Fanfic:The Blinding Absence of Light/Chapter Two
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Preface
The reader ought to be aware that at the time Sister Liana engaged the ring to retrieve this vision of the future, she was already en route to her Warder's location in the company of Aric Asha'man, Soldier Aias, and Aetha Gaidin. This was among the most important decisions she had made to alter the future. Another was not to solicit her mother, Sister Saphire en'Damier Sedai, for aid retrieving Caithlan Gaidin - a decision which spared the Green Sister's life. I interpret this vision to mean that Saphire Sedai played a role in preventing the sucessful assasination of the Amyrlin Seat in this version of the future, which prevented the same fate Caithlan and Liana suffered in the first vision.
However, Sister Liana still had not reached the juncture that would ensure sucess. Continue on, gentle reader, and discover why.
By the hand of Zaria Honast Sedai, the Amyrlin's Chronicler from the Great Library of the Grey Tower on the third day of Maigdhal, six days before Tandar, the Fourth Age of Mankind.
Second Vision
The cell wasn't spacious by Tower standards, but Caithlan had become accustomed to far harsher customs than those of the Tower. It was clean, the straw was fresh, it even had a bench for sleeping and a pail in the corner. He'd been so close. Though he probably wouldn't have made it back out again even if he had. The thought hadn't really bothered him. He leaned against the wall and waited.
On her way out, Saphire stopped to bend the knee and whisper into her mother and Amyrlin's ear. "Light send you good luck, Mother. He's as immovable as a treestump." She spoke irritably of the man she had once mentored. "All I know is he sought your death as the target of all his concentrated anger. That woman soured him greatly." Saphire's rages were the opposite of targeted, more tempest forces of nature than focused strikes. Burn she could understand feeling left for dead, abandoned by those she'd depended on. Not that it was so simple. Not that it would have kept her from her duty. But she did understand that much.
Sojin followed a respectful distance, and had paused to watch her back. Amora looked beyond him and into the cell where the prisoner awaited as she replied. "Light grace your watchful eye and quick weaving, Daughter. He was as close as you are to me now, and yet no one else recognized him. I thank you." And for the first time she was glad she hadn't sent Saphire some ten years back for him against a woman as powerful and crafty as Morgana. "I will do what I can to clean up the damage that woman caused. Light, how she reaches beyond the grave to torment me." She passed Sojin's bow and into the cell, behind her own Warder and the Tower Guard.
"It's been a long time, Amora."
"So it has." This man had once been Gaidin Captain, a decorated hero, and an intimate of her family. Now he was a prisoner, guilty of attempting the Amyrlin's murder. How far he had fallen from grace. "It seemed I was wrong. The Shadow had never released you; it had only waited with claws still sunk inside your mind to pull you back in. I grieved when you fell into darkness. Yet take heart, at least that for a time you did bring Light into this world, four little lights."
"Now that you are with us again, know that no man can stand in the Shadow so long that he can not return to the Light. But you must follow it before you can accept it within and let it cleanse your soul. You are not bound by the One Power to follow the Shadow. The choice, is yours."
The twice-seated Amyrlin waited amidst the Guard sworn to protect her, and from behind the Warder she had taken since that day when their family had been broken.
Caithlan looked at her quietly for a moment, then a dark chuckle escaped him. "Return to the Light. Well of course you would say that, that has always been your way." He regarded her from his position, casually leaned up against the wall. She'd been wise to bring such ample protection. Had she been alone the distance between them was short enough he might've been able to launch himself at her, surprise her before she could embrace the source. His eyes lingered on Aias for a moment. No, he'd never reach her. He briefly considered doing it anyway.
A lone assassin, even one who knew the Tower and knew Amora had been a great gamble on behalf of his Master. He was not one to take chances, but time was running low, and ever since his Mistress had passed, life had seemed meaningless. His thoughts shied from the memory of the bond breaking. But he had not been allowed rest, or revenge. And so, despite all the years that had passed since she claimed him, since she died, he had jumped on this chance.
Only a dead man would want it. Well, a dead man had claimed it.
"I didn't come here for salvation, but to settle a debt." He said evenly. "I didn't particularly expect to make it out alive." His eyes wandered around the cell, hinting at another displeasure. He had not expected to be captured, had he? His gaze returned to Amora, steady. "And so you owe me that. If I ever did anything for you, then you owe me this."
