Never Dark Again

Spring had always been Mara’s favorite season. She liked the warmth and heady happiness of sunlight after a long, dark winter. She liked the subtle feeling of hope and life that permeated everything, that rushed into existence like a breath of fresh air; a reward for surviving the long days of darkness. She liked the bright colors of the flowers, the vivid greens of new leaves.

Standing in a large meadow, Mara drew in a deep breath. The breeze was pleasantly cool, the sunlight pleasantly warm. The tall grass around her ran in the wind, whispering secrets and tracing wave-like patterns. It was too early in the season for wildflowers, though. A shame, she would have liked to have seen them one last time. This meadow was known for the isalthyr flowers that filled it as a vibrant yellow carpet in spring, dotted with other blooms of white and blue and purple.

As a child, she had gazed out upon those flowers from the city walls. Mara lifted her gaze to Taur-en-Aineth. Pale stone walls glowing in the sun, the city rose up level after level. Built against the slope of a mountain, Taur-en-Aineth stood proudly at the head of the valley, despite all it had been through. Her city was free. Finally, after all of the battles and all of the suffering and all of the long, long years… her city was free. There were gaping holes and piles of rubble where walls and buildings had been damaged in the fight for the city, but in time those wounds would be healed. The people would rebuild. Love and life and laughter would fill in the cracks and chase away the darkness.

As for Mara’s own wounds…

There would be no healing, not for her. Pain, dizzying in its intensity, tore through her from the wounds in her shoulder and abdomen, and the poison that had coated the blades. Blood, warm and slick, soaked her clothes. Her breathing had grown ragged, and she panted unevenly through gritted teeth. The wounds were too deep, she was losing too much blood. The world was out of focus, black spots clouded her vision as everything spun and everything became tainted in agony and a distant, detached sort of panic. A calm panic. A quiet panic.

Briefly, she contemplated coercing her battered body into motion. There were healers in the city. They might save her. But she knew that the gates were too far and her legs were too weak. She would not make it.

She looked beside her to where Ahren Daneiros’ body lay, un-moving. His skin was unnaturally pale, almost translucent, and beneath the bulk of his armor, he looked almost frail now that the power was gone from him. The armor devoured the spring sunlight, like a gaping void, and a circle of withered grass surrounded his corpse. Even in death, he found a way to drain life from things.

Never dark again. A vow, a promise, a hope. A hope that had become a reality.

It had taken Mara eight long years to return to the city, years during which countless people had suffered and died under Ahren’s grasp. But she had returned with a way to save it, as she had promised. She had spent those years searching and bartering and fighting and striving to build a force that could rival Ahren’s. She had spent those years training relentlessly to make herself into a warrior who could face Ahren and stand a chance of winning.

Well, she would not walk away from this battlefield. But neither would Ahren. She was grateful he had been arrogant enough to meet her out in the field beyond the city while their forces clashed behind the walls, so eager to smite her—the nuisance that had been nagging at him for years—in front of the city. It meant that no one else had been caught in the crossfire.

Thian and Reiyna would be furious that she had tricked them, that she had never meant to follow their plan. But she had known as soon as the three of them emerged from the dappled green-and-brown of Silmalun Forest and seen the city for the first time in half a decade that she could not let them die for this. If any of them fell, it would be her. They deserved the peace that would follow. Thian deserved to experience what it was like to live and not just survive, to discover who he might be when he needn’t keep a sword between his hands. Reiyna deserved to play her violin on the music hall stages, to build a home full of art and sunlight.

If she closed her eyes, she could almost see it. Thian, walking the streets without having to look over his shoulder. How he would wander the night market, pausing to buy street food or chat to stall holders. How he would take lessons in art and gardening and literature and history and languages, learning for the sake of learning as he discovered what the world had to offer. And she could see Reiyna standing upon the polished wood of a stage, wearing a beautiful gown, her brown eyes unfocused as she concentrated on the beautiful music she coaxed from her violin. How the gentle, warm candlelight of the Amn Tirion theater would make the beads on her dress glimmer like stars, how it would soften her features. How the crowd would be so silent, hardly breathing lest it distract them from the melody.

Never dark again. Mara had ensured that the dawn of a new era shone over Taur-en-Aineth, and Thian and Reiyna would ensure that peace held. She simply wished she had gotten to say goodbye. Or gotten to live it with them.

When she opened her eyes again, dark spots swam in her vision and the ground swayed under her feet, but she clenched her jaw and forced her gaze to find the dark shape in the upper reaches of the city. Ranlor Keep. Towers and walls built of dark stone that had once stood tall and imposing were now toothless and collapsing. Smoke rose from the eastern wing. Good, she thought. Let the fire wipe away what was so that new life may rise from the ashes. Such a pity she would not get to tear the place apart herself. She would have liked to watch its dark, fear-soaked rooms collapse.

