Rosalea was still a little relieved the next morning when they were offered breakfast for a handful of coins again, and no one had made any attempt to rob them. She combed through her hair, braided it, and used the hair stick that Ulric had bought her. She was gratified to see him smile a little.
As she ate the warm fruit bread and sipped the warm drink that came with it, she watched Ulric chatting with people. He changes the way he talks also, she thought, listening to him painfully slice the “g” sound off of almost every verb. I feel like there are two Ulrics, almost. This one that I do not really know, and the one that used to drag me out of trees and scare me into studying. While Ulric was distracted, Rosalea bought Ulric a new shirt and cloak, since it was getting colder and he seemed not to have too many of his own clothes.
Once they finished breakfast, the caravan continued on its way toward Dyna, and she and Ulric continued toward the border.
Once they were clear of the last sounds of the wagons clunking along, Ulric spoke. “I’m thinkin’ we could probably use our shapes to cross over. They shouldn’t take too much interest in animals.”
Rosalea smiled as his speech remained the same as it had when conversing with the traders. “I guess that seems fair. How are you feeling after yesterday?”
“My magic has fully recovered, it is just I am still a little weak when we go a long way. Still, I do not want to be an obstacle to you having any opportunity to get back to Lio.”
“I appreciate that. How close are we actually to the border?”
“A few hours. I am thinking we should try to cut off the road soon and either head north or south east.”
“North east, I think,” Rosalea said. “The biggest forest on the maps you showed me was at the north of Dyran, not far from the mountains.” She pointed to them looming in the distance to a much further northern point.
“North east it is,” and Ulric led Nira off the road and through the brush on the first game trail that they saw that led that way generally.
“Since you got me so many pretty things,” Rosalea said, “I got you some practical things.” She indicated the knife she was now wearing around her waist on an improvised belt. She held out her hands and summoned the cloak and shirt and presented it to him.
“The bowl is practical,” Ulric said slightly defensively.
“I think they were all bribes,” Rosalea grinned at him. “Poorly spent, I might add, I can hardly think I remain the heir of a kingdom that wanted me dead.”
Ulric huffed. “Maybe treats to alleviate a mountain of guilt,” he allowed.
Rosalea made a musing noise as he pulled his new shirt on over the top of the old one and put the cloak on. “I think you have my forgiveness, you could consider forgiving yourself one day.”
He smiled, but also looked down, a bitterness in that smile that made Rosalea worry a little. “I just realized that I did not want to try to escape Fate anymore.”
Rosalea frowned. “And what is your fate?”
Ulric smiled but shook his head no, he wasn’t going to answer, even if she did compel truth from him with her mind magic. Rosalea did not push it because she did not want to revisit the pain doing so before had caused.
“So! That should be warmer!”
“Yes! Also, I find the economics interesting between elves willing to trade with humans and yet not dragons.”
Rosalea found something like that painfully boring, but she was happy to let Ulric opine on it as they walked.
Fen pressed near her leg, and Rosalea absently rubbed against the big animal.
Once they determined they were probably quite near the border by the number of outposts sprinkled along a rough line, they went into thick underbrush and transformed. It was evening, and this close to winter, the sun was starting to set. They waited for a few minutes until Nira was used to the look of them, the three wolves and the loyal mare headed further north to find the best gap they could in the outposts and cut across into Dyran.
***
Damned dragons, the captain thought as he and his company worked their way through hacking down a particularly dense patch of growth on their side of the border. He had wings of gray in his hair, and he was supposed to be retired. However, after the beast had secured Miron, there was now a lot of hostility and alarm going around about how to cope with the potential attempts of dragon-kind to annex the capital.
The forest gods had seemed to rid the world of the last dragon to try something similar, even before the mining town had been built, but they seemed to be letting this one run amuck.
So everyone along the massive border had been deployed to help reinforcement, since the guard towers were spaced too far apart to catch everything. No one had guarded this particular stretch in so long, there wasn’t even a proper path between them, and so it was no wonder the dragon had just decided to move in. The monotony was disrupted as they saw three wolves running behind an unsaddled, unbridled horse. “Shoot them down!” he shouted. “Bring those beasts down!” That'll teach them to eat our livestock!
***
Rosalea heard something whiz by her head, and leaped forward to avoid the one that struck the ground by her feet. We are being shot at! She thought for just a second about dropping her shape so she could erect barriers with her magic, but that delay was a good way to get herself shot and she thought they could make it to more underbrush and be hard to hit.
“Run!” she screamed. Ulric had been lagging behind her. Wolf was not one of his preferred shapes, so he had been at the back of the group. He picked up speed and matched her pace exactly; Rosalea was confused why, and she faltered. He matched the falter, and thunk-thunk! It was too late when Rosalea realized what he had done. She heard each bolt connect, both almost simultaneously.
He lost his shape and went down. Rosalea called to Nira, dumping her own shape and leaping aboard, scooping Ulric up with caelus magic. How could you! she screamed inside. How dare you shield me with your body! You stupid–
“Hold your fire! There are people there! Hold your fire!”
“What the devil! Where did the wolves go?”
