leaned on the railing for a moment, and then began to sing softly. It seemed appropriate, and allowed her to save him the embarrassment of noticing his muffled sobs.
"What kind of song was that?" he asked when she had finished and he had pulled himself together. "It wasn't like the others. It sounded sadder, but more hopeful."
"It is one of the oldest songs recorded. It is the Litany to the Innocent Dead. In Northern, it means something like this." She struggled for a moment to translate and summarize the words. "The dead have passed beyond the cares of the living, past all pain, all fear, all Darkness, and all Light. They will be mourned and their deeds remembered. Their souls are at peace. The living are left with the hardship of coping with the passing of the dead and the task of tending to their own souls. So to the living are left these words of comfort and warning. Grieve, but do not let grief consume you. Regret, but do not live in the past. Weep, but do not carry sorrow with you. Rage, but do not let anger burn you out. Hurt, but do not refuse to heal. To dwell on that which cannot be changed leads to despair, and despair leads to Darkness. No matter how deep the pain, time heals all wounds. Find solace in silence, find strength in love, take joy in laughter, never give up hope, and the Light will return."
He considered this. "Thank you."
Sometime later, they descended the watchtower and headed back to her cottage.
"What about you, Eliora? Your family is alive. Why don't you go see them?" he asked.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
She sighed. "They believe I am dead, and so I am dead to them. To suddenly reappear would be a terrible shock."
He gave her a hard look.
"Besides," she continued, noticing the look, "I'm not completely naïve when it comes to politics. The Order of Light in my home doesn't intend for me to return. I'm a threat to their power. While they probably have some plans in place in case I do return, if I don't go along with those plans, there will be serious religious and political upheaval."
"Maybe your country needs that kind of chaos," he said harshly.
"Maybe it does," she agreed with tears stinging her eyes. "But at the cost of hundreds, perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of lives? Even if it didn't come to civil war, my family would suffer. Right now they are safe and have moved on with their lives. Family and community are more important than anything else. Who am I to judge that social revolution is the best thing for them?"
"You're the Champion of Light," he snapped.
“I’m the Avatar of Light,” she corrected. “It’s Hialmar and the Council who gave me the title of Champion.”
"But they are your people. Who else should make that kind of judgment call?"
"I don't know," she said. "But not me. I'm here to defeat the ShadowWalker and that's all."
"You're here to defeat the Darkness, not just one person. I just don't understand you at all. I'd give anything to see my family again. Yours is alive and you could go see them whenever you wanted. You have the power to change your whole society, maybe even the whole world. But instead you're just going to let your family think you're dead and let your Order lie to them and everyone else about what happened to you?"
Their footsteps crunched in the snow as they walked in silence. Eliora fought back tears and tried to work out a reply.
"Well?" he prompted when they reached her cottage door and she made no sign she intended to answer.
"If you really wanted to be left alone, I wish you'd just said so instead of getting mad at me because you don't understand me. Goodnight," she said firmly, and shut the door in his face. She changed her clothes and stared despondently into the night, trying not to cry or think about anything at all.
"Why do you even talk to him?" Aidan asked the next morning at breakfast.
"What?"
"I know you talked to Davin last night. He always upsets you. Why do you even bother?"
"He doesn't always upset me."
"More often than not," Aidan said darkly. "And then you don't pay attention during practice and one of us gets hurt."
"I just want to help."
He sighed. "Some people don't want help, Eliora."
"I know. But I have to try before I figure that out."
"Why do you want to have anything to do with that char-kin? He can fight but he won't fight, he didn't join the Hunters, and you still go find him when he's run off to sulk. Then when you do find him, he hurts your feelings. He's not worth all this. I just don't understand you sometimes."
She didn't reply.
"Well, come on. Let's try to have a good practice today. A good workout followed by trouncing me at chess again should cheer you up."
