Bloodfire Quest (The Dark Legacy of Shannara, #2)(109)

She hadn’t believed it before. She couldn’t conceive of it being true. So many years had passed since she had even seen him. So much had happened since they were children, and yet none of it seemed to have mattered. None of it had diminished his feelings for her. She wondered at his obstinacy, at his dogged determination to have her—how else could she think of it? But she knew even as she thought it that this wasn’t it at all. It was more akin to the taking of a vow. It was making of a commitment to something he believed in so utterly that he would wait as long and do as much as was necessary to see it fulfilled.

Even though the effort cost him his life.

As might happen here, if she failed to heal him.

She finished with the chest wound and moved on to the damage to his back. She laid him out facedown and extracted the knife, reaching along the razor-sharp edge of the blade to its tip with her magic to make certain he was shielded as she worked on him. His lungs and heart were unscathed, the injuries he had incurred confined to muscle and tissue and a complex network of blood vessels. The blade removed, she began the effort of mending arteries and veins so that the ends joined perfectly, tying together sinew and ligament, repairing torn muscles, and cleansing the whole of lingering infection.

By the time she was done, she was exhausted. She took time to bind up both wounds with strips of cloth she tore from the clothes worn by the dead assassin. Then she closed her eyes for what she expected to be a moment’s rest and promptly fell asleep.

Arlingfant Elessedil is dreaming.

She rides in an airship, high above the ground, lost in clouds that seem to buoy the vessel in the manner of an ocean’s waters. Through holes in these clouds, Arling can spy the earth far below—a distant patchwork of green woods, blue lakes, silver rivers, and brown mountains, all of it perfectly formed and reassuring. She is pleased to be able to observe it, but to remain above it, too. She can see it without touching it, can witness its presence without having to descend.

She is afraid it might not be real.

Aphenglow rides next to her. Her sister wears white robes that billow and flow like gauzy streamers. She smiles when Arling glances at her, further reassurance that all is well. Arling speaks to her, although she is uncertain of the words she uses. But Aphenglow doesn’t answer; she only smiles again and then points.

Ahead, looping through the clouds, is a flock of giant birds, their wings as wide as the airship is long, great predators in search of food. But they do not seem to notice the airship and continue their flight without paying it the slightest attention.

When Arling looks to her sister for an explanation, Aphen is gone.

Seconds later she sees her sister in the pilot box, standing at the controls. There are others aboard the airship, too. She cannot see who they are, but she knows instinctively they are Elves. They scurry along the decks and climb the rigging of the masts and work the radian draws and trim the light sheaths. They do sailors’ work, and nothing interrupts or distracts them from their efforts, even her calls of encouragement.

Suddenly the airship lurches and drops before steadying again. Arling seizes the railing against which she has been leaning, catching herself so that she does not fall. She feels her heart in her throat, and she is suddenly afraid. The airship jolts and drops a second time, and now she looks to the pilot box for Aphen. But her sister has vanished, disappeared into the ether. Nor are the other Elves still aboard. All are gone, as if they never were.

She is alone.

Terrified, she struggles across the deck as the airship begins to spiral downward, dropping swiftly earthward. She is intent on reaching the controls so that she can slow the vessel’s descent. But even though she fights her way across the heaving deck, she can never seem to get any closer to the pilot box. She is moving steadily, but the deck stretches out and grows longer. The airship drops through layers of clouds, sinking into them one moment and then abruptly falling back out again. Because she is no longer standing at the railing, she cannot tell how far she has fallen or how close the ground is beneath her. She senses that the time left before impact is very short, but she cannot find a way to measure it.

Then the airship catches fire. She screams for Aphenglow, but her sister does not respond. She is truly gone, and Arling cannot depend on her for help. She must save herself. She continues to crawl toward the pilot box, but the flames are everywhere and the heat is too intense. She begins to slide backward toward the railing and then the railing disappears and she falls over the side and …

She is in her mother’s arms. Her mother holds her, cradles her, protects her, and she is safe again. The airship has disappeared and the falling has ended. She lies on soft grasses amid flowers and green plants. Trees canopy overhead, their leafy boughs swaying in a wash of gentle breezes. She stretches out with her head on her mother’s breast and her shoulders in her mother’s lap. She feels comforted and loved, and all of the fear she felt only moments ago has dissipated, replaced with a sense of well-being.

“Child,” her mother whispers in her ear and rocks her gently.

“Mother,” she replies, realizing suddenly that something very good has happened and her mother is herself again, no longer the harsh, embittered woman she became when Aphen went away.

“I have you now,” her mother says. “I have you and will hold you forever. You are mine, and I will never let you go.”

Arlingfant loves hearing these words; she revels in their sweetness. She lies there and does not move, does not think, does not seek more than to be in the moment in which she finds herself.