She hadn't slept since it happened. Not well, anyway. Nightmares such as she had never known in her other life, nights where she woke sitting bolt upright in bed with the taste of blood froth in her mouth. The arrow still in her side, not painful but an obstruction, a sense of something protruding from inside her body that shouldn't be there. It had lasted only a few moments before everything was, thankfully, over. Now it would last for the rest of her unnatural life.

It was nothing short of brilliance to have accomplished it, even she admitted that. But it was the sort of brilliance that was accompanied by madness, by single-minded obsession and fanaticism in the pursuit of one's goal, and all that attention had been directed at her. That alone would have been enough to terrify her, without the nightmares.

But she had lost too much of her focus since he had brought her back. The nightmares, the sharper awareness every time he was in the room, it all made it difficult to concentrate. Her magic was weakened so much without that concentration. And he treated her like an invalid, like something that would shatter if he made a mistake. The mistake, she thought bitterly, had been made already. But as much as she hated what he had done, she did still love him. And she didn't want to say that, to spoil the last good thing she had that, maybe, could be salvaged.

How good can it be when it is because of that love that you are like this, part of her wanted to know. Her fingers curled a little tighter on the stone.

"I brought you dinner," he said quietly, standing behind her. So long ago that would have been a sweet gesture, brought a little swell of love to her heart and a smile to her lips. Before the battle. "Are you hungry?"

She glanced over, just a little, afraid of what she might see on his face. Eagerness, worry, love. A love that she would have wanted to see, before, and now she could only see as twisted. That hurt. She swallowed back fear, tears, words that would have done no good in the space that gaped between them.

"No," she whispered, choosing the shortest route to what she meant to say. She heard him step up behind her and fought not to tense. "No, thank you."

He slid his hands under her hair and over her shoulders and even now, out of habit, the gesture was reassuring in some way. His hands were cool on her shoulders, despite her air-cooled skin this late at night. The impulse was still there, to lean into him, to let him comfort her. Doing so would have encouraged him further, perhaps falsely reassured him that everything was all right. It wasn't. It was far from all right.

His hands tensed around her shoulders, too tight for comfort. Her breath caught, an indrawn sharp whimpering sound, images of violence flashing through her mind before she suppressed it. "Sorry…" he murmured. "I'm sorry." His hands relaxed. She breathed again.

"I know." And that was the torment of it. He truly was sorry for hurting her. He truly did love her, whatever else he was or did or felt.

Not sorry that he had brought her back, that he had transgressed. But sorry that it had hurt her. She wasn't sure if that was better than nothing, or worse.

His hands brushed along her shoulders, sending a shiver along her skin, a pale shadow of the desire it might have incited, before. The need for comfort surged higher, more than the awareness of how things were, and she leaned into his embrace. She wanted things to be like they were, so much, and she didn't think he understood that. She wanted things to be different, too. But not this kind of different. Not like this.

"Don't…" she turned her head as he kissed the back of her neck, bringing fear and desire all at once. With the same grace she had once used to evade other wizards' attentions, she slipped out of his arms and away. "Please. Don't."

"What's wrong?"

It was easy to hear the tension in his voice, and she could have kicked herself for being so abrupt. He was sensitive, too much so, and while she was alive she had known instinctively what to say and how to say it. And now that she had died she didn't seem to know anything, anymore. The words caught in her throat. Carefully. Step carefully.

"Wh--"

He tensed. She heard the indrawn breath.

And took the easy way out. "How was your day?"

Inanities. The banal conversation of two sorcerers, what passed for nobility in this place, at the end of a day. Caricatures of what they had been. Acting as though they knew each other so well, as though they were still what they had been, and both of them so aware that they were not. It sharpened the air to dagger points between them and pricked her throat like a threat.

"… and soon, after you've recovered…"

He said it so easily, so calmly. Her hand clenched into a fist, anger surging. She wanted to hit him for that. As though he knew what it was like to know you should be dead, to feel your death hanging around you like a thin film of sulfer and swamp grime, and know you were still alive. To be trapped in life instead of reveling in it. He was still talking. She wanted him to be quiet.

