Martin Hengst - The Darkest Hour

“Did I hear Cabot?” Tia’s voice was soft and slow and for a moment, Wynn wasn’t sure he had heard it at all. Her eyes were still closed.

“Are you awake?” Wynn pulled his chair closer to the bed. “Tia?”

“I’m awake,” she said with a grimace. “Please don’t yell. My head is killing me. So was Cabot really here?”

“He was.” Wynn kept his voice barely above a whisper. “He brought a letter for you, from Faxon.”

“Can you read it to me?” There was a pause, then Tia gasped. “I’m sorry, Wynn. I…”

“It’s okay, Tia. I still have one good eye.” He broke the seal, shaking the letter open. It was the first time he had to try to read. It wasn’t so bad, but it would take some getting used to. “It reads:

“Dear Tiadaria,

“Bad news spreads like wildfire. The attack on Ethergate is all anyone is talking about here in Blackbeach. I’m coming as soon as I can, but I think we both know that this attack was no coincidence.

“I’m sending Cabot on with this letter. My reasons for this are twofold: first, I wanted you to know I’m on my way. Second, I wanted you to have someone you could rely on-”

Wynn faltered here. Surely there was no way that Faxon could have heard about his shameful cowardice so quickly. He recovered his composure and continued.

“I wanted you to have someone you could rely on in the city until I arrive. Please keep Wynn safe. He’s a good lad, but not much of a fighter. I’ll be there soon. Stay put. Faxon.”

Wynn glanced over the letter again before adding, “He underlined stay put.”

Tiadaria laughed. If the laughter had a bit of a hysterical edge to it, neither of them would mention it. She opened her eyes and looked at him, her face a mask of sorrow as she saw his stained bandages.

“Oh Wynn,” she sighed, her voice cracking and dangerously close to a sob. “I’m so sorry.”

Wynn ducked his head. Her grief only made him feel that much worse. He had failed her and yet she was the one saying she was sorry. Mastering a fear that had nothing to do with what they had been through the previous night, he reached out and took her hand. Link-shock jumped between them and Tiadaria tried to pull away, but he held her firmly.

“I should be apologizing to you,” he said, his voice rough. “If I had fought-”

“If you had fought, it wouldn’t have made any difference. We might both be dead. We’re not. We survived.” She freed her hand from his and laid it gently against the bandages. The look in her eyes made Wynn’s heart skip.

He placed his hand on hers and gently forced it back to the bed. “I’ll be fine, Tia. I have a spare eye, and besides, the healer said that the scars will make me look rugged and manly.”

“Well then,” she said with a hint of her normal humor. “Things went according to plan then, huh?”

Wynn gave her a puzzled look and Tia sighed with exasperation. She really had to do something about his sense of humor, or more accurately, the lack thereof. He wasn’t that much older than she was, there was no reason for him to be so serious and humorless.

“I was kidding you, Wynn. You know, as if you planned the whole thing to get yourself some manly scars.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have the strangest sense of humor?”

Tia smiled tolerantly. “Life is pretty strange, Wynn. Might as well laugh about it while we can.”

“I guess.” He glanced around the infirmary. “Doesn’t seem like there is much to laugh about in here.”

“No,” she agreed. “Things are pretty serious in here. Hey! Wait a minute! You said that Cabot had brought that letter from Faxon, but he’s still in Blackbeach. It took me more than a week to get here.”

Wynn snorted. “He probably took the gate.”

“What gate?” Now it was Tiadaria’s turn to look puzzled.

“The ether gate,” he said, rolling his eyes. “It’s much faster to get here from Blackbeach that way. More dangerous though, and not fun. At all.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You mean to tell me that there is a way to get directly from Blackbeach to Ethergate?”

“Of course.” Wynn seemed completely oblivious to her agitation.

“And this mode of travel that connects Blackbeach to Ethergate is called the ether gate? A little on the nose, don’t you think?”

“Well, calling it the City of Sparkling Magical Teleportation was deemed a waste of words.”

Tia gaped at him, momentarily at a loss for words. “Wynn! Did you just make a joke?”

“Depends. Was it funny?”

Tia laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

“Then I guess so.” Wynn ducked his head as one of the clerics shot him a sour glance. It wasn’t hard to decipher that look. “You need to rest, Tia,” he said, passing along the unspoken message.

“I think that’s a good idea.” She sighed. “Will you stay with me?”

“Of course.”

Wynn watched over her until she fell into a fitful sleep. He dozed in the chair beside her bed. He woke when she woke, slept when she slept, and ate when she ate. In between, they pointedly did not talk about the relic or the attack.

When the sun went down, one of the healers brought Wynn a cot. It was hard and narrow, but it let him remain at Tia’s side. He lay down, and eventually, fell into a fitful sleep.

* * *

“Twice! Twice the vermin wench has beaten the warriors of the Chosen. It is shameful. A disgrace! An outrage!”

Zarfensis remained silent. He knew that it was better for Xenir to burn off his anger and frustration through vitriol rather than try to answer any of his heated comments. In truth, Zarfensis felt much the same way and he knew that Chrin had had some harsh words for the Warleader when they had returned to the Warrens.

In fact, the only thing that tempered the High Priest’s rage was the small piece of living stone that he held in his belt pouch. It was an unexpected, but incredibly valuable gift. The Swordmage could have slaughtered Chrin and the rest of the warriors and it would have been worth the losses. A gargoyle! Zarfensis doubted the vermin knew what a treasure they had held in their reliquary.

“Well?” The Warleader was obviously waiting for an answer to a question that Zarfensis hadn’t heard. Xenir stood, gripping the edge of the table with extended claws, glaring at the High Priest. It would do no one any good to provoke the Warleader, so rather than show that he hadn’t been paying much attention to the tirade, he took a different path.

“You are absolutely correct, Warleader. It is a shameful disgrace. However, what if I told you that even being subjected to such dishonor, the Chosen came out of the entire encounter with the advantage?”

“How?” The Warleader was plainly skeptical.

“We have this,” Zarfensis replied, taking the stone fingertip from his belt pouch and laying it on the table between them.

Xenir glanced at the stone, then to Zarfensis, and back again. He shook his head slowly.

“You mock me? We lose four of our warriors to the vermin and yet you mock me?” The Warleader’s voice had grown in volume until the end of his sentence was little more than an ear-splitting roar.

The High Priest spread his hands, palms up, a gesture of supplication. “I mock no one, Warleader. Not you, and not the memory of our fallen brothers. This is no simple stone,” he said, tapping the table with one claw. “What lies here before you is incredibly valuable. Its appearance is deceiving.”

“Then what is it?”

“The living finger stone of a gargoyle.”

Again, the Warleader looked from the High Priest to the stone and back. Xenir picked up the stone and turned it over in his palm. His tongue flicked out, circling his maw. His ears twitched in agitation.