But Luthe and Aerin knew without speaking of it when their last night came, and Aerin was grateful for a moonless night, that she might weep and Luthe not see. He slept at last, curled up against her, her arm tucked under his and drawn over his ribs, her hand held to his breast and cradled with both of his. She stayed awake, listening to Luthe’s breathing and the sound of the sky turning overhead; and when near dawn he sighed and stirred, she gently drew her hand from his and crept free of the blanket. She paced up and down some few minutes, and then stood by the ashes of last night’s camp fire to look at Luthe in the growing light.
The blanket had slipped down; his chest lay bare nearly to the waist, and one long hand was flung out. His skin where the sun never touched was as white as milk, almost blue, like skimmed milk, although his face was ruddied and roughened by sun and weather. She looked down at her own arms and hands; she was rose and gold next to him, although she looked as colorless as wax against full-blooded Damarians. She wondered where Luthe came from; wondered if she’d ever know; wondered what he would say if she asked. And knew that, on this morning, this last morning, she would not ask; and that in the last few days, when she might have, she had not thought to. And this gave her her first conscious pang of parting.
She knew too that it would be years before they met again, and so she stared at him, memorizing him, that she might draw out his likeness in her mind at any time during those years; and then she remembered with a little shiver that she was no longer quite mortal, and the shiver was not for the knowledge but for the pleasure it now gave her, the first pleasure it had ever given her, that she might look forward to seeing Luthe again someday. And that pleasure frightened her, for she was the daughter of the king of Damar, and she was bringing the Hero’s Crown home to the king and to the first sola, who would be king after, and whom she would marry.
She wondered if she had ever truly not known that Tor loved her, if it were only that she had always feared to love him in return. She was afraid no longer, and the irony of it was that Luthe had taught her not to be afraid, and that it was her love for Luthe that made her recognize her love for Tor. She had killed the Black Dragon, she carried an enchanted sword, and now she brought the Hero’s Crown back to the land that had lost it, having won it in fair fight from him who had held it against her and against Damar. She could declare that she would no longer be afraid—of her heritage, of her place in the royal house of Damar, of her father’s people; and so she could also, now, marry Tor, for such was her duty to her country, whether her country approved of the idea or not. And Tor would be glad to see her back; she had written a letter to him that night that she might have died; almost everything else had receded to fog and memory, but she had remembered Tor, and remembered to leave him word that she would come back to him.
She had once promised to return to Luthe also. She sat down near where he lay still sleeping and gazed at the white white skin and blue-tinted hollows. She thought, They say that everyone looks young when asleep, like the child each used to be. Luthe looks only like Luthe, sleeping; and her eyes filled with tears. She blinked, and when she could see clearly again, Luthe’s eyes were open, and he reached up to draw her down to kiss her, and she saw, when she drew her head back a moment after the kiss, that when he closed his eyes again, two tears spilled from their corners and ran down his temples, glinting in the morning sunlight.
This morning they were careful, for the first time since they had met at the edge of Agsded’s plain, that each should wrap only his or her own possessions in each bundle. They spoke little. Even Talat was subdued, looking anxiously over his shoulder at Aerin as she strapped the saddle in place, rather than doing his usual morning imitation of a war-horse scenting his enemy just over the next hill.
She did not mount at once but turned back to Luthe, and he held out his arms, and she rushed into them. He sighed, and her own breast rose and fell against his. “I have put you on a horse—that same horse—and watched you ride away from me before. I thought I should never get over it that first time. I think I followed you for that; not for any noble desire to help you save Damar; only to pick up whatever pieces Agsded might have left of you .... I know I shall never get over it this time. If you do it, someday, a third time, it will probably kill me.” Aerin tried to smile, but Luthe stopped her with a kiss. “Go now. A quick death is the best I believe.”
“You can’t scare me,” Aerin said, almost succeeding in keeping her voice level. “You told me long ago that you aren’t mortal.”
“I never said I can’t be killed,” replied Luthe. “If you wish to chop logic with me, my dearest love, you must make sure of your premises.”
“I shall practice them—while—I shall practice, that I may dazzle you when next we meet.”
There was a little silence, and Luthe said, “You need not try to dazzle me.”
“I must go,” Aerin said hopelessly, and flung herself at Talat just as she had done once before. “I will see you again.”
Luthe nodded.
She almost could not say the words: “But it will be a long time—long and long.”
Luthe nodded again.
“But we shall meet.”
Luthe nodded a third time.
“Gods of all the worlds, say something,” she cried, and Talat startled beneath her.
“I love you,” said Luthe. “I will love you till the stars crumble, which is a less idle threat than is usual to lovers on parting. Go quickly, for truly I cannot bear this.”
She closed her legs violently around the nervous Talat, and he leaped into a gallop. Long after Aerin was out of sight, Luthe lay full length upon the ground, and pressed his ear to it, and listened to Talat’s hoofbeats carrying Aerin farther and farther away.
Chapter 22
SHE RODE IN A DAZE of misery, unconscious of the yerig and folstza who pressed closely around Talat’s legs and looked anxiously up into her face; and she stopped, numbly, at nightfall. She might have gone on till she dropped in her tracks, were she on foot; but she was not, and so at nightfall she stopped, and stripped her horse, and rubbed him down with a dry cloth. Talat was a little sore; that sudden gallop to begin a long day had done his weak leg no good, and so she unwrapped some ointment that would warm the stiffness, and massaged it in vigorously, and even smiled a little at the usual grimaces of pleasure Talat made.
When she lay down by the fire she sprang up again almost at once, and paced back and forth. She was dizzy with exhaustion and stupid with unhappiness, and she was riding to the gods knew what at the City; and as she remembered that, she remembered also flashes of what she had seen, deep in the Lake of Dreams. But that brought her back to Luthe again, and the tears ran down her face, and, standing before the campfire, she bowed her face in her hands and sobbed.
This would not do. She had the Crown, and she carried an enchanted sword; she was coming home a warrior victorious—and a first sol worthy of respect. She felt like dead leaves, dry and brown and brittle, although leaves were probably not miserable; they were just quietly buried by snow and burned by sun and harried by rain till they peacefully disintegrated into the earth .... She found herself staring at the earth under her feet. She had to get some sleep.
She turned despairingly back to her blanket and found two furry bodies already there. The dog queen smiled at her and moved her feathery tail an inch at least; the cat king flattened his ears and half-lidded his eyes. Neither paid the least attention to the other.
She laughed, a cracked laugh, half a choke. “Thank you,” she said. “Perhaps I shall sleep after all,” She pillowed her head on a cat flank, and a dog head lay in the curve between her ribs and pelvis, and a dog tail curled over her feet. She slept at once, and heavily; and she woke in the morning hugging the queen’s neck with her face buried in her ruff, and the big yerig had a look of great patience and forbearance on her face that no doubt she wore when bearing with a new litter of puppies.