Dáire looks up to see Aurana peering down at the text he’s deciphering. Her hair is only half up, the rest trailing over her shoulders. She’s wearing a pale green chiton with wildflowers embroidered on it and a dark green himation pinned at her right shoulder. He somehow feels underdressed in his long light wool outer tunic and chausses and leather shoes. He feels odd, almost out of place, out of armour. He wonders if she feels the same. The bruises on her arms and wrists make him wince. Those are most likely his fault. “Not yet,” he tells her. Darion keeps his eyes on her wrists. “I can heal those.”
Aurana is already shaking her head. “No need.”
“Please.” It’s not quite a beg, but there’s a pleading lilt to his voice that makes Aurana reconsider. She takes a seat next to him at the table and pushes the sleeves of her chiton up, offering him her arms. He notices for the first time faint angular lines on her upper arms. They look old, with the scars on her left arm disappearing further up. He wants to ask about them, but closes his eyes and focuses on calling upon the Light of his god. Her skin is warm under his hands, and he tries to be gentle as he heals. He’s only ever used the Light in the middle of a battlefield or in a field hospital, but he can feel bruising ease. He chases after the other injuries he feels, older ones that didn’t quite heal right-
“No.” Aurana firmly lifts one of his hands away, Dáire’s eyes flying open at the contact. “I want to keep those.” There’s sorrow in her eyes that he doesn’t quite understand, but stops at her request.
He clears his throat and sits back, reluctantly pulling his hands away. “Not much of what we’ve found talks about how to destroy a runeblade, or at least turn it inert.”
“Einion.” Dáire jerks his head in the direction of the other Ci Annwn is in amidst the winding corridors of the sunken library. “When I realized that it’s likely one of the runeblades that are part of my tynged, he was the first to help. He knows a bit about them.”
“Really?” Aurana glances in the direction Einion is in. Raised by druids and knows about runeblades. Curious. “I thought they were rare.”
“Your world knows about them,” Dáire reminds her. She makes a sign of concession before he asks, “How do the Illyrii make rune blades?”
“Similar process as yours,” Aurana says with a shrug. “Although, the souls used were from volunteers. Soldiers, mercenaries, paladins. People who wanted to serve even in death.”
“No,” she says with certainty.
“Did any of the blades ever break?”
Aurana thinks for a moment, recalling what she can. There were always volunteers, but in all the chaos she’s not sure if any of them broke. “I don’t know, but there’s a common belief that the soul is released once the vessel is broken, allowing it to rejoin the cycle of the universe.”
A sense of unease settles in Dáire’s chest. He always thought of souls in the abstract when he was alive. They just exist, the lives lived forgotten. The reality of Anwfynn is vastly different, as is the whole of the afterlife. When he made the runeblade, where was he pulling the souls from? Anwfynn? The Blessed Isles? The Asphodel Fields? Kur? The Cedar Forest? The Abyssal Plane?
Dáire stares down at the texts on the table in front of him, horrified. Pulling a soul from its plane of existence and forcing it into a rune vessel, shaped into a weapon. Pulling them from their rest. He was torturing those souls. Of course they fought back. “I never should’ve made those blades,” he whispers in horror.
He looks up at the sound of his name and sees Aurana sway in her chair before starting to slump forward. He catches her before she tilts too far forward and eases her onto the table. No injuries and no sign that she’s on the verge of a second death. If it’s a magical ailment, he has no way of telling. He barely has time to assess the situation when Einion emerges from one of the nearby aisles.
“You asking a nature spirit for help surprised me.” Einion stays well out of range as Dáire slowly rises from his seat. “I had to change my plan.”
Plan? For what? What does Aurana have to do with anything? She’s the only other person he knows that made a blade of equal or greater value that the Tylwyth Teg would consider- “I was supposed to talk to Lord Lutin.” Einion inclines his head. “You didn’t gamble away your sword.” Dáire keeps pace with Einion, blindly feeling for anything that he can use without being obvious about it. Swords and other weapons are banned in the library. All he has is his dagger, and he’ll need to get close to use it.
“No, I didn’t,” Einion admits. “You were supposed to be trapped by the Tylwyth Teg. And instead she offered Lord Lutin something far more tantalizing: a star touched blade made by her own hand. But you know what’s even more frustrating?”
Dáire wants to keep him talking as he places himself between Einion and Aurana. “What is?”
“You won’t suffer like I did. Be trapped in a vessel with no way to free yourself for centuries. Existing in torment for an unknown Age. Forgotten. Discarded.”
“Yes, you did!” Einion snarls, pointing his dagger at Dáire accusatorily. “You pulled me from my rest! Shoved me into that blade! And when the vessel shattered you swept me aside without releasing me!”
It hits him all at once. “You’re the blade,” Dáire breathes. He barely has time to react as Einion lunges for him, barely grabbing one of the tomes on the table to deflect the dagger. They crash into the table, papers and textbooks scattering and spilling to the floor. Aurana doesn’t react, still under the influence of whatever Einion did.
“I was trapped for an eternity, unable to move or free myself.” Einion bares his teeth as Dáire scrambles away and pulls his own dagger free. “I did, eventually. But by then you were dead.”
Dáire puts distance between them and Aurana. Even as he watches Einion for his next move, he can’t help but ask, “Why weren’t you released when the dagger shattered?” There must’ve been something he missed. Some part of the ritual or rune he skipped.
“Because it was still a vessel. You never used the nullification rune. Pieces of my soul were still attached.” Einion lunges forward, Dáire barely catching the dagger with his own. They struggle to gain the upper hand until Dáire grabs Einion’s tunic. He yanks him forward and headbutts him.
They stagger for a moment, Einion dazed as Dáire realizes he didn’t land the blow quite right. He recovers just enough to tighten his grip on Einion’s tunic and shove him as hard as he can into a nearby bookcase. The case shudders from the force of the impact, books shivering as others fall to the floor.
The pain of being shoved into one of the towering bookcase brings Einion clarity. He kicks Dáire away with a snarl and charges after the staggering man. “You were supposed to be chained! A pet of the Tylwyth Teg so you know how it feels to be trapped!”
Dáire darts away, running to a lectern with Einion close on his heels. He tips it over as Einion nears, hoping to slow him down as Dáire tries to figure a way out of this. He wants to tell Einion that he didn’t know, that he regrets making the rune blades. But it’s too late for that. His tynged caught up to him. Dáire moves to an open aisle as Einion moves around the lectern. He knows Einion is intent on taking him down, but what will he do to Aurana afterward?
He knows what he’s going to do and takes a stand. Dáire makes the first move as soon as Einion is in striking distance, closing quickly. They strike at each other in a flurry of cuts, none of them quite hitting their mark. It’s bloody and frenetic, too many wounds to count. And as suddenly as it began the fight stops.
Dáire exhales in surprise just as his own dagger finds its mark in Einion’s chest. Just left of the sternum, between the third and fourth rib. Einion’s blade is under his ribs, angling toward his heart.
“I’m sorry.” The apology doesn’t mean anything now. They’re just words, but it feels right to say them aloud.
Einion stares at him and utters, “Words mean nothing.” He collapses where he stands, bleeding out.
Dáire sits down hard on the floor, careful not to bother the blade. Breathing hurts, and as much as he wants to take the dagger out, he refrains. It wouldn’t matter. His limbs feel too heavy, and he’s going to bleed out anyway. Of all the things he wants in his final moments, he wants a little more time with Aurana.
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