcrop of rocks Elfraine had told him about as they were getting dressed. They were deep in the countryside, about a hundred miles east of Istanbul, or Constantinople as it had sometimes been called, and it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. "Can you find the ledge from here?" he asked.

Elfraine walked up to his side and tried to get her bearings but it was impossible; she'd never seen the land from this vantage point. "If we were closer to the road I might know where we were," she said, pointing to the slate-grey ribbon winding its way along the valley floor below.

Nuada hooked his arm around her waist again and in an instant they were on the flat, in a stand of trees about ten yards back from the unsealed byway which snaked around the base of the mountain.

She looked around. "Oh! It - it's fairly close by… I think."

"Think?" he said, raising his brow; she didn't sound at all certain.

She turned to face him and gave him an apologetic shrug. "I've only ever been this way twice before and the last time was nearly a hundred years ago. It all looks a bit… different."

"You should learn to listen to the land, Elfraine, hear it as it talks," he murmured. "If you can do that then the changes wrought by time and tide will never confuse you and you will always know where you are." Lifting his head and closing his eyes, he lost himself in the warmth of the golden sun and reached out to the light and the magic in the air around him. He harkened to the hum of the earth and the whispering of the wind in the mountains, and he heard the age-old song of the land – the song it had sung since the world began. And as he listened, he learned from the land.

After several moments, he opened his eyes and looked down at Elfraine again. She was gazing up at him with the light of love in her eyes and he felt unaccountably self-conscious. He took her by the shoulders and quickly turned her round to face the ridge. "Come. Try it for yourself, Lady." Wrapping her in his arms, he pulled her back against his chest and leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Close your eyes."

Elfraine rested her hands on his forearms and did as he instructed.

"Feel the warmth of the sun on your face," he murmured as he closed his own eyes.

She tried to pay attention to the radiant heat of the great golden orb but the only thing she was aware of was the warmth of Nuada's arms as he held her and the hard heat of his hips and thighs as he pressed up against her.

"Listen to the breeze as it brushes past you," he urged, his voice low.

Compared to the whisper of his breath on her cheek, the zephyr was as nothing to her.

"Breathe in the scent of the earth."

It didn't smell half as good as the warm, heady scent of him.

"Hear the land as it talks."

His voice reverberated right through her, to the very depths of her being, and anything the land might have been saying was lost in the sound of his low, warm tones. Leaning back and resting her head on the hard leather of his armour, she gave herself over to the sensation of being utterly surrounded by him and wished with all her heart that the moment could last forever.

As he stood in the sun, holding Elfraine in his arms, the song of the earth washed through Nuada once more, telling him the story of the land and revealing its secrets to him. He was so caught up in the moment he nearly missed the subtle change. There was something else in the hum of nature… the land seemed to sing another song almost. Though it was a new one - one that was only starting - he thought the seeds of it might have been there all along and he strained to make sense of it. And as he bent all his magic towards the faint, ephemeral notes, skittering and skipping through the amhrán ar an Domhain like snatches of laughter on the breeze, they suddenly rippled through his soul and coalesced into a whisper which echoed in his heart and in his mind: an Amhrán na Nuada agus Elfraine.

Elfraine spoke abruptly. "It's no good, Nuada!"

His eyes snapped open and the spell was broken.

"The only thing that fills my senses is you." The words were out before she could stop them and she flushed with embarrassment. "We – we should get moving," she stammered, trying to cover her slip. She'd promised him she would only say it the once and yet here she was, less than an hour later, with her love all but spoken aloud again. She pulled out of his arms and brushed past him, snatching up his hand and dragging him along behind her as she set off in a parallel direction to the road.

He dug his heels in after two or three steps and stopped short; Elfraine stumbled but he caught her before she fell. As he looked down into her eyes, he found himself yet again without the faintest idea of what to say. Though every fibre of his being was bursting with it, he couldn't give voice to what he'd just heard, what he thought he'd just heard. She loved him and though she didn't know it, he loved her back. To tell her what the land had just whispered to him would be to hold out false hope… to her and him both. In a world full of unrealised possibilities it was simply one more thing which would never be. "Lady, you - you." He stopped and looked over at the road, searching wildly for his next words; it proved to be the saving of him. "You are going in the wrong direction!"

