Not Magic Enough and Setting Boundaries - By Valerie Douglas Page 0,35

hour? And with fear in her voice? What in the world?

Delae wrenched the door opened, to see her granddaughter’s pale face there.

“Ailith,” Delae said, bewildered and half awake as Ailith darted inside. “What are you doing here?”

“Get dressed, Delae,” Ailith begged. “Hurry, there’s no time. I’ll explain as you dress. Quickly, please.”

The urgency and fear got through as Delae looked at her granddaughter’s frightened face and nodded. She hurried into her bedroom, Ailith at her heels.

In that moment Delae knew that the time they’d feared had come.

Darkness was just settling over the Enclave as Dorovan rode into it, the magic of the Veil a soft familiar brush of warmth over his skin, the trees closing around him welcomingly. A sense of urgency had drawn him from Delae’s homestead. To his astonishment, he found every elf-light in the Enclave lit as if all the stars of the sky had been trapped within the Vale. Although there was no clamor, there was a sense of tension riding the empathy, threaded with alarm and concern.

The relief in the First’s voice as Dorovan reached the center of the Enclave was clear.

“Dorovan, you’ve returned! Can you ride out with the Hunters?”

“Of course. What’s happened?” he demanded.

The First shook his head. “None of us have seen anything like it. Salamanders and ogres have come out of the mountains, the Hunters are hard pressed, and we need every sword we can find. Half the upper mountain is ablaze. And you know how many it takes to take an ogre.”

“Are there supplies already among those in the east?”

The First nodded. “Yes.”

Dorovan turned Charis’s head east and leaned into him.

To his shock, it was far worse than what he’d sensed through the empathy. In all his years, not since his childhood during the wizard wars had he seen anything like it. He’d never seen so many ogres. The Hunters took turns racing past them, firing arrows into the massive creatures, while others dodged the fiery breath and whirling eyes of the lizard-like salamanders.

By the time they’d either killed the creatures or driven them off, he’d been exhausted and tumbled into his bedroll.

The rest he sought eluded him. It was a restless terrible night, fraught with pain. The dream sucked at him, drew him down into darkness. It was terrible, that dream, murky and thick, shot through with nightmare images of terrible creatures such as he’d fought that day.

It wasn’t a dream. He felt Delae call and reached for her, closed his arms around her in the dream as horrific images battered at him, as she fought her fear and terror alone, fought for the ones she loved. And for him.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispered. It was a prayer. She’d been alone for so long.

“No,” he swore, “never.”

If he’d had magic enough he’d have willed himself there to her or willed her to him, to where she would be safe.

Let go, she thought…

In that last moment he could See it - Delae mounted on her horse at the edge of the precipice, her chin lifting as her brilliant hair, streaked with silver, flagged in the breeze. The first light of dawn touched it, turned it to flame one last time.

There was no chance he could reach her in time. None. His heart cried out.

Let go…the thought whispered through him.

No, Delae.

I love you, but I must…

To save them all, to save Ailith, she must. Dorovan knew it, sensed the truth of it run through her.

And so he did.

And so she did, consigning herself to the void. He felt her fall, her hair streaming like a comet around her as she released her terrified horse. It bolted away from the terrible creatures that stood before it and they tumbled into the darkness…

His heart reached for her, sent the words. I love you, Delae.

A mental caress. I love you, too, Dorovan.

It broke his heart.

He felt the impact. Pain exploded through him, drove him up out of sleep, sent him to his knees in the darkness by his bedroll, his hand clutched to his chest. With the shattering of her body, the bond between them shattered, too. He felt her die, felt her spirit take wing, in search of the Summerlands. He bowed over the pain. Friend-of-my-heart. He lost a piece of his own that night and there was no one he could tell.

Delae.

She was gone. Forever.

And he hadn’t been able to help her. Couldn’t save her.

What had happened?

With the bond between them broken, he feared he might never know.

She’d always been so brave…and