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"You did set them free," she said.
"I admit that I had to in order to rid the world of the threat, but I wanted
to end their torture as well," Shan explained. "I never dreamed of meeting a
living Nufalese with whom I could begin to make amends for our terrible past.
I accept that the rys wronged you," Shan said.
"You guided my parents to the next world?" Alloi asked.
"Yes, if they were Deamedron," Shan said.
She did not speak for some time. The wind moaned between the monoliths, and
she listened to the sad song upon the land. He had set free the enslaved souls
of Nufal instead of trying to seize control of them, and Alloi respected his
choice very much.
Finally, she whispered, "The tabre wronged the rys as well."
"Nothing could have deserved what Onja did to you," Shan insisted although
painfully interested to know her firsthand version of history. Onja had
cleaned the record after her war, and future generations had known very
little, except not to enter the Wilderness.
Alloi gripped his hand and felt the rich deep pulse of his existence. The
contact reached into the desolate pit of her loneliness, where her vulnerable
spirit cowered. She could seek companionship with death or with this rys,
whose offer to help carry her burden of grief amazed her.
She also sensed his grief, intense shame in fact, for his actions on the
battlefield. Her sensitive mind felt his reluctance toward returning to his
subjects. He had fallen from the pedestal of his moral authority. Fallen hard.
His awareness of his wrongdoing appealed to Alloi. She pitied Shan for failing
when hard circumstances had tested his good heart.
Shan knew that she was analyzing the heavy thoughts roiling at the surface of
his mind but he was not disturbed by it. So close to Alloi, he felt he had
found a refuge from the madness that had recently seized him.
Shan said, "Alloi, you offered to forgive me if I would kill you. Instead, I
ask for forgiveness for killing your brother. If I had known then how dear he
was to you, I would have found a way to be merciful."
Imagining how Tempet might have been in a different life, Alloi said, "You
were merciful. He suffered far more than I."
"Walk with me," Shan whispered tenderly and she followed him away from the
ancient battlefield.
7. Days of Freedom
Squalls of freezing rain glazed the silent battlefield. For two hours, the
cold taxed the bodies of the fighters before Shan s spell began to wear off.
The rys soldiers awoke first. Their clothes crackled as they sat up and broke
the sheens of ice on their bodies.
Under a slate sky that scowled at a windy land, the rys tried to find their
King, but, with the best of them killed, none remained who could cast their
minds farther than a dozen hasas from the area.
Unable to detect Shan and confused by his absence, the rys soldiers waited
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uneasily.
Taf Ila noticed little and cared for nothing beyond the devastating sight of
his dead daughter draped over the back of a horse. Thin ice shrouded her in a
glassy layer that crusted on her armor and black hair. Lurching to his feet,
Taf Ila went to Quylan and removed one of her gauntlets.
Pressing her lifeless digits against his face, he plunged into his sorrow and
shut his eyes.
Amid the scattered remains of the Atrophane force, Sandin awoke. His dismay
swiftly slapped aside his grogginess. Alloi was gone, and all of his soldiers
were strewn over the ground like toy soldiers knocked down by a spoiled child.
Shivering, Sandin automatically hugged himself although pressing his arms
against his armor did nothing to warm them. His body that had burned with the
endurance spell was cold and depleted.
His horse stood nearby. The majestic war steed hung its head, drained of all
vigor for battle.
Sandin spotted Recey collapsed between two flagbearers with one of the
Atrophaney banners covering half of the faithful squire s body. Shoving his
mind out of its haze, Sandin assessed the area more thoroughly and discovered
that even the enemy soldiers were down. He could see their prone bodies
sprinkled along the hill where they had retreated. At first, he assumed
happily that
Alloi had killed them until he saw rys walking along the hill.
Where is Alloi?
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