Disclaimer: The characters and settings created by Blizzard Entertainment Inc in this story are owned by their creators. I do not claim them as mine in any way, shape or form. I am not receiving monetary profit from this story and no copyright infringement is intended.


Chapter 30: Hellstorm, Part 2

I attempted to stay calm, for her. I went, "Meydiri. Think. Breathe, my love."

She was shaking with rage. She now used both hands, clasping a tight fist around the knife. Meydiri meant it. She was all but committed to killing me. But she was also terrified. I could smell the fear, sharp as anything.

I begged her again. "Please, breathe. We don't have to do this. We don't have to end, like this." I got up on one knee.

"Is that a threat!"

"You think I won't go down without a fight? That's not who I am, Mey."

She cried, so many tears, so fast, falling from her dark cheeks, "You have made me an orphan in this world. Again! I'm not good enough to be with other Tauren, don't you see? And I am now filth in the cult's eyes. Because you went in there and you… you took me out of it! Their world, their most earnest effort yet, to fix this world. Nothing I say, nothing will help them understand why I went with you. Why I held on. Why I didn't just die in the conflagration they sent, to end the threat to all things!"

"Maybe, because beneath all those spikes, love? You are a good girl. A great girl. A woman who does not want to really die for…" I had to be gentle about it, careful. Anthene's fragile ego at her young age flashed in my mind. I wondered how deeply hurt Meydiri had been in her life by her tragic circumstances, and for how long. Maybe, inside, she was still at that tender age, still frightened of the Grimtotem raging through her home, destroying everything she knew. And still not fitting in with anyone in Thunderbluff.

"You idiot! I was born a criminal! There is no other place for me except for the cult," her voice became a harsh whisper, "… not on this planet. Not even in the next life."

"Please don't! How does ending my life fix anything? You will be alone. Even if you were tried for being a cultist I would try to help you in some way, you must know that."

"If you die, Turaho? Then I will be free. I can go back to my true family." Her eyes flickered with new fear, "But what if they still don't accept me—"

"Meydiri, stop!"

She backed up, lay the gleaming silver knife, catching starlight, at her wrist. "Or maybe if die! I can finally end this! I swear to you, I will never, EVER go back to living in a cage!"

"Cage?" I didn't know what she meant. But in a way, with my investigator instinct, I didn't need to know. She had some secret side to her life, surely. Something that involved confinement, possibly even torture.

"Meydiri, you want to survive and this is not the way." Dammit, I had to have better than that! I was supposed to be a top Pathfinder for crap's sake and I couldn't even save my own woman, having some kind of break down in front of me. "Stop and… just explain to me. Tell me more. Why do you think there is no place for you in this world? That can't be right. We're far away from everyone and anything, now. It will take a while for folks…" I didn't say which camp, hers or mine, "to catch up to us. So why not walk me through it? What happened to you, Meydiri."

I had my kodo tied up somewhere back near that cultist camp. If someone friendly knew how to ride it, they might also come searching for me and godspeed to them. But for now, I focused on Meydiri.

"I…" She squinted. At last, she pitched her hunting knife, our old knife, into the dirt. I lay my head back, breathed deep relief, for now. She sank down, played with the trigger I'd placed on her finger, as an engagement ring.

"I am a Grimtotem."

I lay there feeling that, wondering if I had really heard it right.

"I have always been a spy. As a child they… they used me. I was never a proper part of the tribe the Pathfinders saved me from, that old raided village. The Grimtotem, we… we would wipe out entire villages, took everything we needed. But in time, my people learned that we could do more than just take, take, take. Why not leave something? Something useful. Leave nothing but a single Tauren child behind. What so-called noble Pathfinder from Thunderbluff would turn down a child?"

I began to sit up. It was horrifying, I couldn't believe I was hearing this.

