The God-Stone War

Epilogue

Penelope Illeniel, the Countess di’ Cameron, and now widow of the late Mordecai Illeniel, returned to her bedroom in a state of dumb shock. A few short hours past she had left on a trivial journey, to visit Rose Hightower’s family, never suspecting the tragedy that would befall her. Those hours seemed far away… they belonged to another woman, a woman whose life had not been rent asunder.

Her grief was so profound that, despite her initial outburst, she found herself now unable to cry, and her eyes were dry, though they remained swollen. She had not expected to return and find her husband dead, murdered by the undead fiend he had been pursuing for almost a decade now. The image of his shattered body, lying still on the road, yet haunted her. Each time her eyes closed she saw him there again, quiet and bloody… dead.

This can’t be real. It will never be real, I won’t accept it. This isn’t happening. In her mind she saw his eyes open again, remembering her relief at seeing him alive. But he wasn’t… As soon as his hand had touched her, as it had so often before, she had known. The cold touch, the bitter pain, those things she had learned well during her captivity among the shiggreth years before.

Despite the clear memory of his soul draining touch, her mind kept returning her to the look in his eyes… forlorn and haunted.

A knock at the door drew her attention for a moment. Lilly’s voice carried through the wood, “Mi’lady, your children are asking for you.”

What could she tell them? The enormity of it all threatened to sweep away her sanity. “Not yet, please! Tell Rose to give me a moment. I need to compose myself,” she answered, in a voice that surprised her by its calmness. Surely it wasn’t her voice? Those couldn’t be the words of a woman who had just lost her husband… it sounded far too reasonable to be the voice of such a woman.

Walking to the bed she sat down, wishing for tears that would not come… anything would be preferable to the cold pain in her chest, and then she spotted something new. Resting on the floor, next to her bedside table, was a wooden frame. It seemed familiar.

She lifted it and turned it over in her hands, discovering it to be a large mirror… a mirror she had thought long gone. She laid it on the bed, and was shocked to discover that, while it appeared the same it had a difference, for a ghostly image stared back at her from the glass. The face it held was her mother’s, from a time when she was young, a time when Penny and Mordecai had been children. Her mother’s eyes seemed to stare into her own, and there was a faint smile on her lips.

How can this be? she thought.

A small slip of paper lay folded on the bedside table. Opening it she read:

Penny,

I am so sorry for leaving this so long. I repaired this almost a year ago, and in the chaos that later ensued, forgot to return it to you. I discovered it in the corner of my workshop last week, and have been looking for a good chance to surprise you. The image in the mirror was almost an accident, a memory that came to me as I was fixing it. I hope you don’t mind. It seemed appropriate.

In spite of our busy lives, you should know that I have always been grateful for your love. You continue to amaze me daily, teaching me new things about myself, and showing me the depths that lie within your heart as you care for our children. Surely your mother must have been an incredible woman to have raised you… and it shows in the way you nurture your own sons and daughters.

Never forget how much I love you in return,

Mordecai

Sorrow found her then and Penny wept, clutching a pillow and shaking the bed with her muffled sobs.