The Chosen Soul (31 page)

his palm in the same place.

He waited. The babe remained still.

Her husband’s expression became mockingly stern. “Aye, definitely a lad. He is

defying his father already.”

She shook her head, smiling. “You must be patient, Cruor. Best start now, while

you’ve a chance to practice.”

He grinned and pulled her into a warm embrace. Then he kissed her, and his goatee

tickled her chin. She chuckled softly and gently pulled away. “When will you shear that

wretched little tuft of hair, my love?”

He laughed low and wicked, and leaned in for another kiss. “When it stops tickling

you.” He replied.

She laughed again, but the sound was cut short by a knock at the door. Cruor pulled

away from her and glanced in its direction. The knock came again, harder this time, a

short smart rap that retorted loudly in the once peaceful room.

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“Open in the name of your King, mage. I’ve a petition from your sovereign!”

She glanced at her husband, and he at her.

Then, with a frown where a smile had once been, he moved around her and strode to

the door. He opened it and she gazed out at three men in uniform, the crest of their king

emblazoned on their chests. Soldiers, sent by Lord Moradon. She fought to suppress the

shiver that threatened her. The soldiers never brought good news.

“What do you want?” Cruor asked, ever to the point. He was in the king’s service,

but as a mage, he commanded enough power to speak as he sought fit. Within reason.

“His Lordship requests ten new battle-ready spells by sun-up. We take Kinestaire

tomorrow night. You will be in attendance, equipped as my liege has commanded.”

Cruor stared out at the armored man. The mage’s expression was one of shock. And

then of anger.

“No mage can fathom ten spells in one night, soldier. You’re mad.” He stepped

toward the soldiers, forcing them to retreat backwards. Raven grew concerned and moved

up behind him. He held one hand back, directed at her, silently insisting that she remain

inside, out of the way.

But something drew her forward.

So, she followed as the four men moved their discussion into the front yard, beneath

the bright lights of the double full moons.

“And even if I could do it,” Cruor continued, ire causing his voice to raise, “I would

not. I’ve other commitments.”

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Heather Killough-Walden

At that, the soldiers turned from him to look at her. She placed a hand to her stomach

protectively. Dread welled up inside of her. The scene was familiar. Ancient, forgotten,

but not entirely so.

The soldiers eyed her in silence for several moments. And then their leader nodded,

once. He turned and his subordinates followed. He mounted his horse, and the other two

soldiers mounted their horses after him.

He looked down at the mage and leveled him with an ice-cold glare. “You’ll have the

spells by sun-up, mage, or your life is forfeit.” He glanced once again at Raven and his

expression hardened. “And to make certain you are not distracted from your true duties,”

he pulled a dagger from a sheath at his waist, “I’ll rid you of your other ‘commitments’.”

He then and threw the dagger, expertly, at Raven.

She watched it flip end over end through the space between them, its blade flashing

in the moonlight. Time slowed and she knew what was coming, remembered it, and

waited for it.

The blade embedded itself in her stomach in one quick piercing moment. The

physical pain she suffered was minimal. As she gazed down at the hilt protruding from

her swollen abdomen, she felt her unborn infant kick one last time.

And then fall still. Silent.

Her knees gave out. The world spun around her. In the periphery of her vision, she

saw her husband cast a spell. And then another. She heard screams, knew the soldiers

were dead.

And then he was holding her in his arms. His fingers gripped her body bruisingly

tight. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him. He was crying. She’d never seen him cry.

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“
I can’t heal you. I can’t heal you
!” he screamed as he rocked her back and forth.

Her husband had never learned healing magic. He had never tried.

She said nothing. With the last of her waning strength, she reached for his right hand

and placed it atop her stomach.

Then she closed her eyes.

And opened them to a white-washed world, bitter cold and desolate. She stared up at

the man before her. His sapphire eyes were familiar now.

“I didn’t know until I touched you… In the forest.” He had been dumbfounded to

find the familiarity there, shocked to feel her body, once known so well by his own,

beneath his caressing fingers. He’d been shaken. And then angry. Furious that fate had

punished him in this final manner, forcing him to destroy the one thing he had ever cared

for in order to finish that which he’d sworn to do long ago.

And then he’d decided, as he’d turned away from her in that clearing, that he would

not surrender to the pain that destiny had attempted to deal. He would have her soul, take

it within himself, and revel in it. After all, what better way to become close to his wife

once more?

And, as he’d faced her once again, his anger had given way to lust. He had been

telling the truth when he’d told her she was more beautiful than any other. No one had

ever been more beautiful to him than his wife. Ever.

He would kiss her, taste her, feel her one last time. He would have the woman he’d

had thousands of years ago. She was already his.

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Heather Killough-Walden

He gazed down at her now and a muscle ticked in his jaw. “I swore revenge against

man. And I had it.” He said, his voice cracking beneath the weight of untold emotion. She

waited several moments, saying nothing.

Then she raised her left hand and gently cupped the side of his face. He closed his

eyes. Only for a second.

“You’ve lived an immortality of hatred, Cruor. It has turned you as cold as the ice on

which we stand. You do not see that you have become the soldier in this field,” she

paused, glancing at the frost-hewn plane around them, “and humanity, the mage.”

He gazed down at her, his brow furrowed, his lips quivering, and for once did not

have an answer.

And then she pulled away from him and placed her hand to her stomach.

