Free For Camelot's Honor by Sarah Zettel

fury.
    He removed his hand and let her sit up. “What!” she cried, but she got no further before he crushed her to him in a smothering embrace.
    â€œAll the gods be praised,” he whispered hoarsely. “I thought you were dead!”
    Elen pushed herself away and stared at him. “What’s happened?” her voice was high and tight and the words came out almost as a squeak.
    He stared back at her, disbelief dropping his jaw. Ash caught in the tangle of his hair. His chin was covered in stubble and sprinkled with yet more ash, as if he had rolled in a fire.
    â€œYou … you don’t know?” he croaked.
    â€œI only returned with the dawn. Yestin, what’s
happened?
”
    Stark disbelief bled away, replaced by sorrow. Tears welled up in the corners of her brother’s eyes. “Oh, Elen,” he whispered. “It … I … While you were gone … Urien came back.”
    The scent of smoke, the sight of blood, the sorrow on her brother’s face, all these piled on top of each other in Elen’s mind.
    â€œMother?” she said, high and lost like a child.
    Yestin’s face hardened instantly. “They left her where she fell.”
    The tears came at once, a great, blinding flood. She pressed her hand over her mouth to silence her own screams.
    No! No! No!
howled her mind.
It cannot be! It CANNOT! They said I’d come home safe to her! They promised I’d come home safe …
    And she was safe, safe with her family, which was all she had been promised. She had been gone just long enough to ensure that she remained safe while Urien …
    â€œThey said …” Yestin’s voice broke as he said the words. “Oh, gods, Elen, they said they’d show all the West Lands the price for defying Urien.”
    The world snapped into sudden, knife-edged clarity. Elen gripped both Yestin’s wrists hard. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “They must be searching …”
    Yestin’s face was grim. “I will not leave her. Urien has said he’ll take her head.”
    Anger and outrage tore through Elen. To take an enemy’s head was to trap their spirit, lest they rise to take their revenge on their killer. There were arts that could make that head speak, to advise their murderer. Even if such arts were beyond Urien, even if he could not make Adara serve him in death as she had refused to serve in life, even then, he still meant the ultimate desecration and he meant for Adara to be trapped for eternity.
    â€œMadyn and Til are drawing the sentries off,” said Yestin.
    Mother, mother dead. Dead at Urien’s hand. Dead while Elen stood in a hall of gold and dreamed of casting off her world and her family … guilt and shame burned with the rage in her blood.
    Elen surged to her feet. Yestin reached for her, trying to find some comfort to give. “No, Elen, you’re …”
    â€œNo.” She slapped his hand away. “I’m going home.”
    â€œYou can’t. This is my …”
    She rounded on him, her fury as reasonless as it was strong. “I was promised I be would returned safe to my home and family! I will
not
be safe home while my mother is defiled!”
    Her tears had frozen inside her and her vision was perfectly clear. She strode ahead into the woods and let her brother follow, or not, as he chose. She could hear nothing but a strange ringing in her ears. Her face felt hot, as if she stood too near a great fire, but her hands were cold as ice. She was only distantly aware of her own motion. The trees seemed to pass by of their own volition, reaching out and touching her arms and shoulders gently, uselessly.
    The woods opened before her, letting the cleared lands spread out. Where there should have been green rows of grain, there was black and trampled earth. She heard shouts, but they were distant, broken by the rumble of hooves, and a clash of metal, here, there.