Chris Pierson - Sacred Fire

Bron shook his head. “I envy your faith.”

“It is all I have left.”

They were silent for a time. Rainwater dripped into the cellar.

“Now you’ve seen the Blood Sea,” she said at length. “Where will you go next?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Far from here. What about you?”

Wentha pursed her lips, glancing up the stairs. “I’ve heard Taol survived the Cataclysm. Do you know if it’s true?”

Bron nodded. “Parts of it. Though the land is much changed, from the tales men tell.”

“What land isn’t, these days?” she asked. “I will go there, then. Changed or not, I would like to see the land of my birth again.”

“You’re lucky to be able to ” Bron said. “I was born in Edessa.”

His home. Gone, lost beneath the red waves.

“I will go with you,” he offered. “If you will let me.”

Wentha MarSevrin looked at him gravely for a long moment. Then she smiled, tears in her eyes-but she shook her head at the same time. “No,” she said. “I travel alone. So must you.”

He should have begged her to reconsider, he told himself in the hard times to come, when he yearned for a companion on the road. But he only returned her smile, and watched as she extended Ebonbane, hilt-first, toward him.

“I don’t know how to use it, anyway,” she said.

He took the sword from her hand. “Thank you, Efisa. Palado tas drifas bisat .”

Paladine guide thy steps.

“ E tas ,” Wentha said.

And thine.

She bent down, pressed her lips against his forehead. Then, rising, she drew her hood back over her head, turned to the steps, and raced up them, two at a time.

He never saw her again.