Though he grieved for Aurian’s grief, Anvar’s spirits lifted like a joyous burst of song. Oh, they had a long road ahead, to be sure. Forral had barely been dead for half a year, and Aurian would still mourn him for some time to come. She would continue to fight against loving someone else with all the strength of her stubborn nature. Nonetheless, this was one battle that Anvar intended to win—and now he possessed the strength and determination to match her own indomitable will.
Anvar smiled to himself. My dearest Lady, he thought, how much I owe you! First you made a Mage of me, and now you’ve turned me into a warrior, too! And someday I’ll pay you back, I promise, by making you happy again. Anvar tightened his arms around the weeping Mage. “Do you know what I would do if we were back in Nexis?” he murmured. “I’d take you around every tavern in the city and get you more drunk than you’ve ever been in your life!”
Aurian looked up at him gratefully, swallowing hard, struggling to find her voice. “It’s—it’s a long way back to Nexis,” she said at last.
“We’ll do it,” Anvar assured her. “And who knows, maybe we’ll find you a few taverns along the way!”
“If we do, I’ll definitely take you up on your offer,” Aurian said ruefully.
Anvar was pleased to see the flash of her old spirit beginning to return. In her old, automatic gesture, she wiped her face on her sleeve, and he gave a mock sigh. “You know,” he teased, “I don’t think I’ll ever break you of that revolting habit!”
Aurian glared at him, on the verge of a scathing retort, and Anvar chuckled. “Why, you . . .” she snarled, but her lips began to twitch in a smile, and suddenly she threw her arms around him, hugging him hard, “Dear Anvar,” she murmured. “Thank you.”
Shia, forgotten in the heat of the battle, crept up to them, laying her head in Aurian’s lap. “You won a brave victory, my friend. I’m glad you stayed,” Anvar heard her say.
“We both are,” he added softly.
“My friends,” Aurian whispered, and reached out to caress the cat. She looked at Shia, then at Anvar, and took a deep breath. “You know,” she said slowly, “in spite of everything. I’m glad I stayed, too.”
Aurian’s hair was wildly tangled and full of sand; her face was filthy, tear-streaked and abraded by the glittering dust; her clothes were a mass of rags. But to Anvar, as he held her in his arms, she had never been more beautiful. There was so much, in that moment, he wanted to say to her, but it could wait for the future—the future Aurian, whether she knew it or not, had granted him at last.__^
As dawn began to glimmer over the jeweled sands, Aurian looked up from her trudging feet to find that they had reached the end of the desert at last. Slowed by weariness, the Mages and Shia had walked all night, praying that they would reach safety before the sun rose. Though Aurian was footsore and tired, though her spirits were shadowed by a lingering sadness, her heart felt strangely light. I’m sorry, Forral, she thought, but I couldn’t come with you—not yet. I didn’t believe you when you said it would be wrong to throw my life away in grief—but you were right, my love. You were right. There is more to life than sorrow and revenge. There is friendship, and hope, and new life to follow death—and maybe, if fate is kind, I’ll live to see your son take his own place in the world.
Aurian halted abruptly, reeling with astonishment. Son? she thought. How the blazes do I know it’s a boy? But, she realized, she did. For certain. Stunned, she turned her thoughts inward—to feel not just a spark of life, but a mind. A tiny, unformed child-mind, but the mind of a person nonetheless— her son. For the first time, he knew her—recognized her—and his small, barely focused thoughts reached out to her trustingly, and with the uttermost love.
“Anvar!” Aurian shrieked. Her thoughts were awhirl with an uncontainable excitement that simply had to be shared with her dearest friend. He turned back to her, and Aurian closed the space between them as though she, like Raven, were winged. She hugged him tightly, laughing at his startled expression, her words tumbling over one another in her anxiety to communicate the good news. “Anvar, it’s a son! I felt him! He knows me! I—he loves me, Anvar!”
“You did? I mean, he is—he does? Oh, Aurian!” Anvar swung her around until she was giddy, his blue eyes bright, his face transfigured with joy. And suddenly, as if joining their celebration, a glad cry rang out from the rise above them, where the edge of the forest met the desert. Blinking back happy tears, Aurian looked up to see Yazour, with his arms around Eliizar and Nereni. Beside them was the vast, familiar form of Bohan, his face split in a happy grin as Shia bounded up the steep cutting to meet him. Aurian and Anvar looked at each other. “Thank you, Anvar, for making me stay,” Aurian said softly. In answer, he smiled—that rare, wonderful smile that had always had the power to touch her heart. Aurian reached out to him, and he took her hand. Together, they went to greet their friends.
Miathan, brooding in his Tower, flung his crystal away with a snarling curse, wishing that he had never decided to spy on Aurian just then. How dare she be happy! How dare she rejoice in that accursed swordsman’s bastard brat! And with the other abominable half-breed, of his own conceiving! Well, he’d have his revenge on them yet. “Let’s see you rejoice, Aurian, when you give birth to that monster you’re carrying,” he muttered.
Still muttering darkly, the Archmage went to retrieve the crystal, which had rolled into the fireplace, chipping and scarring the marble hearth. All was not yet lost, he consoled himself. He still had a weapon or two in his armory, and Eliseth’s rebellion had not interfered too badly with his plans. His revenge would be all the sweeter for waiting—and this time, he would not fail!