"What?" She looked confused.

"You are going the wrong way!" He took a deep breath and strove for a more even tone. "The site lies that way." He nodded in the opposite direction to which she'd been headed.

Elfraine followed his gaze. "Oh!" A frown knotted her brow. "You're right!... How – how did you know?"

His eyes swung back to her. "I know this land now." I know now what we could be together... what we will never be. Suddenly, he couldn't bear to look at her and he forced himself to move. Taking her hand he set off, leading her in the right direction. Eternity was awash with unfulfilled promise, he told himself. He was a realist and he knew this too.

… …

They walked in silence for ten or so minutes before coming to a hidden byway which led into a small crevice in the side of the mountain. The land climbed sharply and was covered in dense vegetation, giving no hint that there might be anything more to see at the head of the rocky fissure. Nuada knew there was a cave of sorts up there though, a notch in the landscape where Elfraine had raised a memorial to Dihyā… and where she'd laid his son's earthly remains to rest. A sudden dread seized him at the thought of what he was about to see, what he was about to hear, and for the briefest of moments he hesitated but Elfraine gave his hand a squeeze and he drew upon every last ounce of his self-control to shove down the emotions which threatened to choke him. By the Gods! What would he be like when he finally laid eyes on his son?

"I would like to climb up there," he said to Elfraine, breaking the silence between them. Physical exertion had always centred him, subjecting both rage and despair to ice-cold control. He was poised on a knife-edge now and he hoped the short but steep climb to the ledge would allow him to gain some sort of mastery over his feelings. "I take it you can manage."

"I'll be right behind you," she assured him.

"Very well then. I will see you at the top." He turned to the slope and took two steps then stopped. "And Elfraine," he said, speaking over his shoulder.

"Yes?"

"Do not lose your footing. I would not like to see you hurt." Without waiting for her reply, he started his ascent.

The tension was coming off him in waves and she bit down on pointing out the obvious. "Yes Nuada. I'll be careful," she called out instead as she started to follow him.

The climb was even more difficult than it looked and Nuada was thankful for it. As he concentrated on the interplay of arms and legs, the flexing and stretching of muscles, the rhythm of breathing, some of the tension began to ease and he soon regained a certain measure of self-control. And as he made his way up over the steep, demanding terrain, towards the ledge, he started to do the calculations.

His mind travelled back to the last time he'd been with Dihyā; it had been almost four centuries ago… in the latter part of the year which humans called 1614. That meant his son would have been born no later than the middle of the following year. He tried to remember where he had been then - what he'd been doing - but couldn't say with any certainty except in the most general of terms. How could he not have known there was another part of himself somewhere in this world… another part of himself aside from his sister?

Like the song of the land, Nuala had always been a presence to him, just as he had been to her. No matter where he was, he'd had only to close his eyes and listen to an amhrán ar an Domhain and he could feel her too, chiming on the wind… delighting and tormenting him by turns. He'd always known her… or so he'd thought. Her song was silent to him now, no more than the merest of whispers whenever she was close by; Death had seen to that. It had seen to his son's brief song as well and Nuada fashed himself over why he'd never caught even the most fleeting note of that one small life as it was being lived. His son - Azenzêr - had surely been as much a part of him as Nuala was. How could a father not be aware of the cadence and sparkle of his own child's vitality?

Nuada almost missed his footing as the next question took him by surprise. Had Athair ever wondered that very thing about him and Nuala? After his epiphany of the night before last, he knew now that his father had loved him to the end but he and Balor had never had anything even remotely like the connection he'd shared with Nuala, not even when they'd been on the best of terms. He knew the reciprocity between himself and his sister was special, even amongst their kind, but if there was any story the land was going to tell him apart from its own and Nuala's then surely it would have been that of the ancient Elf King. He had never heard Balor's song though, nor Balor his, and he wondered if it was simply the will of the Gods that a parent and child should stand forever apart in that respect or whether there was some other reason for it. He couldn't help but ask the question yet again; why had he not known of his own son's existence?

