Crucible (31 page)

“It was as if we had taken from you again.” Lorin's expression softened. “And now, we are here at the time of her death, as you were at her birth.”

“Something like that. You make it sound more poetic than harsh.”

“Elfyn . . . the grief you're feeling at Lynal's loss is just as powerful as the grief Ylladriel now endures. But it is harder for her, I think.”

“How is it harder?” Elfyn's voice rose. “I am Lynal's
mother
. How can a horse know what that's like?”

“Ylladriel and Lynal's bond was reciprocal. It's the way it works between Chosen and Companion. Ylladriel knows you hate her, that you blame her, and that only deepens the wound. There is no one to comfort her now, no one left to share with, so she will choose death.”

“That horse
knew
?” Elfyn searched the Herald's eyes. “She knew I blamed her? That I disliked her for taking my child's attention . . .”

“Yes. I knew how you felt about us, the Heralds, and about Ylladriel, because Lynal confided in me.”

Elfyn reached into her pocket and retrieved the note. She clutched it to her heart a few seconds before she offered it to Herald Lorin. “Lynal wrote this for me the last time she came for a visit. The only time she visited. I said something terrible things about Ylladriel. When I woke up the next morning, she and the horse were gone, and she'd left me this note.”

“Why are you handing it to—” Herald Lorin looked
confused, then his brows raised in understanding. “You can't read.”

Elfyn didn't answer. It was hard enough admitting it once. Then she said, “I never saw her again after that. So I . . . I believe this note is her way of choosing Ylladriel over me.”

Herald Lorin took the paper and unfolded it. Elfyn watched his eyes move, and then he looked back up at her. “You knew Lynal had the gift of Foresight?”

“Yes.”

“This note is asking you to make amends with Ylladriel.” He folded it and handed it back. “I think Lynal knew her life would end.”

Elfyn stared at the paper. “I . . . she wanted me to . . .”

“Ask Ylladriel's forgiveness. Talk to her. Before she dies.” He turned and strode toward the door, then paused, but didn't look back. “I hope you can find her before her grief takes her away from you as well.”

• • •

“Get that—that
creature
out of my kitchen!” Elfyn pointed at the horse head sticking through the window of her hut. She wasn't about to let the ill-tempered beast ruin her first reunion with Lynal since the Heralds took her. Five years! All the letters in the world couldn't have prepared her for the vision of the confident young woman riding up on that spotless white horse.

Awkward silences vanished when Lynal smelled her mother's apple tarts, and the years apart quickly melted. There had been laughter and stories—so many stories of what life was like at the Collegium. And through it all, Elfyn had been aware of the horse outside. The unnatural white beast, preening in the sun.

So when she turned to see Lynal feeding the horse an apple through the window—her patience snapped.

“Mama!” Lynal shouted back as the horse retreated and disappeared into the forest. “You apologize.”

“I will not!” Elfyn stomped her foot. “That horse has
your attention day and night, and it's had you all to itself for years. That's time I'll never get back. I don't want it here. Now. With us.”

She had always remembered the sad look on Lynal's face after she said those words. Elfyn had only seen that look once, when her daughter's best friend had succumbed to a killing fever when they were seven.

Lynal didn't say much after her mother's outburst, speaking in light tones and forcing a smile.

But Elfyn suspected she'd damaged something that day. The small distance separating her and her daughter had grown wider, and in the coming years, grew into a chasm Elfyn feared she would never be able to close.

When she woke the next morning, Lynal and Ylladriel were gone. The only thing left in Lynal's room was a neatly folded letter.

Elfyn had thought it cruel at the time. She had never told Lynal she couldn't read.

• • •

Hundreds of paintings and sketches filled one of Lynal's few trunks. She didn't know her daughter had continued drawing after being Chosen. Elfyn had maybe two dozen or so pictures Lynal did for her when she felt proud enough to show them. She had never seen these. After sorting them by style she noticed a reoccurring theme.

