43 Guiselia's Cave

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Erdil

       When the ice giant exploded, Avétk crouched over Emeline's slump body and dropped the axe next to him. Her face was paler than ever, the bones poking at the skin stretched over her face, a sheen of sweat on her forehead, and her breaths shallow, her limbs limp. In spite of all this, she was beautiful, and as the ice showered down on him, around them, he looked once more upon her lovely face and swept away stray strands of her hair.

        The ice particles tinkled and crashed, green light reflected off them and set the entire room sparkling with a rainbow of colours, mixing with the burnt umber of the cavern walls and the black of the shadows. The lights played like the Northern Lights in the air and touched Emeline's skin. His heart ached for her, for her pain and her beauty, and because he had failed to protect her. Even now, the sight of her thin blue lips stirred passion in him, not the kind he had felt watching a lusty barmaid, or the kind he'd experienced when first he had bedded a woman. This stirring was not only of the body but of the soul, and it had come upon him without his notice, so that now he would give his life and even is afterlife for her, no matter how strange their relationship was or how ruthless his curse became. The only thing that wasn't quite right for him, was that she seemed so much younger than him. Certainly, she had never shared her age with him, or with anyone, but her appearance was that of a youth, barely a few years older than Brushä, perhaps.

        The last ice clinked down, and in the silence that followed Avétk sighed. This girl was too young for him, no matter what his blackened soul told him, curse the moon. He had to put these feelings aside, serve her as one vowed to her—the Girl Child of the Prophecy—not as a lover. This thought crushed him, but it was right, and he had done so little good in his life. Let her be the one thing he got right.

        The passion in his chest turned to a burning ache, as if an arrow had pierced his chest, and it burned up into his eyes. One tear escaped and fell on her cheek, and he leaned in and kissed her. Just once. Surely the Fathers could grant him that one grace. He closed his eyes. Her lips were soft and supple, and cold as ice. The feel of her skin touching his jolted through him like lightning. His heart raced and he breathed in deeply as a fierce wave of desire washed over him.

        Then their lips parted, another tear cut down his cheek. He turned his face away, and saw at last what havoc had been wreaked of the cave. Where before the ground had been near even—besides for giant stone structures—boulders had toppled, rubble had crumbled from the walls and the roof of the hollow, and ice, some of it melted, some of it shattered, covered everything. The smell of the air was crisp and fresh, like the smell after a thunderstorm. But none of it mattered. Avétk's melted heart was breaking all over again, turning to stone. To ice.

        Determined to do right, at least this once, Avétk picked her up and walked back to where Ol'Finlug had been digging. The rest of the party gathered around, Ketiya wiping sweat from her brow and cleaning her knives on her pants. Before them a deep hole revealed a glowing orb. The Mage, his arm around Denirya, leaned forward and touched the end of his glowing staff to the orb. Deeper into the cavern a grating growled like a slumbering beast. A door. They followed Finlug blindly, with only the green light glowing from the Mage's staff to light their way, until they found an open doorway from which yellow light glowed. Their destination.

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        A voice chanted, rough and wizened, and the chant tugged at Emeline's consciousness. "Come to," the voice seemed to whisper and to growl in a language she did not know, "come to!"

        And with a jerk, her eyes opened, and she felt, again, the fire in her abdomen where the Dark Woman had burned her with lightning. High above her was a rock roof, burnt umber and chiselled, with light cutting through it—sunlight—though from her angle she could not locate the gap from which it shone. She was flat on her back, and what she saw blurred and came into focus with waves of fever and weakness that ebbed and flowed. The unfamiliar voice continued its chant as she lapsed into sleep, and after a time reawakened. How much time had passed? The light seemed different, and the pain less. Much less. Her pupils shrank and she found she had the strength to sit up, feeling at her stomach as she did, but the hole was gone. Only tender skin remained, which burned when she touched it as if her body remembered that bright bolt.

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