"Why did you do it?" she asked, without turning around. Her voice was harsh and edgy.

"Do what?"

He knew damn well what, and it showed in his voice. Daggers became swords, words into weapons and held at the ready between them even without them looking at each other. She whirled. Let the duel begin "You know damn well what, Lord of Bainbridge. That magic is proscribed, and for good reason. Not that you would consider those reasons when you broke every law, shattered every restriction."

"I had better reasons," he snapped, eyes bright with anger she knew far too well. Rarely, though, had it been directed at her. She had been as good at playing him as he had at playing everyone else. The difference was he knew it, and allowed it, because to do otherwise was to risk losing her. Too late for that, he had lost her, faced the worst life had to offer. It made him, she thought bitterly, less afraid. "Those restrictions were meant to bind wizards and sorcerers without…"

"Without what?" she interrupted, feeling the power gather in her fists. Feeling the heat rise to her skin. "Without compunction, without sense, without hesitation to do the unnatural simply to satisfy their own desperate needs?"

"I brought you back." He was bleeding words onto the stone and all she could think was that he had sacrificed every right he'd had to her mending him, soothing him, reassuring him that it would be all right.

Brought her back. "To what?" It made him stop, at least. Her fury, her pain. Her pain, now. "You brought me back to a half-life of nightmares, and pain, and knowing that the man I trusted more than anything, the man I loved, cared more for himself and his pain than he ever thought of me. You replaced my life with ashes and muck and you expect me to be glad for it?"

"Dear heart…" He reached out to her, moving in close, and she moved away. No touching. Not now, not when she was afraid of him, afraid of her own reactions. "I did it for us. For you. I couldn't… I wanted…"

"You couldn't, you wanted. You never gave a thought to what I might have wanted for myself…" Too far.

"You were in no position to want anything."

"You never thought of me." And that was what hurt the most, she thought, that it had never been about her and it brought into question everything that they had shared. She felt the tears start at last. "Not once, to think, perhaps this is not the way to go about things. Perhaps she wouldn't want to be dragged back to a half-life of nightmares and an unfeeling…"

"Stop." His voice was hoarse and grim. "Stop."

"You selfish bastard. You should have let me die."

He kissed her. It wasn't the sweet thing it had used to be and yet it blazed through her body and made her want him again, and she didn't know if he'd known it would or if he was simply reacting out of his own wants. Again. And in either case it was cause for her to pull back and crack him a ringing blow across the face. He threw her into the table and the sharp pain in her head was more of a realization than an impact. Relief, and regret, and then it was over again.

When she woke the second time she didn't know quite what had happened. It was all a jumble of confused images, a nightmare, surely he hadn't. Surely he would never. She pressed her hand against his chest and tucked her head to his shoulder and cried against him. He was warm, and he was strong, and he loved her. It helped.

And it made it worse when she realized what he had done over the next few days. Not once, but twice. She avoided him until he confronted her before she had figured out what to do, up on the parapet. In the face of that implacable devotion, perhaps there was only one thing to do. Impact drove the life from her body. And then again, discovering that she was still strong enough to drive the dagger straight through her chest and into her heart. The third time he came up behind her and made a mockery of an embrace, breaking her neck.

The last time she stood in a circle of old men in robes, telling them everything that had happened. Everything that had been done. At least she was still alive long enough to give testimony against him. Tears poured down her face with every certain word. She knew what she had to do, and she had not wavered in her resolution, but that didn't make it any easier. She looked the Merlin in the eye and told him.

"Five times."

"Yes."

The old man nodded. Stepped towards her. "I am sorry."

He started screaming. She could hear it, as though he knew what was about to happen, and why not? He would have known when she had died the first time, too. They had always been so connected. "Oh, love…" she whispered.

"It won't hurt." The Merlin told her, reaching for her, mistaking her words for fear.

"Wyn!" He was screaming. "No! Please, no. No!"

"I'm sorry," she closed her eyes, tears sliding over already sticky cheeks. "I love you."

It was important that he know.

Blackness.

Go to the top! For you have reached the bottom.