* * *
Mithiar sat in Cullin's Inn and took a sip of the fine house brandy. Would he see Cirig today? He hoped so. The elf had not been able to catch Cirig alone since the day he killed Ethne, Cirig's wife.
He set his glass down when he heard the soft rustle of another entering the Inn. The other's eyes bored into his back, their stare almost painful.
"You...." A woman's voice, Lasaiena's voice, sounded shocked and accusatory.
He stared into his glass of brandy. What had he done to her? He did not think he had done anything. "Yes?"
"Why did you...?"
He turned to look at her, puzzled. "Why did I what?"
She shook her head. "Why did you kill her?"
Mithiar blinked. He had killed many people, men and women alike. Who was she referring to? "Which her?"
"Eth... Ethne."
He tilted his head slightly, the world not shifting in the slightest. "Because she was distracting my love."
Lasaiena stared at him in incomprehension. "She was... what?"
"I admit that neither Maliar nor Celebiar would see it that way, but that is why I did it."
She looked away, her gaze on the heat crystal in the back wall. "I'm not even supposed to talk to you."
Mithiar patted the seat next to him. She needed to understand. He needed her to understand. "If you wish to hear my tale, then sit. If not...." He shrugged.
Her eyes met his again and she folded her arms across her blue dress. "I don't want to hear why you did it. She... was my friend."
Ah, so that was how he had hurt her. Though, he would like to know how she knew that *he* had done it.
He shrugged. What was done was done. "Then I am sorry for your loss."
Lasaiena glared at him, her eyes hard. "No, you aren't."
He stood abrubtly, a flash of anger going through him. " I am sorry that you were hurt. I am not sorry that I killed her."
She shook her head. "Why did you do it?"
Mithiar tilted his head slightly to the right. "Because I love Cirig, and he loves her. But now she's gone and he can't love her any more."
Her purple eyes widened. "Cir-" She frowned, marring her face. "But Cirig loves Ariesel."
!
Cirig loved Ariesel? His love loved someone else? Again?
His amethyst eyes went wide. "What?"
class="norm"Lasaiena was taken aback, he noticed before his legs stopped supporting him and he settled to the floor.
"I mean.... I don't think...." He vagually heard her say.
He leaned his cheek against the cool wood of a nearby stool. "Should have known.... Never any luck for me...."
"Cirig will never love you."
The words cut like a knife. They were true. He knew they were true. He had always known they were true. But, how could she be so cruel as to say what he had tried so hard not to believe?
He looked up at her, tears beginning to fill his eyes. Of course Cirig would never love him. But he had hoped that the luck would be with him. He had hoped so hard, doing all that he knew to bring the luck to him. He had fasted and bled and wept, and it had all been for nothing.
"I know," Mithiar croaked. "Do you think I can stop loving him, though?"
"Killing his wife wasn't a way to gain favor with him I think...."
He brushed a tear from his cheek. "What else could I do?"
Lasaiena shook her head slowly. "I don't know." She looked away from him quickly. "Why doesn't Isliffell like you?"
He might have blinked at the sudden change of subject. What did it matter? Still, she needed an answer. "Because he does not want me to love his bondservant."
"....Is that all?" She sounded faintly shocked.
"As far as I know."
She bit her lip, her white teeth worrying at it ever so slightly. "I... I should go."
He nodded slowly, feeling the wood scrape against his cheek. "Of course."
"I don't want him to catch me in here, talking with you."
Isliffell. She knew Isliffell. Did Isliffell own her as he owned dear Cirig? "Aye, aye, he would not like that."
She swallowed and nodded.
Mithiar covered his face with his hands, needing this little darkness he could make. "Never any luck for me," he whispered.
"Well... farewell...."
He looked up into her sad eyes. "Walk in shadows."
The elven man began to cry in earnest when she left. He let the tears fall, mourning the way luck never came to him, mourning that the man he loved did not love him.
Hours passed, days passed, weeks passed, and yet it was only minutes until words pierced his weeping.
"Is this... thing why you wanted to wait?" Isliffell said, barely suppressed anger coloring his voice.
Lasaiena sucked in a breath. "He.... I didn't think he should be disturbed...."
"You were talking with it again."
Mithiar turned away, burying his face in his arms, trying to escape the voices and unwanted presences that disturbed him.
"Looks like a sick dog that needs to be put out of its misery," Isliffell said contemptuously. "Charming."
Mithiar started, the voices penetrating his daze. He looked up into those cold green eyes of Isliffell's with something like despair.
Isliffell leaned down, stopping inches from the purple-eyed elf's face. "I know what you did, vermin."
Lasaiena touched Isliffell's shoulder, her voice pleading. "Isliffell, please...."
"Whatever you're suffering now is nothing compared to the wrath you have brought down upon you."
Hot anger filled him and energized his icy despair. What did this Sheevra know of wrath? What did this Sheevra know of suffering? Had green-eyed Isliffell been Morganna's instrument of revenge against the one who killed Clovis? Had white-haired Isliffell held the belt of living heads of a high priest of Thanatar?
How dare this Sheevra threaten him!
Mithiar seized the fron of Isliffell's robes with clawed hands. "Don't even try it, Sheevra."
Isliffell stared back, his chest heaving, his face twisted.
Mithiar tried to smile, failed, and offered instead a rictus to white-haired Isliffell. "This elf has lived on the edge for far too long."
"Then perhaps it needs to be pushed off," Isliffell hissed. "I told you to stay away from Cirig."
"Yes.... Push me away from what little control I have...." Mithiar let go of Isliffell's robes and began to laugh softly. Oh, sweetness! Would Isliffell be so foolish as to try?
Please?
"Your madness invites your own disaster," the robed elf said contemptuously. He looked to Lasaiena before walking out toward the door. "There is nothing left here."
Mithiar's laughter turned hysterical. Did not the Sheevra know that what seemed to be nothing was the most dangerous? Did Cirig feel the same contempt Isliffell felt?
"I...." Lasaiena began.
"Leave me. Please," he begged. He did not want her to see the weeping and gnashing of teeth that was to come.
The End