When the maelstrom slowed I realized what it was. The wild attacks of the dead fell on each other as much as they did me. There was no longer any cohesion or focus to their behavior, nothing but a blood-seeking madness that tore at anything and everything in its path.
Then, almost as suddenly as the mad battle had begun, it ended. I stood alone. It was only then, as the last of them fell away that I realized I had fought them by myself. Knowing what I would see and dreading it, I looked to the last place I had seen Kelos. He was there still, though lying on the floor now instead of standing. He was covered in blood and had too many wounds to count. But against all reason, he was still breathing—if not for very much longer.
Malthiss had spread himself thin, packing as many of the wounds as he could manage with the stuff of shadow, but still they leaked. I had no illusions about Kelos surviving more than a quarter hour more, if that. As I knelt beside him, I saw Faran coming in through the far door. She was limping, but otherwise seemed sound and unbloodied.
I touched Kelos’s cheek and his eyes opened. “Ah,” he said, “we won. That’s good. I was beginning to—uhng—think you didn’t have it in you.” He took a ragged breath and forced it out. Then another—a pain-lessening discipline he had taught to me. “What took you so long?”
“I didn’t want to start the war that is about to consume the East,” I answered.
Oh, my friend . . .
But I didn’t respond to Triss. He would still be there in a few minutes, and so would the coming war. The same could not be said for Kelos. Faran came up beside me then, though she didn’t say a word and remained standing.
“You always were too soft to make the hard choices,” said Kelos.
“I made this one.”
“A bit late for me, that.” He let out a little hiss. “But don’t let it worry you. Whatever you intended, this was always part of my plan. I can finally go to face the judgment I so richly deserve.”
“I . . .”
“Really, it’s all right, Aral. I’d have died soon enough anyway. The black fire I set on the dead burns away my soul, too.”
“I wish that—”
But Kelos held up a warning finger and I stopped. “One final lesson, my best student.” And now there was blood on his lips. “You made the right choice. Now tell me you did it for the right reason. Why kill the Son of Heaven?”
“Hope.”
“Hope?” Kelos sounded surprised.
“Yes. When I saw that you were about to be swarmed under, I realized I didn’t want you to die. Not now. Not like this.”
“Don’t you dare forgive me, Aral,” he growled with a tiny bit of his old strength. “I could bear almost anything but that.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Thank you. Now, hope?”
“I don’t forgive you. I can’t. But when I saw that you were about to die, I realized that I hoped that someday I might. That someday, you might earn the forgiveness that I could give no other way. Does that make any sense?”
There was no answer, and when I looked into Kelos’s empty eyes, I knew that there never would be. Faran put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
Though he was dead and gone, I decided that I still needed him to hear my explanation. “It was hope, you see. Hope that was the answer all along. When I realized that I still hoped for us to come to some peace, I knew that hope was the answer to my dilemma about the Son of Heaven, too. Hope is the antidote to fear.”
“Aral,” said Faran. “He’s gone.”
“I know. But I owe him this because it was the last lesson he’ll ever teach me.” I looked down into Kelos’s dead eyes, and continued. “I didn’t want the responsibility for the coming war. I still don’t. But what if you were right? What if this is the one great chance we have to rewrite the way of the world and reach for a deeper justice? I don’t know what will rise after the fall of the kings, but I can hope that you were right, and that it will be something glorious. I thank you for that, Master Kelos. And I honor you for it, even if I can never forgive you for Namara.”
Aral?
Yes?
I was right to believe in you.
Thank