‘As far as we’re concerned, you’ve nothing to be sorry for.’
‘You are the most wonderful man a woman could have. I treasure every moment we spent together. Take my love to Lirrin and little Teg. Don’t let them all grow up hating me.’
‘That I can promise you.’
‘Forgive me, Kin.’
‘I forgive you. I forgive you and I love you. I love you…so much.’ The tears flowed freely now.
Tanalvah’s eyes seemed to be unfocused, as though she gazed at a scene they couldn’t see. But in an undertone she distinctly said, ‘Forgive me, Serrah. Forgive me, if only for being a fool.’
Serrah didn’t move or speak. Kinsel looked up at her.
‘Her time’s short,’ he said, as though imploring.
‘I know,’ she whispered.
‘Do this one last thing for her, Serrah. Please.’
‘You’re telling me that my friend, your woman, was responsible for untold deaths of people we knew, but that I should forgive her?’
‘Try to imagine how I feel. She did it for me.’ He almost couldn’t go on. ‘The suffering can’t be undone. But how does making her death even more miserable put right any of the wrongs?’ Big teardrops were running down his cheeks. ‘We have little enough power in this world. The one thing we have in our command is forgiveness.’
‘It’s so hard. I’ve lived in hatred of the traitor. I swore they’d die if it was up to me. But to find out it was…’ She gave way to sobbing herself, hands to her face.
‘I know. But I’ll say it again: we’ve only one gift to give her that means anything.’
Serrah nodded, sniffing. She moved to kneel by the bed, alongside him. ‘Tan? Tan?’
Her eyes had been closed. Now they fluttered open. She recognised Serrah, and smiled. ‘Don’t cry. There have been enough tears shed on my account.’ With some trepidation, she asked, ‘Do I have your forgiveness?’
‘I can’t give you absolution. That’s for a higher authority. But, yes, I…I forgive you.’
Tanalvah looked to Kinsel, her smile broader. Neither of them spoke.
The light started to leave her eyes. He leaned forward and kissed her. And when he lifted his lips from hers, she was dead.
Kinsel and Serrah stayed where they were for what seemed like a long time. Until the new baby cried and roused them.
Grief had subsided to some kind of numbness, and Serrah did her best to get things organised for Kinsel. He was crushed, and for a moment she had the irrational fear that he might decide to join his lover in death. But it took no more than a reminder of the children to stiffen his resolve.
Serrah thought how tough it had been on Teg and Lirrin. To lose their natural mother was bad enough. To go on and lose their adoptive one was indescribably awful. For the second time in their young lives they were going to be told something that would break their hearts. She didn’t envy Kinsel’s task.
She comforted him a little by telling him that at least they had a kind, decent, loving father. But they both chose to ignore the fact that even this could be in doubt once the empires’ armies took the island.
Serrah found him and the children new quarters deeper in the redoubt. The rooms weren’t as big as the ones they were leaving, but the set-up was more communal, and there would be people about to help and distract. It was considerably safer, too. She made sure Lirrin and Teg would be waiting, and she accompanied Kinsel there. He carried a couple of bags of possessions, she held the baby. She left him with the children clustering around the good news of the newborn, preparatory to the bad.
Her promise to Kinsel was that she would go back and lay out Tan decently. She’d also try to rustle up a priest and a burial detail, though that wasn’t going to be easy in the middle of a war. Apart from that, there were a few things he wanted from the apartment, but couldn’t face going for himself.
This was all in her mind as she trudged the endless corridors. And Reeth, of course. It felt like an age since they had last seen each other. She had no real fears about him being able to look after himself, but she longed to set eyes on him.
That was the last coherent thought she had for a while.
Reaching the section where the apartment was located, near one of the fortress’s external walls, but still a brisk walk away, she turned a fateful corner.
No sooner had she entered the corridor than it was bathed end to end in a flash of blinding light, followed soon after by an ear-splitting explosion.
The floor bucked like a living creature. Doors imploded, windows shattered, chandeliers fell. Bricks and timber flew in all directions. There were clouds of smothering dust. Then the roof came down.
Something, a number of somethings, pelted and pummelled her. And at the last she was on her back, unable to move, covered by a barely tolerable weight. Instantly, all of her fears about being trapped in a confined space became horrible reality. But the mind is a strange and wondrous thing, and no more so than in extreme situations. Instead of panic occupying her consciousness, she could only dwell on the question, who did she think the Resistance had stolen the dragon’s blood idea from in the first place?
Serrah’s assumption was substantially correct. Out on the plain, and on the tops of a few low, flat hills not far off, the invaders had set up giant catapults and massive glamour launch tubes. They were using a mixture of rocks the size of houses and magical munitions in their bombardment. It was one of the latter that had struck the part of the redoubt Serrah was in.
Caldason ran for the fortress as fast as he could, heedless of any in his path. Well behind, Kutch and Wendah, hand in hand, dashed after him. All the while, the barrage continued. Massive jagged projectiles ploughed into fleeing islanders and crashed through roofs. Hex shells fell like hail, spreading the pestilences of fire, vitriol and noxious gas.
Inside the redoubt, people were already working frantically to clear debris and free the wounded. Several dead bodies were evident. In the chaos, Reeth spotted Kinsel. He had no way of knowing about his loss, and took his dazed appearance to be a result of the carnage.
‘Have you seen Serrah?’ he demanded, catching his sleeve.
‘Reeth! Yes. That is, I came to look for her when I heard the-’
‘Do you know where she might be?’
Kutch and Wendah arrived, panting.
‘She was heading back to our apartment,’ Kinsel explained. ‘But they say that’s where the main strike was.’
‘Stay with your kids,’ Caldason told him. He ran in the direction of the collapse, bowling people aside and cutting a path for a breathless Wendah and Kutch.
There were few people in the area of the worst roof fall. Rescuers had yet to arrive, and anybody there at the time of the strike likely had problems of their own.
Caldason surveyed the downed walls and mounds of debris. The dust was still settling. Shouting Serrah’s name might have been an option if there wasn’t so much echoing noise already. ‘Where do we look?’
‘We can help,’ Kutch said. ‘Or Wendah can, rather.’
‘Can you, Wendah?’
‘My skill’s similar to Kutch’s but not the same,’ she said. ‘I could see things for Praltor, find things.’
‘Could you find Serrah?’
‘I can try.’ She started to wander into the wrecked corridor.
‘Be careful,’ Reeth warned.
A couple of minutes later she stopped at a pile of twisted junk no different to any other. ‘There,’ she said, pointing at it.
‘Are you sure?’
She nodded.
Caldason cupped his mouth. ‘Serrah!’ he called. ‘Serrah!’
There was a muffled response three or four paces away. Caldason began sifting through the wreckage, and Kutch came to help him. They kept calling, and narrowed their search by the responses. At last they came to a door, lying embedded in rubble. They heaved, Wendah adding her modest strength, and at last managed to shift it just enough to reveal a hollow beneath. The pasty white shape they made out in the darkness there was Serrah’s face.
‘Thank the gods,’ she said.
Caldason went down on all fours and stretched his hand into the hole. He touched her face, and she kissed his hand.