gleam of madness. The cowering people, seeing no escape - and Evil made flesh in the form of the four wyrsa, unholy meldings of snake and ferret, with their dagger-teeth and their burning sulfur eyes and their insatiable hunger that he could feel beating against his mind even now. And then the thunder of hooves behind him and the equine shriek of defiance and loss -
'Gala came through the Gate when the wyrsa had made only one kill. She challenged the whole pack - she repudiated 'Lendel.'
Sweet blue eyes gone dead and empty, mind - voice reverberating coldly down the link that bound him and 'Lendel. I do not know you. You are not my Chosen. Then the internal snap of something breaking, and the utter desolation where love had been -
'She attacked the pack. They pulled her down and killed her.'
Tylendel's eyes with all of hell in them. Tylendel's heart a churning storm of loss and agony. Tylendel's soul a shattered thing past all repairing. Tylendel's mind holding no sane thoughts at all -
'Savil and two other Heralds came through the Gate and destroyed the wyrsa - too late, oh, gods - 'Lendel's heart, his mind, his soul were broken. He got away from them when we reached Haven. They backlashed the Gate energy through me by accident, and my collapse distracted them just long enough for him to break free of them. He couldn't bear it - the pain of losing Gala, then having her die before his eyes-so he threw himself - off the Belltower -'
I wish they'd let me die with you. I wish they hadn't saved me when I tried to kill myself. Oh, 'Lendel, Tylendel, it wasn't supposed to end that way -
He couldn't look at Tashir. Couldn't. Tears fell silently and splashed onto his hands. He gripped the railing until his knuckles ached. There was nothing inside him but the same throbbing emptiness that had been left twelve years ago.
Twelve years, 'Lendel. Twelve years, and it hurts more, not less. Twelve years, and all I really look forward to is the moment it's all over -
Tashir was very quiet; Vanyel couldn't even hear him breathing, and only the sense of presence still at his side told him that the young man was still there.
'I'm sorry,' Tashir said awkwardly. 'That's a stupid thing to say, but it's all I can think of. I wish it had never happened. I wish I could bring him back for you, Herald Vanyel. Karis always told me people could feel that way about each other, could really love each other and not just pretend to, but I never - I never knew anybody who did. I'm sorry I made you unhappy. I apologize for reacting like I did. If I'd known what you just told me, I'd have realized how stupid I was.'
'It's all right,' Vanyel answered him huskily, after a pause to get the lump out of his throat. 'You couldn't know. Lifebonds don't happen very often. When they do, well, it's like Companion-bond; when one partner dies, the other dies with him, usually. The only thing that kept me alive was that I bonded to Yfandes that night. It doesn't hit me like this very often, it's just - Sovvan-night, and I'm bloody damned tired, and you - gods, Tashir, you could have been him. It hurts every time I see you, because half the time I don't see you, I see him.”
The young man was silent again, but it was a silence that implied he was going to speak. And he did.
'I'm probably saying things I shouldn't, but you said it yourself, Vanyel. It's been twelve years. Don't you think that's an awful long time to be holding onto a memory so tightly that it strangles you?'
He stepped away a little, as Vanyel finally turned to look at the dark shape of him in shock and astonishment. 'People need you, and you can't help them when you're like this. Jervis told me that you said that's important. And you aren't the only one in the world who's suffering, either. You aren't the only one who's ever lost his love.'
He backed up a little, then broke and ran for the door, leaving Vanyel standing stiffly beside the railing, trying to collect his wits.
Have I been that selfish? he wondered. Is it selfish to grieve for someone like this ?
I don't know.
But he's right. I'm not the only one in the world who's lost someone they loved. He lost Karis; and Karis was the only person he ever knew who loved him. I have Savil; I have 'Fandes. I have - Friends.
Gods.
He blinked, as answers finally put themselves together in his mind. I said it myself; it wasn't Shavri everything turned into, it was 'Lendel. I do love Shavri, but not like that. It's just that I've been so long without caring for anyone that deeply that I couldn't