Rosalea ignored the confusion of the men and galloped away, maneuvering Nira between the sound of their voices and Fen. She couldn’t stay, she couldn’t let them catch them. Who knew what they might do to changers if they shot at wolves? They were galloping through fields, Nira leaping fences, and Rosalea did not let them stop until she reached a grove of trees.
A few times, Rosalea almost came off of Nira, and it was her reflexive grip on the mare with her Caelus magic that actually kept her on. The rest of her focus had been on keeping Ulric as still as possible and to maneuver him around obstacles safely. She fell off of Nira when she went to get down, tweaking her wrist a little as she landed awkwardly trying to keep her right hand in the air so that Ulric would not fall with her. She scrabbled to summon her sleeping skin and set him carefully on it.
It was exactly as she thought she heard. She saw two arrow shafts coming from his body. The one on the right side of his leg was fine; he would have lived through that. It was the one sitting in his side, the one that had pierced a lung. She reached for the one in his leg. He grabbed her hand.
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“No, Rosalea,” he rasped, “leave it. It is too late.” Flecks of blood from his punctured lung dotted his lips as he spoke.
“No, Ulric, do not say that, do not speak that way. You will be fine.” Healing magic cannot cure a lethal injury. I do not have Gods’ magic in my hands right now.
He smiled weakly, “Rosalea, you are not any good at lying.” He moaned slowly, a terrible sound of pain. Why does he have to be right? she thought, her eyes stinging.
“Why did you do it?” she whispered. “Why didn’t you fall back where it was safer?”
He smiled, and then coughed, more blood dotting his face. Rosalea grimaced and looked away, summoning a stray bit of cloth and wiped his face. I have to try, she thought, her face contorting a little as she struggled not to cry. She reached for the arrow again, but again he laid his hand over hers. “Rosalea, it’ll make the blood come in faster,” he wheezed. “This is how it was meant to be, just stay with me.” His face turned very white, and he continued coughing and moaning. “Just stay with me.”
Rosalea began crying. She couldn’t help it. He was bleeding everywhere, he was wheezing, his lungs gurgling. It was clear he was in pain. He reached for her hand and gripped it, trying to smile at her, revealing bloody teeth. She reached for her magic, pouring it into him, trying to ease the pain, trying to help him, to heal him.
She was just losing magic, and it barely took the edge of his pain away. He was mumbling under his breath, clearly other places, other times. Rosalea sat there, gripping his hand, feeling angry. Where is the power now? I saved Rhainnon, why can I not save him?
Fen moved and laid next to her, “You know why.”
Rosalea angrily pushed Fen away. “You knew this would happen. Not long? He was not going to stay with me long? Why did you let me bring him?” Fen flattened her ears and looked very penitent, and said nothing. Rosalea growled at her, angry, angry beyond words, beyond expressing.
Ulric gasped for air. She could discern among his mumbles something about the colors of magic. She remembered learning that, learning how each element in magic had a color associated with it. His fingers got limp on hers, and his hand relaxed completely. He was fading. The sun was going down, casting a gray, weak light over everything.
I wish we had waited until night, even if it would have been hard on Nira. We should not have done anything so risky. She closed her eyes, holding his cold hand tightly in her warm one. She tried to think of anything she had learned from either Ulric or Kaylar, and a snippet of a conversation she had with the dragon came back to her. Mortal illnesses and injuries cannot be treated because the Gods of Death are also Gods of Order. That’s what Kaylar had said. I had mechanically healed Rhainnon, but I had to cut her free.
She placed her hands on Ulric, looking with all her might for that tether, but she could not feel or find it.
“Elena! Elena, I love you, do not leave me,” he gasped out. He began to convulse. He was dying.
Rosalea could not stand it. He was the formidable Ulric, and he was going to just die like this? Defending the daughter of a woman that had haunted his whole life? She could not handle it.
She pulled the arrow from his lung and pushed her hands against the blood gushing from the wound and began to pour healing magic into it. I am the One, and I have every magic there is. I saved Lio, I saved Rhainnon, I will save Ulric.
It felt like pouring her magic into a hole. She managed to close the wound, but Ulric had stopped breathing, and no matter how much she tried to dump into him, he was not responding, his body was not healing.
“The Gods of Death are also Gods of Order,” Fen said with polite ears.
Rosalea was dizzy and tired and her hands were covered in Ulric’s blood. She sat back and began to cry. Elena, was that the name of the woman he wanted to be his wife?
Fen nodded to her, able to read her thoughts, although she could not read the wolf’s. Fen didn’t come up to her, and Rosalea was still mad at her. “It was not fair, Fen!” Rosalea said, trying to summon some rage to drive back the pain. “You knew he was going to die? Why did you not tell me? He had a long horrible life. He was born into shame, and he should have been king. He would have been a good king!” Fen crouched down, accepting Rosalea’s tirade. “He was my teacher since before I could remember, and I never suspected how much wrong and hurt I must have represented to him until a week ago. I never would have let him come if it was just going to end like this!”
