Stalking Darkness

neh noliea.”
    Adzriel nodded, wiping her eyes. Nysander went to her side and offered his arm.
“Aura Elustri málron
, dear lady. I shall accompany you back to the others.”
    “Thank you again, Nysander í Azusthra, for all your assistance in this matter.” As she turned to go, however, she spoke once more to her brother in their own language, glancing at Alec as she did so.
    “Quite right,” Nysander said. “It is the boy’s right to know; he should hear it from you.”
    With that, he escorted Adzriel back the way she’d come.
    Turning to Seregil, Alec found his friend looking pale and uncomfortable again. “What did they mean?”
    Seregil pushed a hand back through his hair and sighed. “I’ll explain everything, but not here.”

23
Revelations
    T he unexpected reunion with his sister had shaken Seregil to the core of his soul. A fierce sorrow seemed to emanate from him as they left the Palace, and the weight of it left Alec feeling mute and helpless. What could he say, what could he offer in the face of this? And what was it Nysander had meant, that Seregil had something to tell
him?
    He trailed anxiously in his friend’s wake, the sound of their horses’ hooves echoing from the ornate walls of villa gardens as the misshapen moon sank slowly toward the western rooftops. Alec couldn’t forget the sight of that single tear rolling slowly down Seregil’s face. He’d never imagined him capable of weeping.
    Seregil paused long enough to steal two flasks of sweet red wine from a vintner’s shop, then rode on until they reached the wooded park behind the Street of Lights. Dismounting, they led their horses along a path to an open glade beyond.
    A small fountain stood at the center of the little clearing, its stone basin filled now with rain and dead leaves. Sitting down on the rim of it, Seregil handed Alec a flask, then uncorked his own and took a drink.
    “Go on,” he told Alec with a sigh. “You’ll need it.”
    Alec found his hands were shaking. He took a long swig of the sweet, heavy wine, felt the heat curl down into his belly. “Just tell me, will you? Whatever it is.”
    Seregil was quiet for a moment, his face lost in shadow, then he gestured up at the moon. “When I was a child, I used to sneak out at night just to walk in the moonlight. My favorite times were in the summer, when people would come from all over Aurënen to the foot of Mount Barok. For days they’d gather, waiting for the full moon. When it rose over the peak, we’d sing, thousands of voices raised together, singing to the dragons. And they’d fly for us across the face of the moon, around the peak, singing their answering songs and breathing their red fire.
    “I’ve tried to sing that song once or twice since I’ve been here, but do you know, it just won’t come? Without all those other voices, I can’t sing the Song of Dragons at all. As things stand now, I may never sing it again.”
    Alec could almost see the scene Seregil had described, a thousand handsome, grey-eyed folk in white tunics and shining jewels, massed beneath the round moon, voices raised as one. Standing here in this winter-ruined garden, he felt the crushing weight of distance that separated Seregil from that communion.
    “You hoped your sister was going to say you could go home, didn’t you?”
    Seregil shook his head. “Not really. And she didn’t.”
    Alec sat down beside him on the rim of the fountain. “Why were you sent away?”
    “Sent away? I was outlawed, Alec. Outlawed for treason and a murder I helped commit when I was younger than you.”
    “You?” Alec gasped. “I—I can’t believe it. What happened?”
    Seregil shrugged. “I was stupid. Blinded by my first passion, I allowed what I thought was love to cut me off from Adzriel and all the others who tried to save me. I didn’t know how my lover was using me, or what his intent really was, but a man died all the same, and the fault was rightly mine. The details don’t really matter—I’ve never told anyone else this much, Alec, and I’m not going to say more now. Maybe someday—At any rate, two of us were exiled. Everyone else was executed, except my lover. He escaped.”
    “Another Aurënfaie came to Skala with you?”
    “Zhahir í Aringil didn’t make it. He threw himself overboardwith a ballast stone tied around his neck as soon as we lost sight of the coastline. I very nearly did the same, then and many times later on. Most exiles end up suicides sooner