[Carillon]

I do not know how to write this. It has all gone wrong, worse than ever before perhaps. I still remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I learned that the half-orc had come for them, and then the quick-blossoming hope at tracking them to that boat wreck on the border of the Ulgrid Kingdom. But now ... what is there to hope for now? I did what I could but it was nowhere near enough. I sent the rangers after them and wrote letters to all who I knew would aid us, but my delicate condition prevented me from following in person, though my heart ached to do so.

And they bogged it up.

I want to think I would have been smarter, that I could have navigated the twisting path through the half-orc’s mind and won his game. That I could have controlled Alleina’s foolish, impetuous and costly temper tantrum ... but likely I could no more have saved them this time than the first time, when he held Liam over the cliff and snapped his neck because I could not rein in my compatriots. I now doubt my presence would have made a difference.

Connor and Anna sent for me as soon as they arrived back and I was well enough to travel. Seeing Finn sleeping safely in their bed my heart began to race, and I looked around for Rhiannon and Lissa and Liam. They were not there, and I tasted bitter fear.

They told me what had happened, more or less. It is difficult to remember the precise words. I remember them asking me things, and not hearing. I remember going outside and blasting fire into the sea until I shook with the power flowing through me, but it was not enough. My rage was like a living thing, fueled by fear and, I now realize, guilt as well. Guilt for not being there. Guilt for not being able to save them.

I tried to harden myself when they told me. I used to have such a thick shell for these things. I should have been able to hear it without reacting, but I could not. Not for these children, these four, these ... I love these children. I do.

I emptied the contents of my stomach into the sea when Connor told me how the half-orc had voewed to have one of the girls abused and defiled and then drawn and quartered for Alleina’s actions. I do not remember the path that took me from the couch to the edge of the sea outside the front door. It was instinctive flight, pure and simple. I needed to run from that knowledge, for I know this creature and he keeps his word.

Connor shamed me out of that grief, out of that expression of rage and fear and guilt and pain. He apologized for it later as we stood by the scrying pool, the touch between us somehow awkward. He spoke of his son, and I understood his fear. He trusted Alleina. He should have trusted me. He should not have shamed me out of voicing my grief in whatever form it took, but in doing so he gave me a way back to my older self, the one who screams in silence. I heard the rest of it, and fed Finn soup later. I let myself be angry with Connor but other than that I pushed all emotion so deep it could not show.

Anna and Connor took some air then, while I watched the child. The [very foul expletive] poisoned him, and though they gave him the antidote he is still weak. Worse, he wakes in terror in the night, screaming and lashing out. At least he wakes, though. One of his sisters will soon not draw breath, if she has not already met the worst end that [another impressive expletive] could conceive of in his twisted mind.

I know Anna is grieving too, as is Connor. She tried to make excuses for him as I sat with Finn. Later, while they walked and Finn slept once more, I found myself wandering their house. I could find no purpose for my motion, so I let myself drift from one object to another. I touched the keys on the piano, washed a few dishes, read the titles on the spines of the books on the shelves. I ended up at the scrying pool, beneath the statue of Lucinda, Lady of Magic. I thought of how many times Connor had stood with me at that pool, directing and guiding my magic. I wondered what I would see if I tried to scry on the others.

What happens when you try to scry on the dead? Would I know from my attempt which of them he had killed? Or would I become an accidental witness to either Rhiannon’s or Lissa’s last moments on this plane, and find myself confronted with an image of a broken body as it struggled for air, struggled for escape, struggled for life? Would Lissa struggle? I do not know. She might go gently, cowed into submission by pain and horrors she should never have had to experience. Rhiannon would fight to her last instant, I want to believe. She has a strong spirit that would be hard to break. I like to think she would take her anger and outrage at what was done to her and press it into a hard little stone or a hot ember to keep at her core, hidden. I hope she would hold this secret defiance until the last beat of her young heart, and that they would have nothing from her that they did not take.

It is foolish to believe that one cannot be broken. Anyone can be broken. I broke the half-orc’s man when we first claimed the children, when I went back and tortured every last shred of information from him. There are things that a living body and a living spirit cannot endure. It is only a matter of pressing hard enough upon these points, and waiting. They would have broken her, before the end.

Even these last futile hopes quickly perish, and leave only the gaping hole inside me where the monster lives. I want to hurt them for hurting these children, and far worse than whatever torments they have inflicted on others. I want to challenge the limits of my creativity and take them to the brink of madness and death, over and over. I scare myself with the depth of my bridled rage. I do not know how to be good in a world that contains so much evil.