—when in my mind I heard, impossibly, his voice. It was the only thing in all the world that could have stopped me. His truespeech whispered softly in my thoughts, echoed in my heart. I heard the agony of his body, I knew it as he knew it, I could almost feel the heat and the suffering that surrounded him, yet he spoke as gently as the first time I had heard from him the voice of love.
''My soul to the Winds, Lanen Kaelar, I am lost as you are lost.''
No, it couldn't be. He was in the Weh sleep, I heard but an echo in my mind of what had gone before, he couldn't be—
''Lanen Kaelar, dearest one, it is I, Khordeshkhistriakhor. Do not cast me from you. I love you as my life. Lanen, Lanen, do not deny me a third time, it is worse pain than the wounds or the fire. Let me die still in your love.''
And I had no strength to deny him. I had thought never to hear his voice again this side of death. I fell to my knees and bespoke him without words, let my love stream upon him in a clear light that surrounded us both, I in the dark clearing, he in this impossible wakefulness from the Weh sleep in his cavern. Even for the saving of him, I could not let the lie be spoken a third time.
Aloud and in truespeech I bespoke him. "Akor, my heart, you are in my love beyond life's ending. Before the Winds and the Lady, Kordeshkistriakor, I say that I love you, I love you, I love you.'' I rose on shaking legs, brushed the leaves from my leggings. "I come, dear heart. I will come to you, I will wait with you. I cannot save you, but I will not leave you to die alone.''
I walked slowly into the cave, leaving Idai and Shikrar standing wordless in the clearing, in the wind and the moonlight. I believed I went to my death, or at best to watch his.
I do not know how he had roused from the darkness of his pain and the Weh sleep to speak to me, but he was no longer awake when I came nigh him. He lay curled up on his floor of gold, quiet now, a silver statue splashed with gold. He seemed to be more at peace than he had been since this Weh sleep began.
But the heat was worse. The whole of that great chamber was as warm as high noon on midsummer's day, and Akor himself was the sun. The very air shimmered.
I went as near to him as I could bear. I wanted to bid him farewell, to touch him one last time, but the heat drove me back. I had no words. In the end I could only speak his name, give it back to him and to the darkness that waited for him.
"Kordeshkistriakor," I whispered. So beautiful, the name, the form of my beloved. I even managed a tiny smile when I said it, knowing that I could never say it as the Kindred pronounced it.
I sat as close to him as I could. I would watch by him, as I would watch by any I loved at their deathbed.
I prayed the Winds and the Lady to deliver him from this terrible fate, but if they answered I never heard it.
I cannot say how long I was there, through that endless night. It felt like forever. The brand I had carried in died out quickly, and I discovered that Akor was indeed glowing, a silver beacon, like the moon come to rest in that small place. Sun's heat and moon's light, my dear one.
My birth was an omen, though none knew what it might portend.
It was near dawn, I guessed, when I gradually realised that something else was happening.
The heat was growing rapidly worse, the light brighter. Then suddenly Akor cried out, one final deep cry of pain that tore my heart and brought me to my feet. The heat doubled, driving me back from him with a blast of wind straight from the deepest circle of Hell. He writhed, his eyes still tightly closed, his soulgem blazing green fire, his tail whipping from side to side, his wings vainly trying to fan in that enclosed space.
In the glow I could see it. I felt my heart in my throat, I could not breathe.
Akor had begun to smoke.
All my resolve dragged at me, trying to make myself stay, forcing me to see what I had brought upon my dear one—but I found that the urge to life was stronger than I knew, too strong for my mind to overcome. It would have been death for me to stay one instant longer. I felt my traitor feet turn me away from him and I fled for the entryway.
I emerged just ahead of a great gout of flame. By the grace of the Lady I tripped over one of the tangled tree roots and fell flat. I felt the fireball come searing past me, over my head, and heard it strike a tree on the far side of the clearing.
I lay where I had fallen and wept, my body shaken by racking sobs. I knew I would never see Akor again. Even a Dragon could not have survived that. I could not hear him or feel his presence in my heart.
I had come to the dragonlands so full of dreams. I had finally found the one soul in all the world that was the match of mine, and the body that housed it was now ash in the place where we had joined our hearts and minds.
I longed for oblivion.
It was not granted me.
For a long time I lay as I had fallen. Cold and sharp against my face pressed the dead leaves of autumn, wet with dew and smelling of decay. The sky was lightening, dawn but a thought away, the birth of a terrible morning.
I lay unmoving, my eyes wide and staring at the earth as I tried to understand what had happened.
Akor was dead.
I could not grasp it. It seemed a tale told by a stranger of a distant land. How could it be? Not a day past I sat on that living silver neck and rode high as my spirit and strong with my love into the Council of the Kindred. How could he so quickly be gone?
And I heard a sound like tearing glass, joined by a cry of pain deeper than any sound I had ever heard, it shook me where I lay.
Idai and Hadreshikrar mourned.
Akor was dead.
I sought him despite that truth, called out with all my heart and mind, cried out aloud, met only silence. His voice in my heart was stilled, the last words he gave me lost to the echoes of memory. I would not forget his words, but I would never hear them again.
Dead.
He should have wept over my grave for a thousand years.
I curled against the pain as though around a dagger in my gut. This was no life, I was but half a person. My other half lay in smoking ruin there in the cave, gone forever, beyond all hope.
I rocked as I knelt on the wet leaf-fall, my arms wrapped tightly around me, holding on for dear life. I was holding back screams; they found their way out as whimpers, as a highpitched moan dreadful even for me to hear. Death echoed in my mind, in my body, and I could not bear its presence.
I had lived my dream and found it perilous beyond imagining. I cursed the day I left Hadronsstead. If I had let my dreams alone at least I would still have them, and he would still have life. Now were we both bereft.
I was alone in a dry place. The pain of this grief was more than I could bear. I longed to die, for my heart to break, for death to cease its wanderings and come for me.
And in the still air, above the sound of my grieving, a wondrous voice rose to greet the dawn. The song was deep and rich, and through the cracks of grief shone the love of the singer. It grew like a tree, putting down roots in the past and rising straight into the morning, true and full of life and laughter, and it named the life it sang.
Kordeshkistriakor.
A high voice like crystal bells joined it, twining round the melody like a vine, soft buds of harmony bursting into flower as it climbed. The two would echo one another, join in a clear harmony, separate into their own ways.
The song lifted me to my feet, when I would have sworn no power on earth could do so. I stood in mute thanksgiving for his life, in honour of his song, but in time it seemed to me that there was something missing. I stood in the bright morning, my face wet and dirty with tears and dew and leaf mould, and joined in the song of passing for my beloved. I was no more than a creaking murmur that came and went added to the glorious voices above and around me, but somehow it was fitting, and three were complete where two were not.