"If that is your want." Amora turned to Aias with an open hand, he caught her cue, and more than reluctantly he unsheathed his dagger and relinquished it. The Amyrlin then inverted it, holding it by the blade.
The captain of her guard interjected, "Mother, he is dangerous!"
"He will not harm me." she turned and offered the hilt of the dagger to the fallen Warder. If he had truly wanted to murder her, he would not have been caught.
"May you be reborn in the Light, as gloriously as you deserve."
Caithlan watched her warily for a moment, as if expecting some kind of trick before cautiously, and with suspicious glances at the guards and Aias, taking the dagger. He retreated a step out of reach, should she change her mind, but she did not move. He hefted the dagger experimentally and in one deft move he balanced it on his finger before catching it in mid-air again with his hand. It was a well-balanced weapon, solid and heavy. If he wanted to die she would hand him the weapon, but she would not do it for him. "Well madam," he smiled, a bitter crooked thing, "you are hard."
"It's the business of living that has made me so." she answered. More than two centuries of the grind under the Wheel had tempered her. Most under the same conditions would have gone mad with grief, as she had once. Now, that was madness was contained.
"Remember the happiness you knew in the Light before you decide, Caithlan." She reminded him. "I hope you find solace in that memory before you cut your thread. I will do everything in my power to keep your children safe and well." she was sincere. Family came first before all else.
"You're right. I was happy. And loyal, and true. How richly rewarded I have been indeed."
"I understand your bitterness. I was once leashed, and abandoned too. My imprisonment was even longer than yours. And even if you did choose life and the Light, you would never be the same." It would be a lie to promise otherwise. "Regardless, you could find that joy again, as I did."
His eyes left her then for the first time since she had entered the small cold cell where they had put him. He didn't want to deal with this Amora, with her seemingly honest yet hard offers. He'd fantasised about this meeting. Oh he'd imagined it in great detail. How he would call her out on her pride, her failures. He would throw his pain and his abandonment in her face. And then, she would order his execution, and he would be given satisfaction and rest, finally. The dagger in his hand was sharp, the blade long. It would do the job credibly and quickly, yet it was heavy and cold in his hand. He pushed the hair out of his face. "Why do you even care?" he asked wearily.
"I never stopped caring." She answered easily, "And because Sigmund cared for you. And Saphire. And Liana. Even Lembirt. And because your children need their father, as they've needed all their parents. But most of all, because if you can find the Light, than anyone can. That means there is hope for this world."
If Amora had had the means, if she had assembled the pieces sooner, perhaps she could have arrived before it was too late and converted his mistress 'Morgana', as she had called herself in this incarnation. Now that she was dead, again, that left Caithlan. Amora had the feeling he had not really come to murder her. No, he had come for a way out. Perhaps it was not too late to save him, and his soul.
That meant finding the chinks in his armor and prying them open with chisel and hammer. "I asked you not to be an absent parent, not to allow duty or circumstance separate you from your children. That was the choice Liana and Lembirt faced when you were taken from them." a pause, "And that was why they did not come for you." She studied the prisoner and recognized his features in them, the children had taken on more of his likeness as they'd grown older. "It was a dreadful, impossible choice you made - your life in exchange for theirs. Yet the eldest two remember your sacrifice, and they all survived and grew with two parents instead of one, or none." It was almost certain Liana would have perished in the attempt. The shadow had almost killed her once, and in her weakness, they probably would have succeeded the second time. Nor were the odds in her favor against darkfriends powerful enough to steal her own Warder.
Caithlan shook his head mutely. Not in disagreement, he didn't want to think about that day. He didn't want to remember, he didn't want to think about it. The rage he needed to pit himself against to hold fast just wasn't there and he was wavering. His children, after all this time with no word he was hungry for news about them. He didn't want to admit it, because admitting it meant that he still cared. "... and how are... the children?" he finally asked, his voice studiously neutral, his eyes fixed on the dagger in his hand, as if looking for nicks in the blade.
"They miss you. Even the little ones."
"Well, they don't know what they're wishing for then."