"One day, after a raid. I was the one left behind." Meydiri couldn't look at me. "The Tauren of Thunderbluff, they took me in. But I already knew what I had to do. My markings were never so distinct, so among the Grimtotem I was chosen. They trained me on how to lie, how to act and get sympathy once they had me. That's how the Grimtotem always…" Meydiri really began to cry, "That's how it's always been done. For ages. It's how we always know what the other Tauren are doing, what they have that we can take in a raid." She got lost in mournful thought, repeating herself, "…It's been done for ages."

I shook my head, "A spy? As a child? You working both sides goes back that far?"

Poor thing, she was always the one being used, then. For all her life. Joining the Twilight Hammer Cult couldn't have felt so far off from being among her own people. Brainwashing children, sending them away from their parents. Later, passing secret codes or notes back and forth. And she never lost her true identity, so they had a way of reinforcing that year after year. Maybe the Grimtotem still met with her in secret, or perhaps there were other Grimtotem contacts mixed into our society that we didn't know about. Surely, there were. Gods, it went so deep.

And Illidan had warned me. I'd heard tell that Illidan possessed prophetic abilities. Perhaps Illidan hadn't been talking to me about the tree, its cancer, the Kaldorei Rogue Network of which Alessandre was a part. Or, not just that. Could this have been Illidan's true meaning? It went deeper than I thought, among my own people?

Oh, this was complex. If only we could go away together, Meydiri and I, have time to talk things out and undo some of the harm. Some of the lifelong harm done… My investigator's mind started to race with possibilities. What if I could get Meydiri at the center of a counter-operation to untangle all of this. That would keep Meydiri alive and well away from the prison cage she so feared. They would need her to be an active agent and keep an appearance of things going along normally, if so. In that case, the best cover of all would be for us to go on and get married, move ahead as planned. Meydiri gone straight. Married to a law man.

We two Tauren sat there, both looking at the hunting knife cast down in the dirt. Meydiri and I couldn't look at each other.

"Turaho, I-"

"I had no idea, this was you. Trapped in a world of pain, betrayal and hurt. So much terrible, crushing hurt. So what was one more betrayal? If it kept you alive."

I knew Meydiri was watching me, now. I could feel her eyes on me.

"Turaho. Don't you dare."

"If we go on and." I wasn't sure if I trusted my own voice, "If we leave now, escape sort of. Maybe I can explain to… to the Horde. Chief Baine of all people should know what you suffered."

"Don't you dare forgive me!"

I shot her a look.

"Turaho, I know what I've done. I know how far I've gone, and over the edge at that. You think some pretty words now, flash me some kindness and suddenly I'll give up on my dreams? I have dreams too! This whole world is absolute trash, and I'd like to see it ended! I want to be delivered from all this, not suffocate in it!"

I sighed. Not in a tired way. I just needed to have a breath then, to get up the courage to try asking her another time. "The way you've been forced to live, I don't blame you for seeing it that way. And Meydiri, maybe—no, I'm sure you're even right. There is true evil in this world. And you've been forced right up against it, haven't you? You've seen it in a way no one has."

"What."

"It's why… Well, look at where we are. It's why the Quel'dorei became the Blood Elves. It's why the Forsaken were formed by Sylvanas, out of the bleakest circumstances. It was why the Orcs forged the Horde, with the Darkspear Trolls and us Tauren. It's why the Grimtotem are, the way they are, perhaps. What else other than desperation, the fear of losing everything would push them to such extremes."

"You're going to talk to me about my own people now?"

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Don't you dear defend how I was terrorized, how I was… They're still my parents. Yet, I hate them! I hate them so much!"

"I only meant—"

"You can't understand, and you don't. So just… shut up about my people, Turaho!"

"Well." I was going to defy that order, of course. Though I waited, to make sure she was calm enough, "At least we've got one thing out of way. No one is going to die tonight. And I sure as hell am going to marry you."

Meydiri buckled in half, she sobbed outright. "You damned Paladin! You stupid Sunwalker!"