It would have to be enough for her that she had been the one to fell Ahren.

The world lurched, and her vision briefly blackened, and suddenly she lying on her back, grass cradling her aching, shivering body. When her eyes refocused, she was staring a cloudless sky. Such a bold, bright blue. Childhood blue. Small, soft little clouds floated past, so high above.

She turned her head her head, and her gaze fell upon a little girl kneeling in the grass. Long, brown hair drifted strangely in the breeze—floating, almost weightless—framing a delicate face with gentle eyes. She wore a yellow-and-white floral dress, bracelets adorning her wrists.

The warrior smiled at the child she had once loathed, not surprised to see her here, somehow. Undoubtedly it was an effect of the poison burning through her veins, or the blood loss, but she was grateful for it all the same.

“It’s time,” the child—younger Mara—said with such gentleness, such bittersweet grief.

Tears pricked Mara’s eyes, and she blinked. “I’m not ready. I have not yet- not yet become who I want to be.” Her words were labored, voice raw as it caught in her throat. Gods, everything hurt.

The girl smiled sadly. “You’ve done enough. It’s time to let go.”

A tear slipped free from the corner of Mara’s eye and traced a path down through blood and dirt into her tangled hair. Her twenty-four years had felt so long, and yet they had not been enough. Not nearly enough. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave them.” Thian and Reiyna; the family bound to her by stronger ties than blood, the north stars of her heart. She did not want to leave them.

“I know.”

“Can I not stay? Can I not survive this?” But even as she asked, she knew the answer. Had known since Ahren first got a blade past her defenses. She could feel the blood draining away, her life force slipping away with it. She knew what death felt like, and knew it was close now.

“No,” the girl replied. “Not this time.” That sad, sympathetic smile on her face, she extended a hand to Mara. “It is time to go now, and rest. You have fought so hard for so long, but now it is time to let go.”

Mara fought to cling to consciousness as a wave of terrifying oblivion crested over her, trying to pull her under.

With a trembling, high voice that was choked by tears and made her sound like she was no older than the child kneeling before her, Mara breathed, “I wanted to stay with them.” Her voice caught on the words.

“I know you did.”

And still, that hand remained extended.

She did not want to accept her fate. She wanted to survive to see the world that would be built from the ruins of Ahren’s empire. But she was so cold and so tired and it all hurt so much. A wave of nauseating agony spiked through her, drawing a choked whimper from her throat. She could taste blood in her mouth.

The little girl’s gaze was unwavering—unflinching—as she beheld Mara and all that she was, all she had become, all she had done. There was such a youthful softness to her features; a lightness to her that Mara mourned the loss of.

Partly out of a desire to postpone the inevitable, and partly because she felt the need to voice the words while she still could, Mara said, “I am sorry that I am not who you hoped I would be. I am sorry for it all.”

A childhood in servitude to Ahren, trapped in one of the keeps where he trained his followers, had warped the bright, gentle child she had been into something that was a tainted husk of what once was. And the years that followed that had honed what remained into a blade, until she was all steel and shards of glass, anger and fist-fight. But she had managed to nurture some goodness, too. She had kept a kernel of kindness and hope burning in her chest, protected from the raging darkness that threatened to strip away all softness until only bones remained.

“You did what you had to to keep us alive. And none of it was your fault; we were only a child.”

But Mara simply repeated with a voice that cracked like splintering glass, “I’m sorry.”

Her younger self took hold of her hands and gently said, “Don’t be. Our city is free thanks to you. Our people are free.” With her free hand, the child reached out and wiped away one of Mara’s tears. “Never dark again.”

Mara nodded, holding tight to her small hand. Her skin was warm and smooth, empty of the scars that now marred them.

She had freed her city. She had taken down Ahren. She had done what she set out to do, what she fought so hard for. Mara had achieved what she had vowed she would on those long, dark nights when she was alone and hurting and scared in her small bed at the Keep. Never dark again.

“Don’t be afraid,” the child murmured. “Don’t be afraid.”

The darkness waiting for her at the edge of her consciousness was one she could let herself slip into, because it was one that would not hurt. Nothing would hurt anymore, and Ahren could not reach her.

It was not the fate she had dreamed of, but it was the one she had been dealt. Perhaps she had always been doomed, perhaps she was never meant to survive. She had destroyed Ahren, and in return he had destroyed her. An end for an end, a price paid.

Mara Laric was thinking of Thian and Reiyna and the girl she had been as she closed her eyes and let herself slip away into oblivion.