Chapter 11

Talia morosely swished the mug of cider around in her hand. "Are you sure you're all right?" Selenay looked at her anxiously. "You still look a little pale." Talia forced a shaky smile.

"I really am fine. I'm just having a little difficulty processing it all." Selenay wearily lowered herself into the plush armchair next to her friend.

"Which is completely understandable." She paused and looked at Talia searchingly. "I'm not trying to push you, Talia. It's just incredibly important. Are you positive you didn't see any hint to tell us how or where he died? Or even when?" Talia shifted uncomfortably.

"I told you Selenay, it was the strangest sight I've ever experienced. It was just … death, empty, and cold, and unresponsive. There wasn't even a sense of time to it. I've never …" A dawning flash of understanding flickered in her eyes. "That's not exactly true. With Skylar's arrival this just completely flew my mind. Right before she came, I felt a herald's death. It wasn't quite like this one, but it was empty the same way." Selenay listened anxiously. "Even more so, I had no idea what herald it was, or even if it was a man or a woman." Selenay stretched out her legs, slowly gathering her thoughts.

"But Talia, no one died the night Skylar arrived. We may know nothing about his death, but that does not change the fact that Antron is dead, and his companion as well." Selenay tried to keep both her countenance and tone as comforting as possible, despite the anxiety that threatened to creep in. Talia looked at her pathetically.

"How's Skylar dealing with all of this?" Selenay and Talia both unconsciously glanced at the closed door to the sitting room, where Skif sat attempting to calm Skylar down.

"Surprisingly badly. Finding them stretched out in the old chapel like that is undeniably frightening, and incredibly sad, but I would have expected her to be more hardened to this by now." Talia shook her head.

"She's not nearly as hardened to anything as she would like people to believe. But I don't understand why she's reacting like this either. She never even met Antron, he's been on border patrol for almost two years now." Selenay flashed her advisor a sad half smile.

"I suppose her curse is that she's forever going to remain a mystery to us, no matter how much of her we think we're beginning to understand." Talia looked at her with an odd tilt to her head. "What?"

"Her curse Selenay? Isn't that a little harsh?" Selenay started slightly and chuckled emptily.

"I didn't mean to say that. It just slipped out." She laughed again, this time with a little more color. "In the end I'm not sure how wrong a sentiment it is though. But is she the one who is cursed? Or is she the curse itself?"

"Selenay, what are you suggesting?"

"Well, our interpretation was always that she was here to save Valdemar in its most dire hour. But does it really seem to have been saved? After all, there are no mages or herald mages left. How do we know that she's our savior and not our curse?" Talia stared at Selenay in shock. "Listen to me, I'm certainly turning into a morbid old woman." She forced yet another laugh. "I'm just running my tongue Talia, forget what I'm saying. It's not important or correct."

… … …

"It was terrifying." Skylar leaned against the wall staring blankly into the worn carpet. Skif stood uncomfortably across from her, unconsciously mirroring their positions from the first night. He wanted to touch her, but he had no idea how she would react. Best case scenario, she would collapse into him and cry it all out, worst case scenario she would use her magic to blast him out of Haven. He cleared his throat and plucked at his breeches.

"I know." Inwardly he cursed himself for not being able to say anything else.

"I've never seen a dead body before." Skif felt his eyebrows shoot up at her words.

"I though Vanyel …" She shook her head before he could finish.

"No. I left the night 'Lendel died." She slowly slid down the wall until she was sitting unceremoniously on the floor. "While he was dying to be more specific." Skif automatically took a step towards her, but something in her posture warned him to stop. "I went with them to the manor. They didn't know. I woke up that night, tingling. And I knew, or I should have known, or something." She looked up at him for the first time, pleading with to understand something that no one could never fully understand. "I wasn't ready. It was supposed to be a battle I was there for. A huge battle, with lighting bolts, and trolls, and rocks cascading down mountain sides, it was supposed to be cataclysmic." She pushed the heels of her hands against her forehead. "How was I supposed to know that they most cataclysmic events aren't the battles that end lives. It's the interactions that start them." Skif did move now. He dropped to his knees in front of her and hesitantly put his hand on her leg. "I wasn't ready. And as soon as the he let go of the gate energy I felt myself being pulled away. I suddenly couldn't touch anything, and I heard and saw everything like I was underwater, or caught in a really thick fog. I saw Vanyel writhing on the ground. And I saw 'Lendel running. He ran right past me. Literally, he was so close that I could smell him. And I tried with every inch of my body to grab him, to stop him. And that was it. He was running, my vision was filled with him running, and then I was in my bed at home, just like I had left it." Skif moved to put his arm around her but she stiffened suddenly and stood up. Skif rocked back on his heels. Her jaw was clenched and her cheek was ticking with the effort of holding herself under control. "So no, I've never seen a dead body before. But I knew he was dead. A world away, I still knew it." Suddenly the hopeless look in her eyes communicated something to Skif. She had lied before when she said she never fell in love with a Shaych. But he had been wrong too, it wasn't Vanyel she was in love with, it was Tylendel. His heart wrenched for her, but at the same time, he was aware of the bitter bile of jealously threatening to bubble up in him. He bit his cheek savagely, he had no right to be jealous. She wasn't his to be jealous over. Especially over something that had happened several lifetimes ago. He stood slowly and looked at her. There was a harshness to her delicate features that he had never noticed before. "I'm still not ready." She whispered. Without warning she stumbled to him, curving her hands around the back of his neck, and kissed him almost savagely. Kissing her back he could feel her tears slowly sliding down his cheeks, cool and salty. He felt a hopeless painful passion rising within him and tried to pull away and gain some semblance of coherence to his thoughts, but she moved with him, not letting him. He knew she didn't love him, couldn't love him, wouldn't ever let herself love him. But at the moment he didn't care, he just knew that she was in his arms. With a slight groan to the inevitable, he picked her up and carried her back to his room, knowing that that he was making the biggest mistake of his life and wanting to.