"What'd I say now?"

"You're not supposed to… to go out of your way for me. This wasn't supposed to happen! Tonight, I was going to finish this painful dance with you. I was going to finally end the farce and, and… I was going to burn it all away when Greatfather Winter was summoned. My old life, as a Grimtotem, as a spy. I was going to die and be reborn as fully one of them. A chosen one. No more lies, no more being used! I'm so sick of it! Do you think I was going to harm Greatfather Winter himself?"

"Don't the Twilight Cultists harness the power of old gods? I know the reports, Meydiri."

"I was going to be his… like his priestess. His one true consort. That was the deal I made. You old, stupid fool. I was going to tend to him and care for him, enact anything he wished, for the rest of my life. Forever."

Then, she was quiet.

"It sounds like you um, you only wanted to be loved. In that case?"

"Stop loving me!"

"Fine! Sounds like Greatfather Winter would have to be in some kind of bondage for you to do that anyway, in some kind of crazy cultist chains. Probably locked in one of those black obelisk stones like they used to have in Silithus. Because you could do that now, spread his holiday cheer on your own, and have him free and running around. What's wrong, you never brought him cookies and milk in Orgrimmar? Or—or in Ironforge, they do it there, too. Have you not celebrated one Winter's Veil, Meydiri!"

"Enough of your stupid jokes! I was going to be immortal, you piss ant! His powerful will would have become one with the cult. Some entities, they need to be guided, you see. Properly."

Yeah, she was in deep. It was like I was shouting down a well. Though I could see how wounded Meydiri was. Even if… even if she had been driven crazy throughout her life.

Why do some people, such as Kael'thas, get to be functionally crazy and rule a kingdom while living in lavish apartments, robed in elegance, while others like Meydiri get kicked around and end up joining cults? You tell me.

Well, then again, Kael'thas had joined the Burning Legion once. It took a team of Blood Knights to drag him out.

I got up to take the knife out of the ground. Meydiri hopped up on her hoofs just as quickly, and she sidestepped. She put her hand out, ready to shove me back.

"No, Turaho. You're my prisoner. I haven't decided what I'm doing with you, yet. Draw that weapon against me, any weapon, at your own peril."

"I have a giant rifle on my back, Meydiri."

She gave a flirtatious laugh, it really was pretty. I should have known she didn't mean it. "First he offers to marry me, then he offers to shoot me dead. I knew I was always right about you, Turaho."

I don't know why I said it. Maybe you think I truly am a fool, and possibly I will always be one, but it is what it is.

"…Offer still stands."

She sucked her teeth at me.

"Meydiri, if anything, this proves that you need help, not just help from me. Look. There's no proof of anything you've done while with the cultists. You've had a messed up childhood as a calf, seriously, messed up. And ontop of that, your own parents played this yo-yo game with you… you were orphaned but not. If you did a good job, then they loved you, if not, then they wouldn't visit you, abandon you to your fate with the evil Tauren of Thunderbluff like you were some trash. Something like that?"

Her lip quivered to hear me say the words. I'd hit on something. "Fine, I said I wouldn't talk about your people. But none of this has ever been right or fair on you. The best you've ever been was whenever you were off duty, drinking hard in the Fitz. Free and spending it like water and giving the greedy Goblins a good time. I think that's you. The real you. I think that's how it could be, us together again, raising hell and having fun, but… My love. Like anything in this life, it is going to take work. There are things that need to be untangled, in your mind. Right? Don't you agree? Let me," I swallowed, "Let me save you. It'll be a swift trial, I think I can lean on it and get Baine to do that for you among the Horde. And your mission isn't compromised anymore, not if we get you a new one. You can help us root out the other Grimtotem cultists in our mist, in Thunderbluff. This could be your chance, to set things right!"