It's a beginning. Amora plunged on, "I will tell you what you bought then: Ellisande is an Aes Sedai, newly wrapped in the grey-fringed shawl. Her face is not yet ageless and her heart is as warm as ever. Even after that day she sees no evil in people, only illness she yearns to cure. She is one of the most Talented Healers I have ever beheld. But due to Lembirt's influence she saw to mend the rifts between the people and chose mediation over Healing the body."
Caithlan closed his eyes. He could see her before his inner eye, golden hair, kindly smile. His little rose, all grown up. He'd missed so much of it. Something ached in his chest and his throat burned. I shouldn't have asked. I shouldn't care. he told himself. Caring meant you could be hurt. "And Avi and the twins?" but it seemed he couldn't stop himself. Like a man pressing his tongue against a sore tooth, just to see if it was still there.
A soft smile. "Avaritia takes after you, and Saphire too. She is angry you were taken from her and angry with herself that she was too small to prevent it, or to find you. I worry that she does not forgive, even when she has forgotten the reasons why she is angry. She was tempted by the Shadow once to protect those dear to her and Liana only narrowly retrieved her from that darkness. But she has a good heart and seeks to root out evils in the world and protect those who are vulnerable. She is Accepted and close to her test now. I think she will be raised in time to make a difference in the Fourth Age. I hope she will learn to forgive herself in time. She, I think, needs you most."
"And I to teach her forgiveness then?" He smiled humorlessly. "Perhaps I am more apt as a cautionary example."
"Perhaps, or by forgiving her. She will hear it from no one else."
Caithlan blinked, surprised, "Why under the light would she need my forgiveness?"
"She has a child's reasoning. As I understand it, for she guards this hurt as wild creatures tend to do - she is angry how she failed to stop 'Morgana' from claiming you. She is angry that for her sake, and others, that they did not go to you. And she is angry that she allowed it to happen at all." the pause was poignant, "For when you and Liana were arguing it was she who slipped away from safety, and she who Ellisande chased after. She believes if it were not for her then you would not have been taken from them."
Well, that hurt. It always hurt when your children were in pain and it seemed time and distance would not lessen it, nor all the depravity of the shadow that burdened his soul. Little, fierce Avaritia.
Amora recognized the pain in his furrowed brow. She had felt it realizing how Saphire and Kadar had grown in her absence.
He wished he didn't care. Caring was pain. Caring was entrapment. And yet he felt like a starving man before a feast. Even suspecting it laced with poison he could not stop himself from eating it. Strings he thought all about me. This wasn't what he had imagined at capture. He wanted to see them and was terrified of letting them. He stalled for time "And the twins?"
"Svebere is lovely and clever, and more so every year. I am surprised every time I see her that she is yet more beautiful and more intelligent than the last. Her talent for the arts grow - Lembirt is teaching her to master illusions and I have taught her to draw paint. That is the only time she will allow herself a little mess. She is only a novice and already the Drin'far'ji and Ji'alantin puff up when she is within sight. Like a true princess of Cairhien, she plays the Game with ease and deftness. Even Lembirt cannot resist her charm, not even when he knows he is wrapped around her finger. But she needs a firm hand - you were a better check on her." Amora waved the thought away. "Yet she will regardless be a great lady one day, and an Aes Sedai. Perhaps a keeper of knowledge or philosopher contemplating the soul. And she will have many young suitors vying for her hand."
"Much to Lembirt's chagrin, Larrold chose to become a gleeman. And the liberty to choose arts, music, dance, and oral history were dearly bought. He hungers for approval a father can give and Lembirt cannot provide, yet I pray he knows only joy, he was born under a merry star and not made for weeping. I think his contribution to the Fourth Age may be the singing of our story: the Third Age of Mankind. He remembers your verse as a tragedy, but it is in your power to change that."
Caithlan was silent. Strings. Slack for so long, yet here they are and now they tug at me. He was exhausted and his head hurt and he really wanted a stiff drink to take the edge off. Some part of him wanted to reach out to Avi. Give her forgiveness if that's what she sought but he knew it would not end there. One step would follow another and... his thoughts shied from completing the thought, for it led him towards thinking of Liana and he could not bear it. And even if he wanted to, he was not sure he could trust again. This was a mistake. I can't do this. I cannot face this. He fled the subject.
