Foxfire

BLOOD. EVERYWHERE. Soaking her skirt. Staining the wolfskins. Snaking into the crevices in the rock. Pooling in the deep gashes in her wrists. The metallic stink of it filling the tiny cave. The brilliant streams of it glistening in the firelight.

He had driven her from her home. Hunted her like an animal. Killed her only daughter. And now, trapped on this barren hill, she had chosen to kill herself rather than surrender to the Zherosi.

Rigat knelt beside his mother. So white, her face. And her hand, so cold beneath the warm coating of blood.

He dug his fingertips into her neck. Flattened his palm between her breasts. Pressed his face against hers, searching in vain for a pulse, a heartbeat, a faint exhalation of breath.

The power surged on an upwelling of terror and defiance. Her body convulsed, shocked by the onslaught, but her heart refused to answer his summons.

He reached into her spirit. For a terrifying moment, he felt nothing. Then he found a wisp of energy, as fragile as a single strand of a spiderweb.

Clinging to their tenuous connection, he gave her more power, but the thread of her spirit drifted farther away, seeking the longed-for release from pain and the brilliant sunlight of the Forever Isles. Seeking Darak, her first love.

Hers was the face that was always before him, the voice that he always heard—sharp or sweet, chastising or praising—when he considered his actions. Long before he had recognized his power, he knew her face, her voice, her touch. And before that, a tiny creature in her womb, they had been one body, one blood, one being that was also two. Like the magical tree of the First Forest.

His power flooded her spirit, a summons, a plea, a desperate cry. The gossamer strand of her spirit shivered as new threads sprouted, twisting together into a pulsing braid of life, an umbilical cord that linked them as surely as that first one in her womb.

His power roared into her heart. Again, her body convulsed, but this time, he felt a feeble flutter beneath his hands. Like the wings of a tiny bird. Like Darak’s heart.

He seized the hands that had cradled him as a babe and reached out to catch him when he took his first tottering steps. The hands that had braided his hair and sewn his clothes and bandaged his scrapes. That had tickled him and made him laugh and, once or twice, smacked his bottom before pulling him close for the hug that always followed a scolding.

If he could force open the gates of Chaos to find his father, he could defeat the Dark Hunter Ardal to save his mother.

His power spiraled into the ruined flesh of her wrists. He thrust aside terror to draw on patience, on skill, on determination. On love.

He was the spider repairing her web, the salmon that battled upstream to spawn. The fox that outsmarted his prey and the wolf that outran his. He was the relentless heat of Heart of Sky and the eternal strength of Halam, the earth goddess. He was the gentle rain of The Changing One of the Clouds and the thundering force of Lacha’s waterfalls. He was Fellgair the Trickster who had defied the Lord of Chaos, and Griane the Healer who had brought the Spirit-Hunter back from death.

He began to stitch together the lacerated veins and arteries, to weave the severed strands of sinew, to patch the tough bands of ligaments. His hands grew hot. Beads of sweat ran down his cheeks like tears.

Light flared behind his closed eyelids, the same dazzling explosions of red and orange and fiery white he remembered from healing Jholianna and Darak. But there were so many more this time, as if thousands of tiny suns were exploding along with all the stars in the night sky.

Something soft against his cheek, something tickling his mouth. The swell of his mother’s breast, a strand of his mother’s hair. He couldn’t remember slumping against her. He hadn’t the strength to pull himself upright. He could only lie there, breathing in her scent as he used to when he crept under her wolfskins at night.

He could no longer feel her hands, only the cool stickiness of the blood under his fingertips, under his knees. The blood that had drained from her body.

A sob rose up in his throat. He could repair the wounds. He could jolt her heart into life again. But without blood, she would still die.

Until he could find a Host for her. A new body, young and strong and whole. She would never have to endure the pain of aging. She would never have to fear injury or illness or death. And they would remain together forever, their love uniting them, their lives spanning centuries.

He flung aside every barrier and opened wide the gateway to his spirit. Waited for her to abandon her ruined body and follow the energy that linked her spirit to his. Braced himself for the initial tumult of their joining, ready this time as he had not been when Jholianna’s spirit crashed into his.

But her spirit held back, unable to surrender its hold on her body. Gently, he urged her closer, only to feel her recoil.

And then he realized the truth. She wasn’t afraid. Nor was she unable to break free of her body. She refused to.

How could she reject that hope—her only hope? How could she choose death instead of life? How could she choose death instead of him?

