|
|
|
|
Galain hadn't moved for several long minutes and now he did, sitting up and shaking his head. He should have been thanking Callan, and -- he whipped around, relieved to see Ghetsuhm was being cared for. Gods he hated this... He looked back to Tay and then knelt beside her.
"Tay?" he asked softly. "Are you all right?"
The Amazon’s breathing was shallow, panting, the pain an even mix of physical and emotional. Sheer exhaustion had stolen the last of her strength, leaving the small woman shaking uncontrollably. She didn’t want to think… a huge part of her was wishing Callan had left her behind, or slit her throat. It was better than this…
Galain’s voice sounded… distant, an old and familiar comfort that hovered just out of her grasp. Tay couldn’t even see him through her masses of hair. No, she wanted to scream, she wasn’t ok…. She hadn’t been ok for a long time. The will to speak didn’t come, and even if it had… her husband had far too much to deal with already. Frankly, she had been surprised when he had interfered, and was impassively waiting for him to hand her over to Adarin… as usual.
Was it the wrong question? Galain was starting to double over. He was mostly gone and he had two wives past the point of survival as far as he could sense and tell. It was Tay that was... he just shook himself.
"Tay!" he called out. Conscious of a wary Adarin over his shoulder.
It was the urgency behind his voice, the strain… the over all feeling of just being tired and beyond his limits, that finally jolted Tay out of it. At first she just lay there, listening to the sound of her own ragged breathing and fighting against the raging pain in her soul. There was something desperately wrong… a slight shift in the axis of the galaxy that made it slightly unstable and the edges around an old would were frayed. The gash Elyen Ilander had ripped open… that Railen Rossëvirin had patched… and over time, Galain had filled.
She knew what it was… the beginning of insanity… the start of her own death. D’Riel souls relied on the stability of the orbit around the vortex of the conduit to exist… once broken, they slipped into insanity… their spirit and self eventually decimated by the very thing that gave them such immense power.
Very quietly Tay took her pain, her anger and resentment, folded it up, and tucked it back into the place she had hidden it for so long. Galain was first… as he always had been, no matter what it did to her. Finding a center of calm, she reopened her bonds.
“I’ll be alright,” she managed weakly, brushing a clump of hair away from her eyes so she could meet his sea green gaze. “I’m so glad you are ok Verno… I love you.” Arranging her mouth in a smile she let the hand drop, “Go… she needs you…”
She would not be okay...
Galain’s gut clenched.
“But you need me,” he answered quietly. “I love you. You’ve just gone through hell. She has too. My gods…” his voice broke off as he rocked backward. His wives should be alone with him – in one place and yet together. He silently wailed and then bowed down, still rocking.
“Melda,” he said, his voice cracking as a hand slid across his shoulders.
He shuddered.
He didn’t want that comfort because it came from Adarin.
I don’t want to leave, he said quietly to his wife. >o?I don’t want to leave him to you. I don’t want to him to anyone.
He stopped suddenly as his uncle’s arm grew strongly. The man had his own love and bond and again Galain hated it.
Somehow, his protests made it worse. Words she needed, wanted to hear, yet they couldn’t change reality… they couldn’t change the fact that Ghetsuhm needed him more than she did at this moment. An’Thaya had Adarin… Ghetsuhm only had Galain…
Ironic, how the Amazon’s attempts to fill in the gaps left in her life when Galain had married Ghet… had only made those wounds deeper.
I don’t want you to leave either, her tone was almost a whimper, but Ghet only has you. I can’t do that to her… I know how it feels. Please… go, for me.
Galain gasped out again. They were all so sick, wounded and tired. He saw no rest for any of them for a long while yet and all he could was hold his wife's hand to his lips, kissing Tay's palm desperately before he had to move away, pushed away even by Adarin himself. After all, all Adarin had was Tay herself. And he was quite desperate himself to be at his bondmate's side, to help her and give her his strength.
Galain did give Tay over to Adarin, but not willingly. He cursed Fate as he slipped away, wondering how they could have all reached such a state.
Tay managed a smile for Adarin, barely managing to wrap her arms around the Elen King’s neck as he lifted her from the cold stone. “Hello there,” she murmured, “I don’t suppose you’d mind helping a girl find a bath and a bed?”
She didn’t watch Galain go… she couldn’t… her world shrank down to just her and Adarin.
Adarin was holding Tay in his arms, holding her close. He was intensely glad his nephew was gone and angrily possessive of this hurt woman in his arms.
"I wouldn't mind at all," he said, profusely glad to communicate with Tay on a level he was used to. He'd missed her and hated Tenobrous intensely. "I bet I can find the best sponges, the warmest water and the most attentive of servants for your bidding," he said softly as he swung them both around and let silent guards lead the way.
|
|
|
