Seeking forgiveness.

[Iome]

He left his charges on the road to the tavern that Iome and Tyreal called home. Though how anyone could call a place for drinking and whoring a home was beyond his realm of understanding. As he strayed from the group, Iome only nodded at his departure. A woman of few words, that one. He'd never expected her to come as far as she had, but with the promise of madness left unfulfilled, Larus was seeing more of the measure of the youngest of his dragoons. And he was growing to like what he saw.

He trudged through the snow, each footfall breaking through the thin crust of ice atop the snow with a satisfying crunch. The folds of his hooded cloak whipped around him like a great, dark flag announcing his arrival. Would she see this as a sign of truce? Could there ever be a truce between them again? Larus pushed forward, ignoring the lash of the wind and the bite of snow against his face. 'Dead women don't hold grudges, old man,' he reminded himself.

Ahead, tombstones peeked out of the snow like grotesque children playing hide and seek. The grave he sought had no marker that he knew of. He doubted that anyone would remember her now, so long had she been dead. Larus counted his footsteps, his memory tracing the way to the tiny patch of dirt hidden now beneath the snow.

He was there. There were no visual clues that this was her grave, but Larus knew that underneath the ice and the snow and the frozen dirt, she was there. Larus often wondered, when alone in his cell long after the candles had burned down, who had received the greatest wrong. Mikhail or Sialle? But here in the cold, he knew without doubt.

He had given Mikhail the gift of freindships and a task to soothe the rage that consumed him. For her, the pale little woman with her tortured dark eyes, he'd offered nothing. No comfort, no warmth. Not even that of the brothers that she mourned for nearly every day of her life.

Larus placed his hand against his chest, wishing to claw away the hurt and the guilt that robbed him of peace. How he hated her. How he loved her. He knelt in the snow and bowed his head. Prayers were not fitting for one who wouldn't succumb to the gods or to men. Even her last breath had been a battle. He'd felt the last of them shudder from her emaciated chest. Larus was more than a continent away from her, yet he'd felt her die as if she were right beside him. He could even feel her eyes, piercing through the barriers of distance and time to blame him, hate him, forgive him.

Larus slid a hand into the tunic concealed beneath his robe and placed a beaten silver disk in the snow. Cold tears stung at his eyes as he whispered, "I'm sorry I kept it. He wanted you to have it, but I was selfish. Always selfish, wasn't I?" He folded his gloved fingers together, fighting the shuddering within, fighting the unbearable silence. What did he expect? That she would rise from the ground to forgive him for his sins? Ridiculous.

Larus remained crouched, utterly unable to move. There were other things to say, but he suddenly lacked the energy to mouth the words. But he forced them, without knowing why, he forced them. "I knew the whole time. I knew where you were the day the old witch saved you. I knew where you were the day you bore your son and the day you watched him die. I knew where you were and I never told him. He looked for you for a thousand years and I never told him that I knew where you were all along."

Anger and guilt wrapped around him like ribbons of hot steel. Maybe if he had told Mikhail sooner where to find her, she wouldn't have died. Maybe she wouldn't have suffered as she had. Sialle had grieved for her brother as much as Larus did, yet he had robbed her even of that. And now she was dead and he was left with the unforgivable weight of his guilt hanging around his neck.

Larus stood and gathered a handful of snow. He blew the snowflakes into the wind and watched them dance with a sad smile. Was this her forgiveness? Hadn't she won in the end? Sialle was with his beloved Mikhail and Larus was left with only the first born dragoon that hurt him because he loved too him well and the last born that hurt him because he could not love her no matter how he tried.

'The time for self-indulgence is at an end, old man. Iome needs you now.' He turned to walk towards the distant tavern, when the wind picked up, gusting like icy breath against his scales. He closed his eyes and steeled himself against the onslaught. As he opened his eyes, licking snowflakes from his mouth, there she stood.

Sialle was as pale in death as she was in life. A white dress fluttered around her alabaster skin as if brushed by a much gentler wind than he felt. Her stark white hair, so shocking when alive, now seemed to fit her. She was still not beautiful, not this sharp-featured little creature with her great dark eyes and ghastly pale skin. But death and time had worn the edge off her unusual appearance.

Her dark eyes were fixed on his face and a tiny smirk played about her thin lips. "Come to pay tribute, Larus?"

He flinched against the sting of her words. The old hate came bubbling in a molten torrent to the forefront of his mind. How dare she mock him. "I came to see if you were indeed resting in peace."

Sialle laughed, her husky voice grating against his eardrums like glass. "You are a liar. You come to seek redemption. I come to offer you an opportunity to attain it."

"Why would I seek the forgiveness of a creature as repugnant as you?"

Sialle smiled, a secret dark smirk that whispered of cunning and malice hidden behind the child-like features. "Because you've been a very, very naughty little dragonon, Larus. I intend for you to make up for the sins you've committed." She laughed and Larus suddenly remembered what it was like to fear her as well.