Skein of Shadows (36 page)

“Greddark …?”

Elix nodded and laid her back carefully on the floor, then went to check the dwarf. After confirming that stubborn artificer was not, in fact, dead, Elix rolled him over and poured more of the same potion down his throat, only to have the dwarf choke and cough and vomit it back up all over him.

Grimacing, Elix turned him on his side until the spasm passed, then tried again, more slowly this time. In the time it took for the dwarf’s eyes to open and clear, Sabira was able to sit up on her own. By the time he could get up from the floor, she was ensconced in one of the high-backed chairs finishing off the last of a fresh glass of Frostmantle Fire. She handed another glass to the dwarf as Elix helped him over to the other chair.

“Sorry it’s not tea,” she said as Elix pulled up a third chair beside hers and sat.

Greddark took a long drink before replying, nearly draining the goblet.

“Sometimes the senses
need
dulling.”

Sabira snorted.

“Especially after I let that pampered schoolboy Brannan
get the drop on me in the storage room. Though, in my defense, I was distracted by the dead changeling lying on the floor.
And
he was actually a rakshasa in disguise.” He looked at her over the rim of his glass. “What happened to him, anyway? I assume you somehow managed to kill him, since we’re still here and he’s not.”

“Not exactly.” At his quirked brow, she added, “I sort of borrowed your plane-shifting wand. I might have broken it, too, right before I threw it at him and he disappeared. Wherever he is, I’m guessing he won’t be back here for awhile.”

Greddark started to laugh, then winced and thought better of it. As strong as Elix’s healing potion had been, Sabira had a feeling neither she nor the dwarf were going to be engaging in any belly laughs any time soon.

She looked over at Elix curiously.

“So, now that we have a moment, are you going to tell me what you’re doing here? You said it wasn’t because Breven got impatient. What, then? Did you argue religion with the Keeper and get kicked out of Thrane? Or did you just miss me that much?”

The other Marshal had been quiet since he’d healed her and Greddark, and she found herself missing his smile. She wanted it back.

Unfortunately, asking that question wasn’t the way to get it. If anything, Elix grew even more pensive.

“She had a dream about me.”

Sabira frowned.

“Who? The Keeper?”

Elix nodded, and Sabira felt some of her earlier dread returning.

“It didn’t involve a pool of magma, did it?”

It was Elix’s turn to look puzzled.

“No. She had a dream of the progenitor dragons, Siberys and Khyber, fighting a mighty battle at the feet of Emperor Cul’sir. Only she knew in the dream they weren’t the actual dragons, but their champions. Two women that I loved, and which of them won would depend on me.”

Sabira made a face.

“Champions? You sure she didn’t mean pawns?” she asked, and a chuckle quickly muffled by the sound of gulping came from Greddark’s direction.

Elix didn’t laugh.

“She was talking about you and Tilde, wasn’t she?” he asked, his hazel eyes dark with sorrow.

Remembering the sight of the Siberys shard of her urgrosh driving into the Khyber shard in Tilde’s abdomen, Sabira could only nod.

“Seems as though.” And the Emperor had to represent Xen’drik. Though as far as Sabira knew, there was nothing at the base of his statue in the Stormreach harbor except a blank cliff wall.

“But I got here too late. The battle you two fought was already over, and it had nothing to do with me.”

Sabira shook her head sharply.

“No, Elix. It had
everything
to do with you.” At his pained, questioning look, she leaned forward to take his hands in her own. “I’d never have gone after her if it weren’t for you. And I’d certainly never have fought so hard to get back.”

He frowned again.

“I thought you said you were doing it for Ned …?”

Sabira smiled ruefully. She had thought so too. At first. It had taken the journey to Tarath Marad and back for her to realize the truth.

“Because I owed my old partner a debt I had to finish paying off before I could enter into a new partnership.”

Elix’s eyes widened and the darkness in them began to give way to the light of something that looked a lot like hope.

“I don’t suppose you still have that box with you?”

Elix nodded and freed one of his hands from hers long enough to pull the thin black rectangle out from beneath his tunic. Sabira wasn’t certain, but she thought she saw it shaking slightly.

“Saba, are you sure?”

She almost snorted at that. She’d never been more sure of anything in her life.

“I almost lost you once, Elix, back when I left Karrnath. And then again, here in this very room. I don’t want to risk losing you a third time.”

“Nor I, you. But we’re Deneiths; either of us could die tomorrow. Odds are, one of us will.”

“All the more reason,” she replied with a light laugh.

“Saba, I’m serious. The Keeper said the fight between the dragons in her dream wasn’t the end of their war, but the beginning. Whatever chain of events was set into motion or furthered along its path by the discovery of Tarath Marad, it’s not finished.”

“It never is. And neither are we.”

He looked at her for a long, intense moment, then nodded.

“In that case.…”

He slid off his chair on one knee in front of her and opened the velvet box to reveal the mithral and mourngold betrothal bracelet within.

“Sabira Lyet d’Deneith Tordannon, as Greddark here below and the entire gathered Host above are my witnesses … will you marry me?”

She thought about the Keeper’s words and what they could mean for Xen’drik, and Eberron. What they would almost certainly mean for her. More fighting, more pain. More loss.

And then she looked into the eyes of the man who would be by her side through it all and gave him the only answer she possibly could.

“Yes.”

M
arsheila Rockwell is, in no particular order, an author, poet, editor, engineer, Navy wife and mother of three incredible boys. She currently lives in Arizona in the shadow of an improbably green mountain. She is a frequent Rhysling nominee and a sporadic member of the SFWA, IAMTW and SFPA. In addition to her novels, she has penned dozens of short stories and poems, and even an article or two. Visit her at
marsheilarockwell.com
.

L
OLTH ALONE IN HER
D
EMONWEB
P
ITS,
IS WEAVING HER DARK
SCHEMATA INTO THE WORLD
.

A
ND HER DROW ARE STIRRING EVERYWHERE, FROM THE LIGHT OF THE SURFACE WORLD TO THE DEPTHS OF THE
U
NDERDARK
.

R
ISE OF THE
U
NDERDARK
^™

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