Demial was tired-so tired. It was too much, too difficult to make her brain work. If she could just lie down for a while, just a little while. “I can’t.”
“You have to do it, if not for me, then for Quinn. I know there’s no room in your heart for me, but surely you’ll save Quinn.”
That was the end of it. Taya fell back onto the pillow, and her eyes drifted shut. She was limp and waxy. Her chest barely moved with her breathing. She looked like a corpse already-except for the tears. Big, silvery, raindrop tears oozed from beneath her lids and ran down into her hair.
Demial didn’t move for a very long time. Her legs and arms felt as dead as Taya looked.
How odd, she thought. How odd to realize how much she’d changed, to finally understand how much the mine and the village and Quinn and all of it meant to her. How odd to learn how much she hated herself for what she had been. .
She laughed softly to herself. If she hadn’t felt the Vision fade, hadn’t felt her goddess slipping away, the magic slipping away, she’d believe the gods were still present. She’d believe they were trickster gods, working a mean-spirited joke.
She stood as Taya stirred. The sick woman’s eyes opened. They were tired now, and bloodshot, but still they had the power to stop Demial. “I’ll be back,” she told Taya. “It’ll be all right. I’ll be back.”
Taya nodded, believing her. Trusting her.
The air was cool and refreshing after the closeness of the hut. There was a light breeze blowing, wafting the scent of someone’s fire and meadow flowers and coming rain. The night was quiet except for the soft rustle of leaves in the breeze. The only indication that there was even anyone in the village was the flicker and glow of candlelight and firelight through the windows. It shone even from her own windows.
She stood in her doorway and looked about in surprise at the spotless room. A merry fire was blazing in the fireplace. The table was cleaned of her leftover meal. Her blankets were spread smooth over the mattress. The floor was swept.
With a sudden twinge of panic, her gaze flew to the fireplace, to the staff that was leaning there, exactly as she had left it. She felt ashamed for her momentary, uncharitable fear. Someone had come and looked after her home, looked after her, the way she was looking after Taya. That was all.
She wondered if it had been Quinn, but she knew it wasn’t. She wished it could have been, but it was probably one of the people who worked with her at the mine.
Quickly, before she could change her mind, she snatched up the staff and hurried back to Taya’s hut. As she approached the door, she saw that it was open. She rifled through her mind for an excuse to give to Quinn, for some reason that would explain why she’d left Taya unattended to go and get her walking staff, but there was no one inside except for the slight figure on the bed, and she realized she must have left the door open when she left.
The cool air had whisked into the room, setting the fire and the candles to dancing. It had also set Taya to shivering.
Demial closed the door quickly. “I’m sorry. I left the door open.”
Taya smiled. “Yes. It was nice. The smell. . so much nicer than the air in here. I love the smell just before the rain.”
Demial swallowed. For how long had she hated this woman? How many times had she looked at Taya’s pale, blonde beauty and longed to kill her? Now. .
“You have to, Demial,” Taya husked, staring up at her. The woman was reading her mind. Her hands moved under the light sheet that covered her. “For Quinn. You have to let me give him this.”
Demial nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She wasn’t sure what she’d say, whether she would cry or scream or just mumble nonsense of the sort she’d heard out of Taya’s own mouth.
“How will you. .?” Taya let her gaze wander to the ceiling, to the wall, back to Demial. “How will you do it?”
Demial brought the staff into Taya’s range of vision, holding it to her breast, wrapping both hands around it.
Taya looked at it, looked back at her, eyes wide. “Your leader’s staff? The one I saw at the battle.”
Demial nodded again. “It has. . it still has some magical powers. I don’t know how. I don’t. .” She stopped, realizing that the staff did not have much power left, that this might be its last spell. She wondered if she could go through with it.
“You’ll tell Quinn that I was awake for a while? Tell him. . I love him. I’d give him to you, but. . he was always yours anyway, wasn’t he? He always loved you best anyway.”
Demial’s mouth dropped open. “You’re crazy!” she said without thinking, then regretted the words immediately. She felt flushed with shame.
Taya only smiled. “Maybe,” she said softly. She looked at Demial and said, “I’m ready.”
Demial wanted to scream at her, “I’m not!” but she didn’t. She went to the door and threw it wide open. Crossing to the tiny window, she opened it, too. Fresh air, even heavier with the coming of rain, flooded the small room.
Taya’s smile widened, and she whispered, “Thank you.”
Demial couldn’t watch her, couldn’t watch what she was going to do. She knelt near the fireplace, turned so that she could see the fire on one side and the bed on the other. She turned so that she didn’t have to watch Taya die.
She waited long moments for her hands to stop shaking, for her heart to calm. Then she closed her eyes, and she wished for death for Taya. She wished for peace and an end to pain. The spell was slow in coming, so gradual she feared that she had miscalculated, that the staff hadn’t enough power left in it. It began to sing to her, to hum with power. The spell grew in the staff for a long time, the power building until the staff was vibrating in her hands, shivering as if it would break free. She clutched it tighter, thinking to control it, but there was no controlling the magic now.
The staff leaped in her hands, jerking her shoulders painfully. It cracked apart, breaking under her grip, sounding extraordinarily loud, like a tree falling or like the crash of lightning. She cried out and fell away from the exploding wood. Fragments flew up toward her face. A sharp pain stabbed as a splinter gashed her temple, and the magic spilled out over the room, washing across the broken pieces that lay across her lap and on the floor. The sensation wasn’t malignant or horrid, as she expected it to be. Instead it was cold, so cold. The magic smelled of shadows and molting leaves. Blood trickled down her face. She shivered and whimpered softly and slapped at her own body, frantically brushing the pieces of broken wood off her.
The spell burst away, leaving her alone and bereft, and it touched Taya. It was beautiful. It was blue, like her eyes, and swirling, like a summer sky filled with clouds. It formed into a strange crescent that traveled up the length of Taya’s body and down again and up again. Taya smiled and held her hands up, fingers spread, as if she was feeling the touch of a light spring breeze. With each pass, the magic was less substantial, until it was nothing but a shimmering movement, a something in the air that was there but not visible.
The next instant it wasn’t there at all, and neither was Taya. Only her body remained. Demial could tell, without even rising up to look at her. Even in her frailest moments, Taya had never been so still.
Demial climbed to her feet, looking down at the shattered remains of the staff about her feet. The staff was intended to be her salvation, fixing the mine and binding Quinn to her.
She gathered the pieces, light as dried corn husks. There was no life in the wood now, no beauty. It was as dead as the body on the bed, as lifeless as her dreams. She threw the pieces into the fireplace and watched the glowing embers there catch at dried wood. She watched the tiny blue flame that leaped up and consumed the remains of the staff. None but a wizard would ever understand the emptiness that came over her when she saw the staff become ash.