And with it, a voice: “Never fear me,” she heard through the door. “You have no greater friend.”
A voice like a chiming of bells, sound at the edge of song. She opened the door to see Brendel of the lios alfar. From a long way off she was moved to see his bright, slender grace.
“Come in,” she said. “But it is past time for tears.”
She closed the door behind him, marveling at how the flames of the fire, the candle by her bed, seemed to flicker and dance the more vividly with his presence in the room. The Children of Light, the lios were; their very name meant light, and it spoke to them and was answered in their being.
And the Darkest One hated them with a hate so absolute it made all else seem small beside. It was a measure of evil, she thought, who of all mortals needed no such measure, that it could so profoundly hate the creature that stood before her, eyes dry, now, and shading to amber even as she watched.
“There are graces in this King,” Brendel said. “Though one would not have thought so. He sent word to my chambers that you were here.”
She had been told, by Kevin, of what Brendel had done: how he had followed Galadan and his wolves, and sworn an oath in the Great Hall. She said, “You have no cause to reproach yourself for me. You did, I have heard, more than anyone could have done.”
“It was not enough. What can I say to you?”
She shook her head. “You gave me joy as well. My last memory of true delight is of falling asleep hearing the lios sing.”
“Can we not give you that once more, now that you are with us again?”
“I do not know if I can receive it, Brendel. I am not . . . whole.” It was easier, somehow, for her than for him. There was a long silence in which she suffered his eyes to hold hers. He did not probe within, although she knew he could, just as Loren had not used a Searching on her. None of them would intrude, and so she could hide Darien, and would.
”Will you unsay that?” he asked, the music in him deep and offering pain.
“Shall I lie to you?”
He turned and went to the window. Even the clothing he wore seemed woven of many colors that shifted as he moved. The starlight from outside lit his silvery hair and glinted within it. How could she so deny one who could have stars caught in his hair?
And how could she not? I will take all, Rakoth had said, and had come too near to doing so.
Brendel turned. His eyes were golden; it seemed his truest color. He said, “I have waited here a long time, by Ra-Tenniel’s desire and my own. His, that I might give our counsel to this young King and learn what the men of Brennin purpose; mine, to see you here and alive, that I might offer you and ask one thing.”
“Which is?” She was very tall, fairer even than she had been, marked by sorrow and shadow and given something thereby.
“That you come with me to Daniloth to be made whole again. If it can be done, it will be there.”
She looked at him as if from a great height or a great depth—it was distance either way. She said, “No,” and saw pain flare like fire in his eyes. She said, “I am better as I am. Paul brought me this far, he and another thing. Leave it rest. I am here, and not unhappy, and I am afraid to try for more light lest it mean more dark.”
There was no answer he could make; she had meant that to be so. He touched her cheek before he left, and she endured the touch, grieving that such a thing should not bring joy, but it did not, and what could she do or say?
The lios alfar spoke from the doorway, the music almost gone from his voice. “There is vengeance then,” said Brendel of the Kestrel Mark. “There is only that and always that.” He closed the door softly behind him.