CHAPTER SEVEN

BLACK SWANS

 

 

Ellyrion opened up to him, its rolling fields endless and its skies huge. The land before him was a thin strip of golden corn, the heavens an unending bowl of blue skies and streamers of silver clouds. Eldain’s ride across the land of his birth was a revelation, like he was seeing it with new eyes. Eldain had believed he and Lotharin had ridden every path of Ellyrion, but his senses were alive with the pleasure of discovery.

Every hill and forest seemed new and freshly risen, each dawn as though it had been wrought just for him. Eldain had no idea why his homeland should welcome him as it did, for the kingdoms of Ulthuan kept no secrets from one another. What the land knew in Avelorn, it knew in Ellyrion and Saphery and all the other realms of the asur.

Eldain had taken an indirect route to Ellyr-Charoi, keeping clear of the main settlements and pathways. He slept by streams gurgling towards the Inner Sea, and ate plants that grew on their banks, rising each morning more refreshed than before. He had lost track of the days, but knew he could not be far from his home. His clothes were travel-stained and had begun to smell, but Eldain didn’t mind. This ride was what it meant to be an Ellyrian, free from the constraints of society and its rules.

Here and there, he would see herds of wild horses grazing or drinking at a pool of crystal water. Most of these herds ignored him, but others would gallop over and ride alongside for a time, conversing with Lotharin in a series of whinnies and snorts. It felt good to be with the herds of Ellyrion, and brought back a particularly fine memory from his youth.

“You remember it too, don’t you?” he said, as Lotharin tossed his mane and stamped the ground. His mount broke into a run at his words, and he laughed as the joy of that day returned with the potency only a memory of the asur could render.

He had ridden out with Caelir when they had been no more than twelve summers old, taking their still-wild steeds out into the plains to gallop alongside the Great Herd. Once every few decades, the countless wild herds of Ellyrion would gather somewhere on the plains, drawn by some nameless imperative to run together in a thousands-strong stampede of fierce exultation.

Every son of Ellyrion longed to ride with the Great Herd, to mingle with the powerful beasts as they joined together in one thunderous ride to glory. Only the best riders dared join with the herd, for these steeds were wild and cared nothing for the safety of the mortals in their midst. Many an experienced rider had been crushed to death beneath the thundering hooves of the Great Herd. Eldain and Caelir took their horses out by the light of the moon and rode north from their home to the burned copse where Laerial Sureblade had slain Gauma, the eleven-headed hydra.

Here they followed the tracks of the lowland steeds, and joined the smaller herds as they crossed a confluence of rivers that foamed white as though desperate to be part of the ride. Eldain remembered seeing hundreds of horses all around them, the numbers growing with every passing moment as the white herds of the south were joined by the dun and dappled beasts of the mountains. The greys of the north and the piebald mounts of the plains galloped in, proud and haughty, to be met by the silver herdleaders of the forests.

Here and there, a black steed galloped in splendid isolation, honoured and shunned in equal measure by its equine brothers. Soon the plains were filled with thousands of wild horses in a mighty herd that stretched from horizon to horizon, and the blood surged in Eldain’s veins to be riding with such a host.

Beside him Caelir whooped and yelled, standing tall in Aedaris’ stirrups and waving an arm over his head like a madman.

“Sit down!” Eldain had yelled. “You’ll be thrown and killed!”

Caelir shook his head and vaulted onto his horse’s back, his limbs flowing like water as he bent and swayed to compensate for the wild ride. Dust billowed in thick clouds as the Great Herd galloped for all it was worth. The earth shook and the pounding beat of unshod hooves on the hard-packed earth was like the storms that boomed and rolled over the Annulii when the Chaos moon waxed full.

Eldain saw groups of Ellyrian horsemen riding through the herds, listening to their laughter and hearing their passionate cries. A herd of dun mares jostled him and he hauled the reins to the right, but pulled into the path of a group of pale stallions with the light of madness in their eyes. Lotharin was struck from both sides, and Eldain fought to stay on his back. Like Eldain and Caelir, their steeds were youthful and much smaller than these powerful beasts.

He felt the panic in his mount, and struggled to disentangle himself from the stallions. The horses had their head, and he was enclosed from all sides. Lotharin was tiring fast and to slow in such a desperate gallop would be suicide.

“Eldain!” shouted Caelir, and he looked over to see his brother sat astride Aedaris once more. “Ride to me!”

