Euris ran blindly through corridors so familiar she did not need to see them, trying to dry her tears and stop bawling. She was soon back to her room, locked the door, and threw herself back on the bed, crying into her pillow. How could they murder someone like that? He was innocent, and merely helping people. He’d certainly helped her understand herself. She saw the eyes of the little baby whose fever had broken. And this man had been murdered! She was helpless to have stopped it, but she despaired of thinking of any way she could have intervened.

Mattak was right, the rule for renegades was death, and it was a good rule, because renegade sorcerers had destroyed Morran and many other places over the centuries in their own petty grabs for land and power. If the College of Sorcery did not enforce the rule, even to the point of brutality, the cost in innocent lives would be much higher. But why did this man have to die? He wasn’t like that; he was good. Why didn’t they stop long enough to see that? How could she have stopped them, in the heat of the moment, with Dorrial smelling blood? She knew that she would have had to fight Dorrial, unarmed, and likely Mattak too. Even her own brother would have been unable to protect her in that fight. Her involvement would have only made matters worse. Everything had happened so quickly that it made her head swim.

The tears soon ran out, and she was left feeling as empty as ever. What now? She had had a few blessed hours of peace at home, and everything had unraveled more quickly than she could have imagined. Euris had never really unpacked from her journey to South Port, which helped her decide to leave again. Her bag was still packed, lying where she had dumped it in a corner, and all she had to do was put the dress back in her closet and pull on her riding leathers and boots, which did not take but a moment.

Euris quickly found herself in the stable, having arrived there by a little-used route she remembered taking many times. The old castle did not have a passage she had not explored inside and out while growing up. Why couldn’t she stay here forever? The look in the man’s eyes as the sword blade swept out towards him told her why. The stones, and gardens, and favorite hiding places were not enough anymore. Not even the ocean itself was enough. She needed something more. She had her horse out of the stall and the saddle blanket over its back when her brother came into the stable. “I thought I’d find you here. I went to your room, and your bag was gone. Where are you going?”

“I just need some space. I need to go for a ride.” Why couldn’t he leave it at that? Her brother used to be sensitive to her moods, and know when to back off. He had changed so much, or she had, and she didn’t know which. Once it seemed like they knew each other’s thoughts, even when sometimes he would use that knowledge to ride her to the breaking point. She always knew where she stood with him, and that he was fully behind her. But he had just sanctioned the coldest-blooded murder she had ever imagined.

Instead, he asked: “You’re going riding for the afternoon with your travel kit?” She glanced guiltily at the bag she’d put on the ground, but did not stop saddling her horse. “You have a responsibility to my father and South Port. You can’t simply go off any time you want to now.” His face looked angry, but also had a streak of disappointment which cut into Euris’ heart. After all they had been through together, it had come down to this moment?

Euris was frustrated, and wished she could have gotten out of the castle without this conversation. “I need some space!” Maybe if she could clear her head and think about things, she could bring everything back into balance. Part of her clung to this hope, that she had misunderstood or overreacted, and that if she had some time she’d come to see where she was wrong, and be able to come back and apologize. Her brother would forgive her, and everything would be back to normal again. The part of her which was still being honest with herself didn’t think so. Something had changed so that their lives could never be what they once were.

Her brother’s voice had an edge to it. “You can’t run off like a frightened girl and sulk any time anything happens. You have to grow up and take some responsibility. You know Mattak acted lawfully, and it was your duty as a Princess of South Port to support him and the law we uphold.”

Euris did not want to stay and argue with her brother, because she had nothing to argue. She fumbled with the harness. He was right, but he was wrong; this felt as wrong as anything she had felt since Gath died. Her hands fumbled with the saddle straps. The whole world was wrong, or else it was right and she was wrong. Her hands were not steady. She threw her pack across the back of the saddle, and burst out: “Leave me alone!” Her horse was saddled enough for now, and she mounted it and galloped out of the stable and down to the keep’s drawbridge. The guards, who recognized the Princess’ horse, opened the gate barely in time. She sped off down the streets to the outer wall of South Port, not even noticing her familiar haunts and the people who watched her with surprise. Soon she was passed the main gate, and out on the open road.

If her brother was still her brother, she knew he would let her have some time to herself. Once he had badgered her about how she shot a short bow from horseback. She was going to be a knight, and never need to do such a thing, and could split the bull’s eye with a long bow almost with her eyes closed. But she was fumbling and off-balance no matter what she did, and couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn while the horse was moving and jostling her. Through the day, she had not shown any improvement, and her brother had harangued her more intensely on her technique as the sun crested the sky. What he said only discombobulated her even more, and she had brimmed with frustration. After another hour of him riding her, she had finally ridden up to him, pushed him off his horse, and galloped off. Later that night, when she had sheepishly and uncertainly come back to the castle, they had argued a little more, but had made up and ended the day friends. The knowledge that her brother loved her so much as to forgive that sort of thing had been the foundation of her life, her stability. She remembered swimming with him and some of their friends on the royal beach, and when they were older their sometimes week-long hunts in the countryside which had involved hunting in proportion to drinking at good little inns her brother always seemed to know and just being friends together. Why was her brother now asking her to support cold-blooded murder?

