Haunted Lands - Omnibus by Richard Lee Byers

Author:Richard Lee Byers
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Epic, General
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

When Bareris’s eyes fluttered open, he found that someone had carried him to a proper bed. Tammith sat beside him, holding his hand, her fingers cool as usual. She was fully clad again.

“Water,” he croaked.

“I knew you’d want it.” Easily as a mother shifting a small child, she lifted him up and held a cup to his lips. The cold liquid tasted of iron.

“Thank you.”

“How are you?” she asked.

“Weak, but all right, I think.”

“I fetched a healer as soon as we … finished.” She lowered her eyes and it occurred to him that he hadn’t expected her to look shy ever again.

Bareris chuckled and it made him cough. “I must have presented an interesting tableau for his inspection—clothing in disarray, cut wrist, cut lips, blood everywhere.”

Tammith smiled back. “Especially since I was half naked and bloody, too, and I still have this.” She held up her left hand for his inspection. It had begun to regenerate, but was still bone, tendon, and little else.

It hurt him to see it. “By the Harp!”

“Don’t worry about it. It will likely finish healing the next time I drink blood.”

“I should probably hold off on that for a little while.”

She frowned. “I don’t mean yours.”

“Well, I realize it can’t be me every time. Sometimes it will just be supper.”

“You saved me, and I’m grateful. But what we did together is an abomination.”

“It didn’t feel abominable.”

“I drank too much. I nearly killed you.”

“I know.”

“It would be like that every time, the thirst pushing me, infecting me with a pure cruel wish to see you die.”

“I trust you.”

“Then you’re an idiot!”

“Maybe. And you were right. We aren’t the people we once were. We’re lesser, tarnished things. And so we can never again possess a love like the one we had before. Yet a bond remains between the people we’ve become, and why shouldn’t we have that? Why shouldn’t we see where it takes us, and enjoy whatever happiness it can provide? What would be the point of doing anything else?”

“To save your life.”

“I haven’t cared about that since Thazar Keep.”

“I do.” She sighed. “But if you reach out for me, I won’t turn you away.”

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