He looked from her face to her hand, and his entire body stilled.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. She knew in her heart that she had the power

she needed to perform this one final piece of magic. It would take most, if not all of her

strength. But Drake’s blood flowed strong through her veins, and all doubt fell away, as

useless as fear, as she turned her thoughts inward, searching within herself.

She saw the long hall then, a corridor with a thousand doors. Each one opened as she

passed, and a being appeared. She passed them without pause, their ethereal shapes

acknowledging her and then moving aside. A man named Herald. A little girl named

Rhianna. An old woman named Bella. A chipmunk, a middle-aged farmer, an old man, a

shark, a little boy, a pink pig, a dapple gray mare…

At the end of the hall lay the last door. It was white, in contrast to the others. The

knob shone polished gold. She turned the handle, and the door swung open.

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She embraced the spirit there, held it to her breast, rocked it gently in her folded

arms, as she had never had the chance to do in life.

And then she opened her eyes. The white landscape replaced the corridor in her soul.

But she’d brought the presence with her. She held out her hands, cupped together, as if

they held something in them.

Cruor gazed down at her as light began to form in her outstretched palms. He

watched as the light grew, and began to take form, amassing into a tiny, glowing shape

that he recognized instantly.

Emotion choked him and he took a step back.

The light grew blindingly bright and then pulsed once and faded, leaving a bundled

newborn infant in its wake. Raven held the babe gently, rocking him slowly back and

forth. The infant peered up at her through large blue-black eyes, his tiny fingers grasping clumsily at the air as he issued forth indistinct gurgling sounds.

Cruor shook his head and stilled.

Raven slowly moved toward him, and this time he did not retreat.

She stopped just before him. “Take him,” she said softly and held the babe out to the

man who was once her husband. He shook his head.

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can,” she told him, her voice gentle but firm. She moved closer and raised

the infant directly in front of him. “Take him, Cruor. I’ll not give you my soul. Not now,

not ever,” she continued, her tone still gentle. “But
this
soul was never born, was never mine. It merely rested inside of me. This soul, I will give you, Cruor, because it was

already, in part, yours.”

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Heather Killough-Walden

She smiled as he at last slowly raised his arms and, as if the action was as alien to

him as breathing water, he took the babe, his hold somewhat unsteady, and peered down

at him.

“And it is the one soul you have truly wanted all along.”

She stepped back from him then and watched as he gazed down at the child in his

arms. The baby cooed, and Cruor’s brow furrowed. His eyes turned glassy. He exhaled,

and his breath shook with powerful sentiment.

She waited several minutes more, allowing him this time with the child he had never

had, with the soul that was meant to be his.

And then she waved her hand in the air, and their surroundings shimmered, changed,

melted, and reformed.

They were again in the clearing, in the forest, spells exploding around them, time

returned to what it was, once more.

They stood a mere foot apart and Cruor gazed down at her, his arms at his sides, his

hands empty. She said nothing, no further words being necessary.

He did not even blink when she then plunged the Corrigan Dagger, hilt-deep, into his

gut.

He looked at her several moments more and then tore his gaze away to look at he hilt

protruding from his stomach. He closed his eyes and fell to his knees.

As they watched, Cruor’s head dropped, his long black hair cascading around his

face, hiding his features. The ground began to rumble beneath their feet. Above them, the

clouds started to gather and then to spin. The wind picked up, and the leaves on the trees

quaked.

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Raven looked from Cruor to Haledon’s avatar - her brother - who stood watching

several yards away. The avatar nodded at her slowly, his bright yellow eyes flashing, his

body radiating sunlight that illuminated the clearing even as the clouds blocked all light

from the moons above.

The avatar came forward then, calmly stepping over a fissure in the ground as it

opened up beneath him and emitted a jet of steam. Another crevice opened up a few yards

away, and Astriel and Drake exchanged uncertain glances. But even as several more gaps

and cracks forged their ways across the leaf-strewn ground, each man held his position.

Haledon’s avatar strode to Cruor’s form and peered down at him. He raised one

hand, palm down, over the Death Mage’s bent head.

“Absolvo Solutum.”

His booming voice resounded over the building fury around them. Lightning split the

night sky and the wind began to roar. Cruor’s form started to glow. A strange kind of mist

rose from his stilled body. As they watched, the mist ascended and swirled, caught up in

the curl of the maelstrom. And then, before their eyes, it took shape.

Many shapes.

Small shapes, large shapes, nasty, twisted shapes, and serene beautiful shapes. The

forms spun and swirled, caught up in their individual courses. And then each either spun

up and away into the night sky, or was sucked into the ground, between the cracks and

crevices that had formed there.

Raven watched in silence as the souls Cruor had stolen were finally released. A few,

she knew, Haledon would see restored. They belonged to bodies that were not yet meant

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Heather Killough-Walden

to die. Those few, such as Summer’s missing brother, would suddenly return, with no

recollection of where they had gone or what had happened to them.

Their families would rejoice, regardless of the loss of time and remembrance.

The rest were sent where they’d been meant to go. Raven knew her father would be

receiving a fresh influx of souls to inhabit his icy realm.

She glanced down at her brother then. She watched him free the last of Cruor’s

stolen spirits, and then step back.

Cruor raised his head slowly, and the storm quieted.

The wind died down, the lightning ceased, and the earth closed up. The clouds

parted, thinning away. Nothing rumbled and nothing shook.

Raven gazed at the man in black who knelt at the center of the clearing. His eyes

found hers and held her gaze.

A lifetime passed between them in the space of a single, last heart beat.

And then his head dropped a final time, and his body began to turn to dust. Before