The ledge was directly above him now and he could find no answer, or at least none that sat well with him. He covered the final few feet and hauled himself up onto the rocky outcrop to stand before the shallow cave which had served as his son's grave and Dihyā's memorial for nearly four hundred years. He was breathing hard by now and as he wiped the sheen of sweat off his forehead and stared at the darkened gouge in the mountainside, his earlier dread returned. The sound of Elfraine's approach broke in on his torturous thoughts and he quickly turned back to the edge of the incline, grateful for both the distraction and her company once more.

"Here, take my hand," he said as she neared the top. She reached out and he grabbed hold of her to help her up over the final part. He noticed she'd hardly broken a sweat and her breathing was no more strained than if she'd just taken a brisk walk, thanks, no doubt, to the dragon magic. As soon as she was standing beside him, he turned back to face the cave.

Elfraine could sense his disquiet. She knew why he had wanted to climb the final leg rather than use his magic to get them up to the ledge but it seemed he hadn't gained as much composure as he might have hoped for. "Are – are you all right?" she asked gently.

"Yes. I… no." He paused. "What – what does he look like?"

"He looks beautiful, love. Why don't you go and see for yourself," she suggested quietly. She could feel her own grief rising.

Nuada looked down at her; she didn't understand. "I – I have seen dead children – dead infants – before." He thought of the first time he'd ever seen such a sight. How to explain it? "Their – their final moments were all too clearly written on their faces."

"Oh, Nuada." Her heart wrenched as she suddenly understood his hesitation. "I don't think it makes it any easier but Azenzêr looks as if he's only sleeping. He is utterly perfect… an angel sent from Heaven."

He felt a small measure of relief at her words and inclined his head stiffly.

"I'll wait out here whilst you visit with him. I – I can pay my respects afterwards." Her voice hitched a little and she quickly turned away to hide the sorrow that suddenly pricked at her eyes but Nuada grabbed her hand and spun her back round.

"Tears?" he asked as he scanned her face.

"Yes, tears. Azenzêr was six months old when he died and I knew him and had the care of him for nearly five of those months. How could I not grieve for him?" She looked away. "And… and too, I – I cannot help but think of my own daughter whenever I think of him."

Nuada unconsciously tightened his hold on her hand. "What…?"

"I'll tell you everything afterwards," she cut in as she pulled her hand out of his. "You – you go and see him now. Come and get me when you're ready. I'll be waiting over there." She gestured towards a large, flat rock at the far end of the ledge and started to make for it. She'd taken no more than a step when she whirled back round to face him and flung her arms around his neck. "I – I…" Though it nearly killed her, she bit down on the words. "I'll be thinking of you," she said instead. Then she pulled his head down and gently pressed her lips to his before releasing him and turning away once more.

Touching his fingers to his lips, Nuada watched her walk over to the rock and arrange herself on it. He needed this space which she gave him but he tried to hold onto the warm taste and feel of her all the same. As she rested against the wall of the cliff, she lifted her face to the rays of the early-morning sun and closed her eyes.

He turned back to the dark entrance and squared his shoulders. He was Nuada, Silverlance - Crown Prince of Bethmoora, soon to be king. He had done many hard things in his life and he would do this too. But as he walked into the cool shade of the rocky overhang he feared it might prove to be one of the hardest things he'd ever done, and there was nothing of the realist in him as he came face to face with the unfulfilled promise of his son's brief life.

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References:

Azenzêr: (Amazigh – Berber) boy's name meaning 'sunray' or 'sunshine'.

An amhrán ar an Domhain: (Irish Gaelic) The song of the Earth.

An Amhrán na Nuada agus Elfraine: (Irish Gaelic) The Song of Nuada and Elfraine.

If you're interested, you can read about the first time Nuada ever saw dead elven children in chapter 1 of my short story, The Season of the Wolf (chapter 1 posted here on FanFiction - two more to go.)

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Chapter posted 29th September 2013

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A/N: Thanks to everyone who has reveiwed recent chapters - I really appreciate your feedback.
Cheers
ESSI :)