"Who knows I am here?"
"Why do you ask? What does it matter if you have decided you are a dead man?"
He turned away from her angrily, but there was nowhere to go. He should be used to that by now. It had been years since he was a free man. Was I ever? Duty and honour had bound him long before that. His hand clenched around the hilt of the dagger, but it remained at his side, unbloodied. Why did it matter indeed? Why did he care? Strings, as thin as a spiders web all about him. "I just..." why did he even bother answering her? "It'll be better for them if they don't know. No need to reopen old wounds."
"Wounds can be healed, though they leave scars. You know this, Caithlan. Yet this means you still care. That is good. As I can speak no word untrue to you, I tell you this now - your family still cares for you too. I did not have the heart to tell Liana, yet. However, your children await your pleasure. If you would see their faces, I can send someone to help you clean and present yourself. You did an honorable thing saving them, and I would not see you shamed if I can avoid it. You cannot imagine the look Avaritia gave me when I told her you were alive."
They knew. The knowledge passed through him like a heatwave. This wasn't what he had intended. Trapped again. Always trapped. And yet the way out was right there in his hands, but he didn't have the stomach for it. He'd contemplated it so many times. Stood on tall buildings, tied nooses and when he failed at that he started putting himself in harm's way. He challenged men twice his size to bar fights, to knife fights. He took on dares, he'd swum dangerous rivers, gone into battle unarmoured. And he was still here. Pathetic. "And did you tell them I came here to kill you? I have not been an idle man all this time. I've wrought death and destruction, killed enough innocents to cake these hands in blood up to the elbows. They don't need a father like that." He paused and looked at her pointedly, "I should be put on trial, and executed."
"And what horrors can you imagine my sul'dam wrought through me when I was leashed, Caithlan?" A heavy pause lay between them.
Why won't you do it? He thought angrily as she opened her mouth to speak again.
"Yet in my hope of salvation and rebirth I have sought to balance the scales. And you know as well as I what good has been born of it." Who knew how the Pattern would have formed had Amora en'Damier perished some hundred seventy years past. "You were leashed just the same. A dog, beaten and ill-treated. Yet as you stand now, I see a man. And I am giving you a man's choice." She indicated the knife. "Die upon the wrack of guilt and shame, or repent and live and love and strive to do more good than evil that weighs upon your soul, Caithlan Damodred. I would rather see you take revenge against the Dark One through living in the Light, than watch you submit to the Lord of the Grave. Yet the choice is yours and yours alone. I will not make it for you."
"As for your children...They do not know what you have done, but they will not remain in ignorance forever. They will learn through seeking their own answers, and I can not stop them from searching for meaning. Only you can temper that with your redemption."
If any other had spoken to him of repenting and living again like Amora had he would've flung their ignorance in their face, and perhaps rightfully so. But she knew, and she had told him now more than he had ever heard of that time. Perhaps there was an inkling of hope buried in embers a decade-old and it frightened him more than anything had. Hope had wounded him most grievously.
In the past he had kept his emotions, stronger and more intense than most, in check. But now they flowed as freely and as easily as brandy in his veins. He could not abide fear, and so he struck out at it with rage.
"Burn you and your bloody justice!" The dagger embedded itself deep in the wooden beam and stood there trembling. Turning away from her he struck the wall with both fists hard, and there they came to rest. "Is this your mercy?" His voice quivered in bitterness, "What a bloody sham." His forehead came to rest against the cold stone wall. "And what wreck of a man am I? I cannot do it!" there was no question as to what he meant, "and I cannot face them. Just put the dog down Amora, and be done with it."
Aias, whom Amora had taken the dagger from, stepped between her and the wayward Warder while other guards had surrounded her and darted to restrain Caithlan by reflex. But Amora was serenity in a cup. She spoke impassively, "Ah, so you choose life. Good." That meant his soul was more important to him than his death. "I watched you swear it to Liana upon your hope of salvation and rebirth. The reason you will not cut your thread is that still belongs to her after all this time. Even 'Morgana's' hold o'er you did not change that."
