Vash regrets

“What is this?” Tashnu gasped.

From his bedchamber he had heard his brother’s voice attempting to soothe a muffled sobbing, but he had thought it must have been his little niece crying – not that he could guess why his brother would have brought the baby here in the middle of the night, unless something grave had happened to Dara.

But it was Vash curled up on the floor: a tangle of long legs and arms, crumpled and pitiful like a dead spider.

Shosudin murmured something near his ear, but Tashnu could not hear it over Vash’s wail: “Kiv is dead!”

“Vash!” Tashnu cried. “Don’t call him that! And get up off the floor, first of all!”

His brother only shook his head.

Tashnu hoisted Vash to his feet. Once standing he seemed steady enough, but he immediately repeated that shocking phrase: “Nush, Kiv is dead!”

“Don’t call him that!” Tashnu whined. “Vash!”

“Don’t bother, Nush,” Shosudin said. “That’s the least of it.”

“But what happened?”

“Shus wouldn’t let me go to him,” Vash whispered. “He wouldn’t let me go. He made me come home.”

“Shus?”

His brother ignored his pleading eyes and spoke to Vash instead. “We couldn’t have done anything for him, Vash. You know that. There’s nothing we could have done.”

“But he died alone!” Vash sobbed. “Alone! And I shall die…”

“Vash!” Nush whimpered. “You’ll wake the children. Shus! Hurry up and tell me what happened.”

“I shall tell you the whole story later,” Shus whispered. “You remember that a girl cousin of the man Egelric was going to see the elf in his cave?”

“You told me.”

“She was attacked by elves, she said. Perhaps – ”

“On this night?” Nush squeaked.

“Perhaps Lar or his men. We don’t know. They cut her open and bled her almost to death, and the elf tried to save her.”

“He tried to do what he saw me do,” Vash choked. “But he didn’t know! He didn’t know how to wake the life in her, so he gave her his.”

“What?” Nush gasped. “Why?”

“That’s Kiv!” Vash said with a sobbing laugh. “Do first, think second. To the end!”

“Shus?” Nush pleaded. Vash might have simply lost his mind, but Shosudin was always rational. He needed Shosudin to explain the matter.

“We healed her wound,” Shosudin said. “On her breast, I mean. We did not heal her hand.”

Shosudin was trying to peer beneath Vash’s hands into his eyes, as if he was still seeking reassurance from Vash even when Vash was in such a condition. Tashnu did not find this reassuring at all.

“Are you saying he bound himself to her?” he asked.

“More than that!” Vash choked. “He gave nearly all his life to her. And now it’s all that’s left of him!”

“But how can she bear it? She’s no elf.”

“I don’t know,” Shosudin said. “But she does.”

“But he was dying, and she knew it!” Vash rubbed his sleeve across his eyes, though he began crying again immediately thereafter. “He was dying alone, and we never went to him!”

“She didn’t know it, Vash,” Shosudin whispered. “She doesn’t understand.”

“I do! I could feel him dying away from her the instant I touched her.”

“What happened when he died?” Tashnu asked.

Shosudin frowned. “The man Egelric did not let us stay.”

“Perhaps she died too,” Tashnu suggested.

It seemed the best to him. He knew that the elf – if he had taken the time to think first – would have been revolted at the thought of a woman carrying his blood and his life around in her after he had died, and passing it down through generations of men.

“No!” Vash cried. “She mustn’t die, if he gave his life so she could live. She shan’t die. I shall help her,” he whimpered. “I shall be her friend. As I should have been to him.”

“Vash!” Tashnu sighed. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Let him be, Nush,” Shosudin said wearily. “There’s nothing to be done for or against the elf now anyway.”

“He needn’t have died alone!” Vash protested. “I shall be damned for that, I think.”

“Vash!” Tashnu whispered, horrified.

“Let him be,” Shosudin said. “The best thing to do for him is to let him cry. Kiv himself would have said – ”

“Don’t call him that!” Tashnu whined.

“Oh, brother!” Shosudin groaned. “You don’t know where we’ve been or what we’ve done and seen tonight if you can still moan about the name of a twice-​​dead elf.”

“But if the children heard, or anyone…”

As if he spoke prophecy, at that moment a faint knock came at the door to his apartment, and Tashnu was paralyzed with worry.

“Who’s there?” Shosudin called when he did not.

“The elf Dara. Is that you, Shus?”

Tashnu let his head fall against Vash’s in relief.

The sight of Vash in tears was not uncommon enough to be particularly alarming. Dara embraced her husband first, but immediately afterwards she turned Vash around and hugged him too.

“Kiv is dead!” Vash sniffled.

Tashnu squirmed at the sound of the name, but Dara did not seem perturbed in the least.

“Poor dear,” she sighed. “For who loved him better than you?”

“I let him die alone!”

“He knows you couldn’t help it, dear. He knows you love him. He forgives you.”

Tashnu was momentarily lost in contemplation of Dara’s sweet little face upon Vash’s shoulder. His wife and his mother had been dead so long that he had forgotten what it was to find aid in the arms of a lady. Dara did not begin by asking Vash what was the matter – she merely hugged him. Dara did not begin by asking what had happened – she merely comforted him.

However, she soon lifted her head and wiped her hand over Vash’s cheeks.

“But for now, poor dear, you must dry your eyes and try to be calm. Your father is looking for you and Shus.”

“So late?” Shosudin gasped.

“I think he’s angry, Shus. My father is with him, and Osh and Morin. He knows you two were out tonight.”