around
your finger, fearing for your life, when you had long since severed it!)
“What
is it?” I could feel myself choke on my own voice. “What has happened in the
Summer Court?”
The
messenger picked up his letter and fumbled with it. “I am bound to announce,”
he mumbled, staring very hard at the letter as if to make clear that – as much
as it pained him – none of it was his own invention. “that there is to be a
marriage in the Summer Court!”
“Rodney!”
Shasta cried, but I felt with a horrible pang in my heart that it was not
Rodney who was to be wed.
“Between
the Queen Breena and the Wolf Prince Logan” the messenger finished in a single,
hurried breath, and scrambled from the room before my rage could ricochet off
the drafty beams of the ceilings and come to bear upon his head.
For
a moment I was numb. For a moment it was not true – it never had been true! It
was a lie – a political ploy – something, anything but what it was. And
then it hit me. All the telepathy that I had tried so hard to wield in months
gone by, the times I had tried to reach you and found your mind closed to me,
came rushing to me in an instance. I saw you with him , Breena – saw you
kissing him, saw you cuddling together in the orchards that were once the
flower-gardens of our love, saw him slipping your clothes from your
body...I saw and felt and experienced in the depths of my being your passion
for this savage Wolf, to take advantage of the loyalty you felt to him...your
gratitude – not (no! It cannot be!) your love.
And
the visions I saw as my mind connected at last with yours turned to
fever-dreams, the hot hallucinations of blood boiled and burned, and I collapsed
immediately, screaming your name – restrained at last by the efforts of my
mother and sister. I remember Shasta weeping, her heart moved to pity by my
predicament, but she nevertheless used all her magic, and all my mother's too,
to keep me from rushing to the Wolf and tearing out his throat that very night.
And
now it is morning, and the madness has passed, but the pain, Breena, has not. I
beg you to tell me it is not true, but what I see in my mind's eye – your love
for the Wolf, your passion for him, the days and nights you have spent in each
other's arms – make me believe that it is no lie. You will marry him, he whom
you love – you who are my intended, whom the ancient magic had destined
for my arms – and I swear to you, Breena, the moment you are his, that
moment I shall smash my silver snowflake upon the hearth and welcome death
gladly. It will come like a woman in a healer's garb, like a comforter, with
jars and ointments of oblivion, to heal my ragings at last, and smooth my way
into those happy lands of nothingness.
But
I beg you – at least – write to me. Explain what has happened. I will restrain
my grief. I will restrain my pain. Only speak to me – tell me something –
answer all my unanswered questions – and then I shall let you and your new love
be.
What
is it they say in your land? “Best wishes?” The words turn to ash in my mouth.
Letter 17
My Dearest
Breena,
No
word from you? No word at all? I had at least hoped that, despite your seeming
love for this Wolf who has snatched you from my loving arms, you would have the
kindness to alleviate the misery you have caused. Even the basest thief in
Feyland, when he strikes a man down to steal a few pieces of gold, leaves his
body on the main road for his widow to find and bury, rather than leaving it in
the heart of the forest for the carrion to feast upon! Even he knows that there
is nothing worse for the bereaved than to have no explanation for their loss –
to wait and wonder and reflect upon the past and ask the silent voices of magic
what has occured?
For
that is what I am doing now. One week has gone by and I have spent all the
daylight hours scanning the sky, my eyes tracing the path from my sun to yours,
hoping that a
your finger, fearing for your life, when you had long since severed it!)
“What
is it?” I could feel myself choke on my own voice. “What has happened in the
Summer Court?”
The
messenger picked up his letter and fumbled with it. “I am bound to announce,”
he mumbled, staring very hard at the letter as if to make clear that – as much
as it pained him – none of it was his own invention. “that there is to be a
marriage in the Summer Court!”
“Rodney!”
Shasta cried, but I felt with a horrible pang in my heart that it was not
Rodney who was to be wed.
“Between
the Queen Breena and the Wolf Prince Logan” the messenger finished in a single,
hurried breath, and scrambled from the room before my rage could ricochet off
the drafty beams of the ceilings and come to bear upon his head.
For
a moment I was numb. For a moment it was not true – it never had been true! It
was a lie – a political ploy – something, anything but what it was. And
then it hit me. All the telepathy that I had tried so hard to wield in months
gone by, the times I had tried to reach you and found your mind closed to me,
came rushing to me in an instance. I saw you with him , Breena – saw you
kissing him, saw you cuddling together in the orchards that were once the
flower-gardens of our love, saw him slipping your clothes from your
body...I saw and felt and experienced in the depths of my being your passion
for this savage Wolf, to take advantage of the loyalty you felt to him...your
gratitude – not (no! It cannot be!) your love.
And
the visions I saw as my mind connected at last with yours turned to
fever-dreams, the hot hallucinations of blood boiled and burned, and I collapsed
immediately, screaming your name – restrained at last by the efforts of my
mother and sister. I remember Shasta weeping, her heart moved to pity by my
predicament, but she nevertheless used all her magic, and all my mother's too,
to keep me from rushing to the Wolf and tearing out his throat that very night.
And
now it is morning, and the madness has passed, but the pain, Breena, has not. I
beg you to tell me it is not true, but what I see in my mind's eye – your love
for the Wolf, your passion for him, the days and nights you have spent in each
other's arms – make me believe that it is no lie. You will marry him, he whom
you love – you who are my intended, whom the ancient magic had destined
for my arms – and I swear to you, Breena, the moment you are his, that
moment I shall smash my silver snowflake upon the hearth and welcome death
gladly. It will come like a woman in a healer's garb, like a comforter, with
jars and ointments of oblivion, to heal my ragings at last, and smooth my way
into those happy lands of nothingness.
But
I beg you – at least – write to me. Explain what has happened. I will restrain
my grief. I will restrain my pain. Only speak to me – tell me something –
answer all my unanswered questions – and then I shall let you and your new love
be.
What
is it they say in your land? “Best wishes?” The words turn to ash in my mouth.
Letter 17
My Dearest
Breena,
No
word from you? No word at all? I had at least hoped that, despite your seeming
love for this Wolf who has snatched you from my loving arms, you would have the
kindness to alleviate the misery you have caused. Even the basest thief in
Feyland, when he strikes a man down to steal a few pieces of gold, leaves his
body on the main road for his widow to find and bury, rather than leaving it in
the heart of the forest for the carrion to feast upon! Even he knows that there
is nothing worse for the bereaved than to have no explanation for their loss –
to wait and wonder and reflect upon the past and ask the silent voices of magic
what has occured?
For
that is what I am doing now. One week has gone by and I have spent all the
daylight hours scanning the sky, my eyes tracing the path from my sun to yours,
hoping that a
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