Amora glanced at the dagger, then back at his bedraggled form, "And you are afraid of hoping without purpose." A heavy pause, "Tell me, Caithlan, do you seek forgiveness, absolution, and purpose from me? Or do you yearn for Liana's?" He opened his mouth to speak, but she was not done, "Before you answer..." She raised a hand "There is more you do not know. Yes, your absence left them with an impossible decision - your fate or your children's. But if Liana had killed your mistress, would you have survived? You know her. If she survived the attempt in her state, do you think she could have lived with herself if you had perished by her hand? The cure would have gone as hard on you as it would have on your mistress."
Caithlan took almost no notice of the guards. Liana. He had repeated her name to himself like a talisman against the dark. Until that had flickered out, too. She hadn't come for him. For a while he had been convinced he hated her. The bitterness was still there. Thick and dark like molasses. He knew what Amora said was the truth though, and it was a bitter one. How skilfully they had been torn apart. There had been no good solutions. No winners, only losers.
"There was always a chance...a slim chance...you could come back."
"And here I am. Returned in all my glory." The words were bitter but without edge. Worn down and weary. Forgiveness, absolution, purpose. A fresh start for an old man. Was it even possible? "I..." He shivered and faltered. "I'd like to see her." He finally whispered.
"Caithlan?" Liana gasped. "He is here?!" His memory haunted her every day. In the faces of their children. In her dreams. And in the corner of her mind where he still lived, muffled in obscure silence.
At first she had clung to the bond, her last tie to him. But as reality had dawned on her that rescuing him would have been tantamount to murdering him, she had come to accept that she could not bring herself to do it. And there were the children to consider.
The bond worked both ways. If he had been compulsed to harm his own, he could find them and...
...she had never wanted to complete that sentence. Instead, with a heart as heavy as a portcullis, she'd silenced the bond.
"He waits for you in a holding cell, and has asked for you." the Amyrlin said. Though Liana had the impression she did not wish to discuss what crime he had committed that had sent him there. "I have spoken with him, and am prepared to be merciful should he see the Light."
Liana nodded her understanding. Her heart was in her throat. Caithlan, returned. Light forgive me! "I must go to him." she said, though she reached her arms out to steady herself and push up to standing. Lembirt caught one and helped her rise. She smiled faintly, but her anxiety was far stronger.
Liana closed her eyes and stole a breath. Anything could happen beyond that door. For the first time in many years she practiced a novice exercise and schooled herself to stillness. Then, without thought, she turned the latch and the door swung open before her.
She unveiled the bond then and the power of his presence, the sensations, and the force of his emotions inundated her. She gasped sharply and her balance faltered, but she stepped forward into the room, before her lost Warder, her husband.
The door swung shut behind her.
And suddenly, there she was, nestled at the back of his mind again, as if she'd never left. After Amora left he had collapsed on the bench for a while, exhausted, but soon nerves drove him to pace the edge of his cell in nervous circles. She was shocked, and worried, and flustered and sad and... He drew an unsteady breath. He'd expected to feel her further up in the Tower, given some small space of time to prepare. And yet here she was right in front of him. His head was buzzing with so many emotions he wasn't sure he knew what either of them meant. He almost felt sick with it. He crossed his arms defensively against the storm within himself.
She did not spare a glance over her shoulder for the clang of iron and wood. Her eyes were locked on the man who until ten years ago had been the constant in her life, her stalwart protector, her oldest love. Yet now he was so altered. Almost a stranger. Almost. How she had wronged him so grievously.
"Well, one of us hasn't changed." He said at last, for it was true. Ten years had left nary a mark on her ageless face. Her gown was in the style she had always favoured with bare shoulders. Perhaps a grey hair or two, though by the dim light of the cell he could not tell. She was still beautiful.
"Aye..." she trailed off, distracted by the myriad of emotions. He was confused and weary most of all. Yet also afraid, angry, resentful...hopeful, and cornered. But perhaps there was also something warm buried deep under the ash of despair.
"...I never stopped loving you, and I never will." she said immediately, though her heart leapt to her throat. In truth she hadn't known how to respond to his request to see her until they had locked eyes again and she had opened the floodgate of the bond. But at this confession she sensed resistance. "I kindled hope my l-." she stopped herself, unsure, "Yet it has been so long..." she tried to smooth it over but found her chest tightening and her eyes stinging. It was so hard to say the words. "...and I would not think ill of you if you desire..." He does not trust you anymore. "...release from your oaths to me; and from my bond. I would not hold you to them against your will. I could not do what she..." she paused, about to say more but closed her mouth and tore her eyes away.
