“She is fragile still,” said Felicia. “We are all she has to protect her. She has seen too much, heard too much. She cannot protect herself from the truth of her past. Without us to watch over her, her mind would be forever broken, and she would cease to exist.”
“And we would no longer exist along with her,” the ghostly man added.
“I have protected her,” Murialis said, stretching out her hand and brushing it gently across the stubble of her growing hair. “I shall live in her and for her. I shall continue to stand between her and the truth that would destroy her and all of us. And each of us must be prepared to do the same.”
“But we are only characters from the stories she has told,” Felicia said, frustration evident in her quiet voice. “We are only dreams.”
“Then we shall be made real through her,” Murialis replied. “We shall stand between her and the truth of the world, and within our circle she will be safe.”
“Will she not feel our pains, too?” the sad elven female asked with concern.
“Yes,” Murialis responded. “And we shall bear them, too.”
“Lyric?” Drakis called carefully. “Uh, Murialis?”
Mala nudged him, then whispered. “Listen!”
Weeping.
They found her lying across a great stone half buried in the plain. A carving of a woman, her face broken and now missing, lay beneath the Lyric’s embrace. The Lyric sobbed, tears running down her cheeks and washing streaks across the blasted stone.
“Tianya!” she cried. “My sister and darling! That your tragic love should have brought this doom upon all your people! Was it not enough to break your heart? Did you have to break the hearts of the mothers and daughters of your ruined kingdom, too! May the woodland spirits curse a passion that should cause such pain!”
Drakis leaned toward the dwarf. “What is she talking about?”
Jugar shook his head. “Lad, I have no idea.”
The sky was dark. Rain clouds had gathered in the afternoon. Lightning flashed to the south, rolling thunder in their direction.
Drakis, his beard thickening along with the ragged hair on his head, stepped wearily toward the chimerian, who squatted on the ridge at the top of a narrow hill. They had left the Hecariat and its terrible pillar five days behind them, and yet still his gaze was drawn to it off to the southeast. He felt sometimes that it was calling him back to his death.
“How much farther do you think we have to go?” he asked.
Ethis didn’t look back, didn’t turn. “We can’t stop and rest, Drakis. We have to continue the march tonight.”
Drakis blinked. “What?”
Chimera were difficult for Drakis to read even in the best of times. Their pliable faces and shape-altering bodies and limbs made it impossible to judge their moods. Still, there was something in the way Ethis spoke-those few times he did speak-that stood the hairs up on the back of Drakis’ neck. Something was different about Ethis, and, as every warrior knew, what a fighter doesn’t understand can kill him.
“We’re within fifteen-perhaps twenty-leagues southeast of the border,” Ethis said casually. “We can pick up the River Galaran to the north and follow it all the way up to the Weeping Pool.”
“Wait,” Drakis said, cocking his head to one side. “How do you know about. .”