The Companion. Every painting, every sketch was of her Companion. Just the horse, or with Lynal beside her. There were a few with friends and other Companions, but the bulk of the work centered around Ylladriel.

In one of the small trunks, the one filled with Lynal's art supplies, Elfyn found a single sketch Lynal must have done after she arrived at Collegium. It had the stick lines of Lynal's early attempts at perspective, as well as her daughter's early need to make everything the color of a rainbow.

She took the drawing to the window and leaned against the frame, staring at the picture under the waning afternoon sun. Lynal had drawn herself on top of the white
horse, surrounded by several people Elfyn didn't recognize and wouldn't. But it was also the first picture where her daughter drew her mother. It was the only one.

Elfyn had been drawn to the far right of the group. An old woman with a sour expression in a little hut in the woods. There weren't any friends around Elfyn.

Not even her daughter.

Ask Ylladriel's forgiveness.

Bah! Forgiveness nothing! I will demand to know why she left me!

In a rush of anger and frustration she crumpled the drawing, squeezing and silently cursing it as she molded it into a ball of paper and absently shoved it into the pocket of her skirt before stomping out of her daughter's room and down the hall.

Passing a young girl, Elfyn held out her hand. “Which is the quickest way into the forest?”

The little girl pointed behind her, and in a shaky voice said, “Down the stairs to the garden door.”

Without even a thank you Elfyn strode down the hall, down the stairs, and into the garden she'd passed before. She stopped in the center when she realized the Heralds and their Companions were no longer there. A wind fluttered the flower petals as it moved around the courtyard.

Seeing herself the way her daughter saw her hurt. An angry, lonely woman. She shoved her hand into her pocket again to make sure the note was still there. As angry as the sentiment made her, as the request to apologize to a horse infuriated her, she would do it because Lynal wanted it. Because Lynal loved Ylladriel.

More than she loved me.

A young man in blue came running out of the building behind her. She reached out and caught his shoulder. “Boy—did they find Lynal's Companion yet?”

“No, ma'am. No announcement has been made.” He hesitated. “Anything else, ma'am?”

“No.”

The boy ran off and disappeared around the corner.

So the horse was still out there. A chance still remained to find Ylladriel.

Elfyn hadn't said the name often, refusing to believe a horse could choose its own name. And such a pretentious one at that. So . . . where would such a creature go to hide? She knew nothing about the layout of the place, so she trusted her feelings, the way she always had when making a decision.
Where is she, Lynal? Where did your Companion go?

Thinking about the white horse drew her to her left. She cut through more gardens, across a field, and into the edges of a thick forest. The sun sank as she stomped along, making all manner of noise among the trees, pausing now and then to let her intuition point her in the right direction.

After what felt like hours, Elfyn paused in the middle of the woods, listening to the burble of moving water. The sound of it reminded her of home, of summer afternoons with Lynal playing in the stream as she washed their clothing. Another memory of the two of them, just relaxing by the riverside with friends from the inn.

Friends Elfyn had pulled away from once Lynal left.

The nagging feeling she used to get when Lynal would play in the woods and forget to come home, the one that always honed in on where she was returned and turned her in the direction of the sound of the water. She continued forward, then to her right. She saw the water in the fading light, smelled the lichens and earth along the bank and with a gasp, saw the white shadow between the trees, just as she'd seen it all those years ago.

Picking up her skirts, Elfyn took off running, dodging limbs and snapping branches.

When she burst out and onto the riverbank she saw the white horse, lying on its side. It had its head partially in the water. She couldn't tell if it was alive or not, nor if it was breathing.

“Hey!” she yelled as she approached and stomped even closer so as not to startle it any more. “What do you think you're doing?”

The horse didn't move, didn't lift her head, or open her eyes.

Elfyn picked up her skirts again and buried her knees in the soft bank of the river as she knelt beside Ylladriel. “You get up, you hear me? This is ridiculous. Lying down and just giving up?” She leaned in close to the horse's flank. “Well, you can't do that. You just can't do that now. You know why? Because . . . because I have to ask your forgiveness. I . . . I never meant to hurt you or Lynal. I just didn't understand what being Chosen meant. All I knew was that you were taking my only light from me. My sweet, sweet Lynal.”