She delayed, looking down, her tail swished once. "Oh no you don't! You make it sound like you're about to blame me for everything. Why not make me the scapegoat for this kidnapping too, huh? Why stop there! Say I'm the reason for the Grimtotem attack on Thunderbluff, for Cairne being slain!"

"Were you? No, don't answer that."

"You are bending your morals and breaking yourself, Turaho, to have me. Just how hard up are you, stranded in the land of the pretty lady elves?"

"Stop taking cheap shots at me. Stop! A man overcomes his bias, best he can, to keep loving you. And you… don't throw that effort in my face. I don't know if the Blood Knights, the Paladins or the Sunwalkers will still accept me if I do. But I'm willing to try."

"The Blood Knights!"

"Any entity, that I've ever been a part of. The Pathfinders might fully disown me, forever, if I try this. But I am willing to do this for you. I love you, still. Does that mean nothing to you?"

She dropped her hand. "The Blood Knights. Saturna make you an offer? That wily cat. Always scheming. I should have known. And you should realize it's not a real offer coming from her, considering the fix her husband is in."

"She didn't offer me a place. Her other people did. Pyorin and Daphne, those guys. Because I am a Shaman and a Paladin, talented. And it's their duty to watch out for Light-talented folk such as myself, no matter who they are. That's what they say."

"Oh. Good offer, then. You could be the first. It could change your career. Your whole life."

"I just don't see how I'm a Shaman as well as a Paladin, though? I can't even control the elements. Not like my mother could."

"Maybe that part is coming to you." She inhaled, shook her head and horns, "Anyway, it's been obvious. Like me being a cultist this whole time. You're a bit of a himbo, Turaho. It takes five minutes for most people to figure that after they've met you for the first time. And then they take you for a mug if they can. Like me, or Saturna. Probably Anthene'alas too, that little so-called princess. And all those shady Blood Knights. Alessandre. Illidan. And definitely Kael'thas—"

"Look, I get it. I did get caught up in their games for a while, I'll admit it. I have a weakness. But I'm not a himbo. I call that being noble."

"Don't worry," she nearly smiled, her special little smile for me, "whatever you want to call it? It's also cute on you."

"…Thanks."

I looked at that knife in the ground, still unclaimed. "Meydiri, I can't imagine going on like this without you, unable to confide in you. Talking about our missions, even shit-talking about people we hate. This is us, this is me. I love you and I adore you."

"I am that weakness, the one you were talking about." She lifted her dark chin, "So this has to end."

"I know, I was building up to saying that. I love you. I have always loved you and craved you. But it's not a true weakness if I want to help you!" I slapped a hand in my other palm.

"No. You pity me. I'm still your little Pathfinder project. The one mission you never succeeded at."

"I need you and I am afraid of what happens if I can't have you. I call it love. And if you would just stop and think about what I offered you. And maybe I won't have to go it alone and drop all these allegiances I have. If I do the Blood Knight deal—just hear me out, okay? They're good at covering up stuff. Right? Maybe I'll have them smooth this over, with the Horde. That will be my condition for joining up."

"And they'll get you right back, ask you to forget that Kael'thas ever kidnapped Greatfather Winter."

"It's not Kael'thas. It's one of his cronies."

"Oh gods, whatever! This is the problem! You're going to throw away the entire case, for me. Because, yes, you would need allies, slimy, slithery people to make this work. Connections. Because that's how this whole blasted world works! And what about Greatfather Winter? You wouldn't let me summon him, but it's okay for Kael'thas and his cronies to dispose of the old magical Dwarf however they want? Huh?"

"Are you trying to break up with me!"

"Yes! A little while I ago I was trying to kill you, but break up seems less bad. I'll settle for that."

"I can't see why you would do that." I sounded more upset than I thought I was. "I'm a great guy. I've tried my best for you. And now I find out why we didn't work and it was because you were a freaking Grimtotem spy and had to be away all the time, to cover your tracks. It wasn't even my fault!"

She warned me, "We're going in circles now."

