Sara Douglass – The Axis Trilogy 3 – StarMan

“Why do you expect that, Axis? Have you had word of him?”

“Timozel led Gorgrael’s Skraeling army, Faraday, and escaped east after the trees destroyed the Skraelings in Gorken Pass. I have no doubts that I will find him lurking in the snow here somewhere.”

Faraday stopped dead and stared at him. “Timozel led Gorgrael’s army?”

“You didn’t know? Oh, Faraday.” He reached out a hand, but she stepped back.

“‘Timozel led Gorgrael’s army?”

Axis cursed himself. He had forgotten how isolated Faraday had been while she was planting. “Faraday, Timozel has changed. He has…he has become the Traitor of the Prophecy.”

“Oh, no!”

Faraday had been very close to Timozel in the months leading up to her marriage, and although the closeness had begun to pall once she had married Borneheld, she still liked Timozel. She knew that he had harboured dark thoughts, but this? No. “No!”

The others had stopped now and were looking back at them, but Axis waved to them to keep their distance.

“Faraday, please, listen to me. Timozel is in league with Gorgrael. If you see him out there in the snow, do not talk to him. For Stars’ sake, Faraday, do not trust him!”

She toolc a huge breath. “Timozel!”

“Faraday?”

“Yes. Yes, I hear what you say, Axis. I will be careful,” she said.

Then she turned and walked towards the others.

Axis stood and let the snow swirl about him for a minute, watching her walk stiff-backed, her knuckles colourless where they clutched at her cloak.

That night Axis found the words to say.

He waited until Faraday had returned from her mysterious walk, waited until she had wrapped herself in her cloak and was preparing to sleep, and then spoke. “Faraday.”

She opened one eye and blinked at him. “Faraday. You once said that it was too late for me to say anything to you, too late for me to say anything to heal the hurt I have caused you.”

She sat up slowly, her hands clutching the cloak tightly about her, her face pale beneath the green hood. “Faraday, I hope that is not so.” “Axis -”

“No, let me just talk for a while, Faraday. Will you listen? Will you promise that you will not walk off into the night and leave me here alone?” She nodded.

He fixed her eyes with his own. “You told me that what we once had between us was gone, no more.” He laughed, bitterly. “That I was free. Well, our vows were broken, yes, but my conscience was fettered in chains so heavy their singing kept me awake many a Jong night.”

“You do not regret marrying Azhure?”

“No…no I do not. If I have a regret it is that she did not walk into my life first, because then I would not have hurt you so much . . . no! No, that was the wrong thing to say. Faraday, I have never regretted falling in love with you. I only regret the way I treated you. You are too remarkable to have been treated the way you were.”

He paused, and stared down at his hands. When he looked back up again his eyes were full of pain and self-loathing. “I used to curse Borneheld for being a bad husband – but who treated you worse, Faraday? Borneheld…or me?”

“Axis!” Faraday stumbled about the fire and put her arms about him. He had begun to cry, and she rocked and soothed him for several minutes.

“I’m so sorry, Faraday. Oh gods, that’s such an inadequate phrase to trot out now, but I am so sorry for all I have done to you.”

“You treated me wretchedly, Axis, but I cannot lay all the blame at your feet. Yes, you could have told me about Azhure sooner, but whenever you did it, however you did it, I would have been hurt. Would it have been best to have told me the instant that Borneheld lay dead at our feet?” She smiled. “Imagine, Axis, you turning to me and saying, ‘Well, it’s been nice, Faraday, good to see you after all this time, but there’s someone else.'”

Axis smiled wanly.

“And it was I who came to your apartment that night and seduced you. Poor man. But, oh Axis, I had dreamed about you for so long, hungered for you for so long, that I couldn’t wait.”

She dropped her hands and shifted in close to his body. She did not think Azhure would mind. Not this once. “There would have been no kind moment to tell me, Axis. No kind way. As it was I had eight days with you. Eight days, eight glorious nights.”

She paused, and her mood became sombre. “Yes, some fault certainly can be laid at your feet, Axis, but most, I think,

can be laid at the feet of the Prophecy and the damned Prophet who penned it. None of us has been able to escape its clutches. It took me, poor simple Faraday, and tore my life into shreds and then cast them to the wind. You, too. And Azhure. And half a dozen others.”

“Would you that you were still Faraday, daughter of Earl Isend?”

“Would you that you were still Axis, BattleAxe of the Seneschal?”

They both hesitated, then laughed softly. “No,” Axis said, “but I suspect that there are moments when you yearn for the peace of your youth. I have gained more than I have lost. You?”

She waited a long while before she answered. “We both have learned and gained a great deal, Axis. You have given me more joy than I think you realise.”

He pushed her face back. “What do you mean?”

“Axis.” Her eyes stared fiercely into his. “Axis, if anything happens to me, if…if anything happens, promise me that you will go to the Sacred Grove before you go home to Azhure.”

“Faraday!” He was appalled by the naked pain in her eyes. “Nothing will happen to -”

“Don’t start to lie to me again!” she snapped. “Both of us walk into danger more extreme than either have faced before. Don’t start lying to me again now!”

“I will protect you -”

“Promise!”

“I promise, Faraday. If anything happens to you then I will go to the Sacred Grove before I return to Azhure.”

She sighed and relaxed against his body. “Thank you, Axis.”

He started as a thought occurred to him. “Is that where you go in the mornings and evenings?”

“Yes, Axis. But please do not ask me why.”

He nodded, and held her close, rocking her now. “What will you do, Faraday, once the Prophecy has let you go? What will you do once your days are again your own?”

Her voice was cold when she answered. “I do not think the Prophecy will ever let me go, Axis. I think I will stay fast in its talons for eternity.”

“No! Faraday!” He stroked her face, wiping the tears from her eyes.

She shuddered, then sat up. For a long moment she looked at him, then she leaned forward and kissed him. She let it deepen until she could stand the pain no more, then she pulled away.

“No, Axis,” she said. “We can be friends, you and I. Nothing more. You would lie yet again if you tried to be anything more to me. Axis, I wish you well.”

She was saying goodbye, and he knew it. “And I you,” he said softly. “I have never wished you anything but.”

She nodded, knowing he was telling the truth, then stepped around the fire to her sleeping place.

Neither slept very much that night.

He watched them through the day and into the night. He watched as Axis held Faraday under the stars, watched as they kissed, and Gorgrael relaxed for the first time in many months.

“Good,” he whispered. “He does love her. Yes, yes, yes, the Prophecy brings the Lover to me!”

Far away in his even darker hole of existence, the Dark Man smiled to himself. “Good girl,” he murmured. “Good, good girl.”

Four days out from the forest the Avar began to die.

It was not so much the cold that killed them, for Axis could wield enchantments that kept them in a small pocket of warmth and with fires at night. It was simple tree-hunger. The Avar could not exist without the love and shelter of the trees.

The first two died on the night of the fourth day, wrapped in their cloaks before the fire.

“They had walked too far from the forest. Their hearts have given out,” Erode explained as Axis, pale and shaken, stepped back from the bodies in the chill light of morning.

“Then for the Stars’ sakes, man!” Axis said roughly, “take yourself and your companions back to the Avarinheim.”

Erode shook his head sadly. “No, StarMan, for then how would you find your way? We can feel Gorgrael.” He clutched his hand to his breast. “His blood calls to us.”