Eldain pulled Lotharin through the barging, heaving mass of horses towards his brother, but Lotharin’s strength was fading fast. Sweat stung Eldain’s eyes and his muscles burned from the effort of keeping upright. Caelir was less than five yards to his right, but a bucking mass of wild horseflesh occupied the space between them.

“Jump!” shouted Caelir. “Lotharin can break free if he does not need to worry about you!”

Loath as Eldain was to abandon his horse in the midst of this pandemonium, he knew Caelir was right. An Ellyrian steed would die to protect its rider, but that loyalty would see them both killed here.

Eldain kicked his boots free of the stirrups and leaned over his mount’s neck.

“Run free, my friend, and I will see you after the ride is done,” he said.

Lotharin threw back his head and whinnied his assent. Eldain sprang onto Lotharin’s back, the black horse a lone spot of darkness amongst the pale grey stallions. Caelir fought to hold Aedaris steady at the edge of the heaving mass, holding his hand out to Eldain.

“Jump, brother!” Caelir yelled.

Eldain swayed on Lotharin’s back, gauging the right moment to leap. One misstep and he would fall through the press of horses and be crushed beneath their hammering strides. The horses were turning now, leaning into a sharp left turn. It was now or never.

Eldain jumped, hurling himself from Lotharin’s back and into the air. He came down on the bouncing shoulder blades of a white stallion and sprang onwards, twisting to come down behind Caelir. His brother gripped him as he slid back, and they rode clear from the crescendo of galloping horses.

Caelir rode until they were cantering on the fringes of the Great Herd, content to watch the majestic sweep of the mass of horses as they let loose their untamed hearts and shared the joy of a wild ride with their brothers and sisters. Eldain slid from Aedaris’ back at the foot of a jutting scarp of rock, knowing that Caelir wasn’t yet done with the Great Herd.

“Go,” he said. “Ride with the herd; I know you want to.”

“Without you, Eldain?” laughed Caelir, though Eldain could see the fierce desire in him to ride back into the herd. “Where would the fun be in that?”

“Don’t be foolish, how often does the Great Herd gather? Go!”

Caelir loosed a wild yell and Aedaris reared up before charging headlong into the swirling mass of dust and thundering horses. Eldain watched him go, proud to have so fearless a brother and, he could now admit, a touch jealous that he would not get to spend the day amid the frantic, pulse-pounding energy of the Great Herd.

As night fell, and the Great Herd began to break up into myriad smaller groups, Caelir rode Aedaris to the rock where Eldain had watched the ebb and flow of the mad stampede. Sweat-stained and exhausted, Caelir was nevertheless exultant, his cheeks ruddy with excitement and joy. His mount’s flanks were lathered with sweat, but he too was overjoyed to have been part of something so ferocious. Lotharin followed his brother’s horse, similarly drained, but equally joyous.

Together they had ridden back to Ellyr-Charoi, and Eldain spent the entire journey hearing of the magnificent sights at the eye of the herd, the swirling mass of horses and the madness of the jostling, barging, crashing herds. Eldain revelled in his younger brother’s tales, laughing and yelling with each telling of Caelir’s reckless stunts. Dawn was lighting the eastern horizon by the time they passed through the gates and allowed the equerries to take their horses from them.

Though that ride had been many years ago, Eldain still remembered it like it was yesterday. That all too brief moment of sheer, unbridled joy as he rode with the Great Herd was like nothing he had ever experienced before or since. It was a golden memory, and he silently thanked the land for its boon. Lotharin gave a long whinny of pleasure, and they rode on in companionable silence. The horses of the wild herd that had accompanied him for many miles now turned and galloped for the mountains. Eldain waved them on their way.

“Farewell and firm earth,” he said, as the last horse vanished over an undulant hill fringed with pine. At the foot of the hill, a jutting rock carved by childish hands into the shape of a rearing horse poked from an overgrown tangle of thornspines, and Eldain smiled as he recalled carving it for Rhianna, the first summer she had come to visit from Saphery.

Time had weathered the poor carving, and obscuring plant life had grown up around it, making it look like an ambush predator was dragging the horse down. Eldain shivered at the image that conjured, and tried not to think of it as an omen.

He was close now, that carving had been made when they were little more than children and not permitted to venture far from the villa. Eldain cut south until he found a hill trail that led south, a hidden pathway that none save an Ellyrian would know. Eldain saw it had been travelled recently, the hooves of a horse not native to Ellyrion having come this way. For an hour he followed the trail, winding through the high gullies and forest lanes until he emerged onto a rolling hillside of lush green grass.