And we had paced a circle around that knife, while we were arguing, gesturing at one another.

Meydiri then moved in more swiftly than I expected. She flashed her tail at me, a good distraction, and swept up the knife. One smooth, slick motion. Just like Kael'thas, his cufflinks, and that doorway out.

Meydiri pointed the knife at me. "Move. Let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"Where else? To hell, I guess. Seems we're going together. You had your chance to leave, all while we were chatting. You chose to let me get ever closer, and get the knife back. I'm sorry, Turaho. Your world, the world of the Horde, the Alliance, and Blood Knights. It makes no sense to me. I haven't understood it, empathized with it for a very long time. If I bring you back to the cult as my prisoner, maybe there is some other way we can get to Greatfather Winter, or else you'll be a valuable hostage. Maybe they will understand that I only panicked before—"

"Before! I'll damn well say you're panicking now! How is this any kind of Plan B?"

"Well, you did convince me of something else. Maybe neither of us has to die. But this is going to happen on my terms." She gestured with the knife for me to disarm. Like hell I was. I eyed her hard, that I still had a gun compared to her knife. And, my Light spells.

"You should know, this thing has been enchanted since you first gave it to me. Otherwise, I wouldn't threaten you with it." She flicked the blade aside, for the briefest of moments, and hot purple energy leaped across the clearing we were in, hit a tree beyond that old river where it looped around and wound its way along the very edge of the Ghostlands. The purple blaze set the tree's moonlit bark smouldering, until the night swallowed it up, in some acrid shadow rift I could smell from where I was. What kind of magic was that?

She shook her head and horns slowly at me. "Cutting myself earlier would have been a nicer way to die, or for you. But don't tempt me."

After that, I got off my gun and my other hidden weapons she already knew about. I had my own hunting blade, of course. Tossed it all in the dirt, for her.

"Zoca likes me too, so there shouldn't be a problem there. If she even comes out."

"My Ma is a ghost and she's my other backup, in case you forgot."

"Come on out, Ma! You have something to say about this? Me kidnapping your son?" Meydiri called and waited. We both did. "She's not here. Even ghosts have their limitations."

I heated up, "You and your cultists do something to my mother? To keep her away?"

"Would have been a great bargaining chip. Wish I'd thought of that. Or else, I would have used it already. Anyway, I'm not the kind of girl to be afraid of a ghost passing through me, am I? I would have never made it this far. And I've seen worse in my time. Come on." She gestured at me with the knife again, "We're walking back to the cultist camp if it takes us the rest of the night."

I had a lot of time to think over my failed marriage proposal while we undid all of my hard ghost wolfing that night, trekking over uneven forest ground, passing beneath an otherwise beautiful array of holiday stars over our heads. In fact, I'm sure I was lost in my sorrow. Depressed again. A part of me was awake, aware of any opportunity, because I am by training. And I couldn't let Meydiri get us all the way back to the cultist camp. They'd have my head even if she hadn't worked up the courage to do it yet. However, how this woman had suffered so greatly was ruining me. The woman pointing the way I should go with this purple glowing knife, whispering for me to stop, to go, to wait. Not to step in something or other, she sounded so kind. So perfect in my ears. Intelligent, capable, focused. But inside she was tormented. Howling in pain. How had I not known?

Did I still even know, Meydiri? Why had I proposed marriage to a woman I no longer knew?

Her mystery, her allure. My desperation. This was the worst moment of my life. And that I was about to make it so easy for her, because I felt sorry for her, that was the worst part. I needed to rally myself. I needed to see a way out of this, enchanted cultist knife or not. Greatfather Winter and his disappearance seemed so far away, then. It almost made me laugh to think about him now, hanging around someplace… someplace on a ley line that Kael'thas knew about.