He enveloped her spirit with his power, determined to pull her spirit into his, only to sense the cord between them—the cord he had created with love—begin to fray.

The sob tore free of his throat in a howl of despair. He would not lose her. If she could not endure life in a stranger’s body, he could not face centuries of existence without her.

He summoned it from soaked doeskin and wet fur. Called it from crevices in the rock. Stirred it from congealing puddles around the fire pit.

He couldn’t retrieve all of it. He didn’t need to. Just enough to feed her body, to win her time to create more herself.

Two streams of blood flowing over the cold fingers and into the gaping wounds at her wrists. Two streams of life spiraling through her veins, up her arms, into her chest, reaching for her heart and embracing it. Two hearts, beating like drums, his thudding with renewed hope, hers sending the sacrificial blood pulsing through her body, filling it with life.

Her life was still draining away, her spirit tied to her body only by his determined grasp, her heart beating only through his will. His power was as sluggish as the streams he sought to dam, as faint as his mam’s heartbeat.

He poured himself into her. The will that had brought an empire to its knees. The power that had dazzled the greatest ruler in the world. The love that had filled him, nurtured him, sustained him through every moment of his existence.

The dying stars shimmered like fireflies in the darkness. Who could have imagined that death could be so beautiful?

The light faded from the brilliant reds and oranges of a sunset in Zheros to the softer roses and pinks of the north. He had forgotten how pretty sunsets were here. How the lingering twilight turned the sky the muted blue-gray of a dove’s wing before finally surrendering to the darkness.

A star exploded and died. Another blinked out. But the two drums beat a tattoo as slow and stately as those that had accompanied him into the throne room on the day he had been proclaimed king. His mam’s heart and his. Beating together as if they were one being.

A single star still hovered in the sky. White as his mam’s hair. Pulsing bravely in the darkness. The last flickering ember of his power.

He had to preserve it. Just that one tiny star. Until he could find someone to stitch her wounds and stop the relentless flow of blood. Until he could grow strong enough to offer another infusion of power.

He could feel its light pulsing inside him, the indescribable sensation that had been as much a part of him as his mam’s love. And then the star winked again, and there was only darkness.

The twin drumbeats stopped. The brush of his mam’s spirit disappeared. There was only the soft sound of her breathing, the slow rise and fall of her chest. Ordinary sensations like the spiky fur of the wolfskins against his bare legs and the hard solidity of the rock underneath, the warmth of the fire and the dull crack as a branch shifted and fell.

Rigat opened his eyes. Embers blazed up from the fire pit only to flicker and die like the stars of his power. The flames danced, but he could only hear the crackle of dead branches. The fire’s song—soaring and frenzied in its wildest moods, cheerful and warm when it was banked to embers—that was lost to him now. As was his innate understanding of the birdsong he heard outside the cave, reduced to a discordant chorus of cheeps and trills and squawks.

With an effort, he raised his head and stared into his mam’s still face. He could endure the loss of the stream’s song and the fire’s. The ability to open a portal between worlds with a mere flick of his finger. To understand the language of animals. Even the unquestioned power he had enjoyed in Zheros. But how long before the flush of color on her face faded to the corpselike pallor he had seen when he’d first entered the grotto? How long before his healing unraveled like a poorly woven mantle?

It was all for nothing, like his futile attempt to forge a lasting peace. He had squandered his gift and doomed her to the same lingering death Darak had suffered.

Outside, he heard the dull clatter of pebbles. They must have discovered his presence. And now, they were coming for him. They would kill him. Or drive him away. Certainly, they would never let him to stay with his mam.

Somehow he managed to push himself up. He reached for the bloodstained dagger, then let his hand fall. Better to let them kill him. At least that way, he and his mam could be together.

A figure darkened the entrance of the grotto. Once, he would have known the identity of the man simply by sensing his energy. Now, he had to wait for him to duck inside.

But he had expected Keirith to come alone. Instead, Hircha pushed past, clutching Mam’s healing bag to her chest. Then Rigat noticed the hunched figure hovering behind Keirith and realized that his first instinct had been correct: it was another of Fellgair’s tricks and they had all been part of it—even his mam.

A tear slid into the corner of his mouth. It merely tasted salty. But he could still recall the tears he had tasted the day he had discovered he was the Trickster’s son. And he knew that whatever his mam had done, she had acted out of love.

A great weight settled upon him. Once, his power would have enabled him to shrug it off. But if that was lost, he still had enough willpower to stagger to his feet.