It pained Del to look upon her beauty, though it was she he had sought. He wanted now only to flee this place and this wood and be away from all thoughts of the Emerald Witch. He knew that to be impossible; Avalon had already announced his arrival to its queen.
The never-seen loon gave one final cry.
Immediately, Del rose to his feet and started down the slide. Brielle knew of his presence, no doubt, and he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of catching him hiding from her in the grass. He conjured memories of the carnage left on the road in the wake of Brielle’s wrath and reminded himself over and over of his sole purpose in coming to Avalon, determinedly entrenching his emotions within a fortress of rage to protect himself from the hinted passions that threatened to sweep him away. His stride stiffened in tense anger as he approached.
But then he was upon her and the ice melted away.
“Hello,” he said softly.
Her reply was a smile.
Consciously, Del rebuilt the frosty facade. “I didn’t come here to bother you,” he said with rough sarcasm.
A dark cloud passed across Brielle’s countenance, for she realized already what Del was leading up to, and knew that she must disappoint him once again.
“I need your help,” Del continued, holding tight to his gruff tone. “A battle is about to begin.”
Brielle looked away. “It is known to me,” she said sadly. “And me heart truly weeps at the misery o’ the morrow’s morn.” She paused, struggling, as was Del, with a personal conflict of emotions and principles. The rules of her station were clear and unbending; she had lived by them and for them for hundreds of years. When she turned back to Del, her face was resigned and impassive, and she announced with cool finality, “ ’Tis none o’ me affair.”
“How can you say that?” Del scolded. “Hundreds of innocent people are going to die on that field. You don’t think that concerns you?”
“It wounds me, even as it wounds yerself,” Brielle replied, almost apologetically. “But I huv no power for a war o’ man.”
His frustration bordering on rage, Del wanted to scream and cry all at once. “Bullshit!” he yelled. “I saw you, Brielle. I saw what you did to those talons!”
Brielle understood more clearly now that the source of Del’s anger went far deeper than her rejection of him. “That I wish ye’d no’ seen,” she said softly, lowering her eyes to hide the welling tears from Del. “ ’Tis a side o’ me life and duty I do’no’ enjoy.” She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she had done only what she had to do.
“But Avalon is me domain and me duty, and I am the eyes that protect her,” she asserted. “I do not create the storms, I only show them the harm that is upon the land. Purely evil are the talons, living only to destroy. They grant no mercy and deserve none. Would ye huv me, then, let them bring ruin to me wood?”
Del had no rebuttal against her logic.
“But the morrow’s battle,” Brielle continued, softly again, “is a concern o’ men and elves, and I huv no duties, and being so, no powers for such a war.”
Del slumped down meekly to the clover and sighed. With her innocent confession of necessities, Brielle had taught him a lesson in humility. A lot of things fell into perspective for Del at that moment. He remembered the lecture Billy had given him earlier in the day.
Duty.
Utopia had to be earned.
When he recovered from his embarrassment, Del laughed aloud at his arrogant self-righteousness. Then he looked upon the witch and fell silent, fearing that she would think he mocked her.
Brielle sat quiet, hugging her knees and staring off across the melancholy pond.
Who am I to judge you? Del asked himself. He owed her an apology, an explanation. So many things he wanted to say to her, and the most pressing one kept repeating over and over in his mind. He crawled across the path of her absent gaze, catching and locking her eyes with his own, and took a chance he had never before in his life been able to take. “I love you.”
Brielle blushed, but did not turn her eyes away. “Me heart speaks the same to me.”
“But you have your woods and your duty, and I have my battle and mine. My Brielle,” Del groaned, and gently stroked her face, “are we never to have any time together?” As he started to turn away, Brielle clasped his shoulders and settled him back on the soft carpet.
She stood up before him, apprehensive, scared even, of this decision she had made. But her heart held little doubt of her love for Del. “The field o’ Mountaingate is but an hour’s walk, and yer battle will no’ begin ere the light o’dawn,” she heard herself saying. “We huv tonight.”
Del said nothing. He stared deeply at Brielle, stunned that something this perfect could be happening between them. Then he looked past her to the skies, where the first stars brightened as each passing moment deepened the blackness of the evening canopy.
“Beautiful, they are,” Brielle agreed with Del’s entranced look. “Behold the first stars o’summer, for this day marked the solstice. Another spring is ended. ’Tis a special night.”
“It is,” Del whispered
Nervously, Brielle undid the laces in the front of her gown. With a slight shrug of her shoulders the gossamer fell from her and she stood naked before Del. The starlight seemed to emanate from her, enhancing her supple curves, as though she was its source. As if on cue, a slight wave rippled across the pond, carried to the shore by a cool summer breeze.
Brielle trembled, but she knew her heart truly and did not hesitate. She bent to Del and kissed him, and passions she had long ago locked away stirred again within her.
And there, amidst a waving green sea of soft clover, beneath the approving sparkle of countless stars, they consummated their love.
Brielle cried that night. She cried for remembered emotions that had slept for centuries, and she cried at the knowledge that with the morrow’s sobering dawn those emotions must once again be put to sleep. Del held her tenderly, cradling her head against his chest. And though the witch could not see it, he, too, was crying.
Chapter 23
The Wizard Unveiled
SHORTLY BEFORE THE dawn, Del left Brielle sleeping in the soft clover to begin his long and disheartened trek back to Mountaingate. A gentle rain had come up during the night and it fell still, tapping rhythmically on the leafy canopy and hissing through the mist that rode in off of the pond. When Del had gained the top of the slope, before he crossed through the pine grove, he looked back to the knoll and the fair witch, and dismay found him, despite his joy in loving her. For though he would carry memories of Brielle into the battle with him this day and forever after, his heart told him that he would never look upon her again. Yet then he left her of his own accord, compelled by a responsibility he did not want but could not escape.
Soon after, Brielle awoke from a vivid nightmare. A cold sweat beaded on her forehead as she recalled with frightening clarity an image of Del dying on a charred and bloody field, the head of a cruel spear buried deep in his chest. “This cannot be!” she cried out desperately and helplessly to the heavens. As if in answer, a vision appeared unto her: a small black staff, iron-shod on both ends, twirling about in the air. The sheer wrongness of the thing assaulted Brielle’s every sense, a perversion against nature itself. It terrified her and pained her, but she composed herself in angry determination and knew she had found a link to the day’s events.
Dawn came as a dulled blur of pink behind the unbroken cover of dreary gray clouds. Fitting weather, Del noted, for such a day as this. The rain had stopped, but the air hung oppressively thick with moisture.