And this love, it is the last thing I have left, the last thing to hold on to. All I ever wanted – feel it slip away, slip away .
Woman, you should never have let me go. I should have given you that power over me. If I had, you would’ve understood. You would have believed my love for you. And if you had believed, in that moment … I would have believed, too. How could I not?
This is my fault. I saw that then and I see it now. My fault .
Stonny, my love, I am sorry .
Time, that stretched behind him for ever, that closed in and became solid, that beckoned ahead with a darkness almost within reach, then ended.
By the time she staggered to his side, she saw that he was dead. Sembled into her Imass form, she sat down weakly beside his carcass, lifted her gaze to the empty, dust-wreathed sky.
The last of them, gone now. Out into the world. She had known that there would be hundreds of them, but still, the sight of that exodus had stunned her.
Blood pooled beneath her, mixing with that of Gruntle, this noble fool lying so still beside her. There was nothing more heartbreaking than to look upon a dead beast, a thing stripped of its terrible strength, its perfect majesty. And there was something still crueller when that beast was a hunter, a predator. A rival . Not killed for food. No. Killed for existing, killed for the presumption of competition. The predator fights to the last. It refuses to surrender. Hunt it down. Corner it. See those bared fangs. Listen to its fury and its fear and its noble defiance .
You understood all of this, Gruntle. You understood the inescapable, profound tragedy that is the beast that hunts, that dares to challenge our domination .
I did not mean to take your life .
She knew she was badly hurt. She knew she might not survive this. Even without the power of his god – whom she had kept away until the dragon’s arrival – he had been … extraordinary. Had he not turned upon the Eleint … yes, he would have killed me .
Gruntle, I will remember you. This I swear. Here, in the cracks in my heart. I will curse Trake until the end of my days, but you, brother of the hunt, I will remember .
Hearing a scrabble of stones, she lifted her head.
The pair of emlava had returned, and now edged towards her. She sensed their distress. Their grief. ‘He lives,’ she whispered. ‘My husband lives. For now. As for what comes …’ I wish I had an answer .
The realm was dying on all sides. Disintegrating into dust, as all dreams must do, when the last dreamer is gone.