Moradin’s clerics had other ideas.
They pushed and prodded him into following the wounded to Haela’s temple, where he accepted more healing and let them clean him up and give him fresh clothes. He hadn’t realized how filthy he was with dirt and caked blood until he caught one of the dwarves wrinkling his nose in disgust.
Amidst these ministrations, he asked for Icelin and learned that she’d gone out to the temple garden. He left to find her as soon as they let him.
The temple garden was peaceful-not at all what Ruen would have expected from a goddess who’d reveled in battle, but perhaps even Haela Brightaxe needed peace and solitude sometimes.
A waterfall spilled from channels in the upper balcony, enclosing the garden below on three sides with water and the fourth side with a wall of stone. The narrow footbridge Ruen stood upon provided the only access to the garden. The stone path gently parted the water curtain, revealing silvery blue lichen hanging from wire baskets on the far wall.
Through the entry, Ruen saw Icelin. She moved past the opening and then behind the water curtain to become a distorted shape, a play of shadows and light, not quite real but no phantom either.
Ruen’s silent steps carried him to the opening. His heart beat an aching rhythm in his chest. Her back was to him now. She faced the wall, her arms knotted around herself.
The garden was made of stones. Beds of them ringed the base of the waterfall, the outermost stones dark with wet, and the inner ones silver from the light of the glowing lichen. Ruen allowed himself a small smile. He should have expected no less from the dwarves.
He stalled. Ruen wanted to speak, to make Icelin turn and look at him, but now that the moment had come, he couldn’t speak. How was he supposed to give voice to everything that was inside of him, to what had been building for months.
You’re a coward, Ruen thought. You always have been. You’re a coward, and she’s fearless.
Not in that moment. In that moment, she trembled. He read the anguish in her hunched shoulders, neck muscles rigid. She would retreat into herself and disappear if she could.
“It says on a plaque here that travelers used to visit this garden, bringing offerings of stone,” Icelin said, shattering the silence and startling Ruen so badly that he actually jumped.
“How did you know I was here?” he asked, trying to tamp down his incredulity.
She turned to face him. Her eyes were clear-clear, and so remote, so distant that he grew more frightened. Was he already too late?
“She said travelers chose the rarest, most beautiful stones from their journeys in Faerun and brought them back to Haela’s temple to place in the gardens.” Icelin walked along the stone beds, her eyes on the rocks. She seemed to be looking everywhere in the tiny garden except at him.
“The goddess’s memory is strong here,” Ruen said. He could think of nothing else to say. The pain in his chest nearly overwhelmed him.
“There are stones from Aglarond and Cormyr,” Icelin went on, “from Thay and Rashemen and from Mulhurond-lands that have disappeared from the world. Can you imagine it? It made me wish I’d brought a stone from South Ward in Waterdeep. A flat rock, worn down by caravan wheels and caked with dust, though I doubt Haela would have minded. So many goddesses lost,” Icelin murmured, speaking as if to herself.
“You’ve been in that damn library too long,” Ruen said suddenly, harshly. “Surrounded by sorrow-filled lore and with that drow creature haunting your every move, it’s no wonder that you’re …”
“What?” She did look at him then, waiting for him to finish, but he just stared at her. He took a step toward her, unsteadily, his arm half-raised.
She backed away from him. If she’d used magic to erect a barrier, it could not have been more effective. Ruen dropped his hand to his side and closed his fingers into a fist.
“Did I lose you then?” He said it in a whisper. The hand he clutched at his side trembled. “Did I go so far wrong that you won’t let me … that I can’t be with you?”
Icelin closed her eyes, and a tear slid down her cheek. “I am so very tired, Ruen,” she said. “I’m very sorry too.”
“Why?” he demanded. “What have you got to be sorry for?”
“Because I couldn’t do it.” Her voice echoed in the small garden, swallowed up by the water. “The king’s library was beautiful. All those books filled with knowledge from dead dwarf scholars. Books that have souls, living memories, stories that draw you in-literally! — to their pages. So much that’s been lost, and I remember it all now. I can’t forget all the names I read or the people who used to inhabit the city and gave it life.” She slid into a crouch, leaning against the temple wall. “I don’t mind remembering it all,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t hear her. “But Zollgarza is there too. He speaks, and I remember everything he says-”
“I knew it-that bastard drove you out of there.” Ruen lashed out, kicking the stone wall in frustration. A wave of pain shot up his leg. It was a stupid thing to do. “The king told me you stopped looking for the sphere.”
“That’s right.” Icelin stood shakily and faced him. Ruen again suppressed the urge to reach out and support her. “I don’t want the Arcane Script Sphere anymore. It’s over.”
“Don’t say that.” Ruen heard the catch in his voice and despised himself for it. When had he become so weak? “We can still find a cure elsewhere. Faerun is a vast place.”
“How long will we search?”
“What?” Ruen was absorbed in thoughts and plans. They would leave the city in the morning. Godsdamn the drow, Mith Barak, and all the rest. If they couldn’t find what they were looking for here, it was time to move on. Why waste more time?
“Ruen, look at me.”
“Icelin, it’ll be all right,” Ruen said. “We’ll find a way.”
“I don’t want to look for a cure anymore.”
“What?” he repeated. She wasn’t making any sense. The drow had done more damage than he’d thought. “You’re tired, and you don’t know what you’re saying.”
She shook her head. “I do know what I’m saying, and I know what I want.” She clasped her hands in front of her, but when she looked at him, she was no longer weeping. Clear-eyed, she stared him down. “I want to live my life on my own terms. I won’t spend any more of it chasing down a cure for my spellscar. What happened to me shaped who I am. I’m not ashamed of it, and I’m not afraid to die. I’m more afraid of living without hope and love.” She laughed then, without humor. “Zollgarza showed me that, if you can believe it. His existence is so empty, so utterly devoid of warmth-of anything, that isn’t bitterness and hatred.”
“You’ll never be like him,” Ruen said.
“I know.” Icelin took a step toward him. Ruen tensed, but it wasn’t out of fear. His heart pounded in his chest. She lifted her hand, held it in the air an inch above his cheek. She looked in his eyes, seeking permission.
“Yes,” he said.
She laid her hand gently against his cheek-the lightest touch, but within it a world of meaning. The pulse of Icelin’s life beat against his skin, warmth and vibrancy radiating from each fingertip-but the whole was weaker than it should have been. The life force was brittle at the edges, cracks and seams running through it, flaws that would only spread until it ate away at all the warmth. Ruen gasped. The pain of it was a tangible force, like five needles in his skin.
“Don’t,” Icelin whispered. “Don’t run away from me. Please.”
“I’m trying.” Ruen closed his eyes tightly. He forced himself to focus only on her touch, the warmth of her fingers on his, the softness of her skin. The physical pain was all in his mind. He breathed deeply, pressing down the fear and hopelessness that always came with his gift. When he was calm, the pain went away. It was impossible to ignore the rest, but if only he could distract himself-
“I love you,” Icelin said.
Ruen opened his eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY