The Cost of Betrayal

33

They made another pyre using the leftover wood cut the day before. The mood was no less somber. Their hearts torn, the four watched the body consumed by fire.

“Will we chase them?” Haern asked. He looked healthier, Delysia’s healing spells doing much to cure the many bruises the shadow bolts had left. Before he answered, Tarlak looked over at the half-orc, who stood with his wife’s arms around him. His arm was in a sling and his face and neck a burnt mess.

“No,” he said at last. “We’ve lost too many. Let them come to us. I will not send any more to die.”

“Will he leave us be?”

Tarlak cast a ring Brug had made for him onto the fire. “Only Ashhur knows,” he said. “But I pray that he does.”

Harruq watched the body burn, the comfort of his wife meager compared to the guilt he now carried. Two lives had come to repay the debt of the countless he had massacred. Two lives he could have spared. Worse, Qurrah remained free with his demon girl at his side.

The fire swayed to one side, dancing in the wind. He wondered if his brother felt guilt for his actions. Just the previous night, he had sworn death, and yet he could not see it through. What did that mean? He had spared his brother’s life and done what his conscience had demanded in that brutal second where he almost plunged the blade into flesh. Try as he might, he could not convince himself he had done the right thing. He had been a coward. Or a fool. Or a failure.

“Was I wrong?” he whispered.

“What was that?” Aurelia asked, glancing up at him. He only shook his head.

“Nothing.”

He stayed out later than the rest, watching until the fire died deep in the night. At its last flicker, he wished to whatever god that might exist, that might listen, to have that day back over again.

No god answered, not in a way he knew how to listen for. Alone he stood, feeling forsaken by the world. A cold wind blew against his skin, a sign that winter was coming early.

A gainst that same wind, Qurrah and Tessanna huddled without fire or blanket for warmth. The girl shivered naked, her thin body nestled into his robes. Neither had been able to find sleep.

“She wasn’t right,” Tessanna muttered, unable to stand the voices that echoed incessantly in her head.

“Right about what?” Qurrah asked. The girl opened her mouth to answer, but could not say it. So instead, she asked, “What will we do?”

The half-orc pulled her closer, burying his face into her hair to hide his few stubborn tears.

“I have broken too many promises. I will keep the rest. I will go west and claim Darakken’s spellbook as my own. I will heal your mind. It is the one promise I can still keep.”

“Can I come?” she asked, his robe clutched tight in her hands. “I do not want to be alone. Please, take me with you.”

In answer, Qurrah lifted her face and kissed her. Together, they shared their warmth against the biting wind. When he looked to the stars, his mind thought only of his brother, and of how he had veered his blade at the last moment when he should have buried it to the hilt in his forehead.

It was in this Qurrah found something to cling to, some hope within the madness of the day. His brother still loved him. Comforted, he curled closer to Tessanna and endured the long, dreary night.