Request from @littlestartopaz for Harry/Corlath from the Blue Sword on the music meme. I got Bleeding Out by Imagine Dragons, so…yeah…that happened. ALL RIGHT HERE WE MOTHERFUCKING GO, goddamn but I love these books.
Corlath had known what it was to be king since his father’s death when he was a young man, only just eighteen. He had known he would fight a war for even longer, since before his kelar came to him—maybe he’d known it forever, maybe it was what his mother sang to him at his birth and whispered to him when he was wakeful at night. The first time he tasted the Meeldtar, it snatched him away from himself and brought him visions of Thurra and his fierce white stallion, streaked with blood and battle rage. When he came back, he dropped the leather pouch as if his hands were suddenly as weak as a sickly child’s, and he wept for the terror that was not his and the battle he had seen, and his father had soothed him with a gentle hand and quiet voice.
It was not until he was on the field before the Bledfi Gap, his soldiers holding well against the mere trickle of Northerners coming through, and he felt the prickle of his kelar stirring, that he understood that old vision. It was not his battle, no—but it was his terror.
He had barely a moment to cry a warning to the closest of his Riders—Mathin, good loyal Mathin who loved Harimad-sol and had asked no questions about Corlath’s new sash and knew some little of kelar—and drive the nearest Northerner away with a blind strike. Then he was gone, his body falling away from him, his sword in his sheath and Isfahel fighting to stay under his stiff form. He had a glimpse, short as the blink of an eye, of Mathin’s bay mare bringing him to his king’s side, sword a singing arc of steel.
The land flashed by around him, his own stern proud mountains and the great silver lake with its stone hall and the drifted sand dunes sweeping past. The Outlander station, the towns and villages of Damar, and then he came up short at the Madamer Gate.
Oh, Harimad-sol, he thought as he looked down on the battlefield. Northerners clashed with men on horses tacked out in the Outlander fashion, with riders in Damarian saddles, and on the rock walls, archers fired into the crowd—filanon. Thurra’s white stallion, streaked with blood and screaming with war fury, was the white crest of the surging army’s wave, breaking back against the stone of Harimad’s forces. I was wrong, I am so sorry.
But…no, he realized. Harimad was absent from the battlefield, Tsornin’s shining flanks missing from the chaos, and he could not see her. Fear tightened in his chest—where was she? Had she been dragged down under the hooves and claws of the Northern riding beasts, or struck out of her saddle by steel sword and spear? The idea of her proud face and strong limbs broken on the rocks ached like a broken bone.
Before he could try to find her, seek her among the armies, he was moving again, whisked away toward the peak of the mountain beside the gap, where he could see a glint of blue.
Hari, he thought, and if he had been in his own body, he would have breathed a sigh of relief. She was there, alive, standing tall and proud above the treeline. Her hair fell free around her face like a storm of gold thread, an Outlander belt in place of her sash, and Gonturan was thrust high above her, white-edged blue light splashing down around her to crack the rocks. Tears beaded on her fair lashes, diamonds clinging around the kelar amber of her eyes, as if she was in pain. Corlath wished he could cup her face in his hands, wipe away the tears and hold her close to his chest, protect her from this war and feel her heart beat near his.
“Corlath,” she whispered, lip trembling, and for a moment he thought he had imagined it. But no, she was speaking again. “Help me.”
And then he was there, the kelar had brought him close to her, so that he stood behind her, and when he reached out to grip her shoulders, he was solid enough to hold her up. He could feel Gonturan’s blue light against his spirit-stuff, hot as flame one moment and cold as the desert rains the next, and somehow clean, in a way that the north wind they had endured for so long was not. Harimad-sol was drawing something out of him, strength or kelar or lifeblood, and he gripped her tighter. Anything he had was hers to claim, his land and his crown and his heart, and he would spill out his blood on the sand if it would bring her back to him, back to the Hills and the City. He would let her take all his strength, sacrifice all his Gift, if she needed it, he would let his body, far distant at the Bledfi Gap, bleed out on the field, if only he could stay here and hold her up.
She was speaking, had been speaking for he knew not how long, crying words in a voice that rang like a bell, ancient words that rent the air and broke the north wind into weeping shards at the mountain’s feet. Her weight was greater against him, and he found that he could not speak to encourage her, could only stand and hold and hope.
Harimad-sol, he thought, his hands strong and steady on her shoulders as the blue fire splashed around them and the rocks cracked underfoot. Hari, love, you are strong. You can stand under this weight as long as you must, you can bear Gonturan’s power because you are damalur-sol, a hero. You must do this, Hari, you must return to me.
Her voice rose again, ringing on and on, and there was a great roar, as of worlds tearing—or mountains falling. The world around them blurred, caught in the slipstream of blue fire, and Harimad-sol’s voice was going on, clear and bright as the blade above her, and all that was clear to him was her form before him and the sword spilling blue fire and her voice.
It was over, then, her voice quiet, and Corlath could see, could see that the mountain was gone, the range toppled into the valley on top of Thurra and his army. Harimad-sol was going limp, her sword falling from her nerveless fingers, and he caught her, and bore her gently to the grassy earth where once had been a mountain top. She looked young and fey, sleeping, like the girl he had stolen from the Outlander fort, except for the blue-white light still falling away from her skin and hair. He stroked her hair away from her face, and found himself growing ethereal again, her skin not as warm and real as it had been moments before.
He bent and kissed her forehead and found that his voice worked again.
“Hari,” he whispered, barely more than a breath on the wind. “Hari, my heart, return to me.” It was not suited for a king to beg, but he did not think before he added, “Please, Harimad-sol.” He heard her voice, although her lips did not move, and thought it might be a mumble of his name, but he was gone.