Euris did not know where she was going. The late afternoon shadows banded the road, and she just kept riding. Her mind turned over and over in a succession of chaotic thoughts, none of which made any sense to her. She longed to have Gath to talk to, or old Master Aeral, or even her brother when he used to be her close friend. She thought about going back to the College, but she remembered why she had left to begin with. There was no real place for her there. The Gray Master might keep her on as a guard, because she had been connected with Gath. That would not be a home, though, as much as it would be imposing on the memory of the departed Journeyman to beg room and board at the Gray Tower. She also did not think she could live in the place where she almost had the life she had wanted, but had lost. She wildly thought about riding north all the way to the Morranreach, going back to the ruins, and living in the forest. The thought made no sense but was strangely compelling. She felt a deep and tight knot in her stomach.

When it was getting dark, Euris stopped in a small clearing near the road and unsaddled her horse. Instead of making camp, she sat on the grass hugging her knees. She was too frustrated to cry. What was she doing? Had she gone mad? Why was the Princess of South Port out in the woods trying to control herself and to think clearly, and why wasn’t she able to? The world seemed darker inside of her than the gloaming. She wished it was pitch black. Everything felt wrong in her life, in a way she had never before even imagined possible, as if she had fallen into a black pit. At the time when her life should have been perfect, she felt like it was all falling apart, and for no reason. She had friends in South Port who would take her back, and she could laugh and go drinking with them every night, and sleep in her familiar room. She’d have friends and a place there for life, a place she belonged, and who knew but that she could even warm to Dorrial? The two of them had much in common, and ought to have been friends at the school. Euris would likely meet someone in time who would make her forget all about the life she could never have with Gath.

At the same time, none of this mattered to her anymore. She didn’t want the life she used to want in the way she used to want it. She yearned for something she could not even put a name to, a sort of stability and permanence that was, as far as she knew, not even possible in life. She remembered the feeling of dread when she packed up and went to the college, and the empty feeling that led up to graduation, and the deeper emptiness that had settled in her soul since Gath died. Maybe life with Gath would not have been what she imagined it to be, either, and maybe life at South Port would never be stable, either. Was she mad? Was being alive simply not good enough for her?

This world she lived in now seemed so wrong. Gath should not have died. The man should not have been murdered. But what was different? Something ached inside her, as if she was unfulfilled and longing for something else. But what? She just wanted to spend a quiet evening in the Knob, and come home to hear Gath’s quill scratching on his paper as he finished his work. The idea made her heart leap, but even it wasn’t what she truly longed for. What had changed, and what caused this longing she could not fulfill?

A rustle in the bushes. All the years of training overrode her state of mind, and she leapt to her feet. Even though the light was failing, she saw very clearly who it was. The man Dorrial had beheaded in the square before the keep at South Port. Alive, and intact, except for a red scar along his neck which was visible even in the dim light. All Euris could say was: “But you’re dead!” She leapt to her feet in amazement.

He smiled warmly at her. “Perhaps to some, who want me to be dead. To them, I’ll always be dead. Or they’ll kill me themselves to be rid of me. But to those who look for me, I have always been very much alive, just as I am now to you. And I always will be.”

“I don’t understand.” Euris couldn’t think clearly, and his words swirled around her like wind-borne smoke. She remembered the look in his eyes right before the sword bit into his neck, and saw the same look now, one of unquestioning love and acceptance. Who was he? She thought of the wight, and the look in that abomination’s eyes, and knew this was no creation of a deranged Sorcerer, but a real flesh-and-blood person.

“You will soon. Can we go for a walk?” He moved to the other side of the tiny clearing, to a trail she had not noticed. Following him, she allowed him to lead her into the forest, along the small trail. The trees loomed darkly over them, but soon she could make out more of their boughs than she should have been able to in the evening’s dark. She could see a light off in the distance, which was giving a glowing illumination to that part of the forest.

Soon the man walked beside her, as the trail widened somewhat. He began to talk to her again, by asking her, “You don’t feel like it’s enough, do you?”

 “What isn’t enough?” Euris was discomforted by how close to her own mad thoughts the man was, and she wondered if he was mad, like her. Did she feel so strongly towards him for no other reason than he approved of and encouraged her own madness? Unless she had completely lost touch with reality, she sensed this was a good man who had only her own highest good in mind.

“All of it, everything,” the man said with a laugh, throwing his arms wide to encompass the world. “Your life is not enough. Life itself is not enough. Look at you, a Princess of South Port! You, by any measure of human life, could have everything. And you do! Almost anyone would trade places with you without a second thought. Yet even the best life in the world isn’t fulfilling and worth living to you. You know it’s not enough, and deep in your heart of hearts know there could be so much more.”

“Perhaps. I feel empty, like there’s something missing in my life, and I bounce from one thing to another trying to fill it. When I was young, I wanted to be older. When I got older, I wanted to go drinking with my friends all the time. Then I wanted to go to college. Then I met Gath, and it seemed like I had finally found what I wanted, but he died. Then I came home. Why can’t I be who I was?”