By custom this was not done, but she would do it for him. She would set him free.
"Is this why you asked me to call on you, Caithlan? I will do it, if that is your wish. And then..." her tongue was dry and thick, but she forced the words past her lips, "...we would part as indifferent acquaintances."
I shouldn't have asked to see her. This was just too much. She had always inspired strong emotions in him, and he had since long stopped bothering to keep them in check. "And so with one hand you would profess your love for me," He sounded so bitter, but the words rushed out of him like pus from an infected wound, "and with the other you cast me off. Look at me!" he demanded angrily. He fumbled with his shirt for a moment and then it was off. Skin that had once been smooth now looked like an old roadmap. Scars criss-crossed his torso of various kinds, old burn marks and tears badly healed over. He had always been light and small, but now his ribs made a harsh silhouetted against his skin. "Do I look indifferent to you?"
Liana hunched her shoulders at his anger and then the proof of his pain sent her reeling. She buckled. What little calm she had summoned on the outside vanished as her face contorted in his pain. "No...oh, Caith...!" one hand slid against the rough stone wall to steady herself. The tears fell freely now and she was finding it difficult to stand. "I never wanted to let you go..." it seemed so futile now, explaining. She wanted to look away but found herself unable to tear her eyes away from the bitter history drawn over his skin. Her lips parted speechlessly, until at last she said, head bowed, "Go on, tell me how I failed you." for when he had sworn himself to her side, she had bound herself to the code of chivalry: loyalty, honor, and courtesy.
This was what he had wanted. An outlet for all the hurt, the anger the bitterness. And now all he wanted was out. He stared at her bowed head, his hands balling themselves into fists so hard they shook at his side. It was unfair of her, he thought even though the thought itself was so ridiculously irrational that even he could see it. But there it was, it was unfair of her to be so compassionate. To care. He wished he could disbelieve her feelings, but he knew them to be true. He half-wished for Amora back. Her aloofness was much easier to abide than this. A long moment of silence reigned in the cell before he found his voice again.
"Did she tell you why I was sent here?" he asked instead.
So consumed by grief and shame was she that the question took her completely by surprise. Liana swallowed and tried to clear the blurriness from her eyes with blinking. Who...what...? she thought, trying to grasp what he was asking. "Who...the Amyrlin?" her grandmother, Lady Amora, was the one who had told her he had returned. She must be who he was referring to. Liana closed her eyes and sought the calm in the storm, though she was still leaning against the cool cell wall by the hand. It was a little easier to speak now that his anger had reduced to simmering, "No, she did not."
"I came to kill her." He regarded her from his own side of the cell. So close, and yet so far away. "I got pretty close." He'd killed so many, done so many things that darkened and tarred his soul. Amora's assassination was merely the latest. Would she still love him, knowing what he'd turned into?
You were so close to us all, once. Somehow she found herself numb to the shock of this news, at least on the surface, yet troubled currents flowed beneath the calm. Liana dried her eyes with the fingers of her free hand. "As you were set upon to murder me once, too. I have not forgot, you see." She stole her eyes to his and for the first time in her life, found her fear waiting there. It was one of many reasons she had masked the bond. "Were you compulsed to this end?" she would not put it beyond the woman who had sought to tear the fabric of their family. She had already poisoned their unborn son, nearly murdered Liana herself, and Ellisande before her. In the end, what she had done to Caithlan was tantamount to rape - a corruption of chivalry, the bond, and the sacred pact between Warder and Aes Sedai. She had destroyed him. The proof of it was written in his skin and the tempest of his mind. Though perhaps this was not the end of their unraveling, not yet. "Or does your consent lend strength to your mistress' will?"
"I don't know." Caithlan said softly. "I lost hope a long time ago. I'd stopped caring long before she died." His mind had muddled so far that he couldn't tell what was his own will and that of his mistress, and her dreadlord. Carrot and stick, leash and whip. Though most of the latter sort.
