“I have seen your guildhall,” Isabelle said carefully and took a step toward Vara, holding herself just slightly out of arm’s reach. “With some ingenuity, with some effort, I believe you could hold out against any magic and any army that the Sovereign might throw at you. Especially with the numbers you describe, you could hold it indefinitely with supplies of conjured bread and water-”
“And we’ll have nothing to help Cyrus with, and he’ll die across the sea fighting some unholy scourge that will devour his stubborn arse whole and choke on it!” Vara felt the words come rushing out. “Of course it will end up gagging on such a large and ridiculously stupid morsel, but he’ll be dead nonetheless.” She felt it expelled, the hot flush it brought to her cheeks to have said it, and when Isabelle pulled out a chair and slid it invitingly toward her she sat down on it, heavily, and leaned her elbow on the table. Isabelle took the seat next to her, sitting almost knee to knee with her, the incense in the tent reaching an almost overpowering level, even though it had changed not at all since she arrived.
“So we come to the truth at last,” Isabelle’s steady blue eyes flashed at Vara; they were cooler than her own, more reflective of Isabelle’s deliberative personality. “You worry about the safety of your guild, but you worry more about the fate of your-”
“Do not say it.” Vara felt her hands come to her face automatically, as though she could hide her shame by covering her cheeks and closing her eyes. “I don’t need to hear it aloud. Again.”
“You fear for him.” The words were calm and yet infuriating, as though they contained a slap to the face buried within. “You’re afraid he’ll-”
“Die, yes,” Vara said, and the effusive heat came back, “that he’ll die in that foreign land, that he’ll be ripped apart by these creatures they sent word about, these things that were unleashed from the Realm of Death. I’m afraid that he’ll stay in the fight long past the time when reason should tell him to bow out, because he feels guilty about letting them loose. Because of-oh, dammit! — because of me. Because he saved me, and because I sent him over there, practically drove him over there.” She felt the burning of the words in her mouth. “Well damn it, damn them, damn him, and damn me, too.” She looked up and caught only the faintest glint of amusement in Isabelle’s face. “I don’t wish to discuss this any further.”
“No, I imagine you wouldn’t.” Isabelle averted her eyes for a moment and looked to the bowl of apples. “It hasn’t been easy, has it? With Father and Mother gone?”
“I rarely went home,” Vara said. “I barely notice, with all the things going on-”
“Oh?”
“Don’t be irritating.” Vara let the words come out seething. “I shouldn’t say I don’t notice. I might phrase it differently. There are many distractions, especially of late. When I think of them, I feel-” Vara rolled her eyes at her own weakness. “Guilty. I feel guilty for not paying homage to their memory. For not weeping in a corner. For feeling more distressed about the departure of some lunkhead warrior who will die in a mere century versus the loss of …” A warm gasp came loose then. “They lived for thousands of years, and to come to such an abrupt-especially for mother-untimely, unexpected-”
“She fought for Termina,” Isabelle said quietly. “She fought for you.”
“She died for me,” Vara said, meeting her sister’s gaze. “It’s becoming a pattern, people dying for me, killing for me, and consequences I don’t care for spinning out of these actions. I should like it to end.”
“There is only one end,” Isabelle said, “and that has some rather definite consequences of its own that I don’t think you’d care for, either. Those dead are passed, and only one of these people remains to be saved, and that is Cyrus Davidon.”
“I can’t save Cyrus Davidon,” Vara said, and then felt her teeth grit themselves, her jaw tensing. “I can’t send anyone to help Cyrus, not with the Sovereign making his move all around Sanctuary. If it is as you say it is,” she shook her head. “My course is clear. I must defend Sanctuary. It is the higher duty to which I owe my allegiance. More than venturing overseas on some fool’s errand to throw myself into another war.” She straightened up in her chair and heard the creak of her armor plating as she did so. “I have enough war to cope with here in Arkaria.”
“And if he dies?” Isabelle asked, and her fingers delicately touched the candle that rested on the table, letting the hot wax fall across her finger.
“Then he dies,” Vara said, and ignored the screaming voice deep within, the one that wanted to throw her body to the ground and rail against it being so. “It will happen sooner or later anyway, there is little I can do to prevent that.”
“You haven’t asked my opinion,” Isabelle said, rubbing a little wax between her thumb and forefinger, “but my prerogative now as head of the family is that I will give it, and it is thus-”
“Oh, good,” Vara said under her breath.
“You should go to Luukessia. You will regret it if something happens to him and you are not there. It will haunt you all the rest of your days. You may not want to admit that your heart goes with the man, but it does, and I know you well enough to say with certainty that this torment will not end, not for you, not truly, if the worst comes to pass. It will only fade in time, perhaps, and become the ghost of a memory, rather than the full-blooded, all-consuming horror that it presently is, asserting itself all over your will.”
“Your opinion is noted,” Vara said, and stood, controlling herself enough not to knock over the chair with her ascent. “But I’m afraid that I cannot do what you suggest.”
“Which is the greater fear?” Isabelle asked, and rose to stand as well. “That Sanctuary will fall to defeat and destruction by the dark elves? That Arkaria will fall under the heel of the great menace whose tendrils even now stretch out of the blackness of the caves of Saekaj Sovar and are entangling the rest of the world? Or that you, Vara, not only the last but the stubbornest of all the elves ever born, will lose someone that you value most in a place that you may never even laid eyes on?”
Vara did not speak, giving both ideas a moment to weigh in her mind, like heavy stones on scales, tipping the balance one way or another. Cyrus or duty, duty or Cyrus? She thought of her mother, and there was reassurance there, in the last words that she had said before she died, when they had talked. “I am elf, and my life is long, my sorrows great. I will hold to my duty because that will see me through all other pain. When all else falters, fails and fades away, my duty will not. I am paladin, the white knight. My life is a crusade, and my sworn duty is all that matters.” She felt her hilt for reassurance, and watched Isabelle’s eyes follow the motion of her hands. “I’m not going to draw a sword on you, it’s merely an action for emphasis.”
“Oh, good,” Isabelle said dryly, “though with you, it is hard to tell sometimes.” Isabelle ran her hands over the white robes that she wore, still a pure color even here at the front of the battle lines. “Very well, you hold to your duty then, your crusade, as it were. Though I did think most paladins chose a more spiritual crusade, something nobler and more aligned with grandeur and changing the world-like evangelism, or serving the poor, or defending the weak. Something to inspire the soul and fill it with a billowing, all-consuming purpose-”
“All piffle,” Vara said, and took the two steps to the entry of the tent. “Be as grand as you want in your inspirations, but most paladins fall short because they are all grandeur and nobility and little action on the ground. They say they want to free the slaves or evangelize or other rubbish, but then they do things on a daily basis that have little in common with their overarching goal. No, I glory in the small. Duty is a small thing and yet the largest. Every act on a daily basis that I use to serve my guild is a reward in itself, and leads me on to the biggest of goals-to serve my guild by defending it from harm. My crusade is the simplest, lowest, and yet highest and most manageable of all of them. No bombast, no bold proclamation, just simple service, day in, day out. And it is simple. All I need to do is get up and point my sword in the direction of the nearest threat, or pick up a shovel and begin whatever work need be done.” She knew her eyes flashed but didn’t care. It is all that matters, the littlest things. The big ones can only be attended to after the small.