Below him lay a glittering villa set within a stand of orange-leaved trees that nestled between two waterfalls.

Ellyr-Charoi.

Home.

 

Light was fading from the sky by the time Eldain reached the villa, and the evening sun reflected from the many gemstones set within its walls. Azure capped towers surrounded a central courtyard, and the tinted glass of their many windows shone with a rainbow of colours. Autumnal leaves drifted on the winds around the villa, and withered vines climbed to the tiled copings of its walls.

Eldain took a deep breath and tried to feel something other than foreboding at the sight of his home. Ellyr-Charoi grew from the earth, wrought with great cunning by its builders to merge seamlessly with the landscape and become part of its surroundings. As was the fashion of Ellyrian dwellings, it was elegant and understated, without the riot of gaudy decorations common to Ulthuan’s more cosmopolitan cities.

He rode slowly down the path until he reached the overgrown track over a gently arched bridge. So many memories jostled for attention. Sitting on the bridge with Rhianna and throwing in flower petals. Racing Caelir to the bridge on their new steeds. Cheering as his father rode to join a warrior host setting out for Naggaroth.

Weeping as the white-clad mourners brought his mortally wounded father home.

The gates were open, and the wind blew through like a moan of grief, whistling through cracked panes of glass on the tallest towers and filling the air with dancing leaves of gold and rust. No one challenged him as he rode into the courtyard, where once warriors had stood sentinel on the walls with bows bent and arrows nocked. Those faithful retainers were long gone, and Eldain felt the villa’s abandonment settle on him like an accusing glare.

He slid from his horse’s back and turned slowly, taking in the neglected villa’s disrepair. Where once an autumnal air had held sway, now winter was in the ascendancy. The fountain at the heart of the Summer Courtyard was empty of water, and only dead leaves filled the pool. A marble-tiled cloister bounded the courtyard, and Eldain made his way towards the elegantly curved stairs that led from the courtyard to his chambers at the top of the Hippocrene Tower. He climbed the first step, and paused as he heard the brittle sound of fallen leaves crumbling beneath a riding boot.

Knowing what he would see, Eldain turned around.

Caelir stood by Lotharin, clad as Eldain remembered him from Avelorn. Like him, he was travel-worn and tired, but unlike Eldain, Caelir was armed. He carried a slim-bladed sword with a blue sheen to its edge. Eldain recognised it as their father’s sword, the weapon he had borne to Naggaroth on the eve of his death.

“Caelir,” said Eldain. “I hoped you would be here.”

His brother took a step towards him, and ran a hand down Lotharin’s lathered flanks.

“A true horseman would see to his mount before anything else,” said Caelir. “But then we both know you are no son of Ellyrion, don’t we brother?”

 

By morning the armies of Morathi and her mortal allies had launched two major attacks upon the Eagle Gate. Both attacks had been repulsed, though the defenders had suffered heavy losses, for the Hag Sorceress had held nothing back from these assaults. Flitting she-bats swooped from the skies, bellowing hydras unleashed breaths of fire, and rock-shielded bolt throwers hurled enormous, barbed shafts at the fragmenting walls.

Morathi herself took to the air, unleashing black sorceries from the back of her midnight pegasus, and every magicker in the fortress bent their efforts to keep her at bay. Her spiteful laughter rang over the battlements, driving her warriors to ever greater heights of suicidal courage.

It sat ill with Menethis to think of the druchii as possessing so noble an attribute as courage, but there was no other word for it. The blood in their veins came from the same wellspring as did his, and for all their other hateful qualities, courage was, unfortunately, not a virtue they lacked. Yet it was not the equal of asur courage, he knew, for its origins lay not in duty, honour or notions of self-sacrifice, but in fear.

The mortal followers of the dark prince attacked with reckless disregard for their own lives, many of them seeming to welcome the stabbing blades of the elves. The towering warrior in the flayed-flesh armour bellowed his challenges from the top of each ladder he climbed, killing any who came near him with chopping blows of his many-bladed sword.

Three times he had gained the rampart, and three times he had been hurled from the walls, only to rise from the ruin of broken ladder and splintered bodies to seek a new way up. The deformed monsters dragged towards the fortress in chains battered its crumbling walls, and the musk of their excretions drifted over the battlements in nauseating waves.