She didn't have a good practice, and she didn't feel like playing chess, so she went to her room after dinner. Aidan was clearly disappointed, but he just shook his head and didn't protest too much. She had just let her hair down to brush it before getting a bath when she heard a knock at her door. She ignored it.
"Eliora, it's me," came Davin's voice.
"I knew that," she thought, but still didn't respond.
"Can I talk to you?"
With a sigh, she went to the door. "If the first words out of his mouth aren't an apology, I'm throwing him right back out again," she thought bitterly. "Come in."
He stared at her a moment, then walked in. "I've never seen you with your hair down."
She picked up the brush and started to pull out the tangles. "Not quite an apology, or even a compliment. Maybe Aidan is right. Maybe I shouldn't bother." Her hair was so long now she could sit on it if she wasn't careful.
"Can I help?" he asked after a moment of silence.
"I guess," she replied, surprised. "Start at the bottom and work up," she said, handing him the brush and turning around.
"I think I can figure it out," he said dryly.
For several minutes, the only sound was the brush moving through her thick, glossy hair. She found it surprisingly relaxing, but she was still upset over his harsh words. "Why are you here?"
"To understand you better. Why don't you go to see your family?" he asked, but this time there was no anger in his voice.
"I have a duty here now, and I must see it through. As long as I know they're safe, I can focus on that duty. But if I went home it would only cause trouble and then I'd worry about them. I'd lose focus on my duty here and I wouldn't be able to focus on my family there. I'd be distracted in both places, and then I might lose against the ShadowWalker. I can't risk that."
"And after you win?"
She noted that he seemed to take this as a given. "I don't know. If I went home, I'd want to return to the life I had, not the life the Order will want for me. But I know that's impossible. They wouldn't let me and I'm not sure it would be so easy for me to put aside everything I've learned and done and become. But I don't want to start any civil wars. I don't want to fight. And I'd have to leave the life I made here. I don't want to spend my life trying to live in two worlds, or having to give up one again. It broke my heart to lose my home and family once. I can't do that again."
"Then what do you want?"
"I don't know. But, for now, that doesn't matter so much. I have my duty and I will carry that out." She shrugged. "Anyway, I've never been much for planning ahead. It's gotten me in trouble, but that's just how I am. When I’m ready for the future, then I focus on that. I’ve done that with everything. Education, career, marriage..." She stopped abruptly.
There was just the slightest of pauses in the rhythm of brushing.
“Learning to fight and all that. So far it’s working anyway.”
“I didn’t know you were married.” His voice betrayed nothing except mild curiosity.
“I wasn’t. I was being formally courted though, by a fellow scribe.” She sighed. “If things hadn’t turned out this way, it is likely we would have been married. He came from a good family. His family liked my family.
We liked each other and he wouldn’t have ended up my superior so there wasn’t any career conflict of interest.”
“Sounds like a good match.”
“It was.” Tears were starting to sting her eyes. “But it doesn’t matter now. He will have grieved and moved on. At least, I hope so. He’s a good man and deserves a good wife and happiness.”
“And you?”
“Well, I’m not ready to consider that right now. I’ve got quite enough to worry about, don’t you think?”
“I suppose you do.” He put the brush on the low table.
She turned around to face him.
“I am sorry. I had no right to speak to you like that after you tried your best to help me out of my bout of self-pity. You did make me feel better after your song, but I’m afraid that I was still hurting so badly I lashed out at you when you said you wouldn’t see your family again. I thought at the time if I had the power you do, and they were alive, that nothing in the world would stop me from seeing them. But I think I understand why you stay. Once you’ve started healing, why would you want to rip open those wounds again? Best to let them close completely and focus on other matters.”
“Apology accepted,” she said.
“Sometimes I think it’d be easier on me if you didn’t forgive so quickly. It makes me feel even worse for hurting your feelings,” he replied with just a bit of a smile.
She sort of shrugged. “That’s just how I am,” she said with a smile of her own.
“Then you aren’t upset with me?”
“I’ve told you before, I don’t accept apologies if I don’t