“El, my lord,” he heard her breathe.
And the breath passed softly from her lips and the light from her eyes. Mim was a weight, suddenly heavy, and he gave a strangled sob and held her against him, folded tightly into his arms.
Quick footsteps pounded up the stairs, and he knew it was Kta. The nemet stopped in the doorway, and Kurt turned his tear-stained face toward him.
“Ai, light of heaven,” Kta whispered.
Kurt let Mim very gently to the floor, closed her eyes and carefully drew forth the blade. He knew it then for the one he had once stolen and Mim had taken back. He held the thing in his hand like a living enemy, his whole arm trembling.
“Kurt!” Kta exclaimed, rushing to him. “Kurt, no! Give it to me. Give it to me.”
Kurt staggered to his feet with the blade still in his hand, and Kta’s hazy form wavered before him, hand outstretched in pleading. His eyes cleared. He looked down at Mim.
“Kurt, please, I beg you.”
Kurt clenched his fingers once more on the hilt. “I have business,” he said, “at the Afen.”
“Then you must kill me to pass,” said Kta, “because you will kill Elas if you attack the Methi, and I will not let you
go.”
Kta’s family. Kurt saw the love and the fear in the nemet’s eyes and could not blame him. Kta would try to stop him; he believed it. He looked down at the blade, deprived of revenge, lacking the courage or the will or whatever impulse Mim had had to drive it to her heart.
“Kurt.” Kta took his hand and pried the blade from his fingers. Nym was in the shadows behind him-Nym and Aimu and Hef, Hef weeping, unobtrusive even in his grief. Things were suspended in unreality.
“Come,” Kta was saying gently, “come away.”
“Don’t touch her.”
“We will take her down to the rhmei,” said Kta. “Come, my friend, come.”
Kurt shook his head, recovering himself a little. “I will carry her,” he said. “She is my wife, Kta.”
Kta let him go then, and Kurt knelt down and gathered up Mim’s yielding form into his arms. She did not feel right any longer. It was not like Mim, loose, like a broken doll.
Silently the family gathered in the rhmei: Ptas and Nym, Aimu and Kta and Hef, and Kurt laid down his burden at Ptas’ feet. Ptas wept for her, and folded Mim’s hands upon her breast. There was nothing heard in the rhmei but the sound of weeping, of the women and of Hef. Kurt could not shed more tears. When he looked into the face of Nym he met a grim and terrible anger.
“Who brought her to this?” asked Nym, so that Kurt trembled under the weight of his own guilt.
“I could not protect her,” Kurt said. “I could not help
her.” He looked down at her, drew a shaken breath. “The Methi drove her to this.”
Nym looked at him sorrowfully, then turned and walked to the light of the hearthflre. For a moment the lord of Elas stood with head bowed and then looked up, lifted his arms before the holy fire, a dark and powerful shadow before its golden light.
“Our Ancestors,” he prayed, “receive this soul, not born of our kindred; spirits of our Ancestors, receive her, Mim h’Elas. Take her gently among you, one with us, as birth-sharing, loving, beloved. Peace was upon her heart, this child of Elas, daughter of Minas, of Indras, of the far-shining city.”
“Spirits of Elas,” prayed Kta, holding his hands also toward the fire, “our Ancestors, wake and behold us. Guardians of Elas, see us, this wrong done against us. Swift to vengeance, our Ancestors, wake and behold us.”
Kurt looked on, lost, unable even to mourn for her as they mourned, alien even at the moment of her dying. And he watched as Ptas took from Kta’s hands the dragon blade. She bent over Mim with that, and this was beyond bearing. Kurt cried out, but Ptas severed only a lock of Mim’s dark hair and cast it into the blaze of the holy fire.