Yet for all the ferocity of these attacks, Menethis sensed a growing sense of something else behind the dark helms of the attackers. He wanted to believe it was desperation, for the walls of the Eagle Gate had held far longer than he would have thought possible. Designed to be impregnable, the garrison had been steadily run down over the years until only a token force remained. The warriors fighting and dying here were now paying for that foolishness with their lives.

Perhaps our enemies know they are on borrowed time, he thought, thinking of the sealed scroll that had arrived in the hands of a rider from Tor Elyr moments before the second attack had hit the walls. Glorien had read it first, then handed it to Menethis. With every word he read, a growing sense of euphoria filled him.

“We have done it,” Glorien had said, his eyes alight with the prospect of victory. “This will be over in days. All we have to do is hold a little longer.”

Arandir Swiftwing, the lord of Tor Elyr, was mustering an army and his foremost general, Galadrien Stormweaver, was marching to their relief. Every able-bodied warrior had been summoned to Lothern, but as more and more of the citizen levy had answered their lord’s summons, another army took shape on the martial fields around Tor Elyr.

A portion of that army would reach the Eagle Gate in two days.

Perhaps that was why the three great eagles had flown from the fortress, sensing that their aid was no longer required. Some had seen it as a bad omen when the three mighty birds had flown over the northern peaks of the mountains, but the news of their relief made sense of their departure.

There had been no time to disseminate the wondrous news of Stormweaver’s imminent arrival, for the enemy were attacking once more. Menethis watched the armoured host of enemy warriors marching towards the walls as a host of white-shafted arrows slashed towards them. Stocks of arrows were low, and Glorien had decreed that only the best archers be given an extra quiver. The Eagle’s Claws were out of bolts and their crews stood on the walls with their fellow warriors, spears glittering in the high sun.

Menethis drew back the string of his bow, picking out a druchii warrior without a helm at the forefront of a group of ladder-bearers. The warrior’s face was pale, and a glistening topknot of black hair hung down to the nape of his neck. His armour was bloodstained and carved with jagged runes. Between breaths, Menethis let fly, watching the arrow arc downwards before plunging home in the druchii’s neck. The warrior fell, clutching at his throat as blood squirted from the wound.

The enemy broke on the walls with a thunderous crash of iron and wood. Ladders were thrown up and looping grapnels sailed over the makeshift battlements. Menethis leaned out over the crumbling rampart and loosed arrow after arrow into the mass of surging warriors below. Each shaft found its mark, punching through the top of a helmet or slicing home in a gap between armoured plates.

Menethis did not waste his arrows on the mortals; only druchii warranted his attention. Within moments, his quiver was emptied and he drew his sword as the enemy climbed their ladders. Hundreds of screaming warriors were coming to gain a foothold on the walls, in a mass of stabbing blades, hewing axes and streaking iron bolts.

“Steady now,” said Menethis, hearing iron-shod boots on metal rungs.

A druchii appeared at the top of the ladder. An asur spear stabbed out but was blocked, and the warrior hauled himself through the embrasure. Menethis plunged his sword into the warrior’s chest. Twisting the blade, he kicked the druchii from the wall and chopped down into the head of the enemy behind him.

“The ladder!” yelled Menethis, seeing that the iron hooks at its end had not bitten into the stonework of the parapet. “Help me!”

He gripped the top of the ladder and heaved with all his strength. Three more elves ran to help him, but the first dropped as an iron bolt hammered into his throat. The two elves took position either side of Menethis and leaned into the task. Another druchii reared up and stabbed his blade into the warrior beside Menethis. He gave a strangled cry and dropped to his knees, but with the last of his strength he gripped his killer’s blade tightly, trapping it within his flesh.

The ladder squealed with a grating scrape of iron on stone, but Menethis felt it pitch past its centre of gravity. Powerless to prevent the ladder from falling, the druchii released his sword and leapt onto the walls with a dagger aimed at Menethis’ heart. A black-shafted arrow sliced out of nowhere and thudded home into the druchii’s armpit. Arterial blood flooded out and the warrior fell as the ladder was cast down. Screaming druchii tumbled to the base of the wall, and Menethis sought out his rescuer.

He gave a begrudged nod of thanks as he saw it had been the Shadow Warrior, Alanrias, who had loosed the arrow. The cloaked warrior sketched a casual salute and bent his bow once more, picking off druchii warriors who were in danger of forming a fighting wedge on the ramparts. All along the length of the wall, a tidal wave of druchii and barbarians were pushing hard. The ramparts were slick with blood, and though the asur line was bending, it was holding.

