Torchlight flickered off of the polished bronze scale armor, the crested bronze helm, but where there were once deep, cool blue eyes, now there was a darkness that no light could fill. Finnan hadn't worn his dress armor since King Eomer's coronation; he ought to be wearing it to go into his tomb, but there was no body to adorn, no body to weep over. Nothing was left for Edwyn but the memory of Finnan riding off into the sullen grey morning, and Edwyn, unable (unwilling?) to recall him. Edwyn drained the glass, then the decanter itself, but it couldn't fill him. The crystal decanter shattered on the floor, but no matter. Edwyn had another, and another, he could drink himself down as far as he pleased to go, laughing and sobbing, pacing through the racks of swords, fingering the smooth curve of the bows, pricking his fingers on the arrows, then falling down again into a tangle of useless, aching limbs. Head in his hands, he thought, if only, if only…

"Young lord!" the woman gasped, and there was Blythe, and he was telling her, if only, but she shook her head, frightened, her broad face blurred with confusion. Edwyn hadn't told anyone. Not yet. He couldn't speak of it to anyone who would ask, but why do you sob? Why does your heart break so? Why do you come apart like a new-made widow, fragmented on the floor before the bronze greaves of our dead master?

"If only," he told her, his eyes wide like a child. He might have grabbed Finnan, spun him about, screamed sense to him, come from your prison, my love, come into the sun again, and damn them, damn them all who tell you to remain small in the shade!

For what had killed Finnan, but the bitter sword he swung, the cold shield he'd held up against his own shame? What had killed Finnan but Edwyn's disgust and fury at those icy parries and cuts and blocks? If only I'd not been so choked by them! If only I'd known, if only I'd been able to understand why the colder he became, the easier it was for me to let him slip away! Finnan saved me in the war, the enemy a thousandfold more terrifying than the creeping ice in a lover's eyes. But I would not brave the ice to save him. He would be here now, he would live even now, if only…

Edwyn clasped his hands to his throat and shook his head. But he was too hollow still, so hollow it ached and burned him from the inside out, and he reached for another decanter.

"No, my lord!" Blythe cried, pressing her fingers to her lips. "My lord, what has happened to you? Where is your injury?"

She was polluting his grief without knowing it. "Go, go!" he begged her. "Let me be alone!"

But more servants came, drawn by the noise, the sobs, the novel delight of someone else's calumny. Disgusted, Edwyn pushed himself up, one hand clasping the crystal, the other waving before him, palm out, as if he'd shove them all away, as if pushing tangled webs from his path. Edwyn began to run, out into the night. Directionless, senseless of anything but pain, he half-stumbled, half-ran, his linen shirt open at the chest, his britches stained with spilled wine, a dagger hanging from his side, a veil of blind misery over his eyes. His boots were gone, but he couldn't feel the grass beneath his feet. Overhead, stars swirled, loosened from their fixtures, until darkness swallowed them. Sense returned in pieces as the forested mountain rose beneath his feet; they'd hunted here. He'd galloped up the trail, the wind in his hair and laughter on his lips; he was sure he was faster than Finnan, he was sure he'd win the race. They had found a meadow, they'd lain together in the sun, Finnan's laughter as rare as diamonds scattered in the soft wildflowers. Edwyn smothered his mouth with his hands and went down on his knees, then down on his hands, pressing his forehead to the pine needles and dirt and rocks. He was sure he could never rise again. But in his drunkenness he stumbled on, knowing and not knowing where he was going, only sure that he had to get there, that there was nothing else to do but climb onward, ahead of the gaping maw of desolation.

Rocks were slipping in his grasp. He felt flesh tear against stone as he clung to the side of the mountain. A loose bit broke off, popping and cracking as it bounced against stone. Edwyn looked over his shoulder, his eyes unable to follow it's plunge into darkness. His fingers trembled, his head swam, and for just a moment, the darkness whispered to him.

Edwyn grit his teeth and pulled himself up higher, his feet finding perilous purchase, his loose, wine soaked muscles straining until at last he reached the promontory, pulled himself over it, and collapsed, the moonlight streaking down on his torn and bloody hand.

"Hey!" a rough voice shouted at him, but Edwyn didn't care to hear it. "Hey, now, what's this!"

A beat of silence, and then the voice barked, "Capt'n!"