Liana's eyes were drawn to the glint on the long-bladed dagger planted half-deep in the beam. And then she embraced her fear. "Is that point meant for my heart, Caith?" she asked, slowly rising. "Would my death ease your pain?" her eyes were watering as she drew closer to it, "Would it earn your forgiveness?" Courage is fear that has said its prayers. She wrapped her hand around the leather hilt and with a thunk it was clear of the beam. "Would it set you free?"
"Your life?" Caithlan stared at her. Did she think he had come for revenge? Perhaps it was not so odd a thought, considering what he had just told her. But he had given himself over to the dark to protect her, to protect the children, and in all this time, no matter how hurt he'd been, how angry, how dark his thoughts had been, the thought of harming her had never occurred to him. "I did this for you. Surely you must know that." He walked closer, slowly until they were merely inches apart. "I tried to hate you for a while." He smiled. A crooked, bitter imitation of his old self. "But you have bewitched me body and soul and I love..." he drew a shivery breath not sure what name to put on his feelings anymore "I love.. I love you. Still." He grasped her wrist with both hands gently and turned the point of the blade towards himself and kneeled before her. He looked up at her, his eyes dark and weary and far, far older than his years. The point came to rest below his chin, where the great life artery throbbed unprotected. "You are too generous to trifle with me. If you're going to set me free. Do it now and be quick about it." He hadn't come for her life, but for his own. And then he closed his eyes and waited.
However the Wheel had woven them, however the Pattern had twisted their threads, she would always have had to face this question: was it better to save him, though it might kill him, or was it better to kill him, though through killing him save him?
It had begun with the dreams that had laid claim to him and urged him on to her murder. Liana had thought...perhaps closing the loop would free him him from it. They had bought a little time, a little life, and their children would grow healthy and strong because of it. Yet at what cost? The Shadow had gained a darkfriend and others had suffered at his hands. Would it have been better to risk her life and the good she had done for their family and the world to save him from corruption?
Regardless, she was his sworn Aes Sedai and his life belonged to her. She owed him an ending. A way out. And as he turned the point on himself, she realized that the way out was not by ending her, but him.
"Under the Light, and by my hope of salvation and rebirth, I will adhere to the code of chivalry: loyalty, honor, and courtesy." She had added, "Under the Light, and by my hope of salvation and rebirth, I shall honor my oath, and hold thee to thine, until death divides our bond."
"Thou art my man, my Gaidin, Caithlan Damodred; under the Light and by my hope of salvation and rebirth I swear it..." The hilt of the dagger was slick in her hand and yet he held her to it, as he held her to her oath to him, and his to her. Only she could give him the peace of death. Only she could release him.
It would be selfish to prolong his suffering only to spare herself the grief of losing him again. My duty is heavy as a mountain, and your death as light as a feather. She had abandoned him to the Shadow. She owed him this.
"...until death divides our bond. From my cradle to your grave." she bent and kissed him once, gently, on his brow the way she had when she had taken him for her Warder. Though the words were as bittersweet as the tears that trailed down her cheeks. "I absolve you of the sins you have committed and the sins committed against you. May you find peace in death's embrace and be reborn in the Light, as gloriously as you deserve, my love."
He breathed out then, unaware that he'd been holding it in. He opened his eyes one last time and looked up at her and for the first time in a long time there was peace there, tranquility. "Thank you," he smiled.
The blade slid into his neck easier than she could have imagined; perhaps that was why he had chosen it, to make the task that much simpler for her. She felt it cold and sharp through the bond as if it pierced her too, and she cried out in anguish.
There was pain, but only momentarily. He resisted the body's instinctive urge to breathe in, to struggle for life as blood seeped into his lungs, and then he became drowsy, and warm. Liana's face and the world faded into haze and darkness. And then the curtain pulled back - silver lights washed over him. Ah. I am forgiven then.
Liana buckled under Caithlan's weight as he collapsed into her arms. There was blood, so much blood, all over her hands and soaking into her gown. She held him in one final embrace on the floor of his cell, rocking him to sleep with her sobs.
And then he was gone. The golden thread between them was severed, there was only emptiness where Caithlan had been seated in her mind. She was alone. "You were my sweetest downfall." she cried in her grief.
