She pulled back, staring into his eyes, and placed her hand on his cheek. "I want to hear the song they tried to end."
Then she was away from him again. He had pushed her back. "I cannot," he said. His voice was sad. "Not now. Not ever."
"But Walker…" Arya said.
Then, as though helpless to reply, he began to sing. Voice broken, song discordant and ragged, still there flowed a certain beauty through its shape, in the rise and swell of his music. Arya heard, rather than saw, the man he might have been, a golden god who had once sung in these woods but now walked in darkness.
After a moment, she became aware there were words to his song, words that flowed and ebbed with a melodious disharmony that was inexplicably balanced. They were in Elvish, and she did not understand them on a conscious level; the words cut to her soul.
There was pain, hatred, and vengeance. Walker sang of his death, sending images into Arya's heart that sent chills through her body. Without realizing it, she reached out to take his hand, as though to comfort him.
He ripped his hand out of her grasp so quickly the silver ring came off in her hand, but he did not notice in the singing, and she did not notice in the listening.
She found herself wrapped in the melody of his voice. Torn and shattered, leaping between notes no bard would play together, and perfect. The haunting melody enfolded her like a cool, dark blanket, and she felt her senses floating free of her body.
Walker's voice trailed off, but Arya, lost in his art, hardly realized it. Her heart was throbbing and breaking all at once. It was simultaneously the most blissful romance she had ever heard and the saddest tragedy she could have imagined.
When she finally looked up, she perceived, through tear-blurred eyes, that he was staring at her.
"Is that not ugly?" he asked. He had misinterpreted her.
"Walker-" she started.
"I am lost to you, Arya," Walker said, interrupting her. "All that remains is my task, and when it is done…" He trailed off, and the silence was palpable.
Bitter emptiness welled within her. "Walker," she said. "That's not your name, is it? What is it, your name, so that I can-"
With a frustrated growl, Walker slammed his fist into the ground, and though she could hear bones crack, he did not seem to care. Then he coughed so violently Arya wanted to cover her ears. Blood came up-the legacy of ancient wounds. Arya touched his hand in concern, closing her fingers around his. If Walker noticed, he made no sign.
When he spoke, his voice was calm but sad. "I do not know," he said. "Where do these songs come from? I do not know. How do I remember them? I do not know. If I remembered my own name, would it still hold true? Would I still be… I…" The last words were quiet, helpless.
He seemed on the verge of opening to her, as though…
Then nothing. He fell silent again.
Arya felt frustration well within her, along with deep sympathy. How long had this tortured man existed in this state? He could not open himself, could not confront the demons of his past, the feelings of his present, or his fears of the future. Whenever he tried, whenever he came close, he would cough violently as though to tear himself in two. Sometime in his past, Walker had forgotten how to feel. He was a man without fear, hope, or love.
But no, that was not it.
Her heart denied that. It told her he couldn't open up, not because he had forgotten, but because he could not face what would come.
Trusting her feelings, Arya reached out and took his hand.
Walker pulled away.
"Walker," Arya said. She leaned in again, but he pushed her back, gentle but firm. He pulled his gloved hand from her grasp.
"Do not do that again," he rasped, menace-and pain-dripping from his broken voice.
Somewhere in the trees above them, a pair of phantom lips smiled.
"Yes," said the feminine voice.
Having said that satisfied word, the face became that of thrush. The bird beat its wings once and was gone.
Arya turned away, and he could see her shoulders shaking, whether because of fear or relief he did not know. There. He had done it. Walker had just reinforced everything his training had taught him. Everything Gylther'yel had hammered into him about being alone, everything he had learned about the dangers of bringing others into his violent life, everything he had thought in these last fifteen years was coming true once again.
He would not, could not share his bleak, bloody, and short existence with anyone. No friends. No lovers. No family.
He was the spirit of vengeance, meant to walk alone.
He thought he caught a glimpse of Tarm Thardeyn out of the corner of his eye, but the spirit was not there when he looked. A wave of sadness came over Walker, but he let it pass through him, leaving him empty.
Now that he had done it, how did he feel?
He should have felt nothing. All his experience told him he should feel nothing but ice inside, project nothing but cold outside, and take comfort in his retreat from the world of the living. The dead understood and never judged. The spirits that surrounded Walker would never turn away in fear.
But that was not the way he felt. Instead, he felt… he…
He did not know, and that was what frustrated him.
"You should go," he said, as much to stop his thoughts as to break the silence. "I am…" Then nothing, not even the word he had meant to say, which was "sorry." He wanted to say more-about his fears, his quest, anything more-but the words would not come. He had forgotten how to speak them, he thought.
But all the while, he knew he had not.
Some tiny voice deep in his frozen heart, a voice he had kept hushed for so many years, was trying to tell him how. And he knew. He understood. He was just…
"Afraid," he breathed.
Arya had risen as though to leave, but she turned back. "What?" she asked, her voice a shade above a whisper.
Instantly, Walker was silent, but he had already said the word, and it had been enough.
Arya saw then, as through a tiny crack in his stone will. She saw Walker with his defenses down, terrified, empty, hollow…
And alone.
"It is nothing," he said.
Arya heard the pain in his voice-not so much in his words, for they were few, but in how he spoke them. He was struggling with himself. Walker had been forced to face death, the hellish cry of vengeance, and fear of himself, and he had done it all alone.
Arya made a decision then, a decision that would steer the course of her life until her last breath. She gathered the courage to look into his blue eyes. She suddenly became aware of a small object in her hand-a silver ring. His one-eyed wolf ring. Arya gently took his left hand and began drawing off his glove.
"What are you…?" asked Walker.
As she bared his flesh, though, his thoughts leaped to his abhorred power to sense spiritual resonance, insights that would steal images from her thoughts and cloud his vision. He did not want that emotional turmoil-he did not want to lose himself when Arya was there, her beautiful face before his.
But she was touching his skin, and there was nothing. No resonance, no visions, no knowledge-only the warmth of her skin.
She pulled the glove entirely off, and with it went Walker's last line of defense, the barrier between him and the sword. Like the walls he had built around his heart, his gloves hid him behind a layer of black. And now she had stripped that defense away. She laced her fingers through his. So soft, so warm…
"Arya-"
She held up his left hand-the wrong hand, but he hardly noticed-and slipped the ring on to his fourth finger. She reached delicate fingers up to brush his cheek.
"Your song," she said, "was beautiful."
Some part of Walker-the fearful part-wanted to argue, scream, or turn away, but he could not. He merely sat, dumbfounded, as she caressed his cheek, then leaned her head against his bare chest.