UNSHEATHED

Chapter Sixty Six

Elena savoured the warmth of Liran's body as he held her. She had felt an existential cold for months now. There had been a dark empty spot within her as well that refused to repair itself. She searched for it now, but she couldn't find it. That shadow had driven her to leave Mount Gelhirin, where her mother had brought her, to the highest peaks of that frozen mountain range, far above the places where any man or woman might survive. The ice caves there were beautiful, but they had no heart, and the mountain itself was a lonely place.

When Elena's body died, Maylani had materialized to catch her essence as she fell, gathering her up in her spirit arms and drawing her away from the battle below. Elena stared back at the fighting as she was carried off, unable to move, shocked by the instant of searing pain that had accompanied her death.

She saw too much in those minutes that troubled her and made her heartsick. Liran, awoken from his spirit walk, wept over her lifeless body. Only minutes before, they each had learned that they loved each other.

Briefly distracted from his grief, he turned to see danger, in the form of Rainna, aiming an arrow at his heart with clear intent. Elena tried to shout out, to alert him to protect himself. She was helpless to act in this form, and she was being whisked away at great speed from the scene.

As she watched, feeling helpless, she noticed Maranus nearby, assessing the scene and rushing quickly to Liran's aid. He took Rainna down with his spear at the very same moment as she released an arrow trained on his own chest. Rainna went down and so did Maranus.

Helplessly watching Maranus' death was more than Elena could bear. There was still a place in her heart for him. He had been her teacher in the art of war and of love. All he had asked from her was her hand in marriage for the sake of honour, and she had refused him. She vowed, in spite of the futility, that she would not make that mistake again.

Gelhirin was for Elena a place of repose and a place of learning. Her mother took her in charge, aiming to make a proper Guardian out of her. It might have worked if the darkness hadn't gnawed away at her so insistently.

At first Elena had been weakened by her ordeal and needed to regain her strength. Her maru had been greatly depleted by her battle with Korr and subsequently by her death. It took months for her to regain the capacity she had lost. Then Maylani began to teach her.

For Elena, a woman who had always lived inside the confines of a body, being shapeless energy bound by consciousness was a strange experience. Although she remained with her mother for a long while, thinking this would be her life now, and she should adapt to it, Elena struggled to adapt. She just wanted her body back, and to live among her people in the real, solid world she had always known. She was not ready for this, but she didn't realize, and her mother didn't tell her, that she had a choice.

It slipped out one day when Maylani was instructing her in the methods she used to future-see.

The world must be out of focus, so it is best to do this when here in the caves on Mount Gelhirin. You are far away from the physical world that might bind you back to it, as you were from birth.

If Elena could have frowned from puzzlement, she would have, but she only asked: I was bound? Are you bound when you walk in the world in a body?

No, Elena, I am not of this world as you are. I only walk among its creatures. You are bound because you were born in physical form from the start. It was my fault for having given you birth to you in the quaint old-fashioned way.

Thousands of questions popped into Elena's head. She began with: Did you have a choice about how I was born?

Maylani paused for a long while as she often did. Many times she never answered at all.

According to my visions, you had to be born in precisely that manner. It allowed you to go unnoticed by the other Guardians. They would have insisted you swear the Oath of non-intervention, which would have inhibited you from stopping Korr.

Elena kept finding more questions to ask.

Yet you recently made me swear it.

Yes, but we have prevailed, so your intervention is no longer necessary. Now that they know of you, the others expected it.

That means you had to be in physical form, find my father, seduce him and carry a child through a pregnancy and give birth just as any Trillas woman might do. That seems like a lot of trouble. Do the Guardians usually give birth to children in this manner?

The Guardians have walked this world in the forms of all its people since the beginning of recorded time. Where do you think the Hilliri came from? When we arrived there were only the Trillas. We took our old forms, the ones we had on our other world before we came to this one, after abandoning our forms altogether. We brought new children into the world with shapes similar to theirs and powers similar to ours.

This news surprised Elena a little, until she reasoned it out. The signs were all there, but the Hilliri were too proud to believe they were the progeny of the Trillas.

It occurred to Elena then, that it was possible to make a body and inhabit it, for surely that was what the Guardians had done back when they were making a new race.

I want a new body. How can I get one so that I can return to Castillon?

Again, a long pause from Maylani.

It is very complicated, Elena, I doubt I could teach you enough before millennia have passed. It will take that long for you to learn all of the arts that go into the process.

But I want to return to my life! Is there no way?

There must have been something in the way she had asked, for Maylani typically would have dismissed such a request. Elena knew that this was all she really wanted.

She thought she heard Maylani sigh.

I can make a body for you, if you are certain this is what you want. It can be exactly the same as your old one, or, I can make you as you wish. Hilliri perhaps this time? A man instead of a woman? Taller or shorter? These are your choices, though I will say that I am disappointed you don't wish to remain and learn.

Elena believed she meant something like regret, though the chilliness of Maylani's communications often said little of the Guardian's personal motivations and desires. It was hard for Elena to imagine such a creature overcome with mortal passions as would have been required for the conception of a child.

If Elena ever had the chance to be a mother, the idea suddenly came to her that she actually might, she would try to be a better one than Maylani had been.

I might be willing to return here one day, I'm just not ready to stop living the life I had. When I have lived a long and full life, I may be ready then to learn all you have to teach me.

I will be satisfied with that, daughter. We have infinite time.

We do indeed. But I don't have infinite patience.

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Cheers!

Rebecca