It was twilight. Outside the snow was nearly gone. No flooding, no dangerous rising of rivers or lakes. If the Goddess could do this, she could do it harmlessly. And she could do this thing because of the sacrifice. Liadon, the beloved son, who was… who was Kevin, of course.
There was a great difficulty in his throat, and his eyes were stinging. He wouldn’t look back at the others. To himself and to the twilight he said:
Kevin’s own words from a year before. “Rachel’s Song,” he had called it. But now—now everything had been changed, the metaphor made achingly real. So completely so, he couldn’t even grasp how such a thing could come to pass.
There was a great deal happening, much too fast, and Paul wasn’t sure if he could move past it. He wasn’t sure at all. His heart couldn’t move so fast. There will come a tomorrow when you weep for me, Kevin had sung a year ago. He’d been singing of Rachel, for whom Paul had not yet cried. Singing of Rachel, not himself.
Even so.
It was very quiet behind him, and he wondered if they had gone. But then he heard Jaelle’s voice. Cold, cold Priestess. But she wasn’t now, it seemed. She said, “He could not have done this, not have been found worthy, had he not been traveling toward the Goddess all his life. I don’t know if this is of aid to you, but I offer it as true.”
He wiped his eyes and turned back. In time to see Jennifer, who had been composed to hear of Darien and tautly silent as Dave spoke, now rise at Jaelle’s words, a white grief in her face, her mouth open, eyes blazing with naked pain, and Paul realized that if she was opening now to this, she was open to everything. He bitterly regretted his moment of anger. He took a step toward her, but even as he did, she made a choking sound and fled.
Dave stood to follow, awkward sorrow investing his square features. Someone in the hallway moved to block the way.
“Let her go,” said Leila. “This was necessary.”
“Oh, shut up!” Paul raged. An urge to strike this ever-present, ever-placid child rose fiercely within him.
“Leila,” said Jaelle wearily, “close the door and go away.”
The girl did so.
Paul sank into a chair, uncaring, for once, that Jaelle should see him as less than strong. What did such things matter now? They shall not grow old, as we that are left…
“Where’s Loren?” he asked abruptly.
“In town,” Dave said. “So’s Teyrnon. There’s a meeting in the palace tomorrow. It seems… it seems Kim and the others did find out what was causing the winter.”
”What was it?” Paul asked tiredly.
“Metran,” Jaelle said. “From Cader Sedat. Loren wants to go after him, to the island where Amairgen died.”
He sighed. So much happening. His heart wasn’t going to be able to keep up. At the going down of the sun and in the morning…
“Is Kim in the palace? Is she okay?” It suddenly seemed strange to him that she hadn’t come here to Jennifer.
He read it in their faces before either of them spoke.
“No!” he exclaimed. “Not her too!”
“No, no, no,” Dave rushed to say. “No, she’s all right. She’s just… not here.” He turned helplessly to Jaelle.
Quietly, the High Priestess explained what Kimberly had said about the Giants, and then told him what the Seer had decided to do. He had to admire the control in Jaelle’s voice, the cool lucidity. When she was done he said nothing. He couldn’t think of anything to say. His mind didn’t seem to be working very well.
Dave cleared his throat. “We should go,” the big man said. Paul registered, for the first time, the bandage on his head. He should inquire, he knew, but he was so tired.
“Go ahead,” Paul murmured. He wasn’t quite sure if he could stand up, even if he wanted to. “I’ll catch up.”
Dave turned to leave but paused in the doorway. “I wish…”he began. He swallowed. “I wish a lot of things.” He went out. Jaelle did not.
He didn’t want to be alone with her. It was no time to have to cope with that. He would have to go, after all.
She said, “You asked me once if there could be a sharing of burdens between us and I said no.” He looked up. “I am wiser now,” she said, unsmiling, “and the burdens are heavier. I learned something a year ago from you, and from Kevin again two nights ago. Is it too late to say I was wrong?”
He wasn’t ready for this, he hadn’t been ready for any of what seemed to be happening. He was composed of grief and bitterness in equal measure. As we that are left…
“I’m so pleased we’ve been of use to you,” he said. “You must try me on a better day.” He saw her head snap back.
He pushed himself up and left the room so she would not see him weep.
In the domed place, as he passed, the priestesses were wailing a lament. He hardly heard. The voice in his mind was Kevin Laine’s from a year ago in a lament of his own:
“The breaking of waves on a long shore,
In the grey morning the slow fall of rain,
Oh, love, remember, remember me.”
He walked out into the fading light. His eyes were misted, and he could not see that all along the Temple slope the green grass had returned and there were flowers.
Her dreams were myriad, and Kevin rode through all of them. Fair and witty, effortlessly clever, but not laughing. Not now. Kim saw his face as it must have been when he followed the dog to Dun Maura.
It seemed to her a heartbreaking thing that she could not remember the last words he had said to her. On the swift ride to Gwen Ystrat he had ridden up to tell her what Paul had done and of his own decision to let Brendel know about Darien. She had listened and approved; briefly smiled at his wry prediction of Paul’s likely response.
She had been preoccupied, though, already moving in her mind toward the dark journey that lay ahead in Morvran. He must have sensed this, she realized later, for after a moment he’d touched her lightly on the arm, said something in a mild tone, and dropped back to rejoin Diarmuid’s men.
It wouldn’t have been anything consequential—a pleasantry, a gentle bit of teasing—but now he was gone and she hadn’t heard the last thing he’d ever said to her.
She half woke from the hard dreams. She was in the King’s House in Morvran. She couldn’t possibly have stayed another night in the sanctuary. With Jaelle gone, with the armies returned to Paras Derval, the Temple was Audiart’s again, and the triumph in the eyes of that woman was more than Kim could bear.
Of course they had won something. The snow was melting everywhere—in the morning it would be gone and she, too, would set forth, though not to Paras Derval. There had been a victory, a showing forth of Dana’s power to balk the designs of the Dark. The power had been paid for, though, bought with blood, and more. There were red flowers growing everywhere. They were Kevin’s, and he was gone.
Her window was open and the night breeze was fresh and mild with the promise of spring. A spring such as never before, burgeoning almost overnight. Not a gift, though. Bought and paid for, every flower, every blade of grass.
From the room next door she heard Gereint’s breathing. It was slow and even, not ragged as before. He would be all right in the morning, which meant that Ivor, too, could depart. The Aven could ill afford to linger, for with the winter ending the Plain lay open again to the north.