Page 151 of Sword & Shadow
Guiltily, Thom’s eyes locked on the shadowed form huddled under the canvas, cloak wrapped tightly around her. Evylin slept, and even from a distance, he could see a small shiver shaking her in the night chill. It was odd, seeing her without Deckard stretched at her side. The sight was encouraging.
Was that why she’d done it? Had Evylin denounced her marriage as a means of rejecting Deckard? Was there a chanceshe wasn’t stuck with him after all? Was she trying to tell Thom her true feelings—thathewas the only one she could ever want?
No.
Thom closed his eyes, turning away from Evylin. Bile coated the back of his throat. He was foul. The wretched and traitorous thoughts burned in his gut. Why was he like this?
“You can’t be happy for anyone, can you?”
No, he couldn’t. Despite himself, despite how much he wished he could be different, Thom could never be happy for himself or anyone else. Because while they all deserved happiness, he deserved misery. While most people were good and honorable, he was envious and fickle. He couldn’t be happy because he couldn’t be better.
That was the cruelest truth of them all. No matter how hard he tried, Thom could never measure up. No woman would want him because he could never be enough. He was destined to live in his brother’s shadow, wishing for eternity that he might prove worthy of love.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
16TH OF CHRONOS, 1574
Deckard tried to allow time to take its natural course. The passage of time was required to help anyone process grief. And he was grieving; he could readily admit that. Losing Evylin, truly and decidedly—hearing once and for all that she didn’t want him—was an event he needed to mourn. So he’d given himself the space to work through the pain and sorrow clinging to him.
However, he was beginning to think this was a wound that would never close.
Since their separation from the rest of the troop, Deckard had readily distracted himself. Though the first hour of their ride went by in frightfully taut silence, soon Rafferty piped up and hadn’t stopped talking since. He’d asked Auden nearly constant questions about their journey, the ins and outs of Waulden culture, and obscure magical lore. The weasel speculated on the Time Keep and what might be inside. Normally, Deckard would have found it annoying, but he came to be thankful for Rafferty’s incessant chatter, since it served to keep his mind off Evylin.
When Raffertywasn’tdistracting them, Auden insisted on working with Deckard on his magic. He was relentless in his lessons. Even on horseback, Auden would take every momentavailable to guide him in the connection with Day and Time magic to the exclusion of all else.
“Why are you so focused on just those two?” Rafferty asked on the second day of travel. “If he’s a Night Mage, wouldn’t it be better for him to perfect his connection with Night magic?”
“No,” Auden said firmly. “I told you: Night magic is dangerous. Even if it doesn’t drive a Mage mad, it taints them, spurring them to violence and malevolence. Jonn needs to learn other ways to use his power.”
“Well, what about that fourth existent, the hidden one?” Rafferty asked, then furrowed his brow. He mouthed, “Day, Night, Time.” Counting them out on his fingers, he looked to Auden. “What was it again?”
“Space,” Auden said. “I can’t use it.”
“Why not?” Deckard asked.
“Because it’s extremely difficult to connect with,” he explained. “I know of several Night Mages who can access its power, so maybe you’ll manage the connection one day, but it won’t be under my tutelage.”
Deckard didn’t care to think about his continued training after their mission ended.
He remembered Evylin’s sharp words in the woods:“I’ve made no promises to the Alliance.”
But he had.
To allow her to go to Dunneshead, Deckard had promised to join the Alliance in whatever capacity they requested. A foolhardy choice, but one he’d made knowing the possible consequences. He just hadn’t thought he’d have to face them alone.
Though the distraction of Auden’s training and Rafferty’s conversation kept Deckard from dwelling on his regretful circumstances too much, the nights weren’t so kind.
They’d fallen into an easy routine within just the last two evenings. Each time they stopped, they’d make camp, eat dinner, and rest. Deckard volunteered to take the second watch, the most undesirable shift. He’d always survived on less sleep than others, his inner strength dedicated to the task at hand. But sitting alone in the dark of the night with only the trees and Rafferty’s snores for company, he could no longer escape his thoughts.
After a few short months of marriage, this was the longest he’d been separated from Evylin. Somehow, in three months’ time, he’d forgotten the thirty-two years prior. Now, he couldn’t remember life before her. He felt unbalanced, like he’d lost a limb. In every conversation, he expected to hear her ready banter, the air hanging dreadfully silent without her voice, light and raspy all at once. Worst of all, he’d forgotten how cold and empty it felt to sleep alone. Where her form used to lie, warm and tucked close to his heart, was now a barren void as though she had been carved from his very flesh.
Was she faring any better than he? Deckard hated to think of her as happy without him, but he hated the thought of her feeling isolated and hurt even more.
Both nights of his watch, Deckard stared out into the thinning forests of Wauld as they made their way toward the marshes. He’d scanned the purple night as it shadowed the world around him. It would only take a thought, an intent of will, to summon Hewitt’s ghost. But with Rafferty and Auden sleeping around him, he couldn’t risk them waking to his conversation.
Still, Deckard knew it was time. He needed to speak to Hewitt, to confess his failure, and to beg for the ghost’s advice. So as they rode the next twenty-three miles under heavy rain clouds, he formed his plan.
“Day after tomorrow we’ll enter the marshes,” Auden told them as they made camp that evening. “They’ll take up the majority of our journey until we enter Vaura Reach.”