“That’s my whole point, Euris. Were you ever satisfied? Even when you used to be this person whom you don’t think you are anymore?”

Euris thought for a second. “No, the emptiness has always been there. The only time it hasn’t been there is in a few isolated moments. With Gath. Or floating on the ocean. Or in my room. Or around a table with my friends. I wish some of those moments could last forever.”

The man smiled, as if she had finally understood something. She did not feel as if she did. He said: “Those moments give you the insight into what could be, but which is not. Without them, you’d never know.”

“But I want them to last.  Or not have them at all. Why can’t I be content with who I am? Why can’t I forget everything, and go drinking with Euralin all the time, and said to the Three Islands for my father and just enjoy myself?”

“Not having them at all would be much worse. Then you’d never know what could be, and would be dead yourself. But you can’t create the moments on your own. You had to go home and see that for yourself. The emptiness is still there, because it is a longing for more than anything you have ever experienced.”

Euris did not fully understand the conversation they were having, but she was beginning to see what she had missed in her thinking. She thought the emptiness and longing was her fault, something she had been doing wrong, and if she could only find the right thing to do, it would be gone. What he said confirmed her most secret belief, that nothing could ever fill up the emptiness. But she had almost done it on her own. She had almost filled herself with a purpose and a place to belong and the love and acceptance she needed. “Why did Gath have to die? It seems like everything went wrong after that.” As if she could possibly get an answer to a question like that from anyone, even the wisest old sage of the Colleges. That would be the eternal mystery.

“Everything was already wrong before then,” the man said, not unkindly. “You just didn’t know it. But even before you met Gath, you still felt the emptiness tugging at you. Pulling you.”

“That’s true,” Euris admitted, remembering the night before graduation when she stood on the bridge watching the slow water, and other times before that. The last night in her room before going off to college. The last, lingering backwards look at the dunes as she rode home for the evening. The warm, glowing feeling looking at the dregs in a tankard she knew would not last for more than a few hours.

“Everyone dies, though,” the man said to her seriously, “and what would it change if Gath had not died? The only real difference, as honestly as I can put it, is that you would not have realized your longing or met me until much later. If at all, if you were not too late. Maybe as painful as watching him depart was for you, it will ultimately help you. That longing, that tugging, that unfillable emptiness is in everyone. Even Dorrial feels a tug of the longing.”

“She killed you!” Euris could hardly believe that the man would bring his murderer into the conversation. Why had he mentioned her?

“If Dorrial came to me like you are here now, honestly longing for more in life, I would forgive her of that, don’t worry. In fact, by killing me, she  was actually opening the door for me to come into her life. You can believe she will spend many sleepless nights thinking about what she did. And that may be the only way to reach her.”

“Reach her how? What does all this mean? What is this longing?”

“Everyone has a longing for more than human life can offer. Everyone has, on some level, a sense of wrongness. In some it is slow to awaken. In some, it is a fire that burns so hot they are quickly consumed. The hardest part for anyone is to make the leap to the next level of understanding, and it’s something no College can teach. That you yourself can never fulfill that longing in this life. So many people who do understand turn to complete despair. But others, like yourself, like Gath, and like many I could name, and I even include Dorrial who may, some day, join the list, honestly confront your wrongness. That’s all I need, someone to be honest. If you are an honest seeker who will accept an honest answer, I can reveal myself plainly. I can fulfill this longing inside of you, if you trust me. I can put everything back together again. Think about your wildest longings, late at night, the dreams you have. If you trust me, you can have all that and more. If you can’t trust me, you will have to go back to your life and do the best you can in the time you have left. Right now, it’s time for you to make the most important decision of your life. But have no fear, because I will help you all I can, if you believe me.”

The light had grown much brighter now, and Euris could see the pale outlines of the trees and all of their leaves. Ahead, it seemed as if someone stood in the light, in front of them but unguessably far away. Someone she knew she recognized. “But that’s Gath.” The shadowy figured waved to her. “What is happening?” She felt the cold weight of Gath’s pendant on her chest, where she had worn it under her clothing on a thin gold chain ever since Old Aeral gave it to her.

The man patiently and gently spoke. “You see him? Good. It’s time to make your choice. If you want to, you can go back to South Port tonight, and your brother will forgive you for a bout of moodiness, especially when it’s the last one he’ll ever see. He’ll be your old brother again, your best friend, and you’ll do all the things together you miss so much, for a time. I shouldn’t say this, but the trade agreement will fall through, but not until after you’ve had a great time on that trip to the Three Islands. You will have a long and happy life as a Princess. But if you go back, you will never feel this way again, and the longing will never come on you again.” Euris gasped, “no!”, but he continued: “If this longing is great enough, too much for you to bear, give it to me. I’ll give you complete fulfillment and the life you have always wanted. It will be permanent. I want you to come into the light with me.”

Euris looked at him, as if for the first time, and felt the completeness and wholeness he offered to her reflected in his eyes, which were filled with the light she saw ahead. And she wanted to see Gath again. She made her choice.

On to ... Chapter Thirteen: Onward