She looked down at her blood covered hands, tears splashing off her cheeks and into it. “How can he die so easy? Just like that? He moved in to protect me, and now I have to carry that around forever,” she shivered and sobbed. I should have told him I was more sorry. I meant to, but I never really did. Why did he go and give up his life to me, when he already gave it up in more ways than one?
Fen crept toward her on her belly, and when Rosalea did not reject her, she began to lick carefully at Rosalea’s face.
After a while, she got very cold. She started a fire, not sure how or when she had gotten the wood for it. She wasn’t sure what time it was, or how long it had been. Ulric was still lying very still, and there was no light in the world, even the moon was not up, except her little fire that was flickering for want of more fuel. It was cruel watching the shadows dance on his blanket, it almost made it look like he was breathing.
What do I do?
She wished she could just lose herself in the carefree dancing and flickering of the flames. Back and forth they swayed and jumped, “He was meant to die.”
Rosalea didn't look up, but continued to stare at the place where the flames had been. “How can anyone just be meant to die?” The world was dark, there was nothing in it, not even embers where the fire should be.
“When a weather witch has a vision that you would cause him to die, he is meant to die.”
Rosalea stood up, turning on her heels. She felt lost. Everything was dark, the fire must have gone out? She wasn’t sure. All she really knew that there was herself and this voice, or maybe it was voices, speaking to her. “Ulric told me about the vision! He said nothing about me causing his death!”
“It was a second vision. She saw you, just an infant, and Ulric holding you, and she prophesied that he would pay you back with his life.”
“Why have I heard nothing?” she shouted. “Why did no one tell me about this?”
“Because Ulric was the only one there to hear it, and he took the memory away. He did not know that he would be the one who had to teach you. It was another way for Nashota to humiliate him, and he took it.” She started to place the voice. It sounded a little like the voices that had been with her when she almost killed Kaylar.
“Then why did he come back? Why did he do it? I would be far away, and he would still be alive!” She was angry, angry at visions, angry with Genya, angry with Ulric, angry with herself… angry with everything.
Something materialized in the shadows. It almost looked like a man to her, but it was too obscured in the darkness that pressed over everything. She could only just perceive a silvery-colored outline around him… and a strong of glowing chains between his wrists and from his ankles. “Because he fell in love, and in the end all he wanted was to be with her and embrace the one good thing he could do.”
A chained God. Rosalea could feel it in every part of her being the power that he radiated in his words and his soft movements in the darkness. She slowly came to her knees. “Please forgive me, I did not know to whom I was addressing myself.” All the anger drained out of her. She had once longed that they would appear, to direct her, to assure her that she was not wasting her life or time. Now one was here, not just tearing her brain apart by speaking to her.
“You should travel alone though, anyone who travels with you will face danger.”
There was silence. Rosalea could feel the pressure of expectation pressing on her. “I understand,” she replied, her chest felt constricted, she couldn't breathe properly.
“Take this gift. I hope you will not need it.”
Rosalea jerked awake, the fire was dead, and the sun was coming up. Despite the light of the day, she still felt as though it was in the very pitch of night. She didn’t know what the gift was, she had never received it, and everything seemed the same. She slowly moved her stiff limbs and tried to stand up. It did not feel like a dream… but I do not understand what happened.
Fen was wrapped around her and trying to keep her warm. Ulric lay exactly where she had left him. She swallowed and looked away, feeling ill. He looked grotesque in the morning light, his body all stiff and his color all but gone, the blood… You deserve more than the cold burial I have to offer, she thought looking at him. She felt bitter.
He had come here to apologize, that she did not doubt. But she also could not doubt that he had come here to die. And that made her feel ill, used, and very, very terrible. She pulled her terra magic to her, scooping a large chunk of earth away. She didn’t touch him. She couldn’t bring herself to come near him. She didn’t want to ever touch him again, no one ever should, she thought. She used her magic to wrap the blankets and his new cloak about him, to shroud him, and lifted him with it into the hole she had just made. She then restored the earth to its spot.
She moved to cover her face in her hands, but they were covered in his dried blood. “Nadia, we should move again,” Fen said gently. The first words her liana had spoken in hours.
Rosalea nodded. “I am sorry I was angry at you. How did you know about Genya’s forgotten vision?”
Fen flattened her ears and pressed her face beneath Rosalea’s chin. “The same way you did, a God told me.”
Rosalea wrapped her arms around her liana, pressing her face against the thick fur on her neck, though she kept her fingers away from Fen’s fur. She wanted to cry, but no tears would come now. She let go of Fen and sighed; she used her magic to retrieve a large stone from the meadow behind them. She focused on her terra magic, pressing her finger into the stone and shaping it carefully. She drew an epitaph slowly and deliberately. Here lies Ulric, a good teacher and friend. He goes to join his wife and son. It seemed too hollow, too empty to explain this lost life… She finished by burning the Ieshan castle Darius’s sigil into the upper corner.
She took Nira's halter and started walking away. It was my fault. It is always my fault. And this time I couldn't even save him . . . She paused as she passed by it, looking back at the rock, the disrupted earth. She wanted to cry, but her eyes were oddly dry. So, she did what she was best at: she walked away.