In the centre of the wall, Glorien stood in the midst of the garrison’s best warriors. His sword was bloody and his armour would never be the same again, but he was fighting hard. Even Menethis had to admit that Glorien’s skills with a blade left much to be desired, but war forced a warrior to be a swift learner. Though there was not an elf in this fortress Glorien could best in a clash of blades, there were the makings of a fine warrior coming to the fore.

Perhaps Glorien’s dream vision was just that; a dream, not some nightmare premonition of doom. Menethis had kept a wary eye on Alanrias throughout the fighting, but the Shadow Warrior had done nothing untoward, calmly and methodically killing druchii with lethally accurate arrows.

Menethis crouched behind the crumbling rampart and removed his helm, pulling his hair back and securing it in a long ponytail. He reached up to wipe a film of sweat from his brow and blinked as he saw something out of place. A stillness, amid the frenetic scrum of battle raging along the length of the wall.

A lone warrior crouched in the shadows at the base of the Aquila Spire with a druchii crossbow resting on a broken stub of rock. His eyes were cold and merciless, the eyes of a murderer. Menethis opened his mouth to shout that a druchii assassin had scaled the walls undetected, when he saw that this assassin wore a cloak of pale blue, muted in the shadows, but unmistakably of asur design.

“Here they come again!” shouted a voice, and Menethis heard the clang of iron ladders and the biting of grapnel hooks into stone. He ignored them, and ran along the wall, ducking and weaving a path through desperate combats.

“No!” he shouted, knowing where the iron bolt of the crossbow was aimed.

The assassin loosed and Menethis screamed a denial as the bolt slashed through the air and hammered through the temple of Glorien’s helmet. The commander of the Eagle Gate was punched from his feet, falling against the parapet as blood poured down his stricken face.

His protectors tried to catch Glorien, but the shock of the impact stunned them to the point where not even their superlative reflexes were swift enough. Glorien toppled forwards, his body falling from the walls to land in the midst of the enemy.

A terrifying howl of triumph erupted from below, for there could be no doubt which of the asur had fallen. Glorien’s armour clearly marked him as the commander of the Eagle Gate, and Menethis ran to the edge of the wall in time to see Glorien’s body torn to pieces by the frenzied savages who served the barbarian warlord.

A palpable wave of grief and horror swept over the defenders of the Eagle Gate, a physical sensation of loss and despair. Few had any love for Glorien Truecrown, but seeing their commander slain so suddenly tore the heart from everyone who saw it. Even the healers and the wounded beyond the walls felt the pain of Glorien’s death.

Wracked with grief, the defence faltered.

Just for a moment, just for the briefest instant, but it was enough.

Scores of ladders thudded against the fortress as Menethis and the defenders wept for their lost master. Enemy warriors hurled themselves over the ramparts, and this time, there would be no stopping them.

Menethis turned towards the Aquila Spire, the need for vengeance fanning a terrible fury in his heart. He saw the druchii weapon thrown from the wall as the assassin who had wielded it stepped from the shadows, confident that no one had seen his perfidy.

Menethis gasped as he saw who had loosed the treacherous bolt.

“Alathenar!” he screamed.

 

Eldain had dreaded this moment, but now that it was here, he felt strangely relieved. Ever since that fleeting moment when he had allowed hateful feelings of jealousy to overcome a lifetime of brotherly love, he had known he would have to answer for his crime. The blade in Caelir’s hands would exact the price he would have to pay.

“Do you want to kill me?” he asked.

“Can you think of a single reason I shouldn’t?”

“No,” said Eldain, stepping down into the Summer Courtyard. “I deserve your hatred.”

The wind sighed through the gates, blowing the leaves from the inlaid marble flagstones into miniature whirlwinds. The last embers of sunlight shone from the colourful windows of the villa’s towers and the evening-hued blade in Caelir’s hands.

“Tell me why, Eldain,” demanded Caelir, and Eldain wanted to weep at the wrenching sorrow he heard in his brother’s voice. “Tell me why you left me to die. I need to know.”

Eldain shook his head. “It will not make any difference.”

“It will make a difference to me, Eldain!” roared Caelir. “I rode day and night from Avelorn, trying to comprehend why my own flesh and blood would betray me to the druchii, but I could think of no reason, no reason at all. So make me understand, brother. Tell me what great insult did I do to you that made you hate me so much?”

“Hate you, brother? No, never that. I loved you.”

“You loved me? You must have a strange definition of the word.”

