Mickey Reichert - The legend of Nightfall

Kelryn crumpled the parchment in her hands, driven to tears by the implication. She knew he intended to tell her that the feelings he had once held for her had been a mistake; and the arrow pointed for her to go away. She folded her arms on the table, buried her face between them, and let the tears fall where they would. She found herself pinned in place, hopeless beyond moving but not beyond suffering. The love symbol and its covering lines seemed like a branded impression against her eyes, a picture that would never fade. It’s over. Kelryn tried to let go of all the promises and hopes for the future, but they clung, a fiery agony that made the tears come faster.

Why do I care? Kelryn had asked herself the question too many times to need an answer now. He’s a thief and a killer: Yet Dyfrin’s words returned to haunt her: "I think what he struggles with most is that deep inside he’s a good man, fighting to become the demon his mother and the populace named him. If he committed half the crimes ascribed to him, he’d have to be quintuplets; and I know it’s closer to a tenth of the burglaries and a hundredth of the murders. And every one, no matter how necessary or deserving haunts the conscience he doesn’t even believe he has. Why do you think he plays so many people? With each one, he tries to escape the very thing he believes he has to be. He has no realization of how much time he spends in other guises compensating and consoling the families of those he robbed or killed. But I know."

Kelryn had listened raptly with a skepticism deeper than she would have believed anyone could allay. But Dyfrin had done so, countering every question and quelling every doubt. That he knew Nightfall as well or better than Nightfall knew himself swiftly became obvious. More eerie, he seemed to understand her to the core as well. Only later she discovered the explanation, knowledge that had cost her the man she loved, a fear that would not leave her, and evil dreams that lasted long into the day. So innocent. So simple. And yet nothing had held such a price. If Nightfall would only let her tell him, he would understand.

The burden Dyfrin had placed on Kelryn would not allow her to surrender. "Someone has to break the cycle, Kelryn; and that someone is you. I admit, I worried that you would hurt him and drive him deeper into the abyss he doesn’t realize how much he wishes to escape. But now I know you truly love him. You can help him. He needs you."

Kelryn remembered how those words had made her feel at a time when she still grappled with the realization that the man she had fallen in love with was the world’s most notorious and vicious rogue. All she had ever wanted was a normal life, never to change the world or any person in it besides herself. Yet Dyfrin convinced her. Nightfall was not the wanton killer the citizens believed him; and, unlike the conscienceless mercenaries who could only be controlled or executed, Nightfall rehabilitated could become a boon to the very continent that had so long cowered to hear his name. "Why me?" she remembered asking, the burden too much for one common dancer to carry.

"He loves you."

Kelryn had thrown the answer back at Dyfrin. "He loves you, too. And for much longer."

Dyfrin had worn a pained expression that showed he understood, but the matter had too much significance to allow for doubts. "I’ve done what I could. I showed him the other side of life and relationships at a time when he needed it. I demonstrated that love and pain don’t have to go together, that loyalty does not always lead to betrayal, and gave him as much self-worth as an impoverished street orphan could have. Without those things, he would have been lost, every bit the night-stalking demon so many believe him to be. I’ve done all I can. Now, he has to know that I’m not unique in the world, that others can be trusted. And he needs to learn it from a woman."

Utter panic had suffused Kelryn then, the need to run from a responsibility she had no competence to handle. She still lived amid the wreckage of her own less than adequate home circumstances. To help her family eat, she had lied about her age and started dancing at twelve. By thirteen, she had needed to sell her body as well. No matter the notoriety of the source, Nightfall’s gentleness had made her feel special, and his obvious love for her had turned sex from a chore and duty into the beautiful and joyous thing she had always heard it should be. She owed him, wanted to do what she could for him, and Dyfrin understood that as he did everything else about her.

Kelryn’s crying slackened to a trickle as gentler scenes from the past paraded through her mind, but realization of the tragedy that had followed their conversation jarred her back to the present. She would not abandon Nightfall until she forced him to listen and he understood what had really happened. He could believe her or not. He could react in any fashion that suited him. He could still choose to leave her, and she would handle that as it came. But she would not let him do so without first hearing the truth. Without the facts, he could only assume, and he could do little else but believe she had betrayed him. Yet, though she had considered it a thousand times, she still could not discard the realization that the truth might hurt him more.

Kelryn regathered her composure. She raised her head, studying the tavern through tear-glazed vision. No patrons remained. The serving girls wiped and rearranged the tables. The bartender restored bottles, bowls, and mugs. She rose, stretched, and headed through the door to the rooms beyond. Gathering her supplies, she went back into the common room and slipped out into the night. Any direction seemed as good as another when she had no way to know for certain where Edward and Nightfall had gone, so she followed her only lead.

The road to the eastern cities did not take Kelryn far before exhaustion overrode her. Determination had driven her until that moment; but, as the sun rose higher in the sky, the decision to chase randomly after a stranger and a man who hated and mistrusted her seemed foolish. In the cities, she was protected. Here, she felt vulnerable and alone, prey for woodland creatures as well as the bandits or rapists who menaced those who dared to travel without armed guards. And, though it made little sense for one without a natal talent to fear them, she worried about sorcerers most of all. She had seen the pain they could inflict, and the memory obsessed her.

As if to personify Kelryn’s fears, a man stepped casually from the brush. He wore unwrinkled linens, finely tailored. Light brown curls fell rakishly across his forehead, and his dark eyes examined her like prey. He held Ka doll in his hand, apparently fashioned from the same grayish mud as the pathway. She recognized him at once as the sorcerer who had ambushed Edward in her room, the one the prince had called the Iceman.

Kelryn gasped, taking an involuntary backward step. Her heart rate trebled in an instant, and images of blood and death scored her vision until the man in front of her seemed to disappear. Terror froze her in place. She prayed for someone to come, anyone who might frighten the sorcerer away; but she stood alone on the broad stretch of road. She glanced about wildly, desperate for escape though her limbs would not obey her.

The wizard smiled. "If you’re looking for a place to run, don’t bother." He held the mud doll in one hand and seized its foot in the other. Suddenly, he twisted.

Agony shot through Kelryn’s leg, and she collapsed to the ground as much from startlement as pain. "Stop," she sobbed. "Please stop." Ghosts plagued her, a body striped with wounds. Splashes of blood on wall and ceiling.

Ritworth released the foot. By all natural law, the mud should have crumbled in his fingers; but the figure returned to its created shape, strangely pliable in his grip. He continued to study Kelryn calmly, the smile etched in place, as if he found as much pleasure in control as in the pain he inflicted on her. "Don’t try to escape. Answer my questions honestly, and there’ll be no more pain."