Edwyn found himself lifted like a child. The body carrying him was cruelly hard and hot like burning stone, but the clutch was delicate.

"Come now, you stinkin' horse boy," the voice said, soft and rough at once. "What've you gone and done to yourself, easy now…"

"He's gone," Edwyn choked. "If only…"

Nothing else he said made sense. He was sick, he was choking on agony, but he was no longer alone, and sense wasn't required of him. A rough hand rubbed and patted his back as he tried to recover himself, until finally he could breathe again, until the violent purging of his grief left him able to sit up, to look around the cave into the fire-streaked face of Maukurz.

Halla, moving slowly, came to sit at his side. She brought a rough wooden cup of water to his lips, and he drank deeply as she stroked his hair. "What has happened to you, my poor darling?" she whispered.

"Let him be, Halla-mine," said Maukurz, the glow in his eyes knowing. "He'll speak when he's ready."

Edwyn opened his mouth, but words couldn't form. He lay down again, his head buried in Halla's lap, and let the emptiness overwhelm him into a blank, black sleep.

The water played its melody, dancing down over the rocks and spilling into the clear, silver-hued pool. Unsteadily, Edwyn stripped away his soiled clothes, then waded into the pool, his fingers running along the surface. Behind him, Maukurz, feet in the water, leaned back and looked up at the canopy of interlaced pine boughs. But his ears roamed, and he breathed deeply; should enemies come, the forest would warn him long before they were upon him.

After a long while, Edwyn came closer, and said, "I know you hated him."

"Doesn't matter," Maukurz said, as Edwyn sat beside him. "You loved him."

"Did I?" Edwyn gasped, running his hands back through his wet curls.

"Think yuh did," Maukurz said, glancing sideways. "Someone took Halla from me… I'd have done a fair bit more than get drunk. But the madness is the same."

"Except there's no one for me to blame but myself. I wish there was. Revenge is far easier than… regret."

Maukurz nodded. Waited.

"I can't figure out what was wrong with me! I'm not sure how or when I set myself on the path to let him go. I knew he was drowning. That bastard father, that cunt mother, and he didn't want to be lord, he didn't want… But it's no excuse to become the Man he became! Can I say that? Can I be furious with him, as well as myself?"

"What are you gonna be, but what you are?"

Edwyn laughed softly. "I suppose that depends on who I must 'be' in front of. I understood that. I've always understood that. Our world's not like yours. It's only that I never cared. I thought anyone else a fool, who wouldn't see to his own desires. But Finnan… well, it was all fine to hide from others, you understand. There's even pleasure in that. But Finnan… it became… it was as if he was hiding from himself. I think that's it, Maukurz. Why should that make me discard him? Why should I not have persuaded him to be otherwise? If I did love him?"

"Maybe cuz he smelt like shame," Maukurz suggested. "And it repulsed you."

Edwyn's eyes widened. He frowned, looked into the shining surface of the pool, contemplated it. "Repulsed me?" he asked, looking back to Maukurz.

"It's pretty fucking disgusting, Edwyn. To be with someone that way, when they're ashamed of themselves for wanting you. Didn't know that, until I had it otherwise."

Tight jawed, Edwyn held himself very still, until finally he dared to breathe again, and he asked, "D'you think he ever loved me, then? If even desire made him ashamed?"

"I couldn't ever tell you that."

"And now he never will," Edwyn said, his voice fading. "I could have stopped him. He'd not be dead. I know I could have stopped him. How will I live with it? The loss of him, and this knowledge that he'd not be gone…"

"I don't know you could have stopped him, but I know this: you do live with it. The shit you've done, or think you've done, it'll eat your guts sure enough, but it's not fatal. It's not even crippling."

"Can you ever forgive yourself, Maukurz?"

"Me?" Maukurz grunted softly. "Haven't yet."

"What do you do with it, then? Where do you put it, so that it doesn't cut you each time you breathe?"

"That don't help," Maukurz said. "You just do better. Make a friend happy. Forgive an enemy. Teach someone a thing that helps them. Save some serfs. Fuck a few of 'em too, sure, but only if it makes them smile."

Edwyn laughed abruptly. Then he hid his face in his hand. Soundless, his shoulders shook, and Maukurz sighed, and closed his eyes, and inhaled soft, clean mist of the waterfall.