I stopped walking when I realized it. My hooves stepped in black water. I looked down and saw we were passing through the river again. That great, cool, lovely river that still wound its ancient way through the forest, Scourge or no Scourge, Ghostlands or not. Hoping, trying. It reminded me of the afternoon that Anthene and I stopped there. Worrying about the Blood Elf girl's future. Me insisting that the Night Elves were using her. And now I was being used by Meydiri. It hurt to see it that way, now.

"If you think you're going to use the water in some way to best me, Turaho? We've already done that, remember? Years ago. Four years ago, in fact. I remember. A pack of quillboar going down the Southfury the wrong way in hot pursuit. Orcs on one side—our side—and their people on the other. Simple as that. You're the one who helped me plan the counter-attack. Like the laws of magnetism or nature, it's unavoidable. Everything you try to do on this side of the river where I'm standing, it's like it's already been decided. Everything past here is Twilight Cultist-run and owned. They'll see us soon and they'll find us, if they haven't already. All we have to do is keep going. Remember when you said that? 'Doesn't matter what they do, this is our side and we keep going.' "

This was so incredibly twisted. So she cherished some times with me, took some of my advice, my ideas into her heart. But she was comforting me with these memories in order to destroy me. I wasn't even sure if the real Meydiri even existed anymore, if she ever did.

"So Turaho? Don't try anything."

"I'm not. I was thinking about the case. Who said that Greatfather Winter was in some closet? One of Keal'thas' fancy friends. One of their closets? Who said that to me? Because that is exactly where he is. A friend who can draw powerful ley lines and link them up inside of his own closet." I looked at her, in the eye. "Inside of his own home."

"One of the Blood Knights? Or, Rommath?" She rested her back hoof on the bank, taking the time to stretch her other leg. Just like old times. It felt so good to talk about the case with her like this. It might even be our last time talking about a case together. I think we both sensed that, wanted to savor the moment.

But I also had one last gamble going. I dared to even think of it fully, now. Announcing all my hopes to Meydiri before had failed me terribly. My gun, my mother, somehow making a deal with the Blood Knights or the Horde. She'd seen through it all.

One thing was left. One man. And maybe, just maybe he'd found my kodo and would make it in time.

A man's voice went, "Rommath is too political. And he has responsibility. For instance, to the runestones. Kael'thas would not want to risk a man like that taking a downfall, if word ever got out."

I didn't say that, you see. Someone else had. And he was throwing his voice. I could tell. Old trick from Ashenvale. Meydiri wouldn't know it.

Meydiri pointed her corrupted, magical knife. The eerie purple glow ignited her wild, angered look. There was movement in that direction, upriver. She turned from her bank and cast a bolt of shadow, something up that way. It glowed as it sailed over the water, hit some tree out there.

It gave Alessandre enough time to move around behind us.

I spoke to him, facing yet another direction. "Chief Advisor Faltheriel Darkweaver has Greatfather Winter in his home, Al. I see it now. The trick is, getting in there."

"It'll be booby-trapped." Al threw his voice again.

In her panicked rage, Meydiri shot with that knife again. She kept missing him. Only problem with this game though, was that her cultist friends were bound to see her shooting, too. We had mere moments.

Meydiri knew it as well, that things were crumbling. She shrieked, surely giving away her position to anyone who cared, "Come out, you Night Elf ass! You're not taking my prisoner away from me. Turaho is mine! You hear me? I didn't come this far to-"

I couldn't bear it if he did it. Not if he did it himself. I knew where he was. He tossed me my gun in the final moment, he had to. He'd retrieved it back at the clearing at the edge of the woods, where Meydiri and I did our little argument around the hunting knife. Sticking around, talking, that bought him some time to catch up, I bet.

Logic dictated that if Al hadn't completed his mission all on his own, and how could he have, then Al was keeping tabs on me. Everything. Following me to the Ghostlands, wondering when to strike when I blasted into the Twilight Cultist Camp, then not having the chance when I went ghost wolf. Then he would have grabbed my kodo and used his exceptional skill to track us. If anyone could, it would be a Night Elf man like Al. A top KRN agent used to dealing with magic. Maybe he even followed the trail of Meydiri's enchanted knife.

