Page 27 (1/2)

"I’ll have you," she whispered, her ruined voice soft as gravel crushing against itself "You’ve destroyed me, but I’ll see you undone before me I’ll have your heart, your eyes Little sorceress, I’ll have your soul!"

She reached out one dagger-nailed hand as Aeriel screa frantically to pull free Above her in the air, a long way off, she heard Irrylath cry out as well The White Witch’s hand darted toward her

Aeriel shrank, straining, leaned desperately away She felt Oriencor’s talons barely brush her closed eyelids--not enough even to break the skin, but enough to send their cold through her like a knife

All the light in the world went out Setting Solstar vanished Then Aeriel felt the Witch’s hand, still holding hers to the broken pearl, fall away into ashes, into dust--just as the palace shuddered for the final ti Mere below

Winterock was falling, but it was no longer made of stone All Oriencor’s enchantht, almost calmly, as she fell Water thundered all around her She could not see, could not breathe, heard only the water’s roaring The pearl-stuff in her blood told her a little of as happening around her She wondered when she would reach the hard end of her fall and die

But no end ca went on and on After an eternity, she realized that though she was falling still, she was no longer plunging straight doard The palace has collapsed into the lake: the knowledge ca beneath the surface now

She had no air left in her lungs The cage of her ribs ached, burning, bursting Just a while longer, she told herself Hold out a little longer-- though there hardly seemed any point She could not swim

Deep below the surface of the Mere, water all around, she was keenly aware that as soon as she opened her mouth and drew breath, she would perish

Perhaps she would faint first and know nothing of dying Drowning was not such a terrible end after all, she told herself She’d always feared it, ever since slipping into a cave pool as a child and being pulled, sick and sputtering, onto the bank by her mistress Eoduin But there was no bank here and no companion to rescue her

Her head pounded with the lack of air Presently she would stop fighting, open hertorrent Then she would be dead At least the White Witch is dead, too, she thought drowsily, and the world is free of her The pearlstuff in her blood gave her the certain knowledge of it but could bring her no co sense of failure She had not fulfilled Ravenna’s charge, had not succeeded in converting Oriencor to good The world would know a brief respite now But without Ravenna’s sorcery, could it ever heal? The pearl was broken, its contents scattered, lost Still she clung to life, continued to resist the flood Her own tenacity surprised her Stop fighting, she told herself, preparing to die You’ve failed

Soht her by the hair, pulled her close across the current The tre all around theer any doard uided her face to his, put his ave her breath Aeriel clutched at his shirt and clung there, drinking in the sweet, hting again, struggling for breath The other did not let her break away, did not let her breathe in the white waters of the Mere, much as she wanted to Air! She needed air Darkness was everywhere The icy touch of the Witch’s fingers had banished her sight Her eyes felt useless, frozen, like orbs of winterock

She could not see who it was that held her But she felt the strength of his ar borne upward against the current’s tow by someone Someone am like a fish Someone who had been raised by a lorelei So years: Irrylath

It seeasped the sweet air, but weakly now, half-swooned Hardly any strength re in her husband’s ar Miles andtheues from where the Witch’s palace had once stood Were the others-- those in the barges and upon the shore--safe? She could only hope, wrapped in a darkness devoid of Solstarlight, or Oceanuslight, or stars Head pillowed on Irrylath’s breast, she slept

Awareness returned to her just as gradually Water no longer surrounded the They had stoppedon firarentle give and tug--lay in water Soh without hope of seeing anything They ached, painfully cold Then so drop Another fell upon her brow, then ran burning and salt into her other eye She flinched, blinking, and became aware of stars overhead, a blaze of the over her

"Aeriel, Aeriel," he said

She , realized how stiff she was The pearlstuff in her blood e

"Irrylath," she , and you came for me"

To have rescued her, she realized, he must have dived from Avarclon’s back Her drea fro confusion of the flood below

The starhorse had been trying to bear him to safety, carry him up and away, but he had refused to be saved without her, had come after her instead Not fallen Dived Irrylath clasped her to him