When she still didn't respond, anger clouded Elfyn's thoughts. Rage at everyone, but most of all for this horse! “How dare you!” She moved around on the muddy bank and put herself in front of Ylladriel's face. “You—the one thing my daughter loved above everything else. The one creature capable of taking her away from me. From me!” She pounded her chest. “Her
mother
. Her own flesh and blood. You had the best years to yourself, do you know that? I had so few with her. But you . . . you were by her side when she needed you most. You were the one she turned to, the one that made the loneliness go away. She told me, all those years ago. Of how you filled a place in her heart she didn't know was empty. A place I couldn't . . . fill.”

Elfyn slipped down on her side and braced herself against the bank. Everything smelled of decay and sadness here. “She never knew her father. I was devastated, losing the man I loved, and I could have given up. But I couldn't leave Lynal. She
needed
me. And giving up now is just showing disrespect for my daughter's memory.”

She wiped her nose and her eyes on her sleeve. “But I have my memories. I have the knowledge that I brought
a beautiful, caring woman into this world. A Herald! And look what the two of you did. Did you know you created peace? Lorin said you were successful. That her death was probably responsible for saving hundreds of lives. They're going to celebrate her. My Lynal. The bards will sing songs about her. What she did. What you helped her do. And now the only way you're going to honor her is to lie down and die?”

With a choked-off sob, Elfyn pulled herself on top of the Companion's side. She pressed her ear against the soft skin to find a heartbeat. Some sign that this creature, whom her daughter loved, still clung to life.

The tears flowed freely. Now she lost herself in the same despair she had cursed the Companion for. But she could understand it. She could see the pain the future would bring. And maybe . . . maybe Elfyn could survive it, as she had survived everything given her.

In memory of Lynal, she wrapped her arms around the Companion's neck just as she'd seen her daughter do and hugged her. Her thoughts came to her, but she didn't have the strength to speak them.

“I have to do what the note says, Ylladriel. Please . . . please don't leave me all alone. I don't want to be alone. Please . . . please, forgive me.”

The Companion shuddered beneath her. Elfyn pushed back and gasped. Ylladriel snorted and lifted her head. She fixed her large, sad blue eyes on Elfyn.
:You called me by name:

Elfyn blinked at the voice in her mind. Oh, how it trembled with sorrow. She looked deep into the Companion's eyes. “Did you . . . was that you? Did you just . . . speak?”

:Yes. You called me by my name. We thought you hated me:

Emotions of loss, grief, alienation, all flooded into Elfyn, threatening to overwhelm her. But she soothed that anxiety by sending her own thoughts of reassurance
and love, just as she had to Lynal when she was young. “I don't hate you . . . I was just . . . jealous.”

:There is no need for jealousy. Your daughter loved you just as she loved me. Always.:

“Will you forgive me? Before you go?”

Elfyn felt something brush the back of her mind. It reminded her of Lynn's warm, soft hands as a baby, when she used to sit in Elfyn's lap and kiss her mother. She could still hear her daughter's voice mingled with the memory,
I love you, Mama
. She would say this before jumping at Elfyn and throwing her tiny arms around her neck, squeezing as tightly as she could. Elfyn felt that again. The brush of a hand, the warmth of affection given freely, and the acknowledgment that someone in this world loved her.
:You do not wish me to live?:

“Of course I do! You're all I have left of my daughter. I just don't understand . . . why can I hear you now and I couldn't before? Lyn always said you could speak, and the Heralds all talk of their Companions as if they carried on conversations all the time, and yet I never really believed her. Until now—when it's too late to tell her. But how can I . . . how is this possible?”

:Because you are my Chosen now.:

Chosen.

I have never been chosen by anyone before
. Other than the man who had chosen her to be his wife. Elfyn had had no voice in that decision, but she'd made the best of it, believing that she would find no better because no one else would choose an uneducated, simple girl like herself.