The Cost of Betrayal (60 page)

W
here are you?” Harruq cried, doing his best to fight off panic. She could have wandered anywhere. If she got lost, and night came, he’d never…

“Aurelia can find her,” he said, remembering her abilities with magical portals. “She could take us right to her.”

This calmed him a little. He slowed from a run to a jog, searching for signs of passage. As he charged through some bushes, he found a thick pile of flattened leaves.

“You around here, baby?” he asked, glancing about. He could hear a stream in the distance. Perhaps she was there.

D
eeper and deeper she went, her eyes open under the water. Much of it was so muddy, so brown, it couldn’t be the world of faeries. They had to live beyond, deeper in. She kept swimming, kept pushing, following the twinkling dust that had begun to fade. She cried out for the faerie, her voice a weird echo in her head. The creature did not return to her. Desperate, she hurried faster, into the world of light that she began to see. She swam harder, until the world grew brighter, and she knew she neared the faerie land. She sucked in water, mostly out of instinct. Passing through the dust of the faerie had helped her, she knew. She could breathe water. And so she did, ignoring the retching of her chest, ignoring everything, everything except the twinkling lights that grew forever stronger until they enveloped her very being. The land was golden, the song was eternal, and seeing it, she smiled.

H
arruq stumbled to the stream, scanning its length. Perhaps she was playing. The water was bound to be cold, but she had done stranger things. He took a few steps, glanced down, and then his world stopped.

Floating face down in the water was his daughter. She twirled in the pull of the stream, her head swaying from side to side. Bits of mud and moss were in her hair. Her hands floated beside her, pale and lifeless. Her entire body moved only with the water.

The half-orc cried out. He plunged into the water, took hold of her shoulders, and yanked her out. He felt her body sink into his arms, her head rolling to one side. Her eyes were open, as was her mouth. Her eyes did not blink. She did not breathe.

“Aully,” he pleaded, nearly crushing her against his chest. He brushed a shaking hand across her face, pulling away the hair that stuck to her cheek. “Please, Aully, please no, don’t, please, don’t…”

He fought the stream, pushing to the shore. Cold water ran down his arms and chest. His eyes lingered on her lips, blue as the sky above. She felt so tiny in his arms, and yet so heavy. A lump in his throat swelled, and his eyes clouded with tears so that he could not look upon her face. He shrieked again, running his arm across his eyes to banish them.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered down to her. “Forgive me. I’m so sorry.”

He hugged her. Water spilled from her mouth and across his chest. It was colder than anything he had ever felt before. The world remained frozen. Only he seemed to move at all. He carried her back to the tower, the longest trek he would ever take.

D
eep within the forest, Tessanna cried out, grief and horror mixed into one terrible sob.

“What is it?” Qurrah asked, taking her into his arms.

“The girl is dead,” she sobbed, clawing at his chest. “I saw it, she’s dead. You killed her, you killed her!”

He did not stop her as she dug her nails into his chest so hard that blood flowed. He only held her tight as the shock of what had happened overcame him. He tried to say something, to say anything, but no words would come. They just would not come.

W
hen the mercenaries returned to find the door to the tower open, they knew something was wrong. They set down their bags of trinkets, wine and ale.

“Did Harruq go somewhere?” Tarlak asked. Aurelia shrugged. Fear nagged at her, some nameless worry, so she did not rush up the stairs to check. She cast a divination spell to see her husband in her mind’s eye.

She suddenly cried out, startling the rest. She turned and fled out of the tower. Tarlak and the others followed, so surprised it took them a moment to realize she had even left. Around the tower Aurelia went, running for the forest as fast as her elven grace allowed. Staggering out from the trees came her husband, their daughter in his arms.

“Harruq!” she cried, flying over the grass. Her husband looked up at her, his eyes lifeless. She saw that look and knew. She did not need words, she did not need to see the way Aullienna’s arms hung lifeless beside her, or how her neck slumped in an unnatural way. She knew. She stopped running, her hands going up to cover her mouth, squelching a moan.

The half-orc stumbled. Tears streamed down his face. Less than ten feet away, he fell to his knees and cradled the girl to his chest.

“She’s dead,” he said, and then the sobbing came. It erupted from the center of him, great and powerful. He tried to speak, to say something, but he could not. Aurelia knelt before him, her slender fingers caressing her daughter’s face.

“How?” she managed to ask.

“She drowned,” he said, fighting for control. He placed her on the grass in front of him, unable to bear the weight any longer. The rest of the mercenaries came running, falling silent at the sight. Tarlak’s face flushed the deepest red. Delysia let out a startled cry before turning away. Harruq stood, looked to his wife, and then took her in his arms. He needed her. More than ever, he needed her. The two embraced, each quietly crying.

At last he could cry no more, for an easier feeling, one he knew well, overcame Harruq.

“He killed her,” he said. Aurelia gave no reaction, so he said it again. The words made him better somehow. “He killed her.” He pulled back, looked her in the eye, and said it one more time. “He killed her.”

“Don’t go,” she said, but he already was. He marched past the others, heading for where his armor and swords lay scattered across the bedroom floor.

“Where are you going?” Haern dared ask.

“I’m going to kill him,” Harruq turned and screamed. “I’m going to make him pay.”

“We need to talk,” Tarlak said. Harruq ignored him. He rushed for the tower, putting his daughter behind him. He could bear that image no more. He heard his wife call his name but he fought against it. Sorrow was for another time. Vengeance was now.

Then she took his wrist in her hands. He whirled around, fury raging in his eyes. Aurelia did not back down, even as the pain filled her face.

“Please, don’t go,” she pleaded. “I need you. Please.”

“He killed my daughter!” he shouted.

“She was my daughter too,” she said. A tear ran down past her nose and fell to the ground. “Can’t you see? She was
our
daughter.”

He nodded. More tears came to his eyes.

“I just, Aurry, I…” The anger melted away. His grief lost its razor-edge, fading down to a constant throb.

“We need to build a pyre,” she said. Harruq nodded and sighed. His shoulders sagged.

“I’ll make one out back,” he said. “I guess tonight we’ll…we…”

“We’ll give her body back to nature,” Aurelia said, trying to be strong. “Her soul has moved on. The pyre will make her as she was.”

“She’ll never be as she was,” Harruq said. To this Aurelia only clutched him tighter. The cold wind blew, the couple mourning amidst it as deep in the woods two more lovers suffered much the same.

30

S
cattered among the forest of metal within Brug’s room was a great, hulking axe. One side was enormously thick, the edge sharpened to a lumberjack’s point. Harruq retrieved it, grunting at the weight in his hands. It weighed more than Aullienna. He didn’t know why, but that fact irritated him. He jammed it down on a broken chestplate, frowning as it punched a giant triangular dent across the middle.