*
When I came to myself again it was late afternoon. The blood had dried on my shirt; I peeled it off and put on the one Halis had left draped around my shoulders. Now, the pain of my wounds had lessened to equal that of my stomach.
Halis lay next to me in the snow, weak and tired, her eyes focused on some distant point.
"I heard their souls cry out as they were loosed from their bodies," she said softly. "They told me I will join them soon."
The sun cast cold, ever-lengthening shadows across the earth. Halis shivered from the slight wind.
"Stop such talk and get up, lady. We must find a place for the night."
Her eyes were sunken and ringed; her cheekbones protruded sharply from her face. "I couldn't move even if I wanted to."
"Your wound?"
She nodded weakly. I reached over to open her furs, but she clutched them together desperately. "I don't want you to see. It's putrefying."
A cold, merciless hand squeezed the beats from my heart. The life in my body seemed to drain into the snow beneath me.
She observed my expression. "I will go no further."
"Halis—"
"I will not!" she snapped, eyes flashing, jaw set.
I had been bodyguard to Halis for three years; I knew that expression and what it meant. She had made up her mind. She would not move and I was too weak from lack of food and my injuries to carry her the entire distance.
Her voice softened. "You must go on, Kem."
I shook my head. I, too, could be stubborn.
A look of desperate agony creased her face. "Go. I want you to live. I want someone to live on. Please." Tears shone in her eyes.
A strange twisting seized my stomach. I would not allow her pleas to affect me. I would not. No woman had affected me since . . .
My mother.
Why would I think of her now, though? She had no place inside me any longer.
I could no longer make sense of my feelings for Halis. It had been so much easier when I despised her for her status, her wealth, and her chain around my neck, no matter how silver and delicate.
After a long moment of silence she simply sighed and closed her eyes. She could not understand that I had no choice. She was Elan, the ruling elite; and more, Dela-Elan, elite of the elite. She had her place and I had mine. Here beside her, dying in the snow.