Disclaimer: so I'm sorry. Truly. Please don't kill me for this? It's been a struggle to write for two months (the Narnia writing challenge in 10 days should be so interesting in this state), so I'm writing whatever comes to mind, and this…is sad and hopeless and I'm sorry. My fault, not my character or world.
Alternate Ending to "the love I fear"
Place: Diverges in the middle of day four of the countdown, and Rilian never thinks of summoning merfolk with the stone.
The Tragic AU No One Wanted: Day 1
Two days and three nights speed by, heedless of all Rilian can do to slow them. Ileana keeps to her promise to do one thing a day, and so they (and a troop of guards) visit the stream the next day, and Ileana needs hours before she's fit to go home, and so day two they just visit the garden. She falls asleep leaning on Rilian's arm, a smile on her pale lips, her breathing still struggling in unpleasant wheezes. She doesn't wake for dinner. It's as he's moving her sleeping body, as she is totally unaware and unresisting, that Rilian has his idea. He kisses her head.
The next day, the last day, he takes her to the tower, to be nearer the invisible stars. He lets her climb the stairs without carrying her, and, at the top, he waits until she falls asleep. Then he carries her back down.
In the courtyard waits one of the larger Lions, whose smooth gait had been recommended by Captain Etmun. The Captain himself stands in the courtyard, rigidly at attention, and not even his helm hides the sorrow in his face.
Ileana's breathing worsens as Rilian shifts her to the Lion's back, and he pauses to stroke her face, swallowing.
He knows he'll have to let her go, once they reach the sea. But that would be so much easier than watching her die. He could still visit her on boats, and somehow, he'd persuade her to stay. To stay where she could live.
He might even command her, as her king. Surely that would be enough. He swings himself up onto a horse with that comforting thought.
He never gets the chance to give that command. The journey to the shore is short, but it took long enough, for when Rilian dismounts and reaches for the Mermaid, she isn't breathing. His own cry echoes in his ears, his hands are trembling, but they're still strong enough to grab her, to run towards the water.
He must be in time. The water must be able to do something. It splashes around his ankles, he nearly trips on a rock, but he's headed out, fighting the water to take faster steps, and when he reaches to where it's deep enough, he lowers Ileana down. The water closes over her face.
Her legs do not change.
He waits, waits panting and wet, but she does not move, she does not change, and under the water his hands clutch at her arms. He thinks he starts shaking her, but it's hard to tell.
Some time later other hands are grabbing his arms, pulling him away from Ileana, and he finds he's crying. When he blinks the water away, he sees a grave, dark-haired man regarding him. "Give her back," says a voice as powerful as a storm, as broken as a ship tossed on the rocks. "We must bury her."
It's only then that the King sees the tail under the water, and realises the hands on his other arm belong to two women, both with golden hair, one much older than the other. Tears fall down their faces; from their chins, pearls drop into the water and wash away in the waves.
"I don't know if I can let her go," Rilian admits to them, voice rough. Their sorrow mirrors his own, and it nearly undoes him.
"It would not be good for her to stay on land," the younger woman says, voice indignant through the choking tears. "It already killed her!"
The words have Rilian releasing Ileana before he knows what he's doing, and suddenly all three Merfolk—and Ileana—are gone.
Ileana had never changed.
Rilian stays in the water, unable to go back, but not knowing how to go forward, far past sunset. It is Drinian and Etmun who finally force him to leave, who carry him back to a cart and wrap him in blankets.
But it is Jarmu who comes the next morning, who comes to Drinian, bringing news that the old sea-captain knows the King should hear, and hear from friends.
A statue of Ileana, carved from white rock with a base of pink coral, now stands in the sea. It is out of the passing lanes of ships. And it faces the land.
Drinian rows Rilian to it, and the King, somewhere in his grief, knows that Drinian's silence is another gift. It's just not one he can feel grateful for, especially when he looks up and sees Ileana's face, perfectly carved, shining in the sun.
The coral base is littered with pearls.
Rilian later commands a goldsmith to cover the rock hair with gold, and places two sapphires in the eyes, but for today, today Rilian can only look and grieve. He's lost the love that set him free.