Fall of Thanes by Brian Ruckley Page B

Hundred died for? For us to submit ourselves to the twisted delusions of that...?"
    "Thane."
    Kanin turned. Shraeve was standing a few paces away in the doorway, watching him with those dead eyes. Her swords lay once more across her back, their hilts framing her face.
    "Aeglyss would talk with you," she said.
    In the instant of Kanin's distraction, Goedellin brushed unsteadily past him, hobbling after all the others.
    "It's not fate," Kanin hissed after the old man. "It's something else."
    He turned back to Shraeve, his lip curled in contempt. "Let your master talk to those who wish to hear."
    "You will wish to hear this, Thane." She was unmoved by his bitter tone, as if what he felt or thought was of less consequence than the dance of a fly on a breeze. "It is for no one else but you. It concerns your sister."
    And she turned and walked away. Like a hunter who knew her quarry was safely taken, needing and deserving no more of her attention. Kanin followed, heavy-footed, back into the hall, unable to do anything else. He wondered, with little interest, if he might be going to his death.
    Behind him he heard startled, pitiful yelps. They were killing Cannek's hounds.
    Aeglyss was alone in the hall, standing waiting for Kanin. Cannek's corpse was gone, along with Hothyn and the other woodwights who must have carried it away. So easily do we vanish from the world, Kanin thought. Our every intention and hope disappears in a moment, and counts for nothing.
    Shraeve, at his side, drew Kanin to a halt three swords' lengths from Aeglyss. Feeling her touch, he turned to rebuke her, but the words died in his throat, smothered by the sound of Aeglyss' voice.
    "You hate me, Thane. Don't trouble to deny it. I can taste your hatred of me, and that's a flavour I know well. It's been all around me through my whole life, the very air I breathe. There's nothing more to you than your desire to see me dead. And I understand. I do."
    The halfbreed's voice dripped with concern, with affection. A warm, comforting sense of sympathy enfolded Kanin, an almost physical sensation: a kind hand, taking him in its gentle grasp.
    "Terrible things have happened," Aeglyss whispered. "You know but a fragment of it. I promise you, though, I promise you: I loved your sister just as dearly as you did."
    The truth of that was an unquestionable certainty, insinuating itself into Kanin's mind, entangling itself with the instinctive revulsion he felt at the thought. The bitter retorts that came boiling up towards his lips were snared and snuffed out.
    "I can hardly tell any more what I remember, what I imagine, what memories I gather into me from the Shared," Aeglyss rasped. "But I know I loved her, and she loved me. She loved me as none has before. Only my mother... my mothers. But I was not strong enough to save her. Oh, I longed to. You cannot know..."
    A tear, at the corner of the na'kyrim 's grey eye. Kanin could see nothing else but that perfect bead of moisture, a gleam of torchlight reflected in its smooth surface. It ran free, and Kanin watched its descent, felt his own vast grief carried along with it and growing, bursting up, swelling to merge with the still greater sorrow that filled the hall like a turbid mist. He trembled, overcome by the sense that there was nothing in all the world save loss and impotence.
    "Nothing is as I wanted it to be," Aeglyss said thickly. "I never asked for all this death. Hers least of all. Don't you understand? What has happened is... I didn't choose this. Why can't you see that? Give me your forgiveness, Thane. Give me her forgiveness."
    "Forgive?" Kanin murmured. His thoughts were softening, losing their shape.
    "It was my weakness." Aeglyss hung his head. "I could not sustain her love for me and still take hold of the Shadowhand. I would have done, if I could. Oh, nothing would have been sweeter. But I am too weak, too feeble; and I had to have the Shadowhand." He looked suddenly at Shraeve, and then to Kanin, beseeching.