“Your child, Chosen One,” she whispered. “The firstborn child of the Chosen One is coming.” And then she stepped up on the edge of the wall.
Her intentions were clear.
He stopped short, the breath coming quickly to his lungs. Dropping to his knees before her, he looked up into her eyes. “Please,” he half whispered to her, “please, I beg you, let me give you a quick death after the birth, but do not take our child with you!” He dropped the dreggan to the roof and held his scarred palms up to her, but she only inched herself closer to the edge.
“I’m sorry, Tristan,” she said, using his name for the first time since he had known her. “But with the coming of the child, there are no more decisions to be made. Because your firstborn chooses to come now, at this moment, its fate is sealed. Poor Tristan, there is still so much you and the wizard do not know. Just as you cannot let me live, for reasons you do not as yet understand I cannot allow the child to be taken by you and the wizard.”
Looking down at her abdomen, she placed an affectionate hand there. “Our child would have been beyond description,” she whispered.
Wracked with pain, she looked into his eyes once again, searching his face as if trying somehow to keep the memory of him forever within her.
“Forgive me,” she said.
Opening her arms to the arriving dawn, she threw herself off the roof of the Recluse.
Removing one of his dirks from its quiver, he steeled his heart tor the task that lay before him.
Although the sun was beginning to rise in the east, its brightness was obscured by the gray rain clouds. The showers still came, although lighter now, and the air around him was silent and still. The unrelenting drizzle seemed, to him, to almost match drop for drop the tears that came from his eyes as he sat on his heels next to the dead body. The quiet, gray pall of violent death surrounded everything.
He had raced back down the stairways and out of the Recluse as fast as he had been able, stopping for nothing, hoping against hope that there could be some kind of chance. Running out and over the drawbridge, he had finally found her body facedown in the moat that surrounded the castle. It was immediately apparent that she had not yet given birth. Pulling her out as quickly as he could, he placed his fingers against the side of her throat, hoping for a pulse. None came.
He continued to sit there in the grass alongside her body, sobbing, his mind refusing to accept the unbelievable nature of all that had occurred between himself and the second mistress. Succiu, he thought. One of the women I had sworn to kill. And, unbelievably, the mother of my first child. It was then that he first smelled the smoke.
Looking up he saw a column of unusually dark smoke rising from the roof of the shattered Recluse, and instinctively he knew what it was. Wigg is burning the bodies of the sorceresses, he realized, including that of the one who was once his wife. He wants to be sure this time. The odor that came to him was the same sickly sweet yet repugnant foulness that he had first encountered about the funeral pyres of the Minions following the attack in Tammerland.
Tristan looked back down at the body of Succiu, and to her abdomen that still contained his firstborn. Wigg will soon be here, he thought, and will want to do the same thing to Succiu. Especially to Succiu. And he is right. He thought for a moment, trying to make his decision, the tears coming again. Finally, he knew what he had to do.
Walking guardedly through the rain, Wigg approached the dead sorceress and kneeling prince. There seemed to be no one about, but given what had apparently happened the wizard wanted to make sure that he and Tristan were alone before they spoke to each other.
Everyone associated with the disintegrating Recluse had fled, no doubt terrified at the turn of events, understandably wanting to be as far away from the place as possible. The old one briefly wondered what such people would do with their newfound freedom after having served the sorceresses for so long. The Lead Wizard sighed resignedly. And the Minions, he thought suddenly. With the Coven gone, who is there to control them? It was then that he saw the grave.
Tristan, his hands bloody and dirty, was sitting on his heels before a small, sad little pile of rocks. Some freshly picked flowers had been placed on top, and a broken piece of wood that served as a makeshift marker had been shoved into the wet earth at one end. As he approached, the wizard could make out the writing that had been carefully carved into it with a knife. It read:
NICHOLAS II OF THE HOUSE OF GALLAND
You will not be forgotten
Wigg looked at the bloody body of the dead sorceress and immediately knew what had transpired here. Tristan saw the smoke and knew I was burning the bodies, he realized. Instead of letting his son be burned with his mother, he decided to give him a proper burial.
The old wizard continued to examine the corpse that had once been Succiu. Her naked abdomen had been incised, her shredded gown falling around her on either side. Her once-beautiful but now lifeless eyes were staring blankly into the rainy sky.
Tristan did what he felt he must, Wigg reflected. I cannot blame him for that. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to fathom the horror the prince must have felt—and the courage it must have taken to do the deed.
“Is Shailiha safe?” Tristan suddenly asked in a husky voice. He did not turn around to look at the wizard.
“Yes,” Wigg answered softly. “She rests in the back of a wagon that Geldon and I stole from the horse barns. We filled the back full of hay for her to lie in, and luckily she fell into a deep sleep.” He stopped short, wishing he had not said that just now. In the awkward silence that followed, the old one cleared his throat.
When Tristan didn’t respond, Wigg slowly walked around to face him, squatting down to look him in the eyes. Tristan’s cheeks were covered with the streaks of dried tears, and he continued simply to look at the little grave, almost as if not seeing it.
“What happened?” Wigg asked softly.
“I followed her to the roof,” the prince finally said, still gazing at the little pile of rocks. “She was badly wounded, and had lost a great deal of blood. Her powers were gone, and she couldn’t harm me. I was about to take her life when she went into labor. Rather than deliver the child to us she chose to jump, killing both herself and my son.” His voice trembled, and he paused, not sure he could say any more right now.
“I’m sorry, Tristan,” the old one said.
“It was a boy. A son,” the prince whispered softly to himself. “My son.” He touched the top of the grave lightly with the palm of one hand. “He will be staying here now.”
Tristan gathered himself up and looked into the wizard’s eyes. “She said that there was still so much that you and I did not know, that just as we could not let her live, so could she not let us have my firstborn.” He wiped one of his cheeks. “Despite how much she wanted the child, she would rather see him dead than with his father. Do you know why?”
Wigg had no idea what the sorceress had been referring to, and he found the prospect unsettling. “I don’t know,” he said compassionately. “But we have little time, and I must burn the body before we leave. I only pray that the stone has rejuvenated sufficiently for me to accomplish it.”
Gesturing for Tristan to rise, Wigg led him back a short distance from the corpse. He produced the locket from under his robe and removed the stone. Pulling his hood over his head, the old one lowered his face and clasped his hands in front of himself. Almost immediately Succiu’s body began to go up in flames. The wizard returned the stone to the locket, and hid it once again in his robes.