And at last, back at that clearing, Al delayed his attack again. He didn't trust that knife and he was right not to. I knew nothing about magic, but he knew enough about the cultists. Everything about them. So Al waited until the perfect moment. As a trained assassin, he would. He picked up my gun and other weapons Meydiri forced me to leave behind. Carried all that he could. He played a white-tailed deer game, moving as well as they could in the night trees, trailing us. And then, I finally got us to stop, to delay. He caught up, he caught onto what I was doing.

Now. Now was the best time to strike and finish this. So, like I said, he threw me my gun, to get me armed for the fight. I caught it in the air. My hands weren't exactly tied. A mistake Meydiri made. Fatal mistake. To treat me like a lover, still, when anything could tip the balance.

And this was it. A great big Night Elf with a knife thrust through the night air, going into her back. Between the third and fourth rib.

Except…

Except that I grabbed the girl, after I grabbed my gun. And she and I tumbled downstream together. We slipped in the water, down some rocks, into a ravine. A deep one. Then we struggled. Meydiri and I struggled so savagely, me doing anything I could to keep that knife off of me. She got me, little cuts. But I was fighting like hell, too.

Zoca emerged from the night shadows, pushed to at last betray the person she always presumed was my friend. Meydiri and I were clambering against each other, tight. Meydiri didn't have time to blast with her magic this once. So she screamed and slashed at my dog.

Meydiri tried to kill my dog.

I already lost my dog. And my mother. These things nearly destroyed me. Meydiri was prepared to do it all again.

Up above, way up above where the river flowed, I could hear more fighting. Cultists had caught up to the spot, where Al still was. He was primed for a fight by then, taking them out on his own. I hoped it would be like second nature for him. Like the pitch-fighting he had to do back in Ashenvale with their kind threatening his forest. It should be. I hoped he would make it. If I failed here, who knew? That might be the advantage. What tipped things back the other way? Then Meydiri might come back uphill. Put a different knife in his back. A good man might die twice on this mission.

But everything in my mind then was in cool tones, icy cold ones. I was dead inside. I, a Pathfinder, a Sunwalker, I had committed myself to what I knew I had to do.

I hated myself for knowing this. That in my delighted ignorance with her, I'd missed her. Not evil, no. Meydiri was imperfect. She was who she was. But all this time, she had chosen again and again, to kill, to use, to corrupt and destroy. And I was even willing to let her kill me, so that I could be right about her.

So that I could live in that world where she was good, so good, and I was the bad guy for not being good enough to save her. I never could help Meydiri enough with her missions, could I? She was always in trouble and I could never help. And it kept her away, so hard at work. We couldn't be together, because of me. I failed her, so many times, so wretchedly. Some mad fantasy like that. The kind a guy like me would have, maybe especially even this time of year. Where poetry and hope want to cover the world like a white veil, make it all new.

I took my time. I watched Meydiri get up from stabbing through my ghost dog. And Zoca's pitiful, wounded howl before she disappeared again. From whatever that damnable blade was made of. Then, Meydiri readied the knife, imbuing it with new power, the brightest spell I'd seen her use yet. Fire from her palm, those three fingers I'd loved and kissed as they passed over my naked body many times. Now, she passed those lovely dark fingers just over the blade, meant for me.

"I love you, Turaho." In her way, so twisted, yes she meant it. "One way or another, you're coming with me. At least we had our chance to talk. At least this way, you've had a chance to understand. To survive, we all need power. And you are what I have left. The most powerful piece I have to play. This is how it works in my world." Meydiri sounded so loving while she stepped through the mist, over black wet rocks and tangled roots to get to me. But she was also closing the space between us.

I lifted my rifle. I aimed well, as I was trained to do. For the heart. And then I shot her.

"I loved you, too."