Eldain circled the fountain, and Caelir mirrored his movements, keeping the waterless centrepiece between them.

“Perhaps you are right,” said Eldain. “I no longer know. I loved you and was jealous of you in equal measure. Nothing I did could ever match what you would accomplish. Anything of worth I could achieve, you would outdo. Wherever I shone, you shone brighter.”

“I only sought to be like you, brother,” cried Caelir. “You were my inspiration!”

Eldain shook his head. “When our father died, who took care of our estates? Who kept our family name alive and dealt with the necessities of life? I did. Not you. I was the one who took care of us when father died, you ran like a spoiled child. Hunting, carousing and riding with the herds was the life you led, being the heroic warrior I had not the time to be.”

“And for that you betrayed me?”

“You stole everything of beauty that should have been mine!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You took Rhianna from me!” cried Eldain, turning and walking towards the tall building at the edge of the Summer Courtyard. He pushed open the ash doors of the Equerry’s Hall, and a gust of leaves followed him inside. Within was dimly lit and smelled of neglect, though it had been only weeks since he had last set foot in this grand hall. Hunting trophies and faded portraits of former lords of the noble Éadaoin family hung from the walls, and a long oval table filled the centre of the echoing space.

Eldain sank into the high-backed chair at the end of the table as Caelir stood silhouetted in its wide doorway by the last light of day. The sword in his hand sparkled in the gloaming. Caelir shut the doors behind him and stepped inside, letting his eyes adjust to the thin light coming through the vents in the roof. In ages past, the lords of the Éadaoin would gather here to feast and sing songs of the wild hunt, but those songs were sung and no more would they lift the rafters with their wild notes.

Caelir sat at the opposite end of the table from Eldain, and laid the sword before him.

“I did take Rhianna from you,” he said at last. “I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway. It was that ride into the Annulii. We were attacked by the druchii and I fought them all. We should have ridden away, but I wanted to fight them. I wanted her to see how strong and brave I was. Foolish, I know, but back then I was a little in love with death I think.”

“She was never the same after that day,” said Eldain. “I accused her of being infatuated with you because of your reckless bravery. I spoke harshly to her, and she did not deserve my anger. I had too long ignored her happiness, and all but forced you together.”

“I did not mean to fall in love with her, but…”

“But you did,” said Eldain. “She is a woman impossible not to fall in love with.”

“And you married her,” said Caelir. “I saw the pledge rings. You came back from Naggaroth and told her I was dead. You betrayed me and took up your life where you had left off now that the inconvenience of Caelir was removed.”

“That is true,” admitted Eldain. “But I think that it was not hatred of you, but love of Rhianna that was my undoing.”

“Again, your definition of love is a mockery of the word.”

“Perhaps, but love is a powerful emotion, one that blinds us to many things. Love is also the gateway to other, darker, emotions: jealousy, paranoia, possessiveness and lust. I told myself I loved her, and anything that brought us together could not be altogether evil. I was wrong, I know that now. And though it can make no difference to how this must end, I ask your understanding if not your forgiveness.”

Caelir rose to his feet, his face reddening as through Eldain had slapped him. “You speak of forgiveness? Of understanding? You left me to the druchii and told the woman I loved that I was dead. You cannot know the things the dark kin did to me, how they made me do… terrible things and cause untold harm to my own kind.”

“I know what they made you do, I understand—”

“You understand nothing!” screamed Caelir. “Hundreds of people are dead because of me, because of what you did. Don’t you understand? Kyrielle, Teclis, the Everqueen… Our enemies used me as a weapon!”

Caelir vaulted onto the table and charged along its length, scattering dusty plates and cutlery. He hurled himself at Eldain and the two brothers crashed to the floor in a tangle of flailing limbs. The sword lay forgotten on the table, as Caelir straddled Eldain’s chest and wrapped his hands around his neck.

Eldain struggled in his brother’s grip, holding onto Caelir’s wrists and fighting to take a breath. The light of madness was in Caelir’s eyes, yet behind it was an ocean of sorrow and pain and guilt. That guilt was rightfully Eldain’s, that sorrow his legacy, and he knew he had more than earned Caelir’s vengeance. This death was a small thing, the last gift he could give his brother in lieu of any means to make amends.

Caelir’s grip tightened, and Eldain’s throat buckled under the pressure. He could take no breath, and he released Caelir’s wrists, letting the grey at the edges of his vision deepen to black until he could see no more. At last, Eldain knew peace.