Within These Tangled Tales

Chapter Twenty-Five

—Shadowlands, Valdornne—

Her body was heavy in his arms. Still warm. She had been living only seconds ago, but now she was motionless, draped across his lap, blue eyes staring unseeing up at the sky. Someone was speaking to him, but he couldn't hear the words over the ringing in his ears. His little girl. His pride and joy. He had not seen her in ten years, and now, he would carry her body home to her mother. He would bury his daughter. His firstborn. His everything.

Baloren gathered Ori closer. The tears would not come. The breath was knocked from his lungs. His heart ached in a way he had never known. Her head rolled heavily against his shoulder. He closed his eyes and began to rock her gently.

*************

Baloren woke in an instant but did not rise from his bedroll. He lay there for several long moments, his hands pressed against his eyes, trying to forget the sight of Ori dead in front of him, of the feeling of her in his arms, so heavy it felt like the weight of the world rested there.

It was not the Changeling he remembered. His dream of Ori had been different. Her heart was not ripped from her chest. She was not drenched in blood. She had not been beaten, tortured, and raped. But she had been dead all the same, lying there on a forest floor, her eyes still open, all life gone from them. The forest had been unmistakable, the red grass and red willow trees making it utterly unique. The Weald in Medyulana. But Ori had never returned to Medyulana since the day she left and likely never would again. For once, the thought comforted Baloren. If she never returned home, that dream could never be real.

The dream would not leave him and so he stood, leaving their small encampment behind. Eyje, Taras, and Sian watched him go, but he never glanced backward. Despite their current location, Baloren was not afraid of what lurked in this ancient forest. Nothing the Shadowlands could conjure would ever frighten him more than that dream.

A short way from camp, Baloren allowed himself to take a deep breath and shut his eyes. He could not think of his children. If he did, he knew his resolve might break. Instead, he thought of his wife, his fierce lioness, who had saved him in more ways than she would ever know. She had always been his strength, his reason for living. How he missed her and that peaceful corner of a distant world they had struggled to obtain.

His mind conjured the memory of their wedding, a quick and hurried affair that had been a political scandal that could have gotten him executed. His former king had been furious to learn what he had done. But Baloren had long been past caring. He had loved Teryn for so many years, and at last, he had her. He wouldn't let her slip through his fingers. The words he had spoken to her the first night they made love still rung true even now.

There will never be another.

Forever he would love Teryn. She had saved him, loved him, made him a better man, gave him four children that were beautiful beyond description. Eleven years they had lived in peace without interruption, without thought of death and destruction. And then the King of Bones nearly ripped it all away. Since that day, their family had never been whole. There was still so much goodness, so many happy memories they made even after Ori was gone, but her ghost had haunted them all. How he wanted to return to those days when Ori had been free.

They had known of the King of Bones before. He had helped to orchestrate the downfall of Valdornne, had orchestrated events far beyond their understanding, but there hadn't been time to turn their attention to him. And then, when Valdornne was gone, when the dust had settled, he simply hadn't wanted to. He had wanted to find Teryn, to retire in peace where he could enjoy his family. If he had just pushed harder, then, maybe, Ori would be safe now.